Oblivion re-rated M for Mature
Yesterday the ESRB re-rated Oblivion M for Mature. Bethesda’s response to the re-rating followed shortly afterwards.
Apparently the re-rating was mainly triggered by a user created modification that allows players to play with topless versions of female characters (Hot Coffee anyone?). In addition, the ESRB accused Bethesda of improperly disclosing the excessive amounts of blood and gore that go beyond a Teen rating.
Personally, I don’t agree with the new rating. Oblivion certainly contains a fair amount of violence, but it doesn’t strike me as any worse than similar games in this genre. Still, I understand how a case might be made based on violent content (although it is ridiculous that this was not properly assessed at the time the original rating was assigned, and I can only fault the ESRB, not Bethesda for this). But I simply can’t grasp how the fact that user created modifications can introduce nudity into the game should influence the rating. I believe that this sets a very bad precedent for similar cases and represents a huge threat for consumer created content in general.
User created game content has been an important feature for the past 10-15 years (dating back to Doom and Quake mods, etc.) that significantly increases the replay value of games and brings out the creative skills in players who otherwise would only be able to consume spoon-fed gaming content… Game developers like Bethesda should be applauded for the extensibility afforded by their plugin system and not be held responsible for the nature of user created content.
Aside from that, is having some topless female characters (or nude male characters for that matter) in the game really such a big deal? Maybe I’m just desensitized because I’m from Germany (where day time TV commercials for almost any type of consumer product, ranging from soap to cereal bars, contain nudity), but I just couldn’t care less. Let the teenies have some fun with the game…
Update: I just filed a complaint with the ESRB, and I encourage you to do the same.
May 4th, 2006 at 10:50 pm
[...] I just posted a comment about the ESRB’s decision to re-rate Oblivion as M for Mature on my regular blog. Read it here. [...]
May 6th, 2006 at 5:18 pm
The re-rating is more about the violence than the artwork that was discovered to be on the disk. Yes, it was ON THE DISK and not added by a third party mod, only accesed by it. I, for one, can read throught the nipple hype to see that the true issued is the violence. Yeah, the ESRB made a mistake, but then we don’t know exactly how much violence was shown to them by Bethesda so it’s pretty hard to pin the blame anywhere right now, just to admit that a mistake was made and it’s being corrected.
BTW, for anyone that doesn’t believe Oblivion deserves an M rating, do you honestly think the violence is less than what is in Halo (an M rated game due to violence)? If you say yes, then you’re firmly in denial.