An open content ratings system for videogames?

Does anybody know if one exists? What I'm talking about would be an online equivelant to ESRB or PEGI for rating the content in videogames. The reason I'm looking around for one is because I know people that actually use ESRB ratings and well let's just say the ESRB is one of the single most screwed up systems I've ever seen. For example: Halo M (17+) rated, StarCraft II T (13+) rated, and LOADED M (17+) rated. StarCraft II is A LOT more violent than LOADED and has more questionable content as well while Halo doesn't have really anything in it. I've also seen some questionable ratings from PEGI as well.

No such systems exist.

I say screw them anyways.
If ratings systems actually worked, you wouldn't have little brats in games like "Halo" and "Half Life 2 Deathmatch".

Any brat with a library card and a USB drive can play whatever he wants anyways, and even bring it home. It isn't hard to mod many consoles to run (potentially pirated) games downloaded from the Internet either, so ratings are useless for stopping a tech-savvy kid.

I say screw them anyways.
If ratings systems actually worked, you wouldn't have little brats in games like "Halo" and "Half Life 2 Deathmatch".

Any brat with a library card and a USB drive can play whatever he wants anyways, and even bring it home. It isn't hard to mod many consoles to run (potentially pirated) games downloaded from the Internet either, so ratings are useless for stopping a tech-savvy kid.

Insovietaustralia, the government doesn't have a problem with banning games because they disagree with the content. But will that stop anyone from getting them?

In my opinion, the answer is no, because these systems (even ones with legal backing, like in Australia) fall flat on their face due to digital distribution. I can see why having a rating may be beneficial to a project, but when digital distribution is your only method of distribution, it's probably not required.

FlatOut 2 is just a racing game and it's PEGI 12 o.O

The genre isn't what determines the rating =/

In any case, the ratings aren't meant as law but as a suggestion. In most cases, parents will prevent their 10 year olds from playing M rated games.

The genre isn't what determines the rating =/

In any case, the ratings aren't meant as law but as a suggestion. In most cases, parents will prevent their 10 year olds from playing M rated games.

Lucky for me I was an exception to that, at the age of five I was already playing Doom, Wolfenstein 3d and Mortal Kombat II (my parents knew that I knew it was fiction and pixellated gore, so they didn't worry about me going psycho). I also got into games like LOADED and Codename: Tenka when I was around six or seven. Not so lucky for my cousin though, he's restricted to E rated games even though games like Halo (offline of course, XBLA is too much like 4chan) seem like they would be perfectly suited for anybody who's 10 years or older. Seeing as no such rating system exists, I think I need to start drafting some guidelines and grab some web hosting.

Seeing as no such rating system exists, I think I need to start drafting some guidelines and grab some web hosting.

Yes, I suppose that wouldn't be a bad idea at all for the open source community . Perhaps something based loosely on movie classifications, like: (not OR is used where a single age from a range or group should be decided upon)

-Exempt (educational with no questionable content)
-All (no violence, no harsh language, no adult themes)
-6, 7 or 8+ (light, unrealistic violence, with little to no visible blood, no adult themes or harsh language)
-10 or 11+ (light to moderate unrealistic violence, particularly applicable to fantasy games or futuristic games, moderate language, some inferred adult themes)
-14 or 15+ (moderate to heavy violence, harsh language, some adult themes, player may commit some illegal activities)
-18+ (heavy, realistic violence, cruelty, harsh language, adult themes, blatantly illegal activities. Effectively an "Everything Else" group)

That's just an example, of course a real ratings system would need a lot more work and parental community consensus. The other barrier you might face to uptake of this is cultural and religious differences. These could be dealt with using an extra "bolt on" rating system to identify content that may be offensive to certain people, ie. AS for anti-semitic themes, etc.

Seeing as no such rating system exists, I think I need to start drafting some guidelines and grab some web hosting.

