Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works in iHeart Radio and I love all
Speaker 1: things tech in. Today's episode is a classic episode that
Speaker 1: originally published on November nineteenth, two thousand and twelve. It's
Speaker 1: titled tech Stuff Gets an E s r B Rating
Speaker 1: and I talked about E s r B ratings not
Speaker 1: too long ago. But in this episode, Chris Palette and
Speaker 1: I actually talk about the e s r B rating system,
Speaker 1: where it came from, how it's used, and to get
Speaker 1: a deeper understanding of what it's for and you know
Speaker 1: why it exists. I hope you guys enjoy we're doing
Speaker 1: an episode about the e s RB. Okay, so are
Speaker 1: you okay? I am okay. It's the Entertainment Software Rating
Speaker 1: Board and this this is actually a request that was
Speaker 1: sent to us by a couple of different listeners who
Speaker 1: wanted to know more about this system. It's history, why
Speaker 1: do we have it, does it work? What's it all about?
Speaker 1: So in general, the E s r B. Sorry Alfie,
Speaker 1: he has r V. What's it all about Alfie. The
Speaker 1: E s r V is a it's a rating system
Speaker 1: for video games, and it's it's a rating system not
Speaker 1: for the quality of the game, but what is the content,
Speaker 1: how the content of the game shapes the game, and
Speaker 1: whether or not that content is um uh suitable for
Speaker 1: different age groups. So just running through the different ratings
Speaker 1: really quickly. Uh. The E s r B has ratings
Speaker 1: for e C, which is early childhood. That's games that
Speaker 1: are suitable for ages three and older. Younger than three,
Speaker 1: we just typically say these are people who probably can't
Speaker 1: process what the heck is going on anyway, so it
Speaker 1: really doesn't matter what it is, but not really appropriate
Speaker 1: in any case. Get that two year old off my Xbox. Uh,
Speaker 1: E is for everyone, which is actually not everyone. It's
Speaker 1: really content that's suitable for ages six and older. Keeping
Speaker 1: in mind that content that's EC early childhood probably has
Speaker 1: gameplay elements that most people all over the age of
Speaker 1: six wouldn't be terribly interested in. Um. I say most
Speaker 1: because there are exceptions. I mean, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: pass judgment on Chris if he wants to play lots
Speaker 1: of e C games. There's eight ten, ten plus, which
Speaker 1: is everyone ten and older, so against slightly more restrictive
Speaker 1: than just the E T four teen uh M for
Speaker 1: mature meaning people who are seventeen or older uh and
Speaker 1: AO AO which is adults only, which has content in
Speaker 1: it that should only be played by people of eighteen
Speaker 1: years of age or older according to their rating according
Speaker 1: to the rating A and each of these each of
Speaker 1: these ratings have their own criteria as to you know,
Speaker 1: what what constitutes a T rate rating as opposed to
Speaker 1: an M rating. And in general, what we're talking about
Speaker 1: here are types of content that might include things like
Speaker 1: gambling that that will up a E. S R B
Speaker 1: rating on a game to a higher one to like
Speaker 1: M or whatever. H violence, blood, gore, sexual content, strong language,
Speaker 1: drug use, this kind of stuff sort of the same
Speaker 1: things that you would see with the Motion Picture Association
Speaker 1: of America with their rating system for movies. In fact,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of parallels. And you might say,
Speaker 1: all right, so we have this rating system, Uh, how
Speaker 1: did that get started? And really to to understand that,
Speaker 1: you have to go back into the history of video games,
Speaker 1: I would argue in a way that you'd have to
Speaker 1: go back into the history of entertainment content because I
Speaker 1: think e s RB is, well, it's a consortium really,
Speaker 1: and and the thing is, I think they we're paying
Speaker 1: attention to what had happened to people in other industries
Speaker 1: as well, right It just before the before the early nineties,
Speaker 1: it was kind of a moot point only because video
Speaker 1: games were fairly primitive as far as graphics are concerned.
