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ESA: Universal Ratings Would 'Confuse Consumers'
by Leigh Alexander
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August 28, 2009
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The Federal Communications Commission is looking into a new universal ratings system for content on television, mobile devices and video games, primarily considering revisions to existing laws to protect children from adult content.
The FCC will reportedly begin an inquiry after an August 31 report to Congress on media blocking and rating methods, reports Bloomberg. The report won't contain specific recommendations to the government; rather, it will trigger the FCC's fact-finding as a preliminary step.
But the Entertainment Software Association opposes a universal ratings system; game industry trade bodies worldwide believe that the most appropriate ratings system for video games is one specific to game content. In the UK, the industry fought a long battle to adopt game-specific PEGI ratings, used across Europe, instead of the British Board of Film Classification's movie ratings system for video games.
"The ESA appreciates the FCC and its important role," ESA senior communications VP Rich Taylor said in a statement to consumer weblog Kotaku. "However, the ESRB rating system is considered by parents, family advocates, the Federal Trade Commission, and elected officials as the gold standard in providing caregivers with the information they need to make the right choices for their families."
"Universal ratings will, in the end, only serve to confuse consumers, violate the Constitution's first amendment, and are a solution in search of a problem."
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If Thomas Jefferson and the other founding fathers wanted a federal government that regulated people lives then they would've written it into the constitution, but they didn't because they knew it would be detrimental to liberty.
@Andre Thomas: SOCIALISM!
just wanted to see you jump.
Heck, if it were better to have different ratings systems then we should take it one step further and have every publisher create their own ratings system!
If movies can self-regulate, why can't games?
And while I don't think publishers can be trusted to rate themselves fairly, I doubt a rating system designed by our government would work any better then what we have now. You'll probably end up with a world where GTA5, Babes Gone Wild, and the Nightly News are rated "yellow". If you let your 14 year old watch the news, should they also be able to watch Babes Gone Wild?
An industry run rating system that has to answer to publishers, consumers, and the government (like the ESRB) can be ugly, but I can't think of a better solution (in the US).
The reason Movies aren't listed is that this "universal" rating is only for the purposes of content blocking on television, mobile devices, PC and game consoles. Since movies are displayed on television as television broadcasts, they will have that rating applied and be blocked or not blocked accordingly. Same for PC, console and mobile device streaming.
@ Doug Poston
Everything the government does fail. In fact government as a construct itself is a failure hence why it always fail.
And if movies weren't included in the revamp then who cares? I think parents see a correlation between Movies and TV to Video games... unless those three use the same rating that is where the confusion comes in. Is this game 'R' or 'PG-13'? Now what is the equivalent of that in the video game world? 'T' and 'M' right? In that case what rating would 'Good luck chuck' get if it was a video game? 'AO' what? I thought you just said 'R' was 'M'? THAT is what is confusing. And if they don't fix that problem, then they aren't fixing the problem that exists.
But the real scary question is, who does the rating? I can see this working three ways, either the government can force all the different content providers in the world (from the smallest blogger to the biggest media outlet) to work together to come up with a single universal system that makes everybody happy (see: herding cats), the work can be outsourced to a single private company with government backing (imagine the power they would have), or the government creates their own system (most likely based on the findings of the FCC).
And while a single government backed rating system might be easier for individuals to (mis-)understand, it also makes it easier to make sweeping laws (nothing "yellow" or higher in public schools, Mega-Mart now only sells "green", the state of California makes it illegal to view "red" content 500 yards from any school or government building).
While I don't think our government fails at everything, I can't see anything good coming from a government backed universal rating system in the US.
Agreed.
I think that government-controlled rating would be the first step in the path of government-controlled banning. Innocent-looking laws are often used as precedents to get government's hands into whatever aspect of our life is getting regulated.
If you don't want to deal with banning issues that other countries have, keep government's hands out of every aspect of video games because I guarantee that politicians aren't one day going to say "You know, we have enough video game regulations, now. I figure that we can ignore them from this point on." Just don't let them get started.
@doug poston
If banks can self regulate...
There is more sex in media today, there is more violence in media today, honestly what was R in the 1960s is pg-13 today. Even I remember when games were rated Mature because they had blood, now I'm playing infamous and getting shot causes blood to come out. Maybe I'm just old fasioned but it does seem like things have become more relaxed. However, a universal rating system seems simple for consumers, but immensly more complex for rating officals. The way things are right now isn't that bad. I'm just wary of the future.
Maybe self-regulation works for tv, movies and videogames because it's an idealistic industry. When Bethesda made fallout3 they certainly were not expecting 8 year olds to play that game. Bioware has often had mature content but always catered to an older crowd. Infamous, was made by the same guys who did Sly Cooper (sucker punch studio), and in all honesty the blood wasn't as graphic as a game like Gears of War.
NC-17 stands for "no children under 17", and 18A movies are restricted to adults aged 18 or above. When you are 17/18 in either country, you can watch pornography. You don't have to wait until you're 35 years old to watch the really freaky stuff. :)
- Ryan