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Games Government Entertainment Politics

Japan's New Games Rating System 55

Posted by Zonk from the someone-thought-of-the-children dept.
The site GamesIndustry.biz has a report on a change to the CERO system. The Computer Entertainment Rating Organization (CERO), now has an adults-only category. From the article: "The A rating is equivalent to the current CERO All rating for all ages, B is for CERO 12 (for ages twelve and over), C equates to CERO 15, and the D rating would be for ages seventeen and up - for which there was no previous equivalent. The A-D ratings will remain advisory, but the Z rating will be regulated by the government."
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Japan's New Games Rating System More

Japan's New Games Rating System

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  • Tentacle rape (Score:4, Funny)

    by Oldsmobile ( 930596 ) on Tuesday February 21, 2006 @02:40PM (#14769696) Journal
    What category does tentacle rape belong to?

  • A start in the right direction (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Joiseybill ( 788712 ) on Tuesday February 21, 2006 @02:45PM (#14769751)
    At least they aren't trying to regulate the entire system. The A-D ratings are advisories, but the over-18 is the only govt regulated level. This whole rating thing is good for parents (aunts, uncles, cousins, gift-buyers) who actually participate in the moral upbringing of the child-consumers. OTOH, it creates interest for those teens/adults who have disposable income of their own, and may drive sales of 'randier' rated games. The censorship of any information - even video games, just creates mystery, interest, and an underground market. In that respect - these rating systems probably backfire against their intention.
    • Is that why Custer's Revenge sold so well? :)

    • Re:A start in the right direction (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jandrese ( 485 ) <kensama@vt.edu> on Tuesday February 21, 2006 @02:53PM (#14769833) Homepage Journal
      Except that it becomes de-facto regulation in no time. How long do you think it will take before municipalities (prefects? Dunno at what granularity the local government operates in Japan) start passing laws that prohibit sale of any of the "adult" games? How long until major chains declare that they're not carrying the adult games under the pressure of some focus group?

      That's what happens in the States. Ratings systems just become convienent vehicles for no-thought censorship used by the usual suspects. I know it's all "for the children", but the effects can be detrimental to society as a whole. For instance, due to the completely voluntary "Comics Code Authority" label the industry came up with in response to pressure from such groups, the comic culture in the US was absolutely destroyed and the whole genre was relegated to the "childrens stuff" category in the popular mind. It still hasn't recovered from that blow, and as a result we no doubt missed out on some fantastic literature told in a way that traditional media (books) won't allow.
      • I don't know if it's as big of a deal in Japan. Well I guess it depends on the content, violence being worse than sex there.

        I was just in Japan last week for vacation and went to a place in Osaka called Den Den Town. It's a street filled with shops that sell either anime action figures, manga, video games, or porn. The porn shops weren't shy about showing bared breasts on their front windows, right next to the video game and anime fan stores. I saw several UMD porn titles in video game shops in the PSP
      • It probably won't happen in the Japan though.

        Japanese Culture is far removed from American Culture... there are a lot less people with too much time on their hands, yet not enough time to raise their kids themselves.

      • Yes, but... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Benwick ( 203287 )
        Japan is not the United States.

        • Very true. When Illinois banned sales of GTA to minors, the law was swiftly quashed on constitutional grounds. When Kanagawa Prefecture and Saitama Prefecture did so, it wasn't.
      • Now now, I don't mean to flame you, but what makes you think the Japanese authorities are as hypocrital / prude as American authorities?

        Japanese porn and sexshops are not tugged away in shady backstreets of Japanese cities: you can find them next to a Family Restaurant, electronics shops, boutiques, etc.

        The tolerance of the Japanese society regarding sex and erotism (not to mention violence) is quite different from that seen in the States. Heck, just look at some of the TV anime series you can watch o
      • If I've learned anything from the Internet, it's that Japan loves porn. How many other nations sell used panties in vending machines?
      • due to the completely voluntary "Comics Code Authority" label the industry came up with in response to pressure from such groups, the comic culture in the US was absolutely destroyed and the whole genre was relegated to the "childrens stuff" category in the popular mind. It still hasn't recovered from that blow, and as a result we no doubt missed out on some fantastic literature told in a way that traditional media (books) won't allow.

