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The 'Truth in Videogame Rating' Act
The Escapist News Room reports on the introduction of the Truth in Videogame Ratings act to the floor of Congress. The act would require ratings boards to entirely complete the content of a videogame before applying a rating, and would involve the Government Accountability Office to oversee the ESRB's practices. This is a big change from the current system of developer disclosure. From the article: "Under the microscope would be the ESRB's effectiveness, the validity of peer review and advertisements targeted toward ages younger than a game's recommended audience. Less specific to the ESRB, the bill would also require research on 'the efficacy of a universal ratings system for visual content, including films, broadcast and cable TV, and video and computer games.' Game Politics notes that Co-Sponsors Rep. Jim Matheson (D-UT) and Rep. Mike McIntyre (D-NC) are up for re-election this November along with Congressman Cliff Stearns."
I'm actually all for the ESRB actually being required to play the games they rate. I always thought it was silly for them to just watch an abreviated video of the game and then come up with a rating somehow. Although, on the negative side, this could easily raise the cost of getting your game rated.
What I'm particularly worried about is this government agency "over seeing" the ratings... nothing good will come from that, at least not from our current government...
"A truly wise man realizes he knows nothing."
...with Hot Coffee, something that's hidden like Aardwolf in Wolf3d.
While this would likely help in theory; the MPAA doesn't give ratings without watching the film, I doubt many people on the ESRB ratings board have much real video game experience. How many of them could master the controls on Halo or Metroid Prime?
Are they expected to just complete it? Or complete it with 100% scores?
Sadly, these people are just in charge of regulating things. They don't have to know anything about it.
Many games are rated M for mature to begin with and nearly nobody follows that rule. Parents will do what they're going to do anyway, and most of the time it will be buying children these games, just like they watch rated R movies with them. So where's the problem? If a parent deems his child mature enough to watch a certain movie or play a certain game, that is their call. The babysitting that the government is doing is becoming unrealistic. Enough of this "but think about the children" We've thought about the children, parents everyday think about their children and they are the ones best to judge who gets to play what. When it all comes down to it, whether a game is 14+ or 15+ or 14.75+ will not matter, only what the parent thinks at the time of the purchase.
There are much more pressing issues in our country than these childish laws.
Bolded for emphasis.
Republicans want to censor video games because they're afraid of boobies. Democrats want to censor video games because they're afraid of guns.
All citizens accomplish when they switch their vote between the Elephant and Jackass wings of the Party is ensure that a different set of freedoms is eliminated for the children, because if it saves just one life...
Government enforcement of third party ratings have already been thrown out as violation of due process.
"Rating games on only partial content: Unlike the present system, the ESRB would be forced to play games in their entirety"
This sounds like a good idea. Let's see them however play through games like Spore, GTA, or Oblivion in their ENTIRETY! That would be a week or two of solid gameplay.
On the other hand let's see them play through Daikatana, or Ninja Gaiden Black. One is just so bad that no person can play through it with out it being absolute pain. Ninja Gaiden Black on the other hand is so hard that one wonders how they would do that sans cheats.
And then on the third group is games like Dead Rising. It's not going to be a very long game but imagine a game with 10 different paths where you can do anything and can take 200 hours to beat in their entirety." Are we asking the ESRB to play ALL the way through these games? I can't imagine a single person playing through a half of the games that come out in one year, not to meantion all of them.
"Withholding content: Publishers would be on the hook for failing to completely reveal content to the ESRB."
So we have to tell the ESRB about the content that we removed from a game, that has no way for the player to access, that can only be available by a hacker who then unlocked the data by reverse engineering the game? Great. The company I am at edited out a couple of these things that would up the rating to appease it. Let's be honest that's what people do, the fact people hack these games especially ones as popular as GTA isn't a problem. The fact that people expect the game to still be the same rating as when they start modding the game is.
That's just great. Why don't we ban modding as a whole, then people can't get access to code, and thus the game will remain boring and bland as when it first came out.
I remember back in the late 80's-early 90's when magazine ads used to have "professional game testers" endorsing a new title. If this goes through, would there be a rebirth of non-competitive pro gamer opportunities? Given it'd be tied to the government, I'm not sure the fun would be worth the paperwork that'd need filing for the job, but still...