Speaker 1: So it was not easy to graphically represent something that
Speaker 1: would be objectionable. Uh, not that people didn't try, and
Speaker 1: not that there aren't exceptions, because there are, I'm thinking
Speaker 1: of one right off the top of my head for
Speaker 1: the Atari Twenty Days, but you could not realistically represent
Speaker 1: things like uh, graphic violence or sexual content before the
Speaker 1: sixteen bit era. It was just really the consideration was
Speaker 1: that the eight bit era and earlier, everything was so
Speaker 1: blocky and so pixelated that it didn't really resemble reality.
Speaker 1: It was more like seeing something in a cartoon. So uh,
Speaker 1: you know, you might watch a cartoon as a kid
Speaker 1: of Wildly Coyote and the roadrunner, and the road runner
Speaker 1: does something and Wildly Coyote suffers a terrible injury, and
Speaker 1: there are some people who would argue that that could
Speaker 1: be harmful to kids, uh, seeing how it shaped me
Speaker 1: and who I am. Well that's anecdotal anyway. And Chris, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, don't worry. I'm not going to do anything
Speaker 1: with this enormous mallet behind me. Um he he he. Well, yes,
Speaker 1: I and you know that there were some exceptions. I
Speaker 1: do bear a striking resemblance to my character from Adventure
Speaker 1: on the right. Just a block, because I am a block,
Speaker 1: just a just a block, just one pixel block, but
Speaker 1: a giant pixel. Uh. Once we got into the sixteen
Speaker 1: bit era, we started to have more realistic, more fluid graphics,
Speaker 1: and there was you know, the the population that was
Speaker 1: playing video games was beginning to grow older. You know,
Speaker 1: you were you had people who had started playing video
Speaker 1: games as kids on systems like the Atari or the
Speaker 1: Ninteno Entertainment System or whatever, and so they were continuing
Speaker 1: to play video games as they got older, and their
Speaker 1: interests began to um go into more what we call
Speaker 1: mature subjects. So just like people who watched movies, you know,
Speaker 1: they might want to go see an R rated movie
Speaker 1: or something, uh, same sort of thing. And so the
Speaker 1: video game publishers began to cater to that audience. I mean,
Speaker 1: you've got to remember also the people who were developing
Speaker 1: video games. They were video game players, you know, when
Speaker 1: they were kids. And we're talking about the early nineties here.
Speaker 1: The people who played video games in the very early
Speaker 1: eighties were now the people who were making video games
Speaker 1: in the nineties. Their tastes had matured, and so you
Speaker 1: started to see video games that were depicting violence in
Speaker 1: a more realistic and graphic way than ever before, and
Speaker 1: that began to raise some concerns in the minds of
Speaker 1: certain people. UH. Some of those people held quite a
Speaker 1: bit of influence, people like UH, the Senator Joe Lieberman
Speaker 1: UH and Senator Herb Herb Cole. They both were concerned
Speaker 1: and they had hearings in the United States Senate about
Speaker 1: video game violence and how that affected children and whether
Speaker 1: or not in fact, video games were contributing to the
Speaker 1: corruption of society. This is not a new thing at all.
Speaker 1: We have had politicians worry about various forms of entertainment
Speaker 1: corrupting the youth and ruining everything. And that's why apple
Speaker 1: pie doesn't taste as sweet. It's why you can't walk
Speaker 1: down the street at night. It's why you have to
Speaker 1: lock your doors when you leave in the evening. It's
Speaker 1: it's why you you never have the paper because your
Speaker 1: neighbor always steals it. It's it's it's the perp. It's
Speaker 1: actually the reason why everything is terrible. Now I'm exaggerating
Speaker 1: for effect. I didn't know if you were you were,
Speaker 1: you know, well no, but um but yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1: And then it's not just politicians, of course, their parents associations.
Speaker 1: There are just concerned citizens who draw conclusions that a
Speaker 1: form of entertainment and the its popularity among a certain
Speaker 1: group might in fact influence that certain group to behave
Speaker 1: in a negative way or to be desensitized against violence
Speaker 1: for example. Exactly. Yes, so not necessarily they'll go out
Speaker 1: and hit somebody over the head with a mallet, But
Speaker 1: if they see someone else hit someone over the head
Speaker 1: with a mallet, they won't necessarily spring to action. Um yeah.
