by Cord Blomquist
June 20, 2007

Rating systems satisfy a strong demand within the market for information. For decades The MPAA system (the familiar PG, PG-13, and R) has given parents a quick and easy way to decide what their kids should watch. That system has seen such success it has been adopted in similar form by the video game industry.

But now Washington threatens break this system and deny parents an important tool. The inspiration for this move is Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. This popular 2004 release was rated M, a rating the ESRB describes as, "suitable for persons ages 17 and older . . . may contain intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content and/or strong language." As if the title wasn't obvious enough, this rating let's parents know that this game is not for the little ones.

M rated games are not uncommon, so the violent and adult nature of this game was not new. However, a player skilled in programming scoured the original source code looking for hidden elements of the game. What he found wasn't just hidden, but sexually explicit material that had been completely edited out of the final game. This type of edited material is common, as programmers often leave unutilized code in the game to avoid the possibility that removing it might break the game. By creating a download-able modification to the game, this savvy 3rd party turned this game from simply violent to both violent and pornographic.

Soon parental groups learned that this game, already an adult title, could be turned into a very adult title. The hysteria that ensued has now found its way into the halls of Congress. The "Truth in Video Game Rating Act" (S.568), introduced earlier this year, would require video game ratings organizations to play all games "in their entirety" before issuing ratings. It would also prohibit game designers from including any "hidden" content that users can later unlock.

This seems like a measured and necessary response to the San Andrews fallout, but the nature of modern video games renders playing some games in their entirety impossible. Many of today's games do not progress linearly, from level to level, but rather present virtual worlds for players to explore with infinite gaming possibilities. These worlds are also increasingly found online, so that players are not only interacting with the game, but with millions of other players.

Ironically, the bill would force many commercial games to go without a rating at all. If the ESRB doesn't have the resources to play a game in full, or if a company doesn't want the proprietary source code to its game shared to prove it isn't hiding anything, then a game cannot receive a rating under the proposed law. This would result in parents having even less information about the games their children play.

How could the ESRB lack the resources to play entire games? It seems like volunteers would be lined up around the block to play games for living. However, many games have more than 200 hours of game-play, more than 1,000 games are released each year, and three ESRB raters are required to play each game. That's over a half million hours of games in a year!

Then again, being unrated might actually be a selling point—look no further than the sales of the unrated version of the movie American Pie. However, most retailers currently won't stock AO (adults only) rated games, and wouldn't think about an unrated title. A non-rating will likely make pariahs out of some titles for no better reason than the difficulties of complying with a one-size-fits-all federal mandate.

Even if every minute of packaged, commercial game play could be rated, to truly lock out the possibility of any offensive content reaching kids legislation would not only have to mandate that games be played "in their entirety" before being rated, but that designers safeguard their games against third-party modification.

Third-party modification—known as "modding"—doesn't just involve unlocking edited material. Enthusiast communities can re-engineer games into World War II battle zones or J.R.R. Tolkien inspired nerd-fests. Mods can even replace the standard characters of a game with likenesses of anyone from politicians to porn stars. After lawmakers discover that the play-the- whole-game law hasn't put an end to violent and smutty video games, they'll have to ban modding as well.

But Congress can't stop there! Amateurs are not only modifying games, they're also creating games out of whole cloth. These do-it-yourself gamer communities aren't bound by laws governing the sale of video games so they are outside the reach of congressional censorship—at least for now. Any non-commercial game would also have to be banned in order for our nation's children to finally be free of objectionable material.

If all of this doesn't seem absurd enough already, consider that the overwhelming majority of gamers are adults . In fact, according to the Entertainment Software Association, a mere 31 percent of gamers are under 18—meaning nearly 70 percent of video game players can already legally view pornography or violence in films and other media to their heart's content.

Ultimately, no bill can insulate children from violence or pornography in the absence of good parenting. Legislation can, however, stifle creativity, create rigid mandates for a dynamic industry, and make it harder for adults to access legal content that is easily accessible in other forms.

If there is to be a mandate for something to be reviewed in its entirety, perhaps it should be legislation. Two-hundred-hour video games look petty in comparison to 200-or-more-page appropriations bills spending hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars.

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