as heard on the show, a new esrb rating needed?

Realm · Post by **Realm** » Sun Apr 20, 2003 1:44 pm

hey guys, for everyone that caught the apr. 19th show, you might have heard my little guest appearance. (it was an honor btw, thank you very much Break and Richie) basically i got the chance to express a little opinion of mine: we need a game rating that would be the equivilent of a pg-13 rating for a movie. for everyone that missed the show, here's a quick recap:

this idea spawned from the whole fight over making it as illegal and as highly punishable as possible for someone to sell m-rated games to minors. sen. joe liberman is leading this charge. now if u look at most mainstream video games, they are rated E (everyone), T (teen), or M (mature). now movies, on the other hand, can get a G, PG, PG-13, or an R rating. 3 ratings for games, 4 for movies. now for a game to get a T rating, it has to be pretty mild. very little blood, sex, language, etc. but if M-rated games happen to get restrictions thrown on them (like R-rated movies), that's going to cut out like half the market. if we had a rating in-between T and M, i'll call it T-15 for lack of a better term, this would allow the game manufacturers a lot more wiggle room to produce a good, realistic video game, without it getting slapped with an M rating and losing half of their audience. politicians would also benefit, cause they can stand up and say "now because of me and all my hard work, there are 68% fewer M rated video games being sold in the US" or whatever. lol. i don't know if ESRB already is looking at something like this, but i think it would be a good idea. it would be a nice bit of middle ground for all those games that are "not all that bad" but under today's rating system would get an M rating.

if anyone has any opinions, info, or feedback lemme know, that would be great.

loosecannon · Post by **loosecannon** » Sun Apr 20, 2003 8:37 pm

Its a good idea, but It wont stop Mr. Liberman by any means. He hates video games that are fun, thats it. If its fun it is ruining america. I agree, there should be a middle of the road rating.

Realm · Post by **Realm** » Wed Dec 10, 2003 11:03 am

May I take this moment to say a very humble "see I told you so" and a not-so-humble "who's da man!" Here's the link: http://www.penny-arcade.com/news.php3?date=2003-12-10