State Senator Yee says ESRB is "too biased" to properly regulate video games.

[repeating integers]

Being 15, all I know about Tony Blair is what I've been told, which amounts to "he was a great PM until he suddenly drank a large glass of Retard and followed Bush into Iraq". Jeremy Kyle doesn't register on my radar, he's a non-entity to me. Robert Kilroy Silk, I've never even heard of. Nick Griffin... I'll hand you that one on the grounds that you admit he doesn't have too much support at the moment.

Christ...You've still got to learn about Thatcher etc.

I don't know whether to point you to them, or hurry you away from them.

OK...15....Simon Cowell? We have our fair share of Charismatic Turds, believe me.

Simon Cowell? Isn't he that guy who judges a couple of generic talent shows nobody cares about, and who is (apparently) officially the most famous person in the world (God being in 2nd place, not joking)? Uh, from what I've seen, he seems like a not-very-nice person, but at least somewhat intelligent. Plus, he's not on the political spectrum.

Seriously, over here it's gotten bad enough that, rather than voting for our favourite candidate, we're voting for the one we hate least, because nobody likes anybody on the political spectrum.

Trust me, we're not so dissimilar. I can't remember the last time we had an election, federal or local, where there was a candidate that I could say I liked. (American, by the way)

Our candidates are probably a little crazier than yours are, though. America is still in that adolescent phase where the whole country is obsessed with tits, explosions, and Jerry Springer. Politicians are just a reflection of that mentality in that the one who wins is the flashiest, the loudest, and the one who can successfully appeal to the emotionally immature lowest common denominator (again, largest voting pool in America.)

That doesn't sound like a very good position to be in. I have noticed that your candidates tend to be a lot more charismatic and seem a lot more polarising - as in, you look at one of your candidates and go "he'd make an awesome pres" or "if that guy becomes pres we're doomed", whereas all our candidates are profoundly "meh" in every department.

Don't you have opinion polls over there?

 

[ssgt splatter]

Oh for fucks sake! Yee, you just don't understand. Our current generation will be parents very soon and having been playing videogames since we were 8, we will be able to decide which games would be appropriate for our children to play. I myself am 20 and will be 21 in January, now I'm not planning to have kids but if I ever do, I'll know which games I would want my kids to play, E-rated to very light T-rated like racing games, which I'll play myself first before letting my kid play it to make sure there won't be anything too "damaging" in it, and which games I'll keep out of their reach until they are old enough, Call of Duty and Gears of War.

The current generation is a little 'slow' when it comes to knowing what kind of content is in a game I'll admit since YOU are trying to get the government to run the industry but once our generation is old enough to have kids, we will be able to make the right decisions for our children.

 

[Arehexes]

Being a gamer who supports re earn I always inform parents about how tolearn what a game has in it. Andhow t determine if its good for their child or not.

 

[Nerdygamer89]

That doesn't sound like a very good position to be in. I have noticed that your candidates tend to be a lot more charismatic and seem a lot more polarising - as in, you look at one of your candidates and go "he'd make an awesome pres" or "if that guy becomes pres we're doomed", whereas all our candidates are profoundly "meh" in every department.

To be honest, I've gotten to the point where I don't believe that any politician would make a good president anymore. With the system that is currently in place, to be a successful politician you pretty much have to be corrupt and self serving. Even Obama, with his "hope and change" spiel, turned out to be a case of "meet the new boss, same as the old boss" if you follow me.

Ask yourself "what are politicians, anyway?" They're basically lawyers. And what do lawyers do? Find ways to increase the profit margin of their company's economic interests (and by extension, their own economic interests) while simultaneously shielding them from litigation over their fraudulent/criminal activities. That, is a politician in a nutshell. They do enough good to keep the people from rioting, but their main interest is in their own economic gain at the end of the day.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Christ...You've still got to learn about Thatcher etc.

I don't know whether to point you to them, or hurry you away from them.

OK...15....Simon Cowell? We have our fair share of Charismatic Turds, believe me.

