OK, so the big rating war is being waged. I'd like to pose a typically steered from. But what's wrong with Skyrim having an AO rating. All that means is advlt only. Personally I think FO3 should have been rated AO because of the amount of gore that is just unnecessary for young kids to fill their heads with, there are various arguments to excuse that and I'm not interested in hearing that in this thread. People seem to this that AO means that it's "sixual and perverted" Many people believe that showing peoples brains blown out is more perverted than having your character running around naked, I'm one who believes along those lines. I'm not sure if there is an X rating yet for games, but if it is something to be found pormographic it should have an X rating not an AO rating, that is not to say that people under 18 would not be able to play, surely their parents can buy the game, or they can borrow it. (and I due realize we have a large young audience in this forum).

So to simplify what this threads about is, what is wrong with a game having an AO rating if therein there is no sixual content?

Most retailers won't sell AO rated games. That's what the problem is. It would effectively kill the game.

The fact that, like the NC-17 movie rating, (and fair or not), no mainstream retailer is going to stock and sell a title rated AO, and no console company is going to allow them on their systems. Those ratings are a "kiss of death", just by default. Nothing to do with logic, or artistic merit, or anything like that. It just means your game won't sell.


(but, as an aside, considering what's in the God of War games and how Duke Nukem looks to be, at an M rating..... nothing Bethesda would ever produce could possibly get the AO rating.)

AOis bad ecause AO games can't be advertised for (at least where I live) and they are hidden in a back room and to buy it you have to ask an employee for it and the would cause BGS to lose a lot of money

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoYWdHe4tQ4

Game developers try to avoid getting an AO rating for the same reason Hollywood tries to avoid getting an NC-17 rating for movies. The less people that can legally buy the game, the worse they'll do in sales.

I never got the point of the AO rating, if we're not allowed to release games with that rating and if you do release it, nobody will sell it it's pointless.

And another point, is that Bethesda isn't going to reach AO unless they intentionally made it that way. The line between G, T and M is blurry, but there is no confusion about AO. And in general AO content isn't beneficial to a TES game.

no offense but this is incredibly naive to even ask. to sell something you want it to be available to the widest audience. as the youtube link above points out....it's the money honey. better off making a poll of age ranges that will be buying/playing this game...that would give you a better idea why rating is so important.

To have a full & robust rating system, you need to define the full range of results. Without an AO (or NC-17), how do you tell someone when they've moved beyond M & R?

(and how do you prove to silly congressmen that you're prepared for any possible content you might have to rate, so that they accept your rating system and don't try to legislate something worse....)

I agree AO content shouldn't be in an elder scrolls game, but my Idea of AO content is FO3

In a single word: WALMART

Add Best Buy and a dozen other large retailers that will not carry the game and you are talking big money.

Besides, there is nothing that would warrent an AO game that I would want to be included in Skyrim anyway. If you need more six, gore, whatever then use the internet.

EDIT: On a side note, I wonder how The Witcher 2 avoided it. WOW

But Fallout 3 content is M. I don't think a game would ever get an AO for just violence. Look at GOW. And has been said throughout the thread, an AO would kill the game.

:D


Which reminded me of the TVtropes "Rated M for Money" page (won't link, bad words :tongue: ), that has this little bit in it....



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Back before blood&guts got a bit more acceptable (1998), there was some Mortal-Kombat-esque beat 'em up game that got the AO rating. It was never officially released.

To me, it just doesn't seem needed, M is "mature" and R is "restricted" to me, it doesn't seem like we need anything past that, especially when the "age" for M(and maybe R I forget) is 17, do we really need another rating(AO/NC-17) to say "you must be 18" when it's only a year difference and when you could just move M and R up a year? Besides, nobody listens to ratings anyway, if they did, we wouldn't have to worry about "what's safe for the children" when we make a game.

except FO3 isn't "Just violence" "just violence is GTA" FO3 is full of explicit gore to a very unnecessary degree, I think without that amount of gore it would have been a fine 'M" game, but with it it'd be a fine "AO" game, but that is my opinion.

