Yes

by Steven Gomez

Created on: October 27, 2008   Last Updated: January 21, 2011

The nation and its advertising outlets need to take more responsibility regulating advertising towards children, especially with regards to video games, which are more engaging and addictive than other toys marketed to children.

Children are impressionable and advertising has preyed on their impressionability for decades. Marketing to kids works for advertisers because many children lack the impulse control of a mature adult. The idea is to get children so obsessed with your product that they beg their parents to spend on it. Such an approach has sold enough product over the last few decades to justify the effort.

Video games make marketing to children a natural target. Children like games, and while adults do play video games, they stand a greater chance of attracting the attention of kids than adults. Adults can exercise judgment and not let advertising sway them, but many children don't know better than to not buy the hype.

In the case of many products, the practice isn't terribly harmful as most toys, like action figures and dolls, are inexpensive and harmless. But video games cost much more than your average toy. The typical video game costs $30-50 and up. If playing the game requires purchase of a system, these typically cost around $300 or more. Accessories required to play particular games cost significantly extra.

This can create great strain between children and parents, as many parents cannot reasonably afford such an expense. And it's a significant financial hit to many of those parents who do capitulate to their children's wishes.

Games by their nature are far more involving and interactive than typical toys. What hooks the child is the chance to virtually interact with a pixelated world where they can do things they cannot do in real life: shoot, jump, fly and so on. This hooks a child much more easily than commercials for other products. It can also cut into a child's time once he/she gets the product than other toys. Homework and other duties around the house can suffer. They may not get the exercise they need. Advertising itself doesn't damage a child as much as hooking them on a video game to the point of altering their lifestyle does.

Media limits ought to be set on the amount of advertising video game companies can do with media focused on young children, such as cartoon commercials. While it's understandable that companies want to market to a demographic that will buy their product, and while some degree of personal responsibility is expected from individuals, you have to expect that children will follow these same patterns of potentially damaging behavior.

At best, you sell some extra product to kids who will outgrow the mindset you're marketing to. More than likely, you'll cause residual domestic and economic damage by getting kids to beg their parents to bite off more than they can chew, so they can develop a potentially addictive habit. Video game companies ought to focus their efforts on segments of the population that have the power to earn disposable income: adults, teenagers, even older kids 8-12 years of age that can earn an allowance or money doing side jobs. Anyone with the maturity to do jobs is also capable of the maturity to wisely purchase video games and manifest their hobby for them without damaging repercussions.

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