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