There were actually some licensed NES games which pushed the boundaries of what was permissible by Nintendo's censorship bureau, such as _Golgo 13_ and _Bionic Commando_ to name a few. And to be completely honest, even the ESRB and PEGI are susceptible to conflicts of interest as they are still run by an industry group led by game publishers. Case in point the dubiously low age ratings for NBA 2K despite recent entries having what amounts to simulated casino mechanics in a sports game of all things.
I mean, the ESRB is formed by companies in a trench coat and one of those companies are EA... so I'm not surprised that EA got away with it. It's even worse that some T-rated games are removing swearing entirely, which just waters down the rating into just E10 2.0. Not helping that the most popular T-rated game, Fortnite, is popular among very young kids.
@@yoshisreal I am not surprised as companies are run more by bean-counters than actual visionaries these days. One developer went so far as to urging people to pirate their own game as a form of protest against Take-Two whose scumbag CEO earned a $15 million pay raise.
@@heilong79 It was specifically designed to eat quarters. That's why the AI has both input reading and the ability to instantly do any move regardless of timing or situation.
It’s important to note that at this time, all you had was the MPAA system for movies and the explicit content labels for music-TV got a ratings system a few years later.
I almost forgot that! I remember watching Nickelodeon and there being no kind of advisory for any of their shows until the TV rating system when reruns of The Ren & Stimpy Show would start beginning with an advisory stating the show was rated "TV Y7 for gross humor and silly slapping".
For me,Is about the method of footage analysis,where a 60 minute footage was studied like a movie,that explain that grimgrimoire in 2007 went away with an E having a scene where the protagonist almost got SA 'ed by a teacher
I remember the Coding Secrets guy talking about an fps Lego game with robot characters that received an M rating because of shooting in first person style, though it wasn't' released or was retooled to third person to fix the rating. The characters fall apart like Lego blocks with no blood. Clearly M rating is deserved, right?
For a while it was apparent that stuff that would merit a PG-13 if it were in a film got a game an M rating. There's almost nothing in the Halo games that wouldn't be in a PG-13 action movie but they're M.
@@HaveYouTriedGuillotines Especially when it came to the loot boxes scandals all the games that required spending real world money in order to be able to get the loot boxes should have automatically bumped the games up to probably in adults only rating tact is a massive deterrent.
@@mrheroprimes These rating systems were birthed from moral panic. Kapp italist business controls the information ecosystem, and the means of communication. Hence why I have to work to bypass their sensorship. They control the moral panic, and will never let it harm their profits if they can help it. Instead, they will use it to push an agenda that helps them instead. Ergo these rating systems will never have any moral or ethical consequence that threatens big business, as business will never allow such ideology and information to trend unless it benefits them. Gamers- Not activists, but the actual people who consume video games as a product or service- rejected the gambling en masse... And corrupt government officials and ratings boards were sluggish to so much as acknowledge it was happening. This is not something that the ratings boards will address, and even if they would, it's not something that they *should* address. This is the job of a consumer advocacy agency, but they're also extremely corrupt, weak or non-existent.
I remember seeing an early photo of Mega Man: The Wily Wars in video game magazines get an MA-13 rating on its box. Though that game was never released in the U.S., and yet nothing in that game that I can think of shows it deserved that rating in the first place.
12:47 Well, we in Mexico use another rating system since the ESRB rating was not as clear to mexican consumers (mainly parents) because of the language barrier, even if some labels had the contents of the game translated and the rating explained. Hence in 2021 a mexican videogame rating was established, in which "A" is for all ages, "B" is for teens above 13 years, "B15" is for teens above 15, "C" is for adults only (+18) and "D" is mainly for erotic content, excessive life-like violence and betting.
The V.R.C . was full of contradictions. Jurassic Park on the Sega Genesis and Sega CD got a "GA" rating, but Jurassic Park: Rampage Edition got a rating of "MA-13." The Lethal Enforcers games were another weird case. The first one was "MA-17," while Lethal Enforcers II: Gun Fighters was "MA-13," even though both games required "The Justifier" gun to shoot enemies (and civilians, even though doing so meant getting demoted in rank) directly on the screen. Perhaps the weirdest game with a "GA" rating is... Castlevania: Bloodlines. Yeah, a game about fighting zombies, monsters, and VAMPIRES somehow got a "GA" rating from Sega through the V.R.C.
