Comments on: Reviewed Ratings System Review Reviewed

By: MistressOfSerenity

MistressOfSerenity — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 19:30:43 +0000

Re: choosing PEGI over BBFC, could the question of not wanting to bankrupt small, indy or struggling game makers been a matter in this?

The BBFC normally charges £2000+ for rating a product of any substantive lenght, and these fees are based on *runtime* (starts at £300 for a 1 minute long video game). Putting aside how long one decides a game is (is WoW a 1 hour or 1million hour long game?) that BBFC fee is for just the UK, how much does PEGI charge to rate a game, is it lenght based, or fixed? is the charge presumptive on release across the EU? and if you don’t want to release it in every EU member, can you get a discount? Do the charges multiply if you have multiple language audio in game?

By: DMJ

DMJ — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:14:25 +0000

[i]I’ll decide when my son is old enough to kill virtual hookers, not anyone else.[/i]

Despite the flippant tone to this comment, I endorse BigJonno’s remark.

By: Chemix

Chemix — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 12:06:51 +0000

It was meant in jest, sort of, as OMGWTFBBQ should have noted. The point is that parents need to pay more attention to their kids in a direct sense. The television and the computer aren’t surrogate parents, not good ones anyway.

By: Crispy

Crispy — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 08:36:11 +0000

Not sure if that suggestion was meant in jest, but that’s 12 different obscure abbreviations for non-game-playing parents and guardians to keep track of.

By: Jayteh

Jayteh — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 05:45:04 +0000

I still wish Australia had an 18+ rating but sadly I doubt we will see one for a long time.

By: Chemix

Chemix — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 02:43:09 +0000

My thoughts: Setting a specific age minimum is often too harsh, and stating a general thing is often too little.

In the US: We have ESRB, and yes I know that someone else mentioned it. E-E+10-T-M-Ao (when’s the last time anyone saw an actual Ao game? I mean I know there are porn games, but do they even bother to actually rate them?) presents an ambiguous system that is vague and highly generic. If you look down an isle of games, you’ll likely see 2 primary ratings, M and E (+10)m with Ts dotted around and “eCs” at the end of the rack. M effectively covers almost any FPS game, bar, Dr. Brain 3, or… Elite Force 1&2. If there’s blood, it gets an M, if there’s guns that shoot bullets, it gets an M, if there’s a hint of sexuality it gets an M, if it involves active swordplay, it gets an M, unless it’s Star Wars, where it gets a T, because slicing people apart with fantasy weapons that can’t be created at our current technological level is fine. Disintegration by extreme heat, also fine, head shots, not fine. “Mature” covers too many bases, and misses a couple important ones as it’s attempting to blanket an entire market. Teen is used as a bandage on what doesn’t get blanketed, and E/E+10 (Why?) covers everything that doesn’t deal with violent confrontations, sex, or… well, technically Sim City takes the E rating for a ride, what with the riots, the tornadoes, the fires, the radiation, the alien obliteration sequences, the monsters, the earthquakes, you getting a picture here?

On the other side of the pond, age specific ratings seem to make for a lot of ratings that mean less, because if there’s a 14 and a 16 rating, then it can’t mean that much because it’s just 2 years development in between. Also, if enforced, it sets a hardened expected maturity level that may be higher or lower than the child in question actually has.

Possible Ratings, and keep in mind, I’m quite tired while writing this
-E:educational
Learning games for children
-s G: sports games
NFL, NHL, GTFOML (20XX)
-Cg: Casual Games
-c A: comic adventure
games like Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Lego (license here)
-S: simulation
Plane Simulators, Boat simulators, crane simulators, job simulators
-S v: simulations with simulated violence
Sim city, air combat sims, basic wargames
-Co (s): Active Combat Games and (s)trategy games
Call of Duty, World in Conflict, Halo
-dN (sd&r): “Deep” narrative games that revolve around a story and include violence and possible (sex, drugs, & rock and roll)
RPGs, The Longest Journey, GTA
-Ex: Explicit games directed at an older audience that revolve around pure violence
Manhunt, Postal, Mad World
-SXY: Games devoted, but not limited to sexuality
Leisure Suit Larry, Sexy Beach 3, Dead or Alive
-Hr: Horror/ Survival Horror/ Action “horror”/ really dark comedy
Silent Hill, Luigi’s Mansion, Sexy Beach 3, etc. etc.
-OMGWTFBBQ: Awesome games meant for people between 17 and 1000
Team Fortress 2, Portal, Deus Ex, Sexy Beach of Monkey Island, etc. etc.

By: Wisq

Wisq — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 01:09:20 +0000

@itsallcrap: I thought the same. But, if you look at the new logos (see Kast’s link), you’ll note they’re a lot more trademarkable.

By: Nimdok

Nimdok — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 00:37:24 +0000

I dunno, once you start enforcing moral restrictions or ideals as law you start down a rather disturbing path to a bygone era. It’s all well and good to have a ratings system in place, to allow a rough, at-a-glance idea of what’s in a film/game/album/book, but when you start saying “OK, since this product is rated at 12+/17+/Whatever, then it’s illegal for someone UNDER 12/17/whatever to purchase it” you’re basically enforcing a vague set of moral decisions on the populace. If a kid’s realistic enough to know the difference between fantasy and reality, let them do whatever they want with products which dwell in fantasy. If not, then it’s their parents responsibility understand this and to police what they absorb, not the governments.

