Calif. Sen. Leland Yee favors AO rated games on consoles
GamePolitics got a statement from Senator Leland Yee's office saying, "The ESRB just refuses to use the AO rating for violence despite the descriptor calling for such a rating when there are 'graphic depictions of violence.' ... Combined with the use of the ambiguous term 'Mature,' many parents are left with a false sense of how violent an M-rated game may be." Now if Yee had been focused on forcing console makers to allow AO rated games on their systems instead of making unconstitutional game laws, that's something adult gamers could backup and go along with. Many games deserve an AO rating, how those determinations play out would still happen behind closed doors at the ESRB, but at least publishers wouldn't consider an AO the absolute kiss of death like they do now because the game would at least be able to play on the systems. It's a far deeper and more complicated issue involving educating retailers on what a new version of AO would mean, but at least this weird self-imposed censorship would fade into the distance.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jake @ Aug 29th 2007 11:49AM
Surprisingly, that makes a lot of sense. What point is there to an AO rating if it can't be used? To me, it'd be better for there to be an actual "unrated" or even "banned" status than the psuedo-banned status that AO represents.
That and there's a huge swath of material that the M rating has been made to cover, from barely M-rated games like Halo or Oblivion to extremely violent gorefests such as Manhunt and Mortal Kombat. Where E and T are basically well-defined as having either no realistic violence (the former) or mostly bloodless violence (the latter), M can mean anything from medium amounts of realistic gore (Halo) to massive amounts of blood spewing everywhere (Manhunt).
It doesn't really make sense. Some M-rated games could possibly be alright for someone under 17 with parental permission, but then there's definitely some that should only be played by those above 17. The rating system should reflect this.
Jerk Face @ Aug 29th 2007 11:59AM
Well said. A game like Manhunt should not be on the same freaking scale as Halo. That is wrong. I am not saying that Manhunt shouldn't be available - it just shouldn't be 86'ed just because of the AO rating.
The whole thing is bull. There is room for a game like Manhunt out there, and it sucks that it has to slide down into the M rating to be released, when it really SHOULDN'T be in that category.
Jerk Face @ Aug 29th 2007 11:59AM
Well said. A game like Manhunt should not be on the same freaking scale as Halo. That is wrong. I am not saying that Manhunt shouldn't be available - it just shouldn't be 86'ed just because of the AO rating.
The whole thing is bull. There is room for a game like Manhunt out there, and it sucks that it has to slide down into the M rating to be released, when it really SHOULDN'T be in that category.
tenchi221 @ Aug 29th 2007 1:11PM
Jerk Face,
Have you played ManHunt 2 to know how violent it is compared to a game like Halo? Honestly, what is the difference besides the color of the blood? Violence is violence in a game. You mean to say if there was a Halo movie and a ManHunt movie, and they were both rated "R", you wouldnt agree with that either?
ThornedVenom @ Aug 29th 2007 1:14PM
Excellent point Jake on the different types of M ratings. Here's a story I've already told once on Joystiq, but which is worth repeating:
A year ago I was with my cousin, heading to a game store to buy ourselves another game for our Xbox. We figured that it was still insane not to have Halo 2 at this point, but we couldn't buy it: it was rated M whereas we were minors (and no we don't like pretending we're older and our parents weren't there).
What did we have to do? Settle for a Ghost Recon game which was rated T. A realistic war/squad game being rated T whereas the Halo franchise, a sci-fi fantasy shooter, got rated M. That made me sick.
Chris @ Aug 29th 2007 11:53AM
Christ I don't understand why they don't just make a new ratings system. AO is worthless but so is eC. Do you see that on games anymore. Start with E, get rid of E10 and end with M-17 so idiots know what age M stands for and get rid of AO.
E = G
T = PG
M-17 = R
I also think PG-13 is a BS movie rating too. Parental Guidance is Parental Guidance.
hvnlysoldr @ Aug 29th 2007 12:10PM
E10 is PG13. PG13 came as a result of Indiana Jones: The Temple of Doom. It was rated PG and horrified the kids. After that they created PG13 to fit movies that have mature themes but don't go explicit enough for R. Essentially it created the target of the entire family watching the movie and many of the top selling movies are PG13 or aren't explicit R. It all follows the sales.
Of course this doesn't have much to do with me. I haven't ever actually bought an M game. I have some T games but no M.
Louis @ Aug 29th 2007 12:05PM
This is the exact same problem in the movie industry. The NC-17 rating was introduced because there was a major negative stigma attached to a film with an X rating.
Showgirls was the first big budget NC-17 movie and it flopped. Now, no one will touch the rating for fear of a public backlash. Most films will just re-release on DVD as unrated (see Requiem for a Dream).
The problem is that conservative America won't touch NC-17 or Ao games, and conservative retailers like Wal-Mart and Blockbuster won't allow NC-17 and Ao in their stores.
America is light years behind the rest of the world when it comes to acceptance of sex and violence in media.
