Why is AO rating banned in America yet '18' rated games in uk are allowed?

[Fonejackerjon]

Why is 18 rated games ok in the UK but the kiss of death In america?

I really dont get it? why difference does 1 fucking year make?

M-17 ok AO 18 not ok??? 1 year WTF?

 

[ninja666]

It's America. Why are you trying to find logic in a country where you can buy an M16 in a supermarket, but Kinder Surprise is banned because it's considered a life hazard?

 

[CommanderZx2]

What I find amusing is how different agencies handle things so differently in ratings. For example Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy) had to be cut to be released with an M rating in USA as Indigo Prophecy. They eventually released it uncensored in USA with an AO rating as Fahrenheit: Indigo Prophecy directors cut. However the uncensored version of the game was rated 16 by PEGI for Europe and 15 by BBFC for UK.

Here's the ESRB rating: http://www.esrb.org/ratings/synopsis.jsp?Certificate=20955
For some reason the ESRB has a great fear of sex and nudity.
Compare to:
Here's PEGI: http://www.pegi.info/en/index/global_id/505/?searchString=Fahrenheit
Here's BBFC: http://www.bbfc.co.uk/releases/fahrenheit-1970-2

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

Why is 18 rated games ok in the UK but the kiss of death In america?

I really dont get it? why difference does 1 fucking year make?

M-17 ok AO 18 not ok??? 1 year WTF?

I think it's that an AO 18 in America is the equivalent of an R-18 in the UK, at least in terms of public perception.

http://www.bbfc.co.uk/what-classification/r18

In the UK Most parents are quite happy to buy their teenage kids 18 rated video games and films (in my experience) so it's not really going to cut out much of the market, but R-18, no way.

I imagine it's the same in the US with M-17 and AO18, it's not so much the years difference as what the second rating represents.

 

[Aesir23]

Is AO really banned in America? I thought the only reason we didn't see AO games in stores is because most store owners didn't want to stock them. Sort of like how most places that sell movies won't sell anything rated higher than R.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Why is 18 rated games ok in the UK but the kiss of death In america?

I really dont get it? why difference does 1 fucking year make?

IIRC, AO is the kiss of death in the US because many US chain retailers won't carry AO rated games.

 

[WindKnight]

In the UK Most parents are quite happy to buy their teenage kids 18 rated video games and films (in my experience) so it's not really going to cut out much of the market, but R-18, no way.

uh... R-18's here are only sold in licensed sex shops. Somehow I don't thinkyour going to see a teenage kid in a sex shop to see one, or have his mother in there with him to buy it.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

In the UK Most parents are quite happy to buy their teenage kids 18 rated video games and films (in my experience) so it's not really going to cut out much of the market, but R-18, no way.

uh... R-18's here are only sold in licensed sex shops. Somehow I don't thinkyour going to see a teenage kid in a sex shop to see one, or have his mother in there with him to buy it.

Yes, I know. It's illustrating that they are both (18's and M-17) "standard" adult films and then (AO 18 and R-18) special, hide out the way, restricted adult films.

 

[NPC009]

If I recall correctly, stores need to keep AO titles behind the counter (or another part of the store were it's not within reach of minors), can't advertise the product and can sell it to minors. That makes such titles hard to sell (since most customers wouldn't even know it's in stock) and most stores would rather not take the risk. I think there are similar regulations for adult titles in Australia and 'banned' books in Germany.

Now, the UK is one of the many countries in Europe that uses PEGI [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_European_Game_Information], which uses five ratings (3, 7, 12, 16 and 18) and a variety of symbols. Games that recieve a M rating from the ERSB generally get a 16 or 18 from PEGI. PEGI is generally harsher when it comes to violence, but is more lenient towards nudity than the ERSB.

Now, there are countries that have regulations based on these scores, but many others don't, meaning that games with 18 ratings can be freely sold even to minors. In these cases the governments views the ratings as simply a means to provide information to consumers. An example of a country where this is not the case is the Netherlands. There games with a 16 or 18 rating can't be sold to anyone under 16.

Tl;DR: different rating systems, different legislations.

 

[aozgolo]

AO rated titles are NOT banned in the USA, they simply aren't sold in the majority of retailers and the only games that receive such ratings tend to contain a lot of sexual content.

The ESRB that issues the AO rating only rates games for US and Canadian Released games, so they wouldn't even have a classification for games that are banned.

From my experience MOST AO rated games are only sold directly from the publisher and rarely go through third party sellers.

 

[OneCatch]

Why is 18 rated games ok in the UK but the kiss of death In america?

I really dont get it? why difference does 1 fucking year make?

M-17 ok AO 18 not ok??? 1 year WTF?

[Edit - is it the MPAA which rates games in the US, or is it someone else? We use PEGI and ESRB now in the UK, but I think the British Board of Film Classification used to do it]

The UK does also have an adult rating for films, distinct from the 18, which is used for porn and similar. You don't see such films having a major release in UK cinema chains. That said, it does seem very odd that the mainstream US cinema chains often refuse to show NC-17. All the main cinema chains in the UK will happily advertise and show 18 rated films.

The UK can also legally ban films it thinks are unacceptable, so we're not exactly a perfect bastion of freedom of expression. It doesn't happen often, but one notable one was The Human Centipede II, which was refused classification and was thus illegal for sale in the UK.


I think probably the main difference is the way in which the ratings are decided. The US has some very restrictive attitudes to sexual content, particularly if it's non-heterosexual or is unconventional. And also swearing. But then hideously violent content alone is awarded a much lower rating.
For example I was completely bemused to find that 'torture porn' films like Saw get given R ratings - which is roughly the equivalent of our 15 rating. There would be no chance of anything approaching Saw's level of violence being anything other than an 18 in the UK because they are simply too violent.

