The Entertainment Software Rating Board is about to embark on one of the silliest ventures this industry has ever seen, as it's planning to automate the rating of videogames. Starting with XBLA, PSN and WiiWare titles, the ESRB is going to let computers decide what ages videogames are suitable for.
Publishers will soon not need to show their game to a human, instead filling out a questionnaire to determine how much sex, violence, swearing, gambling and foul bodily function is in a game. The rating is then decided upon by a program that replicates the "ingrained cultural norms and predilections of the everyday American consumer."
At least for the trial phase, the ESRB will be testing each game with real humans to verify that the computer got it right.
Anybody with a shred of insight will already know how wrong this could go. For a start, the game-hating pundits in the mainstream media are going to have a field day when they discover that "computers are rating computer games," not to mention I foresee publishers contesting a lot of the "decisions" this program makes. ESRB reverting back to human testers in 5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ...
Busy Job of Judging Video-Game Content to Be Ceded to Machines [NY Times]
Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
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Contest:
8:00 AM on 04.18.2011 | 
If its just metering criteria, I'm pretty sure a bot could do that anyway. Though, of course, having someone playthrough a significant portion of a game has always seemed like the best way to judge its content.
Heck, its the reason I ended up here... Bully for who?
That actually made laugh. Well played...
After all, human emotions and other frailties of the flesh are why games and their content need to be rated, regulated, catalogued,categorized,editted, recut or censored. There is no greater thing to aspire to than the state of they who shall now rate: Perfectly immaculatly flawless if properly debugged and maintained.
Quote of the century. :D
Scene: A human child hugging a big hairy bird
Rating: AO
Please enter next game
That said, I'd be incredibly surprised if the ESRB is the one to develop that.
Technology!