Video Game Ratings - Flawed?

Do you find that game ratings are necessary in this day and age?


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grossaffe

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because the ESRB came in to have the game industry self-police, we don't have the government getting involved and doing it their way.
 

Ericthegreat

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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)
Well you gotta remember that everyone smoked back then. Look up flintones marlboro(?) commercial.
 

Lestworth

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I really dont think the ESRB is flawed to much. Given the panel that discusses and rates these games can be a tad .... over the top. Sometimes games are given an unfair grade though, and on the rare occasion the companies will actually change the content of the game to get a lower ESRB so they can market to more people. At times the ESRB actually influences game designers, and that can be detrimental. Should it be replaced? meh, i mean im sure there is a better method of grading games, so people understand what they are buying, and what to expect. Its not completely flawed to where it needs a massive overhaul either.

I worked retail, and when an underage attempted to purchase a game of M or higher we had to ask the parents, and have them understand what the game had in it. Hell if i go to gamestop, they dont give 1 fuck about who is purchasing it, as long as that money hits the table.

The only real negative thing i can think of that involves the ESRB is that i think Australia suffers from it the most, as games with an extremely high rating, never enters the area. I could be mistaken for another place, but im pretty sure Australia is it.
 

emigre

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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?


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Don't know about you yanks, but here in the great land of Britannia age ratings are taken rather seriously. I used to work at GAME, the issue of age ratings was taken very seriously. If you someone was buying a gaem for someone under the age classification ala parent buying CoD for their 8 year child. We had to verbally inform the parent that the gaem is likely to be inappropriate for their child. If this results in a loss sale,everyone was ok with that as we took the age rating issue very seriously. It didn't stop people buying 15 or 18 rated gaems for their 10 year olds but we fulfilled our responsibility in telling the parent about the gaem being highly inappropriate for their kid.
 
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spinal_cord

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Age ratings on games make no difference what so ever. The trouble is not that they aren't enforced properly, but that parents will buy their kids any games they want.
You can'y complain that you're kids are seeing more and more violence when you're the one providing it for them.
 

TehCupcakes

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Flawed? Yes. Useless? No.

Parents need some sort of guideline, even if it is incomplete and somewhat inconsistent. Age also does not indicate maturity; this in itself is enough reason to say that ratings are age suggestions rather than rules. It is up to the parent to decide if the content is appropriate for their child. I lived in a household of parental controls (including internet browsing) so I got very frustrated with restrictions... However, there were certain things I definitely didn't need to be looking at when I was 13. What is frustrating is when ratings are treated as strict rules.

I think a responsible parent should look at it this way: If the game is 2 ratings above my child's age group, they probably don't need to be playing such games. If it is 1 rating above, I (the parent) should take a closer look at why it received that rating and determine if it is right for my kid. The categories listed on the back are useful, but somewhat inadequate as it does not state the severity of each category. This is where sites like http://www.commonsensemedia.org are a great resource. Not only does a parent have a choice to control/know about what their children are watching/playing, but also the responsbility as a member of society. Just because kids do go into stores and buy games with mature content doesn't mean they should.
 

Taleweaver

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(again) interesting article. Here's my take on the situation. But please take note that I'm in my thirties and don't have children...so I haven't bothered with any rating in well over a decade.


The way I see it, the rating system is both too strict and not strict enough. In that way, it has the worst of two worlds.

Back when I was young, things were simple. Either you were allowed in a movie or not (the latter was 16 and up). You could purchase dirty magazines or videos when you were 18 or up. That was all there was to it. Was there cheating and "I forgot my ID card"? Of course. But that's inherit to the system.

I can't speak on behalf of ESRB, but PEGI is pushing things. 5 different age systems? All the mentions of what the game contents? Why is that necessary? Am I going to traumatize my 2-year old child if I let him/her play a 7+ game? Of course not. But though the system still sounds simple, it's exactly that that turns the parents of.

Same on the game fronts. I don't know if it's different in other regions, but here, all games are side by side. Mario next to zombieU. It's exactly similar to having the movies Snow white next to hot hooters next door 7, but "because it's games" nobody notices. If there was one age restriction, game stores could just put the mature games in another part of the shop (only accessible with ID). As it stands, it's kind of pointless (divide the shop into 4 or 5 different parts? Yeah...that'll make it easy for customers to find a game).

Lastly: reviews and commercials. Again: if the rating system was restricted to "adults only vs everyone", you could put restrictions in place on where to advertise. Right now, children and teens are bombarded with commercials for games they technically aren't even allowed to play. Is it any wonder that parents don't care what their children play if the adverts themselves are everywhere? (I'm looking at GTA here...lots of posters in the street, but I don't think it even mentions something like "adults only").
 

pwsincd

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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.
 
