The Ratings Game

If I don't have kids, why do I care?

(and other gamer misconceptions)
The ratings game has a lot more effects than just how many teenagers can buy a graphic game. The very decision of what is or is not graphic content is a nebulous metric that can vary greatly not only from country to country but from household to household. One person's idea of outright censorship is another person's basic premise of common decency. As US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart once said, "I cannot define obscenity, but I know it when I see it."

Because of this, it would make sense that different countries should have different rating standards. However, that issue can quickly lead down a slippery slope to true censorship - one need only look at Carmageddon for an example. Aside from that, the submission to different ratings agencies can cost a publisher a considerable sum - not one of the agencies, including the BBFC, is government operated and none of them rate a game for free.

To accommodate for the different ratings systems and their individual quirks and tricks, publishers sometimes have to spend excess money making different versions of the games for the different markets. Sometimes these are small and quick changes, but many times they can require whole parts being altered. These issues (along with the multiple submissions) end up increasing the costs of games on the whole, which ends up being passed to you and me by higher prices. All of this makes it much less likely that a larger development house will spend the money to release a more risky game that could get blackballed from stores all across entire regions. If you can't work the controversy to your advantage like Rockstar and Take Two, it is just easier to play it safe - and not everyone can be a Rockstar.

To that effect, it's a broad misconception held by European gamers that the US ratings system is its own problem, or that what affects it won't affect the European markets. Many big publishing houses (and a bulk of developer studios) reside in the US, and it accounts for a tremendous amount of game sales. Therefore, the cries from Congress for a harsher rating system there, more government oversight, or even chains like Wal-mart flexing moral muscle by refusing to carry certain ratings will alter the games that the industry releases as a whole. When such a large market ends up closed off to a game, there may be too many development costs for it to ever be profitable. Add to that the reality that the legal enforcement idea of the UK simply couldn't be effectively implemented nationwide in the US (too much land to cover) and you've got a problem desperately needing a solution.

No, the ratings game has a lot more to do with the industry than most of us would like to think. The status of PEGI and the ESRB especially (due to the sheer size of the consumer bases they represent) could have broad implications on the market of video games as a whole, whether you're a console lover, PC gamer, or like to go portable with your DS or PSP.