If FingerTehHand's point is true, which it sounds true to me, then I wonder what the hell's going on exactly?

wow, this is getting scarier by the day. pretty soon the rating system will collapse, and we will only have E rated games.

Rated E for Boring

(it doesn't gotta make sense)

Christiangamer: Stay tuned to Destructoid.

Right now though? Be a gamer and give a damn about the respect our favourite industry deserves.

We'll have more GFG info for you guys soon!

Here's a bit more info - Since we pulled the trailers, we contacted the ESRB to ask why. They sent us back a semi-canned response. More info here: http://news.filefront.com/esrb-responds-to-dark-sector-trailer-removal-requests/

This is just crazy. Since when has the ESRB had the power to tell the companies what they can put in the trailer? According to their response they have had this thing since 2000, but I have never heard of it. Something really needs to be done about this.

Yeah, I think they're kinda hiding behind the age gate thing, but the problem is that all those trailers were age gated since we got them. It's just an odd situation.

you cant censor the internets, THAT IS NOT OKAY

I can get horse pr0n, but not violence. Srsly not cool

Dear ESRB,

I actually kinda sorta tried to defend you a little bit regarding the Manhunt 2 AO rating thing. I said it wasn't your fault that other retarded asshats were treating the AO rating as a de facto ban, and that you were, for the most part, just doing your job. And this is how you thank me? By doing something retardedly asshatted like this? Way to go, you stupid whore. I want my money back.

No love,
Me.

I've got it! I understand it all now. Video games are this generation's Voltron and Transformers.

"Well, Phil, not only is there occultic overtones here, but definite violence and killing, and this could lead children to think that killing is okay, I'm sure."

I plan to respond to this particular issue in depth, but I have an appointment, and so my time is limited, but I would like to respond to Redprosthetic's comment regarding government regulation of the industry.

I am neither a fan nor an apologist for the current executive branch, and indeed, I feel that this is a very dark time in American history, but I do believe that a government body would do better than the ESRB. There may be a period of time in which things will get worse, but ultimately, I believe that if the government oversteps its bounds to censor video game content, it will be defeated in a series of legal challenges, leading to reduced or no regulation of content.

Things seem really bad right now, with the executive branch ignoring the constitution left and right. Cheney could certainly teach Steve Jobs a thing or two about how to create a reality distortion field. However, these things tend to fluctuate. I can not describe how depressed my father was when George H. W. Bush took the white house after eight years of Reagan. I was too young at the time to understand the ramifications, but I could tell that he had lost all hope that things would be alright again.

But in 1992, with the election of Bill Clinton, he regained his hope. It gave him a sense of perspective, and now, even though George W. Bush sits in the oval office, my father looks forward to a better tomorrow, and has become quite an activist, working to secure it.

But no one here really cares about my father. My point is that the bad times will come, and we're living in one now, but things do get better. But this is not just applicable to the left wing: no matter your perspective in today's polarized political society, when the other side is in power, things can seem bad.

We do have a relatively untested Supreme Court right now, and the Bush appointments have seemed to swing it farther to the right. But the Supreme Court is an institution of tradition, and they have spent a lot of time reviewing cases involving censorship and obscenity. While the legal system can be slow, I ultimately believe that it will be effective in destroying governmental barriers to gaming if the government takes over the task of rating games.

But ultimately, this delay is what the industry does not like. Even a year of draconian governmental regulations could wreak financial damage to the industry. The industry wants to remain profitable, and though I'm sure that many realize that things would be better after they took the hit, many simply do not want to.

But let us look at the other forms of media, starting with books. There is no ratings system for books. Any minor can walk into a local bookstore and purchase the seediest "romance" novel or the grittiest detective book. For music, there is a binary ratings system. Either a CD has explicit lyrics or it does not, leaving it to the parent to determine the suitability of each album for their children. This is the sort of thing I would like to see for video games. Sure, you can sub-devide the lower echelons, but eliminating the AO rating would mean that an game is either explicit or it is not. In TV, we see a ratings system based on the MPAA system, working in tandem with the V-Chip and the FCC decency standards. (In all actuality, since TV is a broadcast medium, unlike all the other media discussed, I have no problem with this kind of system, however, I would appreciate it if commercials were separately rated from the shows that air. I have an eight year-old brother, and when I visit hi, I often watch Star Trek with him on SpikeTV, FOX or SciFi [I refuse to watch G4], I constantly have to turn off the TV during the commercials because, while the show is age-appropriate for him, the commercials are not. I would like to be able to V-Chip block the commercials. I will address this more in a later post.) The FCC's decency laws have recently been challenged in court, and they were found to be "arbitrary." To me, that is an example that, while not ideal, a government-run system works.

