ESRB (American Videogame rating board) unfair?

Speaking of scary games has anyone played F.E.A.R?

Replying to #21

Yeah...terrifying in parts...
One sticks out in my mind....where you climb down a ladder, turn around and there's Alma staring at you...

a bit more on this, here's an extract from an IM with my mum (names changed). My mum is a classroom assistant in a primary (5-10) school:

Mum: Are all GTA games 18?
me: yes
Mum: oh.
me: san andreas was initially a 15, but it got re-rated
Mum: I overheard C (J's brother) telling T - a Y3 - not to let J play on the GTA when he goes there, as J has dreams and screams out in the night.
Mum: The other question is, why is T allowed to play it?

There we see the extent of the problem, a 7 year old playing GTA. What the fuck do that kid's parents think they're doing?

They shouldn't be parents. Like Britney Spears.

I live in my loft, attic for most of you, so you can hear the wind and rain belting off of the roof. best way to play condemned in the dark or F.E.A.R, fatal frame is still quite good for it too

i think the ESRB is just like american unions.
their intentions are great but they limit potential.most game developers create their games based on the ESRB ratings.
meaning that if they want to make it rated T, then they will cut things out of the game to make it rated T.
(kind of like the movie ratings)i think game developers should just create their game, regardless of their intended rating and just go with it.
the ESRB should've kept manhunt 2 rated AO and the developers of manhunt 2 should've kept it the way it was.like what was just said earlier, some 15 year old pre-ordering GTA.no one really cares about the ratings.
people will always get what they want.i think the ratings should be more like guidelines, not rules set in stone.
im basically saying don't play a more mature game if you can't stomach it.
back when i was 7 years old i was playing mortal kombat trilogy and kicking peoples' asses who were 2-3x my age.

@ WinterreiseI definately enjoyed Condemned and i think that the rating was well deserved for the game.

i played the bioshock demo at like 2 am when i was very sleepy, and the bit where the splicer attacks the bathosphere is quite tense and scary. I've never really much been into horror games anyway.You americans think you have it bad with ratings... We (UK) have the BBFC who have to classify GAMES and FILMS on the same system which is complete BS. My mum has only recently allowed me to get 18/M games (i'm almost 15) however i've always been aloud 16s.I'm pretty suprised has mentioned that lawyer who hates videogames as we're talking about ratings and parents defying them against their own real knowledge. As we home gamers eventually begin to reproduce and become parents ourselves, they'll hopefully be far less of this rule breaking because we'll understand the ratings and be able to assess for ourselves whether a game is appropriate for a child or not...

original Doom was the scariest thing ever, i could never play that through, until i got older and was like, "This was scary?"

x9x9x · #28You americans think you have it bad with ratings... We (UK) have the BBFC who have to classify GAMES and FILMS on the same system which is complete BS. My mum has only recently allowed me to get 18/M games (i'm almost 15) however i've always been aloud 16s.

More recently they've started putting different ratings on as well. Two different systems, giving two different ratings. How can that be good?

Replying to #30

With the casual gaming gaming boom and unknowledageable consumers, it's only going to snowball the situation and make everyone MORE confused if that's possible

thats pretty much whats happening. The new rating is a europe-wide thing that attempts to specify what it actually contains (i.e violence/swearing/nudity/whatever) and gives it a rating based on that. Since the BBFC rating is arrived at by a different method its not normally the same. You'd think publishers would have the sense not to put two ratings on, especially if they're different.

Replying to #32

they typically do but in a really obscure way
they have the BBFC rating on the box and then aimlessly have the content rating in the manual. That means that unless the box art is clear or you know about the game, then it could have abolutely anything in which you would only discover upon purchase, GodOW's sex minigame for example.

pegi is the name of the european system.

Do they mark in some way the kind of content whatever the media contains to the open eye? ^Ah nevermind.
I guess it makes sense since obviously you wouldn't have a sexual content stated game as PG certificate rated etc.

Yeah, but if you look at say two different 15 games, then they could be 15s for completely different reasons.
It's pretty clear with PGs and 12s maybe, but above that it can be pretty varied as to why they're that certificate.But Anandjones, they don't mark it out in some way on the box. Just the BBFC rating is on the box.

the PEGI system has symbols indicating the reasons for the classification, they're usually on the back of the box, whereas the BBFC is on the front

Yeah, i forgot they were there... (just checked the back of the nearest game box)It's people being able to distinct each sign from the other that is the problem with the symbols. Also something that came to my mind as a problem is that it doesn't say how severe these problems are. I looked at the back of my Civilization 4 Complete box and it has the violence symbol. I've played the game enough to know extremely zoomed out goreless combat where people die with no complication and no damage is caused really. There's also no scenes of people properly dying. So i fail to see where PEGI are seeing this violence which is also in games like GTA and GoW (both). They need to show how bad the element is in the game else there are going to be mistakes made with consumers (who inexplicably know and understand the PEGI system)

Ah I see. Something like the brutality of the opening sequence of Rambo IV, compared to the rest of the movie, not being so brutal. It could average out for the rating.

It's more like this (i'll use my earlier example):
Both Civilization 4 and GTA 4 have the violence rating. HOWEVER the intensity is massively different between the two.They should use a wordier system like the Contains note that appears at the bottom of movie trailers/adverts which uses words like mild WITH the rating. That would make far easy for consumers to make informed purchases.