12th June 2007, 12:09 PM
http://www.joystiq.com/2007/06/12/esrbs-...-break-th/
These guys make a point I've been making for some time. The logical extension of boosting a game's rating because of user created content is that every game that allows customization MUST be rated M. My take? Just create a second category right on the ratings box with a letter as big as the normal rating letter that says "C". Parents will look on the back of the box to see that "C" means "Warning, custom content created by others users. We cannot rate other's content so use at your own discretion".
That way, they are covered, and the government loses any "legitimate" grounds to take over the ratings part and start requiring ridiculous things that, for example, reduce freedom of developers, perhaps kill custom content, and might even kill the independant industry (with a law that, for example, requires all games everywhere to be rated).
These guys make a point I've been making for some time. The logical extension of boosting a game's rating because of user created content is that every game that allows customization MUST be rated M. My take? Just create a second category right on the ratings box with a letter as big as the normal rating letter that says "C". Parents will look on the back of the box to see that "C" means "Warning, custom content created by others users. We cannot rate other's content so use at your own discretion".
That way, they are covered, and the government loses any "legitimate" grounds to take over the ratings part and start requiring ridiculous things that, for example, reduce freedom of developers, perhaps kill custom content, and might even kill the independant industry (with a law that, for example, requires all games everywhere to be rated).
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)