After finding out that the game discussed in this thread was Rated T for Teen, I thought a topic on the ESRB may be interesting. I dont want this topic to be about whether or not we need the ESRB or that it is the responsibility of parents to keep inappropriate content out of the hands of their children, since those are different points entirely. This thread asks a very specific question: What has the ESRB gotten wrong? What games have been rated far too harshly and which games got a free pass and lower rating? And what do you think are the reasons why this happened? Did a cutesy art style influence a more relaxed review or did a negative bias towards a specific genre lead to a stricter review? As a point of reference, here are the current ESRB rating categories:
More specific details can be found at this link:
http://www.esrb.org/ratings/ratings_guide.jsp
It seems clear to me that the ESRB prioritizes things like sexuality and nudity as being worse than violence. This is weird to me since nudity is just the human body, something that (hopefully) everyone will see and experience, while, knifing someone in the chest is far less common and something that I hope almost no one has to experience ever.
For me, here are some examples in games that I find very strange:
-Fight Night Round 3 and Round 4 are rated T because of violence while DOA Extreme Beach Volley Ball is Rated M because of some boobs
-I find it interesting that everything after Battlefield Bad Company is rated M while BFBC and everything before is rated T. What changed?
-Why the heck are all the Batman Arkham games rated T while other violent 3rd person action games are rated M? WB money hat?
So what say you GAF? Also, can a better system be put in place?
Some Games Mentioned So Far
More specific details can be found at this link:
http://www.esrb.org/ratings/ratings_guide.jsp
It seems clear to me that the ESRB prioritizes things like sexuality and nudity as being worse than violence. This is weird to me since nudity is just the human body, something that (hopefully) everyone will see and experience, while, knifing someone in the chest is far less common and something that I hope almost no one has to experience ever.
For me, here are some examples in games that I find very strange:
-Fight Night Round 3 and Round 4 are rated T because of violence while DOA Extreme Beach Volley Ball is Rated M because of some boobs
-I find it interesting that everything after Battlefield Bad Company is rated M while BFBC and everything before is rated T. What changed?
-Why the heck are all the Batman Arkham games rated T while other violent 3rd person action games are rated M? WB money hat?
So what say you GAF? Also, can a better system be put in place?
Some Games Mentioned So Far
- Ace Attorney 5 (Rated M) by Tagg9
- Shadow The Hedgehog (Rated E10+) by Zonic505
- Snatcher (Rated T) by Clov
- Halo (Rated M) by DNAbro
- Uncharted (Rated T) by Damian.
- Smash Bros (Rated T) by sn00zer
- Heart of Darkness (Rated E) by SolidSnakex