Age Ratings Across the World
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- Опубліковано 26 вер 2024
- A look at how the world's top gaming markets (plus Brazil and Russia) restrict, regulate, censor and rate themselves and why. It's a world tour of not having fun!
Australia got so fucking lucky.
Correction at 21:48: Spanish PS1 boxes used the same system as the UK. Spanish N64 boxes had tiny ratings in tiny fine print on the bottom of the box, as seen here: cloud10.todoco...
China: 7:25
Japan: 11:28
Germany: 15:55
EU: 21:08
Russia: 23:41
Brazil: 26:15
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/ superbunnyhop
i'm glad DOA volleyball vs DOA proper was your control in testing every rating system
Did you just visually represent "decapitation" by removing a cap from a water bottle? God I love you.
Those background music choices, my god...
Moving in my seat to the meme sax years after its relevance.
ua-cam.com/video/Sagg08DrO5U/v-deo.html
this was on my head the entire time.
Glad he didn't use What is Love?
Every single one of the selections can qualify as a shitpost. Except maybe Germany, I didn't recognize that one. Should've been the German version of "Barbie Girl" by Aqua.
SonofaGlitch - the German one is this: ua-cam.com/video/dP9Wp6QVbsk/v-deo.html, a splendid choice
@@vonkoopa It's...it's really not
Yeah, Germany's rating system is pretty good nowadays.
Also 18+ is not a death-sentence.
And that "Killerspiel"-bullshit is just by the Tabloids, it really isn't much of a factor anymore.
I still think it's annoying and harmful for the reason that it provides little value beyond what PEGI does, does this slower, but makes the fairly modestly sized Germany a special case that developers and publishers need to account for, and when they do that, they tend to compromise their artistic vision or make rash decisions. The case that i personally found painful was Sleeping Dogs that first got censored - probably without real need to, as USK back then already could be reasoned with to see analogies with movies, and then the enhanced remastered edition never even came out. I think this tends to negate advancements in decision making process because the culprit becomes the publisher and their needs, not the rating agency.
KA1N3R "killerspiele" is basically a meme for everyone
Oy there, i'm waaaay past 30 and it's a meme to me. I played Wolfenstein 3D when i was 12 though!
There is actually a pretty big advantage of having a USK-Rating: The game is legally protected from any kind of further censorship.
Right. Meanwhile lets teach them how to aim in the Schützenverein, because they are part of "culture". It's BS. Video games, like porn, just allow people to blow off steam, doesn't make anyone more likely to commit a crime (if anything, less likely, because their needs have already been met).
Nice video as aways!! I love the research!
Here in Brazil, we aways ignore the age ratings in our games, and we often see the ERSB in the covers.
That "Indicative Classification" is more used in movies and Tv programs :D
But don't worry, you get all the points right! I love the video!
Hmmm. Olha onde eu encontro meu UA-cam favorito: o Sr. Virsu
ohohohoho, hello there 2 year old comment of a great youtuber on a random video i got on my recommendations.
oi Sr Sr Wilson
I was going to be legitimately upset if that clip of the noodles hadn't made it in.
Why has a comment from a popular youtuber got 1 like
Wait wait wait wait wait....
Other countries' rating agencies don't actually play the games at all? I am legitimately shocked, as a German. What is the point of a rating agency when they don't know the material they are about to review? might as well roll dice at that point. As objectionable as the opinions of our agency are at times, at least they are logically sound and adhere to their policies, even if you may disagree with them.
Would you have a team ready to exhaustively play and analyze hundreds of games coming on a day-to-day basis to attach them a rating? Or you ask those developers to send materials, fill a form and, if it was mislead filled, you apply a heavy fine and immediate recall of these products?
ESBR works like that, theres a recent YT documentary about the inside of ESBR and how they work.
@@Gamebit257 the USK employs a bunch of student gamers to play the games. They then show exerpts of the game to experts of child developent, social scientists, journalist and similar experts. the experts then make the rating. I can't believe there aren't gamers in the US willing to play unrealeased game for money.
If you think the German system is superior just because "they play the games" then you're kinda missing the point. German games are heavily scrutinised and censored specifically because the government agencies are playing the games. It's not preferable
German games aren't censored because agencies play the games.
It is because of the criteria used for a rating.
Giving out ratings without playing the game doesn't change the criteria, just makes the process arbitrary.
Also for most games that are censored, all u have to do is find out that the German version is censored, be an adult, go to your local gaming retailer, ask for an uncut version, pay and leave.
Growing up as a young gamer in Germany was equal parts frustrating and confusing. I remember playing the original Half Life, where - in the heavily censored German version - security and scientists actually didn't die when you shot them. they instead sat on the flor and started shaking their heads. I saw the US version shortly afterwards at a friends house and thought: that's BS! From that point on my brother and me simply imported all games, not because we wanted more gore, but we actually felt like we might be missing some of the developer's original vision for the game and also because stuff like that is just as immersion-breaking as it gets. That was also the first time in my life where i put a book onto my christmas wishlist: an english dictionary!
I also remember the whole Killerspiel-/killergame- debate to be a huge deal, as it showed just many lies our numerous tv news teams would put in their reports to create drama. They had of cause always done so, yet this time you had a whole generation of gamers that were insulted as potential spree killers by the media.
I think there's number of really interesting news reports like this still on youtube, and if you're interested in english translations, i could probably provide them. Thanks for this video, as always, it was worth the wait!
I remember watching the german dub of naruto and half-way through it changed from Sasuke seeking revenge for his clan being murdered to the clan having "disappeared" lol. Ridiculous.
In France a DBZ episode would loose 5 minutes of content in average! And they just shouted random crap instead of translate the dialogues. They still owe me a normal youth.
Being from Brazil, my only problem with them videogames was how expensive it was and how difficult it was to find them if you didn't want to pirate it.
One of the few games I had bought that wasn't burned on some random DVD and horribly misspelled was MGS3 in 2006, it was priced at 260 BRL which would probably be around 120 USD at the time, and I had to get that from a toy store because the Legit Gaming store didn't sell the official copy of the game.
