Nickelodeon Taken To Task For “Inappropriate” Game Links

A consumer advocacy group is campaigning to stop Nick.com and Nickjr.com from linking to AddictingGames.com because it hosts some “naughty games.”

The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC) is a group which aims to stop the effect that corporate marketing has on children. Based in Boston, this group has a list of several dozen campaigns such as “CCFC to Nick and Burger King: SpongeBob and Sexualization Don’t Mix!” and “Stop PG-13 Blockbusters from Targeting Preschoolers”. The group has now targeted Nick.com for promoting its sister-site, AddictingGames.com, because the latter site contains “sexualized and violent” flash games like Sorority Panty Raid, Naughty Classroom and Perry the Sneak. CCFC requests that NickJr.com and Nick.com stop linking to such content “to children as young as preschoolers.”

From CCFC’s petition to Steve Youngwood, Executive Vice President, Digital, Nickelodeon Kids and Family Group:

I am shocked that Nickelodeon would direct kids to a website where they can play games like Bloody Day, which boasts ‘back alley butchering has never been so fun,’ or play the role of a leering peeping Tom in Perry the Sneak.

Nickelodeon’s parent company, Viacom, bought the group which controls AddictingGames in 2006, and it’s theoretically within their power to keep a short leash on what kind of games the site features. Nick.com never directly links to the games in question, they must be found manually.

I have to admit that games like Perry the Sneak are pretty disturbing, and are inappropriate for young children. Do we really want to train children at such a young age that scantily clad women are only a few clicks away?

Oh never mind, they’re already on the internet. It’s only a matter of time.

Source: GamePolitics