Yes, I suppose that wouldn't be a bad idea at all for the open source community . Perhaps something based loosely on movie classifications, like: (not OR is used where a single age from a range or group should be decided upon)

-Exempt (educational with no questionable content)
-All (no violence, no harsh language, no adult themes)
-6, 7 or 8+ (light, unrealistic violence, with little to no visible blood, no adult themes or harsh language)
-10 or 11+ (light to moderate unrealistic violence, particularly applicable to fantasy games or futuristic games, moderate language, some inferred adult themes)
-14 or 15+ (moderate to heavy violence, harsh language, some adult themes, player may commit some illegal activities)
-18+ (heavy, realistic violence, cruelty, harsh language, adult themes, blatantly illegal activities. Effectively an "Everything Else" group)

That's just an example, of course a real ratings system would need a lot more work and parental community consensus. The other barrier you might face to uptake of this is cultural and religious differences. These could be dealt with using an extra "bolt on" rating system to identify content that may be offensive to certain people, ie. AS for anti-semitic themes, etc.

If and when I get this started, I will (unlike PEGI and ESRB) require that whoever submits a rating to be able to point out specifically where a few spots of questionable content exists and maybe back it up with a screenshot or a short ten second clip. One thing I like about PEGI that I hate about ESRB though, is that PEGI uses age numbers. The ESRB ratings on the other hand are letters made more confusing by the fact that the earlier ESRB rating K-A was replaced by the current E and that the ORIGINAL (nobody remembers this one and it's not documented either) E rating didn't get replaced until EC came about. I'm also going to use the terms "heavy", "moderate", "mild", and "negligible" to give people a better understanding of how extreme the content is as well as use color codes in addition to age numbers, so you would get like a red 18 for over the top games while you get like a green color for games appropriate for 10 and up.

Listen. There is an old Gamecube game, Rated "E" (Ages 6+) called "Animal Crossing".

In that game, you live in a town with anthropomorphic animals. You can befriend them, help them, decorate your house, collect items, etc. It's a cute game, which even maintains a real time clock, so it's the same time in the game as it is in RL. A child-oriented albeit addictive title for (casual) gamers of all ages.

A little known fact is vulgarity in one of the many cheat codes. If you mail a letter to a villager which says

Code:

Linklovestoeat
outZeldaspussy

They'll send you a rare decoration for your house called a Gargloid. Being an owner of said Gamecube game, I can confirm that the code works. http://www.games.net/external/105757/101...-crossing/

Yes, this is a NINTENDO game.

The ratings boards don't know everything. XD

(Please pardon my grammar, I've VERY tired at the time of writing this.)

Woah, that's incredible. I know the game in question, cutesy and simple. Did not expect that kind of stuff in it.

I always knew it involved lots of grinding, but apparently I was wrong about the type. *ba dum psh*

Linklovestoeat
outZeldaspussy

I can't shake the feeling I read that wrong, and it's actually something totally innocent. Like "Link loves toe a tout Zelda pussy[cat]".

This is actually something that's crossed my mind on a few occasions. I think such a system could be useful to the open source community and the indie gaming community as well.

I like the idea to use color codes, since color is a somewhat universal attribute, but I don't think that using age numbers is a good choice. I've always thought that marking the 'rating' of a game by recommended age was a bit unrealistic because I believe age is a very fuzzy way of determining a person's general level of maturity (with regard to the sorts of media they can consume without feeling dirty or repulsed, that is). If something like this were to exist, I think it would be best to use symbols and colors, to avoid the aforementioned age problem, and to allow the system to be used across different languages without an urgent need for any translation (you wouldn't need one graphic that has a red M and then a hundred other graphics with characters from different languages); any person regardless of nationality can look at, say, a gun and a beer bottle on a red background and at least get a vague impression of what the image is trying to convey.

What I think could be done with this system is to have a group of... things. Violence, sex, drugs, and language. And then you'd also have green, yellow, and red. The four things can be put on a background with the game's color rating. Color rating is determined by which of those four things a game has. If it has any ONE (in a certain amount, so if Mario says "ah damn!" once in the whole game, it doesn't set the Language mark), it's green. Two, it's yellow. Three, it's red. If it has none, it's green with a special symbol like a flower or a baby head or something. If it has all four, it's red with a special symbol like... I dunno, a shock gif from /b/ or something.

That allows a game's 'rating' to be easily communicated by just saying the color (or "very green" or "very red" or whatever), and allows the reason for the rating to be communicated with easily understood, language independent symbols.

