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Editors, Where Are Your Manners?

Posted by Nadia Oxford

Not long ago, I ruffled my feathers over the Internet's collective, though inevitable, lack of manners. Just yesterday, I posted some rambling thing about how the ESRB is largely irrelevant, mostly through no fault of its own. Today, I'm combining the two subjects! You lucky people!

I'm a bit late to the fury party, but it seems that GameTrailers is upset at the ESRB because the organisation made them yank an exclusive Fallout 3 trailer. The ESRB, which does have a say in game advertisements for television, deemed the trailer too violent and ordered it taken down.

(Of course, you can see it on YouTube thanks to special Internet magic.)

Some people, myself included, think the ESRB has overstepped its boundaries. The trailer was meant for GameTrailers, not television. GameTrailers has every reason to be upset, and they don't even have to be wholly polite about their displeasure. But it would have been really boss if GameTrailers' editors had consulted someone aside from their thirteen-year-old nephews for their angry words.

From GamePolitics' transcrption of GameTrailers' latest podcast:

Grumpy: Wankers! ...I am just absolutely flabbergasted about the ESRB. They're a bunch of bleepwads sitting in Washington. (...) It's a futuristic, post-apocalyptic game. I am so sick of this nanny state... they are not a government organization. They are a body made up of unqualified nincompoops... unfortunately, they're taking the nanny state to the nth degree... They make the FCC look like a bunch of broad-minded, non-censorship individuals...

I look at stuff like this and suddenly I'm reminded why nobody takes the video games industry as a serious medium.

Shane, Grumpy, you have the right to be angry. You have the right to say, "The ESRB is wrong." You also have the right to act your age instead of some ten-year-old Halo fanatic who's loudly impatient with the n00bs. In fact, it's appreciated.

Related Links:

How Much Simpler Do ESRB Ratings Need To Get?
Sex/Violence: Oneechanbara And The New Localization
Where Is Prototype?

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Posted Nov 12 2008, 06:02 PM

Filed under: halo 3, fallout 3, censorship, controversy, nadia oxford, game violence, esrb

Comments

Demaar said:

Wow, I thought the whole reason we love the ESRB is BECAUSE they're not a government organisation. Government censorship = bad etc. etc., right GT?

November 12, 2008 8:00 PM

r-mor said:

I honestly don't see why anyone would think that that trailer was any more or less appropriate than any other one.

November 13, 2008 3:06 AM

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