Only with movies have things not progressed. In fact, I would assert that they have gotten worse. Movies which push the envelope today are largely not artistic, nor do they challenge pertinant social issues, like many controversial films of yesteryear. While the industry has always been about profit, the very conservative ratings system has, as a side effect of its existence, made it too difficult for these movies to be seen and profitable. And when you look at all the types of media distributed in the United States, video games have a ratings system most like the movie industry. It is a broken system, and it does not allow progress. Mark my words. The Manhunt 2 delay has cost Rockstar and Take-Two a pretty penny. If the ESRB continues down this road, developers may decide to take their chances with a governmental system, because at least then they have a chance at challenging the rating.

Look, I know it can seem like video gamers are a bunch of shiftless young adults hanging out in fraternities and taking bong hits while playing Halo 2. Believe me, I lived in undergraduate dorms two years ago, and I deal with these people on a daily basis. It can be depressing. But the portrait of the average gamer is quite different. Games are in the majority of homes in the United States. Many, many people enjoy them. I believe that if, say, Hillary Clinton were elected president (and I hope she will not be) and she attempted to enact anti-gaming legislation, there would be quite a din from American voters expressing their disapproval. Ultimately, progress may be delayed, but I have confidence that the human hunger for progress will prevail.

I truly believe this is just a case of the ESRB trying to keep itself relevant after the backlash caused by the Hot Coffee and Oblivion incidents. They know they're under heavy scrutiny, so they're going out of their way to appease anti-gaming parent groups and legislators. "See?!? Look, we're doing it right! Little Timmy is safe from the evil naughty violence! Now you can spend even less time paying attention to what he does!"

I'm libertarian, but I'm at the point where I think the government might be the ones best suited to be in charge of the rating system. At least they can be held constitutionally responsible for their decisions, whereas the ESRB (and the MPAA) cannot.

@GatsuTheBerserker

I don't claim to know what these guys are planning with Gamers for Games, so I may be wrong, but I've gotten the strong impression that it's going to be more than simple debating and arguing about it on the internet.

And also, whoa, I just read through the comments a bit more carefully...

...so, what's up with this talk about Bioshock? Has there really been rumblings that it is next on Big Brother's hit list or something? Seriously, if these shitstoves go after Bioshock now... *despair and wrath*

Mxyzptlk: Libertarian? I knew I liked you for a reason!

ShawnS: Thanks for signing up. Please keep us posted.

You know ... the way D3 are being, I'm worried the ESRB has been literally picking on them. Start on the D3's to gain momentum enough to start on the huge companies. Whatever's going on, I don't like it.

Jim, you know how tough I am against censorship (if you even remember me). I think that the ESRB is doing a necessary evil right now. They are making it look like a strong arming game companies, but I think it will be minimal, just so it will look like the ESRB is cracking down. Remember the ESRB is funded by companies. Better the ESRB than the government.

(I was the one that told you to get off your English butts and organize a traditional protest)

Well I've had more information from the ESRB forwarded, but its nothing specific to this situation. I reviewed the policy the board has on what happens to a publisher who fails to act on a request and here is the wording from the ESRB site:

"Every publisher of a game rated by the ESRB is legally bound, by contract, to disclose all pertinent content, in both written and audio-visual form, during the rating process, including content that may not be playable but will exist in the code on the final game disc (i.e. "locked out"). After a game is released, ESRB testers review both a random sample of games well as a number of hand-selected titles to verify that all pertinent content was fully disclosed. In the event of incomplete disclosure during the rating process which affected or could have affected the assignment of a rating or content descriptor, an ESRB enforcement action may be initiated, which could result in revocation of the original rating and the imposition of sanctions, including monetary fines. Corrective actions may also be required of the publisher to ensure that all game packaging and advertising materials are accurately labeled. Examples of corrective actions include the re-labeling of product inventory and unsold product at retail or, potentially, a product recall. Where warranted in order to ensure compliance with its directives, ESRB can suspend rating services altogether."

Which leaves me to draw the conclusion that D3 is doing this at the request of the ESRB because they fear financial fines as well as a slanted or denied rating - especially since the ESRB is a contracted organization and publishers are bound by contract to do as instructed.

That is incorrect. We had an age gate in front of the content on our site. There also is no ESRB rating on the gameplay videos as they were delivered.

I think you have a skewed idea of what "the industry" represents. Without the ratings the retailers will not carry the products so abandoning the ratings scale is not an option if you want to sell games at retail.

They also are contractually bound to the publishers and publishers agree to react and act on ESRB requests or face penalties.