"Common sense will be the death of us all"
I'm not sure how realistic it'll be to make something like this actually work. Are they expecting the ESRB to examine only content of a game that is disclosed to them by the developer, or are they planning to make the ESRB hire people to pound on a title for any potential exploits that might allow a game to become open to third party modification, such as the "Hot Coffee" mod to GTA:SA that enabled a "feature" that was never intended for the end user to access in the first place?
And who will be accountable for what? Will the ESRB be held accountable for not getting the rating right on the first try? Will the developer's be held accountable because some 3D model they use is too accurately detailed and exposed only through third party modification, even though the detail of the model actually improves the visual quality of the game itself? Will developers be forced by law to hold any "controversial" games indefinitely until the ESRB rates it under the new criteria proposed in this?
Personally, I think we may be looking at the end of the ESRB. This act would make the stakes too high for any civilian agency to control. Get ready for the new Federal Video Games Rating Board, powered by same good people in the red states who put our fearless leader into office.
8==8 Bones 8==8
Does this mean that the average consumer will finally learn that children and young adults are being used as slave labor until they're too old at the age of 30 and then toss away to get an IT job with fewer hours at better pay?
As a gamer I'd be more concerned with the way game magazines (either on paper or online) rate the games they test. In most cases its a disgusting display of biased articles where you can almost read a plea to advertise the game with them.
This thing can't possibly fly. (And because this bill is starting in the House, it probably won't.) Attempting to play Final Fantasy X-2 entirely through to completion, for example, is a mission for doofuses on gamefaqs.com with all the time in the world on their hands, not an organization like the ESRB.
I'm glad my government spends its time passing laws like this and threatening to sue it's states.
Get a job with the ESRB!!!
You take it, I don't want it...
What about games that do not have an end? How do you rate a World of Warcraft or these other MMORPG's? Or do you just slap a "game play online may vary" clause on a E rating?
Are movie ratings subject to government oversight?
"Perhaps not surprisingly, Stearns, Matheson, and McIntyre are all running for re-election in November."
Everyone referred to as a Congressman (or Representative) is up for election every two years. Members of the House of Representatives are supposed to receive the Congressman honorific, while members of the Senate are called Senators.
Congressmen = elected every two years
Senators = elected every six years
the bill would also require research on 'the efficacy of a universal ratings system for visual content, including films, broadcast and cable TV, and video and computer games.'
Efficacy? How about constitutionality?
The act would require ratings boards to entirely complete the content of a videogame before applying a rating, and would involve the Government Accountability Office to oversee the ESRB's practices.
The only two cases anyone has really heard about were:
GTA3 (Hot Coffee) - You could play the game end to end, taking any path you liked, and never see it. It was locked content that got unlocked only through a hack.
Oblivion (topless textures) - You could also play this one end to end, as it was released, and have absolutely no way of seeing the textures. It was only through a mod to the game that they became available.
The Sims 2 (removing pixelation) - Not one I really count because no one's made much of a fuss but a console command will remove pixelation, revealing naked sims (to the degree of a Barbie doll). Again, not one that playing end to end would identify.
So, brilliantly, they've ensured the ESRB will play each game end to end and achieve... uh... well, nothing. Even played end to end, not a single one of the above cases would have come to light.
About the only case they could claim is Oblivion's "increased violence". To be fair though, this one was purely political when they were trying to justify seeming outraged (in order to placate politicians) over the nudity. The game doesn't get any more violent, there's no more blood nor more gore. It was also already rated with bullets for blood, gore and violence as part of the teen rating. The sad truth is, the topless nudity, only unlockable via a mod, really wasn't a good enough justification to demand a re-rating to Mature (which, politically, the ESRB needed to be seen to be doing) so they bundled in claims the game felt more violent than initially reported to try justifying it.
This also doesn't address the fundamentally forking nature of videogames. No one playthrough shows you everything - if it did, QA departments would consist of a single guy who works short hours. To play a game like GTA end-to-end takes anywhere from maybe 20-100 hours depending on how many side missions you take. Complete every mission, interact with every character in every way possible, jump your car off every ramp to see if you can crash through every building (who knows, you might be able to say see up someone's skirt if you get inside a building's mesh) and you're looking at tens of thousands of hours worth of work.
And that's while AI is pretty retarded. God forbid we actually develop decent AI any time soon (then again, if we can't get real intelligence in Congress, what hope do we have for the artificial kind in games). What'll happen when characters in games start learning from your interactions with them? What happens when a glitch in AI causes players who play one particularly obscure way causes creatures in Spore to learn that "giving head" is how you mate? What happens when intelligent human NPCs develop their own dialog and, thanks to your potty mouth, start learning some truly inappropriate conversational techniques? Or even totally appropriate ones that just get taken out of context?...
