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Games Entertainment

How the ESRB Rates Games 304

Posted by timothy from the they-know-it-when-they-see-it dept.
Ant writes "Joystiq mentioned a short Slate story on how the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) reviews and rates games. (Seen on Blue's News.)"
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How the ESRB Rates Games More

How the ESRB Rates Games

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  • How the ESRB Rates Games (Score:5, Funny)

    by Fr05t ( 69968 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @03:12PM (#13096709)
    Not based on content added/unlocked by modders of course!

    • Re:How the ESRB Rates Games (Score:5, Insightful)

      by krgallagher ( 743575 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @03:20PM (#13096795) Homepage
      " Not based on content added/unlocked by modders of course!"

      You know I do not understand how a game in which you intentionally break the law and murder people is rated "M", but as soon as you add siulated sex between consenting adults it is rated "A". Not to mention that from the clips I've seen it is poory simulated sex at that.

  • short guide (Score:5, Funny)

    by aendeuryu ( 844048 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @03:15PM (#13096749)
    No violence, swearing: For all
    Violence, no blood, no swearing: 12
    Violence with blood & swearing: 15
    Extreme violence with blood & swearing: 18
    Boobies: OH MY GOD 25 AT LEAST WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN??????

    • Re:short guide (Score:5, Funny)

      by FidelCatsro ( 861135 ) <fidelcatsro&gmail,com> on Monday July 18, 2005 @03:20PM (#13096787) Journal
      You forgot one
      Cut out sex scene (available through large hack) : WARNING may bring about the rapture

    • Re:short guide (Score:5, Funny)

      by TobyWong ( 168498 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @03:21PM (#13096798)
      Can you imagine what kind of society we would live in if people were exposed to naked breasts at a very young age?!?

    • Re:short guide (Score:5, Insightful)

      by tomstdenis ( 446163 ) <tomstdenis@gma[ ]com ['il.' in gap]> on Monday July 18, 2005 @03:23PM (#13096837) Homepage

      No violence, swearing: For all
      Violence, no blood, no swearing: 12
      Violence with blood & swearing: 15
      Drive a car and possibly kill people: 16
      Piss away your life in the military: 17 (with parents permission)
      Extreme violence with blood & swearing: 18
       Age you can drink at: 21
      Boobies: OH MY GOD 25 AT LEAST WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN??????

      Am I the only one who thinks it's odd we let them drive at 16 but they're not mature enough to see breasts yet?
      • All these threads forget:
        18 - rent a moving van, possibly the hardest and most worthless POS vehicle to drive on the road
        and
        23 - Rent a vehicle from Hertz

      • Re:short guide (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Adults Only, the rating which GTA:SA would get if those sex scenes were let in, is only set at 18. The only problem is that if the game were to get an AO rating, Sony most likely wouldn't allow it to be pressed onto PS2 discs, although it is possible they would allow it for a high profile game such as GTA:SA. It just opens up the floodgates for pornographic content, something they have been trying to avoid.

        Also, not all countries have 21 as the drinking age, that seems to be something silly that the US h

      • Re:short guide (Score:3, Interesting)

        by VoidWraith ( 797276 )
        Personally, I think children should be mature enough to see breasts when they're less than a month old. Its often their primary source of nutrition, after all. If they were mature enough to handle it then, why aren't they mature enough to handle it as a teenager? And honestly, everyone has breasts. Some are larger than others...

      • Re:short guide (Score:3, Interesting)

        by B5_geek ( 638928 )
        Am I the only one who thinks it's odd we let them drive at 16 but they're not mature enough to see breasts yet?

        hehe that's nothing. In Canada, Age of Consent is 16.

        To go watch an "R"estricted film, you must be 18+ years of age.

        Therefore, if you are 16 years old, you can legally have sex, just not watch it. If you were tape yourself having sex, you could goto jail and be labeled a sex-offender.

