MasterYong

GodwinRoebuck

And I don't mean to imply that the potential for harm is grounds for censorship. Far from it. It's just that studies correlating video game violence and real world violence are inconclusive... which seems to me that we as a society should be concerned at the possibility that children are being encouraged to be more violent.

I think Yee is on the right track - but comissioning an unbiased study would be the better use of his time, rather than putting laws into place that protect from a threat. I personally feel that the threat is there, but I'd rather read research on it that laws about it.

Tonx

@bunch.of.wackos: I agree with you when you say the technology and responsibility are in the parents hands to properly raise their children. Where we separate is the fact that there are too many regulation on weapons now. Every violent crime you see reported on TV is probably covered by like 20 laws and regulations. For example, assault, and assault with a deadly weapon. Shouldn't there just be assault with the appropriate sentence? The laws are already there. If laws did the trick, there would be no murder, theft, rape, etc. People need to take personal responsibility and do what you were saying and raise their own children properly. Then the kids would be less likely to be a detriment to society.

@Purple Dave: Have you ever watched "This Film Has Not Been Rated"? It clearly shows that the MPAA is biased and used by major studios to bully independents, and content is not even close to being rated consistently.

Politicians usually do this stuff to either distract us from the fact that they aren't doing their job, or because they are paid by lobbyists from competing industries (movie, TV, and music) to interfere with the competition.

They already wrote laws against all of the bad things they cite. Who are they, the thought police? What they need to do now is stop spending more money than we give them, and stop taxing us because of it. Why do they think parents aren't home with their kids now? 100 years ago, taxes were 2% in the US. Now it's more than half. If parents didn't have to work so much they could be home with their kids to give them a healthy family life.

peacefuloutrage

Purple Dave

The fact is, the effects of games on a person is tied loosely, at best, to a persons age. But age is something concrete, quantified, that legislators or ratings boards can judge by. The ESRB or any proposed government ratings board can't judge who a game should be sold to on a case by case basis of psychological evaluations and examining the parenting the person received.

So what has been used as a judge for these things in the past? Age. Movies, TV, Comic books, they all use a rating system based on age. Is it right? Who knows? But it is already an established system for these other forms of media, and it makes sense to carry it into games.

Assumption

What a good willed but misinformed politician says doesn't affect me in the least, let the parents do the parenting, politicians should focus on making new jobs, and keeping real criminal minds at bay... I'm all for more regulation but first regulate the weapons that help so much with the killing instead of saying, ["this guy played a game 7 years ago... then started medication and quit medication and then gamed some more... so games are at fault!!"]

bunch.of.wackos

skyoon

After playing GTA4 for 5 hours straight with a friend, we walked on the street and both somewhat felt the urge to jack somebody from a car.
Since we are no nutjobs, eventually we controlled our urges and just bought an icecream.
Thank you for raising me properly, mom and dad!

sander_dutch

You sir, give psychology a bad name.

Pay_Me_Or_Pay_Me_No_Attention

GnatB

Pbombas

Good ideas, less-then-perfect execution.

Jayl3w

So he's saying kids are gonna link pushing buttons with injuring/maiming/killing somebody.

So either kids are gonna be too traumatized to push buttons, and thus will have to stop playing video games and go out and play baseball or something, or they're gonna be madly pushing buttons whenever they want to kick the heck out of somebody. (instead of actually, say, kicking the heck out of somebody).

I fail to see the problem here. (especially, of course, since games have been around for long enough where we would have noticed either of the above "problems", and they rather obviously haven't surfaced.)

@SynKade: The problem with Leland (and some would argue, America) is that you don't have to take an intelligence test to be allowed to vote, and thus idiots are allowed to vote as well... and they vastly outnumber the intelligent people. Being an anti-video game crusader is a great way to get votes. I remember a video game law in Illinois that every lawyer who was asked about it said it was unconstitutional and would be overturned, even those who voted to ratify it. They were too scared of being voted out of office if they actually voted against it. Of course, courts ended up throwing it out with prejudice, and the taxpayers of Illinois ended up stuck with the millions of dollars of lawyers fees for BOTH sides.

GnatB

Samos42

excel_excel

At first I was upset that PG13 rated movies were as bad as M rated games, but if people are going to get soo upset than just rate more T rated games M, gosh.

But that's not good enough is it?
They need to make M rated games rated 17+! Oh wait, they are rated that.

