Gaming World Forums
General Category => Entertainment and Media => Topic started by: GoombaStalker on April 06, 2008, 07:25:57 am
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I was reading through an EGM article on the ESRB where the writer commented on changes to the rating system, and was wondering what changes you guys feel would be best to improve the rating system. I’ll quickly outline what was mentioned and then state my opinions..
-The rating categories are not flexible enough and nobody cares to support the Adults Only rating. Proposed solution was to have the Mature rating be the top of the scale, which is recommended to anyone 18 or older, and would include everything that was AO previously.
-There are only six full-time raters and they don’t even play the games they rate, just watch videos of other people playing them. Proposed solution was to have all raters play games from start to finish in completion and take notes along the way, as well as hire more raters so the pool is larger.
-Sequels and game series sometimes carry on the same rating as the previous game, where they should be judged individually.
-After the raters decide on a rating the officials would sometimes change the rating without feedback from the raters, where their work should be trusted that they are doing their job correctly and providing accurate ratings.
My opinion:
Maybe I haven’t paying attention but the fact that only six raters are coming up with these ratings was somewhat shocking to me, but I don’t think simply beefing up the crew with more raters is enough. Their backgrounds should be taken into account, more than just their gender, to ensure a diverse group of raters that will provide perspectives from many different angles. I’m talking about getting people with different cultural backgrounds from various countries, for applications such as.. what may be offensive to a parent from one cultural background may not be offensive to a parent from a different one.
The last part about the final rating getting modified by the officials bothers me the most but it’s nothing that I didn’t think was going on already. This part of the process is where the media and political crap gets it’s shot at making their decisions about what they think games should be rated.
Looking forward to hearing some more opinions on the subject..
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My opinion is that the ESRB should just be removed completely and 99% of people don't care what they say anyways. The only people who do care are overprotective parents that think if their son plays GTA he is going to steal cars and shoot up da hood with a gattling gun, laughing hysterically as he mows down innocent bystanders until he is eventually stopped by the military.
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Moving this to the VG forum.
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The ESRB is seriously important for parents... who apparently don't know how to fucking USE it, because they buy the rated M games for Billy anyways.
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My opinion is that the ESRB should just be removed completely and 99% of people don't care what they say anyways. The only people who do care are overprotective parents that think if their son plays GTA he is going to steal cars and shoot up da hood with a gattling gun, laughing hysterically as he mows down innocent bystanders until he is eventually stopped by the military.
That's a horrible %, considering our government very much so cares what they say, as well as good (hint: it's not being overprotective) parents. Guess my parents are overprotective not letting my 10 yr old sister watch a XXX movie, right?
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The ESRB needs to do two things:
1. Have staff actually play the games rather than asking the publisher to send them videos of "what is representative of the most graphic material in the game" (as they put it).
2. Reduce their fees. This means that they have to run a more efficient company. It costs thousands and thousands of dollars to have a game rated by the ESRB. This is a little silly when you consider that the rating official spends all of 10 minutes watching a short video sent in by the publisher. Where is the money going? Like many nonprofits, the ESRB doesn't bother controlling costs because they aren't legally allowed to collect profits. However, their extremely high fees are not good for the industry. Not only are many independent developers shut out, but some big developers are affected too -- I've heard it suggested that the decreasing number of Virtual Console games is related it the exorbitant fees involved with getting a rating for the game (in order to cover a $10,000 investment to collect a rating, your Super Turricans and R-Type 3s have to sell thousands of copies).
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2. Reduce their fees. This means that they have to run a more efficient company. It costs thousands and thousands of dollars to have a game rated by the ESRB. This is a little silly when you consider that the rating official spends all of 10 minutes watching a short video sent in by the publisher. Where is the money going? Like many nonprofits, the ESRB doesn't bother controlling costs because they aren't legally allowed to collect profits. However, their extremely high fees are not good for the industry. Not only are many independent developers shut out, but some big developers are affected too -- I've heard it suggested that the decreasing number of Virtual Console games is related it the exorbitant fees involved with getting a rating for the game (in order to cover a $10,000 investment to collect a rating, your Super Turricans and R-Type 3s have to sell thousands of copies).
I think the article said that the ESRB as a company is just around 30 people. Even if they offer payroll it can't be that expensive so as you said.. where is the money going? I had no idea it was that expensive for someone to get a rating (thanks for that).
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Although I don't have many ideas on how to improve the ESRB, whoever said we should trash it is completely idiotic. Game companies get blamed already for their games when parents buy them for their underage kids, think about how bad it would be if there WEREN'T ratings. At least this way companies can say "well, we told you so".
