Do people rely on ratings to much nowadays? Do censors how too much say...and more :P

[Failedlegend]

Hey guys I was bored so my brain was doing that annoying thinking thing again...apprently all that gaming, TV and DnD hasn't corrupted/melted it yet...oh well

Disclaimer: I'm no crafter of words and well just bear with my crappy sentence structure please I promise its not too bad just sorta of random and tangential.

Anyway the point is thoughts happened and these are them....when Myself and the gaming industry was younger we didn't really have a rating system like we do today.....mostly because it was largely ignored except by the more clueless parents (Note: Not bad parents..just clueless) who mostly got confused by the ratings like K-A (AKA the rating Chrono Trigger had) which made many scratch there heads wondering whats the point of a rating thats says basically "No Rating"

As much as I hate to praise my parents too often I'm going to use them to try to explain my point when I was a wee one from the day I was born to about the time I was 8-10ish my parents would always test a game,movie,etc. before letting me use it to see if it was appropriate for me and my brother since we always played together. After that they kept a general eye on what we played but we more or less got to play whatever we felt like but stop something inappropriate (ie. leisure suit larry)

The point I'm trying to make is that they actually made a conscious decision about whether the content was appropriate or not based on our age and maturity as opposed to relying on what a bunch of suits think the age group should be that plays any particular game. Kinda like how the censors of today are WAY more touchy than the sensors who say had a hand in animaniacs. TV, Movies Music,etc. is all the same

Also another thing I thought of is that some developers rely on getting say an M rating otherwise their sales will drop (relys on massive dispoasable income of part-time kids) while some developers try to avoid anything above a teen rating as too many parents will automatically ignore games with too high a rating (relys on the parents money to make profit) so because of this I'm thinking that developers of all forms of entertainment may have found them selves chained down by this.

My questions to you are as follows (Notes/sub-questions in blue):

- Do you think some Parents rely on the rating system too much nowadays?

Again not bad parents just somewhat clueless

- Does the system itself possibly stifle creativity when they need to aim for a certain rating (would Chrono Trigger have sucked if Square had of being aiming for an M rating game to make it sell)

ie. Would have Mortal Kombat vs. DC been a better game if their DC hadn't said you have to keep this within the Teen ESRB rating


- Would todays cartoons be closer to the awesomeness of most of our cartoons if it weren't for the need to have everything so PC and Kid friendly and frankly stupid-proof and would todays censors even let iconic characters like bugs bunny, or tom and jerry even get past their desk nowadays as a "kids" show.

ie. Today = Bob the builder, Dora the explora,etc. My Stuff = TMNT, Animaniacs, DnD, Night with the crypt keeper, goosebumps, power rangers (first series), erc.

um yeah thats it thanks for participating in my innane babbling.




Note: The below paragraph jusdt kinda popped into my head because I got an e-mail from the site this is hosted on and I hoped another episode was up..so yeah here yeah go.

Unrelated but these guys/girl talk about this kinda stuff alot in there show type thing check them out ranging anywhere from gaming trends or ways to upgrade the archaic A,B,C,D,E,F system schools still use. ans somehow do it without actually leaving the subject of gaming. http://www.escapistmagazine.com/vide.../extra-credits

[MsEricka]

Reading blue on black = ouch

I stopped reading at that point.

I also ignore reviews and ratings and encourage others to do the same for the simple fact that just because someone else doesn't like a product (a review) or thinks something should be watched by 14+ only (ratings) it's up to the consumer (parent) to make that choice.

A movie could be 14+ because of language, but I've heard kids swearing in grade school. They already know these words and how to say them. Let the parents decide if it's acceptable for their kids to read/watch/play.

A product could get a bad review because people expected too much out of it. Try it out first, or find out all the features before you buy it.

And to combine the two, i NEVER listen to movie reviewers. I would have to say that 95% of the time they have opposing views of a movie that I have seen.

