- Hey all, Scott here. I realized today's youth is waiting to getting corrupted. So it's only fair to
give every possible good or service an age-appropriate rating. Introducing the Food Eating
and Ratings Association, or FEAR for short, where we give all food on the market a rating so you can decide if it's right for you and your kids. E for Edible, R for Ranch, and ITLFN, It Tastes Like (beep) Nickles. - Rated Everyone 10 and Up. - What I would give to
win a sweepstakes dinner with that guy. The ESRB, the narcs who made
us play Simpsons Hit & Run instead of Grand Theft Auto III. They've played a major role in helping to mitigate some
video game controversies even when there's been more of them after the rating
system was established. Media has always been under scrutiny for being bad influences on our youth. Television, film, music, literature, all of that countless
controversy surrounding them in terms of content. Rock and roll was thought to corrupt the youth when it debuted. Schindler's List was broadcasted on network television unedited. You can tell that ruffled a few feathers. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Gremlins were both rated PG and featured some not-so-PG elements. And I'm still not allowed
to read Catcher in the Rye. But video games were
always seen as the worst of all those mediums. With a violent movie,
you're watching a killer. With a violent video
game, you are the killer. There have been so many
controversies surrounding games. Pinball machines were outlawed for a while, due to being
considered gambling, leading to 70s arcade games facing outcry, the game Death Race shocking many for its portrayal of
running over gremlins. Gotcha's controls were
designed to look like-- Custer's Revenge on Atari
2600 doing the whole Custer's Revenge thing. And as the years went
on, technology advanced and violent video games weren't, "oh, it kind of looks like
you're killing people." They were more like-- (relaxing music) Video games as a whole were
leading up to that moment. Video games were becoming more graphic and thus raised more eyebrows. In the arcade, games like Splatterhouse just rubbed blood and gore into your face. NARC was an incredibly violent one where you blew up dozens of people, but they were all drug dealers and the game had an anti-drug message. And of course, Mortal Combat. The fighting game craze started with Street Fighter II in 1991 and a year later, Mortal Combat came out and had to stand out from the crowd. They utilized digitized graphics which looked insane at the time. It was so realistic, but
also to help it stand out, it had a little help from our friend gore. The game already caused tons
of controversy due to this, but it was multiplied exponentially when the game made its
way to home consoles, especially the SEGA Genesis. Positioning the SEGA Genesis
as the more adult console, SEGA felt the need to
live up to that reputation by allowing more mature
games on the system while also imposing less
censorship than Nintendo. This was famously done with the home versions of Mortal Combat. While both the Super Nintendo and SEGA Genesis versions
initially lacked the blood and gore of the arcade version, all you had to do on the Genesis was enter in that sweet, sweet,
cheat code to enable it. While this made the Genesis
port a hit with kids, it didn't bode well with parents and even the U.S. Government. December 9th, 1993, was the day a congressional hearing was held to discuss violent video games and a potential system
to rate the games based on their content and themes. Mortal Combat was a major talking point alongside the games Lethal Enforcers, Night Trap, and, later on, DOOM. Yeah, the content in these games were more mature than others, but a lot of the examples of things these games did that went too far feel
a bit over-exaggerated. Lethal Enforcers used a blue toy gun and had you shooting bad
guys as a police officer. Night Trap was a full-motion video game for the SEGA CD that was as harmless as a lame directed video B-movie. And mortal Kombat, yeah, I
have no excuse for that one. Representatives for Nintendo
and Sega were present with Nintendo's Howard
Lincoln standing strong and just throwing SEGA under the bus, acting like Night Trap
was the most heinous thing ever constructed by man. - Obviously, it would
not pass our guidelines. This game, which, as you've indicated, promotes violence against women, simply has no place in our society. - This scene from Night Trap
was the one everybody got up in arms about. You can't look at this scene and say, "oh man, this is poisoning
the minds of our youth." Like what's going on here? To anyone watching this scene, it looks like a bunch of burglars are pumping a girl's
neck with some machine, which led to everybody saying, "I don't know what's going
on, but I don't like it." Even though at the time of the hearing there would be no technical way for Night Trap to run
on a Nintendo console, Lincoln made one thing very clear. - And let me say that, for the record, I want to state that Night
Trap will never appear on an Nintendo system. - Nintendo wasn't immune to
criticism during the hearing but SEGA was getting
absolutely slaughtered, mainly due to the significant increase in mature themes with
games on SEGA platforms. With Mortal Combat's blood and
their own game, Night Trap, they had it rough that day. In their defense, SEGA initiated
their own rating system a few months before the hearing. GA for general audiences, MA-13 for 13 year olds and older, and MA-17 for 17 year olds and older. They were blasted for possibly
only using a rating system to fight the backlash and
due to the age ratings being too vague, even
though the ESRB ratings are basically the same thing. - This is a copy of the packaging. There was no rating on this game at all when the game was introduced. Small children bought this at Toys R Us, and he knows that as well as I do. When they started getting
heat about this game, then they adopted the rating
system and put ratings on it. - While a lot of the arguments made during this time were
obviously kind of uninformed and pretty silly, it simply made sense for video games to receive content ratings just like movies and television, especially considering
the drastic differences between content and games. They weren't necessarily