        Comic books were distributed through newstands, cigar stores and other

        • I'm having trouble parsing your post. Are you saying that the comics industry was killed because the family oriented comics were being sold in stores that were not family friendly? Or are you saying that the comics became less family friendly because they had to compete (Archie started blowing away zombies or something?). You're saying that the congressional probes that spooked the industry into adopting some grossly over-restrictive guidelines that forced the writers to either write cute girly comics or

    • It all depends on how well implemented the restrictions are. In the UK there have been (admittedly not government controlled) 18+ categories on games for a while, but to the best of my knowledge no one goves a hoot.

      Cigarettes and alcohol are legally age restricted over here, and companies can be punished for selling to minors ... is this maybe the way to go for games manufacturers to prove they're serious about age restrictions?

      • Well, it depends on what you count as "goverment controlled", the BBFC ratings are legally enforcable, just like DVDs and videos, although the BBFC itself is independent. The PEGI ratings are advistory though.

        But shops definatley don't have this hangup that US ones have about selling 18/AO rated stuff.
  • The problem I see with these ratings systems is that they simply do not work unless properly enforced. Here in Canada, I can recall going into stores on multiple occasions and buying M rated games without being IDed or anything. EBGames around here always seems pretty good about the policy. I was never able to buy an M rated game from EB without first being asked for ID. The first time I did it I honestly had no clue why they were doing it. What I'm trying to say is that you can make up all of the ratings
  • ...that, at least, gives some idea WHY things are rated the way they are...

    After kids are older than about 13, restricting their viewing/playing based on Language is pretty useless. Restricting viewing based on Nudity, Sexual Situations, I can dig that. And by restricting I mean PARENTAL ristricting. I'll make the choices on what I show my kids (when I have them) thank you. But a TV-M (L,N,SS, etc) is something I would find usefull.
  • Geez, if you wanted to do a porn mini game just fucking produce one. But no, some fuckwad makes a very poor stupid game, doesn't check his code and now we get stupid clampdown on games worldwide because you fuckwads.

    Well and the fuckwads who elect the goverments in question but they are to many so I just insult rockstar.

    So ehm, okay. Japanese games eh. Well why it is very nice knowing what age limits apply to each category this doesn't actually tell us anything. What is important for a rating system is to

    • I've said it once and I'll say it again: The only thing R*/TT did wrong in the whole Hot Coffee debacle is not calling out the people making a huge fuss over it on their bullshit. Instead they meekly hung their heads in shame and took their punishment, implicitly admitting guilt.

      There was NO porn minigame in GTA:SA
      There was NO porn minigame on the DISK
      There WAS a minigame featuring a sexual situation on par with an R rated movie which was not accessible without hacking save files on a proprietary memo
      • They said the hack added the game and then had to admit the minigame was there all the time. The hack did not add it, just made it available. That means it was on the disk.

        So unless they lied, then lied about lying your version is wrong.

        Wether you agree with outrage is not the point. It is all a bunch of crap but thanks to their screwup games have once again come under a lot of bad press and the censors live by that. Each time this happens they get new powers.

        So I stick with my point, thank you very fuck

        • Right, the minigame was on the disk. I didn't deny that. However the minigame is not available unless you hack a save file to make it available. Under normal playing conditions you can never unlock the mini-game.
          • Right, the minigame was on the disk. I didn't deny that.

            Err... yes you did.


            There was NO porn minigame in GTA:SA
            There was NO porn minigame on the DISK
            There WAS a minigame featuring a sexual situation on par with an R rated movie which was not accessible without hacking save files on a proprietary memory card.
            • No no no, re-read what I wrote. For clarity I will bold for emphasis:

              There was NO porn minigame on the DISK
              There WAS a minigame featuring a sexual situation on par with an R rated movie

              My point was two-fold: (1) The fact that the game was on the disk was irrelevant as it was not accessible without hacking save files and (2) even if the game was accessible through normal gameplay it should not have received an AO rating because there is far worse sexual content in R rated movies.
              • Hm. You're right, I did miss that last part. I blame the migraine. My apologies. It must be said, though, that for a lot of the prud^Wpurita^wmore "sensitive" people (namely, the ones bitching about it), said sexual situation could,subjectively, be called "porn."
      • The actual minigame showed less skin than Pokémon.