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I just read through a wiki about the movie industrie's rating system, and it seems even more broken than the ESRB. The difference is, parents are used to the movies rating system, but they don't know what the ratings for games even mean!
A parent sees an R rated movie, and instantly knows that it probably isn't something Billy should watch. The R rating is very well known, even among parents.
A parent sees an M rated game, and doesn't know what to think of it. They just figure "It's just a harmless video game." and buy it for Billy. After they see the boobies and blood flying in every direction as they glance at the game Billy is playing, they go ballistic and complain to the government, the ESRB, game designers, and God, when it was their own ignorance that caused the situation in the first place.
While I do believe that a pool of 6 is not nearly enough, and the rating system should be more democratic, IE: a large pool of raters vote to decide a rating. I think that the biggest issue lies in educating ignorant parents about the game ratings system. Perhaps a massive television ad campaign explaining the ESRB is in order. It can be played during Oprah, the View, and other shows that such moms watch.
Or, we could wait for these moms to die off, and the new, gamer generation of parents will know full well what the ratings mean, much like the movie ratings of today.
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I just read through a wiki about the movie industrie's rating system, and it seems even more broken than the ESRB.
The only thing I think it has over the game rating system is that a movie, if it goes too far and is higher than an R, can be unrated. And most film places carry unrated titles. But if a game goes too far and gets an AO, nobody anywhere will sell it. Like, you can buy Requiem for a Dream at BlockBuster, but it's against Gamestop policy to carry AO games.
So it seems like games are maybe limited a little more than movies are.
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I think the article said that the ESRB as a company is just around 30 people. Even if they offer payroll it can't be that expensive so as you said.. where is the money going? I had no idea it was that expensive for someone to get a rating (thanks for that).
Who cares where the money is going? When you're the only ratings board approved by the government and stores everywhere (you won't get a game on the shelf of any popular store in America without an ESRB rating.) you can set the toll to the bridge as high as you want, since everyone is forced to pay.
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Who cares where the money is going? When you're the only ratings board approved by the government and stores everywhere (you won't get a game on the shelf of any popular store in America without an ESRB rating.) you can set the toll to the bridge as high as you want, since everyone is forced to pay.
My original point is that the exorbitant fees are too much for some small developers or publishers to pay. EA or Capcom could really give a damn about a few thousands of dollars, but retroactively getting ratings for low-print run games or Virtual Console releases and the like is sometimes not economically feasible. I have heard that the high prices of getting ratings for Virtual Console games has has specifically been one of the major factors contributing to slower releases.
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My original point is that the exorbitant fees are too much for some small developers or publishers to pay. EA or Capcom could really give a damn about a few thousands of dollars, but retroactively getting ratings for low-print run games or Virtual Console releases and the like is sometimes not economically feasible. I have heard that the high prices of getting ratings for Virtual Console games has has specifically been one of the major factors contributing to slower releases.
Well I do not even know if they have high prices, but 99% of all amateur games right now get picked up by bigger publisheres (generally the company of the system they're released on) which would pay these costs anyways probably.
It's not like you "really" need a rating for an online only game anyways....
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Well I do not even know if they have high prices, but 99% of all amateur games right now get picked up by bigger publisheres (generally the company of the system they're released on) which would pay these costs anyways probably.
It's not like you "really" need a rating for an online only game anyways....
You're missing the point. The point is that the fees are high enough to do damage to at least one or two small projects which is in its own small way bad for the industry. While high fees would make sense if the ESRB were atually DOING something with the money, it doesn't appear like they are spending it on rating the games. My argument is that they should reduce their fees for the good of the industry or that they should keep the high fees but invest more work into rating the game. As it stands, the publisher is left basically to perform the task of rating (they are the ones that decide which content to video and submit) and they pay a fee to have the ESRB agree with them.
If digital distribution is supposed to be the future, then rated digital destribution will come with that. Independents won't be able to take part in the obvious benefits digital distribution offers them if it is not economically feasible to get a rating. If an indie developer hopes to sell his game for $5, then he will have to sell several thousand additional units to account for the cost of the rating alone. Since indie game budgets often do not exceed $10,000 in the first place, the rating fee can inflate development cost to the point of discouraging some from independent development altogether. You argue that the larger publisher that scoops up the smaller developer will be able to pay the fees, but if they don't see that they will sell enough thousands of copies to cover costs (such as the rating), the publisher may not reconsider picking up the indie game altogether.
I'm not arguing that this is a huge phenomenon but I can imagine that it has or will be a problem in at least a handful of cases.