BPM @ Aug 29th 2007 12:26PM
Are we overly conservative on sexual content? Yes (i.e. a woman's nipples are evil to show on the TV, but a man's nipples are a-ok).
But violent content? Hardly. There are a lot of grusome horror flicks in mainstream movie theaters. Some worse than anything that could happen in Manhunt 2.
Funkula @ Aug 29th 2007 12:47PM
Well, to be honest, Showgirls flopped because it was garbage. There are plenty of NC-17 movies that dont suck though. I would say Midnight Cowboy, but that was rated X or something.
Wilhelm @ Aug 29th 2007 12:06PM
100% Agree. What's the point of having AO if no game can have it? (Talking consoles here)
Another thing is that, M-rated games are so broad, and they need to be split-up. For example, a game that isonly sprinkled with some blood, or a few swear words, with a tiny bit of sexual reference and it gets an M. But a game that is filled with blood, and swearing left and right, and large sexual themes it still only gets an M.
Mommy bought little Jimmy the first one unaware that it's rated M, but watched him play it, thinking it wasn't that bad. She then sees the second game later, seeing that it's rated M too, so she believes it to be similar to the first one, only to find it's ten times worse.
aggrocrag @ Aug 29th 2007 12:15PM
So why does the video game industry have to create this split? Parents should already realize this is no different from films. There are just some rated R films that are more violent than others.
Nicolas @ Aug 29th 2007 12:38PM
Use ratings which actually display ages, like most other countries.
Abscissa @ Aug 30th 2007 4:30PM
The problem with using ages instead of letters is that it assumes ALL people of the same age are always of the same maturity level. Which is a completely absurd notion.
borntokill @ Aug 29th 2007 12:47PM
Theres no point in having an AO rating because #1 its a 1 year difference from M to AO (makes no sense) #2 the game wont get released #3 the ESRB has not come clean about how they differenciate an AO from an M (not just for Manhunt, but for any games), and so its pretty much an arbitrary bullshit rating. Someones M is another mans AO, and their secrecy makes the ESRB even less credible than they already are. Abolition the ESRB, stay without rating like music and books (and TV used to be before that bitch hillary clinton stuck her nose in); or just come up with something else entirely if they must. But the ESRB is not working right now, for anybody in the gaming world or out of it.
J-Guy @ Aug 29th 2007 12:49PM
Wait why is Yee interested in a common gamer's question about the ESRB?
Evan @ Aug 29th 2007 1:00PM
Consoles are the best place for AO games! Any kid with a PC could download and run pirated AO games or other adult-oriented content from bittorent. But consoles have more barriers in place to prevent kids from playing AO games. For starters, you have to actually buy the game, or mod your console.
Nessman @ Aug 29th 2007 1:07PM
Well the AO rating was pretty pointless before it was banned anyway. A one year difference from the M rating? That really isn't buckling down on mature content, it's just a way for the ESRB to avoid lawsuits over the content being too strong.
I do think art should be expressed freely though, maybe they should just make the AO rating 20+ or something.
Chrysee @ Aug 29th 2007 1:08PM
Someone explain this to me. M-rated games are 17+, right? AO is 18+? Why is there that distinction?
It seems to me that maybe M should be bumped up to 18+ or something like that. Parents seem perfectly okay with buying a younger teen an M-rated game simply because 17 isn't that much different from 16 or 15. But I bet they would be less likely to purchase a game rated for 18+. Then the ratings might actually work and -do something-
WedgeTalon @ Aug 30th 2007 7:58AM
Look at the movie industry: R rated movies are 17+, NC-17 is 18+. It seems that parents at large are given warm fuzzy feelings that even if their kid sees something R (M) rated, at least it isn't that slutty porn that's NC-17 (AO). At least thats my take on it.
dekox @ Aug 29th 2007 1:09PM
It is nice to finally hear someone talk of a solution to this absurd situation.
In my oppinion, the problem comes from the fact that there are two kind of adult media in american rating systems. AO and M for games, and R and NC-17 for movies, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Either a media is not only for adults, and everybody can buy it, or only adults can buy it. Adults who can just as well look on the back of the box to see what sort of mature content there is in the said game.
The solution would be to merge those two ratings together in one, and to drop those silly letters to adopt the numbers (18+, 16+, etc...) they use in Europe.
Snidegamer @ Aug 29th 2007 1:22PM
Someone said it earlier, but even if publishers didn't reject publishing AO titles on their consoles, major retailers such as Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and Gamestop wouldn't carry the titles on their shelves or behind the counters which would adversely affect sales overall in a major way.
Caspian @ Aug 29th 2007 1:52PM
Hey Alex. Keep up the good work man - love your writing.
On to my point:
I was carded when I bought BioShock for myself - I'm 25. But I guarantee you some soccer mom, 12 year old kid in tow, came up to the register after me and had no resistance purchasing the M-Rated title, obviously for the pre-teen boy.
This is the problem with the current system. It has nothing to do with the ESRB, the government, etc. It has everything to do with abysmal parental judgment and no enforcement for the ratings when parents are supplying young kids with titles meant for adults.