Another thing I think would be important is for the ability for a developer to determine the rating of his own game, without the need to have it checked by a third party. There needs to be an at least mostly standardized way to figure out if your game trips the Violence mark or not. It would probably correct itself, or at least bury false ratings, by people just calling the developer a dumbass for thinking "Random Killing Three: Mother Noose's Nursery Crimes" doesn't contain Violence.

And if any system like this ever does come into existence, the biggest roadblock would be getting enough into the mainstream for an average kid's parents to be aware of them. You'd probably need to make some sort of deal with a well-known organization like Google (best-case) or Mozilla or someone to get enough screen-time to be noticed by more than a couple random internet trolls.

You should go for it, though.

Quite some good points brought up, vede. I like your idea of symbols instead of languages/characters, that's a concept that I believe should be at the heart of any icon or graphic.

I may be interested in making a few mockups for these things

This is actually something that's crossed my mind on a few occasions. I think such a system could be useful to the open source community and the indie gaming community as well.

I like the idea to use color codes, since color is a somewhat universal attribute, but I don't think that using age numbers is a good choice. I've always thought that marking the 'rating' of a game by recommended age was a bit unrealistic because I believe age is a very fuzzy way of determining a person's general level of maturity (with regard to the sorts of media they can consume without feeling dirty or repulsed, that is). If something like this were to exist, I think it would be best to use symbols and colors, to avoid the aforementioned age problem, and to allow the system to be used across different languages without an urgent need for any translation (you wouldn't need one graphic that has a red M and then a hundred other graphics with characters from different languages); any person regardless of nationality can look at, say, a gun and a beer bottle on a red background and at least get a vague impression of what the image is trying to convey.

Excellent points made in there. Like I said at the age of 7 I was already enjoying games like Doom, LOADED, and Codename: Tenka. Maybe I can create easily identifiable symbols to show violence levels as well as other mature content such as a red skull sitting next to some bullets or something and make the symbols setup so that there can be multiple symbols next to it to depict other content that may be in the game. I think for heavier games the symbols could be made scarier looking to sort of give a small shock to any underaged person looking to pick the game up. I'm not sure yet, I'm still thinking up ideas.

Yes, so for instance, the packaging of a game will have a section in which several boxes are drawn, with contents denoting what they are describing (alcohol, drugs, etc.), and their color/symbols denoting how much of those things are in the game (for instance, no drugs/alcohol at all would be a green background with a baby face icon, some would be a green background, a lot would be a red background, a whole lot would be red with a shocked face).

Here are mockups for ratings for the amount of drugs (cigarette used as a metaphor, very simple to draw and fairly universal) in the game.
http://img816.imageshack.us/img816/4507/...hot037.png

These are 3 of the 5 ratings, the remaining two are median points between green and yellow (green with no face) and between yellow and red (red with no face).

The ideas:
- Each box should be a perfect square stroked with a 3px line. The gradient of the square should go from the border color to a darker color of the same hue.
- In each box should be a monochrome icon describing what the box is referring to. Avoid words or letters, generally.
- In the bottom right corner there may be a face determining the amount of the item in question in the game. A baby face may only be present with a green background and indicates that there is none of that item in the game. A shocked face may only be present with a red background and indicates that there is a whole lot of the item present in the game.

A problem is, how do you rate a game like nexuiz/xonotic? The amount of blood and gore is variable, should it be rated by the worst case scenario?

Yes, so for instance, the packaging of a game will have a section in which several boxes are drawn, with contents denoting what they are describing (alcohol, drugs, etc.), and their color/symbols denoting how much of those things are in the game (for instance, no drugs/alcohol at all would be a green background with a baby face icon, some would be a green background, a lot would be a red background, a whole lot would be red with a shocked face).

A potential problem with this is that it's difficult to accurately communicate a game's overall rating without using a series of images. One of the core features of my proposal was the fact that each game essentially had two ratings: a color rating with five possible ranks, and the more specific series of binary categories. Basically, each of the categories can either be a 1 or a 0 (it only goes from 0 to 1 if the game has enough of that category to be a conspicuous issue), and the color rating is the sum of each of the categories. Although it would be very possible to conglomerate yours and mine, such that each of the categories can range from low to high or such. So each of the categories can range from, say, 0 to 4 and then the game's overall rating (the one that might be used in conversation, so it needs to be simple to say in words) can be based on the sum of each of those things. A bit complex, but it also has the benefit of being more accurate.

