Lawyer Opines On 'Flaws' in ESRB Rating Methodology

Gamepolitics has a post up looking at blog entry by attorney Mark Methenitis, who is not only a practitioner of the legal arts but also a gamer. At his site, he runs down some of the major pros and cons of the ESRB's ratings process, and on the whole he thinks they're doing a good job. Their major oversight, in his mind, is that at no point are the videogames ever actually played: "Game publishers send in a DVD of selected scenes and a lot of paperwork to get the game rated... The point being that the ratings board never plays the games. Yes, you read that right. The people who rate video games do not play the game they are rating. It would be the equivalent of basing movie ratings on a form and a trailer. Context would be wholly absent." The ESRB argues that if the publishers create their 'ratings package' within the organization's guidelines, they don't need to play the game. And indeed, with a title like Oblivion you can't expect the organization to play through the whole game. But ... c'mon ... maybe just the tutorial? How long would that take?

Comments

What good would that do?

[llevity]

The idea is to rate the game based on its content. So they create a DVD with a range of the various types of content.

You can't expect them to play through the whole game. And what good would they get out of playing the tutorial? They're not rating how good the game is, how the controls work out, how well the gameplay works. They're rating its content. They don't need to play it to do that.

The only flaw is when the developer does not include a true spectrum of the game's content on the DVD, but they have policies in place to cover that, I'm sure, as we saw with the whole Hot Coffee crap.

I'm really not sure how else you could go about doing it. Perhaps a DVD that contained the entire game played through, but for some of the longer games, you couldn't expect them to watch it all. And how do you handle more open ended games, with multiple branching storylines? (do those even exist anymore?)

I think the system probably works reasonably well as is, as long as everyone is honest. And its usually in their interests to be honest, so it works out.

Re:What good would that do?

[badasscat]

Playing the game would allow a ratings board to get a sense of context, as the article states.

Context is provided in various ways. The ratings board is not just presented a series of money shots. They're given a DVD that is "representative" of the game but also includes its most salacious content. Both of those are requirements.

If the ratings board were forced to play the games, I guarantee two things would happen:

a) It would take forever to get games rated, resulting in huge delays and potentially fewer game releases,

and

b) It would result in a lot more AO-rated titles.

Why?

First of all, understand that the ratings board is not made up of "gamers", by design. When I last dealt with the ESRB, they wouldn't tell us who was actually on the ratings board but they did tell us that one of the three people was an ordained minister and another was a middle-aged housewife. Ratings board members are always "regular" people, the idea being that you get a cross-section of the general population, not just gamers. The whole point of the ratings are to help parents determine what content they want their kids to play, not to help the kids themselves. So they want people who could be "average parents" deciding the ratings.

Given that, these people are by and large not even going to be able to figure out how to play most games, much less get anywhere in the game if they do. And since the entire point is for them to see the worst parts of the game (ie. the Manhunt kill scenes), they're either still not going to get specific context for these scenes or they're going to spend months and maybe even years playing a game to try to get to those parts. You're still going to need a DVD, meaning those specific scenes will still be out of context... and those are the scenes that matter.

As for the second point, the fact that these are regular people who might have a higher (or more prudish) moral standard than you do would suggest to me that actually playing the game and having that visceral experience would make them more, not less, likely to rate games tougher than they do now. Let's say you're homophobic. What's the root of that homophobia? The fact that you're afraid of those tendencies within yourself. So the more you're forced into an acceptance of that which you hate, the more you hate it. It's the same with violence or sex or anything else. The closer you get to it, the harsher your reaction.

I think gamers have to understand first and foremost that ESRB ratings are by nature not for them. They are for the people who have legal guardianship over them. As for AO basically being a kiss of death for a game, that's an issue between you and the console makers, not the ESRB. All they do is rate the game. It's up to the console makers what ratings can and can't show up on their systems.

Re:What good would that do?

[ElleyKitten]

I think gamers have to understand first and foremost that ESRB ratings are by nature not for them. They are for the people who have legal guardianship over them.

Most gamers are adults, and many of us are even parents, so no, the ESRB isn't for the people who have legal guardianship over us.