Speaker 1: There there are concerns, and there have been lots of
Speaker 1: different studies with very different outcomes about whether or not
Speaker 1: violence in media affects people in a real way beyond
Speaker 1: you know, beyond like a visceral reaction. Does it have
Speaker 1: a lasting impact on a person's personality. Those are questions
Speaker 1: that still have not been fully answered because there are
Speaker 1: a lot of studies out there with conflicting results. I
Speaker 1: know what I believe, but but there are results the
Speaker 1: conflict with what I believe. So well, as it turns out,
Speaker 1: it may be one of those frustrating situation where it
Speaker 1: may depend on the individual person, right, Well, in which
Speaker 1: case I would argue that that's a person that's a
Speaker 1: person issue, not a not an industry issue, right because
Speaker 1: it's it's one of those things you can make the
Speaker 1: argument of, well, if this one person who was affected
Speaker 1: by this one type of media were to instead have
Speaker 1: fixated upon another type of media, we'd be having the
Speaker 1: same discussion, but we'd be having it about music. And
Speaker 1: this discussion has been about music. It has been about television,
Speaker 1: it has been about film, it's been about novels. It's
Speaker 1: been about classical music. I mean, any form of entertainment.
Speaker 1: You can imagine. It's gone through this experience of people
Speaker 1: talking about, you know, that novel, that new fangled way
Speaker 1: of putting words together and creating fanciful fictional stories is
Speaker 1: ruining everything. Oh yeah, that that Actually there were people
Speaker 1: who said that novels we're bringing about the downfall of society. Well, hey,
Speaker 1: I recently read that that Plato I think it was,
Speaker 1: had rebelled against the written words. He said, no, it's
Speaker 1: because writing things down means that you are sapping your
Speaker 1: own ability to think that was the idea. It's it's
Speaker 1: the same argument about Google making us stupid, because everything
Speaker 1: that we need to know is on the web now,
Speaker 1: so we don't need to remember it in our our
Speaker 1: meat space heads. Um. So yeah, I mean, anyway, like
Speaker 1: we the point of that whole thing is just to
Speaker 1: say video games are not unique in this situation. This
Speaker 1: has gone through multiple venues, multiple forms of media. But
Speaker 1: in this case you had a lot of pressure coming
Speaker 1: from the United States government for something to be done
Speaker 1: in the video game industry. Within the industry itself or
Speaker 1: the ultimatum was, if you guys don't get together and
Speaker 1: figure out a way of taking care of this, then
Speaker 1: we're gonna do it. We being the United States government,
Speaker 1: and the industry was like, did not want that to happen.
Speaker 1: They did not want to have some sort of federal
Speaker 1: regulation in place over the video game industry, and so
Speaker 1: it was imperative to come up with some sort of
Speaker 1: industry based ratings system that could be demonstrably proven to
Speaker 1: be as objective as possible, so it's not you know,
Speaker 1: it's not pulling the wool over anyone's eyes or anything. Uh.
Speaker 1: And to have some sort of enforceable policy. Yeah, those
Speaker 1: were all important issues. Yeah. And and again they're they're
Speaker 1: taking their their their cues from other similar or other
Speaker 1: entertainment industries, like the Motion Picture Association of America with
Speaker 1: with movie ratings several decades prior, and of course the
Speaker 1: Comics Code from comic books after Frederick Wortham's uh um
Speaker 1: Seduction of the Innocent um. Wow. But yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: these these industries self regulated. They said, okay, okay, you
Speaker 1: know what, we'll get together. We'll form a group, and
Speaker 1: we will come up with a rating system that helps
Speaker 1: people identify what kind of content to you know, will
Speaker 1: be in the package when you when you do this.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I mean there were there were certain games
Speaker 1: in particular, I think some you know, like Mortal Kombats.
Speaker 1: That's the one. The Mortal Kombat, I think more than
Speaker 1: any other video game, has been cited as the the
Speaker 1: genesis of this discussion. I mean there are other ones
Speaker 1: to like Doom that was another big one, domm Night
Speaker 1: Trap for home games, Lethal Enforcers, which was, as I recall,
Speaker 1: a light gun based game. So I mean, yeah, these
Speaker 1: these were games that had a lot of violence in them.