I actually saw a really interesting documentary on the MPAA a few months back - here's a link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8N3EztyOoA&index=1&list=PL2F327072B017663A

 

[Canadamus Prime]

If I'm not mistaken, AO rated games are not banned, but most retailers will not carry them; presumably for fear of backlash.

 

[Recusant]

[Edit - is it the MPAA which rates games in the US, or is it someone else? We use PEGI and ESRB now in the UK, but I think the British Board of Film Classification used to do it]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8N3EztyOoA&index=1&list=PL2F327072B017663A

It's the ESRB. The MPAA rates movies. I don't know how the internal system of each agency works, but aside from the EC (early childhood) rating that games have and movies don't, there's a pretty clear equivalency. Actually, before the ESRB (and briefly contemporary with it, as I recall) was the RSAC (recreational software advisory council) rating system, which was far superior to my mind: it had ratings for violence, sex, and one more that I think was either language or drug use; but the important thing was that they were objective: level 1 violence is this, level 2 sex is that. It avoided (at least mostly) the abuse of regulatory power the ESRB was subject to. It lost out in the ratings battle because it didn't give parents a clear image of what age the product was appropriate for- or at least that's what I heard at the time. I've maintained since that a hybrid system would give us the best of both worlds (if take up a lot of box space).

And, as others above me have noted, AO-rated titles are not 'banned' in this country; that would be illegal under US law (I don't know where the rest of the world gets the idea that our populace- though admittedly squeamish and somewhat neurotic- is so conservative; especially on matters of free speech). I don't know of any retailers who has confirmed that they would sell them; many if not most have confirmed that they would not, but that's an economic kiss of death, not a regulatory one.

 

[soren7550]

Much like the misconception of 'banned books', AO games aren't banned in the U.S., it's just that a whole lot of places won't carry it due to company policy and/or fear of backlash. A whole lot of people are still very stupid and ignorant when it comes to games, so they tend to ignore the 10+ ESRB rating that are slapped all over the game and buy them for their kids regardless of the rating. So if a store did stock AO games, and one of these dumb fucks came in and bought it for their kid, and the parent finds out that there's The Sex or whatever in it, they will lose their shit and raise hell about how the store is trying to sell pornography to kids.

And besides, games that have been given the AO rating are extremely few in number; GamesRadar did an article on games rated AO by the ESRB and they only turned up 35 or so, and most of them are pure crap.
http://www.gamesradar.com/adults-only-games/

 

[Sanunes]

To me there is a difference between what is happening with the two games (I could be wrong about what is happening in Australia). In North America (Canada uses the ESRB too) an AO rating doesn't mean retailers can't sell the game, but most companies choose not to stock it because there is a much smaller market for that type of game. Where with what has happened in Australia a retailer cannot sell the game because the government has said they can't because the game has been refused classification.

So if you go to your local retailer in North America and ask for Hatred they have a chance to say "We don't have any in stock, but we can order it for you" where in Australia it becomes "Sorry you are out of luck, we aren't allowed to carry it".

 

[Erttheking]

I think it's an established fact that American culture is kinda fucked.

 

[Shadow flame master]

It's not banned, but it's the fact that giving a game a AO rating is basically the kiss of death over here. That and the first couple of games that had the AO rating were predominately porn games. What retailer/company would sell a game with a stigmatized rating, knowing that they could easily lose everything to their name with the way people go after companies today.

And also, you are forgetting that the UK and America have different rating systems for games (and movies too, I think). We have the ESRB while you guys have PEGI, so just because a game in your country gets a certain rating doesn't mean that the same game in my country would get a rating like it or be distributed like it is in your country.

Also, and I must stress this, the early AO games were full of sexual content that basically made them porn games. That is why the only way to get a localized Visual Novel is through fan sites because most of them have strong sexual content (i.e. graphic sex scenes). Yes, we know that the 1 year age difference between M and AO is stupid, but when you are trying to sell your game, which one would you rather get?

 

[Geo Da Sponge]

But an 18 rating in the UK, or at least the common version, is basically equivalent to the "Mature" 17+ rating in the US. The US Adult Only rating is more or less equivalent to the R18 rating in the UK, which is completely different.

If anything the UK is the one being more strict about it since games and films you can buy at 17 are 18+ over here. Now that I think about it, the UK is WAY more strict, since I think it's actually law, rather than company policy, that you can't sell 18/15 rated games/movies/whatever to kids below those ages so they have to get their parents to buy it for them.

People keep saying "What difference does one year make" when it seems pretty clear to me that the age difference is irrelevant, the difference between M and AO mostly seems to be "Here's things we think are risqué but basically fine" and "Here are things we don't think are fine, but since we can't really restrict what fully grown adults buy we're just going to say you have to be 18 and put a big sticker saying NO on it to discourage you."

 

[Scow2]

I think it's an established fact that American culture is kinda fucked.

We don't criminalize 17-year-olds trying to buy games appropriate for 17-year-olds (M17+ games). The UK not only requires you to be 18 for those games, but criminalizes you if you try to buy one.

 

[Vigormortis]

Why is 18 rated games ok in the UK but the kiss of death In america?

I really dont get it? why difference does 1 fucking year make?

M-17 ok AO 18 not ok??? 1 year WTF?

Um....because AO rated games AREN'T banned in America?

Where the hell are you getting your info? Are you confusing America with Australia?