Meanwhile, my parents only seemed to mind when my brother and I would fight over videogames instead of the violence and sexual content depicted in these games.
I'm from brasil too and I dont think I know of a parent who gave a crap about what their kid was playing. Me and pretty much all of my friends played GTA, Bully, RE4 and tekken and my parents never cared. Maybe it was just me but it dosent seem like parents here are afraid of video games like in other countries.
Duncan L. Hutton oi sou BR tbm.
I played GTA SA as a 13 year old and none of my parents gave the slightest of fucks.
I was born there and the few times I've gone back the whole expensive video games thing was always so weird to me. In a way I'm glad I didn't live when I was younger or I would have provably never discovered my love for games due to the price tags alone making it hard for my mother to justify buying them. I also saw a lot of boot leg systems with 100's of games and the like at famly's houses over there, like Sega's and maybe early Playstation stuff.
I'm from Brazil too. When GTA San Andreas was lunched, my cousins own a copy. All the kids of the family played that. From me, with 13 years, to my little sister, age 5. My mom always complained. But never forbid.
As for the cost of games, it's dead on. I was only able to really enjoy games legally when I made an steam account and began buying in the 50% 75% sales.
George is going to be a great dad mom.
Wow, that would make the podcast name even more misleading
Jonas Kr. he is going to be a grand dad
Bill Billiams Comment banned in Russia.
According to that socks video he's already our father
I like how you mentioned "(and Israel)" for PEGI. As far as I know the only reason we have it is because a large percentage of the games sold here are just imported from Europe or at least is the same version as "PAL". We've given up on translating games decades ago (English literacy is fairly high, kind of a positive feedback loop) so there's no reason not to have the exact same game, box included, as the UK.
I might have it wrong though.
China's approach to 'communism':
"it's alright for some people to be rich, exploit others and own means of production as long as government gets a cut and our dictatorship is not undermined." - Chairman Mao, probably.
Not Mao, but Deng Xiaoping, who after Mao death basically said that we will do regulated market capitalism as long as it develops productive forces (who in theory when developed enough will lead to communism).
Basically a stupid way to justify communist party staying in power.
When you start the exploitation but say you are against exploitation.
コイノ/ Koino - uh, sorry, my meaning might've been lost. I was making a joke. Among tumblr socialists there's a meme where people quote terrible misguided definitions of socialism/communism, and then frame them as fake quotes from Marx, for example :
"Under socialism you will have to share your toothbrush" - Karl Marx, probably
but why change terrible quotes at all? funny enough if you have dark humor and don't think to hard about how many died.
The Chinese Characteristics are just neoliberalism and imperialism I guess.
Please make a video on Australia's rating system.
I know that you joke about it in the description but I'm sure a lot of people, not just me, would be very interested to know your input on it.
Eh? It achieved exactly what it was supposed to achieve. It allowed people to rate things more highly when appropriate, disarming a major criticism of MA allowing 'too much' (because stuff got shoehorned in there) and shutting down a major angle of Australian Christian Lobby arguments (about how more things should be banned) to the point where they stopped trying.
australian M is almost literally the ESRB T rating. MA15+ is the soft M and R18+ is the hard M.
Psh. Since they introduced R18+ nothing of any worth has been banned. Australia's system only sucks if you're into Japanese softcore porn games honestly (which is a very small minority).
Hotline miami 2 got banned over here lul
Honestly the R18 rating gets used well and nothing has been banned (barring hotline 2 for the simulated rape scene). Games that should be R18, like GTA V for example, are. And the M-MA level works really well. Got loads of violence by not gore, M. Love some blood splatter or want to talk about or show 'mature' topics like drugs or sex, MA. Actual gore and dismemberment and/or nudity on top of that ? R18. So the Witcher 3, Kingdom Come, and Doom are R18. Persona 5, Dark Souls 3, and AC:Origins are MA. And Overwatch, Destiny 2, and The Sims 4 are M.
Big point here. MA and M games can be bought by anyone. The government says that MA is for 15 and older but buying MA content for some under the age of 15 is fine so long as the buyer is 18 or older. Same applies to R18.
The one exception here is X18, which is straight up porn and only sold in the ACT or NT.
The german USK really changed a lot.
River Raid did not get banned for violence, but for glorifying war and the military. And in the 2000th was a big debate over violent videogames ("Killerspiele"), but the USK did not ban games like Counter Strike, even though there was pressure from the public and the politicians. This was really a big deal for gamers. After that the USK got more liberal and I like how they rate context. For example: Life is Strange is rated 12, because it's story is so empathic and well made, that it is deemed valuable for 13 and 14 year olds, so it is not rated 16, even though it could easiely be, based on its content.
Some games got hammered because they were released at a bad time or had "too much actuality". Like CnC Generals where you fought as americans in iraq just as the iraq war started, used chemical, nuclear and biological weapons on all sides and killed UN and civis as the terrorists who also used suicide bombers and agigated civi mobs etc.
Also to my surprise, Battlefield 1 got the USK16 rating due to its historical setting.
I guess in case of "Life is Strange" context matters. Touchy subjects, such as violence and drugs, aren't glorified in any shape but addressed by means of narrative in a sensible and sensitive way. I personally would have been suprised if they gave it anything above USK12.
Also for us the rating 16 doesnt really mean a lot, so even if a game is rated 16 you will find that plenty of younger teenagers and even kids will play those games. We do not really make a big fuss about it :)
@re tu, since I imagine you are a fellow German, you should really read the guidelines, they are pretty short and very insightful. One of these guidelines actually asks whether the protagonist acts morally or immorally, or how clearly the setting is fictionalized (Distanzierungsmöglichkeiten). Being too scary actually disqualifies it for the lower ratings, too, since they might deem t hurtful to the healthy development of the child (aka if a games carea a child sleepless for weeks, the child shouldn't be allowed to play the game)
Highly important issue needed to be address.
Well researched, thank you.
/Highly Important Issue/
/Needed to be Addressed/
/Well Researched, Thank you/
Is a Haiku!