Speaker 1: Of course, by today's games standards, if you're talking about
Speaker 1: a truly, truly violent game in today's standards, they might
Speaker 1: seem quaint in comparison. Yeah, but but you know, that
Speaker 1: was what caused these conversations to happen, and as a result,
Speaker 1: the games industry are actually different. Companies within the industry
Speaker 1: all began to suggest ratings systems, and in fact, there
Speaker 1: were quite a few. In the earliest days. There were
Speaker 1: several competing One. Sega came out with one, the Video
Speaker 1: Game Rating Council. Uh. Yep, Video Game Rating Council was
Speaker 1: from Sega. There was the three D O suggested one. Uh.
Speaker 1: They they had the Recreational Software Advisory Council formed by
Speaker 1: Software Publishers Association, and then there was one called the
Speaker 1: Interactive Digital Software Association, which again was a uh it's
Speaker 1: a collection, it's a collection of software companies that were
Speaker 1: uh advocating for a particular rating system, and that I
Speaker 1: D s A. It's eventually became the Entertainment Software Rating
Speaker 1: Board e s r B. As we now know it,
Speaker 1: that got present it to Congress, and in uh Congress
Speaker 1: approved the form the formation of the s E s
Speaker 1: R B, and they you know, it was formally made
Speaker 1: the rating system for American video games. So if you
Speaker 1: pick up a video game in America, a video game case,
Speaker 1: there's a very good chance, in fact, an overwhelmingly good chance,
Speaker 1: that you will see a little black box with white
Speaker 1: white inside, and then there's a black letter that indicates
Speaker 1: what the rating for that particular game is UM and
Speaker 1: and that's become the standard essentially. And here's the thing
Speaker 1: is that there's there's no The reason for this again
Speaker 1: is so that the consumer has an idea of what
Speaker 1: type of content is going to be in that game. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's it's not specifically meant to dictate two retailers what
Speaker 1: they need to do with each type of game. Like
Speaker 1: in other words, there's no rule that says, okay, anything
Speaker 1: that is rated T or or higher in the on
Speaker 1: the maturity scale like T or M or a O
Speaker 1: cannot be three feet off the floor. It has to
Speaker 1: be higher up than that. Like, there's no rule about that.
Speaker 1: There's no there's no specific policy in place or law
Speaker 1: in place that says you have to be a certain
Speaker 1: age to be able to buy a game. The rating
Speaker 1: is there as a guide to say this is what,
Speaker 1: this is who the game is intended. You know, we
Speaker 1: mean this for people who are seventeen or older or
Speaker 1: eighteen or older. Chris and I have more to say
Speaker 1: about the s r B rating system, but before we
Speaker 1: get to that, let's take a quick break. There was
Speaker 1: the United States Supreme Court found that that you cannot
Speaker 1: restrict mature or adults only titles to specific age groups
Speaker 1: to be cause video game content falls under the realm
Speaker 1: of free speech, which cannot be infringed upon by the government.
Speaker 1: Now that doesn't mean that the stores can't have policies,
Speaker 1: because the stores are not the government. In fact, that
Speaker 1: was the whole reason why this board was formed, was
Speaker 1: so that they could keep that separation between government and business.
Speaker 1: So a an actual retailer, if you were to go
Speaker 1: to a video game store, they might have a policy
Speaker 1: that says, we do not sell uh any game that
Speaker 1: is ranked M or AO to anyone under the age
Speaker 1: of seventeen, and we will ask for I D. And
Speaker 1: that's their policy, and it's perfectly fine. The government can't
Speaker 1: restrict it, but a store can and UH also go
Speaker 1: ahead and say it. AO games very rarely get carried
Speaker 1: in stores because it's kind of the same thing as
Speaker 1: the n C seventeen rating for films. Films that get
Speaker 1: an NC seventeen rating very very rarely get any sort
Speaker 1: of relief in most theaters. You might have a few
Speaker 1: independent theaters that will run in C seventeen movies, but
Speaker 1: in general they do not get any sort of wide
Speaker 1: release at all. It's very rare when that happens. So
Speaker 1: the same sort of thing with AO games. So getting
Speaker 1: an AO rating. If you are a game publisher and
Speaker 1: you develop a game and you submit it to the
Speaker 1: e s r B and you get an A O rating,
Speaker 1: your first reaction might be, we need to change this
Speaker 1: because no one's going to carry our game in stores
Speaker 1: and we're not going to make any money. Yeah. Yeah, Now,
Speaker 1: they don't They don't necessarily play all of the games.
