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The basic flaw with that and most 'isolate the young ones' scenarios, is that EA Games cannot do a background check on every registrant to make sure that they are an adult ....not a teen using an adult's card, nor can they insure that no teen creates an avatar on the account, after registration.
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EA Games does not have to do background checks. What online game does? You have to go by what your customers register as. I believe most players would be truthful in applying as an adult or teen. You will always have those who will pose as something they are not and you have no control about that. However if a customer lies on his registration the responsibility is on the player not EA.
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And as long as an adult can pretend, to be a teen or a teen can pretend, to be an adult, then, obvious age identified avatars, just become predator magnets. It is like painting a bulls eye on them, saying "here I am, just what you were looking for, the real deal!".
All it does, in reality, is give adults a false sense of security, that what appears to be, is true....when there is no reasonable or practical way on the Internet, to guarantee that.
In my opinion, keeping everyone guessing who is young and who is not, is the best way to keep everyone on their toes and cautious. <blockquote><hr>
I understand what you are saying about teen avatars becoming obvious targets but the idea would be that a teen avatar would have built in safe guards. Dutch's idea was to limit what objects teen avatars could use. I would suggest that teen avatars would have an automatic filter put on their chat to keep out X-rated language. That way if a pervert started cybering them all they would see is $hkse&#@.
Perverts are not cautious about who is an adult or not behind a sim. One of my first experiences in this game was to have a pervert land on my lot and cyber me. I am an adult so I could handle it. I don't think teens should have to be expose to that at all.