Amazon: No one over 20 should be playing video games @ Gaming Target

Written by John Scalzo on July 25, 2009

News: Also, games are toys.

The image above was taken from the "Product Details" section of the Amazon listing for Grand Theft Auto IV. As you can see, Amazon has begun tagging video games with a "recommended age", based on their content. As you can also see, the age range tops out at 20. The company provides a similar service for the items listed in their Toys and Games department.

In other words, Amazon believes that video games are toys and that people over the age of 20 shouldn't be interested in them.

Of course, in still other words, the new "recommended age" field was likely added to video game listings as a service for parents who may not be aware of the adult content some games posess. And rather than creating a new field in their product creation database, Amazon likely reused the one from the Toys and Games department.

The problem with that is that video games already have a well recognized way to match a game's content with an appropriate age range: the ESRB ratings.

Unlike movies, which feature the MPAA rating prominently in the details section, there is no spot designated on the video game product page for an ESRB rating. As the ESRB rating appears on every game's case, this is the only place the rating is shown in the listings of most games (and even then, the little E or T or M on each box goes unexplained this way). Grand Theft Auto IV is actually a special case as the manufacturer-provided "Product Features" section does include mention of the game's rating.

Rather than creating a mildly insulting age appropriateness tag for video games, Amazon should be using their position as one of the largest online retailers to educate their consumers about the ESRB ratings.

After all, according to the Entertainment Software Association, the average video game player is 35 years old and the average game purchaser is 39. It's about time we got treated like adults.