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Well, those are the facts of life. "Should" doesn't matter nearly as much as what "is".

As for "they shouldn't fill it with etc.", you might as well have said they shouldn't make the game at all, at least not the way it is. Look at the DVD section of Walmart some time. There's plenty of R rated titles there, so why wouldn't they expect to sell M rated video games?

I think, after more 20 years, games have earned the right to include mature subjects as much as any other medium, and shouldn't be hamstringed by the ratings, but rather the ratings should serve to help people get the games they want.

BurningStickman,

To that I say, tough shit. If they want the game to be sold in family-friendly retailers like that then they shouldn't fill it with drugs, hookers, stripper, violence, etc. It's a conscious decision made by the developers. The ratings system should not bow down before financial interests. Period.

Believe it or not, games depend largely on big-name retailers (Walmart, for example) to gross big numbers. If a game had a rating that suggested it was only for adults (like AO, or a hypothetical "between" rating), chain stores like that simply wouldn't carry it and, yes, this would mean that even the Grand Theft Auto juggernaut would have only a fraction of the sales it could have as a rated M title. If Take Two or anyone else believed differently, they wouldn't push for it to have that rating in the first place.

veryseriousman,

I have to respectfully disagree. Games are inherently different in that it is difficult to measure time of exposure. In a movie you get X seconds of full frontal nudity in an R rated film. In a game, the player can control the time. They could revisit a strip club a million times, they could spend the whole game there and have it be new or different each tim. I think that lumping games in with movies marginalizes the artistic uniqueness of games.

To all commenters, I'm just suggesting possible fixes to the current situation. Really, the point is that GTA IV could very well be a major momentum shifter and stands to underline the fact that the ESRB is more concerned with the profit margins of the game makers than having a reasonable and useful ratings system. I'm not saying that my suggestions are the only possible solutions, I'm just saying that there is some well deserved outrage over the fact that silly games like Halo that are fine for teens are grouped with game like GTA IV.

As for anything above M marginalizing the impact of GTA IV... you've got to be kidding. People would buy it if it were illegal. GTA IV is a prime example of a game that could still make gooey gobs of money even if it had a poison sticker on the front of the box and gave players colon cancer.

Well put S.S.

Bottom line is, Rockstar knew that GTA4 had the moneymaking power to be able sway the ESRB. (And if you think the MPAA is any nobler, don't kid yourself) They knew they could do just about whatever they wanted...as long as there was "no sex in the champagne room". That seemed to be the ESRB's line in the sand. The M rating was a gift for everyone. Except parents.

Aside from any Niko nookie, any envelope pushing would only make more controversy, which would invariably drive sales up, making them boatloads (if not eastern European tanker-loads) more money.

It looks like they got burned in Australia, but I don't think, they're too worried.

You said it, Stickman. It's ridiculous to me that Halo and Mortal Kombat, for example, get M ratings when their "violence" is so... I don't know, not mature. Every kid I knew, myself included, was playing Mortal Kombat back in the early 90s, the idea that such a game shouldn't be for kids never would have been considered.

Save the M-ratings for the games that really need them.

Kudos on this article.

The best way to solve the problems with game ratings is to have them receive the same ratings as movies. Movie ratings have been around long enough that the generational understanding gap isn't lacking between parents and their children.

I've got an 11 year old brother, my mother lets him play all the M games he wants but she would never, ever let him watch an R rated movie. The ESRB was created when games were underdogs that were fighting to prove their own relevence, now they're an established and accepted medium. GTA sits on the New Release wall at Blockbuster, big name films show trailers for video games as previews in movie theaters. The ESRB is outdated, games and movies should be subject to the same ratings standards and go through similar, if not identical processes to receive their ratings.

Parents Just Don't Understand= Classic. It's all about the art form, you can't put a label on that......well I guess they try to.....

Here's the thing about your analogy: Name one NC-17 rated movie that saw any kind of fiscal success. I dunno about you, but I'm drawing a blank.

Yes, the rating was created to be "between" X and R, but most people still see it as exactly the same as an X rating. If they created a new rating for games like GTA, they'd be accused of trying to "hide" the content with a new rating, and people would see the new rating as just a way to get around the Adults Only stigma.

I don't think a new rating is needed, but I think they need to adjust how they're rating the games. For example, the Call of Duty series, let's be honest, doesn't have anything in it that would push a movie beyond PG-13, so why not rate it (and games like it) T instead? That way, you could reserve the M rating for games that really deserve it.

It took a long time for the rating system in films to get adjusted and gain stability. It is still a mystery exactly how movies are rated (watch "This Film Is Not Yet Rated"). I come from the first generation of gamers. I've been there for all the consoles and watched the evolution of video games first hand. It will, however, take time to convince the world (especially those not born with controllers in their hands) that video games are as much for adults as it is for kids. Until parents realize this, ratings will mean very little to a good portion of buyers. They will buy their kid a game because games are for kids.
"Parents Just Don't Understand" Fresh Prince

What I'm saying is that the ESRB is failing the spirit of the ratings. Ratings are meant to group similar levels of experience. Halo is not like GTA IV. And GTA IV does have similar things, graphic simulated sex with prostitutes and even more so strippers.

Violent, or adult media does not scare me. There are obvious labels on all the packages, and you are asked at the register for identification. Parents are informed of the game's suggestive themes through the news today and the public knows that videogames aren't the soul reason Hell's rising.

Manhunt is violent because you're doing heartless things up-close and personal. Suffocating someone with a bag, breaking their neck with a sledgehammer, or cutting their throats with broken glass. I played an hour worth of the game on my Wii, uncensored, and it was unpleasing to say the least. After playing something like that, targeting a digital cop with a glock from a few meters away doesn't seem as...bad. GTA:SA was rated AO because there was a scene where you saw a man having sex with a woman. In GTA4 you don't see anything like that.

The rating system is flawed as is. There's no easy way to fix it besides add special notes by the rating, which the ESRB is doing now, unless you think we should start again from scratch. If you look at the ESRB compared to other rating systems (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_content_rating_system) it really doesn't seem that bad. The difference between most ratings is just a year or two, and how can they check at the counter anyway?

TL; DR
I look at the ratings as a suggestion, and the law shouldn’t govern media. All you should need is a parent's approval, but then again I'm one of those GAMES=ART freaks. :p

Sean, I agree that AO is a problem, which is why I suggest a new rating. If the ESRB wanted to seem legit, they would have rated it AO. I guarantee you that Sony, Microsoft, GameStop, etc. would have caved. There would have been firmware updates coinciding with the release. The problem is that GTA IV was the one game powerful enough to change the current paradigm, but they chose to wuss out and go for the profit.

I agree with the basic premise of this article, but the real issue is that I, as an adult, cannot buy AO games for my systems. Why not? Well, let's see: retailers won't carry them nor will console manufacturers publish them. So the ESRB is left with little choice but to give these games a M rating.

Some of the blame must surely lie with Rockstar in this case, who knowingly packed as much adult content into the game as possible using the axiom that more controversy will lead to more game sales.

It's almost like Rockstar wants J.T. and his ilk to succeed.