Lair Developer Throws Shade At The ESRB
Dorian Cory said it best when describing shade, "Shade is not having to tell you, you are ugly, because you know you are ugly."
Factor Five president Julian Eggebrecht had some choice words to say about the current state of the ESRB, equating their censorship of games to the witch-hunting MacCarthyism of the 1950s. Republican Senator Joe MacCarthy blacklisted people in the entertainment industry, by accusing them of being members of the communist party. Anti-communist sentiment was so high at the time, that blacklisted individuals could barely find work and ruined most of their careers.
Eggebrecht spoke out against the ESRB at Leipzig this year to relate his frustration of their heavy handed approach to judging the content of video games. He believes that developers are going to start to censor their own games by not taking chances, or pushing the boundaries of the medium.
"I would be happy if in games we could talk about homosexuality but we're not even at the point where we can admit that humans have heterosexual relationships and that is a real problem" said Eggebrecht. "It tends to show that games are not being seen, even by our own ratings boards, as an artform."
He went on to explain how the ESRB forced him to rework the camera control system, because the board feared that younger players may use the camera to specifically view the bits of gore ’up close and personal’.
Matt Peckham of PC World, quoted Eggebrecht:
“Interestingly as the ESRB got better at manipulating the camera they found more to critique -- effectively turning Factor 5's development process into a hoops game about blood, giblets (flying chunks of flesh), and a kind of quantitative referendum on how many constitute "A Chunk Too Far."
The ESRB was so invasive in the development of Lair, that Factor 5 had to go through a series of very costly and “hugely problematic” series of revisions because the ESRB felt that a Teen rating was in not appropriate for all of those flying chunks. The constant revision of the title, attributed to the common complaint of the title being unevenly polished at times.
"On the one hand [the ESRB] objected to [the gibs]" says Eggebrecht "But they let us through with a Teen even though you can use fire - you can set up to five, six thousand people on fire. They burn, they run around and they scream, but of course that wasn't a problem. There was no blood."
His solution to this pressing issue is for the ESRB to implement a rating that falls between T (13+) and M (17+).
"I hope that we actually can prove that this is an artform. Show me something that proves on all levels that games are indeed an artform - push the violence, but also push the sex, and push it in an artistic way where it's not really gratuitous, but where it gets my thinking brain going."
Toots
Posted to Hot Stuff, Video Games on 21 August 2007
· Comments (2)
Other stuff like this: censorship, esrb, factor 5, Julian Eggebrecht, lair, ps3
Anyone that plays BioShock, Half Life 2, Shadow of the Colossus, or Okami and doesn't think games are a legitimate art form is a fool.
""I would be happy if in games we could talk about homosexuality but we're not even at the point where we can admit that humans have heterosexual relationships and that is a real problem" said Eggebrecht."
That would be nice, but we live in a world where mentioning the fact that gay people exist is considered "controversial". We're such a child species, still...
The whole bit about "shade" in the headline and first sentence doesn't really tie in to the content of the rest of the post. Was it really necessary to put it in at all?