Breaking: Oblivion Rating Changed to M

ESRB uses the pimp hand and smacks Oblivion with an M rating. Games being pulled from shelves, and GameDaily just received word from the IEMA... another Hot Coffee?

Well, I think the artical answers that question...this could possibly cause a very negative shockwave throughout, and now instead of people targeting the developers, mods could be effected. Unfourtuatley I do not think parents should be completely worried, because if its just a MOD that changes it, then they just have to control what mods are loaded. In my mind it is still a T rated game, though if it was raised because of the asssasonations, murder, and vice versa, I would understand if it was a M rated game, but this is ridcuelous. From the response of this, it directly shows that the ERSB doesnt care about violence (though I bet they do, but in this instance it is not shown), but go nuts if nudity is enabled by a THIRD PARTY MOD. I'm sorry , but the ERSB has broken a line of stupidity: the ERSB rates games, and if a mod modifies the content of the game to have nudity, blood, gore, etc, etc, etc, etc, then they should just tack on a similar type of wording that they use with games that are online telling that the experience of gameplay can be changed with the addion of mods, and this situation would not happen and the raiting would be just a T rating, not M.

Here are a few good comments that I've found on the Digg about this article:

ESRB quote from the article: "Since players create [mods], it is impossible for ESRB or any rating service to consider them in assigning a rating."

Funny how that's EXACTLY WHAT THEY JUST DID.

And in other news, The Sims rating was upgraded to M due to a "mod" that removes the blur over characters when they use the facilities or the shower....

Honestly, it is stuff like this that undermines the entire ratings system for games... You can't rate a game based on how users might be able to modify it... If so, pretty much any game would have to get a rating of M or AO.

"'Parents across the country depend on ESRB ratings every day to make sensible choices about the games they bring home for their families,' said ESRB president Patricia Vance"

That's why Oblivion, with many times over multiple murder and assassination scenes, was perfectly OK, but with the vague chance of OMG OMG OMG female... wait for it... breasts... OMG *if* the game is hacked OMG OMG is now something the ESRB must notify parents of so they can make (cough) "sensible" choices...

Patricia Vance, and everything her ESRB organization stands for, is moronic. On a good day.

But you know what? My America deserves this. My country is so sick and lost with regard to sexuality that only the Muslims really manage to make us look progressive.

....i mean I'm a Jehovah's witness, but nothing like this bothers me at all.. a bit of virtual boobies does no harm... and i loved the dark brotherhood bit of oblivion, (the bit near the end under the light house was kinda sick with guts n flesh n flies everywhere) the bit where you get locked in the house with them 7 or so people and have to kill them all off individually without the others knowing.. that was awesomely fun lol.. iv also put in over a thousand hours on GTA 3, VC, SA and LCS... and I'm a firm believer in god and read the bible so... were not all like that at all... just the priests who touch little boys and America's higher ups in the government, thems the nutheads

Thank god this was caught in time before any impressionable teenagers were able to see *gasp* boobies.

I'm pretty sure virtually any teen can see pictures of REAL boobs anytime they want, nowadays. In my day, we had to bury stolen Playboys by the stump in the field.

*sigh* Anyway, when is this kinda overreaction gonna stop?
nudity != pr0n

What gets me most is that they're quite happy to rate games with lots of killing and maiming for younger audiences, but as soon as you include a sideboob and the outline of a cock it's rated adults only

"When did sex become a bad thing? I'd rather my children watched two people making love than killing each other" (or something to that effect)
Bill Hicks

What is different is that in the Hot Coffee mod there was an *entire mini game included* including button sequences for position changes and such. In the case of Oblivion there is a texture that represents boobies..... in other words the same texture as the men except some dark pixels in one place for shading and a cluster of dark pixels in another for a nipple. That texture is used for nothing in the game except to provide shape to what lays over it, just like they do when real people are fully clothed. No where in the actual game is the texture ever used alone. The change for gore is asinine and the change for the booby mod is asinine, plain and simple.

Think of it this way: REAL PEOPLE have boobies under their clothes, just like the characters in the game. The game only provides a way to see it if you modify it, JUST LIKE REAL PEOPLE. The ESRB is essentially saying that in a game it isn't ok for characters *IN A FREAKING GAME* to have non visible boobs under their clothes... I mean *come one*! This whole thing just drives me nuts.

I still don't get why seeing the human body is wrong...

Why do they hide the content? Because the devs, naughty monkeys that they are, put junk in the game late on the 49th straight day of midnight coding, purely for their own personal amusement, and they disable it just before mastering because it's easier than removing it entirely. In this case, having a "nude" skin texture can actually help the artists in developing clothed textures, getting the shading done right, folds and such.

Remember, kids, you can shank that dark elf whore until she bleeds on the pavement, but just don't ogle her titties.

Comments are sort of crude, though the point is clear: this is ludicrice and we wont stand for this crap that is going on in the ERSB, and that changes need to be done to it to make game rating more appropriate and rational to fit a ratings system that appropratley lets parents know whats in games, and make truly just decisions when buying games for their children/kids/teenagers (you get the point).

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