What Would Matt Do

Call me gullible, but I just assumed the ESRB already played the game they rated…apparently that’s not the case:

[..]rather than simply relying on the video demonstrations submitted by developers and publishers as it does currently. It would also “prohibit video game producers and distributors from withholding or hiding playable content from a ratings organization.”

I’m impressed. All these of years ratings and they haven’t actually been playing the games. I can’t decide if that’s offensive or extremely funny. Maybe it’s both.

But now that they’ve decided to play the games they rate, I predict a few problems a couple of problems.

First, the ad is they sent to GamerDad is looking for people that are interested in video games and have “experience with children”. Beyond the oddity of that statement, experience with children (you really think they could have worded that better), they going to get, for the most part, gamers that aren’t hardcore. Which is perfectly fine, except they won’t be seeing all of the game. They won’t be finding easter eggs, and presumably they won’t be looking online for nudie hacks. I don’t have a problem with any of that because the ESRB is way too restrictive, much like the FCC, when it comes to nudity, but allows violence to slip on through…though not as bad as the FCC. The point being though, they aren’t going to see all of the game. Just a note to there playing the game theory.

Second, I can just imagine the ESRB forums filled with video game testers looking for help to get past specific bosses, help with PC game installation and crashes, and general crankiness over the numerous bad games they are going to have to play most, if not all, of the way through. It’s going to make for some really cranky testers.

Third, and maybe most funny, aren’t they going to have a really hard time hiring a big enough force to keep up with all the game releases on all the systems? Game reviewers manage it by hitting the biggest games hardest and getting to the others when they can…but the ESRB doesn’t have luxury. They have to review every single video game released, before it’s released. I imagine all kinds of delays, “We would released a month ago, but the ESRB is still playing our game.” So funny.

This somewhat ties into my being carded at Best Buy a bit back in that these are the guys that put the rating on the box that Best Buy uses to determine if I need to be carded. And I can’t be too annoyed that now the ESRB is going to start playing games. That brings about no small amount of joy in my mind. Something about them having to struggle through all of the crap, having to try to complete all the games they review, brings joy to me.

It’s not that I really dislike the ESRB or anything and I like that ratings on the boxes. It’s a pretty standard fact these days that many parents are on auto pilot and will buy their kids whatever they ask them too. Or let them play whatever. At least this way parents will be a bit more informed. That being said, I’m not 100% sure the ESRB isn’t becoming more and more big brother every day. And I have no idea how much influence they have over what currently gets in games…

I WISH they had nothing to do with it. I wish they didn’t see a game until it was complete and gave it a rating at that point. That way we’d get a rating just fine, but we wouldn’t lose content/features when games try to dumb down to fit into a lower age category. Movies and games both do it, the idea of it just bothers me. There should be some sort of separation there.

What Would Matt Do: I’d get secret access to the ESRB forums and laugh and point a lot as they run into all of the problems us gamers do now.