trying to sensor games. Rather making sure consumers were aware of what they were buying. More hearings were held later in 1994, and it was agreed upon most game companies to initiate a game rating system with major retail outlets making it clear they would not buy games without a rating. That year would see the creation of the Entertainment
Software Rating Board, or the ESRB, an organization that gives video games
age-appropriate ratings. Developers send in
videos of their project, showcasing standard gameplay and what could be deemed
more objectionable content to receive one of initially five ratings: Early Childhood, Kids To Adults, Teen, Mature, or Adults Only. Later in 1998, Kids To Adults
was renamed to Everyone. And in 2005, the new
Everyone 10 and Up rating was introduced with
Donkey Kong Jungle Beat because this game couldn't
possibly have been rated E For Everyone. That's (beep) ridiculous. Later, the design of the ratings changed to pure black letters with a
slight design revision in 2013. Good? Remember these spray
paint stencil designs? There's something oddly charming
about the old school look of these ratings,
especially the K To A one, even though I definitely
prefer E For Everyone as it's way more
straightforward and clear. Back during the Game
Cube, PS2, and X-Box era, it felt like there was a nice variety of games rated E, T, and M. Nowadays, it feels more like
it's everything or nothing. Honestly, how many times
have you seen a T rated game this generation? Of course, there's the elusive EC and AO. EC is fairly uncommon, mainly used on edutainment
games on the PC. ESRB's website claims that only 289 games have
been given the rating. On the exact opposite
side of the spectrum, Adults Only is by far the rarest rating with only 27 games rated as such. Now there's really not
a ton of games rated AO for a few reasons. One of them being the fact that most AO rated games are basically-- (triumphant music) Another being the fact that
all console manufacturers have a policy against AO games, stating that they aren't
allowed on the platforms and similarly, most retail chains won't carry products rated AO. This is the main reason we
don't see the rating too often. If developers actually
want to sell their game and it happens to get rated AO, they have to go in there
and change some things up. More recently, the game
Agony received the rating and the developers had
to tone the violence down to go full-on M rated so it could be released on consoles. Due to the BIG3's policies, the majority of AO games
have only appeared on PC, exceptions being the
Phillips CDI and a DVD game. However, we do have two more examples of AO games on consoles, one being Thrill Kill on the PS1. The game got hit with an AO rating, but never released commercially. You can find the ROM
online crazy easily though. The other one was, oh, Grand
Theft Auto San Andreas. So that's why CJ isn't in Smash Brothers. After the games released, an
unfinished sex scene was found in the game's files, later
dubbed as the Hot Coffee mod. It wasn't accessible
without hacking the game but people were angry even though the game was already rated M. And like I said, it wasn't
accessible without hacking. It was nothing special. You get the same experience from watching two action
figures going at it but it was a big enough deal
that the game was rerated AO and pulled from shelves, which led to Rockstar rereleasing the game to reachieve an M rating, which is why you'll see many copies of San Andreas with "Second
Edition," written on them. A similar situation went down with Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion, where a random somebody made
a nude mod for the game. It was discovered deep
within the game's files existed the art the mod
used for the nudity. (bell chimes) That was uncalled for. Nowadays, it feels like
more mature content is getting the pass
within lower age ratings. Indigo Prophecy's unedited PC release was originally given an AO rating, but recently, with the release of an uncensored remastered
version, it was given an M. Also Gal Gun Double Peace is a game where you shoot pheromones at girls and it's rated E For Everyone. Guys, society finally accepts us! (beep) it was a misprint. Sometimes the game's rating
can leave you perplexed like, "How the (beep) are so many
Kirby games rated E 10+?" Like I get it. Kirby games can get kind of intense, but too intense for a seven year old? Games and series well-known for being one specific
rating can change things up at a moment's notice. And it weirds me out. Ah, Dark Souls. Oh yeah, big M-rated series. Okay. Batman Arkham series. Oh, Phoenix Wright. Oh, come on. Fight Night, an EA sports
title easy contender for family fun. Jesus. Would you look at this? ESRB.org has a description of content found in games
that could be objectionable. I got to say, many M-rated games definitely have a hardy
dose of (beep) (beep). With ESRB being around
for nearly 25 years, it's maintained its place as one of the most important
aspects of the gaming industry. (beep) that! With the inception of digital games, kids can buy as many
M-rated games as they want like kid walks into the store, buys PlayStation Network Bucks, goes home, buys Bloody
McSex Scene, the game, and becomes Genghis Kahn. Like come on, I thought
we got rid of that guy. Disregarding that, so many
parents just buy their kids M-rated games with no second thought. They just don't look at the
ratings and then blame the game for being too vulgar for their kids. Why don't you actually be a parent and regulate what media
your child consumes rather than blaming the media itself? Different people are
into different things, meaning not every piece
of media produced is going to be G-rated. That's true concerning everything,
especially video games. Most of video games
that garner controversy for being unsuitable for
children are already rated M. But is that ever brought
up when all these big shots who know nothing about video games, talk about how video games
are corrupting society? No, they just talk about how the newest Call of Duty is poisoning our children when, guys! Guys, guys! It's absolutely ridiculous how hard it is for people to notice the bold black letter in the corner of these games. Well I'm taking a stand. We need to expand the
size of these things. It's for the kids. (upbeat music)
