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ESRB Survey Fights Back Against Criticism
Thanks to GameInfoWire for the press release showing the Entertainment Software Rating Board's attempts to deflect recent criticism by publishing a new survey claiming that "...parents overwhelmingly approve of the ratings assigned to computer and video games." Following some notable critiques of the ESRB ratings, particularly in relation to the release of gory stealth action title Manhunt, an independent ESRB-commissioned study "...showed 400 randomly selected parents footage from popular computer and video games... an overwhelming majority of the time (84%), parents agreed with the ESRB ratings [for those games] or thought the ratings were too strict."
I think the ESRB is way to strict. The article says that 84% of parents agreed with the ESRB, or thought that they were too strict.
On TV there is more blood and violence than some videogames, and TV is free. If you dont want your kids to buy violent videogames, dont give them enough money to afford it.
On the flip side however, Americas Army, which contains M worthy material, blood and guns, recieved a T. It is also free, available for a download by anybody, not even checking their age. Why? Because it is a US Army recruiting tool. Lets face it, we have to indoctrinate our children while they are young.
Your kids will also get their hands on bad games anyway, at a friend house or some other uncontrollable way. And if you wnat to shelter your kids from porn and other forms of sexual entertainment you would have to take away the internet.
So what happens is that once developers realize that they cant have just a smidgen of violence, they turn games into SOF2, which has buckets of gore and blood.
The ESRB is a big fat corrupt organization, designed to give parents a security bubble, when parents should be responsible for thier kids.
Mod Wisely.
Publishers will send a video tape of "typical gameplay" to the ESRB for them to generate their evaluation from. The ESRB just does not have the professional gamers or the time to play every game to the finish, and this has been my gripe from the day they founded the stupid organization. It's not like movie ratings based on someone watching a film. I have always felt that the ESRB should hire gamers to solve and evaluate the games, or require the publishers to provide a video of a complete solve for them to scan through.
Case in point Castlevania: Bloodlines, one of the goriest games released in 1994 received a GA rating. At the E3 trade show we confronted the ESRB staff about this title, and asked if they didn't think that the GA rating was a bit soft for the title given the fact that you spend an entire stage decapitating enemies which then spurt volumes of blood from their necks?
Their reply? They were shocked and horrified and completly agreed that that was certainly not GA level content and that they would look into it.
Right. Apparently Konami never provided any footage to them of this part of the game, and in 1994 anything lower than a GA was suicide for your game in the market unless you were Mortal Kombat, so publishers were playing the system to get the rating they felt would best help their game sell.
The ESRB is all BS. It always has been and still is.
This is a situation that the makers of Deus Ex2 probably submitted footage MORE harsh than the average. Any FPS games NEED to have a M rating or greater to succeed. Non-violent shooters, regardless of how good the games are, will not sell based on the current standard of good FPS (Half Life, Resident Evil, etc.) being violent.
http://www.tomandemily.com