A kick to the coin purse for gamers everywhere.

As a gamer, I find it completely inappropriate when certain organizations and governments find it necessary to try to ban a video game because of the content. It seems like videogames are going through the same thing that any form of media goes through: a long drawn out phase where old politicians or old public officials find it necessary to ‘protect’ the public. Audio records (you can’t say cassette tapes because there are way more than just tapes) went through it, movies went through it, and now it’s videogames turn.

Things are different now. Banning a certain pieces of media doesn’t have the same effect it use to have. I mean, I guess it never had the desired affect any of the banners wanted it to have. A perfect example is BBC’s Radio One trying to ban ‘Relax’ by Frankie Goes To Hollywood. All that did was send the record to number one for five weeks straight.

So instead, as a compromise, we have a rating system in place for media. CD’s are adorning with explicit lyrics warnings, movies are rated R, and video games are given AO rating. This ensures that along with responsible parenting, children, with their fertile and moldable minds, aren’t exposed to brutally violent scenes. We rest assured that the proper people are hired, and review the content of any media fully, and come to a reasonable decision about the appropriate rating of the media.

Well, I have bad news for responsible parents. Gamespot picked up a story from ‘Electronic Gaming Monthly’ about a former employee of the ESRB (That’s the body who is in charge of reviewing, and giving appropriate ratings to videogames) Jerry Bonner, worked at ESRB for six month, and left under good terms. When he was at ESRB he notice several things that concerned him, among them were:

-When the raters came to an agreement on a rating, it would sometimes be raised or lowered after the fact by the ESRB, without sufficient explanation.

-Games seem to be picked at random for raters to play, not all the games that are released are played.

The ESRB replied to these matters, saying sometimes the ratings are chance due to previous similar content, and cultural norms at have been established by public option. OK, trying to keep the rating system consistent and relevant, that’s alright.

Then, to defend the sampling approaching to rating games, the ESRB said that they rely on clips of relevant content t provided by the studio that made the game. That’s like saying only watching the relevant clips of any movie is sufficient information to decide what its rating should be. How can any organization that is entrusted with rating any media believe that not fully reviewing a said media is acceptable? I would be surprised to find out that movies and CDs are treated with such disregard. With out fully playing a game, how do you know what type of cultural significance it has?

I am someone who believes that videogames have been given a bad rap, and aims to fix it. In a society that is basically trying to pin gangs, guns, violence, and antisocial behavior on videogames, it is very frustrating to find out that a body that rates videogames is basically pulling ratings out of their asses, licking the sticker and slapping it on the cover of the game, the whole while giggling like a girl playing a mean trick on a nerd. It makes everyone that said, ‘don’t ban these games, just give them an appropriate rating and let parents, and public decide if they should play them’, look like a dick.