- Related Stories
-
Game developers form sex 'special interest group'
August 16, 2005 -
Rockstar throws cold water on 'Hot Coffee'
August 10, 2005 -
ESRB to investigate 'San Andreas' sex content
July 8, 2005
(continued from previous page)
decision. But in terms of intent or right or wrong, that really isn't a place that the ESRB ventures into. It's not our mission, and it's not our role to judge. It's just our role to make sure that the industry provides the information necessary to consumers and that the rules and regulations we have in place are followed.
After the Hot Coffee scandal, it seemed like the whole gaming industry was getting slammed.
Vance: I think we're in an environment right now which is quite politically charged and there are all sorts of criticisms leveled at the industry. Some are based on facts, and some are not.
Was it fair for politicians (like Hillary Clinton) to try to make hay out of the Hot Coffee situation?
Vance: The Hot Coffee controversy ended up being a political football for both parties, and that's unfortunate.
There's plenty of extreme content in lots of different genres of entertainment. Have video games been singled out?
Vance: I think there are different standards that are applied to our industry, particularly by nongamers. There are assumptions that games are (only) for kids, and those are clearly not based on fact. The average age of a gamer today is 30, and our industry has very strict rules about marketing, targeting marketing to children and making sure no products rated inappropriate for children are marketed to them. We enforce those guidelines very strictly and very actively, so I think that yes, there are different standards that are being applied, and I think most of the time that's based out of (people) just not being familiar with the facts and not being gamers themselves.
Are there studies about how the ratings resonate with parents?
Vance: We do nationwide research with Peter Hart, a very well-respected opinion polling company. (Hart found) that 54 percent of parents never allow their children to play Mature-rated games, while 37 percent sometimes do, which says that the overwhelming majority of parents are limiting what their kids are playing and making choices that are appropriate for their own children. Eighty-three percent of parents agree with the ratings that we assign and another 5 percent actually think we're being too strict. In a country as diverse as ours, I would say that those statistics indicate a high success rate for the rating system.
There was a study out the other day showing that there was no provable link between video games and violence. What do you think of that?
Vance: Well, if you look at the research on this subject--the surgeon general did one back in 2000; various courts have done them in the state of Washington; and the government of Australia has done similar surveys--and no organization of any stature has concluded that there is a causal relationship between playing video games and behavior, particularly when it comes to violent behavior.
And yet there's this perception that video games lead to violence.
Vance: If you look at the crime statistics over the last 10 years, where you've had the largest increase in penetration of games in this country, you've seen that crime has dropped precipitously, whereas playing video games has increased exponentially. It suggests that actually there has been a drop in criminal behavior since the introduction of video games.
So the popular perception is wrong?
Vance: Back to the political argument. If you want to create a picture that's not based on fact, you can draw that picture, but it's not based on fact. The media reports what they want to report, and the politicians say what they want to say, and people who are critics of the industry will continue to be critics of the industry.
Going back to the "GTA" situation, do you think in the aftermath, there will be changes to the way the ESRB rates games or examines them?
Vance: Well the criteria have not changed nor will they change for rating assignments. The one thing that will change is that, particularly for PC games, publishers will be required to disclose all pertinent content, whether it's playable or not, that ships with the disc. That doesn't mean that you have to disclose everything on a disc regardless of whether or not it's playable, but (you do) if it's pertinent, which certainly was the case with the Hot Coffee scenes. If you plan on leaving it on the disc, you have to disclose it, because the hackers are sophisticated and the hackers will find it. The situation with Hot Coffee, it wasn't the (hacker's) modification that caused us to change the rating, it was the fact that this content existed on the disc and it was made accessible through modification, and was not disclosed.
Do you expect game developers to be responsible about this new rule?
Vance: They obey. They obey all of our rules. They keep track of all their assets. They know what's been developed for their games. If it's pertinent and they haven't submitted it to us and they intend to leave it on the disc, they need to submit it to us, and they know that. We don't have problems with publishers following our rules. We're here for them, you know.
We're their self-regulatory body. They're the ones who put us here and we're here to help them as much as they help us.
Do you think that because of the rating system, parents should feel safe letting their children play video games without supervision?
Vance: We never recommend that parents let their kids play video games without supervision. We like parents to monitor what their kids are playing. I think the rating system is accurate and is consistent with mainstream American taste and values. Research proves that out.
The rating system is certainly the one tool that parents have consistently on the package and in all advertising that provides them with basic information about what's in the game. The one area that parents particularly need to monitor is what their kids are doing online. Whether it's who they're playing their games with online, or when they're in the online peer-to-peer matching environments that they can play in. I think that as the Hot Coffee controversy showed, parents need to be vigilant, particularly about PC games and their kids going out and downloading modifications to those PC games that might fairly significantly change the content they thought their children were being exposed to. It's more about how their kids are using games and less about what's actually on the box. The material on the box is accurate and complete and they should certainly be able to trust that.