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UltraHurricane

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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.)

after watching that documentary, i think we should just be thankful that the ESRB is way it is, because at least it isn't anywhere near as bias and shady as the MPAA

if anything parents really need to start paying some goddamn attention to what they buy their spoiled lil' crouch dumplings, and not complain to politicians when they realized they've bought their kids a ultra-violent gore/sex feast that the ESRB was kindly enough to explicitly warned on the box they should have read
 

chartube12

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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.
 
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Arras

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IMO ratings are necessary as there is no way you can expect parents to know about every game what it contains and whether it's appropiate or not, but at the same time the current system is weird occasionally. Games get given ratings they don't deserve all the time. "steak can be attached to a baby to attract lions" in the original Scribblenauts still stands out.
 

mechagouki

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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.

An 8 year old might understand a game like Saint's Row is not real, but it's still de-sensitizing him to human on human violence. In fact fantasy/horror themed games are generally less harmful in this respect as there is more of a subconscious disconnect between what's happening on screen and real life. A developing child's psyche can be permanently altered by profound emotional experiences that they do not have the life experience to qualify.

A rating system is necessary, but the only one I ever saw work somewhat effectively was the British Board of Film Censors rating system applied to games in the early 2K years. It was an established system, widely understood by the public, and had clear legally binding guidelines for retailers and parents/guardians.
 
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Tattorack

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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.
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.
Hell, my 5 year old sister is quite ok watching something with violence in it without acting it out to others because she knows its fake, its just a movie, those are actors, its cgi, they're puppets made with a computer. She understands this because my parents can explain this to her.
The only things we restrict here are the things we can't explian on her level.
And now she's ahead of most kids when it comes to understanding something.
So in short, it boils down to the parents, not the content of a media.
 

The Catboy

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I think the whole gaming market is flawed at this point. It's all about what game reviewers scoring a game and how much game devs pay to get better scores. No one seems to care about quality anymore. Not to mention no one seems to care about the rating system anymore.
Since I started working at WalMart, a mother through through my line with two roughly 8 to 10 year old boys running around her. She was buying a pile of M games, which I tried to explain to her the rating system on the game and she was just like, "I don't care, they play worse." I can't even refuse the sale though because she's the one buying the game and there's no penalty to it. This isn't a one time case though, this is several times a day that something like this happens.
Then to make matters worse, some of those parents actually come back and yell at my manager that I let them buy M rated games. Nothing seems to come from that, they normally get a refund and sometimes have to be escorted out of the store.
 

migles

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in the gta v release week, a console with the game was available to test in a big eletrodomestic and eletronic store, the game was cleary for 18+ but there was a lot of 8 years old kids in there, playing the game and the store didn't "do anything" there was some kids without their parents around, just with their 16 years old brother...
 

lexarvn

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I think that ratings are still useful at least to the extent of differentiating between games < M and games >= M. If the rating of a game is < M, then I generally don't bother to look at the details of the rating, but if the rating is >= M, then I usually go to ESRB's website to look up the details of why it got such a rating. I usually end up buying the game anyways, but there have been a few that I haven't bought because of what ESRB's website told me about the game.
Also if I had kids, I could see it useful to make sure that I only get games with content that I deem to be ok for kids. It would also be nice if it correlated somewhat with the age that can generally handle the game mechanics, sort of like how board games usually have a recommended age.
 

J-Machine

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The problem isn't the ratings board as much as it is the outlets that allow the child to circumvent it. Parent's buying the game, friends who own it, the cashier letting him buy it anyways... it's really a lack of caring tbh. also go online in these "m" rated games and listen. you would quickly see why these ratings are needed. A lot of kids simply aren't raised properly to handle the games they play simple as that.
 
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chyyran

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There should be a rating between T and M. There's too much of a large gap there, and games like Dual Destinies, for one, are not on the same level as GTAV. So why should they have the same rating?

The AO rating is utterly useless as it stands, it's barely used, since any game that gets it essentially gets a death sentence. Either utilize the AO rating more, or put a rating between T and M. The AO rating shouldn't be just porn games, it should essentially become the high-end M rating. A game where you're a lawyer solving murders should not have the same rating as a game where you can beat up hookers.

(not that I'm against GTAV, I'd be playing it right now if I had a console :P. Just pointing out the disparity between the Teen, low-end and high-end Mature ratings.)
 

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