TheNewClassics Posted October 27, 2019 Share Posted October 27, 2019 Hey everyone, Was hoping to get some discussion and input from others on this. I noticed that there have been a lot of changes to the ESRB ratings for older games; the gist is that a lot of older games that didn't use the current rating system are being changed to Not Rated. While I see the discrepancy, I'm not sure changing them to Not Rated is the answer. They were rated; the current options aren't sufficient, but it's pretty easy to see the correlations between the old and newer rating system. I'd just hate to see all the old titles get switched to Not Rated when we had at least a decent solution in place. I'd like to hear others' thoughts on this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Carr Posted October 27, 2019 Share Posted October 27, 2019 All the ESRB ratings should be official. I haven't been following the changes as of late, so I'm not really sure what's actually happening, but ESRB ratings should be actual ratings delivered by the ESRB. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNewClassics Posted October 27, 2019 Author Share Posted October 27, 2019 What's happening more or less is that old games (Genesis era, etc) are being changed from, example, E - Everyone to Not Rated because they were originally rated GA (approved for all audiences) and that isn't an option. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Carr Posted October 27, 2019 Share Posted October 27, 2019 10 minutes ago, TheNewClassics said: What's happening more or less is that old games (Genesis era, etc) are being changed from, example, E - Everyone to Not Rated because they were originally rated GA (approved for all audiences) and that isn't an option. Oic. Yeah, hmm. I always assumed that GA was the same as E, but I guess I never really thought about it. I think we should really be adding options for those old ESRB ratings to the site. I'll add that to my list. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNewClassics Posted October 27, 2019 Author Share Posted October 27, 2019 Sounds like that's the best fix. We appreciate it Jason 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamJT Posted October 28, 2019 Share Posted October 28, 2019 I was literally about to post about this- great minds think alike! My issue is, it can be difficult to figure out what's best to do when a Mature rating is submitted for a game that came out before the current ESRB rating system- or maybe there's an 18+ PEGI rating for a game that wasn't released at all in North America (so never got rated by the ESRB, but has been rated by other agencies.) My question is whether it's more important to have games with "mature content" flagged as such, or have the ESRB ratings identical? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sundogak Posted October 29, 2019 Share Posted October 29, 2019 My take when adding is that if it is rated by a ratings board of some country, then generally there can be an equivalency to ESRB. I don't think it HAS to be an ESRB rating. Europe and Japan ratings can (mostly) be equated to ESRB, as an example by looking at their wiki's. To me an 18+ PEGI is easily equatable to a Mature, which can be validated if the game was issued in USA and Europe. Japan ratings can get wonky because they slice the ages in more groupings in earlier years. So the "10+" type ratings can get a bit odd for different countries. But overall the Everyone, Teen, Mature, and "Kids" have comparable levels in all the ratings systems. Even the early ESRB ratings changed from "K-A" to Everyone over time. Additionally, if the game "self rated", which you can see on some Atari 2600 "adult" carts, or particularly the 3DO/CDI adult CD games, then I definitely add that in as well since the developer determined the rating and most assuredly they are "adult" by most people's measures. But earlier than 1990s, then most times it will be "not rated" in my mind. If it was never rated by any independent country level board (or the company), I don't put my "opinion" rating, which is what I see some folks do. If I run across, I will change it. Obviously, we all have the ability to rate or place games in playlists if we want to have our family level ratings for our own setup regardless of what is in the DB. But my take on what is Mature or Teen for a non-rated game my not be the same as another person's take on things (hence the challenges with boards in general). My 2 cents FWIW. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Carr Posted October 29, 2019 Share Posted October 29, 2019 I think we should be strict about not putting fake ESRB ratings in, regardless of the reason. What we should probably do is add a separate PEGI rating field to the database in order to track PEGI ratings (and perhaps more additional fields for other countries like Japan). 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Kant Posted October 31, 2019 Share Posted October 31, 2019 On 10/29/2019 at 11:53 PM, Jason Carr said: I think we should be strict about not putting fake ESRB ratings in, regardless of the reason. What we should probably do is add a separate PEGI rating field to the database in order to track PEGI ratings (and perhaps more additional fields for other countries like Japan). I would be more than happy if the GamesDB Structure and fields get an fresh update on some parts like this to make it more flexibel for other regions outside US. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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