    • The solution is simple: ammend the US Constitution. Or just have them modify there part about "the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." and have it changed to, "the right of the people to see and bare breasts, shall not be infringed."
    • What I find idiotic is that over the age of about 7, all kids are exposed to virtually every single offensive word under the sun, and probably have a wider range than the adults, possibly excepting the supposedly big bad c-word. Once kids have been slapped around once or twice for using such words in polite company, they begin to know when it is and isn't appropriate.

    • Re:short guide (Score:2, Informative)

      by squidsoup ( 145936 )
      In New Zealand our classification system for film and television tends to work the other way. Generally our censors thinks it's better to expose young adults to sex and nudity, rather than violence. As far as I'm aware, the Australian classification system is similar to the American one, and favours violence.

  • a witches stew. (Score:5, Funny)

    by infonography ( 566403 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @03:16PM (#13096754) Homepage
    A dark Cave. In the middle, a Caldron Boiling.

    [Thunder. Enter the three Witches.]

    FIRST WITCH.
    Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd.

    SECOND WITCH.
    Thrice; and once the hedge-pig whin'd.

    THIRD WITCH.
    Harpier cries:--"tis time, 'tis time.

    FIRST WITCH.
    Round about the caldron go;
    In the poison'd entrails throw.--
    Toad, that under cold stone,
    Days and nights has thirty-one
    Swelter'd venom sleeping got,
    Boil thou first i' the charmed pot!

    ALL.
    Double, double, toil and trouble;
    Fire, burn; and caldron, bubble.

    And we all agree, rate this one E for Everybody!
  • This truly shows how the world has changed... but in a strange way. I'm sure everyone knows National Lampoons 'Vacation.' The movie was rated PG if I remember correctly. today, we are in a more liberal world with "sex, drugs and rock and roll" being more excepted... yet some video game ratings are getting people upset.
    • It has to do with the average age of politicans from 40 to 60. The majority in this demographics fear high tech, don't want nothing to do with it, don't understand it. Their view of video game is skewed.

    • That movie was rated PG because at the time PG-13 did not exist. It was either PG or R.
    • I'm surprised that was PG. Then again, Star Trek: The Motion Picture was rated G. I often quote my favorite scene from Vacation. It's not exactly today's PG material:

      Rusty (Tony Hall): Wally World's overrated anyways. What do you think Dad?

      Clark (Chevy): I think you're all f#$#@ in the head. We're three hours from the f#$#$ing funpark and you guys want to bail out. This is no longer a vacation. It's a quest. It's a quest for fun. I'm going to have fun and you're going to have fun. We're all goin

    • Re:So sensitive about censorship. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by amliebsch ( 724858 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @04:17PM (#13097454) Journal
      we are in a more liberal world with "sex, drugs and rock and roll" being more excepted

      Assuming you meant "accepted"...I don't think so. I recall reading a good number of social science surveys that have shown that while our culture have grown more liberal as to individual freedom, it has grown more conservative as far as moral values, possibly a backlash from the 60's and 70's era of hedonism. So culturally we are more likely to allow you to do things of which we are more likely to morally disapprove.

      Weird, huh?

  • The Busty Need Not Apply (Score:3, Funny)

    by blueZhift ( 652272 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @03:18PM (#13096772) Homepage Journal
    From the article

    But by speaking with the raters in person, a company's representatives might learn, for example, that a particular character is probably a bit too busty for an "E."

    Heck, a lot of the people on the street are a bit too busty for an E, so I guess we won't be seeing models like them in video games eh? This censorship must stop! We must stand up for the rights of well endowed computer generated game characters! Next they'll be picking on the over or underweight. Where will it end?

    Okay, okay, it's a slow day...