For the icons to be useful in small sizes (I'm imagining things sort of like the CC license icons, that might be used in a website, since most open source/indie games are distributed via the internet), I think having the icons like in your mockup (which looks awesome) might be a problem since if it gets downsized too far the faces will be rendered practically invisible. Also, the very green rank is supposed to mean that there is none of that thing, so I think having the cigarette still fully shown is a bit misleading. Perhaps it should be grayed out in the very green one and not have a baby face? As an extension to that, the very red rank could have three cigarettes in a line instead of the angry face. Then the color-with-face icons can be used for the game's overall rating instead of the subcategories.

To better illustrate the compromise solution (which I'm beginning to think may be the preferable option), I'll try to describe it a bit more in terms of what a person might see in a rating.

For an example game, we have this: A red box with a shocked face filling the top 3/4, indicating that this game's unified rating is "as bad as it can get", and a series of icons occupying the bottom, which has a gray background. The first is, say, a fist icon with a a monochrome red flame behind it indicating that this game has TRUCKLOADS of violence. The next is a cigarette icon and has a just a hollow red circle going around it in the background, indicating that this game has moderately high drug use. The next is a grayed out image of the two "restroom people" holding hands (maybe with an X over it?), indicating that this game has NO sexual content. The next is a loudspeaker with an exclamation point off to the side of the speaker part, and the icon has a hollow yellow circle around it in the background, indicating that this game has moderate harsh language. (Note that I didn't actually try to figure out if those categories would have added up to a "very red" game, they're just for examples. And that the icon designs are just examples too.)

Also, after attempting to rate Xonotic/Nexuiz, I've come to the conclusion that using sums will not work, as that would allow games that "specialize" (ie. porn games, torture simulators, etc.) to be rated as simply being yellow or even green-level. There should probably be some kind of curve that's specific to each category (so violence and nudity affect a rating more than language or drug use do). This sort of fine tuning is best left to later stages though, I think. For now we should focus on coming to a consensus on what sort of concept we want to use for the rating system in general.

Here are mockups for ratings for the amount of drugs (cigarette used as a metaphor, very simple to draw and fairly universal) in the game.
http://img816.imageshack.us/img816/4507/...hot037.png

These are 3 of the 5 ratings, the remaining two are median points between green and yellow (green with no face) and between yellow and red (red with no face).

The ideas:
- Each box should be a perfect square stroked with a 3px line. The gradient of the square should go from the border color to a darker color of the same hue.
- In each box should be a monochrome icon describing what the box is referring to. Avoid words or letters, generally.
- In the bottom right corner there may be a face determining the amount of the item in question in the game. A baby face may only be present with a green background and indicates that there is none of that item in the game. A shocked face may only be present with a red background and indicates that there is a whole lot of the item present in the game.

A problem is, how do you rate a game like nexuiz/xonotic? The amount of blood and gore is variable, should it be rated by the worst case scenario?

My idea was to have a fairly decent size box that would have a bunch of icons or pictures inside of it giving a loose representation of what's in the game. For example if a game has use of alcohol, tobacco, as well as violence, and gore then there would be a beer bottle, a cigarette, maybe a grenade or a box of bullets, and maybe a skull or something. The individual pictures could probably be modified to indicate heavier amounts of questionable content for example the skull could probably be given a more evil looking face with a few blood drops on it. Still not sure yet, though it looks like I got a lot of help from you guys as you seem to be just as interested in this as I am.

For the icons to be useful in small sizes (I'm imagining things sort of like the CC license icons, that might be used in a website, since most open source/indie games are distributed via the internet), I think having the icons like in your mockup (which looks awesome) might be a problem since if it gets downsized too far the faces will be rendered practically invisible.

Indeed, I did not think of that.

Also, the very green rank is supposed to mean that there is none of that thing, so I think having the cigarette still fully shown is a bit misleading. Perhaps it should be grayed out in the very green one and not have a baby face?

Well, there is another rank in between the green and the yellow, green with face means that there is none at all while green means there is little (in my concept). Graying out a monochrome icon is difficult, perhaps put a slash through instead?