Simon Cowell? Isn't he that guy who judges a couple of generic talent shows nobody cares about, and who is (apparently) officially the most famous person in the world (God being in 2nd place, not joking)? Uh, from what I've seen, he seems like a not-very-nice person, but at least somewhat intelligent. Plus, he's not on the political spectrum.

Simon Cowell is insanely powerful though. And I'd look where the political spectrum is: if he endorsed David Milliband, do you think it would alter Labours election chances? Or Stephen Fry supporting Nick Clegg?

But for UK Political Dickwads: Keith Vaz, Nick Griffin (seriously), Jeffrey Archer, Margaret Thatcher, Michael Heseltine, Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Norman Tebbit, Tessa Jowell...

These aren't just people who have made bad decisions, these are people who have made horrenous decisions but still have people blindly following them.
(Only reason the Liberals aren't in the list above is that they've not yet had power to really fuck things up)

Only together can we can get rid of this government and, eventually, its debt. Only together can we get the economy moving. Only together can we protect the NHS. Improve our schools. Mend our broken society. Together we can even make politics and politicians work better. And if we can do that, we can do anything. Yes, together we can do anything.

The Labour Manifesto crashes Firefox, so I can't bring you that.

# Investing £140 million in a bus scrappage scheme to remove old, polluting buses
# Cutting rail fares
# Making Network Rail refund a third of the ticket price where replacement bus services are used

Those three don't work together, do they?
And all of them promise to cut red tape, presumably at the opening of new supermarkets.

TL;DR: UK Politics is a sick joke. America is at least pulling away from the Bush years, we're still mired.

 

[Woodsey]

Your ratings seem to match up with ours (and actually seem harsher a lot of the time), so I don't think he's right, although I get what he's saying.

He's still wrong overall though; assuming that because he is ignorant of the subject so everyone else must be is silly.

 

[Netrigan]

The complaint here seems to be that parents can't tell by the rating if a M rated game is suitable for their child. Which is kind of like not being able to decide which R rated movies to take their kids to.

Basically what's a hard M (GTA series) versus a soft M (Halo). And the industry probably needs an economically viable way to distinguish the two (the AO rating severely limits the outlets you game can reach), but I don't think there's a case of a game meant for adults getting a kid friendly rating.

I'm not sure the same can be said of the movie industry which cuts stuff out of R-rated movies until they get a PG-13. Is Live Free Or Die Hard a kid friendly movie? Well, according to the rating board it id.

 

[cricket chirps]

Being a Brit, I can't understand why people over there listen to this guy. He sounds stupid, and is grasping at straws.

Why? No please tell me why his claims are so stupid?

All I can hear from people is "OMG HE SAID SOMETHING BAD ABOUT THE GAMING INDUSTRY SO CLEARLY HE IS NUTS!!!!"

He said nothing outrageous or stupid like Jack Thomson would have done, he merely says that the ESRB can't be objective because it is founded by the industry and that it is in the industry's well being to see fewer tittles carrying an AO's rating or else it will harm them, which is true.

I hate to say it guys, and I can't really side with the people bashing the senator here. Its not like he called out for the death of the video game industry.

i agree that is all he said, but (and i may be wrong) isnt this the same guy who wants games like fable and halo to be AO? I believe its things like that being possible that scare people into emediantly bashing the guy. Parents SHOULD inform themselves if they are so worried about making a bad decision. But i supose that is why the senator is there...because people are to dumb and lazy to learn a little and make decisions for themselves. I know that statements isnt entirely true but to me it seems to be the true problem here.

 

[Imp Poster]

In a recent Gamespot interview (http://www.gamespot.com/news/6283214.html), California state Senator Leland Yee said that the ESRB was too biased to properly evaluate video game content:

I think the problem with the ESRB rating is that the ratings system itself is rather biased. The ESRB is funded by the industry, so it's like the fox guarding the henhouse. Clearly, they're not going to legitimately and appropriately place any markings on any video games, because it's in the interest of the video [game] industry to sell as many video games as possible. You never heard of an AO rating whatsoever, because that would limit your market share.

A politician saying something is too biased? I guess it takes one to know one.

 

[Altorin]

umm, games get an AO rating all the time, stores don't sell them, and the games that want to sell their games in stores adjust their games to get an M rating.

