2006-05-06 - ESRB rating update Options

[stargelman]

After Bethesda Softwork's press release in reaction to the ESRB's rating change, the ESRB itself defends their decision to change the rating. ESRB president Patricia Vance:

"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"

"It is obviously unfortunate for everyone involved that no one at Bethesda deleted this file before the game went Gold, contributing to our changing the rating after the game was released"

While many in the Elder Scrolls fan comunity speculate that the real reason for the change in rating is the great amount of violence in the game that assumedly has been underestimated by either Bethsoft or the ESRB, the ESRB is under considerable political pressure by those with the agenda to "let the law handle this".

California Assemblyman Leland Yee, a familiar name to those that have been following recent debates about gaming legislation after the "hot coffee" scandal, is already using the situation to attack the ESRB and insisting that the industry is no longer capable of informing concerned parents about the nature of the content of video games:

"The ESRB again has failed our parents and clearly has shown they can not police themselves. Plain and simply, the current rating system is drastically flawed and here is yet another reason why we need legislation to assist parents and protect children"

It may turn out that the fallout of this incident may be bigger than just a rating change of a single game, especially if incidents like this happen again in the near future. And one thing seems certain: a certain group of politicians will be watching the ESRB very carefully.

Read the full story at GameDaily BIZ

[HyPN0]

So ESRB is in trouble now?
Hehe,i really wonder how will this end.....
Anyway,what's "hot coffee" incident?

[stargelman]

So ESRB is in trouble now?
Hehe,i really wonder how will this end.....
Anyway,what's "hot coffee" incident?

There was a patch for GTA: San Andreas that enabled some content in the game that was previously unavailable, featuring -afaik- in game sex scenes. It caused quite a stirr, and the rating of the game was changed to AO after that. Hot Coffee was the name of the patch.

The incident is similar to the current one as the rating change was based on the fact the content was already in the game, even though it wasn't available without this patch.