Imagine talking to an NPC helper who's helping you build a robot."
"Now pass me the arm."
"I don't want to give you [arm]."
"Fine, what do you want to give me?"
"I want to give you [head]"
"I like arm?"
In short, videogames branch - there's no way you can review end to end and catch everything. And, even if you could, the examples everyone talks about weren't available in regular end-to-end play anyway.
No. As I understand it, the WeLikeFreedom Party would privatize government services, end handouts, decriminalize victimless acts (thus letting police concentrate on violent crime), and cut income tax. So why don't 80 percent of us vote Libertarian?
I don't know if it speaks badly of the submitter and editor, or badly of their perception of the /. crowd, when something so redundant is included in an article summary for a purely inflammatory effect.
So we have to tell the ESRB about the content that we removed from a game, that has no way for the player to access, that can only be available by a hacker who then unlocked the data by reverse engineering the game?
Yes, it's not "removed" if shipped on disc. It is also a pretty safe bet hackers will find it. It's still not clear if the Hot Coffee thing was a marketing gimmick, an east egg for the technically inclined, or laziness or carelesness. Given a company that makes its name on controversy I just can't quite rule out the former yet. In any case, now that we have had a demonstration of all the free press you can get from content only available through a 3rd party hack, yes, I think the content needs to be declared if **shipped** on the disc. Remove it from the disc and the ESRB never has to know.
All members of the US House of Representatives are up for election this November.
That's the way it works. Every member of the House is elected every two years.
I am concerned about any program, any piece of hardware, any treaty, any law that treats me as a consumer, not a citizen
I'm more interested in a law that would require reviewers (read: bloggers) to actually finish a game before posting a formal review of it. Imagine what would have happened if Gamespy had actually finished Halo 2 before reviewing it ("THIS GAME'S ENDING SUCKS");
If this passes, Final Fantasy XII won't see the light of day this year. This act will significantly delay the release of games. id will have to change their tagline to "When the ESRB finishes playing it," rather than "When it's done."
This legislation is further proof that both major parties need to be evicted.
The only real failing in the ESRB rating system, is the lack of retailer support. The vendors release
software, they rate it appropriately under the voluntary rating system, and the retailers ignore the rating. The solution? Make the rating mandatory!!!
Fuckwits.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
The ratings system for TV, movies, music, and video games is all baloney.
First of all, only the parent can determine what is offensive. Who can say what porn is? Is Janet Jackson flashing porn? How about a naked David sculpture? How about watching to monkeys get it on at the zoo? If a 2 frame flash of boob gives a TV show one rating, and 30 seconds of hot monkey sex gives another show another rating then that is whacky.
Second, there are not enough raters to rate everything on the same standard. If every game has to be rated, then I feel bad for the rater that gets the short straw and has to play every possible path in Chessmaster XX. If Grand Theft Auto has to have every scenario played just to be sure the princess pole dancers keep their skirts on, then Chessmaster should get the same treatment to make sure the queen doesn't get molested by a frisky knight.
Third, only the parent can keep material away from a child. Ratings or no ratings, parent's are the only ones with a shot at keeping stuff away from their kids. Look at cigarettes. Kids are not supposed to smoke. Everyone agrees which cigarettes are not supposed to smoke. All the merchants are told not to sell tabacco to kids. Yet, any day of the week you can drive by most highschools in the US and see kids outside smoking. If something as "black and white" (relatively) as tabacco can't be kept out of the hands of kids, then why all the hubbub over video games, movies, etc?
Tangent: Why don't books come with ratings? There are tens of thousands of books published every year. If protecting the children is so important, then shouldn't all illicit material get stampped M for mature, P for pansy, etc? Sounds whacky to apply it to books, so why apply it to other knowledge/entertainment mediums? If anyone wants to sound really stupid try the line of thought that says games are for kids and books are not.
My solution: Leave rating entirely in the hands of NGOs (non government organizations). Let the MPAA and ESRB rate stuff. If parent's want to heed the rating advice fine. If not, so what. If some parent's do not like the standards used by those organizations, then use an organization that is tougher/easier as desired. www.screenit.com for movies for instance. Or a parent could watch/listen/play/read everything before letting their kids at it. It sounds crazy, but some parent's do it. Surely the government has better things to do than try to censure material from kids.
