Our Mission:
1. To provide the best objective, informative reviews of the most
current and popular entertainment so that parents are aware of what their
children are entertaining themselves with.
2. To provide resources for parents to help them better understand
the reasons why a parent should be involved with their children's entertainment
choices.
3. To help parents understand how to use entertainment to build
bridges in the relationship they have with their children.
Our History:
Reviews4Parents
was founded in 2009 by Matt Yaggi. Matt wrote video game reviews for AL Menconi
Ministries from 2003-2008 where for most of that time he was the Director of
Video Game Reviews. In August of 2008 Matt was attending a leadership
conference where the idea for Reviews4Parents was birthed in his heart. In
December of 2008 Matt resigned from Al Menconi Ministries and in February of
2009, Reviews4Parents became an official nonprofit corporation. In July of 2009
the Reviews4Parents web-site was launched.
It is Matt's desire that Reviews4Parents help parents be aware of
entertainment content so that parents know what children are entertaining
themselves with and how entertainment influences children. Currently Reviews4Parents
does this by providing video game reviews, but the larger vision is to
eventually expand our reviews to include movies, music and books. These reviews
are meant to be primarily objective in format so that a parent can take the
information provided and make a decision based on the values that they as
parents have set up for their family.
Some have asked, "Why does Reviews4Parents only provide information in our
reviews instead of giving the game a grade for a parent to go off of?"
This is because Reviews4Parents recognizes that not all parents are the same
and what one parent feels in appropriate for their family, another parent may
feel differently on. Therefore, our reviews are meant to help parents make
decisions, not make the decisions for the parents.
It is also the desire of Reviews4Parents to provide parents with other
resources such as news articles and essays that will help educate parents on
the effects of entertainment on children. We will do our best to provide
resources that cover both sides of issues (such as violence in video games), so
that parents can hear both sides of the argument, but we will also not be shy
about giving our opinion on a topic if a parent asks.
Our Reviews:
1. Our
reviews are not like other game reviews. Most other reviews judge a game
based on how fun the game is or how realistic the graphics are. Rather our
reviews are designed to give parents detailed information when it comes to a
game's content in 5 different areas: Violence, Bad Language, Sexual Content,
Spiritual Content & Misc. The first 4 specific areas are focused on because
in our experience these are the area’s most parents ask about. The Misc.
section is designed for anything else noteworthy about a game we feel parents
may want to be aware of. Also, our reviews may not list out every detail that a
parent might want to know about a game, but we do list what we feel are the
best examples in these categories of what parents would want to know
about.
2. Some
reviews are based on a partial playthrough of the game. Since our review
team is made up of volunteers, we are not always able to play a game 100% to
completion due to time restraints. The majority of the time a reviewer
will play through a game at least once, but many games today have more than one
possible path to take or more than one possible ending. As such, sometimes our
reviewers are not able to catch everything in a game that a parent might want
to know about.
3. We
are not out to destroy or hurt the video game industry. The Executive Director
of Reviews4Parents as well as all of our reviewers consider themselves to be
serious gamers. We recognize, however, that not all games are designed with
children in mind, so our aim is to make parents be aware of a game's content so
that a parent can decide if a game is appropriate for their family or not.
4. Our
reviewers work on their own time and money. We do our best to keep
up with what is current, but because our reviewers work on their own
time and money, this means that we are not always able to provide a review for
every game released. Still, we try to provide you with what is most popular.
If, however, you have a request for a game you would like to see reviewed,
please e-mail us with that request.
5. Please consider becoming a monthly sponsor. We are
able to provide these reviews for you because of the generosity of others.
Please consider joining them in becoming a monthly sponsor. It's easy and it is
tax-deductible. (Donations can be made by clicking on the "Donate"
button at the bottom of the home page.)
