So yeah has there been any information regarding the ESRB rating for Skyrim?

If they're planning on this being an M rated game it better be a helluva lot better than Oblivion was concerning everything that quantifies an M rated game.

Bulletstorm is M rated and it hardly goes 10 seconds without a character cussing or making a lewd remark and if an enemy doesn't explode in a shower of blood that doesn't seem like more than the body should have in the first place, then something is wrong.

L.A. Noire Depicts very gruesome murders where the victim was found beaten to death and left naked in a park. and you run across psychopaths/pedophiles (who detail their "eccentricities" in disgusting detail) can you guess what it was rated? yep it's rated M.

Oblivion has a very minimal amount of blood and an option to turn it off no less, very little amount of reprehensible language... I don't even remember an obscenity being uttered that was worse than the word "Damn"... can you guess what it was rated? Nope it wasn't rated E or T... it was rated M.

My point is that if Skyrim gets stuck with an M rating I hope they take advantage of it and don't turn it into a "Rated M for Everyone" game like Oblivion.

Oblivion was rated Teen, and later re-classified as M ~but it hardly deserves it IMO.

There's a good rating discussion going on here http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1192521-what-do-you-expect-the-game-to-be-rated/page__pid__17735738__st__60#entry17735738

Oblivion was supposed to be rated T. It was rated T. I have a T rated version of the game. After some idiots snucked into the locked files and found some nvde files the games rating was changed. [censored] eh?

How many gods of six does this game have? It should have the rating qualifications of Daggerfall.

well see if it works this time bro...lol

Yea I know. Just trying to be a helpful member of the community. The thread I linked to is 4 pages deep. OP will find some good discussion there.

Think the dark brotherhood quest line was more important for the M rating than source files of nipbles. The first rating probably not play the dark brotherhood quests.

Add that a M rating spans from just over T as oblivion did up to X

Not just that. It was also changed due to some gruesome scenes the raters weren't made aware of (particularly in some of the Castles' secret passages, and parts of the Dark Brotherhood quests).

There are quite a few sick things in Oblivion if you know where to look. There's a Daedra Lord who's the King of [non-consentual six], for crying out loud. Count(esse)s who torture their prisoners (where you can see the bloody aftermath of such sessions). Psychopaths who make light of slaughtering an orphanage, who describe, in some detail, the difficulty of decapitating someone, and an Orc who delights in having made sure a girl would never see her 6th birthday and the look on her face. You've seen the Deadlands, right? The game never should have been rated T, at all.

Whether it was due to Bethesda trying to get a family-friendly face put on the whole thing, or whether it was just a beaurocratic mix up, who knows. But it should've been M from the get-go.

Indeed. I'd go as far as having the opening lines be something that would be censored on these forums just to ensure that the rating is M.

M for Mature. Bet on it.

I think skyrim needs to have a more mature style, similar tot he witchers.

Even with the examples you provide, this game still looks like it's rated E when compared to more recent examples of games that have been classified as mature, and that's my point... if it's going to be M rated, why hold back?

If what you all say is true and OB was originally classified as T, then why include all this stuff that was obviously on the fringe between T and M? If you're going to take the risk that it might be M, why not just design it around the fact that's it's going to be M to begin with.

oblivion has drugs in it.

oh and religious cults

I completely disagree with this. I don't care what the rating is, I'll buy it anyway, I want them to put in however much M rated material as will benefit the game. As soon as they start putting in material just because it's M rated, the game has died. If I want my M rated material fix, I'll play Gears of War for half an hour, but TES is all about the gameplay, and with thousands of hours, I don't want them to forgo that to put in some extra gore or some such nonesense.

No, it really was mainly because of the locked files somebody modded. Google it, there was a big scandal. That did spark a further investigation into the game though, which had them see some other material that wasn't T suitable, so eventually it was changed, but mainly because of the mod.

They shouldn't walk any middle ground. Have bare briasts in the tutorial like God of War and we won't have any confusion.

That is a good point, I wouldn't want them to add in random callous material without it being tactfully done, but Oblivion was, IMO, too conservative. Characters who were attempting to be tough and/or intimidating never phased me. For example, if I was battling an Uncultured bloodthirsty Orc marauder warlord, I would be disappointed if he didn't say something along the lines of "I'M GONNA CUT YOUR [censored]IN HEAD OFF AND FEED IT TO MY CHILDREN" rather than "I've fought mudcrabs tougher than you!"

According to Todd, they don't aim for a particular rating. They make the game they want to make (obviously avoiding the AO ban), and let the rating fall where it may. With Skyrim, the tone and style of the game they're going for will amost assuredly land an M rating, and he's said as much. What that actually means for the content of the game, who knows... just that they're quite sure it's not T-rated material.

Personally, I'd rather the game straddle between T and M, if the alternative is to add gratuitous boobs and guts to get a solid M rating. Games don't have to be so catagorically defined that a T game must be T through-and-through, and an M game has to be overloaded with "mature" content to justify the rating. Just make a good, fun, and interesting game, and if it falls on the T/M border, so be it.

Are we still arguing about this?
I thought the rating shown at the start of the Skyrim trailers released so far would confirm it to be M. Or at least that is the expectation Bethesda has.

They are doing the right thing, not aiming for a rating. The only sensible thing to do is make the game you want to make, damn the censors, and damn anyone who thinks a game, let's face it based on killing people and creatures, isn't advlt enough. Why would anyone put more swearing and blood in a game because they will probably get an M anyway, that would almost be a definition of Gratuitous.

Hmmm, ok, I'll concede, as long as it's tactfully done it could benefit the game having it geared more towards M.

It's definently going to be Mature

I'm going to guess Teen. Morrowind and Oblivion were both this, then Oblivion got changed to M because of the nudity mod scandal. There's no evidence to suggest this game will get serious, let's go and kill some dragons folks.

I don't mind it being rated M, but I'd really hate to see any nudity or extreme foul language.