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You're missing the point. The point is that the fees are high enough to do damage to at least one or two small projects which is in its own small way bad for the industry. While high fees would make sense if the ESRB were atually DOING something with the money, it doesn't appear like they are spending it on rating the games. My argument is that they should reduce their fees for the good of the industry or that they should keep the high fees but invest more work into rating the game. As it stands, the publisher is left basically to perform the task of rating (they are the ones that decide which content to video and submit) and they pay a fee to have the ESRB agree with them.
If digital distribution is supposed to be the future, then rated digital destribution will come with that. Independents won't be able to take part in the obvious benefits digital distribution offers them if it is not economically feasible to get a rating. If an indie developer hopes to sell his game for $5, then he will have to sell several thousand additional units to account for the cost of the rating alone. Since indie game budgets often do not exceed $10,000 in the first place, the rating fee can inflate development cost to the point of discouraging some from independent development altogether. You argue that the larger publisher that scoops up the smaller developer will be able to pay the fees, but if they don't see that they will sell enough thousands of copies to cover costs (such as the rating), the publisher may not reconsider picking up the indie game altogether.
I'm not arguing that this is a huge phenomenon but I can imagine that it has or will be a problem in at least a handful of cases.
Well, I have taken the time to research this, and I have found zero evidence that getting your game reviewed by the ESRB costs any money at all. They can fine you for up to 1,000,000$ if they find out that there is content in the game that you lied about (recently enacted after the Hot Coffee fiasco) but other then that there is no mention of any fees associated with their rating system on their site, Wikipedia, etc.
Unless if you have other sources....?
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Noone pays attention to the ratings anyways.
I propose that they get rid of all letter ratings made by the ESRB, and keep the list of
Realistic Blood and Gore
Suggestive Themes
Use of Alcohol
Mature Language
and various others. That way the concerned parents can still deny their kids their precious M rated gore-fests, or let the developers make the rating. Either they do that, or they make the entire BOARD, a group of gamers as opposed the group of dick holes they are now.
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Well, I have taken the time to research this, and I have found zero evidence that getting your game reviewed by the ESRB costs any money at all. They can fine you for up to 1,000,000$ if they find out that there is content in the game that you lied about (recently enacted after the Hot Coffee fiasco) but other then that there is no mention of any fees associated with their rating system on their site, Wikipedia, etc.
Unless if you have other sources....?
http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/features/vista-not-so-beautiful-say-casual-devs/69922/?biz=1
This interview gives a range of $2000-$3000.
http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=428244
This is a forum discussion so it's probably not a great source but someone claims that it is $2500. This is a game development forum though so it has a little bit of weight.
Anyway yeah the fine folks at 1Up podcasts said that it was $10,000 so I guess that maybe I have learned not to believe everything I am told! Fancy that. In any case, it's still cost-prohibitive for independent developers who are hoping to secure shelf space at local stores.
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http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/features/vista-not-so-beautiful-say-casual-devs/69922/?biz=1
This interview gives a range of $2000-$3000.
http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=428244
This is a forum discussion so it's probably not a great source but someone claims that it is $2500. This is a game development forum though so it has a little bit of weight.
Anyway yeah the fine folks at 1Up podcasts said that it was $10,000 so I guess that maybe I have learned not to believe everything I am told! Fancy that. In any case, it's still cost-prohibitive for independent developers who are hoping to secure shelf space at local stores.
That's assuming it even exists, because quite frankly there is a huge difference between 2k-3k, 10k, and a bunch of other k's, and no one has a precise # there. Either it's widely dependent on a ton of factors (developer size, etc?) or people are just making it up (which I still go with since they literally don't mention any fee at all associated with getting your game rated on their site)
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That's assuming it even exists, because quite frankly there is a huge difference between 2k-3k, 10k, and a bunch of other k's, and no one has a precise # there. Either it's widely dependent on a ton of factors (developer size, etc?) or people are just making it up (which I still go with since they literally don't mention any fee at all associated with getting your game rated on their site)
there is a fee. however you cannot view this because you need an account at the esrb site (which can only be obtained via mail). people don't really talk about this because only TECHNICAL people do this shit and people in the industry don't need to worry about this because as you have mentioned, publishers take care of this. here is an article that shows the 2003 fees:
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/letter_display.php?letter_id=505
it would be a safe bet to assume the fees have went up, given how even in that article it says the fees have been restructured in 2003.
i also heard 1up podcasts talk about the fees being somewhere around 10K, and while this may or may not be true, one hinderence they were reffering to was ratings on virtual console games. nintendo needs to get every game they put on the virtual console rated and you can imagine how this would greatly deter them from releasing lesser known or unpopular games because it only means they need to sell more of the game to make a profit.
