Slashdot Mirror
Modern Games and Technology Challenging ESRB's Effectiveness
The Entertainment Software Rating Board has been around for 15 years now, overcoming an ineffective start and a host of controversial events to become a fairly well-respected ratings agency. However, as this article at The Escapist points out, the world of video games is changing, and the ESRB does not seem to be adapting along with it.
"The most pressing problem is the ESRB's reluctance to address online interactions. Seeing as we're moving more and more toward online and internet-enabled games, this inevitably limits the ESRB's authority as a ratings board. Although the ESRB rates the submitted developer content within online games, these ratings are always qualified by an important disclaimer: 'Online Interactions Not Rated by the ESRB.' To date, this has meant that the rating given to the designed game content doesn't cover chat and other forms of player-to-player communication. That's unfortunate, because the ESRB's intimate relationship with the game industry could provide it with a unique vantage point from which to evaluate aspects of online games that are beyond the purview of other would-be raters, including the quality of the game's moderation system, programmed restrictions on chat and known player demographics."
The only good thing about Escapist Magazine is Zero Punctuation:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/916-Wolfenstein
Yeah, he's that good.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Every time someone takes their kids outside they run the risk of those kids being exposed to god knows what, I don't see how online experiences are any different.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
I for one am glad they aren't policing internet interactions in gaming, the last thing I want is game companies being forced to attempt to censor every bad word to kowtow to the ESRB for an M rating. As for all the companies that already attempt to do it, good luck with your stupid useless endeavor.
Fu(K!ng n0o85!!1
1) The South Korea's Games Rating Board is supposed to certify every game.
2) The Jesus Phone is finally about to be launched in South Korea and it will be widely popular for lots of reasons (you can trust me on this one).
But because of 1), the South Korean AppStore will not include games... Now that's not keeping up with the times.
Nobox: Only simple products.
I can't see how they would be able to rate online games.
The fact of the matter is, they can only rate the underlying content of the game, not the interactions in the game.
In a lot of games you can manipulate environment, and create scenarios which isn't covered in the rating.
For example, make a NPC standing behind a cow and moving in a certain way, making it look like he is fornicating with said cow.
There is no way they can rate against things like this. The above example may be harmless as it's only insinuating something sexual, however, it wasn't intentional in the game.
Same thing can be said of online play.
The moment you introduce human interaction, anything can (and will) happen.
Spore got entire solar systems inhabited by several "races" of penis' for crying out loud.
That's a pretty innocent rated game.
So alternatively, all online interactions should be rated "M+: Enter at own risk".
tl;dr: They can rate the underlying game, but cannot rate human interaction, and thus can't accurately rate online play, imo.
- Don't do what I do, it's probably not healthy nor safe. -
including the quality of the game's moderation system, programmed restrictions on chat and known player demographics.
As someone who works on a large website targeted towards children which has both chat and UGC with various systems around who you can communicate with, whitelists, moderation, etc. this seems very unlikely to prove useful. Our weekly lists of banned phrases show just how creative people can be with regular, every day words and their ability to use them in ways which while using no established slang still very clearly come across as harassing/derogatory/sexual, etc - and as noted, the demographics here are young children (hence I don't think there's much value in "known player demographics"). I think the only way they could truly rate a game with real-time interaction with other players is based on what types of interactions you can have (which could still be tricky).
For instance - an online game of chess with no communication system, just the ability to make moves... probably pretty safe (though I'm sure someone will find a way to get creative with a horse and a queen). Whereas a game where you can run around and have the ability to duck - well, someone's gonna get tea bagged. But it all seems of limited usefulness, because very quickly you get to the point with your interactions where all bets are off - you'll end up with a very small segment of "safe" games with everything else being "at your own risk." Parents, et al are probably better off considering any game with online play "at your own risk."
You know why they don't/can't rate online experiences? Here's an example of World of Warcraft Trade chat when in a city:
[2. Trade] Deringer: ANAL [Attack]
[2. Trade] Arrtthhaass: ANAL [Corpse Explosion]
[2. Trade] Treqir: ANAL [Injection]
[2. Trade] Arrtthhaass: lol
[2. Trade] Yosim: STFU an stay out of trade
[2. Trade] Deringer: lol u have downs
They should just design a few tier labels to classify online interaction types.
Controlled - Anonymous multiplay only. All user content must be approved. Chat limited to preset phrases.
Friends only - Unfiltered user content and open chat from Friends Only.
Unfiltered - Open online community. Supervision recommended under 17.
That would at least let parents know what's going on in the game. It's a lot more informative than a simple: "Online interactions not Rated"
Most gamers have come to consider ESRB as "the enemy", given the degree to which they disagree (which at times tends to be rather extreme).
