I am glad that OB got rerated M, the game is barley m rated, they wanted the teen rating and thus could not give me the kind of atmosphere I want, I don't want them self censoring themselves in hopes of a lower rating. Now Skyrim will have finishing moves, if OB maintained there Teen rating I could see them go for it again in Skyrim and thus no finishing moves and less brutalness in general. Not trying to force a Teen rating Frees up the creative juices.

You can add so much more to the if it has a "non-existant" cap of how old can play it, meaning 18+. If it is 18+, anything they come up with can be included in the game without worrying about the potetnial traumas they could cause to younger players. And the trailer sure had 18+ marked on it, so I guess that's about confirmed.

considering games can get a M rating for lyrics in the music they include i would say yes Skyrim will be rated M and really how can game set in Scandinavian/Viking over-lapping theme not be just brutal???

Well thats true. Im a blase European and were often a bit amused by how things go on the other side of the pond.
I remember that wardrobe malfunction of janet Jackson, it seemed like news for months in the states whereas we just shrugged and didnt really care.
Cultural differences are interesting.

Maybe it will change in the future, or maybe not. There is a Dutch saying wich is impossible to translate but wich sort of means:
Let other people (nations) do things as they deem wise.

Though I do often find it a bit odd that violence is so much more accepted than nudity. Personally I would think violence is the ruder one.

But in the end a rating is merely a guideline. A parent can still choose to let their kid play Skyrim. I think it would all depend on the personality of the child, and on what the parent thinks appropriate. Some children can handle a scary movie, others get nightmares.

I hope it gets an NC-17 rating.

Point = obsolete, imo. Every kid browses pr0n sites nowadays, what's stopping it from entering this site or installing the game? These ratings are BS, no doubt bout that.

I don't want an A rating for Skyrim, while I am sure I would like the uncensord creativity of the game, it would greatly impact Beths sales. Which would be bad, these games cost 10s of millons of dollars, so Beth need to make alot of beans so they can keep making them to there high standards.

Really? From that I assume you would rather have A the ratings are forced. I,e take choice away from parents and make it punishable by law for them to allow their children to play games if they don't meed the age requirement. Or B you don't think ratings should exist and thus allow any sort of smut into the market, again taking choice away from parents because they would have no guide lines to go by.

If anything it's your point that doesn't make sense, not his.

Edit* Damn you smiley faces! B)

You're welcome to propose people abolish ratings for games and movies entirely if you like, though I doubt that will go down too well with the general public.

Ratings serve a very important purpose, and the fact that it's possible for children to see content that's not appropriate for them doesn't change that. Ratings provide a guideline by which parents can judge what sort of content they can expect to see in a game or movie, and whether it's appropriate for their children. After all, parents probably aren't going to want to play every game they buy for their children themselves first to see if they're appropriate for their children, especially if they're not gamers themselves to begin with. Sure, an M rating won't stop parents from buying a game for their children, but if the parents were doing their job, that wouldn't be a problem, because if parents don't want their children to see 3D animated dismemberment, than they shouldn't be buying M rated games for their children. And if parents are worried about their children looking at pormography, than maybe they should supervise their internet usage and not let them visit such websites in the first place.



Getting an M rating really doesn't stop a game from having good sales. In fact, some very successful games are rated M, tak GTA, for example.

The problem with the ratings is the stigma of the A rating just like NC-17, because of political pressure stores won't carry games with the rating, the government has de facto censorship in place.

Reread my post, I said A, not M rating. I already wrote in another post in this thread how I am happy about Skyrim M rating as they had to tone down OB going for the Teen rating. An A rating would certainly have a big effect on sales.

I was talking about the ratings, not his point - the point to have ratings...

Rating it M won't stop 12 year old Jonny to play Skyrim so yes, pretty much useless to have em... I've yet to hear, even see a parent forbid his kid from playing a video game. At least that's not happening in my country, lol!

Anyway, if the parent what's to forbid it, he will, he can judge that for himself...

Take TF2 or any other multiplayer game for example that is rated M, play for a couppla minutes and you a bound to hear bunch of kids. And since Skyrim is SP only, i don't know why should i really care but probably just expressing my opinion...

Will Skyrim be rated M? Considering it will be the most brutal game of TES, more than likely. Will it have nudity? I don't see why. As was the case with Oblivion, one of the first mods will be a topless mod, so it's not much of a necessity. Also it depends on the M rated game in terms of nudity. More M rated games tend to have no nudity at all than those that do. Having nudity in your game (depending how it's represented and what the purpose of it is) typically doesn't do developers any favors when it comes to sales.

Complete and utter hogwash.



http://www.gamesas.com/eng/news/pressrelease_050306.html
Bethesda's Official:



Just for the record the nvde textures that ship with Oblivion are Barbie doll style textures with no nipbles and no pubas.

"M" rated = 17

And if there's gore, well, there's an "M" rating.

As Todd Howard said, I would be surprised if it wasn't "M".

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/podcasts/archive/2011/02/03/toddhowardse.aspx

38:33 Is there any particular ESRB rating that you guys are aiming for.

"We never aim for a specific rating. I'm sure it'll be M. But we never aim for a specific rating. I would be surprised if we did not get an M. Our assumption is we're getting an M, so we are doing the content that we think is appropriate for Skyrim. There is more violence to the combat just in how it looks. Not like Fallout violence where it gets really over the top. It's more a realistic level of violence for what it is with guys with swords and axes and those sorts of things."

The violence alone will probably put it at an M rating. Not to mention other things that will contribute to the rating, finishers, probably more swearing, and other things.

After reading some mags describe how you'll be able to hear the blood gurgle in your opponent's throat during a finnishing move, it's a definite M.
That does not necessarily imply nudity, though. Just because the game earned a scarier letter does not mean it has to exploit it :rolleyes: .

E for Everyone

I hope so.

Which is why it doesn't make sense to me why the ESRB would use that as a reason for a re-rate (the gore I can understand though, and how that slipped through the net I have no clue). The Sims had the same thing which was unlockable with no modification whatsoever by a cheat code, and it still got a T rating. In fact, just about any game with customizable apparel has these textures, M or not. If the ESRB did in fact use a mod as a reason to change the rating, then it's a fail on the ESRB's fault because Bethesda can't control what players create.

Yes, "M" please. Thanks.

I think for this type of game in this kind of brutal setting, it would only make sense to be an "M" rating. The good news is that I'm old enough to play "M" games, so it doesn't matter to me! :celebration:

It... Had... Better... Be....
Skyrim would be friggin' 30% worse if it was less than M. PLEASE be M.

Anyway, by the looks of things so far, it is going to be M.