In fairness, even the ESRB is inconsistent with Splatterhouse. The TurboGrafx-16 port of the first game got an M when it released on the Wii's Virtual Console, but the Namco Museum on Switch included the original arcade version and was merely rated T.
@@Sonictheoofhog4 The TG-16 version was somewhat censored actually. The 4th stage boss is an inverted cross in the Japanese version while the US version is a generic blue head. I think it just has to do with whoever was in charge of rating the game that day.
I have played Grand Theft Auto V, Resident Evil 2 (the remake) and Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl on PS4. I got through the entire game as Claire Redfield without dying or getting hurt or injured. I also played a few times as Lincoln Loud (a character from The Loud House) which I started giving Danny Phantom the boot. Grand Theft Auto V and Resident Evil 2 (the remake) are both rated M while Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl is rated E10+ due to the violence in all 3 games. Teen Digital Diva, however, is rated T because it doesn’t have any rating descriptors due to it being a edutainment game.
While not video games in the strictest sense, I have a ton of information on the Barcode Battler. Though under-supported in North America and Europe, the product line had three generations of hardware in Japan, where over 1500 exclusive cards were released.
The fact that Night Trap originally was released without any kind of rating on it, only to be given one after the backlash Sega received should tell you everything you need to know. Good work Pojr!
And the game decades later got rerated from M to T when it was released on PS4, Xbox One, and Switch (Despite Howard Lincoln back in the early 90s saying that it would never appear on a Nintendo system due to it violating Nintendo guidelines).
And those that filmed the scenes deliberately went out of their way to make it completely ridiculous to avoid any controversy or violence to not only avoid controversy, but also to prevent others from actually attempting those in real life. I think it was due to FMV being actual film rather than pixilated visuals that made everyone think otherwise.
I remember enabling ABACABB code on the Genesis version of MK back in the day, I thought it was super cool. The older version of me now sees the monty-python style gushers of blood coming out of the character as so excessive as to be laughable, and nearly cringe. Great memories though!
MK was always meant to be campy and comedic. The fact it caused so much controversy shows exactly why there should be no regulation of art, only the economy that's related to it: Out of touch moral busybodies don't care to understand, only control. People should not give them an inch, and should vote them out of office.
Mortal Kombat was meant to be silly. The devs very clearly show that they love gory b-movies Only issue i got with gore in old mk is how in mk3 they like copy pasted gibs so people lose 30 ribcages during some fatalities.
@@eightcoins4401 That's part of what makes it funny. I still remember setting the variable for gibs to some really high number in old multiplayer FPS games, so enemies would just explode into a pile of meat and bones.
At least Sega tried to provide a rating. It had to start somewhere. And even today, with an independent rating system, the ratings regularly make no sense. I wouldn't take a shot at them for not getting it right on the first try.
Have you made a video on the now discontinued K-A (Kids to Adults) rating by ESRB that stopped being used in 2008? I've seen a few of those ESRB stickers that are in stores still list it but nowadays is E for Everyone by default.
Don't forget on Wii Virtual console alot games ratings became E+10 from E or K-A(Kids to Adults) except Nintendo games with similar themes. It made people mad.
Thanx pojr another great video coming at me! I love ur channel, its about all I watch on yt, bcoz i usually just like audio... Can you dig deeper in to sega channel. I would love to see old vhs recordings of lost material!
Fun fact: Sega created this rating system in order to help them sell more games. An MA-17 rating was used to create a mystique around games, MAKING KIDS WANT THEM MORE
That's cool you made a video about SEGA's rating system. ;) It's really rarely mentioned. Anyways, I my opinion, video game ratings systems - ESRB and PEGI - should also care about difficulty. There are many games rated 'E' by ESRB and PEGI 3+, whith kid-friendly cartoon graphics that are actually too hard for kids and targetted for hardcore gamers.
It wasn't always true that stores didn't check IDs; I remember getting Lethal Enforcers which was MA-17 and I was like 11 years old and my dad had to vouch for me. He told them he'd seen it and it wasn't really more violent than stuff I'd already played.
Regarding the more violent SNES games, I'm surprised you didn't mention Killer Instinct, which is almost just as bloody as Mortal Kombat, and the most shocking thing about is that it was published by Nintendo itself.
