Well you gotta remember that everyone smoked back then. Look up flintones marlboro(?) commercial.The whole entire idea of a rating system isn't flawed, how they rate is becoming flawed.
If you go back and watch, say, Disney's animated version of Alice In Wonderland, you'll some obvious smoking in it and if you look at the rating for it, it is rated G. If the movie was released in this day and age, it would be rated PG or, if they were really heavily rated it, PG-13.
Just saying, but ratings are starting to become more of an agenda, like many other things (e.g. that Zelda topic from a while back showed a good example of the article writer pushing their agenda)
I went through and played Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies for the Nintendo 3DS earlier this week, and left a review about the matter, as linked above. The game received a Mature rating, which cited blood, violence, and suggestive themes as some of the major reasons. This game could have easily been dropped to a Teen rating, but why the mature rating?
http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile...ctive-as-85-of-parents-understand-the-system/
http://www.1up.com/news/ftc-finds-game-ratings-more-strictly-enforced-than-movies-music
The ESRB ratings, on the whole, are helpful and well enforced. I think that any problems with the ESRB are really just problems inherent to any ratings system where a few people try to objectively judge something's content.
(On something of a tangent here, but if ratings interest you at all, you might want to check out this documentary. It's a great watch, and should still be on Netflix.)
My 8 yr old son is as i write this playing Saints Row 3 , i said to him as he mamed some random passer by , son that was a bit harsh and really not a nice thing to do , his comments were , Dad its not real its only a game . I pay no attention to game ratings , i pay more attention to teaching my kids right from wrong , he knows its game , he knows its not real , we have Zombii U he wont go near the game , says hes too scared , there hes makin his own judgements his own rating system of which due to the nature of how i raise him is good enough for me.
This is how each person should be deciding if a game is right for their kids. That being said the rating system was originally just a guideline for parents in the US. After all we are all human and capable of making mistakes.
I remember during my first year of high school we talked about the video game rating system. We talked about how it wasn't a law that you couldn't sell M games to minors (at the time it wasn't but many stores had began making their own policies) and how lawmakers were fighting to make such a bill pass. Groups such as PETA (yes they were around even back then) were blaming games for violence. How such a bill could pass but ultimately be useless.
Today's world proves the rating system and it's laws are just used to pass the blame onto the games and their developers. Has history time and again has showed us, parents hate believing it is their fault in the mistakes they have made reasoning children. They will nearly always find someone or something to blame for their kids' bad behavior.
Its not the violent video game/tv programs/etc that makes some kid's mind bend the wrong way, its how the parents react, or not react, to it.I find this to some point useful.
There where some cases where bullying, or death from from kids to another has been blamed for playing violent video games.
See what they don't understand is that there is a rating on the box so its not the people who make the games fault its the parents of the children s fault.
of course because of this there are many things that are being controlled on what we watch or play, such as the swapnote example. What people do on there is what they do because its what they bought, a system with all those rights. Of course ignorant stuff like that is stupid but they set them self's up the minute they added drawings instead of typing and made it worse and called it child appropriate.
I totally agree with what your saying though and it makes sense that there is some sort of flaw in the system.
Damnit damnit damnit why did I open that spoiler.