It’s more about Americans protecting their children from nudity? I think?
I’m EU; I grew up “exposed” to naked statues along the imperial Viennese building facades, so I can’t really relate, but i’m sure Americans don’t want their kids being exposed to any sort of nudity at all.
Age verification through “live online service” is the only way to achieve this when it comes to consoles, without banning nudity altogether.
Americans need to learn to stop trying to push parental responsibilities onto third parties, and I say that as an American. Once we do that then maybe we’ll realize we can’t and shouldn’t try to keep kids in a bubble, shielded from any and all negative influences.
All that we should be asking is that it not be put on public display. More than that and you start inviting a number of other problems.
The ratings system is what’s keeping adult games off shelves in brick & mortar stores though, and the Xbox & Playstation online stores.
With an age verification system instead, adult games could be sold anywhere. Replace that ESRB rating with a sticker that says “This game contains adult content that is blocked by age verification.”, or something similar, and the game could be sold at Wal-Mart.
Uh, no. Walmart would still not carry such products. Believe me, it’s not the ESRB or the rating system that Walmart and other retailers have a problem with. It’s a PR thing. They don’t want to be associated with adult products, period.
If anything, an age verification sticker like that could cause them to stop carrying any M rated titles as well since that’s all going to end up being lumped together with the AO stuff.
Yes really. ■■■■■■ is a medicinal product. It’s a far cry from the kind of stuff we’re talking about.
(Wow, really? That’s censored here but the one in the above post isn’t? Boy, word filters sure have come a long way from the days when you just asterisked out a small handful of four letter words. )
It’s not just medicinal products. Instead of me linking to anything else though and potentially angering our moderators, you can just run a Google search for “marital aids walmart” yourself and see what I mean.
They sell just about whatever you could think of, no reason they couldn’t ease into selling adult video games too.
Then wouldn’t it make more sense to be compaigning within the USA for the big retail sellers of PS4 and Xbox games to sell AO rated games … if the retail giants will sell AO rated games then less game production studios would censor the games to gain the nonAO ERSB ratings so they can have their games more widely distributed.
Campaigning the development studios seems backwards… it’s the ERSB ratings agency that needs to be pressured to reassess what an AO rating encompasses and/or the retailers to stock the AO titles.
I shop at Walmart every week. I even worked there at one point. The worst I’ve seen is some KY. I really, REALLY don’t see them stocking their shelves with stuff from the Sin Bin, and that’s exactly the image Walmart and other big brick and mortar stores like them want to keep. Which is why they don’t stock AO games in the first place.
Yes, yes it would. But as I’ve been saying, the problem is PR related. Not only would you have to convince them that they can make more money selling AO games, you’d also have to convince them that there isn’t going to be a mass exodus or a boycott over it.
Unfortunately, big companies these days are a little gun shy because of a perception that various activist groups are more powerful than they actually are. One person can get upset over some stupidly innocuous thing and raise a big stink about it on Twitter and the next thing you know someone’s been fired or a product is no longer available. Even if by every conceivable measure that one person is provably wrong, companies have developed a nasty habit of caving to them anyway lately.
I’m not campaigning developers, never said anything about devs doing anything. The way things are is not on them. My point this whole time has been how useless the ESRB ratings on video games are, and how it’s hurting developer creativity. The ESRB is exactly what needs to change.
Stocking the shelves, yeah, probably not, but the website is a different story. That’s were the sin bin stuff is. I’ve never seen any feminine messaging utensils on a shelf in the store, but they’re dang sure selling them on the website.
Well, yeah, the website is always going to be a different story, but then you’re not talking about brick and mortar stores.
The ESRB is changing, FYI. Stuff rated T today would have been instantly rated M or AO back when it was created. But ultimately that’s still not going to get you what you want. You’re still going to have to change the policies and perceptions of the big retailers and console manufacturers. Again, it’s not the rating itself that is the problem. It’s how these companies and the public feel about the content that earned that rating.
Some places wont care Adult rated stuff, Condoms, Tampons and ■■■■■■ are in Pharmacy area.
Its not a huge deal.
Music section, Books, Blueray, Games section were Kids tend roam thru… Ya, Target, Walmart etc tend to not carry anything to crazy.
AO games in general are barred from alot of retailers. Its diffidently a Funcom, or CD red with Cyberpunk 2077, needs print a 2nd run of disc with AO rating, and sell it thru website.
Look at Companies who do not do disc prints to save money, Hellblade, Salt an Sanctuary.
(they did disc runs AFTER, they found there was a demand)
I;m sure Funcom has a large print of loose conan exiles disc… so a demand for AO disc may never get approved. @Ignasipokes
Staff would have make note of it, and if bosses think they can, and make money… maybe.
Conan Exiles, AO rated with 1.35 patch already to go?! I’d throw money at them.
What is the world is trying to protect children from? Maybe it’s to keep children clueless about sexuality, so pedos can continue to exploit their cluelessness?
I’d imagine they do, after a certain age anyway. IIRC, I started paying attention to that sort of thing around the age of 11 or 12. I can still remember sneaking around and finding Pop’s stash of old magazines.
It’s like I said earlier though, kids will find a way to access adult stuff one way or another. Ratings on games is not going to stop it. Public attitude towards adult content won’t stop a kid from sneaking around and getting into it either.
We need to think about this logically. Nothing is going to curb pubescent curiosity, so why try to block it. General education on sexuality, and the issues that arise from it, would do more good than anything else. Censorship is just a lazy alternative.
Also, just to clarify my stance on the matter, pedos should suffer the worst imaginable death. Abusing children is disgusting. I am not advocating any such behavior.
Totally with you on that.
With websites like imagefap.com, XNXX, Pornhub, Redtube and … god knows how many other millions of free ■■■■ websites there are, ESRB exists purely for consoles I think. You have skyrim ,that doesn’t feature nudity, then you blow it out of the water with www.loverslab.com