ESRB News

Since it's 1994 inception, video games have been rated by in the US by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB).

But the ESRB was not the first rating scheme established in the US.

In the early 90s, moral guardians were up in arms due to what they perceived as an obscenity outrage. Thie was sparked off by the video games Mortal Kombat and Night Trap from Sega, with its misleadingly lurid cover art suggesting that it was some kind of sleazy sex-themed game.

The outrage was escalated all the way to the US Senate.

A 1993 Senate hearing heard from the boss of Nintendo of America, Howard Lincoln who said:

And let me say that for the record, I want to state that Night Trap will never appear on a Nintendo system. Obviously it would not pass our guidelines. This game ... which promotes violence against women, simply has no place in our society

The outcome of the hearing, threatened that if the video game publishers did not crank out a rating system by 1994, one would be imposed by the U.S. government.

So, in response Sega of America quickly formed their own self-censorship committee: the Videogame Rating Council. It established 3 ratings:

• GA - Appropriate for all audiences.
• MA-13 - Mature audiences. Intended for ages 13 and up. Might contain more violence than GA games, mild blood, mild suggestive themes, etc.
• MA-17 - Not intended for minors. The game might include graphic violence, blood and gore, sexual content, profanity, etc.

The system lasted barely a year. The MA-13 came in for particular criticism as being mature seemed at odds with being 13 years old (being mature at 14 seems OK for TV though).

In 1994, the major video game publishers formed the trade association, the Interactive Digital Software Association (predecessor to the Entertainment Software Association) which eventually came up with an industry-wide ratings system: the ESRB ratings, which we still use today.

The basketball game NBA 2K20 has made the news as the European games rating group PEGI and the US equivalent, ESRB, have been considering how to rate content depicting gambling.

Neither of the two rating organisations flagged NBA 2K20 for gambling, simulated or otherwise. PEGI explained its reasoning saying that the gambling content descriptor doesn't apply because the mini-games involved in NBA 2K's MyTeam mode don't actually encourage and/or teach the use of games of chance that are played/carried out as a traditional means of gambling.

The reply from PEGI acknowledges that the agency had seen the announcement trailer of NBA 2K20 and noticed the controversy it has caused. However, the board's representative noted that the controversial imagery played a central role in the trailer, but it may not necessarily do so in the game, which has not yet been released.

PEGI notes that this isn't gambling, per se, in that nothing is really wagered in the slot machine, wheel of fortune and pachinko mini-games, and whatever is won has value only as game content. Wheel/slot spins and ball drops are earned through gameplay and can't be bought, so nothing is really wagered.

For the ESRB, these mini-games aren't even simulated gambling. In its rating summary for NBA 2K20 , the game's only content descriptor is mild language, as apparently the words hell and damn are in some dialogue.

PEGI says that the controversy over the game's trailer is part of an internal discussion that PEGI is having for the moment:

The games industry is evolving constantly (and rapidly in recent years). As a rating organization, we need to ensure that these developments are reflected in our classification criteria. We do not base our decisions on the content of a single trailer, but we will properly assess how the rating system (and the video games industry in general) should address these concerns.

Interestingly enough, the trailer posted by 2K Games' United Kingdom YouTube account has since been taken down . It's still live on the main NBA 2K YouTube channel.

NBA 2K20 launches Friday, Sept. 6 on PlayStation 4, Windows PC, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch.

An article about games censorship writes that the current trend is for female characters to be covered up but notes that there has been no suggestion that the depiction of violence is being reigned in.

In passing the article provides a few statistics about the reluctance for the US games rating board to invoke the adults only AO rating. The article notes:

Since its formation nearly 25 years ago, the ESRB has only given 29 games an AO rating. Of those titles, only two have earned the rating solely for violent content ( Hatred and Thrill Kill ), while 26 games on the list sport content descriptors such as strong sexual content, mature sexual themes or nudity. (The only remaining title on the list that has neither violent or sexual content, 2003's Peak Entertainment Casinos , was given the rating for offering real-world gambling elements in-game.)

...

Receiving an AO rating has been called the kiss of death by gaming critics and analysts, as it essentially makes the game unavailable for most players. The majority of retailers, such as Best Buy or GameStop, refuse to stock AO games; console giants Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft refuse to publish AO games; and streaming platform Twitch has banned titles with AO ratings from being broadcast.

Of the 29 games that have received AO ratings, commercial hits are few and far between. The best selling titles on the list, 2004's Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and 2007's Manhunt 2 , were both published by Rockstar Games and each game was edited down to an M rating after receiving the AO tag (in the case of San Andreas , the game only earned the AO rating temporarily, after the discovery of an unfinished mini-game featuring a sexual encounter, titled Hot Coffee, was found. It was later patched out and the game regained its M rating). Most other games on the list were far from financial boons.

See the full article from hollywoodreporter.com