http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/news/mi6-can-game-industry-selfpolice/?biz=1
With the Xbox 360 and PS3 starting to incorporate more user created content and games, can the industry properly rate these products? ESRB president Patricia Vance joins Microsoft and Sony to discuss self-regulation in this panel.
Posted by N. Evan Van Zelfden on Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Games and politics are always two hot-button issues that fit together. At the MI6 Conference is San Francisco, one interesting panel delved into some territory that could challenge the game industry in future.
Patricia Vance, president of the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) spoke to the audience from her perspective. "We're not good at areas like user created content, micro-transactions, viral marketing – directions you're all going," she said.
"What does it mean when you open up the traditional channels, and let non-traditional people make games for the console?" asked Boyd Multerer, the general manager for Microsoft's XNA Community Game Platform. "You can see this in the music industry, where you see all kinds of non-professional people making music."
Moderator N'Gai Croal, an editor from Newsweek, noted that most consumers assume that the ESRB works like the MPAA, where every frame of film is reviewed – "that someone official is still doing it." In the music industry, however, said Croal, "They self-police." He continued by asking Vance how she dealt with the assumption that every bit of content is approved.
"Consumer education," responded Vance. The ESRB will be announcing a program that "goes into parental controls and the whole world of online gaming and what parents need to be aware of... many parents, let's face it, are not."
Vance offered an example of downloadable content being something new that must meet the ratings of the original product, concluding, "I think we're doing our job."
"In the world where everyone can make a game and publish it," said Multerer, it can't be as rigorous as the ESRB process. "They make a game, they go to the XNA website, and fill out a form," he said, describing the current process where creators self-rate, and then peers — in this case, other amateur game developers — must validate the self-rating. "We can't carte blanche trust someone who's making a game to say what it is," concludes Multerer. But with peers, "we have a pretty good idea."
Anthony Justman, the senior corporate counsel from Sony Computer Entertainment of America offered his thoughts on the evolution of compliance, with titles such as Sony's Home. "The next version of that is going to have an online community rating system," he said.
"LittleBigPlanet does use user-sourced content," he continues, so several models will be used – both technological, algorithmic, and human. The problem for Sony, Justman said, was the struggle as a company with three regional headquarters. In the U.S., he said, content objections would be ordered as "Sex, vulgarity, and violence. In Europe it would be upside-down. In Asia, I'm not really sure how that work's out."
Justman further noted that "The PlayStation 3 is a walled garden community. The great thing about our technology is there are lots of tools," he continued, citing the ability to block users, and having to be connected to people in order to share content inside a group.
Justman concluded by discussing a time when Sony would become more like a network rather than anything else. "It will only take a few painful lawsuits," he says, before the companies know boundaries of what should be acceptable and what is too controversial. "We don't quite know what those are. But we'll learn from trial and error."
