Rating Customizable Video Games

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Chriz:

--- Quote from: Hazard on June 23, 2009, 12:25:17 AM ---Good point but you get my idea.

--- End quote ---

Indeed a good idea it would be.

Chrono:

--- Quote from: Annoying Orangehet on June 23, 2009, 12:30:42 AM ---If halo had no blood, then they need to make bubble guns, frebreeze sprayers, sticks, tomatoes, and books the only weapons.

TAST MEH KNOWLEGE OF BUKS NOOBIEES!!!!11!!

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That would be lovey. :D

Saxophone:

--- Quote from: Chrono on June 23, 2009, 12:33:25 AM ---That would be lovey. :D

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Eat FREBREEZE.
(Shmals Sooo Gud.)

Chrono:
IT BURNS SOOOO GOOD

Wedge:
Some games do let you do this. ESRB bases it's rating on the most extreme content available when they rate a game, so there's not a huge incentive to include it. Even if these system did reduce ratings, such a system would have to be opt-out to work, if it were opt-in it wouldn't do a very good job of protecting the children. The issue with an opt-in system is that very few parents are going spend the time digging through the game options to censor some game they bought for their kid and no kid is going to opt out of a little extra blood. An opt-out system would basically remove the blood until you turn it back on. Purchasing a game and then being required to unlock the content would probably alienate many of their customers. If you put in some kind of adult validation system (probably using credit cards) to keep kids from turning it on, you open a whole new can of worms.

I know Windows Vista includes some kind of parental control similar to the ones included on television sets. Perhaps some developer could have the game base the content in the game on the level in the control panel. There's a bunch of issues with this too. It's still going to be rated M no matter what you do. Your parent is still going to have to buy it for you, and they are still going to have to actually USE the tools they are given. Some study cited by wikipedia stated that 15% of all parents had used the V-chip on their television sets. If this number holds true for computers as well, then no amount of effort on the part of the developer will be able to protect children when the children have no desire to use it and their parents simply do not use the technology.

Summary:
The two basic problems I think would need to be overcome are 1) creating a system that both adequately censors content and allows people who want to see the content to see it without any hassle 2) getting parents to actually use it. Kids don't want their content censored and for one reason or another, parents are not censoring it.

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