Those of you who have seen my Better Business Bureau articles may have wondered at one point: But Omali, what do you think about the ESRB? My answer, of course, is I hold the ESRB in the highest, most prestigious form…of contempt. The ESRB was formed in an attempt to rate games based off of their content, particularly because parents feared at the time that a company would put out a game titled “Mr. Friendly the Baker in Fairy Land” that would end up with Mr. Friendly taking an AK-47 and mowing down some of his less friendly customers. On the other hand, the ESRB has trenched itself into the American (with equivalents in most other countries) psyche so well that most retailers will not carry a game that has not been rated. Rather than offering parents a guide with which to purchase games for their kids (parents don’t look at the ratings, how do you think kids get on Halo?), it instead opened up an avenue through which kids would funnel money into an M rated game, simply because it was M-rated, and thus full of blood and guts. The ESRB does occasionally make the news for leaking unannounced games.
When Blizzard was still intending on putting in the RealID system, requiring players to post with their real names, the ESRB fielded a lot of complaints. Once the scare was over, however, a reply email was sent to all of those who had emailed in. The problem? Whoever sent out the email from the ESRB replied to all, meaning anyone who received the email could easily look and find over a thousand email addresses of those who had sent complaints.
The email was this, for those of you who didn’t complain:
Thank you for contacting the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) regarding the policy recently announced by Blizzard Entertainment which would have required participants in its official forums to post comments using their real first and last names, and for expressing your concerns regarding potential privacy implications.
It is our understanding that Blizzard has provided an update announcing that it will not be implementing the above-referenced policy with respect to its forums, and users will not be required to post using their real names. You can read Blizzard’s announcement regarding this most recent development athttp://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25968987278&sid=1&pageNo=1.
Separately, if you have questions regarding Blizzard’s implementation of its Real ID option — which by our understanding is unrelated to Blizzard’s plans for its forums — and/or the new capabilities this option offers, they will likely be answered by reviewing the information posted at http://www.battle.net/realid/.
ESRB, through its Privacy Online program, helps companies develop practices to safeguard users’ personal information online while still providing a safe and enjoyable video game experience for all. We appreciate your taking the time to contact us with your concerns, and please feel free to direct any future inquiries you may have regarding online privacy to our attention.
Regards,
Entertainment Software Rating Board
Would that be irony? Or just a depressing turn of events?
MMO Fallout 