i am pretty sure everyone in the gaming industry knows the esrb is bullshit. the whole "voluntary" aspect of it is bullshit because retailers won't touch an unrated game. to bring up something, that i think really shows how ridiculous this system is, is that only until recently have games been putting the esrb rating in the game itself and not just the box (and not everyone is doing this). we all know it's possible to buy a game without the box (used), or to simply illegally download it, and in this event you would never know the game rating. so why has no one complained about this? it's pretty obvious the esrb was made just to appease the VIDEO GAMES ARE EVIL crowd so they don't get sued.
as for improvements, "adults only" is a joke because the age difference is only one year. i guass in that year of time people can somehow handle that otherwise would have left them emotionally crippled. also this:
I propose that they get rid of all letter ratings made by the ESRB, and keep the list of
Realistic Blood and Gore
Suggestive Themes
Use of Alcohol
Mature Language
quoting this from earlier because this is what the esrb should do. as long as they list everything in the game there is no need to say HEH ONLY MATURES PEOPLE CAN PLAY THIS. by virtue of even listing these things with the current letter system the esrb recognizes some parents are fine with certain things (this applies to the 1% of people who cannot obtain games without their parents permission). that and lower the fee because holy shit is 3K for rating bullshit and so is shit like this:
g. A $250 fee will be charged to issue a rating certificate for a product that has previously been rated but will be re-released without any content changes under a new title, by a different publisher, or on a new platform.
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Noone pays attention to the ratings anyways.
I propose that they get rid of all letter ratings made by the ESRB, and keep the list of
Realistic Blood and Gore
Suggestive Themes
Use of Alcohol
Mature Language
Even though some people support this idea, would it actually change anything at all? The letter ratings are a broad classification like the PG, PG-13, and R ratings assigned by the MPAA. The ratings system seems to be only a very small part of what is wrong with the ESRB, I always assumed the management and policies of the board were the biggest issue.
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s for improvements, "adults only" is a joke because the age difference is only one year. i guass in that year of time people can somehow handle that otherwise would have left them emotionally crippled. also this:
I guess one year makes all the difference between thousands of retailers selling your game and 2 secret hidden ones no one knows about selling your game.
Yeah.
ESRB = dumb.
But unfortunately it'll take quite a lot of manpower to change stuff in it. Too many people think it's the next best thing since sliced bread.
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But unfortunately it'll take quite a lot of manpower to change stuff in it. Too many people think it's the next best thing since sliced bread.
Well, a few months ago there were a ton of articles on Kotaku about how bad it was and how it needs to be changed, and apparently a lot of other places were talking about it too, and like the OP said EGM had an article about it. I think what got everyone talking about it was somehow related to the gerstmann incident, but I can't remember exactly.
But anyway, I've been under the impression for a while now that the game industry is very upset and outspoken against the rating system.
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I think I've read that EGM article on ESRB. The God of War guy said something like "in the end, they think video games are for kids".
That's what makes them so biased towards video games, while you have hundreds of movies out there which are most probably far worse than the most violent/sexual video game.
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I think I've read that EGM article on ESRB. The God of War guy said something like "in the end, they think video games are for kids".
That's what makes them so biased towards video games, while you have hundreds of movies out there which are most probably far worse than the most violent/sexual video game.
Well, even though movies get away with more graphic violence right now, I think that's more just because of technical limitations on video games. But they're getting better looking all the time, and I don't think it's gonna be too long before we see a game that's as realistically gruesome as something like Eastern Promises.
Not to mention that, even now, it sort of balances out, because movies are usually only about 2 hours, whereas something like GTA is 60+ hours. So the violence might not look as real (yet), but overall there's way more of it in video games.
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Not to mention you could play GTA over and over again - I mean you could watch a movie over and over again but you'd find it pretty disturbing if someone rewound and played back a particular scene of violence over and over again which playing a violent game could definitely be construed as that I guess
And ironically I think it's the kids who are most vocal about violence in video games - I mean look at darkjak
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in my opinion who gives a flying fuck about ratings. i dont. ive been playing 18 rated games and watching 18 rated movies since i was a nipper and have they messed me up mentally?
yes no
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(http://scoph.com/bi/u/67b7b.jpg)
:gwa:
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That's really awesome!
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Words can not describe how I feel right now.
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He has a point. I've been playing violent games since I was like 8 or 9 (DooM, Wolfenstein... I grew up in the DOS era)
and I've never done anything overly violent. I have some outbursts, but thats not related to gaming, I've had anger issues for a long time... and I have used video games to calm myself down.
