Big Brother Finds a New Weapon: Video Game Reviews for Parents

The internet stinks sometimes, but this isn’t a spam-blog or an ugly made by a friend-of-a-friend site. What They Play is a professional site built for parents, and it’s about video games.

The site reviews video games for all systems (Wii, PS3, Xbox 360, PC, & older consoles) and gives each a rating. None of these ratings are on a 9-out-of-10 scale either. What They Play uses ESRB ratings to pronounce games “safe” for various ages. I’ll lay odds that the site is affiliated with Jack Thompson given that the game ratings are fairly harsh and put almost every popular game on the market in the “Teen” (13 or older) category and anything remotely like a shooter in the “Mature” (17 and older) category.

Some examples:

• Halo 3 is rated “Mature” – as in only for ages 17 and over
• It takes a lightweight like Lego Star Wars to pull in an “Everyone 10+” (like they need two levels of Everyone ratings…)
• Major games like Rock Band, Guitar Hero II & III, and Super Smash Bros Brawl are rated “Teen” – only for ages 13 and over

If you still live at home and rely on your parents’ green (or at least a credit card or ride to the store) to buy games you’d better add whattheyplay.com to the Hosts file on all household PCs.