Microsoft: We must educate parents

Regional director of Xbox in the UK Neil Thompson has told MCV that parents are still erroneously treating consoles and adult games as ‘toys’ – and called on the industry to educate families.

ELSPA member Thompson said that the publishers’ body would corral the industry” into teaching parents the difference between family and adult content.

When asked if parents still needed educatation to understand that consoles weren’t ‘kids toys’, he said:

The simple answer is yes. As a platform holder we take our responsibility of enabling parents to make the right decisions for their children very seriously. This is why we build technologies into the platform that allow parents to switch content on or off as well as allowing them to control the amount of time the products can be used.

The key for us is to make the setting of these controls very easy and ensure we’re also playing a leading role in publicising age ratings and their importance to parents and retailers alike. Every responsible member of the video games industry needs to step up and play as active a role as we can to keep this education process front of mind. It’s ELSPA’s job to corral the industry around this agenda and ensure we’re all doing everything we can reasonably do.”