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Is the ESRB Broken?
Prompted by Senator's Brownback's legislation, an interesting discussion is taking place on the ESRB, and gaming related politics. Next Generation offers up a damning look at the ESRB, wherein author Aaron Ruby says that the organization is 'incapable of effectively communicating with consumers, nor of fending off attacks from the industry's many critics.' At the Sony Online 'Station Blog', SOE's John Smedley retorts, saying that an industry-wide mentality is to blame for the ESRB's precarious position. Meanwhile, EGM's editor Shoe has some choice words on claims the organization shouldn't have to 'play through' every game that comes to market. From this last piece: "Sure, you usually can't see 100% of a game on an average playthrough. But I guarantee if you get three guys to sit down and finish every product, you can learn a lot more about what these games contain than from watching a bunch of highlight reels, which, remember, are edited by companies who have huge stakes in what the ratings turn out to be -- talk about conflict of interest!"
Censorship made easy
If forums teach us anything, it is that logic and critical thinking should be required courses in the public schools.
The entire premise of this legislation is bullshit because it doesn't address the issues that got us to this stage in the first place. Regardless of whether you think the current system is insufficient, no solution we can propose would appease these critics. Even if it were humanly possible to play through %100 of the material available in a game to give an accurate appraisal of its content, there is no way to account for material that can be added or unlocked by third party mods. And the conflict of interest argument doesn't fly with me either, because we've seen how much trouble you can get into if you do attempt to mislead the ESRB and fake a lower rating for your game, and most companies would want to avoid that. I would say that this is all a conspiracy to eventually hand control of game-censorship over to the government (see penny-arcade http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/10/02 ), but frankly that seems like giving these incompetent government hacks a bit too much credit.
On the very small plus side, if this does pass, the ESRB is going to have to do some serious hiring to handle all the game content they'll have to review, which means the non-competetive professional gamer career just became a possibility.
Quick! Someone fix it!
Let the industry and market correct itself. The industry is demanding accurate game ratings. There is too much money at risk for producers and investors to allow another hot coffee.
The holy shrine of game sales is Walmart. If you can't get into Walmart, you're going to have a hell of a time making it big. (I'm purposefully excluding online content delivery systems for now!)
In order to get on the shelf at Walmart, you NEED to have an ESRB rating. Not only that, you need to have a M rating or below.
If your rating is changed after the release, and Walmart pulls every single copy of your game off their shelves and sends them all back to you (at your expense), your company (or the producers) will likely take a huge financial blow.
Investors see this. They know that the game has to meet the ESRB's bar for M rated and below games, and that any deviation from that bar will result in a loss of potential revenue. So the Investors are telling the producers that the game has to be spot on for the ESRB review. The Producers work hard on the developers making sure there is nothing questionable that is on the disk.
I recently got to sit in on a presentation by the project lead for the Human Head game 'Prey'. And he accounted how they presented to the ESRB, and the similar groups in other countries. They put all of the worst parts of the game in a demo. Blood, guts, egg crapping rectums and all. They had backup material ready to replace anything that the ESRB thought was out of line for their rating. They worked hard to make sure that they were in the clear.
There is really no incentive to poorly represent a game to the ESRB if the game is for mainstream sales. And the retailers are putting a lot of pressure on the ESRB to accurately rate those games. There is nothing in this process that requires government intervention.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
author Aaron Ruby says that the organization is 'incapable of effectively communicating with consumers, nor of fending off attacks from the industry's many critics.'
Would he rather the ESRB more closely follow the MPAA's example: talk softly and carry a big subpoena?
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Another option parents have to the ESRB is the whole 'be a parent option'. You know, instead of making your xbox 360 the baby sitter, try sitting down and paying attention to what you child plays. And if you see something that conflicts with your moral/religious/any other beliefs, you just shut it off.
I think it's important to discuss & explain the difference between a "casual" playthrough and "100%" playthrough, to any parties involved in the decision-making process...
