Watchdog Group Calls for Investigation in Wake of Manhunt 2 Re-rate

[DealBot]

Recently Rockstar announced Manhunt 2 would finally get a public release after securing a M rating, however the Campaign for a commercial-free childhood is not happy with the decision. As a result they are calling for a federal investigation in order to find out how exactly Manhunt 2 became an M rated game.

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[Zilch]

The original version of the game recieved an AO rating from the ESRB until Rockstar made a few changes to have it recieve an M rating instead. I doubt that the original version even qualified for an AO rating.

[freedomorfire]

it'll sell anyways

[Nesseight]

Unless there's some new federal law, I think the only stores that even enforce ESRB ratings in the US by ID'ing customers are Walmart and Toys R Us (if they're even still around). The rest are businesses just trying to profit off of what games are popular.

Ratings are for incompetent parents who are unable to teach their children the difference between right, wrong, fiction, and nonfiction, and expect a third party to set guidelines to shield their children from the inevitable.

Everyone (at least in my generation and up) watched Terminator when they were somewhere between 8 and 12. It's MPAA rating recommends 18+. The world is still a perfectly fine place today.

If you think about that article, the ESRB changed their rating from suggesting only people 18 and above should play, to suggesting that only people 17 and above should, and that somehow caused some big fuss in the eyes of some no-name group.

I would rather have my kids playing games that are deemed "too violent" by random groups and be able to try to use it to help enforce their understanding of right and wrong than have them try out crystal meth or join a cult/gang when they decide that they are "too cool for kiddy video games".

Okay, that last example is a bit extreme, if my kids ever did that and survived, I would suffocate them to death with a plastic bag.

[Sky10w10w]

Recently Rockstar announced Manhunt 2 would finally get a public release after securing a M rating, however the Campaign for a commercial-free childhood is not happy with the decision. As a result they are calling for a federal investigation in order to find out how exactly Manhunt 2 became an M rated game.

View the full article

That's just plain stupid. Even if there was no issue over the game getting an M or an AO rating, the fact of the matter is that kids aren't supposed to play M rated games unless their parent approves of that course of action.

This is like whining about the fact that a new porn film was only rated "XX" instead of "XXX"; either way, you probably shouldn't let your "child" play it unless you feel that they're very mature for their age.