I wish south korea was mentioned because it is a major market and its neighbors china and japan were mentioned.
Thanks Geoff, I'm gonna have *KULTURGUT* stuck in my head all day
Just another german word like "Zeitgeist", "Angst"or "Kindergarten". :-)
I think that's a particularly attractive word because not only does it denote a cultural asset, but it also equates culture with a positive value, it sounds like "culture = good"!
gut = German for "good", you are right. But "Gut" also can mean "something of value" or "possession".
So "Kulturgut" as I do understand it as a German is "something of a high cultural value". :D Which is essentially good.
Good (or more commonly goods) also means "something of value" or "possession" in English. And it's similar in Spanish, where they're called "bien/bienes" (well/wells)
^^If you english speakers like composite words so much, then why do you force us to put "-" or spaces where ever we Germans would just merge the words into one?
Compare this to the equivalent German sentence:
Wenn ihr Englischsprecher [english speakers] Kompositwörter [composite words] so gern mögt, warum zwingt ihr uns dann Bindestriche [binding dashes "-"] oder Leerzeichen [space symbols] überall [every where] wo wir Deutschen die Wörter einfach verbinden.
Maybe Donald Trump's is just a csgo player who wants all these kids out of his Nova 2 ranked games.
I feel like, I'd Trump played games, he'd shy away from being rated.
"What is this. This Eagle. I'll tell you that as. That as president. Of the united states!! This Eagle should be my rating. SAD!"
Trump's whole presidentcy has been reading from a script. He would probably say "Well the reason im doing so bad at CSgo is because *THEY SAY* that people cheat" " *THEY ALSO TELL ME* that the lag is horrible"
Alex Frank - That would explain how the Russians helped him win.
Wouldn't surprise me
Trump draws dicks in Mario Paint.
Thank you for giving the German rating system the little bit of credit it deserves. I always assumed that every rating agency would play those games by themselves, but that would be too obvious apparently.
One thing you didn't mention: Those "banned" videogames which you can buy from behind the counter are all indexed on the so called "Liste A" (List A, obv.) There is also a Liste B, which is not very long, but contains some videogames which you can't legally sell(and import) and anyone who does could actually face charges. Games on this list include L4D2, Manhunt, Postal 2 and the glorious Concentration Camp Simulator.
The distinction between those two lists is that any game on List A is just considered harmful to minors, while games on List B are considered to be a violating criminal law.
But not all games on List B are automatically banned from sale. After a title has been added to the list, a court can order it's sequestration. If no court does so the title will be put on List A.
Also games can only be banned after they were published, due to anti-censorship laws. Who would've guessed.
The whole system is incredibly complicated and you could easily fill another 25 minute video with it. But I actually like it, it makes way more sense than those other systems (aside from that stupid Nazi thingy).
As far as I see it, it's not unheard of for Germans to have some of the laws that make the most sense. I'm glad to live on the border with their nation. Funny to say that, considering I'm Polish.
Yeah so here in the US we brought back (even more addicting) smoking for children...yayyy free market
'it's the video games that are shaping people's thoughts. And when you go a step further, it's all these violent movies. Anyway, back to business where we have military recruiters giving presentations to teenagers in school.'
PoliteTimesplitter Funny how politicians never consider, the potentially, dangerous influence the military and perputal war can have on the psyche of a country.
Or mainstrem news channels that talk about and show all the bad shit and violence that is happening in the world non stop 24/7 and are not age restricted at all.
Or just human nature in general.
DumbPunk great point, I have no idea why American's don't discuss how their history of perpetual war and severe violence on home soil has an affect on their culture. Guns and war are freaking worshiped down their, and completely tied to the development of the nation through history.
the very foundation of America as a nation was formed through warfare; fighting for independence from the British Empire to begin with, and a civil war. The so highly worshiped 2nd amendment is tied to that early history of fighting oppressive political bodies. Modern American culture has been cultivated out of a state of military conflict and conquest, as the USA has been in a perpetual state of war since WWI. Since the cold war, fear mongering has lead to a uniquely American belief that civilians need to arm themselves in order to defend against a foreign menace (has transitioned from Communists to Islamic Terrorists). There is also a long, terrible history in the United States of certain portions of the population heavily fearing / hating other portions, with the belief that violence towards those others is acceptable and even necessary. The history of the US is undeniably one of war and violence, and I strongly believe that the route of the violence / gun issues are due to the cultural ramifications of such a history. No one denies that historically war-torn areas of Africa and the Middle East have cultivated intrinsically violent cultures, yet we refuse to admit the same of the USA
The Sims 4 is an "Adults Only" game in Russia that surpasses gory games only because it contains potential for LGBT relationships depicted in humane, down-to-earth ways.
Astounding.
Still kids can play it no prob. But yeah, some moronic politician (pretty sure I know who exactly it was) went to such lengths to get this formal rating on a harmless game. The said politician is a joke and most likely a latent gay himself, despite his hateful attitude.
Fun bit of trivia about Russia: in 1990's there was a TV programm on the most popular mainstream channel that promoted "Dendy" , a plagiarized Chinese knock off of Nintdendo, and most of the games that were promoted were pirated too.
There is a quote from a classic Russian author: " However strict Russia's laws may be, their full power is reduced because they are not always enforced". This is true about the game ratings and restrictions too.
OK KO's Dendy has a referential name! Wow!
my favorite thing is, that Stippler - which was dendy “distributor”, had an official deal with nintendo. That’s so 90th Russia. Hilarious stuff.
Right up until you annoy someone who decides to go checking for things to enforce, eh?
it's pretty crazy, from what I'm aware even stuff like 7 grand dad was passed off as official over there.
fun fact: it was endorosed by Nintendo. Yep.
I quote myself:
«Вскоре после развала СССР тогдашние крупнейшие производители консолей SEGA и Nintendo поспешили обозначить свое присутствие в странах СНГ. Какого же было удивление Виктора Савюка, начальника отдела видеоигр «Стиплера» и создателя «Денди», когда вместо судебного иска он получил приглашение от президента Nintendo of America Минору Аракавы и председателя совета директоров Говарда Линкольна. Того самого Линкольна, который помог Алексею Пажитнову построить империю Тетриса. Встреча завершилась со следующим результатом: «Стиплер» отказывается от продвижения SEGA и продажи ее приставок, Nintendo же закрывает глаза на пиратские «восьмибитки» и делает «Стиплер» единственным дистрибьютером SNES в СНГ».
