US Senators Take On The ESRB Over Manhunt 2

eldavojohn writes "Some US Senate members sent a letter to the ESRB asking for 'your consideration of whether it is time to review the robustness, reliability and repeatability of your ratings process, particularly for this genre of 'ultraviolent' video games and the advances in game controllers,' the senators wrote. 'We have consistently urged parents to pay attention to the ESRB rating system. We must ensure that parents can rely on the consistency and accuracy of those ratings.' The group of lawmakers were concerned that Manhunt 2 was only given an 'M' rating and instead feel that it should have the 'AO' rating — a rating that only 23 other games have been given and a rating that would cause Sony & Nintendo to restrict it from being released on their consoles."

Comments

laws and videogames are a success story

[circletimessquare]

i know people like to whine about government screwing up, but when it comes to videogames, despite all the efforts of jack thompson, there are no stupid moralistic limits on the law books. the subject matter is actually a success story. some of you need to lose your permanent grumpiness on the us government, and celebrate a small record of victory:

Most Laws Attempting Limits of Violent Videogames Fail

i'm not saying stop being vigilant. i'm saying, stop being grumpy. this is a ray of light here

What they really mean is...

[freedom_india]

... campaign contributions from Nintendo, Sony, etc.
considering that another election is due in a year, they are probably wondering why gaming companies are NOT paying any protection money.

Senators REALLY concerned about their citizens are almost as rare as Bush acknowledging that he was treating the constitution as toilet paper and resign.

Suddenly you would see a spike in their campaign contributions from these gaming companies...
Once done, this matter would be referred to a procedural committee just like cheney's impeachment.

Mod me down if you want, but you will see a spike in their contributions same time next year.

Re:That's the bit that gets me, the console makers

[ChefInnocent]

The senators enjoy wasting their time on this because it is a "feel good" "look at the monkey" tactic. It doesn't make sense for a 7' tall Wookie to be on a planet with a bunch of 3' tall Ewoks, but there he is, and it doesn't make sense. So our senators must discuss game ratings instead of good solutions to difficult questions.

Re:That's the bit that gets me, the console makers

[BobMcD]

Why should Sony and Nintendo stop it being released on their consoles? More to the point, what on earth does it being carried or not carried have to do with what the game is rated? Either it meets the standard for 'M', without exceeding it and going beyond into 'AO', or it does not.

The standard needs to be neutral and immune to market pressure, or it isn't much use to anyone.

This reeks of someone at the ESRB being bought to me. The games content certainly feels like adult material. I wouldn't like to think of my kid-brother, at 16, playing it. He's nowhere near mature enough. The 'AO' standard really is a better fit for this particular title, unless they have made some changes that I'm not aware of...

As far as I can see, the ONLY reason that it got released as an 'M' title is that the market for 'M' far exceeds that of 'AO'. The content didn't have much of anything to do with the determination.

In that light, those Senators are correct in expressing concern.

Re:Did they actually play it?

[tepples]

Don't like ESRB's rating criteria? Start your own game rating system. The console cartel (consisting primarily of Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo) has given the monopoly to ESRB. The commercially significant platforms that allow non-ESRB games are Windows, Windows Mobile, Mac OS X, SWF, Java, Java ME, and JavaScript.

Too lazy to do that No, it's the estimated 90 percent of PC gamers who are too lazy to connect their PCs to their TVs to play arcade-style or console-style PC games as they were intended. How do video game developers fix that?

Re:That's the whole reason why there is a problem

[nasor]

I mean have a look at unrated movies. American Pie received an R rating in the theatrical version. However the theatrical version was not the cut the director originally wanted. So that was released later, but just not submitted for rating. Ok please, let's not be morons here, it's rating would be NC-17. The only reason they go back and make cuts like that is if they couldn't get the rating they wanted with the original. In the case of an R movie, that mean an NC-17 was what was going to be hung on the original cut. That might have been the case with "American Pie" specifically, but increasingly movies are being released as "special unrated versions" that don't actually contain any particularly shocking or objectionable material - they just stick in a few extra minutes of innocuous stuff that was edited out of the original (usually for time purposes) and try to pass it off as "the unrated version that the censors didn't want you to see!" or similar nonsense. Of course, by the time you realize that there's nothing substantially different about the unrated version you have already purchased/rented it.

We must decide for you

[darjen]

'We have consistently urged parents to pay attention to the ESRB rating system. We must ensure that parents can rely on the consistency and accuracy of those ratings.'

Translation: "We think parents are too stupid and ignorant to be able to decide these things by themselves, so we will dictate which morals you must follow in raising your children. Aren't you fools so lucky that you have us competent government officials to watch over your kids for you?"

Re:Did they actually play it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well considering they haven't passed any legislation of merit this term, I'd say it's more "business as usual" than "a win for everybody". Though it might keep them out of the affairs of Turkey 90 years ago... Oh wait that's the House. These are Senators. They haven't accomplished a single thing. They're too busy sort of taking a Thanksgiving recess but not really and maintaining their record-breaking (dis)approval ratings.

Someone had to post it...

[Gaerek]

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/11/02

I think that sums up the whole thing rather well.

Having said that, the government needs to keep it's noses out of how parents raise their kids. Would I let a 5 year old play Manhunt 2? Hell no. But it isn't up to the government to make that decision for me.

Re:Did they actually play it?

[Xichekolas]

Funny how this instantly devolved into name-calling along party lines.

I agree with you and whoever started this thread... it would be awesome if our senators could focus on public policy and not parenting.

Sadly, the right is slaved to a series of moral crusades by it's religious base, and the left is slaved to a series of Orwellian crusades against Fair Use by it's Hollywood backers. Neither side is good for you if you just want to play video games and listen to your music on any device you want.

But the lines aren't really that clear cut. Witness Hillary's historically anti-video-game stance and Tipper Gore's moral crusades against violent lyrics. But it's a formula in politics... create a controversy out of something that isn't, act really flustered and appalled, hold a bunch of hearings, enact some 900 page law that solves nothing (but handily doles out billions for new bridges/dams/roads/pet project of the month), then wait until everyone forgets and dredge it up again.