Ever since the inception of gaming, controversy over explicit and violent content has dogged the industry. Early titles like Death Race and Custer’s Revenge showed that even crude, pixellated graphics could scandalize the public. As technology improved and in-game visuals became even more lifelike, protest from crusading politicians and outraged parents continued to grow. In 1994, following a series of Congressional hearings regarding the brutal Mortal Kombat series, the video game industry took action to appease its critics, forming the Entertainment Software Rating Board to give parents guidelines on what games were appropriate for their children.
Largely, the ESRB has been a tremendous success. Although technically a “voluntary†system, its rules and ratings are widely accepted in the industry, with over 1,000 titles being rated annually. Most major retailers require games to carry ESRB ratings, as do the major console makers. However, the ESRB has recently been the subject of widespread criticism from both watchdog groups and within the industry itself. Not surprisingly, the criticism is contradictory. While some feel that gaming content has gone beyond the pale with a new generation of Mature-rated, ultra-violent titles, others complain that video games have to play under a stricter set of rules than mediums like film. To make matters worse, a handful of scandals over the past year have called into question the reliability and integrity of the ratings system as whole. It’s little wonder that ESRB president Patricia Vance wearily observed that “people that work at the ESRB have the most thankless jobs in the industry†in a recent conversation with Game Informer. In the next few pages, we hope to shed a little light on both the recent controversies and just what goes into the process of rating video games.
Gaming Under Fire
June 14th marked a contentious end to a troubled 12 months for the video game ratings system. A little over a year to the date that a sex minigame nicknamed “Hot Coffee†was discovered in the PC and PS2 versions of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, the talk in Washington centered around a hearing of the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection. The hearings were largely focused on the fallout of the Federal Trade Commission’s June 8th settlement with Take-Two Interactive regarding the Hot Coffee incident.
Although representatives from the FTC and the ESRB were both on hand to defend the ways in which they dealt with the Hot Coffee incident, the congressmen had little patience for their testimony, and had harsh words for both organizations’ handling of the matter.
Representative Joe Barton (R-TX) railed against the FTC as being slow to act on the matter and also commented that he was “fed up with games like Grand Theft Auto being marketed under false pretenses.†Another Representative cited frustration that the FTC settlement with Take-Two (or “consent decreeâ€) levied no fines against the makers of GTA. “I would like to have thought that [Take-Two and Rockstar] would have been able to be fined for millions of dollars for the trash they put out across the country,†commented Fred Upton (R-MI).
Grand Theft Auto wasn’t the only title to run afoul of the rating system in the past months. In May, Bethesda Softworks’ popular role-playing game Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (also published by Take-Two) was re-categorized from a Teen rating to Mature by the ESRB in May. The reasons given were twofold, the main cause being (according to the ESRB) a graphic level of violence that they felt was under-reported in the ratings submission by Bethesda. Also, modders had found an art file in the game’s code that could be used by players to create a nude character model.
Bethesda, in an official statement, disputed these claims, saying: “Bethesda didn’t create a game with nudity and does not intend that nudity appear in Oblivion. There is no nude female character in a section of the game that can be ‘unlocked.’ Bethesda can not control tampering with Oblivion by third parties. Bethesda is taking steps to ensure that modders can not continue to hack into Oblivion’s art archives to create partially nude figures.†Continuing, the statement read, “With regard to violence, Bethesda advised the ESRB during the ratings process that violence and blood effects were ‘frequent’ in the game – checking the box on the form that is the maximum warning. We further advised that the game contained occasional torture, vulgar acts, and gore. We gave accurate answers and descriptions about the type and frequency of violence that appears in the game. We submitted a 60-page document listing the explicit language, acts, and scenes in the game. Oblivion packaging already contains warnings for ‘Violence’ and ‘Blood and Gore.’â€
All this took place against a background of ongoing legislation in several states. In the last two months alone, states like Minnesota, Louisiana, and Oklahoma passed laws that sought restrict the sales of violent games to minors, and in some cases (like the Minnesota law) even levy fines against minors that attempt to rent or purchase such titles.
Source: Game Informer Online
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