I remember buying a 18 year limit game as a kid... GTA3 I think, and the salesperson very seriously asked for a driver's license for age verification. I was obviously not old enough. He then chuckled and proceeded to sell it to me. This was in Finland.
Did you get the copy with dismembermen on or "censored" European version?
FlymanMS I honestly wouldn't know. Nordic countries didn't have much in the way of localisation back then.
You should have mentioned that the BPjM-bans in Germany only last 25 years, after which games (and movies/music/whatever) are automatically forcefully removed from that list of bans (the "index") unless the agency initiates a new evaluation (that is seperate from the inital evaluation that got the media on the list in the first place). It's also worth mentioning that, in the case of games, this is the absolute exception. The vast majority of games that got banned here in the 90s and earlier get removed from that list forever, many of them even before the 25 years were over (because their publishers initiate a new evaluation prior to that timeframe being over).
Which is, by the way, the reason that Valve released uncut versions of the Orange Box games. Half-Life (1) got prematurely removed from the index, which in turn got the Half-Life 2 collectors edition removed from the index (it was only on that list because it included Half-Life 1), which in turn gave Valve the security to sell the uncut versions of the Orange Box games (all of which were never on the index to begin with) and other Half-Life games like Opposing Force.
Very good point. For example Gears of War 1 and 2 also got removed relativly recently, because Epic asked for a reevaluation.
Thanks for pointing that out.
If one can understand German, I recommend this podcast about the USK: m.soundcloud.com/andre-peschke/auf-ein-altbier-12-mr-usk-free-for-all-edition
IgelRM IgelRM aufeinbier is really good. They explain it all very thoroughly
"only" 25 years. yes. That is enough to deprive a whole generation of a piece of kulturgut. Even the third Reich did not ban media for that long lol. The BPjM is censoring media (yes technically one could still buy those games/movies/books I know. But in actuality they let media disappear from public consciousness). You can be in favour of censorship. But do not tell me it is not so bad because it "only" lasts 25 years.
Maybe it is not that tragic to ban some trashy porn-comic today. But what if a few years in the future the AfD (conservative populists) or a muslim party or whatever you can think of has some say in it? Maybe something you like becomes a "danger" to the development of children. Always beware of censorship. Even if it "only" lasts 25 years.
The only thing I didn't know about the Russian system is that it has a name. I just saw numbers on game boxes and films and whatever. And it is true, in general, that nobody really gives a damn, but there are legal punishments for those selling games or film tickets to underage kids.
Fun fact: Disney's live-action Beauty and the Beast film got 16+ rating in Russia. Guess why
Furries?
Clashman The Third one character was gay
But did Furries still contribute towards it?
Clashman The Third Of course
Not suprising considering the shit Russia does to gay people.
The noodles are back.
The noodles are eternal. Until they're internal.
Walter Hunt
Then they'll transcend to the external again.
I love George's noods.
Jokes on you Russia, Luigi made me realize I am gay regardless!
cocacraesh I thought it was Yoshi.
@@CesarJoseee
No yoshi made him realize he was a furry.
Мне захотелось коллы из-за твоей аватарки.
If I had to give my guess as to how videogames relate to recent tragedies, I'd say it's how parents aren't actively involved in the lives of their children. Let them play the games they want, so long as they're able to contextualize the content in it as purely fictional and not to be imitated. Movies, games, and television are wonderful and accessible art forms, but they shouldn't become a babysitter.
This is how I feel as well, but I took the role of parenting and applied it to firearms as well. We're not the only country that has tons of guns, but we're definitely the only country that has far more than its share of preventable tragedies in which guns play a role.
12ealDeal agreed
You can say that even more about cars. Drinking, texting and driving, and many 'recreational' drugs. Sometimes you gotta blame the parents just for being themselves as they are the majority of preventable everything but choose to live that way and blame everyone else instead.
@@jayeisenhardt1337 IKR? This is why I commend my parents for letting me spend time at a daycare when I was obviously too young to fend for myself, as they were obviously smart enough to know that babysitting is for humans 13 and up ONLY!!
I'm Brazilian and I lost it when you tried to pronounce "classificação indicativa". Great soundtrack, BTW.
I remember my parents having trouble with depictions of crime in games and the only one I was forbidden to play was GTA, but eventually they allowed me anyway.
I'm Russian, and I didn't know RARS existed lol
Like you do, jo mo mo.
Same actually. It's incredibly weird how I was actually curious for him to get to russia, because watching this video I realized I have no idea what our rules are. They just never affected me, all games come out, all games are readily available and purchaseable and I never had any trouble playing whatever games I wanted. Heck, majority of russian copies are just literally same certified build is european, just with different external printing for retail.
Guy who helped the author about Russia on line. Like he said, these things affected games in retail. Nowadays nobody buys them there, so modern kids doesnt even know such things as RARS exist.
Well, Steam shows them, sometimes trailers show them but noone enforces them. Since most purchases are digital (at least of those who actually buy videogames) you just don't see them. The only thing that stops my 14 years old brother from buying porn on Steam is an age check that is easily bypasssed.
And even in retail kids can just ask their parents or an adult to buy the game for them and it's perfectly O.K. and legal.
