ESRB Who?
 

Clicky.

I don't like this. It's not the fact that there's actually a penalty for sidestepping the ESRB rating system (which is already bullshit). It's the fact that the reply of "What's a violation" goes as "That depends."

Fortunately, Rockstar and Take Two aren't getting any shit for GTA:SA Hot Coffee. It only insists upon future infractions (Thank fucking christ), so they're in the clear.

Thoughts?

I think a penalty for sidestepping the ESRB is a good thing. It will help to prevent further contraversy like Hot Coffee, and avoiding that will keep the government from regulating video games itself.

I'll buy the games whatever their censorship is, so that's no problem to me, but I think ESRB should be something to ADVERT for having some mature content like blood and gore(Resident Evil anyone?) and not to PROHIBIT(sp?) to play because of the contennt(With the exception of explicit sex). And, what Oblvion IV did to get their censorship higher?

Their female character models had nipples.

Soon they will request that you show ID when Buying games...

Or maybe a "permit to buy adult content" will be develop, and become mandatory all over the US...

Hipocrisy is High on the enterteinemt world...

Um, many store chains already do ask for ID to by M rated games. And this, believe it or not, is a good thing. This way only the parents can be blamed for buying it for thier kids.

Hey, it's better than having stupid people suing video game and other companies because they can't regulate what thier kids do. Hell, when I heard that Louisiana legislation passed a bill that fines retailers who sold an M-rated game to a minor. This kind of thing really enforces the ratings system. And that a government institution (sure, it's only a state government, but still) shows that the lawmakers don't blame the ESRB for the slip-ups, but rather the companies, and this does make me glad. I do not want the government regulating video games, because that leads to censorship.

Noone's all bent out of shape about minors not getting let into R rated movies alone. Why this? It doesn't make sense the double standard you guys are setting up here. "Yeah, movie ratings are good, but it'll be a cold day in hell when they enforce the video game ratings!" Grow up. Trust me, it makes perfect sense if you have kids, or maybe even young nieces and nephews.

Edit: And, the reason for the ratings bump for Oblivion is because it's more violent than the presented material to the ESRB suggested, and also because modifications can be made to make the models nude or partly nude. It didn't get bumped to Adult because the mods are made by outside developers, and there's nothing in the original code to access that material normally.

I think what should happen is that if little Junior Sunuvabitch wants Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Mom or Dad Stupidparent gow ith him, the clerk should inform them of the ESRB rating and the content within the game. Because we know if a parent asks the kid what M stands for, he will respond with somehting stupid and make it not look as bad.

What's funny, is I've seen this first hand. I worked for a video store, and I swear to god they picked up Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance (the one with the bleeding logo) and I said, "this game is pretty gory and bloody. You might want to get Soul Calibur 2 instead."

And they said, "it's violent?"

Ya, same here - Once I started telling a parent about the kind of content was present in the games she was renting for her grandchild (in my days at Blockbuster Video -whee!) she kind of raised an eyebrow and said 'really?'

Like I was joking.

About video games? Never, ma'am.

To be honest my mother knows what M means on the game rating.

She just knows she raised me better than thinking it's ok to hot wire a car and kill some hookers just because a game does it.