Despite your insistence on treating us like children, I do agree with your main point, the ESRB is not for us. I, and many gamers, have no problem with playing a game before deciding it's ok to give to a child (mostly because I've played hundreds of games so I can just think of one I've already played - kids can deal with cheap used games, they can get new ones when they get a job), and if I can't I know where to find detailed reviews so I know much more about the game than the ESRB can tell me. The ESRB is for non-gaming parents, who need something quick to give them a basic idea because they'd be lost trying to play the game or even looking at the internet for anything about it. It can't be perfect or give the non-gamer parent the most complete view of the game, but it's better than nothing. And, now that the gamer generation has grown up and Nintendo is branching out to non-gamers, I think that we'll see less and less clueless people buying video games.

it's not how "hard" it is... doofus!

[revlayle]

It is a matter of resource availablity
Do you want to pay the costs of adding extra staff, time, & money at the ESRB to do:
- game installation
- software/hardware support (just in case games have trouble running underneath the ESRB's setup)
- and then the time to PROPERLY play through what needs to be played through to get the rating
also, the staff would have to be decent enough game players at some of these games to get through the appropriate parts to rate
plus, some of the critical content to rate is not later int he game, do not want to force developer to further pigenhole the degien to cater to the ESRB players or force the dev team to make a special demo just for the ESRB to play.

i mean, yeah, it is doable... but the extra cost would be handed down to the consumers, and games are expensive enough already. Not "hard" at all, if you want to pay for it, sheesh.... :)

hmmm

[nomadic]

You know, if they actually DID play the games before rating them...

That would be a sweet job. I'd take it.

Re:The Major Flaw

[Mr_Silver]

The major flaw is not how it's rated, but the fact that it is rated. I have no problem with independent reviewers rating games and/or movies, but I do have a problem with an arbitrary organization making ratings; it becomes legalized censorship.

This is no different than the rating on films, yet no-one seems to complain about them.

I have to admit, I don't understand why people on Slashdot are so upset that games are rated. We are no longer in the 8 bit age of pixelated graphics and some of these games are pretty gory and have disturbing themes.

Having a rating on the box, gives the parent an immediate indicator of the level of maturity required for a game when making a purchasing decision. Yes it would be best if they could play it for themselves and make the decision that way - but who is going to pay £30 per game just to check whether or not it is suitable for their kids?

I'm not a parent, but there is no way I'd like my 10 year old to watch an 18 rated film. In the same way I wouldn't let them play an 18 rated game nor would I want them to have the ability to go and buy one. On the other hand, if I'm happy for them to play it then I'll go and buy it.

I'm glad the ESRB is there

[darkmayo]

I would rather the industry was self regulated, instead of having big government come in, who has no effin clue about games and tell us what we can and cannot have.

The ESRB isn't holding back the AO games, its society, its the general consensus that video games are still just for kids and therefore we have to protect the children from bad content. This idea is changing, though slower than we might like. The boundaries are being pushed slowly allowing for more and more "adult/graphic" content. This isn't just meaning titties and extreme violence but, mature story lines and content that we identify with better instead of the usually spiky haired hero saves the day. Content that makes you think, challenges your ideals and makes the game more than just press button to shoot gun.

As we all have noticed our games and gaming habits are in the media spotlight, legislators and politicians as well as ambulance chasers and attention whores all have there two bits to say about how games are bad and this and that. Like Rock and Roll and Dungeons and Dragons, Video games are the scapegoat of the year and its up to us gamers to work with our system and to make people see that there fears and concerns are unfounded and a bunch of FUD.

We are parents, grandparents, business owners, teachers and responsible individuals, we play games, we love our games because we grew up with them. Its still a new medium and its slowly getting to be accepted and seen as more than just for kids.

For me, I'm for the ESRB

Understand what the ESRB is for.

[sesshomaru]

The ESRB does not exist to regulate games. The ESRB exists in order to protect video game companies from legislation sponsored by their critics. In theory it is therefore in the best interests of all game companies to cooperate with the ESRB. They are supposed to be on the same side.

The method used to rate games is perfect in this regard, because when video game critics attack games, they use video game footage of "objectionable" scenes taken out of context to do so.

Of course, this is why the "Hot Cofee" scandal was such a public relations nightmare, and I blame the ESRB for mishandling it. This is perhaps because the ESRB thinks that it really does exist to pass judgments on games. The goal should have been damage control, to the ESRB and to the game industry in general. Instead they caved into their worst critics and gave them new ammunition, based on some incomplete code that couldn't be reached through normal gameplay.