Would you buy a game without an ESRB rating?

[goatdan]

The ESRB rating is a voluntary rating system that was created by the gaming industry to help provide guidence for people when purchasing games.

The quesiton is would you purchase a US-released game that didn't have an ESRB rating for one of your current consoles before finding out why it wasn't rated? Why or why not?

I didn't leave a "maybe" option open... for the sake of argument, it is a game that you are interested in at a good price. Do you take it, or leave it?

[njiska]

Hey dan if it looks like a good game then i'd be willing to buy it with out an ESRB rating. To be honest the rating doesn't matter to me and if it was released without it it might be for good reason.

For example if they had released the uncut version of the punisher without an esrb rating, i'd buy it.

[James]

Why wouldn't I. It's not like games have always been related.

[kainemaxwell]

Why would it matter as long as I enjoyed the game itself?

[Anthony1]

Did they ever go back and do ESRB ratings for all the SNES and Genesis games?

[goatdan]

Did they ever go back and do ESRB ratings for all the SNES and Genesis games?

No, because there is a cost involved for each game to be rated.

I'm just interested to see what everyone's reply is. Frankly, I'm kind of surprised by it so far...

[njiska]

Hey Dan maybe you should enlighten us and let us know why you think we'd say no. I mean it seems pretty onesided since i'm guess the only no vote is your own. Presnt your case. If you're interested in our thoughs how bout we hear yours??

[Half Japanese]

ESRB ratings have no effect on my purchases. Same goes for parental advisory warnings on albums or MPAA ratings on movies. Doesn't boher me one bit.

Is this related to something you're releasing through Goatstore?

[goatdan]

Hey Dan maybe you should enlighten us and let us know why you think we'd say no. I mean it seems pretty onesided since i'm guess the only no vote is your own. Presnt your case. If you're interested in our thoughs how bout we hear yours??

Well, I don't want to change anyone's opinions by what I state. Sometime tomorrow I'll make a follow-up post explaining what my thoughts are.


Is this related to something you're releasing through Goatstore?

This particular post? No. Just doing some research among collectors ;)

[Crush Crawfish]

I'd still buy it. I really don't have any reason to be paying attention to those ratings anyway. Now If I were buying it for someone else, like a kid for example, I'd research the game a bit and make sure it's appropriate.

[NoahsMyBro]

Honestly, I wouldn't have ever noticed the absence of the ESRB 'stamp' until after having read this post (and I'll always notice now, I'm sure).

And really, I couldn't care less whether or not the ESRB rated a game, or what rating it receives.

[Push Upstairs]

A rating means very little to me...its all about how the game/movie/music is.

Besides...i've been watching R rated movies as far back as age 5 or 6.

[Big Shady]

Yes, but that's mainly because I'm a hardcore fan that knows the market. Its good for the common parent that wants to make sure their young ones aren't exposed to too much violence.

[LAGO]

If it where for me then I never pay attention to the ratings. If it where a child ... I would probably still buy it, if I thought it was appropriate for his/her age.

[goatdan]

I don't mean this to be a question of, "Would you not purchase the game because you were worried you couldn't handle the content" but more of a question of "Would you not purchase the game because you were worried about where it came from and the production quality."

:)

[dj898]

I would.
I don't care about those rating anyway...
if I'm interested in a title I will search and read reviews before make decision and rating will have nothing to do with it...

[soniko_karuto]

I would still buy it. I just see that as innecesary, it's just like the explicit lirics stickers, they are there to sell mode copies.

[drwily008]

I'd totally not care, however if it was for my hypothetical child I still don't think I would give a care about what someone told me my kid could (or couldnt) play. I would have to judge for myself by looking over the game and poosibly renting it first.

[alexkidd2000]

This thread makes no sense. The point of the rating is so that parents dont buy a game that is not suitable for their children. What the heck does it have to do with the quality of the game? I am sorry, but this thread is ...

[Aussie2B]

I don't care about ratings as far as my own playing goes. I intentially play hentai games so sex doesn't bother me, and if the violence and gore in survival horror games doesn't bother, I can't see what kind of violence could.

However, it's nice to know what you're getting into. This reminds me of a funny little story: A friend came over with his Turbo Duo and a bunch of various Japanese games for it. We were trying out many of the games, and we started messing around with the RPG Basted. My boyfriend was in some town training with some guy, I believe, and all of the sudden after beating the guy a few times, the game showed an anime picture of the heroine naked and covered in... ahem... "milk"... AND... my boyfriend's 10-year-old sister was in the room watching at the time. O_O Thankfully, the game didn't really make it apparent what the white goo was, and all of the girl's parts were blocked in one way or another. I think my sister-in-law was more confused than anything, but so were the rest of us, haha. It just freakin' came out of nowhere. Overall the content of the game is pretty tame, but it would've been nice to know that there was some mild hentai content to begin with.

