Excellent, awful, violent, nonviolent, idiotic, sophisticated, absurd, realistic . . . but "mature"? Making zombies go "splat" is not mature. Games like Outlaw Volleyball, in which strippers compete on the beach, are not mature. Games like BMX XXX, which included mostly-clothed footage of Scores strippers, are not mature. Games like Grand Theft Auto III, in which a car bounces up and down to simulate sex with a hooker, are not mature. I love silly race-car games, monster mashes, secret-ops action games, mythic adventures, and rampant car-jacking and virtual hooker-killing as much as the next guy — just don't tell me that my nerdy fun is "mature."
But my problem with the "Mature," or "Rated-M," label isn't just literal-minded. The game industry wants us to believe that the label's a necessary evil, used to placate senators like Joseph Lieberman or Hillary Clinton, who still seem to believe in deluded Reefer Madness idea that Doom and Quake caused Columbine. But even as stupid as their paranoia is, the gaming industry not-so-secretly needs Hillary and Joe, because their hysteria makes games seem riskier. In this sense, the label is the game industry's way of coping with the
promotion
insecurities generated by its kiddie past. And, obviously, in the teen market, it's as potent as slapping an alluring "parental advisory" sticker on a rap record. But the empty "Mature" label has become the de facto marketing term used to make puerile games look like edgy entertainment without actually including more adult content than you'll find in the average Cannonball Run movie or episode of Gunsmoke.
The ESRB's M, like the MPAA's R, is a 17-and-up or adult consent rating, but compared to film's R and music's Parental Advisory, it's weak. Joe and Hillary are right: It's barely enforcable, but it also usually refers to nothing but violence, which is often more gory but rarely more shocking than what you can see on network TV's Law & Order or CSI: NY. When games don't get M ratings for violence (and they rarely do), it's usually for puerile humor or topless animated girls. (The ESRB has another rating, AO for Adult Only, but it's almost never used.)
In fact, Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony all claim to allow their designers great freedom, but through the ESRB's they have created an M rating that more closely replicateds the same limits that ABC or CBS creates for primetime television: Little cursing, no explicit sex, no full-frontal nudity, and so on. Console videogames
PullQuote
take as few risks as primetime because the sweet spot of the videogame industry is still the family-friendly preteens and teens, and they are still beholden to the same censors at the industry's biggest retailer, Wal-Mart. But they're biggest compromise has been giving games "Mature" ratings only because of violence. There are only a few games with the rating M, like GTA: San Andreas or Call of Duty 2, that actually seem to deserve the designation. Games like the Splinter Cell and Halo 2, which just offer stylized violence in the manner of TV shows like 24 or PG-13 films like The Matrix, certainly do not.
Yes, the Hillary and Joe Show is back on the road now, lobbying the games industry to make it illegal for kids under eighteen to buy M-rated videogames. The games industry is upset, and it should be. But they've already overregulated themselves into a corner. The defensive and idiotic ESRB has six ratings categories. EC for kids three and older. E for kids six and older. E10+ for kids ten and older. Teen for kids thirteen and older. M for people seventeen and older. And AO for people eighteen and older. This idea that we need a new ratings category every three years is idiotic.
But the real problem is that the M, as it stands now, is the equivalent of an R only in terms of violence. The M, let's face it,
PullQuote
should be the game industry's PG-13--but the ESRB, in its rush to guard kids from the evils of first-person shooters, has created a long-term problem with this overly-restrictive format. Now, content that should earn a game the equivalent of an R gets the kiss-of-death "AO" (like film's NC-17), which makes sales in major department stores like Wal-Mart an impossibility. We need to abolish the "M" rating and rejigger the ratings system so that violence, sexual content, and swearing aren't so stigmatized. Keep "E" for everyone for kiddie games and regular violence, but ditch EC, E10, T and M. Anything with disturbing violence against humanoids or American Pie — the kind of games that get M-ratings now — should be given the new designation "13+"; and, for once, films that have the kind of adult content you get in R-rated movies should get a simple "17+." Keep the AO rating but only use it for the gaming business's NC-17s. (I'm assuming, here, that we can't throw out the whole broken system.)
Video game industry execs are always saying they want to be more like the dysfunctional dudes in Hollywood. I suppose they should be proud: they've created a ratings system even more asinine than the MPAA. n°
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Logan Hill is a contributing writer at New York magazine. He has
contributed to Wired, The Nation, The New York Post, The New York Press and The Village Voice.