Gigith

I know most people will say "It's the parents fault! They need to regulate this!" Well, it isn't happening. And I know it's hard to believe, but there are children out there playing Gears of War and they're only six years old. Opinion may differentiate on this (I personally say my children will be only ten before touching Halo) but it's like child abuse exposing kids to hardcore stuff like this at such a young age.

That image of Marcus sawing a Locust's head off will remain there forever, and as a person very interested in psychology,stuff like that will harden him to events such as brutal death (it did for me :O) I'm getting a little into a different subject here though.

The point is, if a parent wants to buy GTA for his kid, then go ahead, nobody will stop him, but we want to encourage people to look at the rating and think about this for a minute, consider his child's maturity, and make a decision as a parent, not to just let his kid run free buying violent games. It's essentially the same thing as not selling porn to minors.

NachoDude

"...their action is coordinated with what happens to a human being, what happens to an individual. So pushing a button will then decapitate someone."

You mean those moving polygons and chunk of A.I. code are actually people?! Oh my god, I'm a mass murderer! Not only that, those hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of enemies that behave the same way and use the same model are all individuals?! Please, just tell me what I can do to make it up to the family of generic soldier #382!
Also, what point is he trying to make with the push a button to kill argument? Is it some kind of Pavlov's controller, where every time I see a button, I'll have an urge to kill?

"It is this interactive nature that connects your behavior to a particular consequence that is particularly horrific."

How so? Just because you tell me that an apple tastes different than an orange, doesn't mean you have proof that an apple is better than an orange. All you've done is stated the obvious. Give me something measurable, like a study. Otherwise, you have no proof that your argument has any significance, even if it is true.

"The money that is used to sustain their particular activity is paid by the industry - the industry that that board is supposedly trying to regulate. So long as you have that conflict of interest, there's no way that anyone's going to believe that these rating scores are going to be objective."

Lobbyists and voters are conflicts of interests for politicians, and I don't see anyone trying to get rid of them. I'd trust the ESRB before I'd trust a politician. Anyway, the ESRB is non profit, so the only thing they could do with extra money is expand their operation or do more lobbying.

"...not being able to look at all the content, the rating system is a flawed and an invalid system"

The average game takes 18 months to make. If someone has worked on a game that long and don't know the worst moments of the game, they might want to rethink their management style.
Or maybe someone might want to purposely mislead the ESRB about the content. Then, if it makes it through, it will be inevitably discovered and complained about by a conservative organization. Then that company will be fined and have to deal with more scrutiny and aggravating calls for government regulation. Just look at how much a company stands to gain from that!

Tiber

Erring on the side of caution has never helped anyone. Humanity evolved by taking chances. And we've got to a point in our history where we are doing better than we ever have. There is no need to protect the children any more, wrap them up in cotton wool and keep them "living".

Hell, even the poor of the world are living longer and better lives.

Furthermore, this protectionist attitude has massive potential to fuck up the kids more than anything, and turn those fucked up kids into fucked up adults.

* * * * *
'Cotton wool kids' losing basic skills

* Parents are mollycoddling children
* Kids will lose basic skills, say experts
* Anxiety disorders on the rise

PANICKY parents are breeding a generation of "cotton wool kids" too afraid to climb trees or ride their bikes, NSW's most senior child guardian has warned.

Mums and dads are so fixated on keeping their children safe that children are growing into nervous adults without acquiring basic survival skills along the way.

NSW Commissioner for Children and Young People Gillian Calvert has cautioned that alarm over stranger danger and traffic means that today's children are missing out on simple pleasures.

"Over the past 10 years we have seen a real reduction in the range at which children can leave their family home and move freely," Ms Calvert told The Saturday Daily Telegraph.

"Kids tell us they can't ride their bikes around streets any more."

The simple joys of childhood such as bike riding, climbing trees and even just crossing the road are basic skills that are in danger of being entirely lost.

And doctors report that robbing kids of their freedom is pushing up rates of anxiety disorders in even the very young, while reducing play is denying children motor skills.

The data were presented at a From Page 1NSW Commission of Children and Young People and University of NSW conference.

"There are real concerns about reduced play opportunities," the university's Sports Medicine Unit director Dr Carolyn Broderick said.

"Fundamental motor skills are developed through play as well as balance co-ordination and strength. And a lot of play equipment has gone from parks because of fear of litigation.

"Children now have a fear that wasn't there in the past."

Dr Broderick said research shows a significant drop in free play time and a quarter of parents were actually discouraging their children from playing sport because they were worried about injury.

