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.

Comments

Comic books != videogames

[elrous0]

True, but even comic books are still strictly constrained to a large extent (controversial titles will only be carried in certain comic book shops, not in any mainstream retailers). And, even so, you're comparing apples and oranges. Even a quality modern comic book (or "graphic novel," if you're one of those types) can easily be produced by a single artist and writer in a relatively short time.

A modern video game (above the level of Xbox Live Arcade material) requires a staff of 20 or more people (not including voice work) and can cost millions of dollars and years of work to develop. This means that money is a VERY real consideration in videogame development. No one is going to spend millions to develop a game that only a handful of stores in the whole country will carry.

Now, you can point out that doing a cheap flash game or simple tetris-like title can be done much cheaper and easier than a full-fledged game. But that's clearly not the kind of game the OP was referring to.