By: jalf

jalf — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 21:12:16 +0000

I reeeeeally don’t see the problem. So people in the UK are now going to see a different icon with the label “18″, and what, we worry that parents will feel confused and lost because of it? My guess is that with a bit of effort, at least 85% of them will be able to guess that “it probably means this game is for people aged 18 or above”.

It works for the rest of Europe; so far, it hasn’t caused mass waves of maladjusted children becoming terrorists or whatever we’re afraid might happen if they play an 18+ game.

By: Clovis

Clovis — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 20:18:21 +0000

@Thirith: It isn’t really a big deal, except that has been tied to the First Amendment. Since the First Amendment is involved, the question is not, “What harm will this law have?”, but rather, “What definite harm will this law prevent.” The current evidence (and there have been several relevant trials, and more to come) is that it will prevent no harm. I completely understand your argument. Do a poll and most Americans will agree with you. I just like to be super picky about civil rights.

The reference to unrelated obscenity laws was just to show that in the US we do abridge Freedom of Speech sometimes. Ulysses is just an example of how that can go wrong. And Finnegan’s Wake is (maybe) for compulsive EngLit majors. Ulysses is a fun book that any intelligent person can enjoy. I read it every other year or so around now. Haha, Bloomsday was yesterday!

That’s probably enough from me about US law. However, I will engage in an unending flamewar about Ulysses.

By: Vandelay

Vandelay — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 20:14:17 +0000

Crispy:

Nice post.

You are absolutely correct that the film is morally complex and you are probably right that the majority of the complexity would be lost on the mind of a 12 year old. However, without that complexity I think it is clear to see that the Joker is the bad guy and Batman is the good guy. He is very much a classic film villain, one that I could imagine putting fear into many young children when he is on screen. I expect that the cheers Sandhu describes from the screening where actually emanating from the mouths of older teenagers, a group who are more likely to be drawn to an anarchic point of view than the younger audience.

The idea of him being a vigilante isn’t really too dissimilar to themes explored, to a degree, in the much more kid-friendly Spiderman films and I expect is in many other comic book films. Obviously, the recent Batman films deal with this in a manner that makes the audience truly question whether his actions are right or wrong. The Harvey Dent quote is really a theme that runs throughout the film and the central question pondered is can any person, given the right circumstances, become the Joker? I would personally say that the film daringly nods into the direction of answering yes but hurtles towards no when dealing with this. The boat sequences plays out like your typical summer blockbuster set piece in which the audience is given the safe answer of not even a group of prisoners would kill innocent people to save their own lives. I would say that this is undercut by the following, much more personal sequence of Dent threatening Gordon’s family, but as I have seen many comments stating that the film loses its edge during its final third and the boat sequence in particular as pandering, I would suggest that it may not just be the 12 year olds that miss elements of the complexities.

I would say that it was the complexities that make the film potentially harmful to someone, but these are the very things that would be lost on those susceptible to them. The links the film has to many current issues (knife crime, footage of hostages, etc.) I can certainly understand causing some to be uncomfortable with letting young children to see, but I think a 12 year old would be old enough to deal with these issues (particular as they are common place on rolling news channels throughout the day.) It is certainly at the up end of the 12A certificate though.

One other thing, rightly or wrongly, the BBFC also take into consideration the fantasy setting. Personally, I feel that The Dark Knight plays in a world that is very close to the real one and certainly more so than the previous film. However, the origins of the franchise and the images that the name Batman conjures probably added weight towards them considering it for a lower rating. I think that this argument is not to dissimilar to the “it’s only a game” argument that plagues games, but it is likely something they considered.

Edit: after writing this I checked the information on The Dark Knight on the Parents BBFC website. The fantasy setting, as well as the fact the violence is off screen, is a repeated reasoning behind the rating. Interestingly, there is no mention of the morals of the film, only on individual sequences.

By: BigJonno

BigJonno — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 19:50:20 +0000

@Goaty: Of course I’m aware that teenagers will attempt to do things that their parents say they shouldn’t. That’s called being a teenager. I also know that most children know more swearwords than their parents realise exist by the time they leave primary school and that my son has probably played games at a friend’s house that I wouldn’t let him play at home.

It’s all perfectly normal, I expect it to happen to my child and any future offspring. I raise my children to be intelligent, independent and discerning. There’s a reason that I walk my son to the school gate and he walks in on his own. I get dirty looks from some of the other parents, but that’s their problem. I believe that seven year olds should be capable of walking across a field and into a familiar building on their own.

I don’t want my son learning about sex and intimacy from hardcore porn. I don’t want him learning about social interaction from GTA. He’s a sensible, mature kid and I’m pretty sure I’ll be buying 18 titles for him long before he’s 18, but it’ll be when I decide that he’s ready, not someone else.

Which is what this is all about. Parents deciding, not the children, not the government, not anyone else, but parents.