But give us real "Rated Adults Only" games already, none of that "Rated M" crap for 16 years old that still think blood and gore is "mature"...
other rating institutions. It's not like the US is the only country with a game rating system. Maybe they should look how the other do it. For example, check out the procedure they use at PEGI. Apperently they managed to label Sand Andreas as 18+ and Oblivion as 16+.
Well, bingo, which is why most such ratings, ESRB included, also tell you what to expect in the game. That's why you see not only a "T" rating, but also stuff like "violence" or "sexual themese" on the box. So the parent can form his/her own idea whether it's ok for his/her 12 year old or not. Maybe some don't mind the violence in some contexts. (E.g., my parents thought it was ok for me to watch wild west movies, with lynchings and all, from a very early age, on account that there the good guys always win. And that to them was a more important lesson to teach me.) But maybe they don't want to buy a softcore porn game for said 12 year old. (E.g., "The Singles.")
And to that end the ESRB ratings as they are, are just short of useless. When they're not undershooting, they're overshooting. You see something like "violence" slapped indiscriminately even on "The Sims" where the most violence you could see was a limp-wristed slap or a cartoonish dust cloud. Or you see "suggestive sexual themes" slapped on, again, "The Sims" where a kiss was most that you could see. Not even some tongue-sucking both-hands-up-her-blouse kind of kiss.
So, yes, it would be nice if they played the games before rating them.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
This come to your from here. So based on this description, wouldn't monitoring the ESRB be outside the departments normal duties? Also, wouldn't this take away from the Office's real job...you know acting like it is making the government accountable. I guess when your government is so corrupt and backwards (and yes I live in the US) distracting the Government Accountability Office isn't such a bad idea...
"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb."
It's really insulting that they use being "at war" to justify things like the Patriot Act, while at the same time they use Congress time on something as trivial as video games ratings.
Sorry to break it to someone but the Government cannot substitute for good parenting.
If you're not sure if your kid should play game X (or watch movie Y or listen to music Z) then do your own research on it and form your own opinion.
This is a complete waste of taxpayer resources.
OR, we could rely on the consumers to research the titles they are interested in purchasing before they buy them. How many game reviewing websites exist? Tell me it's difficult to Google a title and read a couple of reviews before you plunk down hard-earned cash for it.
This is especially true for parents seeking to purchase games for their children. Any responsible parent should check out the stuff they're going to be allowing into their childrens' minds. Sorry it can't be as convenient as glancing at the lower right hand corner of the box, but it's certainly not difficult and is definitely a small price to pay for the benefit.
This also helps circumvent the problems of people having different moral standards for what is appropriate material. Some parents may be ok with their 10 year old hearing the word "shit" where another may find even "crap" completely unnacceptable. If you read through a few reviews of the game (or even play it for a while yourself / sit down with your child and play it with them instead of using video games as surrogate parents) you can better find out if a particular title conforms to the standards of what you want your child exposed to.
Come on, people, quit your lazy griping and take responsibility for the content you buy, the production companies etc. that you support, and the material you want your children exposed to! The government is not the solution!
A year ago, Sondy Pope-Roberts, the Democratic Assembly sponsor of Wisconsin's vidgame bill, told me "the pollsters" (I presume Hillary Clinton's,) had told her "This polls higher than anything else we asked."
Sondy's subsequent press release asserted that "86% of 16 year old boys play these [violent] games." When I asked why she'd want to alienate 86% of (then) 16 year old boys, some of whom will be eligible to vote this November, and the rest by her next re-election cycle, she responded "They won't vote anyway."
This, like the Myspace legislation that just passed the house with only 15 dissenting votes (roll call,) seems to me pretty shortsighted for a party that will be competing in elections not just in '06 and '08, but on into the future.
Ben Masel: 51,282 votes for US Senate in the Wisconsin Democratic Primary
Here you have the US Congress trying to create a law, that would require a privately and voluntarily created video game rating board, to play through the entire game before rating it, when Congress doesn't even bother to read the entirety, or even a majority of the bills they vote on.
How long will it take W.O.W II to get a rating? or a truely random game of freecell. Do they have to play or win every game, if you don't win, it just feels like you only played half the game so far.
No, I want to play Global Thermal Nuclear War!
...will it take them to "complete" Tetris?