Do you let your own children play video games without supervision?
Vance: I do have a sense of what they play; I do supervise them, although of course you can't supervise them all the time. But I also trust my kids. They're exposed to lots of different types of content, whether it's on television or in books, in magazines, on the Internet, in school, on the playground and at their friends' houses, that I can't control and I think the role that I have as a parent is to teach them right from wrong. They're not going to learn that from anything they're exposed to on television, on film or on their computer. They're going to learn that from me.
See more CNET content tagged:
Grand Theft Auto, rating, scandal, video game, guideline
While this is true, you can also shoot thugs, criminals in vigilante mode, and how in fact, you beat up most EVERYONE in the game, not just hookers. Do hookers deserver some special recognition? Are they a example part of society? NO!
2)The ESRB had their hands up their ***** the entire time. They were busy figuring out which games needed their new E-10+ rating (I chuckle) and how to tie their shoes.
2) The ESRB did not have "their hands up their *****" as you put it, they were blind sided by a) the very people they were monitoring via non-disclosure and b) their own naiveté and failure to think that coders and developers don't bury content that they *hope* no one will find but yet know it's possible. Let's face it, ESRB has always known that "easter eggs" abound in games but would you think that anyone would put a BJ mini-game in, even one that is "disabled" (and doesn?t depict genitalia)?! Sorry but I don't think most people would, to us that would seem crazy. But all it takes is one person to make it hard on all. Thank Rockstar for that but don't shoot the messenger (ESRB).
People need to stop burying their heads in the sand. ESRB is not the problem here, it's the gaming industry that needs to wake the F up. Why do you think Rockstar didn't document that mini-"game" when it submitted the game for review? You can't say "oversight" cause it just doesn't wash in an industry that LIVES on cataloging everything. Either Rockstar or one of it's developers tried to slip one by but now it's bit them on the ass. Sure as I'm typing this if that content had been described to the ESRB, GTA:SA would have gotten the AO rating it deserved.
Final point, I do think that ESRB has a problem. That problem is an over broad rating of the "mature" games. What they need to do is expand the 'T' rating with something like 'T15+' and 'T17+' (and move the 'M' rating to 18+ and the AO to 21+) to better define games that are good for teens yet have advanced levels of blood, gore, etc. that most look for. Not that I advocate blood and gore (or sexual content) but its ignorance of what drives games today that has gotten us to this point. Teens want to escape as much (if not more than) as many adults, give parents better tools to know what is good escapism and bad.
Parents and politicians need to learn once and for all that it is the PARENTS responsiblity to PARENT their children. It's not a gaming companies, nor a ratings firm, nor the store where you can purchase these things responsiblity!
Parents are looking for a scapegoat for their own shortcommings and today it's video games. Yesterday it was Dungeons and Dragons. Before that Rock Music. Before that comic books.
When will it end people?
old play an M rated game and not and AO game. They are both
the same in my book. We can send an 18 year old man to Iraq to
get shot but he shouldn't be able to buy a video game or have a
beer? This country is really backwards sometimes. I won't even
let my kids watch GTA let alone play it, so it really doesn't matter
if there's any hot coffee mod in it. Parents need to do their jobs
and keep an eye on their kids.
It's really odd that the act of sex would outrage yet mass murder
is ok....odd.
Instead of endless layers of ratings, just tell me what's in the game and let me decide. If it's patently objectionable, put on an appropriate warning/label/whatever to keep it out of minors' hands.
LOLZ!!!11
PWNED!!!11
This is a fuss about NOTHING!
First of all, this isn't about the millions of copies of GTA that have been sold on all systems. The Hot Coffee mod was only for the PC version of the game, which is a fraction of the total sold.
More to the point, however, is the fact that the game had to be hacked to get the mod to work...we're not talking about entering a cheat code, but actually HACKING the game. Does anyone really think that someone who knows enough about computers to be able to hack a game can't find all the real porn that they want on the internet?
computer world. Games just don't get attention unless they are
portraying anti-social themes and actions. Sadly, there are enough
budding sociopaths out there who would buy such junk. But that's
the way it goes in all things - most people live their lives without
ever really thinking. Unfortunately, marketeers are well aware of
that failing.
- Are you kidding me?
- by October 19, 2005 11:28 AM PDT
- I find this article to be untrue and offensive to video gamrs everywhere. That's saying that Michael Jackson hung his child off of a balcony edge because he saw it happen in a video game. Actions are caused by a person's choices, not a very popular video game.
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
(17 Comments)PWNED!