A lot has changed in the past year or two regarding ESRB ratings and digitally distributed games and applications. The cost has been removed, the chance that your game will miss launch has been removed, etc. What do people think?
Are you guys (developers, and indie devs in particular) for or against ESRB rating of your games? 47 votes
I have no problem with it
I dislike it in some ways, but would be okay with it
I would really prefer to avoid this
I hate it, don't sign me up
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Piers
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Update:
It's been a while since I've read about the ESRB changes, but now that I'm caught up, here is a rundown for the uninformed:
-Can apply a ESRB rating to your game free of charge (digital only, not physical games).
-Simple online form to fill out and will instantly give your game a rating. No review process.
-Porting your game to a different system will not require you to reapply for an ESRB rating, unless new content is added (if you added violence to your game, nudity, etc).
Seems simple and harmless enough.
Nexus Game Studio | @ NexusGameStudio
The advantage is one single standard means everyone knows what a rating means without having to look it up - if someone sees one of these in the app store when looking at your game:
they'll know exactly what it means. Also, the rating isn't really determined by the seller, you fill out a form that explains what's in your game, and that is used to spit out the rating, and store it in their searchable database. They check up on random games to make sure the info is accurate, and have a complaints process, and if you are discovered lying, your game is removed from all app stores on all downloadable services until you get it rerated, and if you are caught more than once, then you are banned from any of your games ever being rated (which means app stores that require ratings won't ever host any of your games).
At best it would be another hoop to jump through for people with too much work already. (If it was mandatory, or socially-mandatory it would be yet another hassle to discourage people from bringing a cross-platform game to Ouya.)
At worst it will encourage developers to modify their games to to either intentionally appease or intentionally offend the right-wing American attitudes that dominate the ESRB's standards, to hit whatever rating they think would best serve their marketing goals.
I feel we really need to avoid the Cargo-cult mentality of "The pros do this, so therefore we should do this because we want to be like them." They do it for political reasons. Political reasons that have nothing to do with us indies.
They've gotten rid of the fee to encourage adoption of their service, but when the gaming world goes to all-download, they're going to need to bring in the cash somehow.
If Ouya starts using them now, it'll be stuck using them, even after they start charging fees again.
The ESRB is a not-for-profit organization, the fees they charge are what's needed to pay for reviewers. They have no need to "bring in the cash".
As for "The pros", sure they do it for political reasons - ones that are extremely important. A standard ratings system is what keeps the government from enforcing their own one. This is the reason the movie ratings board was created, and it's the reason the ESRB was created. Whenever the US government starts saying "We need to keep kids from buying violent video games", the ESA steps in and says "Constitutional reasons aside, we already have our own system in place that does exactly that. Parents can set max ratings on their consoles for digital downloads, and stores voluntarily abide by the ratings as well."
I feel like I'm missing something, they've announced it but I cannot for the life of me actually locate it.
This isn't true at all.
Non-profit is not the same as "doesn't want money". Quite the opposite. Like any organization they actively try to grow and increase their influence.
The ESRB spends over four million dollars a year on lobbyists alone! (They ain't always lobbying for 1st amendment rights either, they're also lobbying for mandatory ratings.)
They have offices in New York city, they have staff members and managers who work in those offices, they run television, magazine, and online advertisements, etc.
They're not a bunch of volunteers doing this for the good of the little guy. They're a large company that was founded by a consortium of other large companies (like EA), and they act like it. Just because they don't have to pay dividends to shareholders doesn't change that.
I'll grant that reasonable people could disagree on this, but I'm not buying it. The ESRB was founded by big game companies and still works for them. The Ouya, and the upsurge in indie gaming in general, is a direct affront to those big companies.
Ultimately, the ESRB isn't on our side, they're funded entirely by the people who stand to lose the most money as indie games become more popular.
That would be super-convenient if OUYA had a similar thing, and I'd definitely support that.
The other one to consider is PEGI in Europe (which is where I'm based). I guess it depends on whether OUYA is selling the game and paying us royalties, or we are selling the game via the OUYA store. And also where the transaction takes place (legally speaking). Is it in the US or in the country where the customer is?
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I think you are mixing up the ERSB with the ESA. The ESA are the lobbyists for the gaming industry, not the ESRB, the ESRB is only about ratings, rating games and advertising the ratings system so people know what it means. And no, they have never once lobbied to make the rating system mandatory by law, like I said, one of the whole goals of the ESRB and the ESA are to keep that from happening, to keep the government from making laws banning video game sales. The ESA has directly fought against it when the government tried to make ESRB ratings both mandatory and punishable by law if a store sold a game to a different age group than the rating.
Also, it seems you have some big grudge against big game developers, and think OUYA is only about indies, but one of OUYA's goals is to get those big developers onboard, and doing things "the way the professionals do it" is one of the ways to help that happen. And I for one want those developers, they'll bring in more potential customers for my games.
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As I understand it, the ESRB was initially conceived as a purely informational and self-regulating industry entity to abate the proposed legislations of senator Lieberman and others in the 1990’s. Like the MPAA from which the ESRB was loosely based on, it’s initially powerless ratings are repeatedly targeted as a binding legal basis in content restriction laws. A recent example is the bill H.R. 287 which overtly states that the ESRB’s “Mature” rating decides if your game should be illegal to sell to anyone under 17. If I can avoid it, I don’t want anything to do with a potential great and powerful Wizard of Oz dictating the distribution rights of my work because it can be classified as a video game.
With my personal censorship paranoia aside, I can very easily understand that having ESRB ratings could greatly help the OUYA gain foothold in the family market segment; it’s just not the thing for me.