  • Too Busty receiving a higher rating? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Zoidbergo ( 751725 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @03:19PM (#13096778) Homepage
    Since when are bigger breasts considered to be offensive? Kids aren't supposed to know that some women have larger breasts than others? Are we really corrupting a kid's mind when he sees a sexy woman (not naked, not scantily clothed, just busty) in a game?
    • Anyone know what the various Barbie video games have been rated?
    • There is a scene in The Aviator when Howard Hughes is trying to defend his movie, The Outlaw, to the Film Review Board because of the prominence of Jane Russel's cleavage in the film. Well, he brings a scientist with him with some sort of measuring device, and he has pictures of other cleavage from other films up on the wall. The scientist goes to each one and measures saying things like, "Well, as you can see, in this image we see an entire inch more of cleavage than is seen in The Outlaw." and so on.

      I

    • I agree completely with Brandybuck. Too many of these sexy females in games are anatomically impossible. Then there's the fact that these female characters are made the way they are because the designer's know that sex sells.

      Take half of the female characters in games that actually wear 'armor' and look at how functional it is. It's usually completely unrealistic, even in comparisson to the game. I think these games get the ratings they do because distributors know that those too young to buy the game will
      • Then there's the fact that these female characters are made the way they are because the designer's know that sex sells.

        I don't see how this is a problem. Sex has sold since the stone age - primarily because normal, rational people actually LIKE sex. Especially sex with beautiful people, or at least the thought of it.

        Take half of the female characters in games that actually wear 'armor' and look at how functional it is.

        Do I give a shit how "functional" it is? No, I don't. I play female characters
        • Trust me, I have no problem with sex at all, and I personally think that most(not all) Americans are either way too uptight about sex or just careless and stupid about it. I don't mind eye candy in a video game either, but I'm not sure you got the point I'm making. Where as most everyone says it's wrong to rate a game based upon a woman's proportions, I think the raters do have a point when a female character is made only for her sex appeal to be used as a marketing scheme and major selling point of the ga
        • Easy: do I want to look at some muscle-bound idiot in full plate for the entire game, or a hot babe in a chainmail bikini?

          Being a point. I've got another one: I don't look like a muscle-bound idiot, and I don't want to play one. Just the full plate [ceridisches-faehnlein.de] please.

  • How dutch rate games (and TV) (Score:5, Informative)

    by jurt1235 ( 834677 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @03:22PM (#13096808) Homepage
    5 moderation levels saying which age is appropriate.
    1. Is there sex (S) in it? If yes, 18+
    2. Is there excisive violance (V) and S in it, well, 18+, V only no S 12+
    3. Is there S,V and bad language (L) in it, 18+, L only is 6+
    4. Is it all in another language than dutch (so subtitle bad language only): All ages.
    5. Is it done by a famous actor/singer/director, then it must be art, so 12+ whatever happens (for example Spielbergs movie "Schindlers list", rated 12+)

    In other words: How fine is the line which is being drawn?
    What not mentioned factors in the article will take care that something can be broadcasted at prime time anyway?

    • Re:How dutch rate games (and TV) (Score:5, Insightful)

      by suzerain ( 245705 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @04:09PM (#13097359)

      What I think is interesting about your posting is that apparently, in the Netherlands, sex is also the highest trigger for a high rating. And, as another poster pointed out in a different section of the thread, you can see it in for example Samurai movies (lots of violence no sex), Indian action flicks, and so on.

      So, it's clearly not just in America that sex is the 'most adult' thing that ensures your adult rating. Granted, Americans are particularly idiotic about sex, but it seems like a worldwide phenomenon.

      So, I ask you....why? Why is blowing a cop's head off not worse than a woman...err...blowing your head off? Personally, some fucking in a video game isn't going to bother me much, and I think kids ought to go through sex education BEFORE they go through puberty, so they're aware of what they're in for...

      Perhaps it's just because sex is our strongest biological urge, and if we don't keep a lid on it somehow, we'll never get anything done?

      • sex is also the highest trigger for a high rating.

        (Not from the netherlands, but switzerland:)

        Ahem. "Sex" like "explicit visible sexual intercourse" -- get the point? Two people kissing under a sheet and doing something you can't see isn't trigger for a rating, neither are wholly naked people or somesuch.

