FTC Renews Call to Entertainment Industry to Curb Marketing of Violent Entertainment to Children accompanies Marketing Violent Entertainment to Children (Adobe Acrobat-format), the latest report from the US Federal Trade Commission investigating industry efforts at keeping adult media out of the hands of children. "Despite considerable improvements, the self-regulatory systems are far from perfect," notes FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz, who also cautions, "in the future, it will be particularly important to address the challenges presented by emerging technologies – such as mobile gaming – that are quickly changing the ways that children access entertainment." Those criticisms aside, the report finds the video game industry is now doing a better job of keeping adult materials away from youngsters than the music or movie industries:

Electronic Games: The FTC finds a high degree of compliance with the video game industry’s marketing and advertising rules, although these standards allow game marketers to advertise on many television shows and Web sites popular with children. Further, retailers are enforcing age restrictions on the sale of M-rated games to children, with an average denial rate of 80 percent. The report notes, however, that children may be able to obtain M-rated games by, for example, using retailer gift cards online. Finally, the proliferation of game applications for mobile devices provides challenges – for example, some companies do not provide any rating system for games available on their networks, and there is no consistent system of age-based parental controls for these applications.