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."

Comments

You know why?

[pHus10n]

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

Re:You know why?

[Idiomatick]

You are confusing ANAL with IANAL. Which is also not to be confused with iANAL, Apples latest sex toy, they said it appealed to their demographic.

Disclaimer: My apology to the queer community, I meant no insult linking you to Apple products. It was only in jest.

Disclaimer: No really, I do think Apple would release a sex toy if they could make one shiny enough that gangstas would wear it as bling.

Re:I don't see why this is a problem

[Inda]

Looking at this from the side on console games. TAKE THE FRAGGIN' MICROPHONES OFF YOUR KIDS!

90% of the time I get abuse it is from the high-pitched young. I don't even know how to respond to some of the things they say. I cannot be witty, agression doesn't work and swearing is pointless because they know more than I do, even if I'm more streetwise than the average 30-something.

What is the teabagging thing too? I'm a man, they're young boys. What the hell are they doing to me after a frag? They're the quick ones to shout fag and gay. The mind boggles.

The other 10% are drunk adults or meth-heads and I enjoy the banter with them. This should be promoted.

Scrabble... for adults only.

[argent]

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".

Re:What a pointless article

[bluefoxlucid]

Sweet, I'm gonna get Mario Kart DS just so I can draw hairy dicks!

Re:When "fuck" gets score 5

[EvilIdler]

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).

I'm fucking relieved the system works like that - my excellent karma is mostly built on posting variations of the word "fuck".