I'm brazilian and found really fascinating to know that our worries about marketing for kids can seem odd to other countries
I super agree with it to be honest tho. Children's advertising in the US is fucked
+Terminimal While Anti-consumerism would fit, I don't think this apply here, the issue is slightly different
Put simply: We don't believe kids are mature enough to understand capitalism
I don't think this is common on other countries, but a small part of the population think that denying something a kid really wants makes them have high fever and even death, everyone knows someone who knew a kid that died because their parents denied them some random toy, we have a bullshit explanation involving roundworms, rather than Pyshcogenic Fever
I'm not certain if this is something exclusive to Brazil culture, but most of us thinks that there's something really sad about not being able to give something to your kid something they want simply due to financial reasons (rather than the product being shit, unhealty, or any other reason), the parents are reminded they're not making their kid as happy as it could have been and that it is their fault that they didn't "win at life", couple this with the fact we don't think most kids(even smart kids, heck even adults) are able to understand economy and what it means to expend money on some random stuff
Since making a kid wanting something it can't have is a bad thing, we think advertising to children is evil, even if they aren't spoiled brats its hard for a kid to understand why he can't have the toy showed on tv, while others can, no one gains anyting with it, except corporations. It really feels a freaking evil thing to do
We banned the use of cartoon characters on unhealty foods, we banned the use of "Ask your parents to buy this"
tl;dr: Children's Advertising is worse than hittler
I just don't really get how this is supposed to effect games. Games usually don't want to sell stuff to kids. I mean until pretty recently, but that's a different topic.
My explanation was to give a cultural context of why the "Overvaluation of Consumption" is listed as a reason to make a work become 12+ at least. And this isn't to affect only games, Advisory Rating(translation of Classificação Indicativa) serves both to Movies, TV and Games, the same rules apply to every type of media, we don't have separate systems for each category, we don't have separate systems like ESRB, MPAA and TV parental guidelines, all of them are the same thing here on Brazil. With that in mind, I will try to explain what the fuck is actually going on:
Overvaluation of Consumption is listed as the follow:
"Scenes and dialogs which show consumption as vital condition for a happier life or social acceptance.
EXAMPLE: Character humiliates an individual because he/she does own trendy sneakers"
This is what could make a work being rated 12+, a scene where there's indication that to be happy or be accepted its inhently necessary to consume something. It doesn't mean that any work that want to sell stuff to kids would fall under this
Most kids are stupid brats, this is a way to reduce undesidered society behaviour on younger minds, since as you mature, you are able to understand what is bullshit or not.
We also have a Overvaluation of Physical Beauty, which is the same thing as Overvaluation of Consumption, but this one is about overvaluating physical beauty as a necessary means to be happy or to be accepted in society, without any mention or warning about the inhent risks of this behavior, like anorexia or bulimia
I think it's a shame it doesn't exists elsewhere...
Thanks for talking about this.
I am a simple man. I see a half an hour video from SuperBunnyHop about age ratings, I like and share
I'm a complex man, with intricate motivations, morally grey character, and nihilistic outlook to life. I see a half an hour video from SuperBunnyHop about age ratings, I also like and share
I am a youtube algorithm puppet. When I see a video I watch it, like, share and comment on it.
I am, therefore I think.
Take my upvote and leave
*I am a simple minded man*
There, i fixed it for you.
I love content creators who are both funny and educational.
Those kind of people whose videos I open up without reading the title
Thank you
Video essays like this are my absolute favorite, and George as a presenter is absolutely God-Tier.
Honestly, I think the big problem with the ESRB is being owned by the publishers. Should be independent. Then, they'd be willing to mark lootboxes that you pay real money for as AO gambling like it should be and get that shit out of here. But noooooooo, EA wants more money. Seriously. Lootboxes that you pay money for/to open are basically just literal gambling. I'm fine with ones you obtain and open *strictly* through gameplay though.
I don’t want to get too deep into the whole are loot boxes gambling argument but I can guarantee you making many big popular games with some having previously low ratings suddenly have the highest ratings possible, well a widespread major gaming catastrophe would be an understatement to say the least.
Lootboxes should be a f2p thing right? I mean you need whales to pick up the slack of non paying customers.
In Brazil the system is made by the state. So I think at least it make things less partial
I love how you said """"""""""communism"""""""""" in china
Even the Comunist Party there calls it Comunism with Chinese Specialities
@@kanalkucker14 Or rather socialism with Chinese characteristics, which is Dengism the way I see it
Can confirm on the UK. Used to work in GAME (Think GameStop) for three years. Sell a age restricted game to a minor and get caught? Criminal record, fine of £5,000 and up, and a possible year to two year prison sentence.
Same as knives, alcohol and the like.
thats too much
Damn they don’t mess around when they sense anything that could possibly provide a potential threat to anything.
its threatened but never really happens
Same for butter knifes?
...No.
Love the Always Sunny reference to Donald's ignorance of the ESRB.
Well he is 70
That and so busy being rich I doubt he's touched a vidya
Yet another excellent video on a topic I didn't know interested me!
Ah yes, helicopter moms and boring rich powerful lobbists who never played a video game in their life decide which games are good and bad. That surely is better than just a good parenting.
Where can I buy some of that good parenting, and how do we distribute it? It sounds really great and can solve almost every issue we face in society, but nobody want's to tell me how we make good parenting universal.
They're not even good at it. _Night Trap_ got an M rating somehow but _SNATCHER_ on the same platform got a T. I guess "a man gets he head whacked off" wasn't on the questionnaire back then
What if good parenting to a certain parent means you let your kids see all the crazy shit out there?
What if instead of rating games based on the first 18 years of someone's life, we label sensitive content explicitly?
No, this is fine. Better safe than sorry. *thump, thump*
@@Brendead8 I like that idea. That way a parent can decide themself what they deem inappropriate.
In my personal moral system (I'm French):
Complete nudity, gambling = 16+
Partial nudity = 14+
Gore violence, horrific elements, words and themes that are mature (example: descriptions of violent things by characters) = 12+
Violence with more or less realistic graphics (ex. the Batman Arkham series) yet no blood : 10+
Everything else: 0+
If you have several of the above, just choose the highest number.
france has a 14?
"You go to jail for cheating"
Good.
+
no
Sean Edwards found the cheater
LowStuff no
In multiplayer games? Yes, 100%.
Excelent balance between information and entertainment in this video. Nice work!
