In what appears to be looming political trouble for the video game industry, four United States senators have signed a letter calling for a “thorough review” of the ESRB rating system.
As reported by Video Business, Senators Hillary Clinton (D-NY), Joe Lieberman (ID-CT), Evan Bayh (D-IN) and Sam Brownback (R-KS) sent the letter to ESRB president Patricia Vance yesterday. The move was prompted by the furor surrounding the M rating assigned by the ESRB to a revised version of Manhunt 2.
All four senators have been critics of the video game industry in the past. Lieberman is generally credited with pressuring the industry to create a rating system in the mid-1990’s. Clinton was the most prominent political voice heard during the 2005 Hot Coffee scandal.
Brownback has legislation pending in the Senate which would mandate that the ESRB play games to their entirety before assigning a rating. Bayh was a co-sponsor, along with Lieberman and Clinton, of the unsuccessful Family Entertainment Protection Act.
Clinton, of course, is the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination. From the letter:
As you know, in June 2007, the British Board of Film Classification refused to rate Rockstar’s Manhunt 2 videogame … stating that it contains ‘unremitting bleakness and callousness of tone. In October 2007, the BBFC again refused to rate a revised Manhunt 2 stating that ‘the impact of the revisions on the bleakness and callousness of tone … is clearly insufficient.
[The ESRB, however,] reduced the revised version’s rating to “Mature,” effectively opening the door to its widespread distribution and its licensing approval by game system manufacturers Sony and Nintendo.
The senators also expressed concern over the game’s appearance on Nintendo’s Wii, intimating that the system’s motion-sensitive controller “permits children to act out each of the many graphic torture scenes and murders.” They suggested that the Wii controller be considered as a factor in future rating assignments:
In sum, we ask your consideration of whether it is time to review the robustness, reliability and repeatability of your ratings process, particularly for this genre of ‘ultra-violent’ videogames and advances in game controllers.
GP: Particulary in regard to Clinton and Lieberman (pictured at left), the letter represents a setback for the ESRB and the video game industry. As recently as December of 2006, the pair had publicly praised the ESRB.
As reported by Video Business, Senators Hillary Clinton (D-NY), Joe Lieberman (ID-CT), Evan Bayh (D-IN) and Sam Brownback (R-KS) sent the letter to ESRB president Patricia Vance yesterday. The move was prompted by the furor surrounding the M rating assigned by the ESRB to a revised version of Manhunt 2.
All four senators have been critics of the video game industry in the past. Lieberman is generally credited with pressuring the industry to create a rating system in the mid-1990’s. Clinton was the most prominent political voice heard during the 2005 Hot Coffee scandal.
Brownback has legislation pending in the Senate which would mandate that the ESRB play games to their entirety before assigning a rating. Bayh was a co-sponsor, along with Lieberman and Clinton, of the unsuccessful Family Entertainment Protection Act.
Clinton, of course, is the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination. From the letter:
As you know, in June 2007, the British Board of Film Classification refused to rate Rockstar’s Manhunt 2 videogame … stating that it contains ‘unremitting bleakness and callousness of tone. In October 2007, the BBFC again refused to rate a revised Manhunt 2 stating that ‘the impact of the revisions on the bleakness and callousness of tone … is clearly insufficient.
[The ESRB, however,] reduced the revised version’s rating to “Mature,” effectively opening the door to its widespread distribution and its licensing approval by game system manufacturers Sony and Nintendo.
The senators also expressed concern over the game’s appearance on Nintendo’s Wii, intimating that the system’s motion-sensitive controller “permits children to act out each of the many graphic torture scenes and murders.” They suggested that the Wii controller be considered as a factor in future rating assignments:
In sum, we ask your consideration of whether it is time to review the robustness, reliability and repeatability of your ratings process, particularly for this genre of ‘ultra-violent’ videogames and advances in game controllers.
GP: Particulary in regard to Clinton and Lieberman (pictured at left), the letter represents a setback for the ESRB and the video game industry. As recently as December of 2006, the pair had publicly praised the ESRB.