Why, then, should gamers (and by extension, game companies) welcome their expansion into intra-game communications? They're not the bloody FCC, and ORPG companies have been doing a pretty good job of limiting what can be sent (via text) to other players. And trying to limit spoken words in a game would do no good, because they would just bypass it with Ventrilo or some such program.
Bye-bye, ESRB.
Rephrasing ESRB's notice: "The Internet can be a dangerous place". Rating online gaming experience equals them attempting to rate my ability to understand this statement. Which they can't do.
They're not lagging behind modern times, they're just flat-out telling us the truth: online interactions can't be rated.
One would laughingly dismiss the statement saying "Accessing Internet via Opera is always safe" or "Yahoo Messenger rating: TEEN". It would be careless, stupid and would take away all trust in the company making those statements. So they wisely stay away of moving sands.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
I have found that no rating or ruling agency (whether Government or Private) can replace the effects of parents who get involved with their children and actually attempt to understand what their kids are doing and who they're interacting with. I don't care what stamp or rating is put on the outside of the box, if I haven't researched whatever my children are doing, then I'd consider myself a failure as a parent, which is really what the underlying problem is here... not the fact that the ESRB doesn't rate online content / social interaction.
"If all the world's a stage, I want to operate the trap door." - Paul Beatty
Online chat may expose may be exposed to all kinds of thoughts, and many of those thoughts may be beyond a kid's limited grasp of reality. As such, any online game is dangerous as the players playing it, and a warning like that should be printed on every box sold for parents who think "I want my kid to know everything about computas".
Rated E for everyone
Then Being raped by tentacles.
This is the most thoroughly stupid article I've ever seen. Is the ESRB supposed to consult its crystal ball to determine whether or not someone will spam a link to lemonparty in an otherwise "E"-rated game?
Any responsible parent explores the games content on their own. Ratings are unreliable for any game where addons, mods, or online interaction are concerned.
I still find it disturbing that little Billy's parents would go batshit crazy if he saw a female nipple, but couldn't care less if he was playing a game where the goal was to murder police officers.
...that children are able to have real human contact in games?! Oh, the horror!!!
To the haters: You can't win. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
The article talks about rating online games based on their demographics and moderation systems, but I believe even that is pointless. Just look at Nintendo, I lost count of the number of hairy dicks people had drawn on the front of their karts in Mario Kart DS, and that game has no text or voice chat and no webcam features. No matter how many people you ban for inappropriate behaviour, there will always be someone new on the game ready to mis-behave.
The ESRB can't rate online interactions and they're right not to try to do so. The only thing they should be doing is educating parents about the risks of playing games online and recommending that parents monitor who their kids are talking to in those games.
How do they do that? Time travel? They know how good the GM staff will be and how bad the player base will be before the GMs are hired or the game is sold and has players? Awesome. Can the Escapist talk to those scientists who think the Higgs boson is holding up the LHC by traveling back in time, and tell them that they've already proven the theory?
It's like saying "Hey parents, we can't control what other people write on Slashdot, but they have a really decent moderation system." If (for those poor at comprehension, we call this a hypothetical statement) Slashdot offered parental controls to set the minimum threshold on your kids' accounts, they could conclude "While there is some nasty stuff when browsing at -1 which we have no control over, fortunately Slashdot offers you the ability to restrict your kids viewing to a much higher threshold and mitigate the risk of them reading material inappropriate for their age."
Slashdot's policy would still be found deficient, as posts containing the word "fucking" still get moderated to (Score:+5, Funny) or (Score:+5, Insightful).
Every online game with voice chat is rated M for mature. Every online xbox360 game with voice chat is rated RPWK for racist pre-pubescent white kids.
The ESRB doesn't want to be forced into rating everything 17+ because some kid said fuck a few times. By not rating online interactions, they actually maintain some integrity to their ratings, whether people agree or disagree with them.
As for parents wanting to know the 'online climate' of a game, that's bullshit. If you buy your kid an online FPS, you can expect there's going to be at least one guy who wants to cuss his head off at everyone. If you don't want your kids to experience that, then don't buy the game, or take it from them if they buy it. (Not like the kid isn't going to be exposed to profanity anyways, but this would be a parent obstinate about controlling their home environment).
"Our goal each year should be to increase the number of goals we set for ourselves!"
You cannot rate what other people will do. yes you can out in a bad word filter, but they will get around it. you are interacting with people the ESRB cannot be responsible for what they say/do, therefore they do not put a rating on it.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Come on, one of the most notoriously funny quotes on bash.org is about someone caught cybering on a Scrabble website.
NSFW
SCRABBLE: Rated AO for sexual content! And that's not even counting a triple word score for "epididymis".