The fact that the Japanese consider dismemberment and decapitation to be taboo certainly explains why the Japanese version of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance gives all of the cyborgs white blood, while Sam - the only one without many cyborg enhancements - bleeds red blood but does not have any of his extremities dismembered. They of course 'de-censored' this for the international versions of the game, thus removing the plot twist that Sam is almost completely human. Instead, Raiden simply says that he has "barely any cybernetic enhancements".
...which means the twist is still in the game. I really don't know what distinction you're trying to make.
@@oscarmccormack1611 I think it's some sort of semantics argument where negation is less valuable than a stand-alone observation. It's similar to how people sometimes say "It was Nazis who attacked Poland during WWII, not Germans." It's the same in the context.
it made me realise i need to look up the reasoning behind that being taboo in particular
>segment about Russia
>Stalker music or whatever starts playing
Come on, this is the best you can do?
>Chinese propaganda quotes in the end
>Soviet anthem playing
*sigh*
Our boy George knows his shitposts.
But STALKER is Russian isnt it
:^)
Negative man It’s Ukrainian. but big part of the team was Russian folk... it’s not the point
But Song was Russian Chanson - music which is popular among very deliberate social group (I guess english word “hick” or “white trash” is the best for description of such people). So actually George made very smart and complex joke pointing out huge social problem of Russia, don’t even knowing about it.
I know its Ukrainian, I was just kidding.
Negative man oh well
R.A.W.R.S.X.D
Russian rating system is also for movies and books, because videogames are counted as media and sport in RF.
VarikRus books?
jonwthan richman yep. When we were practicing Translation in Uni, My teacher gave me course about cuss translation. Like how to translate curse words without loosing material and keeping original rating.
Cursing is very touching subject in media. It basically banned.
I guess only Witcher had real curse words out of all of localized games i played ever.
yep, books in Russian Federation has age restriction, but it's just a recommendation for parents, to prevent children reading adult books like Metro 2033 or Generation «П»
Postal 2 was released in Russia with unofficial rating of 14+. Those were the days.
Ah yes, Russia, the other home of the Postal series
Redo of Healer on blu-ray has the unofficial 18 + rating as if a TV-MA wasn't enough.
THE NOODLES
The real news is that Bunnyhop wants to have kids! Now I must strive to be his Dream Daddy! I know he's mine....
I love how in Finland the "18" rating is super rare for games and movies. Porn is k-18 ofc, but if a movie is k-18 it really has to be disturbing. The only k-18 movie made in Finland that I can think of the top of my head is a home made documentary about hardcore junkies.
This has been a recent development. Many films used to be K18 but were changed after the 90's. There were many weirdly banned films like IIRC Evil Dead. Marathon Man, The Godfather films and Papillon were all K18 originally but have only recently been changed to mirror the changing values in our society.
How is Serbian Movie rated there?
FlymanMS
serbian film is k-18 :D
I think that one is K18, but since a new more lax system was established in 2011 I don't know if that movie has been re-rated yet or not under the new system. I'd assume that it would retain it's rating.
Asking the burning questions i see. Serbian Movie is actually a half good film but it has issues. Like a lot.
Great video! Chou guy from discord here. All that hardwork going through people and history of vidyas. Thank you!
New Zealand has the best rating system.
G - General
PG - Parental Guidance Recommended
M - Mature
No legal restrictions at all for these, merely content guides for parents.
R13 - Restricted to 13 and older
R15 - Restricted to 15 and older
R16 - Restricted to 16 and older
R18 - Restricted to 18 and older
It is illegal for a retailer to sell one of these to someone underage. But no laws regarding who can view in privacy.
New Zealand is also far more sensible on how content is restricted and takes scene context into account. For example, Blade Runner 2049 is an R13 here while the original is an R16. 2049 has significantly more nudity than the original but due to the nature of the scenes featuring nudity being far less 'sexual' than the original it was given more lenience.
@Al-zein Kusmantoro the Uk has a partly restricted 12 though
@Al-zein Kusmantoro But you said the UK doesn't have restricted 13 ratings. 12 would be the closest thing.
I visited the USK Ratings Office once and they are all pretty much gamers like we are. They are the luckiest gamers, being able to play games before they even come out or get announced publicly. Also they have a HUGE games library in their office ranging back to the 90's.
Just a little extra depth for anyone interested in the BBFC/PEGI split: PEGI was not legally binding (in the UK at least), so using film classifications meant that you couldn't sell 12/15/18-rated games to underage kids by law, as opposed to a US-style store policy. As of 2012, PEGI became legally enforceable, and that's why the BBFC ratings got dropped.
while true it's never really enforced, some stores will just often sell you the game anyway.
Something worth pointing out about Abe's Oddysee, there was an incident in Japan where a kid was killed at a school and his head was stuck on a spike near the time of release. This was the event that ultimately triggered the head on the stick to be changed to a 'mudokon pop'. Similar thing happened to the Xbox title Munch's Oddysee where they were previously referred to as terrorists in the newspapers but then 9/11 came along and they decided to change that for obvious reasons.
Anyone else notice the Epic Sax Guy music?
Most of us noticed the obviously playing meme, yes.
I never thought I'd hear a samba song from my neighbourhood's samba school in such a video. Thanks for making this dream come true!
Also, I love your videos and this one is probably one of the best you've done thus far. Keep on being awesome!
Holy shit I didn't know about Brazil's rules about overconsumption. That's the only one I'd love to see adopted everywhere.
This was a really interesting video! As an Australian I was a little surprised not to hear much about the weird censorship over here but I suppose that isn't always tied directly to the ratings. Glad to see you're still making cool stuff like this, keep it coming!
That Cheeki Briki CLear Sky Bandit music... from a Ukrainian game set in Ukraine, used for Russia lol
It's a part of meme, don't be butthurt over it.
I know it is. I also know Bunnyhop is a fan of STALKER.
Ah, cool then.
I always found it funny that despite the game taking place in Ukraine, the currency in use is always Russian rubles. That, and I can't recall a single character speaking Ukrainian in the original language versions of the game (I am aware of the Ukrainian versions, but from what I understand, those were translations from the Russian versions).
Metro: Last Light had a Ukrainian stalker in one segment, if memory serves.