Speaker 1: Actually they don't. They don't play the games at all. Well,
Speaker 1: they do have in house testers, according to the s
Speaker 1: r B, who do go through it um and as
Speaker 1: a result of UH the whole hot Coffee incident, they
Speaker 1: are supposed to at least disclose everything that's in the
Speaker 1: in the package that you could get even if it's hidden. Okay,
Speaker 1: So in order to in order to understand what Chris
Speaker 1: has just said, you know, we have to have some
Speaker 1: background here. First of all, the general way that a
Speaker 1: game manufacturer submits a game to the s r B
Speaker 1: E s RBS UH general way of testing a game
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily involve playing it. It can involve playing it,
Speaker 1: but to play a game and to really get a
Speaker 1: sense of what the content is all about can take
Speaker 1: hours and hours and hours of gameplay, so they don't
Speaker 1: play every single game that comes into them all the
Speaker 1: way through. What they do tend to do, though, is
Speaker 1: part of the E s r B ratings processes. They
Speaker 1: require a game manufacturer to submit a DVD that has
Speaker 1: on it the examples of the most extreme types of
Speaker 1: content that game has. So, in other words, you're watching
Speaker 1: like a clip compilation of the worst of this game,
Speaker 1: worst being in the sense of like the most intense content.
Speaker 1: So if if it has any sort of violent content,
Speaker 1: or uh, sexually graphic content, or or foul language, anything
Speaker 1: like that, anything that would affect the rating, the most
Speaker 1: intense examples of that are supposed to be included on
Speaker 1: the DVD so that the ratings experts who are trained
Speaker 1: in UH the the processes that the E s r
Speaker 1: B uses to determine the rating for a game, so
Speaker 1: that they can determine what rating applies here. And if
Speaker 1: you were to release a game that turned out to
Speaker 1: contain content that went beyond what you showed the DVD
Speaker 1: in the DVD, you could suffer some pretty stiff fines industry.
Speaker 1: UH the industry itself would find you and you could
Speaker 1: face a recall which could be very expensive to recall
Speaker 1: all the copies of the game. Now that is the
Speaker 1: case when when Christmas talking about the hot Coffee incident,
Speaker 1: that's specifically talking about it was Grand Theft Auto four right,
Speaker 1: I want to say, or Grand Theft Auto San Andreas.
Speaker 1: Grand Theft Auto s Andreas was specifically what it was.
Speaker 1: Uh I owned that game. So this was something that
Speaker 1: was originally included in the game, and it was a
Speaker 1: mini game, and it was it was a sexual encounter
Speaker 1: and it was Ultimately the game designers decided not to
Speaker 1: include it in the game, but they didn't remove it
Speaker 1: so much as they kind of the code was still there,
Speaker 1: but it was inactive. It was sort of like an
Speaker 1: Easter egg. Well, yeah, you could get to it if
Speaker 1: you if you knew how to either uh, if you
Speaker 1: knew how to either alter an Xbox console or if
Speaker 1: you're using the PC version, if you were able to
Speaker 1: use some software to activate the code, you could get
Speaker 1: access to this game. But it was this mini game
Speaker 1: within the game, but it was not intended for public consumption,
Speaker 1: at least that's what the publisher said. And the problem
Speaker 1: was that went outside what they had submitted to the
Speaker 1: ratings board, and they had their original rating for that
Speaker 1: game was M for mature. That mini game pushed it
Speaker 1: over to adults only, and so they ended up doing
Speaker 1: a recall and republishing the game without the code in
Speaker 1: at all so they could regain that M mature rating. Ah,
Speaker 1: if you were to uh submit your game again, you
Speaker 1: would send this DVD to the e s r B.
Speaker 1: They would have up to well at least three people
Speaker 1: looking at it. Those three people would have experience with kids.
