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I'm certain many of you, the readers, have seen the latest Jack Thompson coverage on Game Politics found here and here. Dennis was quick to point out the FTC provision about credit card ownership being adequate proof of age for online transactions, and the FoxNews contributor was quick to play the free speech card. However, there's an elephant in the room I'd like to address.

Everything Mr. Thompson has said about games applies to movies on DVD.

Anyone with a credit card can go to Amazon.com and pick up Saw I, II, or III (unrated, meaning the more violent cut than the theatrical one) just as easily as you can order Manhunt 2. The same applies to Best Buy, Circuit City, or whatever other entertainment online store you'd like to site. To the same ends, in-store id checks are equally lacking on these (and other) movie titles. While I haven't played Manhunt 2, I can only imagine the graphic content is probably on par with the Saw series, which is exceptionally brutal if you haven't seen the movies. Given that the research on the impact of media is mixed, and that movies have been found to affect young people like games by some studies, why ignore the movie industry?

There can only be a few answers:
1. Mr. Thompson is afraid of the people in the movie industry, as they would likely be viewed as "more powerful" than the game industry.
2. Mr. Thompson is giving undue weight to the unproven link between interactivity and a heightened impact.
3. Mr. Thompson has an unhealthy fixation on and unequivocal bias toward games, which cannot easily be explained.
4. Mr. Thompson's logic is flawed, for some other unexplained reason, so that he either ignores or actually favors violent movies. (Perhaps he is a Saw fan.)

The simple point being: If you would like to go on a crusade against the media, go on a crusade against the media, not one medium.

Ultimately, the decision should still be left to the parents, and the tools are in place for the parents to make those decisions. It is not up to the government, or Mr. Thompson, to make those decisions for society, parents who are failing to perform their duties as parents, or parents who are actively monitoring their child's media consumption. And if anyone is to be held responsible, it should be the inadequate parents, not the game manufacturers, game retailers, or game raters. I can only hope that the news media will tire of this issue soon, or that the American people will begin to realize that playing the "For the Children" card has reached a point where it should be accompanied by automatic scrutiny, as it is rarely actually being used to help the children anymore.

A recent PC Magazine interview sheds some light on the ESRB rating process, which leaves a lot to be desired. While I am a firm proponent of industry self-regulation, I have often been puzzled at the ratings some games get. For example, when I saw that Smash Bros. Melee was rated "T for Teen," my immediate thought was "What next, Barbie's Mystic Horse Adventure 7 being rated M?" For those not familiar, while Smash Bros. is a "fighting" game, it's no more violent than a typical Saturday morning cartoon and contains no blood at all, whatsoever. In any event, now that the ESRB has stated how the games are "rated," it makes more sense.

To summarize the interview, game publishers send in a DVD of selected scenes and a lot of paperwork to get the game rated. In fact, the process is outlined in detail on the ESRB website. The point being that the ratings board never plays the games. Yes, you read that right. The people who rate video games do not play the game they are rating. It would be the equivalent of basing movie ratings on a form and a trailer. Context would be wholly absent.

I can see the logic the ESRB is using. First, playing the games would require a release candidate, which could delay the process. Second, it would take their "trained reviewers" much longer to play through the games in full than it would to review some paperwork and a DVD. Third, and finally, it's entirely possible that some, if not a large section, of the reviewers may not be able to complete the games at all. Moreover, the system they have going has rarely been faulted (see Hot Coffee).

On the other hand, I get the impression that ratings for media content are more accurate when the reviewer takes the content in context and on the whole, rather than seeing mere snippets. Perhaps the better approach is to have the ESRB hire "designated gamers," and have the reviewers watch the game being played for some period of time in addition to the forms and DVDs in order to contextualize the game. Perhaps then Smash Bros. Melee would have been rated a more appropriate E or E10+ rather than T. On the other hand, perhaps the powers that be would just assume most games be rated a tier higher than the content actually is, either to give parents more discretion or to insulate themselves from complaints. In any event, with the recent Manhunt 2 controversy, I expect that this issue will likely be blown well out of proportion by certain people in the media and politics. If anything, it creates a harsher rating system, not a weaker one.

[Thanks Jonathan!]

[EDIT: Reader Andrew Eisen, in the comments, points out: "Additionally, ESRB staff, including raters (time-permitting), play the final version of both hand-picked and randomly selected games to verify that all the materials provided by the game's publisher during the rating process were accurate and complete."

My thought is that, while true, and a new addition to the process, it still isn't for the purpose of actually rating the game, or putting elements in context. It's just like a double-check once the game is rated, and only occurs sometimes rather than on all games rated.]