Lately, it seems, that video games have come back into the controversy spotlight. Once again, people are complaining about games not having any kind of system to prevent kids from playing games they shouldn't. Even the U.S. Supreme Court is getting into the act.

The problem is: There already is a system. It's called the ESRB in the U.S. and Canada.

That stands for Entertainment Software Rating Board. It rates video games much in the same way that the Motion Picture Association of America rates the films in the U.S.. There are, however, rating systems for pretty much every where in the world.

In Europe, it's the Pan European Game Information (PEGI). In Austrailia, it's the Office of Film and Literature Classification (generally just listed as the Classification Board). In China, it's the Ministry of Culture. Japan calls it CERO.

And so on and so forth. I could spend an entire blog just listing the agencies already in place to rate video games and describing their rating systems. However, since my site data tells me that more than 90% of all the hits to my site every month are from North America, I'll concentrate on them. The ESRB.

Before I go into what started the controversy this time, let me tell you about the ESRB rating system.

The ESRB uses a rating system not too dissimilar to what the MPAA uses for movies in America. The ratings are broken into age appropriate groups and defined in the rating, itself.

EC stands for Early Childhood. This rating means that the game is suitable for children ages 3 and up. These will be almost entirely educational games.

E stands for Everyone. This one is intended for children ages 6 and up. This is basically Disney levels of violence. This category falls in with cartoons like Bugs Bunny and Tom and Jerry.

E10+ was introduced a few years ago when people complained that the leap between E (6 years old) and T (13 years old) was too great. So, in comes E10+, meaning Everyone 10 and older. This has more 'cartoon violence' than the standard E rating, or maybe non-graphic (no blood or detail, enemies go *pop* and disappear) killing.

T stands for Teen, meaning 13 years and older. Here is where you start to get more 'regular' violence. There might be a little blood, some crude humour, and the occasional 'bitch' thrown in.

M stands for Mature. It says right on the front 17+. These will contain the more graphic blood, guts, and gore, strong language, and sexual content (note: just implications or, at most, sounds and innuendo. Any actual sex falls into AO).

Adults Only. I think the title says it all. If you're not an adult, you shouldn't even be looking at this game. So far, to date, there have been exactly 3 console video games to ever recieve the AO rating, and they were all changed to not have that rating. But more on that later.

But if we already have a rating system, and we're still having issues, there must be something wrong with it, right? So, let's look at the system as it's in place right now.

Let's suppose for a moment that I was making my own video game; Yunthor the Barbarian. Now, my goal would likely be a T rating, as they tend to have a larger target audience. It's like aiming for PG-13 instead R when making a movie.

Once done, I ship a finished copy of Yunthor the Barbarian to the ESRB for rating. Unfortunately for me, the ESRB gives Yunthor a M rating, higher than I had hoped. Apparently I put too much blood and gore in the game.

That leaves me with two choices: Ship the game rated M, or change what the ESRB says I need to change to make it a rated T game. This is not unlike editing a movie because it received a rated R instead of a PG-13.

I decide to leave it at the M rating for whatever reason (really, Yunthor is better suited for rated M games, anyway), so it hits store shelves with an M rating on the front, and on the back warnings for Language, Blood and Gore, and Intense Violence. And probably Brief or Partial Nudity. Yunthor's a barbarian, after all, but I don't believe you have to over-do it.

Junior decides he wants the game, so he begs Mom and Dad for it. Finally, they give in and let Junior have the game. When they go to buy it at Mega-Mart, a notice comes up to the cashier, who then has to warn Mom and Dad that the game is rated M and is not intended for the 12 year old Junior.

Here is where the breakdown in the system occurs. They system works fine, admirably even, with very few errors until it gets to the consumer.

But, what about those 3 AO games, you ask?

The first was a game call The Punisher that came out around the time of the movie with Thomas Jane (2005), who also voiced the Punisher in the game. Much like the Yunthor the Barbarian example I used above, this game was sent to the ESRB and recieved an AO rating. But unlike in my example, the developer THQ when back and redid the game. This time, the ESRB gave it a M rating. THQ apparently accepted this, because that's the rating the game shipped with.

The third game (yes, I skipped one for now) was a game called Manhunt 2 by Rockstar London. Manhunt 2 was one of those games that started a controversy before the game even came out. Jack Thompson tried to sue to prevent the game from coming out after it was announced. Wendy's fastfood chain canceled a Wii-related promotional event when it was announced that Manhunt 2 was coming to the Wii. This is all before the game was sent to the ESRB for rating.

Though the game was originally rated AO, like the Punisher before it, Manhunt 2 was edited to remove make it rated M. Hackers later figured out how to unlock the AO content, but the ESRB said that, since it required an intentional act by the players to access the content that isn't accessible in a non-hacked version, the rating would stay intact.

Now, the game I skipped. Game number 2. You've probably heard of it. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. What happened with Manhunt 2 was pretty much what happened with GTA:SA. The big difference is that the developers realized as they were building the game that it would be AO, so they took steps themselves to reduce the rating to M before even sending it to the ESRB. It got it's M rating and shipped. Also like Manhunt 2, hackers eventually figured out how to access the AO material. Unlike Manhunt 2, though, it had a big name that was seen as controversial; Grand Theft Auto.

Even though, like Manhunt 2 after it, the AO material had to be intentionally hacked and accessed, it was changed to an AO rating and pulled from the shelves. Rockstar eventually released a version with the AO material completely removed to prevent hacking and received their M rating back. You may have heard of this event, it was called Hot Coffee

Now, what sparked off the controversy this time? I'm fairly sure it was Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Hence the logo above.

You see, they have this level in the game call "No Russian", in which your character, an undercover special forces operative who's trying to infiltrate a Russian mafia, is made to go through this airport while the civilians are slaughtered. Your character can join in the slaughter, or choose not to.

Or, you can just skip the level all together if you deem the level inappropriate.

Yeah, Infinity Ward, the company that made the game, already figured that people might find the level offensive, so they put in a way for people to skip it if they wanted to. It's completely optional, firing, not firing, or skipping the level entirely has absolutely no effect on the outcome of the game.

And people rose hell about this because their kids were playing it. But let me show you something:

Hmm... It's rated M. And as we already know from the explanations above, M is for Mature, with a 17+ on it. So, this game's not intended for kids. The game clearly says so on the box. Well, that "Mature: 17+" could be confusing, so let's look at the back.

Let's see...

Rated M: 17+? Well, I suppose that could be a hint that it might not be intended for your 12 year old.

Blood? Check. But it's a shooter, so it's bound to have blood, right?

Drug Reference? You know, to be honest, I don't even remember this in the game.

Intense Violence? I don't know... Do you think that might mean that the game has a little bit of violence to it? I'm just not sure...

Language? Oh yeah, there's plenty of that in the game. More than was needed, but I don't really mind. It says more to me about the story telling abilities of the writer than anything else. But nobody buys Call of Duty games for the story. They buy it for the 'intense violence'.

And the multiplayer. The online game play isn't rated for the simple fact that you can't rate how other people are going to act until they already have acted. Joining a multiplayer game is like walking into a random crowd of people at a busy subway station. You never know what conversation you'll hear or how crazy they may be until you do it.

But the multiplayer isn't the issue in the controversy. It's the 'No Russian' level, in the single player, that was rated and you were warned about before you bought the game. It even goes on to give you the option of skipping the level entirely.

But you don't hear about that. You hear about 'poor children' who were exposed to an optional level in a game not even meant for them.

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