But it is not just backyard cricket that has gone missing - research in state schools found international events such as terrorist attacks were making children feel insecure.

"Some children expressed fear of global threats such as war and terrorism and had a general insecurity about their own future and their community's," Ms Calvert said.

"These concerns meant they lived life in a restrictive, guarded way, either as a result of restrictions imposed by others or themselves."

Child expert Robyn Monro Miller warned fearful children would grow into fearful adults.

"Even the RTA says children shouldn't cross the road by themselves until they are 10. How does the magic age of 10 mean you can cross a road?"

Sydney University's Brain and Mind Research Institute director Ian Hickie confirmed rates of anxiety in children were on the rise because of parents obsessed with keeping their child safe.

"Parents think the world is more threatening and the idea is you have to protect them from the world," he said.

Recent research found children as young as two were being treated for anxiety.

[www.news.com.au]

FunkyJ

trailingedge

hogarth1

Demaar

But that's not the case. There are millions of gamers the world over to disprove this bullshit about video games leading to violent crime.

When I was a kid and I watched Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Gi Joe and other movies I always had play fights with my friends. When I was a kid (9 or whatever) and played Mortal Kombat there was no urge afterwards to fight. So take that Mr. Asswipe.

aurf

I'm not saying it isn't flawed (obviously it was, if it was deemed unconstitutional), but this is a man who sees that video games are violent (which they are) and have the potential to cause violence (whether or not they actually do is irrelevant because the potential is there), so they should be kept away from minors. Until I see hard scientific evidence coming down on either side of this debate, I am happy to err on the side of caution.

Oh, you have got to be kidding me. Whether or not there is actual causation os irrelevent? By your rationale, everything in the world should be kept away from minors, because the potential is there. Who decides that there is potential? You? Senator Yee? Big Brother? Joe McCarthy? That is censorship, pure and simple. Seems to me that if you wish to err on the side of caution if there is simply potential for harm, you shouldn't drive or fly in an airplane (potential to crash), eat or drink (potential to choke or get heart disease), breathe (potential hyperventilation), exercise (potential heart attack), etc etc etc.

You can't wrap the world in bubble-wrap. At some point parents are going to have to take responsibility for their kids hobbies/lives.

I'm not trying to attack you, but you realize that we in the U.S. have surrendered Civil liberties because of the potential of a terrorist attack. (By the way, thank god for the color-coded terror alert system. What are we today? Yellow? Orange? Hasn't been mentioned since the 2004 election ... funny how that works.)

Strangelove

Also: I don't know *how* many times I've pressed R1 when my boss pissed me off, and the fucker just refuses to die. I've even held down L1 to aim, and nudged the stick up to go for a headshot. What am I doing wrong?

erlik

Beyond that, this "interaction" he so worries about doesn't teach kids how to cut off limbs or spray innocent mothers with flamethrowers. If anything it teaches them that pressing "a" or "b" or "triangle" or "x" will make shit happen. And here is the proof that this isn't happening. Kids don't take Xbox controllers (depite being more portable now due to wireless technology) to school to shoot up the kids. They take real guns. And these ideas circulate much more in other mediums than in video games.

otakujpop

Señor Vorpal Kickass'o

Arny456

Caseus

Also, Godwin's Law haha

wormguy

superbabyproject

grecords

rabidkeebler

demeteloaf

I mean how the hell does Ratchet and Clank and Jak and Daxter get teen ratings? Because there is guns involved. Those games are as harmful as looney toons cartoons.

And he is right about the ESRB being a conflict of interest since the industry is paying for it. That will only hurt their own credibilty.

However we will need a way to once an for all seperate "kid games" from "adult games" in order to stop all this nonsense.

I could care less if I have to walk into a back room, get carded twice, etc just to view the more mature games. It would avoid censorship and it would be another deterent (sp?) for mature games to fall into the hands of children.

Then and only then will we be able to pick out the truly lazy parents. And blame them of course.

I see no other alternative but am willing to hear them out.

grecords

Also, he said that there were never "Columbines" and other "university massacres" before video games. This is plain wrong. What about the the guy who shot and killed people from a clock tower way back in the 60s or 70s? There have been tons and tons of violence like Columbine before these "Ultraviolent" video games. He is either lying about this, or very very very VERY ignorant on this issue.

Pips

I know that I'm just 17 and I don't fully understand the political system nor do I try to but it's people like Yee that piss all over the one thing that I do understand and respect and abide by: the United States Constitution.

