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Lieberman Pleased With Video Game Ratings
Babbster writes "GamesAreFun.com is reporting that Senators Joseph Lieberman and Herb Kohl are pleased with the ESRB ratings system for video games and specifically praise the changes being made to ESRB labels effective September 15th. A lot must have changed at the ESRB in the last seven months since both these men wanted congressional hearings on video game ratings."
First educate people, then rate programs or films.
I believe rating system does not solve problem. I just another goverment cartel to control someting.
Everyting is up to you. If sometings go wrong don't blame ratings, games, films etc.
[My english is better than most other people's Turkish, so please point out mistakes politely. Thank you.]
how come this guy is only a moralist when he's not running for national office?
does anyone remember the First X-rated video game in the 80s? (for Atari) It was basically VERY bad quality porn.
Does anybody care about these ratings anyway? Dealers? Parents? Buyers?
Martin
it should be.
In order to limit legislation for which only those lobbyists with deep pockets can provide direction, we must police ourselves.
Anytime a politician can form an astroturf campaign out of something like this, we all lose; the effects of legislation always exceed its initial bounds.
This could, on the other hand, be parlayed into a first ammendment case.
This is a bad sign. If they are happy with what's going on, it's going to be horrible for the freedom of gamers everywhere. Nothing the ESRB does is beneficial for people that wish to think for themselves.
"[We'll be] really getting inside your head and making it an unpleasant place to be" -- Trent Reznor
Interesting to note: for Quake and Quake II, they gave them "Animated Blood & Gore,Animated Violence".
But then for the latest version, Quake III Team Arena, they gave it "Blood and Gore,Violence" - I guess the animation became good enough to be considered realistic. Technology is making progress.
Mind you, the original Lemmings got "No Descriptors", even though you can nuke a large number of the cute little guys at once...
-- the only thing we have to fear is really scary things
I always thought the covers of video games constituted a decent rating system all by themselves. It's not as if a parent is going to look at the cover of Vice City and think "Oh, this looks like a great game for little Billy!" or buy something whose cover is on a par with Super Monkey Ball 2 and have it turn out to be more along the lines of Soldier of Fortune. But I guess there's no accounting for poor judgment.
The coolest voice ever.
Despite being pleased with the ESRB's rating system, the senator had some rather harsh words for the video game industry.
"I am, however, absolutely disgusted by the material our children are subjected to in some of these games. Not only the violence, gore, and sexuality, but also the realism or, more importantly, the blatant lack of realism depicted in these games. I mean, seriously, what kind of world is this if a fat Italian guy won't shoot a hooker?" Lieberman said.
I believe that Lieberman and Kohl likes the improvements planned by ESRB because they are going to a rating system similar to what the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) implemented some time ago, namely giving clear and descriptive reasons on why a movie get a G, PG, PG-13, R or NC-17 rating.
This is something I actually like, because parents will know clearly why certain games rated by the ESRB as M are not advisable for those under 18 (strong violence, explicit sexuality in various forms, strong language, and so on).
A lot must have changed at the ESRB in the last seven months since both these men wanted congressional hearings on video game ratings.
You mean, "A lot of money must have changed hands".
Garg
Garg
Alumnus, Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters
we all know that his primary concern is to get into the pocketbooks of soccer moms, left and right. he is the senator from a state that depends heavily on defense contracting, has the city that ranks second in the nation in poverty (hartford), a school system in shambles, an unbalanced budget, a governor who has just been fined for the second time in 9 years for ethical improprieties (accepting gifts) and whose campaign team is headed by another convicted bribe-taker, where mayors of two major cities have either gone to jail for graft or are about to do so. he was until recently a ranking member of a far-right religious organization which procured funding for emigration-to-israel projects. (he quit that group when he started campaigning for prez.) and, remember that he pounded the lectern demanding censorship of the internet when running with gore.
the senator has done diddly for his state. he comes from a state where political corruption is business-as-usual and he is part & parcel of that package. he will do the same for the country, while lining his own pockets, if elected president. don't just not vote for this guy, work against him.
mp
Waterbury CT (37 yrs for the mayor for having sex with 8 & 10 yr-old girls, now waiting for his corruption trial to begin)
"The secret to strong security: less reliance on secrets." -- Whitfield Diffie
I have always been curious as to whether or not parents are really using these systems. Certainly parents find out about certain games such as Grand Theft Auto and restrict the purchase of those games, but on the whole do parents really look at stuff like Command and Conquer, Half Life 2, and Star Wars Galaxies and say ('hmmmm... I should check the rating on this')? There are many very violent games that kinda squeek through the system unchecked would be my guess.
