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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.
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Wow who let Jack Thompson in. What people find offensive is a very subjective thing. The AO rating set forth by the ESRB is stupid, there are plenty of things more graphic and violent on national TV, just watch the news or some sort of cable television for 10 minutes. The AO rating is a kiss of death for any game, and just an arbitrary way for the ESRB to push any developer down they think is getting to powerful or to popular for their seeming moral values. The arbitrary stance from the console developers that no AO games will be licensed for there product is just a cop out to avoid undesirable attention from the worthless sloven moral sensors of our United States. Just because you may think it's offensive, doesn't mean I will. And the ESRB shouldn't have the right to tell me what I can and cannot play on my console, and that is exactly what they are doing right now, in a very round-about way.
"If a game was flaunting naked breasts, it would get an AO rating (fundamentally an NC-17 rating for a movie)."
Incorrect.
Example. Playboy, the Mansion. It not only flaunts naked breasts, it revels and rejoices in them. They are everywhere. Some of the characters cannot wait to get topless in any situation. You are encouraged to photograph them repeatedly. Then, there is the "sex". Ok, so the characters are still partially dressed while having this "sex" (Once you've seen it, you realize it is not actually sex, although the shower animation is pretty close), however, it is still more graphic than GTA:SA. You, as the player controlling Hugh Hefner, are encouraged to have as much sex as possible, with as many different partners. You are encouraged to have multiple girlfriends all living with you under the same roof. Fantasy? Sure. Unrealistic standard? You betcha. Moreso than a Barbie Doll.
Anyone known what Playboy The Mansion is Rated? Anyone? Anyone?
M For Mature.
It makes GTA:SA look like GTA the original, as far as nudity and sex is concerned.
"I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they fly by." -D. Adams
I feel the need to point out the BBFC and the ESRB are not even close to the same thing. ESRB is a "voluntary" industry board where people can choose to either submit their works for rating or not. The BBFC is a government agency that is required to approve and rate media for sale within the UK. What Rockstart is struggling with is their game getting no rating from the BBFC which means they cannot legally sell their game in the UK.
/. editor did.
The article does not make this same confusion, though the
D.O.U.O.S.V.A.V.V.M.
But the game had ALREADY been given an adult rating; Mature is for people 17 and older, just like a movie that is rated R and nothing in the Hot Coffee mod was nearly as bad as what you can see in a rated R movie. Not to mention that the Hot Coffee mod wasn't able to be found without either a cheating apparatus (on consoles) or some code modification (on PCs) plus (accoding to Gamespot) hours of gameplay. That's a lot of work to see some badly animated, pixelated characters bump hips (you never did see genitalia); especially when any teen who really wants to see some real sex can just put words like "sex" or "porn" into an internet search engine.