Just in my World Literature class today we had to write a poem based on our beliefs and what-not. One of the things I strived to point out is that respect for what America once was, what it was intended to be, what our fathers dreamed it could be is all but vanished.

Do I hate my country? No. I love my country and, honestly, I wouldn't want to live anywhere else in the world other then where I am right now. But that doesn't mean that I don't get upset or get angry or get sick of it all at times. Every time I see Yee or any other politician trying to piss on the Constitution it infuriates me.

The job of these politicians is to represent the people and the people's interests and, maybe, guide the people a little bit. Politicians like Yee are trying to press unto us their beliefs and their ays of thought.

Right about now I would like to spin off and discuss the faults in the media and press and their lack of ability, or rather balls or possibly even caring, to report on something other then regurgitating whatever the person with the deepest pockets has fed them.

Ugh. Forget this. Fuck you Leland, I'll vote against you if I ever get the chance. I'm going back to Konami.com in a vain attempt at obtaining a limited yet obsolete Playstation 3 for purely cosmetic reasons. Good day, Gentleman.

SynKade

Parents, I'm looking at you...accept some responsibility please and stop treating consoles as a one off payment child minder.

And politicians, stop using video games as a scapegoat and focus on the real issue, which is the declining quality of parenting skills. There are tonnes of people here saying the same thing, which is along the lines of, "I played GTA IV and I don't steal cars and kill people on a daily basis." Investigate the difference between these people and anyone you come across who does.

I bet you it'd be a short study, because I'd wager that anyone who commits crime because they played a video game would've done so because of a TV show or film even if video games didn't exist.

superbabyproject

randlsa

Owen Good

Whether it's right or wrong that Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo won't allow an AO title on their systems (I go with wrong, but I'll admit it's purely opinion), I think it's hard to deny that it puts a certain pressure on the ESRB. Extra fines for an adults only title, new measures put in place to keep them out of children's hands- yes. But I don't think that laws and bills are the way to do this. The industry must regulate itself, and so far, it has. There is one example ever of a company trying to slip by the ESRB- Rockstar's little Hot Coffee- and it's fair to say that they didn't even realize that it would come up. None of these people are malicious toward the ESRB. We can trsut them to be responsible.

I'm not saying don't regulate them, but locking up store clerks and fining children is absurd. The industry has always looked after its own. Give it a chance to do so, and I think you'll find it manages fine on its own.

Dangeresque: I know Gundam is dirty but I love 00

Parents hold the keys for now, but the common argument is that parents are not omniscient and need help, a statement I would agree with. I think that the ESRB and the like are doing a fine job - I for one wouldn't bother changing it - but having the government set up an agency akin to the ESRB would have the same result - only they're accoutable to the public, whereas the ESRB is accountable to the private sector.

It's a slippery slope both ways - but at least Yee can handle it maturely and intelligently. I'll take that over political grandstanding from Florida's lawyers any day.

@Absent Blue: Don't give the ESRB all the credit. It's companies like Nintendo that don't allow AO material on their consoles - the ESRB esentially works as a censor for Nintendo, as opposed to censoring them.

Tonx

hollowfreak

Also, what this guy, as well as many others, propose is wrong. I fully agree (and I am sure most everyone does) that M-rated games should not be in the hands of minors, but issuing a fine to make sure of this is extreme. You don't see that in any other form of the entertainment industry, so why video games? Should we start issuing fines to retailers who sell R-rated movies? Or how about to TV stations who show a R-rated movie to a child (this happens everyday). What about the news? Should they be fined every time they broadcast from Iraq? Where would you draw the line.

The bottomline is self-regulation is assumed to work in every other facet of the entertainment industry, so why should we change it. In fact, I don't recall exactly which report, but I seem to remember reading something on this site that showed how Video game self-regulation works better then every other form of the entertainment industry. Huh...how about that.

mshimer5

I agree. While he does sound out of touch, he's a whole hell of a lot more aware than most people in his camp.

@Gannoc:

Definitly. It's like a modicum of bland violence will get you a Teen rating but anything above that will get you an M. AO is reserved for porn and "murder simulation" on the scale of Manhunt 2. Given that most parents aren't too concerned about differentiating between and T and an E game, but froth at the mouth over M games, it would make the most sense if the ESRB either split the M category or used a more explicit system (like MVS for M for Violence and Sexuality or MVLNS for M for Violence, Language, Nudity and Sexuality).

@karasu is my homeboy:

Admittedly, any audience is always interacting with a story or movie. But it stands to reason that the more interactive a medium (like a video game) the more likely it is to be engrossing. The lines between reader and author in a game are even blurrier than they are in any other medium.

