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!"

Comments

Penny-arcade critique

[Trevelyan]

Censorship made easy

Re:Penny-arcade critique

[kfg]

All rating systems are inherently broken, Not just the ESRB. They are all based on giving a thumbnail description of what somebody else is second guessing you will find offensive.

The only true record of content is an exact copy of the content. If you wish to find out if the content will offend you, you will have to risk being offended by viewing it yourself. Them's the breaks.

If you have some special thin skinned needs to be met the ESRB ratings aren't the only ones available. Many special interest groups produce their own reviews and rating systems. They aren't printed on the box, but you can still read 'em before you buy.

In a world where everyone has a "right" to not be offended everyone will have duct tape over their eyes, ears and mouths.

And what is the rating for those of us who are offended by that concept? Wal-Mart does not label the bowdlerized content they sell as such. Stamping a big, red "B" on 'em might be nice, to let me know to avoid them and go off in search of a true copy.

In future we might see somthing like an "L" rating; for "Libre."

Warning! Warning! This media is a free speech zone. We make no guarantees against its content. Use entirely at your own risk.

You might be surprised to find that I do not welcome that day, because I have always thought of that as the default.

KFG

Completely unnecessary.

[RingDev]

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

Re:Shoe for Senate

[Jabrwock]

You misunderstand the source of the material. Hot Coffee and Oblivion were both made using already present material. Hot Coffee was a disabled mini-game, the hack just enables access to it, almost like an undocumented cheat code, only you used memory/resource manipulation instead of just typing it in. Oblivion just removed the bra object, the nude breasts were already textured underneath. Both games were re-rated due to this content, because it wasn't "added" by a 3rd party, it was already present on the disk. But playing 100% of the game wouldn't have found this material, because you needed the 3rd party hack to access it. Unfortunately, Sen. Brownback seems to think that his legislation would have prevented Hot Coffee... Which demonstrates that like most politicians, he doesn't actually pay attention.