+FlymanMS Why did you instantly assume this humorous observation was butthurt due to ignorance of the meme? C'mon, lol.
Like always amazing video George!
French Britain...TRIGGERED *spits out tea*
Great video as usual. I really hope this gets a lot of traction.
I figured Australia would get more than a brief nod here. They are pretty strict about violence (or so I have heard from folk from there) but I don't know if they have a ratings sytem.. or what classification they use?
Games that 'glorify drug use' got banned before R18+ was added. That's why health packs couldn't be syringes.
IIRC marc ecko's getting up was banned in the 90s because of positively portraying the committing of criminal acts (you did graffiti) and you can buy it now, yay :p
Awesome video! Enjoyed every minute of it
Translation of George's german USK checklist:
Ausfahrt - driveway exit
Wiener - well...technically sausages.
Stinktier - Skunk
Dudelsäcke - bagpipes
Geschwindikeitsbegrenzung - speedlimit (which doesn't exist on germany's AUTOBAHN)
last is wrong.. but you know that..
We have speedlimits. Although mostly on westgerman Autobahnen.
Love that the old UK system was just a few checkboxes for ages, implying it's possible to have a rating for a game meaning you could buy it if you were 3-10 or 15-17, but not 11-14 or 18+
Classificação Indicativa = Indicative Classification
Despite everything, I'm glad to see my country acknowledged by one of my favorite channels.
Despite being a native English speaker and knowing the individual words, "Indicative Classification" still sounds like incomprehensible bureaucratic gibberish to me. If this phrase were presented to me out of context, I would have no idea what it means. I'm not taking issue with the translation, but I do want to ask: does it sound just as meaningless in Portuguese as it does in English?
CricketStyleJ, yes. lol
CricketStyleJ it doesn't make sense because it's just gibberish english-ing of words, not their actual translation. A better contextual translation would be "suggested rating."
dimmiebot, I am brazilian and that is the literal translation of the phrase. 'Suggested rating' still makes sense and is easier to understand contextually, but it is not the literal translation.
Rating systems have always intrigued me for some odd reason. I often times find myself going on foreign rating boards and wasting time there for no discernable reason.
Thank you for this!
I will always remember what the nemesis said when he appeared in resident evil 3 « R.A.R.S..... »
You are making some of the most interesting gaming related videos on this entire site.
"Imagine needing to hand your cellphone and passport to steam."
Sweats in mass selling on steam marketplace.
OK but stopping kids getting addicted to games that are designed to hook people and rake their wallets is Extremely Good Actually
Just want to say I really enjoy your content. It's well researched, produced, and it's nice seeing a (real) journalistic approach to video games. Keep up the good work.
22:30 I live for Georges phoned in panic yelling.
Fun fact for China: To combat "addiction" in young people, they have an age requirement for internet cafe's too (I think 16+). You have to give them your ID in order to even play. They get around this by having some authentic ID's on hand and they use those if anyone too young wants to play (or a foreigner like myself). The cafe's stay on, uh, good terms with the local police so they'll know if they're ever going to stop in to check for minors.
Source: My wife is Chinese
Wait, so that Lieberman guy was real? I thought Running With Scissors invented him!
RWS wouldn't need to make up anything like that. Just like they didn't need to make up the "Until syphilis is boxed and sold, Postal 2 is the worst consumer product on the market" line a reviewer said. Everybody's reactions to them serves as the best form of marketing they can get.
Not to sound negative, but this was the most interesting and comprehensive video I've seen here in a while. Thanks for talking about this!
This is real game journalism.
So densely packed with info. Thanks for doing all this legwork.
Brazilian here.
Our country is really hypocrite when it comes to sexuality. Yes, during the week of Carnival we see a lot of naked bodies in the television, but there is a high number of politicians and other influential people from Evangelical and Catholic churches that messes with everything. Most of our population is christian, and we recently are taking a right turn into politics (much like USA), so things are really confusing here.
But we always had the "grey market", and in the end it's really easy for us to get our hands in every game (Despite the abusive taxes and prices, obviously).
And your moral guardians are in hibernation during the Carnival?
lol
This year they reduced the public money for the carnival (remembering that the tourism's money compensates the investment), and thus, more people started to do their local carnival parades.
But, beyond the money, this festivite is so intricated in our culture that they can't simple cut it off. Also, the politic of "Bread and Cirscuses" might fit as another reason for not prohibit it.
(And sorry for the bad english).
There was a lot more content of much more fascinating worth than I anticipated in this video. Thanks UA-cam recommendations for doing something good every now and then!
Hahaha I remember you asking Liam about video games and school shootings in the UK during Dads and Sons. I did get the sense you were very interested so color me unsurprised when I saw this pop up on my sub feed! Great content, man.
Dear George,
please upload Dad & Sons to your channel again, not just soundcloud
It has quickly become one of my favourite podcasts and I would not have known about it if you hadn't uploaded it here first, other potential listeners are missing out!
He uploads them on his second channel.
The quality of your videos is astounding, keep up the good work :)
"Here in America,"
You spend so much time with the Best Friends I swear I thought you were Canadian.
I don't know how viable that is, but I'm down.
Terminimal Hello Globalist.
the goddamn saxophone song during europe part had me chuckling when i noticed it. wonderful video, thanks!
Я ставил своей младшей племяннице the sims,
теперь я знаю почему моя сестра не так часто зовёт меня в гости.
Super good video! I didn't know that this topic could be so interesting and that there could be such differences rating the same content.
Germany has become more relaxed about video games but just 2 years ago in 2016 there were 28 games that were suddenly, without warning, "banned" and were no longer available for purchase, some of these games were up to 20 years old. It's also annoying when games have an enforced "german-only" version that next to censorship also doesn't allow one to change the language of the game so you may have to live with a subpar german dub.
Which ones were suddenly banned? Do you have a list? A link?
