ESRB Restrictions on Live Marketplace Content
By Chris on Wednesday, December 26th, 2007 at 4:40 PM PST In Game Companies, Game Consoles, Game Platforms, Gamer Life, Microsoft, Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony
According to Major Nelson, if you’re under 18 years old you won’t be able to download certain demos and trailers from the Xbox Live Marketplace if they’re for a game that has a rating of either M (Mature) or RP (Rating Pending). This is to comply with the ESRB’s Principles and Guidelines for Responsible Advertising Practices, and according to Major Nelson, this is something that all of the online console stores (including the Wii Shop Channel and PlayStation Store) should be adhering to.
This is because demos and trailers are considered advertising, so for the same reason we have to put certain trailers behind age gates here at FileFront, Microsoft has to stop the young folks from accessing this content.
I can see this causing a lot of issues if the ability to graduate your account to an adult account continues to give people problems.
I’m glad there’s some adherance to the rules finally.
The only problem is that some games (Frontlines: Fuel of War) have Unrated flags, but are rated. That stinks.
Why cant you just lie about your age. Like when I go on gamespy and they have 18+ trailers. I just scroll down to the 1980’s and bam!!, instant blood and gore,(aint so bad)
Seems like common sense.
And what about the people in TEXAS that are considered adults at age 17?! I do not want to have to wait another year to get M and RP content even though legally I am an adult, I even have freakin parental consent and it still will not let me download a lot of the things I want to! If they are doing this then they should also remove settings in the family settings for ratings of M and RP.
If it sounds like I am overly pissed about this it is because I am.
I’m about 16 and I really find stuff like this pointless if people want to get M rated content then all they have to do is put some thing like 12/11/1909 and yes it go down that far. I like the idea but I think it should lie with the parents not for Ms to decide on what I should be able to download.
Meh all I did was make another account and put the b-day earlier since I already have parental consent too. They already have the family controls settings don’t see why they have to have this too.
I just dont want to make another one because mine is paid for a whole year already.
we have seen enough blood and gore like in movies so why should we have to wait to be old enough to finaly download RP and M rated vidoes and demos I think it is stupid since this is a free country and plus the demos and vidoes are not that much blood and violence