Speaker 1: That's actually one of the requirements is that they would
Speaker 1: have to have some sort of experience, either professional or personal,
Speaker 1: with children in order to be able to view the
Speaker 1: content and then judge at what age level is this appropriate,
Speaker 1: and so it's not just you know, some scientists with
Speaker 1: beakers and uh, not that kind of beaker, but with
Speaker 1: a like electronic device is saying, well, scientifically, we've determined
Speaker 1: that sixteen is exactly the age at which this game
Speaker 1: can be sold, and no one under sixteen should ever
Speaker 1: play it. It's not that it's uh, it's a little
Speaker 1: more subjective than that. In fact, so is in fact
Speaker 1: the film rating system. It's not there's no rating system
Speaker 1: that I know of that is truly objective, so that
Speaker 1: you may find examples of games on the market where
Speaker 1: you're thinking, this game is rated T for team, this
Speaker 1: game is rated M for mature, and I cannot see
Speaker 1: a significant difference in content between the two games. That's
Speaker 1: entirely possible. Same with M and A O. You might say, well,
Speaker 1: why did this incredibly violent game get a mature rating?
Speaker 1: But this game which has a brief UH scene, that's
Speaker 1: that's part of the game that has some sort of
Speaker 1: sexuality to it that got AO. And again it also
Speaker 1: brings into question things like the cultural values like which
Speaker 1: this gets discussions all the time. Why do we think
Speaker 1: of violence being more acceptable than uh scenes that depicts sexuality?
Speaker 1: For example. And I mean there's that's a complicated cultural
Speaker 1: question that goes well beyond the scope of UH this podcast.
Speaker 1: I mean that it would be a fascinating discussion but
Speaker 1: doesn't really play into here. But yeah, if you take
Speaker 1: a look, there's there's a list that they maintained that
Speaker 1: the s r B maintains of all the games that
Speaker 1: have received an AO rating. It's a tiny, tiny list.
Speaker 1: There's not many, and almost all of them, in fact,
Speaker 1: all of them that I can think of, UH have
Speaker 1: strong sexual content as one of the components of the game,
Speaker 1: and except for one, was gambling and it was actual
Speaker 1: gambling and that's what got it an AO rating, and
Speaker 1: the rest were strong sexual content which gave it the
Speaker 1: A O rating, Whereas there was I think only one
Speaker 1: game that I can think of that merited and initially
Speaker 1: merited an AO rating based solely upon violence, which was
Speaker 1: The Punisher, as I recall, and it was it just
Speaker 1: it had such graphic depictions of violence and and torture
Speaker 1: scenes that the game publisher ended up going back and
Speaker 1: in order to avoid an AO rating, they changed. There
Speaker 1: was there was like some interrogation scene I think that
Speaker 1: was so intense that that was what was the real problem.
Speaker 1: That was the crux of it. So they changed it
Speaker 1: from color to a black and white uh image for
Speaker 1: that particular sequence, and that was enough to knock it
Speaker 1: back down to mature, which is kind of interesting. I
Speaker 1: mean again, that's a philosophical discussion that I think needs
Speaker 1: to happen and has happened in the past, but needs
Speaker 1: to continue to happen. But as outside the scope of
Speaker 1: our our show, Yeah, but there aren't There aren't many
Speaker 1: for AO and they're almost all PC games. WHOA. I
Speaker 1: have to interrupt the episode here because Chris was about
Speaker 1: to say something that was going to make this m
Speaker 1: for mature. We're gonna take a time out so he
Speaker 1: can think about what he did. Well. The according to
Speaker 1: the the E s RB, there were one thousand, thirty
Speaker 1: two ratings given them were rated E for everyone, um
Speaker 1: were everyone ten and older? Were Team were mature. That
Speaker 1: actually really surprises me. But maybe it's because it's the
Speaker 1: type of games I play which tend to be in
Speaker 1: that mature range, because they tend to have a lot
Speaker 1: of violence in them, so that that knocks it up
Speaker 1: to mature pretty quickly. Um then, and games have gone
Speaker 1: a lot more complicated with a big hammer and knocks
Speaker 1: it right or up there. But games have got a
Speaker 1: lot more complicated than when when the e s RB
Speaker 1: first launched these these ratings, games were somewhat less complex
Speaker 1: in the sense that not only only were they graphically
Speaker 1: more simple, but you didn't have to worry about things
Speaker 1: like online components so much. You know, the this was
Speaker 1: the era where online gaming was starting to be I'm
Speaker 1: a thing, but it was it was pretty rare. Today,
Speaker 1: of course, it's common for games to have online components.
