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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."
Kvetch... didn't I save that town in Oblivion?
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!
This makes sense. I mean, when DNF started development, the ratings icons were written on, like, scrolls. Or chiseled into stone tablets.
"Take ye heed - yon game containeth much violence and bare wenches"
--riney
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.