The ESRB returned fire on the comments made by California Senator Leland Yee about the re-rating of Man Hunt 2 yesterday. To refresh your memory of what Yee said:

“The ESRB and Rockstar should end this game of secrecy by immediately unveiling what content has been changed to grant the new rating and what correspondence occurred between the ESRB and Rockstar to come to this conclusion. Unfortunately, history shows that we must be quite skeptical of these two entities.”

ESRB president Patricia Vance responded, but perhaps not as thoroughly as Yee had hoped:

“Publishers submit game content to the ESRB on a confidential basis,” Vance said. “It is simply not our place to reveal specific details about the content we have reviewed, particularly when it involves a product yet to be released. What can be said is that the changes that were made to the game, including the depictions themselves and the context in which those depictions were presented, were sufficient to warrant the assignment of an M (Mature 17+) rating by our raters.”

So ha! Screw you Yee!

Vance also shot back with a suggestion that the effort behind such complaints are better directed elsewhere. “Rather than publicly second-guessing what is unmistakably a strong warning to parents about the suitability of a particular game for children, which presumably neither Senator Yee nor CCFC have personally reviewed, we feel a more productive tack would be to join us in encouraging parents to take the ratings seriously when buying games for their children,” Vance said.

The senator’s response to Vance’s statement was quick and pointed. “What are they trying to hide?” Yee asked. “Unsurprisingly, the culture of secrecy continues at the ESRB. Even individuals within the video game industry are now calling into question their rating system. Parents simply can not trust an entity that is unwilling to disclose or give any meaningful rationale at how they come to their decisions… When weighing in on laws to prohibit the sale of ultra-violent video games to children, the industry has said over and over, ‘Trust us; our rating system will protect children.’ This latest episode demonstrates once again that the ESRB in fact can not be trusted.”

Dum Dum Daaaaaaaaaaa! Yee reminds me of the evil gopher.

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Technorati Tags: ESRB, California, Senator, Leland Yee, Man Hunt 2, Rockstar, president, Patricia Vance, Publishers, Mature 17+, rating, CCFC, ultra-violent video games

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 28th, 2007 at 10:24 pm and is filed under General News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.