More Oblivion Re-Rating Fallout 279
The ESRB has a retort to the criticism leveled against it after rating Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Mature. The move has required Bethesda Softworks to pull all of the current stock of the game to relabel. From the GameDailyBiz article: "When we brought the topless female images to Bethesda Softworks' attention, they confirmed that the art file existed in a fully rendered form in the code on the game disc. The ESRB's investigation found that the mod allowed users to change the filename for the female character mesh in order to access the art file that was created by Bethesda. While true that a modification was required to access this file, the changes we implemented last year - expanding our disclosure rules to include locked-out content - were made to prevent these kinds of situations" Via Cathode Tan, who has his own commentary, an opinion piece by John Romero has yet another view of the complicated situation.
Changing the rating (Score:2, Interesting)
Locked out content? (Score:2, Interesting)
However, if the nude female images were present and simply "locked out" by Bethesda then we have pretty much the same story as the Hot Coffee incident. IMO the ESRB exists solely to enable parents to feel more confident about buying games for their children, and the idea that the ratings could be changed simply by "unlocking" something in the game does a lot to destroy this confidence.
Honestly, are either of these incidents really that different than if Nintendo were to implement nude characters in super mario bros 3 that was unlocked through an a-b-a-b-a-a-a code?
Re:Does anyone know the background? (Score:2, Interesting)
What needs to happen (Score:2, Interesting)
Statements of this sort already exist in a small sentence on most online games, where they'll state "Online Gameplay Experience May Be Different" or something (I don't recall the exact wording.) But the point is that ESRB would be much more effective with something like this.
I don't think developers and publishers will have a problem with that rating, and the ESRB gets all the info they want out there to cover their butts. I mean, to have something like "ONR" for Online Content Not Rated or something so parents can see that you cannot strictly regulate what happens or is said or written during online play, or a "MNR" for Modifications Not Rated.
It takes care of every instance of these types of issues. Developers and Publishers can know that their game will be rated as "intended" and ESRB gets to put in notices regarding the possibility of (or known issues regarding) more "mature content" in online or modded play.
Re:Teen: Let's Beat it To Death While We're At It (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Breasts must be kept secret! (Score:3, Interesting)
Here in Europe ( France, Belgium at least ) you have tits in almost *every* commercial on TV and at whatever time of the day.
Tits sell Orange Juice,
Tits sell shampoo and soap
Tits sell cars, milk, washing powder, food,
I also wonder why a game becomes M-rated because you *can* see some breast *if* you *patch* the game (and even then, nothing is done to erotise the situation, if you walk naked, nobody even look at you or say something) and not because you can kill human being with you bare hands, become a cold blood killer, summon demons,
Re:Teen: Let's Beat it To Death While We're At It (Score:3, Interesting)
It would be interesting to see the actual submission footage. It seems pretty clear that Bethesda wants to stay out of the fray on this political issue, so I doubt they'd leak it, but it would shed light on all of this for sure.
The resource problem is an interesting one. I'd wager that if they enlisted "general public reviewers" to preview the games prior to release they'd get an army of volunteers who'd do it just to get early copies of games. I realize software is generally not ready prior to release and things can get put in at the 11th hour, but perhaps it could help "normalize" the ratings by using a plurality of reviewiers.