@Magi:
I said they should keep the content descriptions because there are some parents who actually look at the make of the box when their child wants a game. Lets compare two M rated games.... Half-Life 2, and San Andreas
HL2:
Blood & Gore
Intense Violence
Language
SA:
Blood & Gore
Intense Violence
Strong Language
Strong Sexual Content
Use of Drugs
Some games clearly deserve the M rating, where as some could probably be considered being rated T. These content descriptions help people (parents mostly) know what to expect when they purchase a game (for their kids)
Hell I was 18 when I bought SA, and my parents didn't want me to get it (Hot Coffee made the news in Nowhere, Ohio)
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I've also grown up playing violent games, especially Mortal Kombat, and I'm the most quiet, calm, collected and cool out of all my relatives.
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I was scarred for life when they used the word "Hell" in the Donkey Kong 64 opening theme.
But yeah, I'd rather them scrap the letter system and just list the things in the games. Because the letter system is too broad. I mean, the difference between R and NC-17 movie is fairly small sometimes, but because the movie had one or two extra "fuck"'s flying around they loose a shit load of money. NC-17 is practically a death sentence for a movie. (yes I watched, "This Film Is Not Yet Rated")
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i am pretty sure everyone in the gaming industry knows the esrb is bullshit. the whole "voluntary" aspect of it is bullshit because retailers won't touch an unrated game. to bring up something, that i think really shows how ridiculous this system is, is that only until recently have games been putting the esrb rating in the game itself and not just the box (and not everyone is doing this).
I would like to bring up that every entertainment medium has gone through this method of forced censorship in one way or the other. Movies, back in the 40s, were levied fines for excessive violence or language (and back then, violence was a bloody nose and language was "damn"). Comic books were hit harder than anything else in America with the bullshit CCA that DESTROYED sales and ruined companies.
There really is one major way to take down the ESRB and that's do the same things comic books did; IGNORE the ESRB. Marvel was the first official publisher to ignore the CCA because they didn't approve of a anti-drug campaign issue of Spiderman but the sales almost tripled that month. Yeah, newstands (the highest selling market of comics back then) refused to carry non CCA comics but people literally scrambled to specialty stores to buy up the comic because Marvel had big balls.
People like controversy. If every started ignoring the ESRB universally then game stores will realise the drop in sales and will start carrying games regardless. Once people realize that companies are revolting against the ESRB, sales will shoot up because HOLY FUCK REVOLUTION LETS BUY SHIT! Of course, you'll have worried adults but comics have used a self rating system for ages. There's absolutely nothing stopping Capcom from personally writing on the back of their boxes "This game contains realistic blood and violence do not let your impressionable 10 year old play it you stupid fuck."
For the fastest evolving entertainment medium it's shocking how conservative the video game market really is. Comics evolved dramatically in 20 years moving from standard superhero affair to stories that actually use real literary techniques and cover a broad range of topics from child abuse to existential postmodern slice of life tales. Why must vidya's take so long to throw off the shackles of oppression and join with everyone else?
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I think I found my topic for my research paper in com-111
Now... can I make this into a 6 page report *Ponders*
On Topic:
The ESRB is a load of shit. I do agree that we should protect children, and keep some things out of their sight TO AN EXTENT. People need to understand that what you see in video games IS NOT REAL, and does NOT REPRESENT REALITY no matter how realistic games look now.(it's still easy to tell between a real picture and something made on a computer, but soon that won't be a problem.)
Also the A/O rating is a bigger load of BULLSHIT. M is for 17+, A/O is for 18+. The biggest difference is that most distributors will NOT HANDLE A/O games, period, so most people wont even be able to buy them anyways. There is not a single store that would sell an A/O game within 100 miles of my house, and I wouldn't drive that far to get it. The only other place to get an A/O game would be the internet, but most companies DO NOT SELL THEM DIGITALLY(or ship real copies to the person who orders)
Anyways, I was honestly hoping Killer7 was going to get rated A/O. Not because I think it deserves the rating, but because I would've had an unaltered M version of the game, possibly making it worth more.
Most games that get the A/O rating (or Movies with the NC-17 rating), show some form of nudity (or sex scenes in movies), but movies can go under the radar of the NC-17 label by getting slapped with an "UNRATED", and it's okay to sell those at say... Wal-Mart, and we don't need to check IDs or anything (They need a parent's permission, or they have to look 18+)
Sigh... I'm not going anywhere here am I?
The ESRB is flawed. That is all.