I don't know why, but Lieberman reminds me of the dad on that old TV show ALF. I can even imagine an entire episode devoted to the wrongness of playing Grand Theft Auto III.
Just because they're pleased with the changes doesn't mean that they're still not pushing for more.
In American Culture, war is ok, but sex is bad.
War good, sex bad.
Sometimes, America being only 200 years old is painfully obvious.
My girlfriend and I use them for her kids. I only buy them rated "E" or rated "T" games, and we also monitor their internet usage, etc.
Of course, I have some rated "M" games that I play like Diablo II that I would let the kids play because I don't really see it being too much worse than a game that's rated "T" like WarCraft. I won't let them play Grand Theft Auto 3 though. It's just like the movies. There are some rated "R" movies I let the kids see, like "The Matrix", but typically we screen them before we let the kids watch them.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
According to the current You Decide feature at KQED.org, some experts claim that the current rating system has had "limited success". That is, even though the ratings may be appropriate for the games, they are rarely, if ever enforced. Of course, others disagree altogether:
"Parents found 13 percent of the games rated 'E' to be clearly objectionable for children 3-7. This year [parents] would have assigned an 'M' to 31 percent of the 'T' games. Our parents think that the ESRB is starting to rate 'on a curve.'"
Sure, the rating system works fine. But only in a the same sense that people can tell you what PG-13 means, or R for that matter. We know and understand the rating systems, that's not the problem. What the problem seems to be is the individual enforcement of this in singular households.
Are they just giving themselves a pat on the back for creating a measurement system, or trying to avert the primary view that they still do not have actual 'control' over content viewing?
The design of the games cover tells you what market they are targetting. Look at the cover of Quake III Arena. Clearly they aren't targetting 6-year-olds.
Plus covers usually have screenshots because - duh - screenshots sell games. You can judge for yourself what the game is like by looking at the screenshot.
The reason ratings exist have nothing to do with parental judgement calls. Any parent with half a brain can look at Vice City and clearly see that it's not a good game for young children and it's likely to have violence that will be too scary for them.
What it boils down to is lazy, stupid parents who let their kids buy or rent games without looking at the cover first. If you want to be the judge of what your kids play and don't play then *you* (yes, YOU) have to look at what they're playing. But now, instead, you can just say 'hey, I'm not going to let you play any game rather over E (everyone) or any game rated M (for mature) or T (for teen) or whatever.
I, for one, wouldn't trust such systems. I, and I alone, will be the judge of what games my kids play. Why do you need a ratings system if you *know* your kids are playing. Simply set down the hard-and-fast rule that I'm not going to let you play a game until I see the game cover or the game itself. My father took me to "R" rated movies. He based his decision on what movies I should see based on their *content* and not on their rating. If he felt the movie had themes that were too mature, I didn't get to see those movies. If the movie got an "R" rating due to language, then, oh well, words never hurt anyone -- especially when I reached the age to know how to use my own discretion in choosing words to be used in polite conversation.
It is both the right and responsibility of a parent to decide what content is and is not too mature for their level of development. Not some stupid ratings board.
My journal has hot
I have done some computer-related work for ESRB two years ago and here's what I saw: :) If you were an adult you could ask for them.
Three or more indpendent (meaning they don't work for ESRB) testers/viewers look at game footage and check-off presence or lack of different flags - like how many times vulgar language is used, nudity, realistic violence, etc. I can go on for hours describing what they look for, but the key is that it's people like you and me who come in and rate these games. They (testers) have no relationship with video game companies nor do they work for ESRB. Once they are done rating, another batch of outside people come in and rate other games.
ESRB gets paid by game companies that want their games rated. It's a small price to pay since it gets them off the hook since ESRB label clearly indicates what's inside the game and it's no one's fault but parents' if they fail to read the label. Some game companies WANT their rating raised to a higher level - if it's for older crowd, it must be good!? (well, not always but that's how most kids who ask they parents to buy these games think) Others will try to lower their rating so it's suited for a bigger audience. They may remove blood or make blood green instead of "realistic" red.
ESRB employees are pretty cool and love games. They are not there to prevent games from being released but work to assist parents with the purchases. Games are not like magazines. You can't just flip through the pages and determine in seconds if it's ok for your kid to read. And I don't know many parents who will play entire game just to see if it's ok for their kid before giving it to them.
