Brawl?

(If you clicked on the title just because it said "Brawl," shame on you.)

I'm completely obsessed with the game, yet I'm sick and tired of hearing about it. Let's talk about more important things such as the ESRB ratings.

I think as far as ratings go, the most important thing, currently, is to ensure that the games actually get played. No more watching a trailer showing the most gruesome crap in the game -- let's hire more people who actually play the games.

Second of all, I think the actual ratings themselves need to be changed.

Early Childhood:
This sucker is easily the worst of the bunch -- it means that there is no content in the game that is offensive to parents. But, what if the game has no offensive content... but it's not Dora the freaking Explorer? (By the way, most of her games get rated E, as well...) For example: The Dora game by Atari gets rated EC. The Dora game by 2K Play gets rated E. Why? There's no content descriptors, no nothing. No explanation for why one Dora game gets EC, and another E. Aren't the content descriptors supposed to help out here?

Everyone:
And yet it's not for everyone... Only those six and up!

Everyone 10+
It was a good idea to add this rating.

Teen:
The teen rating means 13 and up. Possibly the most used rating.

Mature:
Ah, here's everyone's favorite rating to complain about. Frankly, it's become the PG-13 of game ratings. Mature-rated games seem to do better in a market that is constantly growing and trying outdo itself. Currently, I find the M rating worthless -- as far as indicating the content of a game. When Manhunt 2 and Halo can get the same rating (same goes for many movies today) something is not right in my mind.

Now here's the rating that probably needs to change the most...

The Adults Only rating:
With only a one-year difference between this and a Mature rating, the AO rating initially appears the most nonsensical of ratings. However, while some call for the destruction of the AO rating, I would rather have a change: bring the AO rating up to 20 or 21. Many will complain: "What's the point? Big box stores won't sell it, dooming the game forever! You can't have a rating like that!"

My initial response would be this: The stores can choose what they wish to sell or not sell. If I understood some people correctly, during the Manhunt 2 controversy, they said that having an AO rating would "doom" the game. I suppose it would. But, then again, the developers chose to put that content in the game. I suppose in one way you could say it's "their own danged fault" but consider that Wal-Mart and Target sells movies like Saw. To me, this is a double-standard. Either sell the violent content (but only to people of age) or don't sell it at all.

That's not to say I support violent content in games. In all honesty, I don't. Overly violent and "bad" content doesn't "cheapen" a medium, but it shames me when people think it's entertaining to watch/play torture. Games like Manhunt make it harder for me to convince my parents that designing games is a perfectly legitiment career.

Most will bring up the "games as art" and "freedom of expression" arguments in response to what I just said. But, no, I'm not stopping you from making Munhunt 3, Take 2. It'll just make my job of legitimizing games a little harder.