[Updated] ESRB On DLC: Must Maintain Original Rating
It doesn't come as much of a surprise, but it is indeed official: ESRB president Patricia Vance, speaking at last week's MI6 conference, asserted that downloadable content must adhere to the same rating characteristics as the original on-disc game:
If a [publisher] submits a game to us and it gets a teen rating and then [the publisher] wants to add downloadable content to that game in the future, which is obviously happening a lot today, they have to keep the content in the downloadable product consistent with the core rating. It can't go out of bounds.
If [the DLC] does [require altering the original product], then obviously the rating will have to change. But the consumer is still being informed. That downloadable content is still carrying an ESRB rating and the consumer's ultimately protected by being informed.
While this doesn't exactly apply to, say, Oblivion's horse armor, it kills dead the fantasy that we could one day download an uncensored version of Manhunt 2 - or, for that matter, any kind of of "Adults Only" rated content for a Mature game.
It would have been nice to have an 18+ section of the gaming world, where those of us with fabulously depraved tastes could "upgrade" our games to allow content that we are mature enough to handle. (We think.) But it was never very likely, and with the current political climate so hostile to games as well as the ESRB, how else could they answer this question?
[UPDATE: Patrick Klepek from MTV's Multiplayer was kind enough to let me know that Patricia Vance has clarified her statement. If the downloadable content in question is optional, it can indeed be of a different rating. If, however, the download is a required update, then it must match the rating of the original game.]
ESRB: Downloadable Content Must Maintain Original Rating, Can't Go 'Out Of Bounds' [Multiplayer]
tiny dancer
Posted to Hot Stuff, Miscellany on 18 April 2008
Other stuff like this: dlc, esrb, game ratings, patricia vance
