Bits ‘n’ Bytes Gaming Overlord Martin Watts has penned a great article about the inherent flaws in game ratings and how both readers and outlets tend to interpret them. This is a longstanding issue, one that everyone seems to hate but for which no one seems able to impose a fix. Check out Martin’s view and ask yourself: how many times have you seen a score of “seven” and considered the game mediocre? I know …
From the Land of Ill-Advised comes a report that the Entertainment Software Ratings Board, the official games rating system in North America, has decided to stop doing its job. Because its job is hard. Thus in what I deeply hope is an elaborate and belated April Fool’s trick, the ESRB is switching to a computer-based system with little or no human intervention. Games will now be rated by algorithm and, apparently, a questionnaire that draws …
In a move sure to chap the ass of former South Australia Attorney General Michael Atkinson, the Aussie federal cabinet has approved the adoption of an R18+ classification for games down under, effectively eliminating the tacit ban on any games deemed unsuitable for an R15+ – formerly the highest rating. This still has to be approved by Australian states and territories, and presumably adopted by Parliament as well, but it’s a step in the right …
For those who don’t follow such things, a bring-you-up-to-speed: the land of Australia, which I will never visit on account of the Huntsman Spider, does not have a rating classification for “mature” games – what we in the States would call M-rated games, or what our PEGI-using friends in Grand Europa would call 18-rated, or what Australia would call R-18+ if it had such a rating, which it does not. Why not? South Australian Attorney …
It is my belief that the term “computer game” is a misnomer.I have no trouble accepting the word computer, since indeed, we experience them on a computer.It is the word “game” that I have problems with.Surely most gamers are sophisticated enough to accept the fact that we have progressed to the point that the word “game” is not only incongruous, it is incorrect.