Do Game Ratings Really Do Their Job?

Thanks to CNN Money for its article exploring whether videogame ratings are as relevant as they need to be, with particular reference to Manhunt, the gory Rockstar-developed stealth action game which sparked similar discussions at Slashdot earlier this week over its M (Mature), but not AO (Adults Only) rating. The ESRB ratings board officially commented: "The ratings and content descriptors printed on all game boxes, including Manhunt, tell consumers what to expect from the game and provide the detail parents need to make informed purchasing decisions", but the CNN writer argues: "By way of comparison, 'Deus Ex: Invisible War', which hits streets next week, is also rated M... it's a game I wouldn't mind seeing a 15-year old play, whereas any responsible adult would cringe if they saw a child or young teen playing 'Manhunt'."

Comments

Re: Times change

[Anonymous Coward]

There comes a time when we have to stop lumping all games under the same category and that time is now. Manhunt is far from being comparable to "Forbidden Forest" (C64 game where your character could get his head chewed off by a spider, with blood spattering profusely everywhere--in 1 red color and big chunky pixels) or even Apple's "Bilestoad". We're at a sufficient level of reality now where some content in video games truly is not appropriate. You have to consider it the same as you would a gory slasher flick. Would you let a 10 year old watch "Texas Chainsaw Massacre"?

Basic human psycology here

[1eyedhive]

Human psych 101:
If something is Taboo, it is desired more

Example:
10 year old wants T or M rated game, say Half-Life. His parents deny it to him because of the rating, ergo he wants it even MORE, eventually getting it off an older friend or someone with more liberal parents.

Violence vs Sex:
American society was hugely victorian at the turn of the century, and with the outlawing of prostitution, sex, depicted in an form became taboo. Granted, society has made several leaps in the past few decades, but the conservatives seem to always prevail, thus the victorian mentality continues here in the US, anything of a sexual nature is restricted to 18+, even though we humans are aware of it's allure from age 12 or so, and because it's taboo, it is desired greatly, leading to misconceptions, and curiosity, and due to the taboos of discussing it in public, we have a massive teen pregnancy rate.

OK, back to the games, violence is more socially accepted than sex for no good reason. I have no qualms in seeing someone get shot up in a bloody mess (very violent), but a scene of a nude body is FORBIDDEN.

What a strange would we live in, eh?

What IS the job of video game ratings?

[nanojath]

The author's primary argument is that Manhunt should have received an AO (Adults Only) rating: his secondary argument is that the rating system is inconsistent and consequently does not do the job of serving as an information source for parents.

I agree with the author in one sense: the infrequent application of an AO rating mirrors the reality of movie ratings, which is that the only thing we, as a culture, seem to think really justifies restriction for adults only is sexual content. And this is a sick, twisted reflection of modern society: that it is perceived as somehow healthier to see depictions of humans brutally killing one another than to see nudity or even the graphic depiction of sex.

Meanwhile mainstream pop culture is so saturated with sex in every kind of portrayal except an honest, direct and complex one that the sexual sophistication of modern humanity seems to be in the ballpark of a socially retarded fourteen-year-old.

Having said this, I don't really agree with the author. Personally I think rating levels are mostly pointless - they can serve a function as an arbitrary cut-off point for the restriction of sales based on age, but you can't expect a handfull of broad classifications to give you the information you need if you want to make an informed choice as a parent, which is the only rational function of ratings. A voluntary rating should, like a movie, accurately list the relevant components of a game. It should specify whether there is language, crime, drug use, violence (and whether the violence is prevalent, gory, and/or sadistic), sexuality and/or nudity. Maybe I'm missing some categories of vice. But this is basically the best that can be done. It's up to a parent to decide how involved they're going to be with the media their children consume.

I do question some of the ratings I see. Enter the Matrix is rated Teen. This is a game that could be called Let's Kill Some Cops. The violence isn't particularly bloody or gory but I question whether that should be the fundamental issue. You just blow away an awful lot of cops. This reflects the movies, of course, but then the movies are rated R. You can also blow away innocent bystanders if you feel like it. You can give random maintenance workers a rap on the head to get them to lie down and surrender... and then, if you feel like it, you can switch to sniper mode and put a cap in the back of their heads, execution style. Versatile. There is no punishment or disincentive for this behavior. Contrast, say, Eternal Darkness, where I recently got stuck for a while in a level and, in the spirit of trying everything, cut down an innocent monk. And boy did my character lose some serious sanity for that decision... I'm not saying video games should be obligated to impose some sort of moral code of behavior, just pointing out that the distinctions can get pretty subtle.

On the other hand, by the time I was seventeen my parents had pretty much stopped exercising control over the media I consumed and that seems appropriate to me. My folks actually paid attention to what I was consuming and gave their input, whether I wanted it or not, of what they thought of questionable components. I find it significant that the main, pretty much the only objection my dad ever voiced to the video games I played was the way my brother and I would get into loud, foul-mouthed arguments when we played against each other. Apparently he had this crazy idea that actual behavior towards actual human beings required the most active parenting.

I have very broad tastes and consume a lot of media I don't imagine my parents would enjoy or "approve" of. What I received as a child that made a difference was not some checklist of permitted and forbidden content, but rather parental engagement in how I spent my time, input on the kinds of things I was seeing or listening to, and a strong influence on my real behavior in the real world. I haven't had an uncontrollable urge to kill people so far.