[goatdan]

This thread makes no sense. The point of the rating is so that parents dont buy a game that is not suitable for their children. What the heck does it have to do with the quality of the game? I am sorry, but this thread is ...

The point of the rating is so that parents don't buy a game that is not suitable for children, yes...

However, since the ESRB has come around there haven't been too many game companies that released a game without it first being ESRB rated. While I agree the rating is there mostly to tell people what exactly they are getting into when purchasing a game, I would find a game that did not have any rating on it to be an oddity. Why did the company not get it ESRB rated? Were they not professional? Was the game not produced in large quantites? Is there something more to it?

It just seems to me that ESRB ratings have become part of the modern game, and it would seem odd to have any game without the rating on it. It seems that I'm in the vast minority so far though.

[FurinkanianFrood]

I don't mean this to be a question of, "Would you not purchase the game because you were worried you couldn't handle the content" but more of a question of "Would you not purchase the game because you were worried about where it came from and the production quality."


So is this a question about feasability of development from outside the industry proper? Development outside the mainstream is great for systems pushed aside by tasteless mainstream consumers, not to mention genres and styles of gameplay that suffer similar fates.

Development outside the auspices of industry organizations would be less expensive because fees (it's a stupid racket anyway right?) wouldn't have to be paid correct? Kind of like the fees paid per device that plays commercial DVD's (another twisted racket).

I would encourage anyone who thinks they can develop games well enough to attempt to make games, and to sell them if possible.

There are a number of systems that are excellent targets for unlicensed development, and most seem to already have such software. Unfortunately, current systems (and most of the generation preceding the current), employ schemes that attempt to prevent outsiders from developing without paying exorbitant licensing fees.

Didn't whatsis eventually win the suit against the N about the unlicensed (obviously not talking about games that weren't owned by those selling them like with Tengen tetris and etc.) NES games?

Unfortunately I doubt that would hold up in the current legal environment.
The DMCA could easily be misused (it's always misused IMHO) to squelch any unlicensed development on current systems, regardless of the true intent of homebrew/micro-developers.

In the current environment I would say that development by outsiders is worthwhile so long as it is done on carefully chosen consoles.

I have been meaning to start working on some PCE and DC projects for some time myself.....

I don't think that the ESRB rating is really a significant issue.... I would actually be more likely to buy games without a rating because I am so fed up with all the garbage the mainstream game industry puts out instead of actual games. I would think that a small developer would be interested in offering something different, and that the games would reflect that.

Games should be for gamers, not for random blokes who play nothing but the latest EA sports junk (I used to like that stuff on the Genny.... how sad.)

For all the talk about how great it is that gaming is a big industry now, the reality is that it has been awful for gamers. Mainstream = pop culture = garbage culture. There are always exceptions, but eh.

I am sick of seing the (mindless) game equivalents of reality (yeah right....) TV and crappy so-called "rock" bands that annoying kids listen to without even noticing the (literally) communist propaganda in the lyrics sell like hotcakes.

I'm not offended by mature content, I'm offended by crappy games.
It's really a matter of money rather than content that would cause games to lack ratings right?

Interesting about Basted though. I thought (guessed) it was even milder than that myself. Haven't gotten around to that one, but I'm sure it will end up in my collection eventually. I don't see any stop to my PC engine obsession in the foreseeable future. Still is awfully tame of course..... Any of the official releases would be.

I can't say I have any interest in the unofficial ones or most promos personally, because I don't think I'll ever be able to bring myself to lay out the cash for a complete PCE collection. I'll probably end up stopping at maybe 150 games or so (about double the present size)..... I can't bring myself to buy lame stuff like Darius Alpha, let alone the Shiawase stuff, though I don't blame anyone for having anything if it's for completeness' sake. (I don't like sake myself, tastes a bit petrol like...) Fortunately I've gotten a number of expensive games that I wanted to actually play out of the way.

[njiska]

This thread makes no sense. The point of the rating is so that parents dont buy a game that is not suitable for their children. What the heck does it have to do with the quality of the game? I am sorry, but this thread is ...

The point of the rating is so that parents don't buy a game that is not suitable for children, yes...

However, since the ESRB has come around there haven't been too many game companies that released a game without it first being ESRB rated. While I agree the rating is there mostly to tell people what exactly they are getting into when purchasing a game, I would find a game that did not have any rating on it to be an oddity. Why did the company not get it ESRB rated? Were they not professional? Was the game not produced in large quantites? Is there something more to it?

