I put 'hyper' in quotes because I personally believe that most of these children act out because of lack of dicipline or attention ...

But that doesn't change the fact that the parents of these children want to be informed if a game contains this kind of content.

what was mario sunshine?

Finally!Someone who lives in Greece! 

Agreed.  I don't think the rating will matter, but I do believe that knowing what your children are playing is extremely important.

@Words Of Wisdom

I hope your not suggesting that its a genetic predisposition. That smacks of a eugenics. When you accept such a point of view then the rational conclusion is mass sterilization. Personally I think its more established that personality traits are developed during the formative years. Basically what constitutes your mindset, and behavior is largely formed by the age of five.

While that should obviously be well beyond the point where children actively start gaming. I can image there are some pretty incompetent parents who will have little timothy strapped to their lap at age four while they play GTA, or Resident Evil. Effectively warping a fragile mind. Exposure does have influence.

Cartoon violence is real violence in that children are prone to mimic it. Thats what childhood is about replicating what adults do. Thats why we have toys like pretend tools, kitchen sets, and dolls. Play is a form of education. I can tell you from personal experience that watching cartoon violence can lead to real violence. I had a young cousin after watching a certain rascaly rabbit take a metal tree stand to the back of my head. Then say I shit you not where are the stars. Oh there were stars alright inside my head a whole rainbow of stars. Little children cannot gauge consequences.

A shame we need warnings for what should be common sense, but then again we have a lot of incompetent parents out there. We don't need to be giving them any excuses for it. We need to be sure they can take full responsibility rather then pawning it off on games. Thats what a good warning does it makes a product judgment proof.

I seriously doubt this will have any impact.

ESRB also says Mario is awesome! kickass! (and when I say ESRB I mean me)

This isn't a nature versus nurture debate so don't paint that picture.

Something to consider is definitely age however.  Children at the youngest ages are not governed by common sense as we know it.  They are governed by do's and do not's.  Essentially, everything seems okay until they're told not to do it.  Video games which provoke an incident such as you just described are not making the child violent, they are exposing a gap in the child's learning and upbringing.  If the child didn't already know not to hit you, something was not properly taught.

As the children grow a bit older it becomes a contest of "I want, I want."  This is especially seen in the 3-8 year range because children learn to say "No" and parents need to overcome the hurdle of temper tantrums.  Usually by age 8, these are on the way out.  Video games often present a dilemma during these years as children want to play them and get upset when told they cannot.   By age 5, children can distinguish the difference between reality and TV, reality and video games...etc.  However, this still doesn't stop children from getting really scared by horror films.  Gotta cover their eyes or reassure them it's not real sometimes.  ^_^

Honestly though.  The best way to understand how children behave is to have children.  You'll learn more in a few years than you would in a lifetime of reading journalism articles on child behavior.

Normally gamers are whinging that parents need to be more proactive, now we're saying parents are too strict if they read the labels and tell their kids they can't play certain games?

Anyway, this descriptor has been slapped on basically every single platformer since it was created.

 Exactly. It's rated E for everyone: mild cartoon violence. That's on just about every kids game or movie made in the last who knows how many years. If those three words are going to convince someone not to buy a game, than their gaming library will consist entirely of chess (but not battle chess of course).

As long-time President of The Koopa Preservation league, it's about time that Italian plumbing bastard was called out publicly for his never-ending attempt at genocide.

Bravo, ESRB, bravo. Now it's time to make some real change.