ESRB, Part 2

Yes, I know it is Wednesday. I know that my post is a day late.

Anyway, on to part 2 of the ESRB discussion.

Another major flaw with the ESRB is their rating system. The ESRB has used a letter system since its founding, just as the European ratings system (PEGI) does. This lettering system is very vague and should be expanded. The current ratings of the ESRB are E for Everyone, E10+ for Everyone 10 years of age and up, T for Teen, M for Mature, and AO for Adult Only (The previous rating of KA for Kids to Adults was discontinued in 2000). As shown by the previous example of Halo 3 to Call of Duty 3 in the last post, these current ratings do not do much to tell about the actual content of the game. E games are generally considered to be childish games, but E is meant to mean that anyone can play it. T is usually the rating given to games that are violent in nature but not adult in nature. This means a game could be extremely violent yet only garner a T rating. M is meant for mature audiences. It is meant for audiences that can handle adult content. Yet many M games have little violence yet only display stronger themes. Many books have more mature themes, yet they are not considered mature in nature (Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Chronicles of Narnia). The entire system does not aid in the slightest to an adult trying to figure out what game to buy for his or her child.

The ESRB also uses a label system to go with the letters. These are phrases such as "Intense Blood and Gore" or "Cartoon Violence" to try and specify the game's content a bit more. These in retrospect should help the letter system, and in some cases they do. Unfortunately, they can still be too vague to show the content. Cartoon violence can be anything from Looney Toons "run into the fake wall" to more mature things such as Ghost in the Shell action. Both cartoons, both violence, yet completely different. A phrase such as "Blood and Gore" can be seen on a game such as Halo, which has no gore and no human blood. The covenant bleed purple and green. Human blood is violent and mature, especially when shown at the intense level such as the Gears of War games (anyone remember the worm in Gears of War 2?). Alien blood is not mature, and is actually less noticeable than human blood. They aren't the same.

The ESRB need to overhall their ratings system. The letter and phrase idea works for some games, but not all. As the video game industry begins to expand and go into different areas of entertainment, ratings need to be more specific to show the real content of the game. A game like Kingdom Hearts looks like a nice Disney game, but as anyone who has played the game will note, the themes are mature and it is much more of a Final Fantasy game than a Disney game. More games are beginning to come out that blur those lines of E to T and T to M. Many gamers like myself have played a game and have wondered things such as "Is this really a mature game? I don't find it to be that violent." and even more concerning, "This game is way too violent to be a T game."

A good solution for the ESRB would be to specify the game content as best as possible. As already discussed in the previous post, the ESRB needs to start playing the games they are reviewing. Their ratings system should maintain a letter system, just because this is the easiest way someone can immediately know what the content of the game generally is. The letter system should be much better however. The rating of E10+ is a good idea, because it states that everyone can play it if they are 10 years of age or older. More ratings like this would be nice. Perhaps splitting the T rating into two ratings, one for younger teens and one for older teens would be more appropriate than the M rating. M rating should only be used for truly mature games, both in story and in gameplay. This would even out the ratings.

The ESRB should also do away with the phrase system. These do not help the already specified rating letter on the box. All they do is make it more confusing, leading some people to believe and trust just the letter grade and not the phrases, or just the phrases and not the letter grade. They are meant to work together. A possible thing to do would be to put a summary of the game's content on the back, and not just phrases. This way, the specific game can be rated and not constricted to the set standard of phrases. A summary provides good information on the game while not categorizing it with other games with which it can't be categorized. Guitar Hero and Call of Duty 3 are very different games, yet they are rated the same way because they are both T games.

What do you think is the status of the ESRB and their ratings system? Should they change or is their current system okay?