In fact, its entirely possible that the more offensive and disturbing the movie, the more alienating it is to the reader. To take Hostel and other "torture porn" movies as an example - most of these movies work on the basic principle that you will be horrified by the violence involved. A game asks, by its very nature, that you be at least partially complicit. The difficulty here is that for us adults, at whom these M games are aimed, there is no real danger - we can distinguish virtual worlds from the real world, and see the limitations and exageration in the mores of the former when compared to the latter. As the age of the gamer drops, however, the more difficulty they have in distinguishing play from the real world.

Now, do retailers already do a good job of enforcing age restrictions? Absolutly. Would this bill really only stand to hurt small game stores? Definitly, though Gamestop/EB do a great job of that already.

PearceShea

@Gannoc: Well, that can be said for movies, too. I mean, Iron Man is rated the same as some gory, teen thrillers. Iron Man is a man in a suit shooting missiles at tanks. Prom Night, while certainly not one of the goriest PG13 thrillers, shows teenagers being stalked and killed one by one and is obviously marketed at high school students.

It's more of a scale, and then the games are placed within that scale. Then video games go more in-depth within that scale using the descriptors.

Halo 3
Blood and Gore
Mild Language
Violence

GTA IV
Blood
Intense Violence
Partial Nudity
Strong Language
Strong Sexual Content
Use of Drugs and Alcohol

I think you'd have a valid argument or concern if the descriptors didn't exist or weren't as clearly displayed as they are.

jonathan.

They're not mandatory as it's been said. But unless you're on the PC good luck getting a game out on the market, much less certified on a console without a rating. The ESRB may have been formed because of games and may be funded by the industry, but that's a jump to say that it's the industry's bitch thereof.

Absent Blue

axiomatic

Cloral

SamCity

Drake Lake: Phase Lunaire

I find it kind of funny that the ESRB created a new rating a while back that hasn't really done anything (E10). Seriously, instead of creating a new rating for these games between a PG13 and R, they make one that no one really asked for?

Drake Lake: Phase Lunaire

eagon

+ Watch video

etchasketchist

From: [kotaku.com]
Eggebrecht revealed his independent studio's difficulties trying to secure a Sony requested Teen rating for its PLAYSTATION 3 dragon game Lair. With a heavy amount of blood and gore, the game was altered to conform to the ESRB's sometimes impolitic ratings criteria. Even though the player can burn scores of human infantry to death, showing blood spraying from dragon wounds resulted in a Mature rating.

aka Bitter

And what happens when "the industry" doesn't provide you with all the necessary information? Ask Rockstar - GTA: San Andreas was rerated AO and pulled from store shelves because of the Hot Coffee incident. They had to release patches, rerelease the game to get its M rating back, contend with legal action, and most importantly in terms of business, it probably impacted their bottom line in a negative fashion.

I'd bet this guy a quarter that every other game developer will stay in line just for the sake of not having to waste time and money dealing with the bad PR involved with cheating the ESRB, inadvertently or otherwise.

The point is the system is already doing a pretty good job of policing itself, and short of sitting a team down and playing through games that could take anywhere from 10-40 hours up to hundreds of hours it's probably about as good as it's going to get.

One thing Rockstar can't do however is force parents to read the labels on the products they are buying for their children. That one's squarely on the parents.

evslin

iFlingPoo

With you here. Give it time, guys, and just keep holding on.

Drake Lake: Phase Lunaire

The M-rating is too broadly used. I've said this before that it is crazy that Halo 3 and Grand Theft Auto 4 have the same rating. There is nothing in Halo 3 that I haven't seen in a PG-13 movie. GTA4 is clearly for adults only.

If a game says "Shit!" once, it gets an M rating. If the player cuts babies in half with chainsaws to restore their health, it also gets an M rating.

Gannoc

Drake Lake: Phase Lunaire

But he's against selling Manhunt 2 to your eight year old neice, and that loses him a vote?

Not every politician promoting a collective conscience for the video game industry is a bad guy. I'd trust a child psychologist with this decision, especially if his peers are behind him on this.

Tonx

@jarjarwang: Seriously, let's get this guy's kids in the army...

These games are designed to entertain adults. NOT CHILDREN. If there is a problem here, it's lack of parenting.