Speaker 1: So now you will also have other elements included with
Speaker 1: your basic rating, which includes the content descriptors, which tell
Speaker 1: you why in a very broad sense, the game is
Speaker 1: rated a particular way. So I might say, you know,
Speaker 1: M for strong, for for violence and blood and gore,
Speaker 1: something like that. But there's also what they call interactive elements.
Speaker 1: These are features that a game might have that could
Speaker 1: uh change the experience of playing that game, but it's
Speaker 1: outside the scope of the content itself. This is stuff
Speaker 1: like the game has some sort of social element to it,
Speaker 1: like it might share personal information about you when you
Speaker 1: play this game. Well, that's something that you would want
Speaker 1: to know. It doesn't have anything to do with the
Speaker 1: content of the game, but because it could share your
Speaker 1: personal information, you probably want to know that before you
Speaker 1: buy the game, or that it may also allow for
Speaker 1: or online play with other gamers. And now again, uh,
Speaker 1: an online game might be the least objectionable thing in
Speaker 1: the world. It might be a simple puzzle game that
Speaker 1: has no objectionable content and would be rated E for
Speaker 1: everyone based on the the gameplay itself. But if it
Speaker 1: has that online component, then again, adults kind of need
Speaker 1: to know because you go online and people do not
Speaker 1: necessarily behave the same way that the content would suggest.
Speaker 1: So you might have the most foul mouthed, awful person
Speaker 1: playing a puzzle game with you, and uh. And you know,
Speaker 1: you can't blame it on the game. It's the person
Speaker 1: who's doing it. But you know, by including that interactive
Speaker 1: element on the box, the person buying the games, like, Okay,
Speaker 1: if I play it this way, I can't expect that
Speaker 1: sometimes I'm going to encounter material that could be objectionable. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's all subjective, which is that's the and that's
Speaker 1: the trickiest art. You know. You you, like I said,
Speaker 1: you can have two different you could submit the same
Speaker 1: game to two different fully trained groups of people who
Speaker 1: that's their job is to uh to put a rating
Speaker 1: to a game and get two different results. And it's
Speaker 1: because it is subjective. There's you know, it's not like
Speaker 1: you count up the number of times someone gets punched
Speaker 1: in the face and that determines whether it goes to
Speaker 1: from T to M or or whatever. Um. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: it's it's a little I mean, but again, this this
Speaker 1: is all about the software industry monitoring themselves so that
Speaker 1: there's not some sort of government agency doing it for them. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Ultimately it's it's in the industry's best interest to do
Speaker 1: its own policing so that they can avoid any imperial entanglement,
Speaker 1: right right, right, I thought I detected your stench as
Speaker 1: sin as I came on board. Um they yes that
Speaker 1: no more chili. Uh yeah, it's it's one of those
Speaker 1: things where where you know, if the industry didn't do it,
Speaker 1: it was gonna get done to them. And again, these
Speaker 1: these ratings are guidelines so a store can develop certain policies.
Speaker 1: But ultimately, like you know, you could buy games online.
Speaker 1: That's another issue. Downloadable content that can change a game
Speaker 1: because what comes in the package when you buy it
Speaker 1: from the store, could be very simple and yeah, like
Speaker 1: you could have a game where it's fairly violent but
Speaker 1: not terrible, you know. So so let's say get a
Speaker 1: mature ratings, so it's it's bad enough, so they say,
Speaker 1: all right, seventeen and older. They that we're gonna limit
Speaker 1: it to seventeen or older. And then you have downloadable
Speaker 1: content that has much more intense content in it. Then
Speaker 1: you might have people say, way, now this really needs
Speaker 1: to be adults only. Now that that causes problems. That
Speaker 1: makes it more complicated. So yeah, I mean, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's a complex issue. I also kind of it does
Speaker 1: make me wonder at what level do they say we
Speaker 1: need to put this as adults only? It goes beyond
Speaker 1: mature because I've played some games that have had some
Speaker 1: pretty intense content in it, and you know, not that
Speaker 1: I'm advocating that those games get reassigned a different rating,
Speaker 1: but it just makes me wonder, really, where where is
Speaker 1: the where's the line? You know? And again I suspect
Speaker 1: that's the strong sexual content that's really the line. Um
Speaker 1: that's just a based on anecdotal experience, So it's not
Speaker 1: you know, don't take it to the bank or anything.