As an extension to that, the very red rank could have three cigarettes in a line instead of the angry face. Then the color-with-face icons can be used for the game's overall rating instead of the subcategories.

Ah, yes. Good idea, so sort of like ESRB rating now: On the front of a package there is the letter, on the back, there is the letter and elaboration of why.

The first is, say, a fist icon with a a monochrome red flame behind it indicating that this game has TRUCKLOADS of violence. The next is a cigarette icon and has a just a hollow red circle going around it in the background, indicating that this game has moderately high drug use. The next is a grayed out image of the two "restroom people" holding hands (maybe with an X over it?), indicating that this game has NO sexual content. The next is a loudspeaker with an exclamation point off to the side of the speaker part, and the icon has a hollow yellow circle around it in the background, indicating that this game has moderate harsh language. (Note that I didn't actually try to figure out if those categories would have added up to a "very red" game, they're just for examples. And that the icon designs are just examples too.)

Interesting. I agree with the unified rating idea. In terms of ratings on the bottom in your system:

• Flame means 4
  
• Red circle means 3
  
• Yellow circle means 2
  
• Green circle means 1
  
• Gray icon means 0
  

Did I understand you correctly?

Also, after attempting to rate Xonotic/Nexuiz, I've come to the conclusion that using sums will not work, as that would allow games that "specialize" (ie. porn games, torture simulators, etc.) to be rated as simply being yellow or even green-level. There should probably be some kind of curve that's specific to each category (so violence and nudity affect a rating more than language or drug use do). This sort of fine tuning is best left to later stages though, I think. For now we should focus on coming to a consensus on what sort of concept we want to use for the rating system in general.

I agree.

My idea was to have a fairly decent size box that would have a bunch of icons or pictures inside of it giving a loose representation of what's in the game. For example if a game has use of alcohol, tobacco, as well as violence, and gore then there would be a beer bottle, a cigarette, maybe a grenade or a box of bullets, and maybe a skull or something. The individual pictures could probably be modified to indicate heavier amounts of questionable content for example the skull could probably be given a more evil looking face with a few blood drops on it. Still not sure yet, though it looks like I got a lot of help from you guys as you seem to be just as interested in this as I am.

The problem with that is that you are working with limited space. As you scale icons down to fit more in a smaller space, they become less and less recognizable. From a recognizability standpoint, it's better to have large and clear icons.


I'll rework my icon concept to vede's new concept and post images (and vector sources) later today.

Found this, and though you might be interested:

http://www.tigrs.org/ - the TIGRS rating system, a free and independent rating system. It's used by Open Arena.

Sure beats rolling your own

Edit:

For what it's worth, TIGRS is language restricted - it uses a lot of English on the images.

Also, it turns adults into vampires.

Also, it turns adults into vampires.

Hmm, bit of a problem there :S

Never heard of TIGRS before, though I think we could expand on what they were trying to do and get a system that isn't language restrictive. Also that vampire thing is kind of disturbing. lol

right , to solve it all.

chooky gives this game the:

:^

(seal of approval)

put your minds at rest.

(btw my daughter was rougly early 4 years old and she played the old game , made 2 frags.)
apart from being as crazy as me , she is perfectly fine.

at least this game has no product placement in it.

me plumber.
1800tttttt.
funded with beer.

:^

Here are mockups for ratings for the amount of drugs (cigarette used as a metaphor, very simple to draw and fairly universal) in the game.
http://img816.imageshack.us/img816/4507/...hot037.png

These are 3 of the 5 ratings, the remaining two are median points between green and yellow (green with no face) and between yellow and red (red with no face).

The ideas:
- Each box should be a perfect square stroked with a 3px line. The gradient of the square should go from the border color to a darker color of the same hue.
- In each box should be a monochrome icon describing what the box is referring to. Avoid words or letters, generally.
- In the bottom right corner there may be a face determining the amount of the item in question in the game. A baby face may only be present with a green background and indicates that there is none of that item in the game. A shocked face may only be present with a red background and indicates that there is a whole lot of the item present in the game.

A problem is, how do you rate a game like nexuiz/xonotic? The amount of blood and gore is variable, should it be rated by the worst case scenario?

Sounds really very interesting game..I have never played such a game before so I would love to gather some more details..