It just seems to me that ESRB ratings have become part of the modern game, and it would seem odd to have any game without the rating on it. It seems that I'm in the vast minority so far though.

I understand what you're getting at Dan. Since most stores won't even stock the game unless it has an ESRB rating you'd really have to wonder about where it came from since releasing it without the rating pretty much guarentees failure.

I for one think that if you're interested in the game enough to buy it you should have some idea of why it wasn't rated. A situation i mentioned earlier was if the game received an AO rating because it was too intense. Personally i don't think the ESRB rating factors into it. If you're interested in the game you'll probably buy it regardless of wheather or not it's rated. That being said any game missing an ESRB rating released now adays would warent further investigation, but i don't think it would ever be a deterant. If anything it's an oddity and therefore it may be a collectors item.

[DTJAAAAMJSLM]

I wouldn't mind a world without game ratings. It'd be just like the old days of gaming.

[goatdan]

Okay, what the hell... I'll out with my motive for this whole post a little early because FurinkanianFrood just about nailed 99% of the things I was thinking of...

This all falls into the realm of Dreamcast publication for the GOAT Store. As people on here probably don't know, the GOAT Store and myself are actually members of a bunch of game developers associations and whatnot thanks to the release of the Dreamcast games that we have done so far. It also gives us the opportunity to do a bunch of other things...

Recently, one of the things that some of the people that I know through some of the associations who want us to be taken more seriously have been pushing for me to get our games ESRB ratings. The argument that they are making is that they want the GOAT Store production model to be taken completely seriously so that larger companies can perhaps adopt a "like" strategy for the development of niche titles either on the Dreamcast or "current gen" consoles.

What I have been hearing from some full-time, real world game programmers is that the ESRB rating is sort of the key to being taken seriously. The games that we have published so far have sold extremely well, are professionally pressed, distributed by multiple storefronts throughout the world and have sold very solidly. We have worked with three game developers, two of which have released other projects before on the three projects that have been released.

For all practical purposes, these are full Dreamcast releases. But the argument is that without the ESRB rating, it doesn't matter if they are full releases -- the corporate world will see them as homebrew games that cater toward a market that "real" companies can't cater too.

After learning about the GOAT Store releases, the ESRB has invited us in as a production house. We are gearing up for the release of another four games in the next six months, and I am trying to figure out if we should actually submit them to the ESRB -- which is a relatively expensive proposition to make -- or to leave them as unrated seeing as how our target market (the Asian market, actually) couldn't care less.

Basically, this whole question was because I was wondering how people would perceived a professionally made game without the ESRB rating -- and my assumption was that most people would view it the same way as what some of the executives seem to see it as. It seems that no one hear does. Since getting the games rated would be a hassle and would cost a decent amount of money, I don't know if I want to jump into that.

So anyway, thanks for helping with my "market research" if you will.

And just a few quick comments:


There are a number of systems that are excellent targets for unlicensed development, and most seem to already have such software. Unfortunately, current systems (and most of the generation preceding the current), employ schemes that attempt to prevent outsiders from developing without paying exorbitant licensing fees.

Well, they employ those systems so that pirates can't warez out all the games, which is another issue... but you named the main form of current copy protection further in your post -- the DMCA -- which basically makes it legal for any company with a console to sue anyone that makes anything for it without their permission now. And win.

Hooray for Disney :roll:


Didn't whatsis eventually win the suit against the N about the unlicensed (obviously not talking about games that weren't owned by those selling them like with Tengen tetris and etc.) NES games?

Accolade won versus Sega in a landmark decision... but since then Sony Vs. Bleem has proven that the DMCA means that the rights of a BIG company are much more important than the rights of a small company.


Unfortunately I doubt that would hold up in the current legal environment. The DMCA could easily be misused (it's always misused IMHO) to squelch any unlicensed development on current systems, regardless of the true intent of homebrew/micro-developers.

Honestly, the DMCA doesn't even need to be used for it to squelch intentions. Most places that you have to go through as an underground developer are so scared of the DMCA that they won't help you, and no underground development company could get the money to finance their own production equipment.


For all the talk about how great it is that gaming is a big industry now, the reality is that it has been awful for gamers. Mainstream = pop culture = garbage culture. There are always exceptions, but eh.

That actually seems to be what the feeling is amongst a lot of game developers themselves right now, but the problem is that the more powerful the hardware, the more expensive it is to develop a great looking game for the console. And while graphics aren't everything, you couldn't sell many copies of a game that had SNES-like graphics in today's market.


I'm not offended by mature content, I'm offended by crappy games.
It's really a matter of money rather than content that would cause games to lack ratings right?

