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Japan's New Games Rating System
The site GamesIndustry.biz has a report on a change to the CERO system. The Computer Entertainment Rating Organization (CERO), now has an adults-only category. From the article: "The A rating is equivalent to the current CERO All rating for all ages, B is for CERO 12 (for ages twelve and over), C equates to CERO 15, and the D rating would be for ages seventeen and up - for which there was no previous equivalent. The A-D ratings will remain advisory, but the Z rating will be regulated by the government."
Except that it becomes de-facto regulation in no time. How long do you think it will take before municipalities (prefects? Dunno at what granularity the local government operates in Japan) start passing laws that prohibit sale of any of the "adult" games? How long until major chains declare that they're not carrying the adult games under the pressure of some focus group?
That's what happens in the States. Ratings systems just become convienent vehicles for no-thought censorship used by the usual suspects. I know it's all "for the children", but the effects can be detrimental to society as a whole. For instance, due to the completely voluntary "Comics Code Authority" label the industry came up with in response to pressure from such groups, the comic culture in the US was absolutely destroyed and the whole genre was relegated to the "childrens stuff" category in the popular mind. It still hasn't recovered from that blow, and as a result we no doubt missed out on some fantastic literature told in a way that traditional media (books) won't allow.
I read the internet for the articles.
There's a huge gap between 13 and 17 that I think deserves a rating, since the maturity level between a 13 year old and a 15 year old seems like it could still be pretty big to me. I'm 21, so I'm not caught in the middle of this situation anymore, but the current ratings system is too screwed up IMHO. I've seen many games that were Teen and Ma rated (13 and 17+) that were very questionable in terms of how different their violence and questionable content levels were. I may be wrong, but I've observed many who were 13 still being in that awkward and easily influenced stage that is a big concern a lot more then someone who is 15.
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
It'll start out PERFECTLY FINE until ESRB goes and "suggests" things to em...
I've said it once and I'll say it again: The only thing R*/TT did wrong in the whole Hot Coffee debacle is not calling out the people making a huge fuss over it on their bullshit. Instead they meekly hung their heads in shame and took their punishment, implicitly admitting guilt.
There was NO porn minigame in GTA:SA
There was NO porn minigame on the DISK
There WAS a minigame featuring a sexual situation on par with an R rated movie which was not accessible without hacking save files on a proprietary memory card.
The scary thing about the situation isn't that a game had its rating changed from M to AO and the company suffered. The scary thing is that the entire fiasco, the backlash, the outrage, and the re-rating was predicated on a complete and patent falsehood and people who should know better bought into it.
The laws of probability forbid it!
Someone explain to me why they changed from an age rating to letters? Now they need to educate parents which letter is suitable for which age group, and America has show that this doesn't work. Print a "suitable from age x on" on the sticker and no parent can claim ignorance when they bought "Zombie Blood Massaker III" for their 6 year old...
Japan is not the United States.