I'd like to make a proposal that we enforce game ratings the same way we enforce alcohol and tobacco sales. A retailer sells an M game to an underage kid: fine them. An adult buys an M game for an underage kid: heavy fines as well. It'll sure clear up this argument quickly if Mom and Dad are paying double the value of little Billy's PS3 in penalties for buying him a naughty game.
copa @ Aug 29th 2007 12:39PM
You're off the deep end, Caspian. What you saw is exactly how the system is supposed to work.
The kid's mom was brought into the decision-making process, and decided that she was comfortable with her kid experiencing the content in BioShock.
Cigarettes are objectively harmful; with content like videogames and movies the effect is much more subjective and different families have different values regarding what content is appropriate and inappropriate.
Fining the mom because her subjective call didn't match that of a bunch of faceless tools at the ESRB is a ridiculously authoritarian approach.
Shagittarius @ Aug 29th 2007 12:40PM
It will also cause the games industry to never release a title rated above T. Is that what you want? Under 18 players are still a major source of revenue for games makers. If this happens they will censor their games for the widest market share.
I like that games can be mature, its the parents that can't seem to be.
Almack64 @ Aug 29th 2007 4:38PM
@ Copa
Actually you're crazy, what you just demostrated is a potentially a complete failure in parenting. We would love to assume that that "soccer mom" actually made that purchase from a stance of having researched the game, why its rated what it is, and what not. But to be honest I highly doubt this is the case. You give too much credit to modern parenting, credit that actually there is more proof against than for.
I would agree with you if the majority of parents today actually parented well but a quick look at society today paints a different picture.
Abscissa @ Aug 30th 2007 4:29PM
Almack64: Wait a sec...Most parents are bad just because they don't make the same decisions YOU think they should make?
Joe @ Aug 29th 2007 2:07PM
I have one question is AO 18 or 21. I for one think there should be games that can come out that are over the M rule. I am 20 and some times would like to see what games could come out if you could add some more things to them. Plus movies have more Violence then games and no one gets mad at them. I just went not to long ago to see War and if there was a game like that people would say it is to life like. But not the movie even though that one would look more life like. So people need to stop having a one way view on things and if they allow stuff like that in movies but not in games they really need to get there facts right.
Plus I see all the time kids that are around the age of five in R rated movies but if there kid some how wants an M rated game it is like the end of the world.
So I for one really think people need to get there facts and priorities right. Instead of just jumping at video games they should do the same for the movies. But I guess they would know they would lose that War because people have the right to do what they want and if every one was to ask only for G or PG movies then the world would never again see some great movies that come out.
That being said I think games should be allowed to have more stuff added without getting backlash.
charles @ Aug 29th 2007 5:03PM
the reality is that theres nothing stopping developers from releasing games with variable ratings. The next GTA could be T, MA, and AO all in one game, the rating used set by the password-protected setting that a parent had input into the console.
T version could leave out any blood, replace the street whores with street nurses, and replace drug traffickers with... something else.
M would be what we see now...
AO could have full on hardcore sex minigames
whats wrong with that?
Eric Marcoullier @ Aug 29th 2007 6:02PM
It's no different than the movie industry with their seldom-used NC-17. No theater or rental chains will carry NC-17 movies and as a result it's very rare that a movie gets released with the rating.
It sucks, but don't expect to see change in the games industry given the movie industry's precedent.
Jay @ Aug 29th 2007 6:57PM
Here's the real, honest to goodness, easiest solution for EVERYONE -- just change the stupid Mature rating to 18+ instead of 17+, then you're saying it's for adults. Problem solved.
Geoff @ Aug 29th 2007 8:13PM
The shifting of the M rating to 18+ does makes sense. The UK system works well: we have U (Universal), PG (Parental Guidance), 12, 15 and 18. I think we have an X rating, but obviously you don't tend to see that in mainstream shops or cinemas.
We also have a box on our DVDs that rates each movie according to what it contains (don't know if this is in the US as well). There are four categories: Violence, Sexual Content, Language and Other, and each contains a couple of words to describe what the film contains. It takes up no more space than the rating itself. Something like this would be a fantastic tool for parents were it to appear on game boxes.
t_m @ Aug 30th 2007 10:25AM
I'm with him on this one. Infact with age-controls in consoles they would actually be a much BETTER place to have AO games.
I don't get why manufacturers won't allow them.. it'd be a big market, it wouldn't be them directly involved, and its stupid to have a rating they can't use.
If they really wanted they could set consoles to come with AO games turned off, and force people to phone up to activate it.. giving a credit card number or something for proof.
Besides, a few of the games released in japa are pretty mature.. the ones about stalking girls, etc..
Abscissa @ Aug 30th 2007 4:32PM
"Leland Yee is wondering what's going on there and why console manufacturers won't allow the [AO] rating"
Holy crap! Leland Yee actually said something I agree with?!? What's this world coming to?!? I seem to have slipped into some parallel bizarro world.