[QUOTE="skingus"] What age do you have to be to play M games, and what age are you supposed to be to play AO games? Aren't they all supposed to be geared towards adults? Forgive my ignorance...
ZIMdoom
Well, technically I think it is the movie equivalent of R and NC-17. With one, it is alright for kids under 18 to see so long as they are accompanied by an adult. With the other, kids can't see whether the adult wants or not.
But I think this whole thing is completely stupid. Ratings are voluntary and meant to be an education tool. THEY ARE NOT LAW. And no matter what extremist politicians or knee-jerk parents think, there is no liability to the store if they sell your kid an M or AO game. NONE. No lawyer would ever be able to prosecute a store because some unsupervised kid went to a store with $70 and bought GTA. Impossible, because the liability is on the parents and no laws were broken. It is meant to be a tool to educate.
The same thing ticks me off about movies and theatres trying to police what people can or can't watch. Stores has no obligation to police what games people buy. I will draw aline when it comes to "adult videos" or things like tobacco or alcohol and maybe that makes me somewhat hypocritical. But games aren't real and kids don't swallow them, and while I don't CONDONE kids playing games like Manhunt 2, I condone even less having stores act like consumer police. The stores are not parents and shouldn't be punished for not acting like parents.
The whole rating system is way to easy to abuse and/or manipulate. The industry doesn't want any heat when politicians are campaigning? Slap an underhand BAN on a game likely to cause controversy. Then the ESRB or whomever is in charge, doesn't have to admit to being censors and yet the game can't possibly be released . Problem solved. No heat on the industry while campaigning is going on. Not that I'm saying that actually happened...but it could due to the nature of the system. It happens all the time in the movie world. Watch the documentary "This film is not yet rated."
As well written your argument is, I have to disagree. You may not like it if stores "act like consumer police", but since they're private industries (i.e. not state-runned), they have every right to to set they're own policies the way they see fit. And if they do set policies on not selling or even displaying certain products to kids (for whatever reason), then they must enforce them. If not, then you get the Jack Thompsons, the Hilary Clintons, and the Joe Libermans saying that they're not doing a good "raising our kids." Corporations can do whatever they want, but once they set their own policies, andnot through the government, then you have to respect that decision, whether you agree withthem or not. You can always go to other stores thatdon't have them, mostlynon-corporate ones, butin the case of Manhunt 2, that will be hard toaccomplish. Besides, it wasNintendo and Sony that made the decision not to release the game, not Target or Best Buy.
You maybe correct on ratings as guidelines, but it all depends on what the guidlines are. Ifthe game is Adults Only, then you have to give the ratings some teeth in saying only adults can play the game. But unfortunately, we havemany ill-informed adults buying games for their kids, so many corporationsset policies not to sell or distribute AO games in their stores let alone kids. When was the last time you saw an NC-17 rated movieinTarget, Best Buy orCircuit City. Like you said think of AO as rated NC-17.
In short, the ratings have to be given some teeth in practice, otherwise they're no good. If rated "R" means"no one under 17 permitted without parent", then youhave to mean it. Ditto for NC-17 (but that canalso hurt your marketingcampaign).
Hope this serves you well.
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