Meh, statistics are pointless usually, and people will interpet them any way they want. I have one guy I decided not to derail a threat by argueing with me defending Obama's 3% victory at his second term of popularity height (7% of at the height of his first term) as being "knocked victory out of the ball park". Which can be made to see more impressive when you go with electoral votes (which are not indicative of actual support) or by trying to use that 3% by saying "X million number of people" without pointing out how trivial that actually is in comparison to the overall numbers of people being discussed.
Not that I'm going to argue politics at the moment, I'm just using that kind of thing as an example of why statistics are annoying, you can make something seem more or less impressive entirely in how you present it. For example here we are dropping the name "Harris Poll" but few details on how it was conducted or where they found the people from. It's also an odd number... 2278... which has me instantly question things since I'd expect a legitimate poll to use a more rounded number of people.
That said, one thing I'm going to agree with here though is that the ESRB is garbage, there is no way around that, it is. Trying to express faith in a system that badly borked does nothing to help the case of those defending video games.
See, the reason why it's borked is that the gaming industry has too much control over things. Something which it ironically winds up using to over-rate games. Basically someone looking to make a game that should be "T" rated will oftentimes just go along with putting an "M" rating on it to "be safe". This leads to a lot of "M" rated games having content nowhere near deserving of it, which in turn leads to people becoming unusually shocked when they run into a game that actually warrents the rating. Parents can't really tell what's in a game under the current system, and might very well review a lot of "M" rated games and find them to be okay for their kids, because they were all "T" rated content only for there to be a problem when they buy something that they never would have otherwise bought going by what the labelling lead them to think is okay.
To be entirely fair movies tend to be a lot more accurate with their content ratings, and you even see movies like "Scream" making jokes about it back in the day "No, I won't have sex with you, but I can give you the PG-12 version" (shows tits).
To put this into context, pull a bunch of "M" rated games out of your library, and tell me what exactly is in those games that warrents an M rating? A Grim/dark storyline involving demons, bad things happening, etc... okay that's meaningless even with indirectly relayed information. Every PG-13 horror movie has the same crap, and goth kids eat it up. It shows titties bouncing around uncovered an skimpy costumes? Again PG-13 tops, you can find that in movies/comics/etc... that don't have an adult rating, blood and "graphic violence", well the question comes down to "how graphic" but if it's just people being shot and stabbed, especially in combat, that's again more "PG-13" fodder plenty of action movies rated that way. Let's not forget we've watched people get dismembered in Star Wars. None of this crap is something a parent is going to worry about because it's all stuff your going to find in the movies kids watch anyway, and it doesn't warp them any more than it ever did (though people have argued about it with other forms of media as well, movies and comics have been under fire just like games before). To really be "M" rated you need deeply graphic content, like watching "erotic thriller" sex scenes, or drawn out depictions of torture and mutilation. Shooting someone in the head and seeing them fall to the ground in a pool of blood is not "M" rated material, but sticking a plastic bag over their head and restraining them while they choke to death (like say Manhunt) is. To hit X/AO territory the only thing that does it is showing actual sex, as in "you can see the penetration" rather than having it implied by two people playing naked twister under a sheet while growning, or the use of shadow so you don't actually see Part A fitting into Socket B.
Hollywood is guilty of over rating too for purposes of safety, people do not push for lower ratings like the system is designed to expect, but the gaming industry does the same thing to a far worse extent. As a result the guys setting the ratings need to be more assertive in properly setting ratings for them to matter. That means pushing some things carrying an "M" rating because the company making it doesn't want to fight, down to a "T" rating so consumers actually have a better idea of what they are getting.
Not that I'm going to argue politics at the moment, I'm just using that kind of thing as an example of why statistics are annoying, you can make something seem more or less impressive entirely in how you present it. For example here we are dropping the name "Harris Poll" but few details on how it was conducted or where they found the people from. It's also an odd number... 2278... which has me instantly question things since I'd expect a legitimate poll to use a more rounded number of people.
That said, one thing I'm going to agree with here though is that the ESRB is garbage, there is no way around that, it is. Trying to express faith in a system that badly borked does nothing to help the case of those defending video games.
See, the reason why it's borked is that the gaming industry has too much control over things. Something which it ironically winds up using to over-rate games. Basically someone looking to make a game that should be "T" rated will oftentimes just go along with putting an "M" rating on it to "be safe". This leads to a lot of "M" rated games having content nowhere near deserving of it, which in turn leads to people becoming unusually shocked when they run into a game that actually warrents the rating. Parents can't really tell what's in a game under the current system, and might very well review a lot of "M" rated games and find them to be okay for their kids, because they were all "T" rated content only for there to be a problem when they buy something that they never would have otherwise bought going by what the labelling lead them to think is okay.
To be entirely fair movies tend to be a lot more accurate with their content ratings, and you even see movies like "Scream" making jokes about it back in the day "No, I won't have sex with you, but I can give you the PG-12 version" (shows tits).
To put this into context, pull a bunch of "M" rated games out of your library, and tell me what exactly is in those games that warrents an M rating? A Grim/dark storyline involving demons, bad things happening, etc... okay that's meaningless even with indirectly relayed information. Every PG-13 horror movie has the same crap, and goth kids eat it up. It shows titties bouncing around uncovered an skimpy costumes? Again PG-13 tops, you can find that in movies/comics/etc... that don't have an adult rating, blood and "graphic violence", well the question comes down to "how graphic" but if it's just people being shot and stabbed, especially in combat, that's again more "PG-13" fodder plenty of action movies rated that way. Let's not forget we've watched people get dismembered in Star Wars. None of this crap is something a parent is going to worry about because it's all stuff your going to find in the movies kids watch anyway, and it doesn't warp them any more than it ever did (though people have argued about it with other forms of media as well, movies and comics have been under fire just like games before). To really be "M" rated you need deeply graphic content, like watching "erotic thriller" sex scenes, or drawn out depictions of torture and mutilation. Shooting someone in the head and seeing them fall to the ground in a pool of blood is not "M" rated material, but sticking a plastic bag over their head and restraining them while they choke to death (like say Manhunt) is. To hit X/AO territory the only thing that does it is showing actual sex, as in "you can see the penetration" rather than having it implied by two people playing naked twister under a sheet while growning, or the use of shadow so you don't actually see Part A fitting into Socket B.
Hollywood is guilty of over rating too for purposes of safety, people do not push for lower ratings like the system is designed to expect, but the gaming industry does the same thing to a far worse extent. As a result the guys setting the ratings need to be more assertive in properly setting ratings for them to matter. That means pushing some things carrying an "M" rating because the company making it doesn't want to fight, down to a "T" rating so consumers actually have a better idea of what they are getting.