Aliens versus Predator Classic
Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold
Blood: One Unit Whole Blood
Blood II: The Chosen + Expansion
BloodRayne
BloodRayne 2
Carmageddon Max Pack
Carmageddon 2: Carpocalypse Now
Harvester
Kingpin - Life of Crime
MALE
Painkiller: Black Edition
Painkiller Hell & Damnation
Painkiller Overdose
Postal
Postal 2
Postal 3
POSTAL Redux
Rise of the Triad
Rune Classic
Shadow Warrior Classic Redux
SiN Episodes: Emergence
Star Wars Dark Forces
The Chaos Engine
TimeShift
UberSoldier II
Various bundles that include the removed titles have also been pulled:
Carmageddon Complete Pack
Lucasarts Jedi Knight Bundle
Nordic Games Classic Mix
Painkiller Complete Pack
Painkiller Hell and Damnation Standard 4-pack
Painkiller Hell and Damnation Collectors
POSTAL 2 4-Pack
POSTAL 2 + Paradise Lost
Rise of the Triad - 4 Pack
Star Wars Collection - 2015 -RP
The Apogee Throwback Pack
The Chaos Engine 2-Pack
Sources:
techraptor.net/content/26-controversial-games-pulled-steam-german-crack (english)
www.gamersglobal.de/news/114352/28-spiele-auf-steam-fuer-deutschland-gesperrt (german)
You can find many more by just looking online, though the numbers sometimes vary, and it's true that these games are no longer available for purchase.
These games however were not banned by the USK or the German government. These games were always banned, steam simply adjusted their storefront to match the German law since they aren't allowed to be openly promoted. Thats a very important difference. It even says so in the articles you linked.
Doesn't change that these games are for the most part no longer available, also I put "banned" into quotation marks for a reason. Also keep in mind this was like 1-2 years ago, maybe Shadow Warrior was readded again, but games like Postal are still missing.
Dionysus24779 I mean of course they are gone. They are banned in Germany. In the end however that is a decision valve made to sell their stuff in Germany without any hassle. Your original post makes it sounds like the USK or the BPjM suddenly banned them. I agree though that the German only dub thing is very annoying. Luckily only the case for very few games, but I would have loved to play the new Wolfenstein games with English dub. Maybe one day a publisher will go to court/ they change their rating guidelines... :/
I don’t know a lot about it, but I’m pretty sure Spain used aDeSe before PEGI existed, and behaved like it as well. I think you didn’t find it because it was rolled out late enough to be replaced by PEGI in a short amount of time. aDeSe is now AEVI, so if anyone wants to know more, whip out the google translate.
So China really is numbah one? Huh, who knew.
The Chinese are stereotypically nationalistic and aggressively boast about stuff like this along with currently pushing HARD on international propaganda campaigns about their importance to the world, so ... most people?
Great video. Just one thing to mention about your comment at 21:47. Prior to PEGI there was a rating system in Spain created by the Spanish Association of Entertainment Software Developers and Editors (aDeSe), however it wasn't officially enforced so only some games had the ratings. Usually either those published by SEGA or those distributed by local Spanish companies such as Proein.
I do think that the ESRB is ultimately a good thing, even if I dislike them dragging their heels about the loot box controversy. We in the US managed to avoid a lot more censorship when compared to much of the world because of having the gaming industry be self-regulated.
I do agree that a soft M rating would be a great thing to have. There is a world of difference between Halo and Grand Theft Auto. The strangest thing is the cut-off for mature content is different between the ratings for movies and video games. If Halo was adapted into a movie, I can almost guarantee that it would be a PG-13.
So much of a difference, that I first played San Andreas at the age of 9, but only played Halo 3 when I was 15. Somehow I was not mentally damaged. Age ratings are useless bullshit.
like how a lot of older teen manga that are adapted anime have TV-14 ratings
There also a world of differences between the Soul Eater Not or K-on manga and the Monster Musume manga despite both being rated OT(equivalent to ESRB's M)
Hey, just want to correct some things that I saw you get wrong.
First of all, ELSPA’s rating system wasn’t exclusive to the UK - it was used in a lot of Europe (in fact, the E in ELSPA stood for European). It was created in the UK, and later became UKIE, a British trade organization of some sort after PEGI took over for ELSPA. I grew up in Ireland, and we used ELSPA.
Two, ELSPA didn’t just have their ratings on the back of the box; they would have their rating on the front, too.
And third, the BBFC didn’t just rate games if they were considered more mature; there were plenty of kid games that were given U (British equivalent to the G rating) and PG ratings. The only criteria for games being rated by the BBFC was if the distributors elected to have their games rated by them, otherwise the responsibility would lay on PEGI. There were, however, examples of the BBFC stepping in, only if the game in question was particularly problematic and needed to be considered for distribution in the UK; see, for example, Manhunt 2 or the original Carmageddon.
I always love this style of informational video from you. Keep at it
This video was amazingly well made and very informative. Deserves more views
I have a feeling that the rating system in the US will become more lax in the next 20 years. The newer generation of parents know what video games are and most likely have played a great many of them. Each generation becomes less prudent than the previous (for the most part) and these new parents will probably make their judgement in buying games based on their own experiences. For example, if I ever have kids, I wouldn't want them playing online games like Team Fortress 2 until they're 16, not because of violence, but because I can't stand little kids abusing the voice chat. Will the rating system change to reflect things like that? Probably not, but those who have had video games around for the entirety of their lives will weigh those experiences and use them.
The point: I don't want to forced to import Dead or Alive Xtreme 4.
same about online games, pretty much any offline non-r18 game is fine for a kid imho as long as proper supervision is given(let's say, current 12+ would require supervision till 6/8 years, 16+ to about 10/12 years, and 18+/M( i guess something like madworld, gears of war and cod black ops fit here) up to around 12-14, with exceptions natually, but take this as a general rule of thumb based on my own experiences) but online games?
no online games at the very least until age 14 imho, possibly even up to 15 or 16 unless chat, especially voice chat can be pseudo-permanently blocked.
there's some quite nasty crap going around in online games chats, and even though in many cases the online communication can be more beneficial than negative, one would assume as a parent you would avoid meeting the criteria for the negatives to outweigh the positives.
Wow, an American UA-camr that got the German system right. I really didn't expect that. Well done.
In Russia, game rates you