        Even more, explicit sex might still get a 12+ if its not the movies main point. "The name of the rose" is an example of this.

      • Why sex is more evil than violence (Score:4, Insightful)

        by PriceIke ( 751512 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @05:40PM (#13098186)

        Ok I'll take a crack at this one.

        First and foremost: this is purely an issue governed by religion, I think we can all agree about that. Religion has driven the whole "sex is evil" mindset for centuries upon centuries.

        Next, and this is crucial: religion is about power. Control of the people. Note that sex within marriage (read as: within the confines of a relationship sactioned by aforementioned religion, and I'm not just picking on Christianity here) is not sinful so long as the purpose of sex is procreation (the expansion of the religion's population). Only sex outside of marriage is evil, because this results in babies who might grow up free, outside the indoctrination rituals and practices of the religion.

        Violence is only sinful if it is, again, without the sanction of the religion. If you are committing acts of violence in the name of the church (or whatever god the church is about), you're lionzed.

        Thus we have today's typical religious culture: don't have sex unless you're approved to do so by your church.

        • This argument ignores the social taboo element. Throughout history a single parent has had less capability to support and raise a child than a couple.

          As a result children born 'out of wedlock' are much more likely to end up living off the resources of the community as a whole.

          I can easily envision a strong social pressure against pregnancy without some form of social attachement because of this. Sex makes babies, and contarceptives have only just recently become an effective tactic, so that means pressure
      • In Australia we have two mildly liberal stations ABC and SBS that will show sex scenes uncut and not blank out swearing. I personally have no problem with this except that it is often the case that boobs get a S rating for sex scenes and full frontal nudity gets the N rating, now when I see a N rating eagerly await the program and sit down for some naked chick action, however because the N rating is not gender specific every now and then I'll watch a sausage fest of a movie with dicks flying everywhere (thi

  • Mature vs. Adult Only (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mcmediaman ( 900722 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @03:23PM (#13096825)
    You can buy games with an M rating at 17. You can buy games with an Adult Only rating at 18. Evidently, that one year that spans the junior and senior years of high school makes all the difference in the world...
    • I think AO only exists to give the ESRB a place to put all the stuff that the moral conservative idiots consider "wrong".
      So, Violence, Blood, Guts, Gore etc = M
      Sex, Nudity, Porn = AO
      Profanity = ? (not sure what the US standards on it are)

  • It's not random? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Umbral Blot ( 737704 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @03:23PM (#13096831) Homepage
    I had always assumed it was in some kind of formula based on kick-backs and relation of the producers to the members of the board.

  • Up tight Americans (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Neil Watson ( 60859 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @03:28PM (#13096885) Homepage
    I'm not saying that all Americans are uptight. However there is a certain skewed view of sexuality versus violence in America. GTA SA gets a M rating for shooting police officers but some think it should be rated OA because of sex? How can sex be more offensive than violence?

    • Re:Up tight Americans (Score:5, Funny)

      by Xaroth ( 67516 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @03:34PM (#13096946) Homepage
      How can sex be more offensive than violence?

      Have you seen the average American?

      *shudder*

    • Re:Up tight Americans (Score:2, Interesting)

      by jgbishop ( 861610 )

      I'll allow the following snippet from The Simpsons to answer this question...

      Marge answers the door early in the morning. It's Maude and Helen, recruiting Marge to protest with them against David.

      Helen: You've got to lead our protest against this abomination! [shows newspaper article]

      Marge: Mm, but that's Michelangelo's David. It's a masterpiece.

      Helen: [gasp] It's filth! It graphically portrays parts of the human body, which, practical as they may be, are evil.

      Marge: But I like that statu

    • Re:Up tight Americans (Score:4, Funny)

      by Compholio ( 770966 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @03:36PM (#13096966)
      How can sex be more offensive than violence?

      Because the Conservative and Unreasonable NuTS have taken over our country and they won't give it back.
      • That's the only group that actively tries to censor mentions of its own name.

