Some news about ratings

[Ed Oscuro]

GameSpot reports (http://www.gamespot.com/all/news/news_6089571.html) on the appearance of video games in JAMA (not JAMMA, JAMA - Journal of the American Medical Association).

Highlights:

98% of games feature violence (oh, those bad polygons moving around so fast and bouncing into boundaries)

27% have sexual themes, compared to 15% being labeled for such content

15% had "use of substances." The stuff apparently is found in the air now.

Thanks to Abormal Freak for posting this first here. (http://www.forumplanet.com/classicgaming/castlevania/topic.asp?fid=6090&tid=1296441)

[Lady Jaye]

Of course, it'd be interesting to know how they define "violence". Is it cartoon violence (an anvil on Wile E. Coyote's head)? Is it the skater falling off a skateboard and spurting a bit of blood in the process in the Tony Hawk series? Is it shooting your enemies to death in Splinter Cell? I know that the definition of violence is very subjective. For me, Tony Hawk falling off his skate and bleeding a bit (which would have been a lot more painful in real life), is not "violence".

Anyway, isn't it a given that the ESRB is not always accurate in its ratings? Besides, it's like movies... If you ever come see a movie in Montreal, you'd be surprised to see that a PG or R rating in the US (and elsewhere in Canada) would end up being rated G (for the PG film) or 14+ (for the R-rated one).

[SegaTecToy]

... 15% had "use of substances." The stuff apparently is found in the air now...

Wow, maybe they think that Mario's mushrooms and Dune's spice are "substances"...

[portnoyd]

Oh Lady Jaye, I'm sure it goes something like this:

Violent Video Games:
GTA III (Guns, fighting)
Splinter Cel (Guns, fighting)
Tony Hawk (Accidents, fighting?, inuries)
RType Final (Explosions, intent to kill)
Rebel Strike (Movie violence, explosions)
Mario Kart DD (Crashing, using weapons to attack opponents)
Madden 2004 (Football, human collisions)
Triple Play Whatever (Hitting innocent balls with a bat)
Virtua Tennis 2k4 (Hitting innocent balls with a racket)
DDR Max (Rough stomping on floor mats)
Mary Kate & Ashley Whatever for GBC (Extremely violent fashion accessorizing)

And the list goes on and on. You can make any game to be violent. And I bet sexual content includes a woman's presence in a game period.

So back to what Jaye said, what makes a game violent? Does the study say?

dave

[Ed Oscuro]

@ Lady Jaye and Tec Toy:

No, they were rather lenient in their analysis, actually, "medicinal herbs, tonics, and undefined brews" were not considered substances, for example. There's a link in the article to the site, check it out.

[Lady Jaye]

Well, then, Mario & Luigi SuperStars is quite the violent game (minus the blood)!!! I mean, with all that stomping and hammering enemies throughout the game...

[SegaTecToy]

Yeah. I think they must be more specific about what games are like that. Most games (the huge majority) uses cartoon-like violence and other fantasy things. Very few are like GTA which uses more real-life features.