Five Flaws In the Rating System

Ever since the Manhunt 2 incident, questions and concerns relating to the gaming industry’s rating system have been at an all time high. It is now the release day of the controversial game, and chances are, after the game finally launches, parents, and Fox News, will once again be asking the question: does the rating system working as well as it should be? The ESRB isn’t by any means doing a bad job, but unfortunately, the answer is still no. Even though it’s ultimately up to the parents to ensure their kids aren’t exposed to mature content, there are several ways that the ESRB could be informing parents about a game’s contents better. Here’s an in depth look at five ways the rating system for the gaming industry could be modified to adequately inform the consumer if a certain title is too violent, or not violent enough.

#1 Vague Ratings

The first problem with the rating system is that the ratings themselves are too general. The only one that works is the E for everyone. The problem faced with games rated T and M is that they overlap. What this means is that even though T is supposed to mean that the game is for teens, plenty of teen games are suitable for six to twelve year olds, which is deep into the E audience. Likewise, there are M games that are easily appropriate for players who are fourteen. How many minors have played any of the Halo games? This is in contrast to movies, where a PG-13 will usually be inappropriate for kids who are significantly under thirteen. The result is that ratings become essentially useless since they don’t always provide a reliable description of the game’s intended audience.

M in particular is a poor rating because it depends on the individual. Someone who is thirteen could be mature enough to handle some M rated games, while there are some who are sixteen who aren’t. The conundrum with this is that M is treated as a rating for adults specifically.

#2 Vague Content Descriptions

If having ratings that don’t accurately define a game’s content is a problem, then unclear descriptions is that much worse. This is what makes it difficult for parents to accept video games. No matter how it’s said, violence sounds like a bad thing. The movies industry is guilty of this too.

How are parents supposed to understand that The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is an OK game for their nine year old when the rating coldly says “Animated Blood, Fantasy Violence”? The ESRB tries to fix this with multiple types of content describers. Violence can be categorized as mild fantasy violence, mild cartoon violence, mild violence, violence, intense violence, etc; the only thing that is clear in any of those is the violence part. It might even make a good game seem worse. Wii Sports for example is rated E for mild violence. Mild violence sounds worse than boxing.

The content descriptions also have the same problem as the ratings do: they overlap. Halo: Combat Evolved was rated M for “Blood and Gore, Violence”. OK, so for parents this means that Halo is inappropriate for thirteen-year-old Jimmy. Wait what about Lair. It was rated T for the same reasons. Now what are parents supposed to think? Is Halo now appropriate for Jimmy? Is Lair inappropriate?

The ESRB tries to defend it’s self by stating that it takes the dynamic characteristic of games into account.

“Due to the unique interactive characteristics of games, the ESRB rating system goes beyond other entertainment systems by also taking into account elements such as the reward system and the degree of player control.”

It’s unclear what they mean by this. In general, games aren’t targeted for these characteristics unless they are highly controversial games.

The way this could be avoided is by having content describers that are unique for each game. If someone at the ESRB is going to play through a game, they may as take a minute to type: “The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, E. Violence is at a bare minimum.” In this case there might be a side note that consisted of “Note: there is a single, short scene with a character being stabbed in the head.”

This would get the message across far more effectively than just “Violence” with little extra effort.

#3 Lack of a Tiered System

Once again, this is something that both the games and movie industries don’t include in their respective rating systems. The ESRB already has a very basic form of this through the EC for Early Childhood, and E+10 for Everyone ages ten and up. The problem is that The E rating isn’t the rating that needs this. M, and to some extent T are the ratings that would benefit immensely from a tiered system.

Ratings should be able to separate certain games from worse games of the same rating. For example, Manhunt and Halo are by no means the same kind of M. It would make sense for games to have what would essentially be sub-ratings, like M1 (Halo) M2 (The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion) and M3 (Manhunt). In this case, it’s obvious that Halo may be appropriate for younger audiences, but Manhunt is in a whole other playing field when it comes to content.

Another way of implementing a tiered system is if certain content was separated. For example, a game rated M for sexual content would be on a different tier than games rated M for violence and language.

If done correctly, a tiered system could even solve the first problem of vague ratings.

#4 No Color-Coding

Another reason that parents may find ratings confusing is the fact that they all look the same.

Look at them; they’re all in the same size, shape, font, and color scheme. The M label doesn’t feel any more threatening than the one for E. The simplest solution for this is a color-coding system. Movie ratings have a very basic form of this. Though it doesn’t work very well, it’s far better than a bland black and white label.

Games could benefit from something similar, but what the ESRB should do is take things a step further and implement a gradient color code that gets progressively redder.

This could go hand in hand with tiered ratings, demonstrating visually where a game lies in terms of content. Simple though it is, using color-coded ratings could easily have the greatest benefit to parents who are unsure about a game.

#5 AO

Though the other points all deal with how the rating system should be improved to make it more parent friendly, there is one more flaw in the system that doesn’t. The fact that the AO rating has become an unnecessary kiss of death for console games needs to be addressed and dealt with by the ESRB. We simply can’t have games being the only media that is censored like this. The problem is that it’s not entirely up to the ESRB. Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft do not permit AO titles sold on their respective consoles. Wal-Mart, Target, Future Shop, and Best Buy likewise refuse to sell AO games. The reason is if they did, it would tarnish their reputations. The misconception is that they are afraid of games like the unrated version of Manhunt 2. While there’s no doubt that the content in Manhunt 2 was a touchy subject, the games that make AO essentially the kiss of death are the games with high sexually content. If Manhunt 2 had been released unaltered, there would have definitely been some protests, but it would be minor compared to the outrage that a porn game would have met.

A possible solution for this is to have a separate rating for games that would have otherwise been rated AO for strong sexual content. Maybe with a rating such as AO-X we can avoid situations like the Manhunt 2 fiasco in the future.

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