2006-05-04 - ESRB Madness Options

[stargelman]

Want to hear something really silly? Ok, here it comes. The ESRB has revoked it's Teen rating for Oblivion and changed it to Mature. Why? Because someone made a mod that used a mesh that was burried somewhere in Oblivion's game files (but never used). This particular mesh is that of a female upper body. Topless. That, and because the level of violence and gore supposedly exceeds what the ESRB had expected.

What does that mean for the average gamer? Well, if you're living in the US and you're younger than 17, and your parents actually care about the ESRB rating, you might find yourself having a difficult time getting this game now. Unfortunately, that does not appear to be the only consequence. From Bethesda Softwork's official reaction:

There is no nude female character in a section of the game that can be “unlocked.” Bethesda can not control tampering with Oblivion by third parties. Bethesda is taking steps to ensure that modders can not continue to hack into Oblivion’s art archives to create partially nude figures.

Now perhaps it's just me, but that last sentence sounds as if it was a good reason to worry. What exactly does that mean, prevent "hacking" into Oblivion's art files? And how is this to happen retroactively, after the game has shipped? A clarification on this issue is required, and it should come soon and from someone in charge.

BethSoft's Press Release on ESRB rating change for Oblivion

[Nottheking]

Wasn't there some comment by the developers that they wouldn't include some "mature" themes in the game, in order to avoid getting an "M" label, and therefore losing sales? If I understand correctly, some major chain stores, like Target, won't carry "M" rated games at all.

I agree that the last sentence of the public statement from Bethesda is the most troubling part. The censors and their weird priorities are always a pain, but it's disheartening that Bethesda might go out of its way to accomodate them.

Actually, although I don't remember the proper quotes right off of the top of my head, (they are in the site's "dev quotes" section, though) BethSoft's take on the rating Oblivion would get, boiled down, came to:

"We're making the game how we feel it should; we don't really care which rating it gets, though there are some things we aren't including because we feel they don't belong. (like nudity)"

So, that means morrowind should be rated M? I mean, people made nude mods for that. Better bodies simply has an option when installing for nude or not. So if you have to go do research and do a bunch of manual game modding to get nudity.

ESRB makes no sense.

No, there's a very clear line here; Oblivion actually has a toppless model included in the PC data files; Morrowind did not. The ESRB did change their guidelines to include content that was "hidden" in such a way. They do not count "second-market" content, like in Better Bodies, but they count content included in the original game, regardless of whether it's normally accessible, and, in fact, regardless of whether someone makes a mod to "unlock" it. Of course, if no one makes a mod to grant access to it, it's kinda hard for most people (and reviewers) to know that it's there...

This is stupid.. it's like the Hot Coffee mod for San Andreas...
Like, pretty much every game has a nude mod of some sort. Jedi Outcast, Jedi Academy, San Andreas, Vice City, Giants: Citizen Kabuto, hell, even Halo has some. So should we ban every game that can have nude content? No! Let's petition it.

You're missing the difference here, between a "nude mod" and a "access mod." As I recall, of those, only GTA: San Andreas (not even Vice City) actually had nude content included in the base game. The ESRB apparently rates games based on all included content, regardless of whether there's access to it or not. They don't monitor mods, hence why the games that simply had "nude mods" made for them were not re-rated.

At least they didn't get the Adult Only rating as San Andreas did.

BTW, in Europe it was alredy M.

Well, keep in mind that "nudity" is only worthy of an "M" rating. Actual sex scenes are what's needed for an "AO" game.

As for the European rating, which system? As I understand, the UK's system (BBFC, or something like that) actually has rated the game "14" since its release, and hasn't changed it. I think PEGI (what most of continental Europe does, such as France, and I believe Germany as well) rated it at "16" their closes equivalent to "M" from the start.