Improving the Entertainment Software Rating Board

[Jesus Dies InTheEnd]

He's talking about the amount of raters, not ratings.

[Laharl]

The system IS flawed and ignored. At least in canada. I gave a bunch of younger relatives (aged 8-14) money to go to a series of local stores at different times to verify this, only to find that none of them were stopped from buying games with severely high ratings.

They were not asked their age, were not even questioned on their way through the check out.

We consider it (for the most part) a joke.

[Jenny]

I get carded at the movie theater still and some parents don't purchase games by rating. It will never be removed if it's helpful to some, even if it is a minority of people. DUH?

[GoombaStalker]

Originally Posted by Jesus Dies InTheEnd

I <3 media.

Only six full-time raters.

Know what that means? There's probably dozens of raters, and the 6 full time ones only deal with the 'major' decisions.

It was also said that the entire ESRB as a company has only 30 people. So 30 minus the 6 full time, leaves 24 people. I doubt all the rest of the 24 people in the company are part-time raters, so I sitll couldn't see there being more than 10-20 raters total even with part-timers.

Also it wasn't media who wrote the article, it was a guy who used to work for the ESRB as an official of the rating department but ended up leaving later on.

[Airgoh]

dude who cares

[Emperor Pan I]

Originally Posted by Airgoh

dude who cares

who cares about anything.

Lets just go log off and kill ourselves because the world is just so uninteresting we shouldn't care about anything.

[Renzokuken]

lol pan

[Amantis]

6 full timers? That's totally a sh*t system. And the tiny crew that makes up the entire ESRB team makes it even worse, along with the fact that they only watch videos of people playing. Are they afraid that they might enjoy the game so much that they'll be biased?

- Amantis

[Wing Zero]

Originally Posted by GoombaStalker

Also it wasn't media who wrote the article, it was a guy who used to work for the ESRB as an official of the rating department but ended up leaving later on.

and he was a part time rater. From the counter argument of the president, he only got a the gist rather then the whole picture

[Chris]

Originally Posted by Laharl

The system IS flawed and ignored. At least in canada. I gave a bunch of younger relatives (aged 8-14) money to go to a series of local stores at different times to verify this, only to find that none of them were stopped from buying games with severely high ratings.

They were not asked their age, were not even questioned on their way through the check out.

We consider it (for the most part) a joke.

Ultimately its curiousity or restrictions that cause kids to do what they do. In the world of TV, I am gonna take Family Guy as an example. As most of you know, they show a disclaimer saying "This Show contains violence, corase language **** like that". I was watching Family guy with my 10 year old cousin and his 7 year old brother, and tthey were like "Yeah, lets watch it" the moment the disclaimer was on. We watched 2 episodes of it before thier father came in and told me to change the channel during a commercial.

Games is not like it, but the images on box designs, discs, cartridges whatever can spark them to playing it easily. Its usually the parents job to keep them from playing such games, but eventually tehy will find a way. I am a prime example. I have been getting M rated games since I was 12, and I was watching South Park at the time. My mom didn't mind me watching it, and neither did my Dad. Hell, I even got away with getting Bad Fur Day, and you needed a 18+ person to buy it or rent it.

As for 6 people rating video games, that is retarded as well. Especially if all 6 have biased opinions and/or don't actually play or watch the games. They use the common themes or characters to pre-determine what it is. Why do you think almost every Final Fantasy is either T or M?