At work I have to regularly explain complex technical things to people who don't really care and likely never will. I still have to figure out a way to make them understand the importance of whatever point I'm making, regardless of whether or not they previously had any damn clue what I was talking about.
This is a similar kind of situation where, the people "authoring the bills" need to have someone reasonably explain to them the critical points of video game structure (for lack of a better word) and how small details can easily be missed by a casual "play through", etc.
Every criticism I've seen of the ESRB is complete shit. Every single one. The fact of the matter is, the ESRB's ratings have been, IMNSFHO, very, very accurate, with only a *single* instance where I disagreed with the rating. And that was for Oblivion, which have the "nude" mod "scandal," the ESRB reevaluated the game, and decided that the game should have been rated 'M' anyway.
The fact is, game companies have been fairly honest about the content in their games from day one. The political bullshit with gaming today is entirely because of irresponsible parents and stupid, stupid politicians and lawyers.
I play a lot of games. I see a lot of content from most of the games that hit store shelves. Thousands upon thousands of games. Yet I honestly only know of one instance where I think the ESRB messed up.
And this new criticism about the ESRB not communicating with parents... Huh? I think the only communication necessary is the bigass fucking rating stamped prominently on every box! But they're *trying* to do even more, taking out ads designed by "Gabe" and "Tycho" of Penny Arcade fame.
No, the truth is that lawyers and politicians are attacking the video-game industry for money and votes respectively. Just like movies, music, comic books, table-top RPGs, etc. before them.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
The ESRB ratings are very clear.
A single rating, plus a slightly more detailed description of the precise concerns.
If they're not communicating with the parents, it's because the parents can't read, or don't want to. Lawmakers can't make parents become responsible by beating up on the ESRB or game industry.
I've seen the parents argue with the salesmen about buying age appropriate games for their kids. It really is disgusting to witness the reaction of some parents when someone dares suggest GTA may not be appropriate for their pre teen child.
To be fair more parents seem to be appreciative that the salesmen point out the warning labels and age ratings.
Yes. "Plug and Play TV Games" boxes sold in Wal-Mart are rated. I even saw one that had an M sticker over an E rating for a poker game whose rating was changed when the ESRB changed its policy about gambling.
The problem is that the average congresscritter has absolutely NO clue what a 100% playthrough would cost. Obviously, they've never played through any of the Final Fantasy games, and from what I'm seeing, they're small potatoes compared to some of the newer games.
What about games like World of Warcraft, where the content is constantly being updated? How about Unreal Tournament? Sure, the package doesn't ship with content containing nudity, but nothing is stopping 3rd party mapmakers from making a map set in a bordello.
While I agree that some playing time would be a good idea, it can't be so onerous that it's cost prohibitive.
Quite frankly, most of the ratings I've seen are fairly accurate. What really needs to happen is for parents to get up off their asses and take some control of the situation. If you don't want your kids playing a game where the "hero" boinks whores to gain health points, for god's sake, don't let them play it! We all know which games contain this sort of content, so stay away from it if you're not into that sort of thing. Hasn't anyone heard of gamerdad? Guess what folks? Parenting is hard work.
I, too, feel that the ESRB ratings have been fairly accurate in terms of the content that one can reasonably expect from a video game. One has to go through some out-of-the-ordinary (although certainly not "extraordinary" by geek standards) measures to reach the controversial content that prompted the recent scandals and rating changes in Oblivion and GTA. I can replace Jar-Jar's head with a phallus using simple software at my house... does that mean the MPAA should change the Star Wars prequel ratings to R? The Blame game is pretty ridiculous, as is trying to "fix" the ESRB.
The ESRB is not broken, any more than MPAA movie ratings are broken. It's a one-stop shopping version of a game review that tells you what to expect out of the game, fresh out of the box, without outside intervention. It doesn't tell you everything; for more comprehensive information, you'd have to go to actual game reviews, which can be found all over the Internet at many prominent sites (and while they may not be the "big picture", they do tell parents everything they could possibly want to know about the game). But even then, just one look at the back of the box will tell you the selling points of the game, whether it's violence, boobies, edutainment, brand-name merch, or addictive puzzle polygons. It's not like video games try to hide the wares they are peddling.