The movie industry is self-regulated as well.

The MPAA rates movies, and it was founded by the industry as well. It's voluntary, and movies that are not rated get less showings, as theaters are reluctant to show unrated movies, putting them in the same block as pornography, so most movies get rated by the MPAA (and any other local rating companies recognized in various countries). Most importantly, the MPAA is certainly not a governmental thing. It's an industry thing.

And even though the FCC rates TV and they are basically an independent twig of the US government, it's still a voluntary-participation system. TV shows do not technically have to get rated, but V-Chips recognize them as unrated, and block them out along with porn, so most shows get rated.

So basically the movie industry AND even TV rating systems work identically to video game rating, but video game raters are horrible people because they COULD potentially bias? We've SEEN games get re-rated, costing the people who make them millions. Manhunt 2 was AO and had to be toned down to M to get sold in most stores. GTA San Andreas was rated M and then the Hot Coffee Incident made all current copies of it need to be rated AO, and they couldn't be sold, they had to basically scrap all the copies that were out on the shelves and make the game M-Rated without the coffee to get it in stores again. Oblivion was released as a T-rated game, and then it was found that certain cutscenes in the Dark Brotherhood questline definitely crossed the M-rated line, so they had to re-rate the game to M, costing Bethesda a ton of money.

Where's the Bias? All of these ratings have been Uprated, except for Manhunt 2 which was re-rated pre-release (so probably didn't cost much to change). They are not nearly as biased as Mr Yee claims, and really, the ESRB just got slapped in the face by someone who doesn't know what he's talking about.

 

[cricket chirps]

Oh for fucks sake! Yee, you just don't understand. Our current generation will be parents very soon and having been playing videogames since we were 8, we will be able to decide which games would be appropriate for our children to play. I myself am 20 and will be 21 in January, now I'm not planning to have kids but if I ever do, I'll know which games I would want my kids to play, E-rated to very light T-rated like racing games, which I'll play myself first before letting my kid play it to make sure there won't be anything too "damaging" in it, and which games I'll keep out of their reach until they are old enough, Call of Duty and Gears of War.

The current generation is a little 'slow' when it comes to knowing what kind of content is in a game I'll admit since YOU are trying to get the government to run the industry but once our generation is old enough to have kids, we will be able to make the right decisions for our children.

*cough* smart guy right here *cough* really in the long run this is exactly how things will play out.

 

[FinalHeart95]

When the interviewer pointed out that the same is true of the MPAA and the NC-17 rating

Took my comment. Damn.

Honestly, this guy is the new Jack Thompson. Except he has power.

 

[subject_87]

He's either trolling for attention or has no grasp of the issue, and I really hope it's the former.

 

[BiggityB05]

Being a Brit, I can't understand why people over there listen to this guy. He sounds stupid, and is grasping at straws.

Welcome to the world of American politics. It's a bit of a scary place...

OT: Ok, there are a few things wrong with this.
1: (This is something I've been asking for a while now) Wasn't the ESRB create to prevent something like this from happening? To give the industry some self-regulation?
2: Calling games a "bewildering new technology" is no excuse. There is a rating on the box, clearly stating what content is in the game. You don't need to be a gaming expert to f***ing READ.
3: (The main flaw of this entire arguement) Why should the government have the right to regulate games because of violent content when there are even more explicit movies and TV shows and such, and people are just fine with those mediums self-regulating? Why this one medium?

I especially agree with #3. What is a more disturbing image someone getting there head chopped off or shot on tv or in a video game? I can assure you no matter how hard videogame producers try they wont get games to look that realistic. TV is allowing more and more profanity uncensored earlier in the day yet nobody is making a big deal over that.

Movies are just as violent, sometimes more violent than video games and more realistic. Hell the governor of the state trying to pass this law made himself rich and famous with massive amounts of violence in movies.

 

[Icarion (aka Stockholm)]

I don't feel like I can add anything. Everything has been said. Screw big government on the topic of media. 1st ammendmant! (Thats a Tea Party trick)
OT: Yeah please vote him out of office. Please, one million times please