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ESRB Hiring Pro Content Reviewers

Posted by Zonk on from the that-would-get-old-fast dept.

In April of this year, the Entertainment Software Ratings Board will move to using full-time reviewers to determine ratings for game content. With rumblings of 'play the whole game' legislation in the halls of Congress, the organization is pre-empting the problem by having full-time raters. The ESRB's Patricia Vance commented on the project: 'Having full-time raters will allow for each one to have greater experience actually reviewing content and recommending ratings ... this would provide each rater with a greater sense of historical parity for ratings, not to mention helping them to be more attuned to pertinent content and how it should be considered from a ratings standpoint. The full-time raters would also be responsible for play-testing final versions of the game, time permitting, which would allow for ESRB to play-test a greater number of games than it currently does.'

2 of 32 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Good friggin luck by tepples · · Score: 4, Informative

    Then again, supposing 85 hours into a game that was rated Teen there is some nude ninja combat (M-rated), does the ESRB get in any trouble for that? No, but the game publisher gets in trouble for defrauding ESRB. The ratings contract states that with each game, the publisher shall provide a video of the strongest sexual, violent, and drug-related content on the disc.
  2. Another Idea by HappySqurriel · · Score: 4, Interesting

    When I was younger (back in about 1995 or so) my brother used to have friends who made some money on the side doing "market research" for movies. Essentially there were a couple dozen people in my city who would be mailed pre-released movies every week and would be expected to watch them and give feedback in order for places like blockbuster/rodgers video to know how many movies to order; they weren't expected to return the movies but (being that they were pre-release) they were not allowed to throw away the movies for awhile. This worked out great for me because it meant that I was able to borrow movies rather than rent them and the only drawback was the occasional "If you bought this movie contact the FBI" message (or whatever it was) scrolling across the screen.

    I'm sure the ESRB could probably find thousands of trustworthy (sorry most slashdotters) people who would be happy to recieve free games and systems in exchange for a content review.