Penny Arcade Teams Up With The ESRB

[putowtin]

http://cdn.themis-media.com/media/global/images/library/deriv/82/82589.jpg

wow last time I saw a gap like that was...
http://th00.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/f/2010/149/2/1/Garrus_Vakarian_Mass_Effect_2_by_scaron.png

lets be honest I excpect most people will just buy them anyway, I was in GAME yesterday and saw about 2 parents buying 15's for their kids that where about 7 or 8, Not even a good game!

What do you expect, the little "joys" near me walk around drinking cans of Redbull and Relentless wearing knockoff MW3 hoodies and talking about the "f*@king w@nk3r" they snipped the night before....

Kid's... their fantastic

 

[Zoe Castillo]

--

 

[Quellist]

There is something seriously wrong with this artwork. The mother has some sort of... freak mutant crotch... her pelvis and her legs are just at crazy odds. The only way I can make any sense of it is to imagine that is a white glowing triangle on the front of her pants. And her lower right leg looks like it was snapped off at the knee...

And the daughter looks like she has her underwear pulled down to her knees. (I know, I know, those are knee socks, but what has been seen cannot be unseeeeeeeen)

Seriously, did Penny Arcade draw this up in 5 seconds?

First thing I noticed was her nose... I mean what's going on with that?

Then I saw the crotch... I get that it's a heavily stylised representation of a female figure and that's just Gabe's style anyway, but like you say, some of it just looks unnecessarily off.

Sadly the snapped knee and girl with dropped underwear are things that I am now seeing thanks to your oh-so insightful comment...

lets be honest I excpect most people will just buy them anyway, I was in GAME yesterday and saw about 2 parents buying 15's for their kids that where about 7 or 8,
Not even a good game!

Haha! I know that feeling, the amount of times I would rather warn fellow shoppers that they are buying a BAD game rather than one that is far too mature for their kids.

My parents would always go in the shop and buy GTA games for me when I was like 14/15 and those games are rated 18. Curious how they never even questioned the content or put up any resistance. Guess I just got lucky in the parent department there. They don't understand video games but they've never considered them dangerous either.

On top of that, it looks like the Mum just farted and the daughter is eagerly sniffing it...

 

[Aconite333]

I'm just going to come out and say it:

Juri is hot.

 

[Formica Archonis]

Yeah I suppose raising awareness is always a good thing, but shouldn't little things like... the rating explanation on the back of the box, The box art and in some cases even the name of the game itself provide enough of a guideline?

I don't know. I've seen someone on television mistake Everquest for an adults-only game because of the elf chick's Boobs of Male Gaze Attraction +5. Completely missed the rating, which was funny, but I have to admit there was some sense to it. If you saw a movie cover with a woman dressed like the EQ elf on it, what genre would you assume it was?

 

[TophatEmperor]

Anything that gets the information out there easier is fine with me. Maybe with this we'll see less outraged parents complaining about the "filth" their kids play.

Even better! Maybe with more informed parents we'll see less of the obnoxious squeakers on Live! A man can dream...

Sadly that is too good to be true my friend...oh well atleast i still have Kingdoms of Amalur

OT:
Well that is good in my book, the more parents know about this the less "oh what about the children?!" we will be hearing,

but i am sure that penny arcade (despite being quite popular) is not enough...i say we Should start having ESRB Billboards in EVERY CITY

 

[pirateninj4]

What the hell is up with her hips?

Should have just filled in that spot. Looks weird.

 

[Monkeyman O'Brien]

See, for me this is a waste of time. If a parent is too fucking stupid or lazy to read the big ol "R18: Contains Nudity, profanity, graphic violence, etc" then maybe they should just not have kids in the first place. Putting up even more ads basically telling their dumb fuck asses to look at the cover for all of 30 seconds just seems like a waste of time.

And goddamn. Going by that pic having 2 kids absolutely vapourised her vagina.

 

[ThunderCavalier]

The ESRB having input from actual, cultured gamers that have shown great maturity both on and offline and can give a very detailed and mature opinion on video games and how they should be perceived by the ignorant masses?

... I'm kinda doubtful as to whether this will lead to the end of video game prejudice in the stupid bits of politics and whatnot, but from where I'm looking, it's certainly a good start.

 

[samsonguy920]

The ESRB has done a pretty fair job with what they have been up against, from what I can tell. This little bit to get Gabe & Tycho's help is a good step up. Keep in mind that many of the people involved with the ESRB are under a lot of pressure between gaming companies(moar monies!), community groups(Think of the children!), and state governments(more enforcement!) to "do their job." If it was left up to any one of those listed, the ratings would be horribly skewed. It should also be noted that the ESRB is merely an information source. There is no legal precedent to enforce who buys what according to the ratings. We can thank the Supreme Court for that(Bad Arnold!).
The day the ESRB becomes an actual government entity, with the government and those community groups who also lobby their positions able to skew the ratings to how they see fit, will be a very sad day. You think getting an AO rating is bad now? Wait until it starts getting stamped on more games that are nowhere near the actual guideline.
Frankly, if Americans would finally grow up, they would realize an AO rating isn't such a bad thing. Games aren't just for kids anymore. But as long as publishers want to milk a product as much as they want, they will continue to push their product to all ages. Trying to sell a product to adults only just wouldn't be enough money for them.

 

[Boris Goodenough]

After all, the letter rating only scratches the surface and you wouldn't compare Catherine to Skyrim to GTA4.

Yeah Catherine could give a horrible wrong impression of real life.

 

[Mak Stormwielder]

To me it just looks like she's holding another game between her legs, gotta hold em somewhere when your checking the ratings.

While this is good I still expect there will be many parents who will simply ignore the information when buying the games for their kids and will simply blame the games companies if they subsequently discover that the content is not something they'd wish their children to see.

 

[Aureliano]

I'm all for this initiative, so long as another set of PSAs also gets produced reminding parents that children will eventually turn into adults. Pretending that sex, violence and general weirdness don't exist will not make them go away. Best to let them know what they're up against early, in my opinion.

 

[Wintermoot]

some people are still going to give Tiny Tim GTA4 or COD8.
but at least the ads breakdown that the ESRB isn't based on difficulty but on game content.

 

[Marik Bentusi]

And yet, people will still buy their 3 year olds Modern Warfare because it shuts them up.

Also, is it just me or does it look like the woman in the picture standing incredibly awkward? Either she's holding something in-between her legs or they gave her some really goofy proportions.

It's just how they do it [http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2012/02/01]
Almost everything they do is heavily stylized.

 

[Dhatz]

MY rating categories(unsorted/able):
Childish
Child-oriented
Child-friendly
Fucking Idiotic
Regular Idiotic
Teenage boy good
Teenage boy absurdity
Teenage girl g/a
Unspecific teenager-ish g/a
Adult-oriented (mostly absurdity)
Absurd bullshit
Regular bullshit
Absurd awesomeness
Naive crap
Realistically drastic
Realism fail
Overspecialised BS
Specialised good
Legit Awesomeness
Boring megacrap