Most libraries have children's sections where no "adult" books or material could be found. Parents could feel safe leaving their kids there to read or look at books that they may want to borrow. It just happens that I worked at a public library when I was in HS. We had a children's section AND we had stacks (basement section) where older books and adult material was kept. I am talking about Playboy and Penthouse here
P.S. AO
We had a small problem with homeless people borrowing Penthouse and other material and "reading" it in the bathroom.
The problem with the rating system is the ESRB is so hypocritical. Alice, the game where evil/demented Alice returns to Wonderland and hacks up card guards with a knife along with other "wicked" stuff is only rated T for teen. The game has blood, gore, it might as well have Alice stripping. Yet, it's rated teen.
Now let's look at Kingpin, filled with racial slurs, lead pipe bludgeonings, f**k in every line, murder, gore, blood, the works. Kingpin even had a yellow tape around it that said "For 18 Years of Age ONLY," when it shipped. Stores were supposed to put it on the top shelf and only sell it to adults. Yet, it's rated M for Mature (17+), not Adults Only.
Finally there is Duke Nukem, Mr. Lieberman's "favorite" scapegoat. If you guys remember he was the first to lobby to the ESRB that the game be boosted from mature to adults only because it had nudity. His case didn't go through, but as far as I know, Duke is the only game that really had and pushed nudity. IIRC, Lieberman lost his case because of the "adult mode" integration.
Never-the-less, I know there is hypocrisy in the ratings, but how does it run? By company, by genre, by name? We need a more impartial rating company, that isn't comprised of Nielsen raters and people like Joe Lieberman.
Parents found 13 percent of the games rated 'E' to be clearly objectionable for children 3-7.
This could be fixed with one change: the introduction of a new ESRB rating between "Everyone" and "Teen", roughly equivalent to CARA's "PG" movie rating. That said, my family lets the 3-7 year olds play Super Smash Bros. Melee, a game that's "T" on the box but probably should have been in this PG-equivalent category that I propose here.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Without Sens. Lieberman and the other guy, I wouldn't be able to tell exactly which kind of violence I'm getting in my games. This will make it much easier to feed my psychosis on a budget. Who says the government doesn't know what it's doing?
You post on slashdot, so I am skeptical of your story involving sex and a girlfriend.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Anybody know how much they paid Lieberman off via campaign contribution to decide video games are no longer Satanic EVIL!!! ?
While it isn't necessarily true that Lieberman's previous call for censorship and regulation in that industry were in fact, a shakedown intended to get them to pay him "protection" money, that's the way to bet.
Tech Public Policy stuff
(*still nursing open wound from when I had to drag my mom with me to buy a record... Oh the humanity! Blood and Gore in 2006*).
Yeah, everything is fine and good until another Columbine happens. Then the concerned citizens will say the rating wasn't descriptive enough. Then it wasn't placed prominently enough. Or it wasn't in Spanish or Braille.
A general description of the contents of the game probably isn't a bad idea, but it doesn't end there. The fact that some game publishers will censor a game to get a better rating makes it a first amendment issue. And yeah, the ratings where voluntary inasmuch as holding a gun of legislation to the head of the video game industry makes it.
And quite frankly, I am sick of it. I am tired of having my world Disneyfied because Mrs. Jones can't keep track of what little Suzi is doing. I am tired of Dungeons and Dragons/heavy metal/Satanist/pornography/drugs/rap/gangs/video games bearing the brunt of the downfall of western society when I haven't even killed anyone yet. By sheer numbers aspartame is more deadly and more readily available, but doesn't even bear the same amount of scrutiny.
Lieberman is pleased. Good. We have an ohmigawd deficit, most of my friends are out of work, and I am eyeing the new overtime regulations with a paranoia usually reserved for the Illuminati.
Lock the children and their parents in padded cells with all the morally righteous crusaders until the kids reach 18 (and try and tell me the rules they make up won't be more warped than the flagellates at Eton). They are not ready for the adult world.
And I still can't play the damn game.
When I first saw this, I did a double-take. "Lieberman pleased with new video game ratings? That's impossible!" But after reading the article, I must say that, at least now, it would seem Lieberman understands that while there are some children playing games like this, there is a majority of older players who play these games, and need not be limited by prohibitive actions. Kudos to Lieberman on that part. It's a step in the right direction. The only thing that we must wait for now, is to see how the public handles this. The question is: Will they take the time to read the labels, or keep buying these games with no concern.