Side Note: In the case of Hot Coffee, last I checked, GTA was about playing a hardened criminal... parents should have been wary about the game anyway. It's called Grand Theft Auto, for God's sake. That title should be obvious for parents, and should send up red flags just as much as, say, "18-Wheeler" or "Deer Hunter".
"Alright, bring in the lobbyists" is how that comic ends.
Which lobbyists?
Game industry lobbyists? Representatives of the people who setup the ESRB in the first place?
Relegious fundy lobbyists? Who think dancing leads to fornication?
"Media" lobbyists? What do they care, they just want to turn games into movies.
So back to the original question: Which lobbyists?
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
No, the ESRB should not be changed due to Election year pandering legislation.
Maybe the ESRB should form a playtest group to make it's own vids for rating purposes.
But they should absolutely not bow -in any form- to political whim in an even-numbered year.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
these are dark times for the modding community too. GTA, Oblivion, TheSims, those controversies popped up because of modders (nothing against modders, im one myself). It'd be interesting to see what will happen, most companies don't directly support modding, or act against it, but things might change, and they might start taking action. sad to think some irresonposible people might make modding community a bigger target.
The ESRB hasn't failed to do their job in any way for as long as I can remember. What would even make someone ask such a stupid question?
The only people that have failed to do their jobs are parents.
And please don't bring up Hot Coffee or any nude mods that other games have had...these have nothing to do with the ESRB. They were either user created content to access the hidden content (Hot Coffee), or user created content to implement the nudity.
If you have a problem with this then do some parenting. Your kids are seeing much worse on the internet. Trust me.
It seems to me that this is all just a continuation of the target on the game industry as a whole due to the many school shootings and such taking place. Or like another recent story recently posted, which blames videogames for a commited homocide:4 1209
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/09/29/1
As I stated in a comment I placed under that article, I strongly believe that all of this is just people trying to find a scapegoat for their ignorance and the problems that come from it.
There is nothing wrong with the ESRB. Games are clearly labled by a simple, easy to understand system. With a good majority of games it should be very apparent which rating they fall under, and the ESRB will rate it appropriately, I find no really appropriate reason for people to play the game through, it will just be a failed attempt at trying to cover up the real issues. These issues, in my eyes are:
1. Videogames are becomming far to violent.
I love to sit down and play a FPS just as much as the next person, but when it comes to games like the GTA series, that is just going overboard.
2. Videogames are targeted by media, and parents for violent acts. As, many people have stated before me in various ways, Parents are becomming more and more irresponsible. People do not like to admit that they(or their children) make mistakes, that is simple human nature. People always search for a scapegoat, and that is how the ESRB and other gaming related industries get targeted.
So again, there is no problem with the ESRB, but with people as a whole, changing and gradually decreasing morals, and a decline in the quallity of parenting.
Because the BBFC (The body responsible for rating films in the UK) does rate some games in the UK, specifically "games that depict human sexual activity, human genital organs or gross acts of violence" (from Wikipedia). For example GTA: San Andreas was rated 18 in the UK, which is the highest rating (well apart from R18, sold in licenced sex shops). So the Hot Coffee "scandal" meant nothing over here.
http://blog.wired.com/games/index.blog?entry_id=15 64091
just some guy
It is whatever the residing taliban decides. Yesterday, it was nudity and violence. Today it is gambling. Tomorrow it might be kittens. Kittens are evil beings trying to take over the world. Mwahahahaaa!
How can it be broken if it was never working right in the first place? The ESRB is for people who want to play politics with our games and win votes from people who think that thier senator or whoever is doing the right thing. Kids and adults are going to play the game no matter what if they really want to anyhow. Plus it also just becomes a selling point for kids to buy Mature or AO games just because they are not supposed to have them. Give me a break .....