  • The US needs a rating for age 15...... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ShyGuy91284 ( 701108 ) on Tuesday February 21, 2006 @03:03PM (#14769930)
    There's a huge gap between 13 and 17 that I think deserves a rating, since the maturity level between a 13 year old and a 15 year old seems like it could still be pretty big to me. I'm 21, so I'm not caught in the middle of this situation anymore, but the current ratings system is too screwed up IMHO. I've seen many games that were Teen and Ma rated (13 and 17+) that were very questionable in terms of how different their violence and questionable content levels were. I may be wrong, but I've observed many who were 13 still being in that awkward and easily influenced stage that is a big concern a lot more then someone who is 15.
    • I'm 21, so I'm not caught in the middle of this situation anymore

      Yes you are. The AO rating essentially amounts to censorship, since stores are unwilling to sell titles with such a rating. Games that might have interested you in that category are altered to be suitable to a 15 year old, or are never published. You may be 21, but because people have decided that it's not their job to raise their children themselves, you are essentially treated like a 15 year old when you go to purchase games.

      There shouldn't
      • Government enforcement never really works in any country. The reasons for this have been thrashed out on Slashdot thousands of times. Can't we all just go home and not worry about this kind of stuff? Governments do stuff we cannot do anything about but whinging won't get you anywhere.

        Oh and in the UK we have ratings U, PG, 12A, 12B, 15, 18 and the extremely-uncommon R. That covers the age gap you talked about pretty well, or so I think so. The enforcement of these ratings becomes more strict with the high

    • While I agree that the current 3/6/10/13/17/18 scheme is broken, I do not think that adding more categories is the answer. If you want better distrobution of the categories just redistribute them and be done with it. Is there really a good reason to have only a one year gap between the highest and second highest rating?

      Maybe I'll be modded troll for this, who knows, but I do not think that the AO rating will be taken seriously (by gamers at least) untill M is dropped far enough to make a real difference.

    • I may be wrong, but I've observed many who were 18 still being in that akward and easily infouenced stage. Seriously...college can really suck people in to the college crowd. It depends on the maturity of the individual.
      • Yeah. But by then (I should hope) they have a full realization of what they are doing and what it could lead to. And when not drunk, most college students usually act fairly mature (although I go to an asocial tech school, so it may be completely different in normal schools).
    • Sorry, no cigar!

      I know people who were married by 15 and holding down full-time jobs to support a family. Treating everyone as if there was a real line instead of an imaginary line for maturity levels deprives early maturity of the opportunity to conduct themselves at a mature level. We have a system (US) that will prosecute a 13-year-old as an adult for committing a murder, but no mechanism for enabling a 13-year-old to conduct themselves as an adult in other areas, such as holding a job, creating credit,
      • Yeah, I agree that people can vary a lot. But all that's happening with the current system is someone who may be 15 and mature is being considered 13 more or less by the game rating system until they are 17. I am just talking about game ratings. Not the current state of growing up in the US as a whole (as you appear to be). I'm just saying if there are going to be restrictions, they shouldn't consider someone who is almost old enough to drive to be 13.
  • It'll start out PERFECTLY FINE until ESRB goes and "suggests" things to em...

  • Why letters and not the age? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by JensR ( 12975 ) on Tuesday February 21, 2006 @03:31PM (#14770152) Homepage
    Someone explain to me why they changed from an age rating to letters? Now they need to educate parents which letter is suitable for which age group, and America has show that this doesn't work. Print a "suitable from age x on" on the sticker and no parent can claim ignorance when they bought "Zombie Blood Massaker III" for their 6 year old...
    • I agree. "Cero 18" was a lot less cryptic than "Z". How the heck is this more intuitive? Not that many parents know too much about games, so they're more likely to respond to a big "18" (which as far as I know has been working beautifully) on the box than a Z...
    • Agreed.

      The problem with the system was not that the ratings were obscure (ages are self-explanitory), the problem was in enforcement. So changing the ratings to a code that people don't know how to interpret and still not enforcing the rating doesn't help the problem.
  • I lived in Japan for three (3) years, and while I was there, I noticed that many a time on Japanese televised game shows, women would end up topless, or expose some other part of their anatomy. For some reason, nekkid wimmins isn't quite a shock to the Japanese people as it is to Americans. This makes me wonder what kinds of B games from Japan could end up with a D (or Z, for that matter) rating here in the US.

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