BTW: There are children in Africa who don't push buttons on a controller to shoot a pretend gun and kill fake people, they pull the trigger and kill REAL ones.

iFlingPoo

Also, take into account the movie industry had their rating problems in their infancy, but as the industry began to mature it tamed down. Give the ESRB some time. As a new generation takes over, we will see change.

Dr.Chocobo

arstal

Just like Karasu said i would love to see what parents would say after watching hostel and playing Grand auto? which one do you guys think they would say something?

Yo!! Senator Yee GET A LIFE and do something usefull for the people that elected you!!!

Vectortuff

tazz77

make war, not love.

pandafresh

"In a world where even PG13 movies are much worse than the worst rated M games, this argument of his is simply awful. "

@karasu is my homeboy: I'm not so sure about that. Can you give me an example of a scene in a PG-13 movie that is as bad as some of the M-rated games?

LOTR, there's several decapitations, lots of black gooey orc blood, appendage amputations. etc etc. I think they were able to get away with it because the orcs weren't "human" so it was ok to eviscerate them. It's a PG-13 movie that has a whole butt load of violence though.

ExistentialEgg

fri559sp

Never saw that in Halo.

Drake Lake: Phase Lunaire

1- That makes no sense. To be a videogame, you have to be interactive. If he's talking about the events in a cutscene, or not initiated by the player, then it's simply talking about films, in essence. So, yes, it's is any violent videogame.

2- Can we please have a good look at this fabled, oft quoted piece of research to suggest this particular harm?

Having said that, I feel his heart is in the right place, he's just got along with this misinformation, and seems to be doing the right thing in the wrong way.

The issue of self rating, is of course, a non-point. Yet many times upon telling less informed individuals about videogame rating systems, they say, well it's by some videogame rating system, so they're going to be biased. The non-acceptance of videogames amongst many 'reputable' sources has lead people to believe the worst of the medium.

But this will change. I don't think this man should be in any way vilified for this, and his previous actions. Just better informed. And I think that is our duty. (The fact that he had an interview at GameCyte leads me to believe he is genuine about his concerns).

Krondonian

jarjarwang

Solid_hedgehog

Please rent "This Film Is Not Yet Rated." In many ways the MPAA is worse than the ESRB.

exolstice

I'm not saying it isn't flawed (obviously it was, if it was deemed unconstitutional), but this is a man who sees that video games are violent (which they are) and have the potential to cause violence (whether or not they actually do is irrelevant because the potential is there), so they should be kept away from minors. Until I see hard scientific evidence coming down on either side of this debate, I am happy to err on the side of caution.

Tonx

@karasu is my homeboy: I'm not so sure about that. Can you give me an example of a scene in a PG-13 movie that is as bad as some of the M-rated games?

FanDam

texicali74

Every time I go to a store to buy an M rated game I have to show ID and I'm 23 for christsakes, obviously the problem isn't with the industry or the retailers.

happycodemonkey

+

Also the lack of, and even evidence against, conclusive research linking video games to a propensity for violence is what really gets me. How can people make such assumptions when videogames have been around for a reasonably long time now? I can barely name a few young males I know who don't play videogames fairly regularly, and obviously that demographic doesn't have skyrocketing crime rates.

wormguy

Gray665

I'm happy someone actually acknowledges the video games vs. other media issue, but that answer doesn't hold up. I need him to elaborate. It's simply worse because it's interactive? Even if a movie doesn't have me using a controller, it's still exposing me to the "ultra violent" images, in, guess what? Extremely vivid detail. The blood actually looks like blood there. The body parts, too.

I refuse to believe Gears of War is more offensive than watching Hostel simply because Gears of War uses an analog stick.

Next, the ESRB rates the games based on submitted content, yes. But they are checked by the millions or gamers and, you guessed it, media. They're not going to slip a T on Gears of War to sell more copies because even when they rate it appropriately there is an uproar.

It would literally be impossible for them to get away with. The ESRB rating are always accurate and are the most informant of the media rating systems. Movies should look to them for inspiration, really. Plenty of PG13 movies could easily be rated R due to violence or gore and are only saved because they tone down the cursing.

In a world where even PG13 movies are much worse than the worst rated M games, this argument of his is simply awful. I know he's trying, I feel this is one of the men who genuinely cares, but he's still not getting it.

Why don't any of them get it.

jonathan.

I know that one, it's PLAY on my DVD remote!

Volante007

you cant put a price on human life.

drunkentyger

jgross

The_Foo

Has this guy ever heard of the MPAA? Who funds that group? Oh right the movie studios.

parad0x360

Glaiel-Gamer

neoepochx