Should the ESRB change up it's rating system?

Hatred has been rated AO by the ESRB.  The game itself features no sexual scenes.  Just mass violence.  But, here's the thing.  There are some games that are obviously intended for adults -- they get the M rating, which is for ages 17 and up.  But, at gamestop, guess what!  You gotta be 18 with ID in order to buy the game?  Pretty stupid.

Adding more, M is 17+.  AO is 18+.  A ONE YEAR DIFFERENCE.  It's really stupid, considering that the nearest rating, going down from M, is 13...  So, 13,17, and 18.  18+ Rated games by the ESRB are not allowed by sony, microsoft, or nintendo consoles.

How about this...

Mature = 16+  Old enough to drive, old enough to play M rated games.

IA (intended for Adults) = Rating intended for those over 18, but, does not contain high levels of sexual content.  Such as, God of War III, and GTA, Mortal Kombat X.  Surely if the rating of M is set back to 16, you've got to think about what the M rating gets away with already.

AO= Must contain high levels of sexual content.  This is what Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo don't want on their consoles anyway.  Having a rating like this devoted to that means that games clearly intended for adults don't get improper ratings.

And, some parents don't mind their kids playing M rated games.  I've had M rated games for as long as I can remember.  But, you've got to think, there are M rated games with nudity.  So, it may be okay to let the little 8 year old to play an M rated game, but there are parents who don't know there's strippers who take their tops off.  Sure, it's on the back of the box, but, do you think people would pick up a game that clearly states Adult right there on the box?

Now, back in the 90s, when I was growing up, there weren't games like GTAV where you could go to a strip club, have a tease, then walk out.  M rated meant there was blood.  If you even so  much as showed a nipple, the game would have been swiftly given an AO rating.

The closest thing you got to nudity in a none AO rated game was accidentally walking in on Roll, in Megaman Legends, which had the camera focused on Megaman, or Tron's cloths blowing off in Megaman Legends 2.  Again, the camera wasn't on Tron herself.... but, wait, at the end of the game, Yuna, or Sera, or whatever the hell her name was, was naked and the camera was kinda on her....  Nevermind...  And that game was rated E...

But, my point is, after saying all of this, the system needs a change. M rated games can be rated M for vastly different reasoning, and so can AO.  I don't see a problem with kids playing M rated games, given they're stable, but, exposing them to nudity at a young age?...  I don't think it's a good idea to be stimulating their minds with that sort of things at a young age.

Lol, so exposing children to sex, which is a natural and integral thing to the continuing existence of humanity, is worse than exposing them to murder which does literally the opposite? Come on, dude.

If they're going to change the ratings, just do what is done in film. AO (NC-17) for intense violence or graphic yet still "artistically driven" sexual content, and X for pornographic content. Just split the last two so you know what you're getting into.

Oh, and when I say "graphic sexual content," I mean something like sex in game of thrones, not something like stripping in GTA. If your kids aren't ready for strippers, they aren't ready to be going on mass murdering sprees either.

I will never understand the Americans and their aversion to nudity in entertainment. To realize you can show mass murders on free TV at 8pm, but not to be allowed to show a breast at all at any time is beyond comprehension.

Pretty much this.

I see no reason to change the majority of it. Maybe get rid of AO and add a For kids rating.

Yeah, I still understand why nudity is sooo much worse than violence! I'm European and maybe I'm not seeing something Americans see? :/

I knew you guys would show up and say that. Forget about personal opinion here. The fact is that there are parents who do not want their kids playing sex-simulators, but doesn't mind killing and shooting, and such. It doesn't make sense, I know.

But, the point I'm trying to get across, Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo don't want AO games on their consoles, because they have massive amounts of sexual content. Parents don't want to buy games with any sort of sex.

So, if a game like hatred comes out, that gets an AO rating, we're screwed on consoles. For something that's ban was intended for sexual content, which hatred has none.

If they want to ban it from their consoles, let them, but don't ban the games without sexual content for the same exact reason, is what I'm saying.

I'm really worried for MKX now... has that been rated yet?

But even if that game were ever considered to come out on the console (which I think was never the case), surely EU would rate it lower, and people who wanted it could import it or download it from the European store. I don't see the problem there.

Of course, I have a double advantage of living in EU and being an adult, so I don't care about ratings at all. I don't even know what the rating of the games I play is.

This. Sex is something we (adults) all do and it's forbidden on TV (In the US) yet murder is rife in entertainment ..

I don't care about ratings either except to have some clue of what to expect.  If I see a T-Rated Mortal Kombat game, I know to stay away from it.  The problem here is that the game will not be released on a Sony, Nintendo, or Microsoft console.  It may extend to any territory.  Doesn't make sense to ban it when you can make a new account, and download it in another reigon.  Or import it.

We're talking about the company that owns the console banning the game, not a single country banning the game because it's government doesn't like it.