E for All?

[AJP]

Originally Posted by Ryan Zelazny

We will not be attending the E for All event.

Why not? IMHO, showing even the 2-year-old videos at e4 will be far more beneficial for Reverie than talking at this year's e3 was...

[Doug Bonds]

LOL Jap!! That's what I have always loved about you. Always finding a way to scheme.

[Darvin]

Given that *all* the RTS games I own (just flipped through my library of games) are rated T, it's pretty well predetermined that DoF will get that rating. Actually, it really speaks to the weakness of the T rating, as because the vast majority of games fall into this category, it's next to impossible to distinguish which ones are the more violent and which are the less violent.

[Alexander Flegler]

The game itself isn't more violent than others. The campaign and dialogues are more designed for adults though. We have to check with ESRB if it'll be T or M rated, but I think we would rather adjust the dialogues a bit

[jap88]

Company of Heroes was M, probably because they used every swear word in the book

[Darvin]

I don't own CoH, as it happens, so I didn't consider that one in my tally. I'm surprised it got M-rated, however. Again, it speaks to the weakness of the current rating system. It only weakens the M-rating if you place a game with excessive swearing alongside one where the player character is a psychotic mass murderer (not thinking of any game in particular, but I'm sure it exists).

I stopped paying attention to ratings long ago, because I find them to quite arbitrary in many cases. However, I can understand from a developer's perspective the incentive to keep in the T-rated category with a game like this. I don't think it should be hard to do.

[jap88]

Well, there are also people that literaly get blown to bits (like you see them explode and their arms and legs fly off the body) and a decent amount of blood. But yeah, i get your point. Although I personally place little value in the ratings a lot of consumers do, most notably adults who would buy games for their kids.

[Ryan Zelazny]

Originally Posted by Darvin

I don't own CoH, as it happens, so I didn't consider that one in my tally. I'm surprised it got M-rated, however. Again, it speaks to the weakness of the current rating system. It only weakens the M-rating if you place a game with excessive swearing alongside one where the player character is a psychotic mass murderer (not thinking of any game in particular, but I'm sure it exists).

I stopped paying attention to ratings long ago, because I find them to quite arbitrary in many cases. However, I can understand from a developer's perspective the incentive to keep in the T-rated category with a game like this. I don't think it should be hard to do.

*** DISCLAIMER *** Please note that the below commentary is based on the views of the poster and doesn't necessarily reflect the views of Reverie World Studios INC.



Had to put the disclaimer on there, cause I don't want us getting a bad rap, but this is how I personally feel. Ratings are mainly there for concerned parents of younger gamers. I myself don't really pay attention to them, however there are a lot of politicians that are trying to capitalize on the so called "failings" of the ESRB.

Things like the stripper scene in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas that get missed are not a fault of the ESRB, but that of the developer. The way a game gets rated is different from movies, which is what they compare them to. A movie takes around 2 hours to watch, and then a rating can be given on that film by either an individual or a panel, depending on what body is doing the rating.

With videogames that isn't a valid way to rate them, this is due to the fact that games are a lot longer, take any of the Final Fantasy games for example, you would have to play the entire game, which around 40 hours, and then get all the extra content to make sure there is nothing provactative, so we'll call this 60 hours. That is just a long singleplayer game, what about MMO's like Warcraft, is the reviewer or review team going to have to get the level 70 of every class in every race, just to see if there is anything Blizzard is hiding, or in Oblivion, it would take forever to complete every bit of that game.

When inquiring about getting DoF reviewed, I learned a little bit of their process, this however was last year, so I don't know if they have changed anything since. Back then, this is the way the ESRB rated a game. A video the developer creates, based on the most violent or lewd scenes in the game is sent to the ESRB. The reviewer then makes a rating based on that, as well as paperwork also given by the developer.

Anything they do not show the ESRB is the developers concern as they are fined a large amount for any offensive material they do not submit.

The US government is looking to create their own rating system and remove the ESRB. This will not be good for gaming in my opinion, because they either wont allow, or will make titles like Grand Theft Auto or Manhunt, Adult Only, and then systems wont support them, and you wont see such creative expression in games as developers wont be able make a living doing anything the rating system wont allow.

[Darvin]

Well, if the developer holds something back from the ESRB, then of course it's their fault for doing so. I totally agree that the evaluation can't possibly assess all the content in the game, and that the ratings must use a representative sample. In any case, I can't imagine the worst this game has to offer being any more gorey than your average RTS, so I doubt there's a need to worry.

I don't know what's being suggested in the US right now (I'm Canadian, so I don't follow US politics closely), but I tend to agree that they tend to go a bit overboard down there when it comes to censorship. I don't see what they can achieve with their own rating system, anyways.

[SPARROW94]

wow so much BIG words