      • Re:Up tight Americans (Score:5, Informative)

        by stlhawkeye ( 868951 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @03:56PM (#13097206) Homepage Journal
        Because the Conservative and Unreasonable NuTS have taken over our country and they won't give it back.

        Like Hillary Clinton? Tipper Gore?

        • Typical. You mention factual statements and you get nailed as flamebait because it goes against the liberal /. groupthink. You should know better than to insult two prominent libs here.

          For those mods who clearly don't have a f*cking clue, Hillary (clearly not a conservative) is actively pursuing the current GTA3 situation and Tipper was one of the main activists who was responsible for the Senate hearings regarding language/violence/drugs in music several years back. I also need to remind the mods that the initial politician who raised a stink in order to impress his constituents is a democrat from California. So - karma be damned - will the GP and the idiot mod who nailed the parent with -1 Flamebait kindly get your heads out of your asses and tell me once again where conservatives are causing the problem with the GTA3 issue?

          Whereas the republican side of the isle is known for their own bits of censorship, particularly where issues of morality come into play, the current GTA3 rigamarole has not been started and is not currently a molehill being made into a mountain by republicans or conservatives.

          Now, if that moron John Ashcroft was still in office, then you liberal, knee-jerk reactionaries might have cause to bitch about conservatives. Ashcroft would have been on top of the sex issue like ... well, perhaps "on top of", "sex", and "Ashcroft" is not the best one-sentence combination to use, considering that he couldn't deal with a nude breast on a freakin' statue.
          • For those mods who clearly don't have a f*cking clue, Hillary (clearly not a conservative) is actively pursuing the current GTA3 situation and Tipper was one of the main activists who was responsible for the Senate hearings regarding language/violence/drugs in music several years back.

            And don't forget Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) [gamespot.com] who's railing against the upcoming game "25 to Life".

            As far as I can tell, though, the problem comes when politicians from either side of the aisle try to pander to conservative
            • liberal libertarian Democrat (wrap your brain around that one!)

              Oh, damn it! That hurt like hell! Don't ever use that phrase again! :)

              This morality crusade does not represent what I, or most other liberals, believe in.

              It's not even the whole morality thing, because even I as a conservative do not necessarily believe that my morals are superior to others'. They're mine; they're good for me. To try to push them on others makes me no better than the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses who trespass^H^H^
        • Because the Conservative and Unreasonable NuTS have taken over our country and they won't give it back.

          Like Hillary Clinton? Tipper Gore?

          I said conservative, not democrat.

          conservative != republican
          liberal != democrat

          Even so, the democratic party has been trying to pander to the republican and conservative interests as of late. I'm ashamed to say that Dean was right when he was on the Daily Show saying that the party doesn't have the balls to stand up for itself.

    • Re:Up tight Americans (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Kainaw ( 676073 )
      How can sex be more offensive than violence?

      Take a short course on the history of western religion:

      Priest1: Hey Priest2, where's all the loot we're supposed get just for telling all these fools we know who God is?

      Priest2: All the fools are across the street at the Priestesses church.

      Priest1: Why would a common man want to go to a church with beautiful young women who offer to bring them to a state of bliss for a small tithe?

      Priest2: You don't get out much, do you?

      Priest1: I've got it - Women are evil
    • This is America. Violence is good and wholesome because it is the desire of the religious fanatics that people grow up insensitive to human suffering. Sex is evil and shameful and corrupts our youth and may cause them to actually care about their fellow humans.
    • There are a whole number of reasons for the unusually high amount of social approbation toward sexually explicit content in the United States. Some of it has to do with religious conviction, to be sure; but much of it also has to do with other coincidental trends. Casual sex has never been widely approved of in the United States, (due probably to its Protestant cultural ethic of work and family) and when the rate of unwed single (and often teenage) mothers skyrocketed in past decades, the problem could no
      • What you're describing isn't the mindset of a majority of Americans, just a very loud minority. You're mistaking the supposed (and I do mean "supposed") value system of a small slice of the American population as applying to the entire population, and that just isn't true and never has been.

