How the ESRB Rates Games

Ant writes "Joystiq mentioned a short Slate story on how the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) reviews and rates games. (Seen on Blue's News.)"

Comments

Re:How come walmart wont stock ao games?

[bbrack]

Same reason walmart won't stock music with a parental advisory sticker, doesn't sell Playboy at the magazine rack, doesn't carry NC-17 movies, etc.

Their corporate policy is to not stock things of poor moral value, and for the most part, it is pretty much limited to the previously mentioned items.

How dutch rate games (and TV)

[jurt1235]

5 moderation levels saying which age is appropriate.
1. Is there sex (S) in it? If yes, 18+
2. Is there excisive violance (V) and S in it, well, 18+, V only no S 12+
3. Is there S,V and bad language (L) in it, 18+, L only is 6+
4. Is it all in another language than dutch (so subtitle bad language only): All ages.
5. Is it done by a famous actor/singer/director, then it must be art, so 12+ whatever happens (for example Spielbergs movie "Schindlers list", rated 12+)

In other words: How fine is the line which is being drawn?
What not mentioned factors in the article will take care that something can be broadcasted at prime time anyway?

Re:Up tight Americans

[stlhawkeye]

Because the Conservative and Unreasonable NuTS have taken over our country and they won't give it back.

Like Hillary Clinton? Tipper Gore?

Re:short guide

[hunterx11]

Actually, the drinking age in the U.S. used to be 18. It was largely due to campaigning by Mothers Against Drunk Driving that the age was raised to 21--the federal government withheld highway funding from states which did not raise their drinking age. Eventually, all of them capitulated. Generally you can purchase pornography at 18, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were 21 in some states or communities.

Re:short guide

[maxpublic]

In Canada, Age of Consent is 16.

The age of consent in Canada is actually 14, not 16, assuming you don't hold a 'position of authority' over the person in question. Yes, that means that in Canada you can bang the hot 14-year-old neighbor girl instead of just dreaming about it....

Max

How ESRB worked (ca. 1998)

[Old Man Kensey]

I used to work at an online gaming company that got swallowed by EA in early 2000. My first job there was in the test bay, and one guy who worked there asserted the following about ESRB. Apparently, if your game was too advanced for the test stations they had (and according to him, their test stations were pretty crappy), they would call you up and ask you questions about the game content, then assign a rating based solely on that.

So basically ESRB was completely vulnerable to gaming their particular system. Things have apparently changed and become much more thorough now, but theoretically if you sabotaged your own game so it wouldn't run, you could get them to assign you almost any rating you wanted just by answering their questions the right way. (Obviously getting an M game assigned a rating of E would be pushing your luck, but you might get it down from an M to a T.

Re:short guide

[squidsoup]

In New Zealand our classification system for film and television tends to work the other way. Generally our censors thinks it's better to expose young adults to sex and nudity, rather than violence. As far as I'm aware, the Australian classification system is similar to the American one, and favours violence.