Lately I have seen too many games being rated too strictly. Most are the M games that are more borderline T. I have even seen a rated E10+ game be rated that solely because it says the most minor swear ever. Does anyone else have any examples of the ESRB being too strict?
I'd like an example of that E10+ mishap, and sometimes I do feel as if the ESRB messes up a bit on harsh ratings. Then again, the ESRB shouldn't be a tour de force that dictates who can play what game, that's up to the parents. It's there as a guide to help tell buyers what they're getting into, so no kid winds up with some Japanese Sex Game for Christmas when all he wanted was that cool Sesame Street KINECT game.
It's the responsibility of the parents to determine if a game is worth their child's time, and if you're in control of purchasing your own games, then why both about ratings? The only rating the US has to worry about is AO, and the most recent occurence of that was with GTA: San Andreas, with a sodding MOD!
Parents can't let the ESRB tell them what games to buy or not buy for their kids, I mean, if a kid understands that a sci-fi epic like Halo is fiction, that those are just funny monsters their shooting, and the environment has minimal swears (Reach had no Johnson, therefore no ever-present Covenant *******s) then why should a parent feel as if they should limit their preteen to such a wonderful story and overall experience that they can share with their kids, since a game like Halo has fantastic cooperative play support.
I feel like I've been repeat myself, but whatever. Parents should use the ESRB as a starting point when determining the content of the game, then crosschecking it with what they're comfortable allowing their child to be exposed to and what their child can handle in terms of distinguishing what's real from not real.
This was extremely frustrating for me and my friends when we were allowed to go to our one friend's financially well-off dad's house but weren't permitted to bring any of our M-rated games, not because of the present 9 and 7 year old, but because we were 15 and to him, the ESRB was law. Luckily, a year passed and our friend made his dad see that the ESRB was more of a suggestion than a law.
So is the ESRB necessary? Yes, it's a fantastic way of letting consumers know what they're getting into. Is it sometimes a bit strict with its ratings? Not too sure, I play a lot of games, so ratings never really pass into my notice when looking at box art. Maybe you have some examples where the ESRB was a bit too M-happy.
I understand how some games should be M rated (Saints Row, GTA) but I have parents who think that the ESRB is saying whether the game is good or bad. While I do understand how the rating system is necessary, the raters don't even play the games.
"ESRB raters do not actually play the games during the rating process" (http://www.esrb.org/ratings/faq.jsp#17). I learned this yesterday and was shocked. The raters only see the most severe parts of a game and rate it from there. One minor infraction (blood and gore, intense violence, sexual content, and/or strong language) can cause an otherwise T game an M one. Mind you 'blood and gore' is in a different category than regular blood.
The ESRB I think is used in marketing the product. If a game is rated T, do you think more people would want to buy it (especially people younger than 17) if it were rated M? Whens the last time you have seen an overly successful T game? I know there are some but there are quite more successful M games.
For example, Assassin's Creed Revelations is rated M for... BLOOD LANGUAGE MILD SEXUAL THEMES VIOLENCE So lets go back to what causes a game to get the M rating. The game only has a minor infraction in the blood (which can be turned off). Everything else is not severe enough for the M rating.
"ESRB raters do not actually play the games during the rating process"
Their arguments make plenty of sense though. It would be completely unrealistic to ask the developer to allow you to play through (not even beta test to help them fix it, just a play through) the final version of the game before they start advertising and shipping it off.
For example, Assassin's Creed Revelations is rated M for... BLOOD LANGUAGE MILD SEXUAL THEMES VIOLENCE
Let's see what you can do in that game Go around murdering civilians Stab people in the face Kill people in plenty more violent ways, such as stabbing them in the stomach and leaving it there for a few seconds.
Besides for that, they are cursing in the background very often, hence the reason for language.
Anyways, ESRB is always better safe than sorry. If parents start getting annoyed because they believe that a game should have gotten a more strict rating than it did, they're going to stop relying on ESRB.
Well, the ESRB rating is only a recommendation. Like Chillz said, it tells you what you're going to be playing. However, there are a lot of games that should be T rather than M in my opinion. I never got how the Halo games are M. It seems they rate any first person shooter M. We've all seen blood, haven't we? Also I don't think swearing should make a game Mature.
Also I don't think swearing should make a game Mature.
Jak II has some of the most swearing in a game I've ever heard, but it's all words like "crap" or "****", minor little curses, no F-bombs or "bastrds" *shortened so asterisks don't mess up the point I'm trying to get across*, and is rated T for teen, despite much of the gameplay focusing on shooting.
It's all about if someone's shooting an ugly monster or another human being, and if the aesthetics of a game are trying to pull of a realistic approach or a stylized view of things. It's what separates "Violence" from "Cartoon Violence", and, as master565 mentioned, it is better for the ESRB to be safe, and us Gamers simply dub them as a shade too conservative than for some unprepared kid to get messed up playing Halo when he can't handle the difference between what's real and what's not real, then takes the wrong lessons from the game into the real world and really does something harmful.
I think ESRB rating is worthless anyway because most people ignore it. Mainly because stupid little kids play M rated games, because they think they'll be 'cool' that way.
I think ESRB rating is worthless anyway because most people ignore it. Mainly because stupid little kids play M rated games, because they think they'll be 'cool' that way.
Yeah, I hate that. I'm under the limit, and my parents let me play M-rated because they know that I know that it's just a game. Unlike some people... Jack Thompson
I remember playing this one Tony Hawk game a long time ago (2002 maybe?) and what happened is I think that the people at ESRB didn't play it all the way through... It was rated T for Mild Lyrics, Comic Mischief, and Mild Blood I'm thinking and so as you went further and further through the game, more and more adult themes were dropped in the game. There are certain levels where the main characters dropped the "F-bomb", "****", and "*******", and there were also some bonus videos. One of them had people who were drunk in them and another had one of the female crew lifting her shirt up in front of a camera. There was also one mission where you try to kill animals... wtf? None of these things were warned about at all by ESRB, so no, I don't think that ESRB is too strict. I think they're lazy. :P Another example was Spiderman for the N64 () which was rated E but had a comic book cover which you could find which had an frontal view of a topless woman (might have been Mary Jane). I don't have any examples of current games so I might just have a little grudge. It seems these days, that either a game is meant to be played mainly by children (Banjo Kazooie, Viva Pinata, anything available on the Wii...) or to be played by the older gamers.
