Wired’s Kohler Dishes on AO Ratings

Everyone deserves the chance to say whatever they want to say, and though something might be said or shown that is racist, sexist, ignorant, or whatever, they have that right, just as others have the right to ignore it or fight back and call them out on ignorance. However, the point is that people should get to experience something fully as it was intended, and too often games are having to censor themselves to not get the dreaded AO rating. Personally speaking, I think these games deserve to get made how originally intended, get their voices heard, and then let players or whoever then criticize or not support the game with their money.

From the article:

And those are just the ones we know about. Developers speaking publicly on their ratings woes is a rather new trend. According to the ESRB there are at least a dozen instances in the last five years of developers self-censoring their games in order to earn a lower rating. So while Rockstar’s dilemma is nothing new, instances like these are becoming more frequent. Says ESRB president Patricia Vance:

As the capabilities of the systems become more complex and the types of content in games becomes much more varied, you’re going to find the creators of these games pushing the envelope in a variety of different ways.

Vance points out that a game maker’s ability to sell an AO game is not the ESRB’s concern.

These are business decisions that are being made by retailers and console manufacturers… We assign ratings and then the market determines what’s acceptable.

Kohler counters that the market can’t vote on games that console manufacturers won’t license and retailers like Wal-Mart won’t carry even though it has no issue stocking products like the unrated edition of Saw III.

Read the full article over at gamepolitics.com