(I’d originally intended to post this in a more video game-website, like GameFAQs, but just about everyone there has made up their minds about this topic, so I’m picking a broader forum.)
Whatever your opinion of Mortal Kombat, you at least have to give it this; few video games have been as instrumental in influencing national policy as that one. It was that game which first sparked the huge outcry over video game content, setting off a chain of events leading to the formation of the AAMA and ESRB. The former for the arcades, the latter for the home consoles. The ESRB rates every game with a single letter, while the AAMA has ratings for violence, language, and one other thing I don’t remember offhand, in the form of colored stickers. A few, like Pump It Up, are unmarked, leading me to believe that this is something individual companies do “voluntarily”…more likely due to political pressure.
Labelling, much like flag burning legislation, is one of those weird only-in-America things that’s loudly demanded despite the fact that it’s of almost no use. In all the time I’ve been going to arcades since the stickers were implemented, I’ve yet to see anyone so much as glance at them, let alone turn down a game because it was too anything. (I actually witnessed a parent help his very young son play The House Of The Dead 2, one of the bloodiest shooters around. Neither party seemed much the worse for wear afterward.) And while Blockbuster Video customers discuss any number of things when choosing a game to rent, the letter on the corner of the box is never one of them. Gamers, as a whole, just don’t care, except for the fact that the big gaudy sticker with the moronic statement we all figured out after about thirty seconds of gameplay (The House of The Dead 2 is violent? Gee, I also hear water is wet! :rolleyes: ) totally messes up the otherwise nice-looking title board.
If I were to pick out a game for a young consumer, the level of “appropriate” content would be the least of my concerns. What I want to know is, how difficult is the game? Is it the kind of gameplay a kid can grasp? Will it keep his/her attention? Is this game fun? And easy to learn? And not too taxing on hand/eye coordination or reaction time? Even if I wanted a rating for, say, violence, one letter doesn’t quite cut it. There are plenty of degrees of violence, and oftentimes a game that seems brutal on the surface really isn’t. For example, the Time Crisis games have no blood whatsoever, so this is “Animated Violence Mild” territory at most, regardless of how many baddies meet their demise. Police 911 is the same. Lethal Enforcers has photorealistic (digitized) characters, innocent deaths, and a slight amount of blood; this would probably warrant a T rating, not the M it actually got. Silent Scope, Samurai Shodown, and other games have quite a bit of blood, but no exit wounds; if I had to make a designation, it’d be moderate violence (or “Animated Violence: Moderate”). Even for The House of The Dead 2, the enemies are, for the most part, zombies, which of course do not exist in real life, so even this would be a step below the ultimate level of violence…which would be “realistic”. My point is, there are a lot of levels here, for every category of concern for someone shopping for a younger player, and a single letter of two-line summary on the back of the box just isn’t sufficient.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m all for voluntary ratings. Concerned parents have a right to know what’s in the games they’re thinking of buying or renting. But these assessments should be easily understandable, comprehensive, and available by request. I fail to see how messing up a box cover or title board with some hack rating benefits anybody.