Yes, although the ESRB rating cost is relatively low considering what it is. They could've made it four times as much and most people wouldn't have cared. So I do give the ESRB credit for not being so expensive as to lock people out and make things more "exclusive" then they already are.

I have never felt they were part of the problem or unnecessary. I just never viewed them as so important to the 'big wigs' until recently. The only thing is that I have to figure out if it would be worth paying for the releases that we do to be rated. From a "furthering of possible small cool projects down the road" standpoint, I should. From a "even though the fee isn't much, it's still a bunch of money that we might not make back" standpoint, I am worried about the money aspect.

Who knows what will happen. I'd love to hear more people weigh in now :)

[vulcanjedi]

Hmm

As both a parent to kids under 10 and a gamer I don't pay attention to the ratings as much as I pay attention to the game. I just make sure I know exactly what they are playing. So far there is ony one game I won't play in front of them and that is BMX XXX.

And if I were to hear about a new game from an independant publisher I would be more interested in how good it was instead of what the rating was before I bought it.

VJ

[k8track]

Video games have ratings?

Seriously, it isn't a factor. I don't notice the ratings; I don't even know what games have which ratings. I'm like that with movies too, I just see movies that I want to see and don't even know or think about the rating. A couple of weeks ago I went to an art film and didn't even realize until afterwards that it was NC-17.

[CartCollector]

If it doesn't have a rating, it's probably from some fly-by-night company that will get its pants sued off by the DMCA and ESRB and whatnot. So yes, more than likely I would buy it, because it will definitely become a rarity.

[FurinkanianFrood]

FurinkanianFrood wrote:
There are a number of systems that are excellent targets for unlicensed development, and most seem to already have such software. Unfortunately, current systems (and most of the generation preceding the current), employ schemes that attempt to prevent outsiders from developing without paying exorbitant licensing fees.


Well, they employ those systems so that pirates can't warez out all the games, which is another issue... but you named the main form of current copy protection further in your post -- the DMCA -- which basically makes it legal for any company with a console to sue anyone that makes anything for it without their permission now. And win.


I don't blame them for using the lockout to prevent piracy. It's just that the DMCA makes any and all attempts to get around the lockout illegal, regardless of intent. As we all know, warez weren't any more legal prior to the DMCA.

What I was getting at there was that the DMCA allows corps to use the lockout facilities of current consoles to force developers to pay them money to be able to develop software.

i.e.
1. Without disabling the lockout the indie software won't run
2. If the lockout iis disabled -> lawsuit

Thus the lockout becomes a tool which can be used in conjunction with the DMCA to extort developers.

I realize that companies like Sony would say that they need that money to be in the console business, but put simply, they need to get the hell out of the console business. If they can't be viable without destroying the rights of others then they should go the way of the dodo.

Many large game publishers are complicit with the console manufacturers because they can easily afford to deal with the BS while standing to benefit from a lack of competition resulting from the death/non-existance of smaller companies. *cough* EA, *cough* Squeenix *cough*

Real game companies (ones that can deliver decent first-party content) can survive by being good publishers. While I realize that Nintendo used to use extremely oppressive licensing schemes, in the present day their competetion is getting the benefit, while Nintendo has stayed in the game by being a top publisher.

The DMCA exists for the sole purpose of allowing corporations to sue out of existence anything that could theoretically be used to facilitate piracy, regardless of other potential uses. Unfortunately, there are so many dishonest creeps out there that corporations now do anything they can to protect themselves from IP theft.

The people who steal companies IP were and are the real problem, but now it's too late for us to get our rights back. People who steal content should realize that they are hurting everyone, both consumers and the people who work for companies that depend on sales of content for revenue, not just "faceless corporations."

I don't think anyone will ever get their "pants sued off" so long as they stick to development on Dreamcast, Jag, VCS, etc.

It bothers me that everything is tied down so tightly by regulations (software patents are another big load of BS, patenting simple algorithms!? please....) that almost no one can get into the software business on pure ingenuity anymore. Someone will just sue them. It doesn't matter if they aren't infringing on anything. The law is owned by those with money.

I've seen too many people who I went to college with go off to cushy jobs at software developers right out of school because their fat-cat parents have 'gannections.

I am sick of seeing the elite get things handed to them on a silver platter.
As far as gaming is concerned, it depends on what happens in the next-gen.

The PS3 hardware looks like it will have a suicidally high price point and be impossible to develop for.

I can deal with Sony OR MS being in the console market. Both is ridiculous. Game consoles should be made by game companies, or gaming will suffer further.

Capitalist economies should encourage new businesses, not degenerate into a system that stifles the aspirations of the individual. Representation isn't of much use when politicians are constantly bought by the highest bidder. Not to mention a nearby city where representation is non-existant.....

Plutocracy sucks.