Speaker 1: But based on some of the incredibly violent games I've played,
Speaker 1: where you can do some pretty awful stuff, it does
Speaker 1: make me wonder, all right, where's the limit. I don't
Speaker 1: I don't understand where the this divider is. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's understandable because it's you know, there's with it being subjective,
Speaker 1: there's no clear cut book of stuff that people are
Speaker 1: judging it by. Now, I would say, if you are
Speaker 1: a parent and you're listening to this podcast, pay attention
Speaker 1: to those ratings on the video game covers and think
Speaker 1: about that, you know, and think about the influence that
Speaker 1: might have on a kid, or just think if that's
Speaker 1: if that's really something that you think your your kids
Speaker 1: should be getting into. I mean, I think I think
Speaker 1: parents do need to take a lot of responsibility for
Speaker 1: this and pay attention to what their kids are getting into, because, um,
Speaker 1: you know, it's better to know upfront than to be
Speaker 1: surprised later on. And uh, I mean, if you're cool
Speaker 1: with your kid playing mature games, then that's a personal
Speaker 1: decision and I'm not going to argue with you one
Speaker 1: way or the other. I don't have kids, so I
Speaker 1: don't feel like I have any groundstand on when it
Speaker 1: comes to that sort of discussion, but just be aware.
Speaker 1: As vilified as it is in some circles, I do
Speaker 1: think that having the ratings available to people makes it
Speaker 1: a little easier to tell sort of the situation you're
Speaker 1: getting into when you when you pick up a game. Um,
Speaker 1: and there are I'm sure there are quite a few
Speaker 1: adults who who are buying games for themselves who's sort
Speaker 1: of like, you know, you just see you can glance
Speaker 1: at the game, you go, oh, that looks interesting, and
Speaker 1: then you see the thing and you might say, you
Speaker 1: know what, if this is mature, there's probably a lot
Speaker 1: of violence the word, or if you're an adult, you
Speaker 1: might look in and say, oh, you look at the
Speaker 1: team that's not gonna Yeah. It goes the other way too, right,
Speaker 1: like if you have people who want to play really
Speaker 1: intense games, they're like, oh, this looks cool, and then
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, it's t for teen that's not intense enough.
Speaker 1: Just like you know, I hear this all the time
Speaker 1: from people who are fans of horror movies and a
Speaker 1: horror movie comes out and it's rated PG or PG
Speaker 1: thirteen and they think, oh, well, then it's not worth
Speaker 1: seeing because it's not gonna you know, personally, I think
Speaker 1: that you can do a lot within that rating by
Speaker 1: cranking up tension and terror. Uh you know, it doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily mean that it's an inferior movie just because it
Speaker 1: has that rating, but that's that's one of those things
Speaker 1: like you know, you go out and you buy a game,
Speaker 1: or you're going to buy a game. You see it's
Speaker 1: ray for everyone. You're like, yeah, I could get that,
Speaker 1: or I could get blood, guts and gore or seven
Speaker 1: the torturing, which is him, let's get that one instead,
Speaker 1: and has nothing to do with the quality of the
Speaker 1: content in a sense of whether it's a fun game
Speaker 1: to play. It just has to do with the actual content.
Speaker 1: So um, yeah, don't treat these ratings as uh as
Speaker 1: as a statement of the actual quality of the game itself.
Speaker 1: That would be a mistake as well, because you could
Speaker 1: have a game that's rated imflemature that's nearly unplayable, just terrible,
Speaker 1: and another game that's E for everyone that might seem
Speaker 1: like it's just a very you know, kind of simple,
Speaker 1: silly game, but be really genuinely fun to play. So
Speaker 1: don't take the ratings as any sort of comment on
Speaker 1: what the gameplay experience will be like. Alright, guys, that
Speaker 1: wraps up this classic episode of tech Stuff. Hope you
Speaker 1: enjoyed it, and if you have any suggestions for future
Speaker 1: episodes of the show, why why don't you just write
Speaker 1: me let me know what is email addresses tech Stuff
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