[articwarrior]

1. yes

2. no, if modern warfare 2 became such a big hit and it's M rated, why wouldn't it? although, I'm not saying it could've been better by making it T, but you never know

3. I believe we still have similar cartoons like those, those are just out dated. now we have American dad, family guy, southpark, robot chicken etc

in all reality the rating system should be scrapped, hell even in Europe. a while ago I went there and they rated teen games here 18 games there. not to mention other games here which should not have the rating they currently have. ex dragon age, very similar to our game except more limited and NOT only, yet they rate it M

[Failedlegend]

Reading blue on black = ouch

I stopped reading at that point.

Sorry I'll try different colors...that does kinda hurt. Is orange better?

I also ignore reviews and ratings and encourage others to do the same for the simple fact that just because someone else doesn't like a product (a review) or thinks something should be watched by 14+ only (ratings) it's up to the consumer (parent) to make that choice.

A movie could be 14+ because of language, but I've heard kids swearing in grade school. They already know these words and how to say them. Let the parents decide if it's acceptable for their kids to read/watch/play.

A product could get a bad review because people expected too much out of it. Try it out first, or find out all the features before you buy it.

And to combine the two, i NEVER listen to movie reviewers. I would have to say that 95% of the time they have opposing views of a movie that I have seen.

So your like my parents were/are.

I see three types of parents when it comes to the rating system...I'm sure there's more but this is what I've seen.

1 - People like you & my parents that basically use their own rating system

2 - People who rely solely on the System

3 - People who just let their kids play whatever they want (its common just play online MW2 for a bit lotsa 8 year olds)

I was mostly referring to 1 or 2 in my comparisons.

Personally I'm kinda weird in that I usually avoid trailers, reviews, etc. on games before I play them because alot have spoilers in them or they can set your expectations to high or low unless I'm trying decide whether I'm going to by Game A or B than I might see what the forum types or my IRL Buddies think of them.

1. yes

2. no, if modern warfare 2 became such a big hit and it's M rated, why wouldn't it? although, I'm not saying it could've been better by making it T, but you never know

3. I believe we still have similar cartoons like those, those are just out dated. now we have American dad, family guy, southpark, robot chicken etc

in all reality the rating system should be scrapped, hell even in Europe. a while ago I went there and they rated teen games here 18 games there. not to mention other games here which should not have the rating they currently have. ex dragon age, very similar to our game except more limited and NOT only, yet they rate it M

2. I meant like if Chrono Trigger's developers (Square at the time) were aiming to get an M rating what pointless stuff would they add into it to get that...cursing? strip clubs in some of the cities? Given Marle a personality? any of this could have made the game a little less popular. I was mostly focused on companies that feel forced into a certain rating to target their audience...I bet you any money that if Modern Warfare 3 were aiming for a E10+ Rating if would be VERY different and probably flop.

3. Yeah but those shows are for us the 20ish-30ish their not kids shows. It seems the cartoons has grown up with us and left our youngins with dribble like Dora and Blue's Clues. Not including reruns of old cartoons but those are few and far between.

[LordMond63]

My wife and I have just the one child, a daughter now 14.

We have tried our best to let her know that she can tell us anything, talk to us about any subject at all and we will treat it and her with respect. I'm sure that she has seen, heard or read just about everything- the internet tends to expose (and I use that word deliberately) us all to 'subject matter' that, while I know existed when I was 14, I would have had no idea where to find it. She tells us some of the things she hears at school and among her friends and, while I'm the first to admit that they make me more than a bit uncomfortable, I hope she'll always feel free to let us know such things.

We are vitally engaged in what she does. We do monitor, to an extent, what she does on her computer, but it is more with an eye towards explaining it than attempting to ban it. She's not much of a gamer, but she and I have played a couple of MMORPGs together and I really enjoy that. I guess what I'm trying to say here is that her mother and I are involved. So many parents aren't. They'll rely on something that is arbitrary- such as television, movie or gaming ratings- to do their parenting for them. If the parents were more involved, they'd be a bit more discerning about things. Any man can be a father, but not all of them can be a Dad (same for mother and Mom!).