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The ESRB Doesn't Take Games Seriously?
Eurogamer has word of comments by the president of developer Factor 5, Julian Eggebrecht. The veteran game developer had some extremely pointed things to say about the ESRB, an organization he painted as 'not taking games seriously'. Says Eggebrecht, "I would be happy if in games we could talk about homosexuality, but we're not even at the point where we can admit that humans have heterosexual relationships, and that is a real problem - and it tends to show that games are not being seen, even by our own ratings boards, as an artform ... It's a flat out bizarre system...It makes it even harder for games than movies because we don't have the intermediate ratings. They don't really tell you what they will object to - they just say 'well, follow the standards that have been set before', which is a problem if you want to push the envelope." There's further discussion of this issue at Ars' Opposable Thumbs blog, which points out that the console makers hold some responsibility here too. Meanwhile, Rockstar is asking for help from the wider games industry to help them to fight the ESRB/BBFC rulings.
...most likely his idea for a game about heterosexual nasal sex targeted at ages 7 and up got squashed by the repressive ratings regime...
You know, the shouting "dialogue" between the industry and ESRB/congress/naysayers/whoever is already looking to me sorta like this. (The somewhat sanitized version, with a lot of hyperbole and think-of-the-children taken out, for clarity sake.)
Objector: Aauugh, they're selling that sex and violence stuff to kids.
Publisher: STFU, not all games are for kids. My games were never meant for kids, at least. We have ESRB ratings for it, the sex and violence games don't get sold to kids.
ESRB: Ah, glad that you feel that way, because we're rating your latest sex- and gore-fest AO. It should be ok, if they're not sold to kids, right?
Publisher: Aauugh, ESRB is oppressing me! Help! First ammendment! If my game isn't on the kiddie shelf at WalMart and EB Games, I'll make less money! The outrage!
This is, as I was saying, just a massively sanitized excerpt, to illustrate the point that's starting to irk me: the two-facedness of the industry. They're essentially trying to have it both ways at the same time.
In a nutshell: fucking decide already whether you're (A) making a game for kids and teenagers, and live with the restrictions there, or (B) admit that it's for adults, and get that M or AO rating. That's what it's for.
Because otherwise it looks like the whole "leave us alone, we already have the ESRB ratings for it" is essentially a lie, if then you come and demand that everything gets a low rating so it can sell more copies. I don't freakin' care whether it's WalMart rules or Nintendo rules or whatever. Decide from the start whether you want to be in that slot or not.
Talk about "pushing the envelope" in this context is just weasel-wording for "I want to sneak a game that's just a little over the limits of AO, imto a lower category". Or simpler still, "I want to be allowed to lie about the rating, because we'll make more money that way." I'm sorry, that's not as much "pushing the envelope" as plain old dishonesty. And it being motivated by nothing more than profit (as in, "but we'll sell less copies if it's AO!!!") doesn't make dishonesty acceptable, it just turns it into fraud.
No, I don't think anyone has a sacred right to make money by breaking the rules. We don't live in that kind of society generally, so I fail to see why games would get a free ticket there. Just freakin' decide in which category you want to be, and live by those rules.
Trying to argue both "but some games are made for adults only, so STFU with the think-of-the-kids" _and_ "auugh, but I don't want to actually label it Adults Only" is getting surrealistic already in its overt dishonesty. And I, for one, had enough of it already.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I don't buy the "art form" garbage
Well then just don't buy the things at all, then we don't have to worry about "helping you." I don't buy the "my kids are more important than anything else" garbage, so put that in your pipe and smoke it.
As a future parent... i don't give a damn if it's an art form or not, if billy is 6 years old he doesn't need to see that content.
Fuck Billy.
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