Today Next Generation ran an opinion piece about the ESRB. Next Generation is a great website for the gaming industry and the opinion pieces are often thought provoking. This one caught my eye.

You can find it here: http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3919&Itemid=2

In it, the author Aaron Ruby essentially comes to the conclusion that the ESRB is broken. I strongly disagree. Here are some of his assertions and my thoughts on each:

Aaron writes:

“I find it alarming that the ESRB does not bother to base its ratings on the entire experience of playing a game, instead relying far too much on submitted clips—not even complete gameplay run-throughs, mind you. Even if you think the idea is unnecessary or even absurd, there’s no getting around that failing to do so lends an impression of incompleteness and an ad hoc quality to the system that invites skepticism. It’s like rating movies based on storyboards.”

This statement doesn’t make a bit of sense to me. In our business it’s impossible in many cases to completely play through a game. The ESRB requires that the submitted clips represent all extremes of gameplay. How are they ever going to be able to completely play through online games like EQ II or WoW for example? I would argue that there’s no such thing in this day and age. Take Grand Theft Auto for example – sure you can play through all of the missions, but there are often many side games that aren’t core to finishing the game. Often times this is where the content that gets a game an M rating in the first place resides.

In another part of the article, he writes:

“But the ratings system, as it stands, is surely a case of ‘more is less.’ What is the point of having a system that requires consumers to be fluent in so many subtle and often arbitrary distinctions? One of the fundamental flaws of the ESRB system, and why I believe it is so vulnerable to attack, for example, is not that it doesn’t do it’s job, but, really, that it makes little sense. And its lack of coherence makes the whole thing seem ginned up.”

Here again I strongly disagree. Parents are used to the TV system that has many descriptors. I’m a fan of the FX show “Nip/Tuck” and before every episode they have an absolute ton of descriptors. Even in the movie industry you’ll notice specific descriptors now that clearly show exactly why the movie has the rating it does. It’s simple – the core rating is there to clearly show what the rating is, and the descriptors are there to explain in more detail. As a parent of 4 kids, I often times have to decide specifically whether or not I’m going to let my kids watch a PG movie. It comes down to exactly why the movie got that rating in the first place. The same is true of descriptors for the ESRB rating system.

He does make one interesting point:

“It is from the cynical view of a ratings system as a PR tool designed to fend off regulatory encroachment from outside the industry, that the ESRB has perhaps most stunningly stumbled, of which the introduction of the Truth In Videogame Ratings Act is only the most recent evidence.”

In my view this is not a failure in any way on the part of the ESRB. It is a failure by our industry to lobby effectively. Mr. Ruby does make this point:

“But the fact remains that for a $25 billion dollar entertainment industry that wants to stand shoulder to shoulder with television, movies and music, it certainly is quiet. When was the last time you saw a prime-time commercial campaign or even a magazine or newspaper campaign aimed at educating the vast market the industry hopes to capture. Games are still viewed as a shadowy pastime in many cultures and it’s a shame the industry hasn’t stepped forward with so much as a flashlight in hand.”

And here I wholeheartedly agree with him. We do a lousy job as an industry at both lobbying and effectively messaging to consumers about games in general and the proactive steps we as an industry are taking. I’d certainly like to see a lot more of this approach. The ESA and the ESRB should be taking out TV ads educating consumers about the rating system we have in place and encouraging parents to follow it. This is the responsible approach and I suspect it would blunt the attacks that legislators are constantly sending our way. Let’s get proactive about this and stop letting the Jack Thompson’s of the world be the only messengers about our business.

The ESRB certainly isn’t the problem here. It’s the lazy reactive approach we as an industry have taken. For too long we have sat on the sidelines and reacted to events rather than taking a proactive and positive message about the ratings system to consumers. The ESRB may not be perfect, but they do a good job and are effective. We just need to realize that they are only as successful as our industry enables them to be. Let’s focus on spreading the message about our industry’s rating system and take the words right out of Senator’s Brownback and Clinton’s mouths.

Smed