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ESRB Responds to 3D Realms' Kvetching
Via GamePolitics, an article at the Hollywood Reporter site on the ESRB's snappy comeback to 3D Realms. You may recall Scott Miller (3D Realms' co-founder) saying a short while back that he viewed the ESRB's smackdown as a 'sucker punch'. The Reporter article lays out the ESRB's response, courtesy of the board's president Patricia Vance: "It's unfortunate that Mr. Miller's feelings were hurt, but let's be clear ... The ESRB is the self-regulatory body for the video game industry. We were established by the industry and we simply enforce the rules and guidelines that the industry has imposed upon itself. The games industry determined that there should be rules with regard to the proper display of rating information and that ESRB should enforce those rules by notifying companies who are not in compliance ... Unfortunately, due to 3D Realms' lack of experience submitting games to the ESRB, it would appear that they were unaware of the various industry guidelines in place and the consequences of not complying with those guidelines."
Talk about a sucker punch..
"Unfortunately, due to 3D Realms' lack of experience submitting games to the ESRB,"
Realistically, yes you would notice, because that would be when the government steps in. Then you'd see what real censorship does to the gaming industry.
Proud member of the American Non Sequitur Society. We might not make much sense, but boy do we love pizza!
And this is more of the same reactionary bullshit. This is what happens when you let religious nuts **Cough-The South-Cough** inject their religious beliefs into the public debate.
I think you may be hard-pressed to find supporters for your opinions when you go off on "Reactionary Bullshit" in one sentence, and then stereotype and classify an entire region of people in the very next sentence.
In fact you could argue you're committing the same behavior as these "religious nuts". They judge the video-game industry and claim all video games corrupt their children. You judge Southerners and claim that all Southerners are religious nuts.
Practicing what you preach would work better for you to get people on your side. Otherwise you simply fall into the category of "Do as I say not as I do."
If everyone stopped submitting their games to the ESRB, and we pink slipped those censor's like they badly deserve, would anyone even notice?
Yes, because this is what would happen:
1. No major retailers would stock any of these games
followed by
2. The US government would intervene and create their own censoring board that would be far more strict and arbitrary and would answer to nobody.
All of you complainers need to realize a couple things. The first is that the ESRB is entirely funded by and consists entirely of game companies. This is not the PMRC. This is not the government. This is not some outside organization. This is the industry. Game companies have all banded together and agreed on certain rules, and they created this organization to enforce those rules. 3DR's position is, by definition, a rogue position within the industry. They are going against the wishes of all the other game companies out there, because that's what the ESRB is.
The second is that the reason the ESRB exists is because the industry realized that the alternative to self-regulation was government regulation. The government is not going to sit idly by while a free-for-all is going on. Their position is, why should video games be any different than any other entertainment medium? They all have various content ratings and warnings. The ESRB has in fact long been held up by the government as an example of self-regulation done right - their rating system is the gold standard. But if enforcement of that rating system ever breaks down, the government will have no problem stepping in and enforcing it themselves. Is that what you want?
I realize that some of you kids think everything should just be available all the time to anyone who wants it regardless of age or parental consent. But that's never going to happen, nor should it. Given that, the ESRB is the best possible system anyone could have come up with - it's an industry-created, industry-funded board enforcing rules set by the industry upon itself. It is exactly how this kind of thing should be done.
Contrast it with the way things work in the UK or other parts of Europe, where games can be outright banned by the government. The government does not ban games here, and neither does the ESRB. The worst the ESRB can do is give a game an AO rating, and you can blame Sony, MS and Nintendo for the fact that they won't allow those games on their systems - it's not the ESRB practicing any sort of "censorship", and plenty of AO games do come out on PC. If the ESRB was gone, these games would end up being banned outright by the government just like they are elsewhere. That's the alternative you're arguing in favor of.
I think this thread is missing the part of the point. What does the industry gain by not having the ESRB? Nothing. So we axe the ESRB, go to the Supreme Court and win and congress can't regulate anything. What does that do for video games? Nothing. MS, Sony, and Nintendo still probably won't let games that would have gotten an AO on their systems. Retailers still won't be selling games that would have received an AO under the current system. However, then you would have MS, Sony, Nintendo, Walmart, EBGames, etc, etc, etc, all having their own reviewers rating the games deciding if they want to allow the game on their system or sell the game in their store. So without the ESRB it becomes much more arbitrary what is E, T, M, and AO.
However, there are lots of things that the ESRB does buy the video game industry, and very little of that has anything to do with government censorship. Parents can easily look at a game's ratings and determine whether to ignore that game or continue looking into it. It helps do a lot of weeding out. It helps parents to look at a rating and see "M - Excessive Violence and Gore" and then say "My Johnny can't handle violence" and then they can keep looking elsewhere. It doesn't matter if Johnny is 7 or 17. The parent knows their child and can make those decisions.
It also helps with the retailers and the system makers. If the ESRB (an independent third-party) rates a game one way, then MS, Sony, Nintendo, Walmart, EBGames, etc, can just take those ratings and base their policies regarding suitability off of that. That way there is only one ratings system. They also like it because it removes liability from them somewhat. Imagine what would happen if Walmart had to deal 100% with the liability of the ratings when the Hot Coffee stuff happened. People would be yelling at Walmart for releasing that game, and then Walmart would turn around and start rating games even more restrictively, possibly even telling Rockstar that they would no longer sell their games. A whole bunch of games would get censored into oblivion then. The console manufacturer's would do the same.
In other words, the ESRB isn't stopping government regulation, it's stopping hodge-podge regulation that would be even worse. It also helps parents make decisions about what kinds of stuff their kids watch. The ESRB is a good thing.
Now for the counter-arguments
Parents don't ever look at the ratings. Not true. A lot of parents don't, and they raise their voices and scream out of their own ignorance. But a lot of parents do. Part of the problem is that games are new. ESRB ratings aren't as common as MPAA ratings. Everyone in the US understands the basic differences between G, PG, PG-13 and R. Fewer know what NC-17 is. But my guess is that even fewer know what the difference between E, T, M, and AO are. More people knowing about the ratings helps. Another problem is that many people still think of video games as a kid thing, which means they think that all games are desgined for 12 year olds anyway. If we got past that stigma then people will realize that video games are just like movies in that regard. Some are for younger audiences, while some are intended for more mature audiences, and everything in between.
The ESRB is corrupt. Maybe so. Maybe they rate games according to how much you pay them or according to political pressure. My point is not to get into a debate about whether the current operations of the ESRB are perfect, only to point out the role they play and the importance of that role.
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So how I'm reading this the ESRB is basically saying you can't go out and read the guidelines and be able to submit a game with much success on your first couple of attempts, you have to submit a bunch of times and through trial and error you'll figure out how the guidelines work? It's pretty ridiculous to suggest that the only way you can successfully submit games is by having past experience submitting games.
Erik http://yakko.cs.wmich.edu/~rattles