        Most Americans don't think there's anything wrong with casual sex. They just don't obnoxiously scream about their views every time a TV camera is pointed in their direction.

        Max
        • You're mistaking the supposed (and I do mean "supposed") value system of a small slice of the American population as applying to the entire population, and that just isn't true and never has been.

          No, I'm not, I'm merely describing what has actually occurred. The loudest and most vocal (typically also the most highly motivated), though a minority, have more influence on the direction of government policy and setting of cultural memes than a majority that lacks the same conviction. It is also a matter of

    • where Natalee Holloway is more important than a war and being a traitor against the state by ratting on a CIA agent is less important than a video game that wasn't on sale to children anyway.

      The founding fathers would be deeply ashamed.
    • Because the violence in GTA is not realistic graphic violence. It is tounge-in-cheek cartoon style violence. The violence in GTA is a parody of hollywood movie violence. (In the case of GTA: San Andreas, it is a parody of early 1990s "Gansta" entertainment).

      And Americans are not all that uptight. Most Euro countries have laws much stricter than the U.S. regarding video game content. In the U.S., there are NO national laws regarding video game content, video game ratings come from a voluntary industry ratin
  • ...If the game industry did the honourable thing and gave a fair share of their profits to the hard-working, democratically elected politicians. In fact, not only would this not be a problem, but if they all did a quick whip-around, they could out-bribe Wal-Mart and get legislation in place to force those shelves to be full of AO-rated violent sex-fests. Heck, get EA Montreal to send down some of that primo mary jane they've been bogarting and Bam! - a new war is started in some piss-pot hellhole and EA has

  • fourth-hand news? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 18, 2005 @03:34PM (#13096948)
    So this a Slashdot article, linking to a Blue's News article, linking to a Joystiq article linking to a Slate article about the ESRB? Wow, it's like the internet version of telephone...

  • A halfhearted defense of the ESRB (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    In defense of the ESRB it should be pointed out that the violence and criminal activity in GTA is quite cartoonish and stylized, and given the overall feel of the game (the exaggerated car crashes, the tounge-in-cheek storylines, the the fact that the main character cannot die, hijacking firetrucks and earning money by putting out burning cars and pedestrians, skydiving out of moving jetliners, etc), not meant to be taken seriously, and thus, cannot be seen as detrimental to sensitive minds.

    Sex, on the oth

  • B for Bukkake? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by putko ( 753330 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @03:39PM (#13097004) Homepage Journal
    Is there perhaps a (B) rating for Bukkake?

    How about (IB) for "inadvertent bukkake"? [diaryland.com] -- that is, stuff that looks pornographic, but is innocent?

    I just wish someone big (e.g. Rockstar Games) would go unrated on their next big hit, thereby making the ESRB superfluous. They'd have to decide to either be cowed or be irrelevant.

    If a kid has access to a computer, he's got access to porn. ESRB ratings don't help one bit.
    • Doing that would bring back the problem the ESRB was formed to address- attacks on video gaming as a whole. By appearing to make an effort to segregate childrens' and adults' games, the industry was able to make itself more resistant to lawsuits and censorship. Without ratings, something like GTA would never have been published in the first place (or would have been kept in a seedy back room behind a curtain next to the pornography).
  • I played all the GTA games so far on my Sony Playstation2. Good game. I don't understand how a lady like Hillary Clinton could be moved by it enough to care though. I mean, it's a mod, not the original game itself. You have to change the content of the game before you can see the sex side of it.

    Hillary comes home early from a hard days work. Bill is sitting naked on the living room floor, with PS2 game controler in one hand, and his [your name for shlong here] in the other

    Hillary - Oh Bill, not again! WT

  • The Children (Score:2, Funny)

    by jcnnghm ( 538570 )
    Violent video games (or god forbid sexually explicit video games) and dodgeball are the biggest problems facing the American youth of today, and both should be banned immediately.

