In chapter 6, Nielson discusses the public perceptions of gaming. In response to violent games released such as Mortal Kombat and Night Trap, the United States Congress retaliated by creating the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB). “Since 1994, the ESRB has rated every video game published in the U.S. The anonymous raters assign a game one of a number of six age ratings – from Early Childhood (3+) to Adults Only (18+) – and a series of content descriptors (there are more than thirty) such as “Drug reference”, “Nudity” or “Strong language”.” In my opinion, there is an intrinsic problem with this system; that is, offensiveness is subjective. Every individual has their own judgment that gauges how offensive products are. An overly-violent game to one person could actually be rather tame to someone else. For instance, some people do not care if their character is a drug addict or an alcoholic. In addition, it is difficult to rate every game nowadays with the vast amount of user-generated content. Although it is uncommon to find games rated “Adults Only” in commercial stores, the Internet contains vaster amount of opportunities. Thus, while the United States is attempting to “ban” all overly offensive and mature content, it is still easily accessible.
The other problem with the ratings is that no one pays attention to them. If someone is too young to purchase a particular game, they end up running to their parents. Most of the time, parents do not check things out before buying them. It is only after the fact when they start complaining about the violent or sexual content being exposed to their children. Thus, educating parents and not the children is the real fix to these issues. Parents need to be responsible for exposing their children to the violent and sexual content. They should be more aware and knowledgeable of what the ESRB rating system is and how it works.
Do you think that the ESRB rating system is effective? If not, what do you think could be changed to get the point across more successfully?
I don't think the ESRB rating system is effective in blocking underaged users from playing adult-only games. However, I don't think there is anyway that the ESRB rating system can be improved. The only effective way would be regulating video games as a whole from the government.
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