In my favorite ridiculous rating of the year, Legion: Arena is rated M.
There is zero gore, zero corpse count, violence with no clear consequences and very limited chances to do serious mischief.
So why the M?
Some of the Gallic soldiers aren’t wearing pants. So the rating is there to protect your teenagers from tiny French penises.
Troy
Game ratings are just a guideline for parents, just like movie ratings on dvd’s. If you choose to ignore them, it’s up to you. Kids have different maturity levels, and are exposed to different levels of violence, sex, etc at different ages. That was true before videogames, and it’s nothing a lawsuit can fix now. The ESRB ratings are more than enough.
No, but lawsuits fix everything! All you have to do is sue people and they’ll see your side and change their ways. They’ll probably even thank you for teaching them such valuable life lessons through fucking with their money.
my favorite part:
- Sony and Take-Two designed the GTA: Vice City game to utilize the PS2’s Dual Shock controller, which sends a visceral jolt back into the hands of the player each time he kills. Thus, the entire system is a biofeedback, operant conditioning system which desensitizes the user to the act of killing. Skinner would be proud. It is right out of his playbook.
Apparently Sony and Take-Two are trying to train us into killing machines.
OLD NEWS.
edit: now where is my kill button?
Somehow I managed to see movies like Jaws, Poltergeist, and Raiders of the Lost Ark, all of which would certainly have been rated PG-13 had it existed when they were released, while I was this kid’s age or less without scarring my psyche.
And have you actually played Call of Duy 2? There is barely any blood in it. Even that bastion of conservative values, Walmart, allows people to play the CoD 2 demo in full view of all of their patrons.
My only experience with CoD 2 is seeing others playing it on kiosks, and any time I’ve seen it, I’ve seen the blood splashes when people are shot. shrug
Anyway, don’t think I subscribe to the idea that violent games change people somehow; I know first hand that’s not the case. My only point here is that there will always be people who ignore or don’t follow the ratings (be they ignorant or by active choice), and because of that any kind of regulation is just stupid to even consider, because it will achieve a whole lot of nothing.