    Won't someone think of the children. Thank god for Hillary.



    Laugh

  • And we get a shopping list! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dougmc ( 70836 ) <dougmc+slashdot@frenzied.us> on Monday July 18, 2005 @03:56PM (#13097198) Homepage
    Out of thousands of games that have been reviewed, only 18 have received the AO rating--including such titles as Water Closet: The Forbidden Chamber and Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude Uncut and Uncensored.
    Ok, I've seen `Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude' and wasn't terribly impressed, but Water Closet: The Forbidden Chamber [canadahentai.com] [warning: NSFW ] sounded scary enough to actually look up.

    Then I realized it was just another mindless henai game. Blech. I guess I should have expected as much.

    If only 18 games have been rated AO, that must mean that the vast majority of the hentai games made are never submitted. Which makes sense.

    Ultimately, I think the AO designation isn't so scary in that sex is going to corrupt my children more than games where you can kill cops, it's that the game is likely to just be just plain bad, with `have sex!' being the attaction, and actual gameplay being an afterthought. (Though LSL:MCL isn't a great game, it's somewhat entertaining. Which is unusual for it's rating.)

    Oh, now I get it. The latest Leisure Suit Larry [sierra.com] must have two versions -- the standard `M' rated version, and the `Uncut and Uncensored' version, which is rated `AO' and probably removes the [censored] marks from the `M' version. Not sure why seeing Larry's schlong makes it adults only, but that's the ratings for you. [I must have seen the `M' version, though I've heard there's a patch for that ...]

    I recall pulling out Virtual Valerie 2 [gamefaqs.com] at parties for shock value, but back then it was novel. Now it's just boring.

    As for `Hot coffee', it actually fits into the GTA game. Yes, it's really poorly simulated sex (I've seen the movie of it) but it does make sense that the hero of the game might have a girlfriend, and might get to have sex with her. (It would make more sense if he at least pulled his pants down, however.)

    It's pretty sad that this `easter egg' (one that can't even be accessed without jumping through some serious hoops) has upset all these people so much, so much more than things like getting points for beating a hooker and taking your money back after paying her ...

  • So (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Turn-X Alphonse ( 789240 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @04:33PM (#13097605) Journal
    So if Rockstar is responsible for content they removed which got revealed later (If you can't access it legally it's been removed from the game pretty much), why arn't they recalling all Disney DVDs like the adventurers which contain 1 cel which is pornogrphic.

    Surely if they're going to flip out about a game made for mature people (18+ in the UK) seeing some woman on a poster with her tits out is MUCH worse because it's labeled PG. Little kids will never notice it just as most people would never have known of the mod if all this press didn't come out about it.

    I finished GTA:SA last night and all I can think is "So the corrupt politicans want to hide the story of a corrupt cop getting his ass handed to him" when it comes to all this pointless censorship.

  • How ESRB worked (ca. 1998) (Score:4, Informative)

    by Old Man Kensey ( 5209 ) on Monday July 18, 2005 @04:42PM (#13097699) Homepage
    I used to work at an online gaming company that got swallowed by EA in early 2000. My first job there was in the test bay, and one guy who worked there asserted the following about ESRB. Apparently, if your game was too advanced for the test stations they had (and according to him, their test stations were pretty crappy), they would call you up and ask you questions about the game content, then assign a rating based solely on that.

    So basically ESRB was completely vulnerable to gaming their particular system. Things have apparently changed and become much more thorough now, but theoretically if you sabotaged your own game so it wouldn't run, you could get them to assign you almost any rating you wanted just by answering their questions the right way. (Obviously getting an M game assigned a rating of E would be pushing your luck, but you might get it down from an M to a T.

  • ESRB Ratings (Score:2, Insightful)

    by SloJohn ( 894738 )
    Wow! If only parents took enough interest in their children to actually pay attention to what they are buying or playing at any given time, we wouldn't even need asn ESRB! Always trust your kids, and always check up on them!
  • ... a Oujia board?

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