Content-wise I believe there is nothing wrong with an AO game, as I believe I am mature enough to experience one if I wanted to.

The real concern is with Marketing where AO is concerned, as many have said.

I understand what you're saying, but the problem is that if the ESRB started giving out AO's for violence like they do for sixual content, a lot of your favorite games and mine would be killed. Stores just wouldn't carry them and the publicity would be terrible. No one would be able to market these games successfully. Is that something you want?

OF course not, and I don't expect them to start rating games like they should (because of marketing) I do think it's time though to start by having a conversation and dispelling old stigmas and rate games logically so people are actually getting what they expect.

Why do people have to be such sourpusses about anything gory or sixual. I mean sure I understand the whole concept of "protecting the children" but I think that should be the responsibility of the parents strictly. If the parents don′t look after their children properly (that includes putting them in day-cares and having babysitters who they trust) then children are going to experience gory and sixual content anyway. I mean it doesn′t take much, just hand a kid a computer and teach it how to google, and its curiosity should do the rest (heck back when I was 5 I was already learning the 'f-word' from my peers, if I had google back then you can just imagine what would follow as I went on my quest to understand the meaning of the word).

Companies shouldn′t be punished for the content they create, my parents managed to bring me up quite nicely and I didn′t get contact with content that they were not pleased with as long as they cared. I think they stopped caring to keep me from 'advlt content' around the time I became 10 or so, maybe a little early but I was more than ready to browse whatever I desired by that age. I have a 10 years old brother who isn′t quite as matured as I was back when I was his age but he should be fine in a year or two, depends on the child too and a good parent should know it′s child well enough to know when it can view what content and what not.

The mind does not stop growing until around the age of 22 - 24 (growing BTW, it′s like building a computer, you may finish putting all the new parts in it by one point but it can still get new software for as long as it functions) but you should be mature enough at least by the age of 13 to view any content without believing it to be true or correct. After all most societies hold their confirmations around the age of 13 and before all the religious mumbo jumbo it was a celebration of a persons coming of age into the first steps of advlthood.

So I don′t think what is wrong with an AO rating has anything to do with really protecting young individuals but just the weird rules of society that we uphold these days. And isn′t it just possible to advertise without showing content that is not fit for children, like if Skyrim had AO content, can′t they still have maybe advertisemants just of scenes that don′t include any of it ? Just keep the AO label on and only the parents themselves can be held responsible if they gave their 6 years old child an AO game. Keep the outside pretty and hide the inside from the children, just keep the rating as a hint for what is truly lurking inside that game.

But as has been said, weird rules of society making it bad for marketing. If the people who made those rules had been a little more open minded initially then I bet there wouldn′t be such a big fuss about ratings.

All shops that sell games will sell 18+ ones in the UK, do they not in america?

This that's partly why child killing is a no no in Bethesda games.

It's a valid question and real opportunity for someone out there to innovate a new business model. Our (American society especially) often chooses to turn a blind eye to what is really going on around us.

AO titles don't sell because no retailer will sell them, and no retailer will sell them because they don't sell. See the logic breakdown here? It's chicken and egg. I guarantee that if someone would come out with a well designed and polished AO title and could get it to market, it would sell. Regardless of the content of the game (sixual or otherwise).

The biggest problem in the US is that the rating board is extremely secretive and is made up of very conservative people. There is no rhyme or reason to how they rate movies and games. If you haven't seen it, go rent the documentary "This Movie is Not Yet Rated". It's very enlightening and very infuriating simultaneously. The content rating process in the US is essentially sanctioned censorship.

Just as porm was once taboo, it is much more mainstream and public these days with the internet and public events such as AVN awards and such. Playboy played a huge part in legitimizing the porm industry during the last half of the 20th century. If someone could legitimize AO games as well, a completely new market for games would suddenly open up...

Games with an AO rating usually only get sold in stores where all the merchandise leaves in a brown paper sack.

PEGI's 18 rating is equivalent to the ESRB's M rating.