That's unfortunate, because the ESRB's intimate relationship with the game industry could provide it with a unique vantage point from which to evaluate aspects of online games that are beyond the purview of other would-be raters
What? Essentially you're going to do...WHAT? Be a complete asshat in a game you're evaluating, testing the censor list, being rude to people, trying to get around the censor list using 'leetspeak, try to break the game, and generally engage in any and every behavior that could possibly get you kicked offline.
DURING THE GAME'S EVALUATION PERIOD ...when it's tightly controlled as to what is in the game and who makes up the population?
Seriously. How can these people claim to actually be thinking? Their heads are shoved someplace dark and poopy-smelling on this.
This is like people who claim they can idiot-proof something their developing. Too late! One is already in charge of the project!
You simply CANNOT, EVER, make reasonable assumptions about how the entirety of a player-base is going to utilize a product.
If someone claims they can, check their hands for the telltale of a manure shovel.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
The game has an excellent moderation system. It filters "Shit" "fuck" Pussy" and "Cum." But people are smart and still manage to slip in "I wanna l*ikc yur pu$$y" to a 12 year old. In front of her mom. And kids can read that shit too. Hell kids can read "wanna suck my djck" as "wanna suck my dick" I'm sure... does your filter block that? What about voice chat when i star talking dirty over the thing to cyb0rz... teenager-to-teenager voice sex is probably pretty popular on XBL, I know I had a friend that always talked about textsexing on WoW or FF11 or whatever the hell he was playing.
Any interaction with physical real people cannot be rated.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
So they want games to end like this?
Every multiplayer game would be rated Adult Only just because of chat and VOIP. The number of mothers being violated in these games is ridiculous and somebody needs to put a stop to it.
You want to know how to rate multiplayer interactions? It's simple. You just systematically stereotype everyone who plays a game genre and then write that down for the rating. You could even be more specific, and craft game-specific stereotypes. For instance, "Halo 3 is rated 'M' for gore and violence. Online interactions are rated 'A' because when playing on XBox Live you have a high probability of coming into contact with an asshat."
Good luck.
Any rating system is meaning less if people who makes the purchase don't respect them.
I'm not seeing very many productive comments. Yeah, we get that the Internet is the Wild Wild West. Now what can be done to ensure that parents know what they're getting their kids into? You can't use the TEEN / MATURE / etc. labels for player-to-player communication, because that can vary so much. So why doesn't the ESRB include labels for the method of P2P communication? That way parents at least know what degrees of separation exist between their child and the greater population.
Voice Chat (Unmoderated) - Players cannot turn off voice chat, or voice chat can be turned on even when a parental lock is in place.
Voice Chat (Parental Lock) - Players cannot hear or transmit voice if the parental lock is turned on.
Text Chat (Heavily Moderated) - A dedicated moderator exists in every chat location to ban people who don't comply with the rules.
Text Chat (Profanity Filter) - No moderators exist, but the game includes a profanity filter for unregulated communication.
Text Chat (Unmoderated) - Anything goes.
Home Page - Players can create a home page where strangers can read information about the player or leave messages.
Friends List - Players can pick friends in the game and see when their friends are online or what their friends are playing.
No Communication - Players can play together, but cannot exchange any information (except maybe a name and dev-written text strings, like "Your turn!").
These categories could be mixed and matched, and of course there could be more than just these categories. Obviously they should be written simply so that one or two sentences can convey what each category means to a parent unfamiliar with online gaming.
Regardless, the ESRB needs to evolve or it will cease to matter.
I think people aren't thinking about why the ESRB doesn't rate interactions. It simply is that the game companies do not want this sort of rating. And they don't want this because it will increase their costs. Putting in a moderation system may be easy, but lets say the ESRB goes to town with it. And if they uncover things it should filter, but doesn't. So fixing it to get the desired rating will cost. And in the ESRB's defense its probable that they could not stop bad interactions even with the best moderation system. So either its no chat, etc or an AO rating. Also, you could make a case that if they "allow" people to use vent or teamspeak to communicate, they need to moderate that. After all the player's only using vent or teamspeak because he/she is playing the game. So then to avoid the old AO rating they need to make sure no external communication device is running.
When you go online the Playstation Network (PSN) you can create a text chatroom and invite your friends. If during a game with them you get disconnected you might try to say "I just got disconnected" to explain your absence. This will appear as, "I just got dis***nected." Why? Because "con" is a curse word in french. The only thing the PSN has done here is teach me foreign profanity.
42-hour Starcraft marathons while your PC is broken? There's an app for that!
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
That site's easily as addictive as Wikipedia...or UrbanDictionary...or /. (walks away in shamed hypocrisy)
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.