It's a shame the rating system wasn't really taken advantage of. I can't think of any Sega Genesis / CD / 32X games with strong profanity, except maybe some FMV games and the implied swearing in Comix Zone, which came after ESRB. The rating could have allowed for darker themes, dialogue, topics, etc. which may be respected in Japan but taboo in America at the time, mainly around sexuality. A shame but at least the ESRB mitigated that to an extent by 1994, shame we didn't see any official Sega Gen, NES, or SNES games with profanity though, would have been allowed by the end of all these console's lifespans.
Play Rise Of The Dragon (MA-17) and Silpheed (GA!) on Sega CD. More profanity can be heard in Silpheed with a code. Contra: Hard Corps and Phantasy Star IV have some mild profanity.
Hey, Pojr! Still enjoying your videos. I don't know if you're aware, but there was actually one more rating in Sega's system that was above MA-17. It was called "Deep Water," and to my knowledge there were only a small handful of games that had it, one of which being the Sega CD version of Eternal Champions (the only one I played that had it). I guess it was for extra violent games? Eternal Champions CD had some crazy fatality-like finishers that were super over the top.
Only 2 games actually used that- Eternal Champions on Sega CD as well as as the Sega Saturn port of Duke Nukem 3D. Another interesting thing is that both of these games came out AFTER the ESRB was formed, meaning the rating was VERY redundant
ESRB only had control to choose what's appropriate in the US. There were PEGI in Europe, RARS in Russia, ACB in Australia, USK in Germany, and CERO in Japan.
Technically, Sega was not the only one to use a rating system prior to the ESRB. I remember seeing one on some PC games that had like a thermometer, and I think the record industry might’ve been behind it or something like that. I have to look it up for sure, but I remember seeing it on some games I bought like doom and rise of the triad back in the day.
The "realistic gun controllers" for the MA-17 Lethal Enforcers being controversial is ironic, because the ESRB never considered the realism of a light-gun a reason to rate a game higher than T.
I remember when I was back in high school seeing that rating on a rental copy of splatterhouse 2 when Sega first started doing this and thinking it was absurd because it was just Sega handling it themselves.
I think that they were somewhat biased. However, I think after the hearing about video game ratings, Sega got stricter and there was pressure on them to be strict until the ESRB took over.
I honestly don’t know why that at that time they had a rating system. I mean, at least with movies live action for the most part and seeing someone decapitate another person can be scary. But video games had not at that point really gotten even close to having realistic graphics at most it was digitized sprites and in a few cases FMVs but even those were grainy as hell. Even then, a lot of the violence he saw those video games. Is it to a Grimms fairy tales and I don’t see parental advisory on that book. I would say it’s only in the last 10 to 15 years where graphics have gotten far enough to give us very convincing horror games.
The funniest thing is that i haven't met anyone who cared abot the age the ESRB or PEGI gave to a game, yet developers are still censoring their games to not be Ao
The NES had a lot of games with blood, violence, religious themes and nudity even in licensed games, they just weren't brought to the US or were censored.
In early 2021, the ESRB was replaced by the Sistema Mexicano de Equivalencias de Clasificación de Contenidos de Videojuegos (translation: Mexican Videogame Content Classification Equivalence System) in Mexico, it almost works as the Mexican movie classification system, only that AA doesn’t exist and instead there is D for pure adults, it started to circulate in 2021, A is E, B is E+10, B15 is T, C is M and D is Adults Only
@@VincentShaw-by6tk Thank you, you should suscribe, it depends, last year it was Hikaru Michi (Sonic X 2nd Ending theme) and this year is Blue Dream (Saint Seiya 2nd Ending theme, but the one from the Latin Spanish dub)
@@Alexmaquina2023 just subscribed😎👍 But as far as the song I was referring to, it sounds like a chiptune beat and starts around 13:01 on your last video👍
@@droketheroperThen there’s RoboCop vs The Terminator being slapped with an MA-13 rating. Why? Because you don’t kill female enemies without a code? 🤨 Go figure.
Tbh, I think there was a bit of manipulation in there. But the ESRB is no different... I find it odd that they considered StarCraft good for teens when it uses language that gets other games slapped with a mature rating, but thats just ONE example of the craziness.
@@Destron5683 VRC may be but the ratings aren't Sega's, MA-13 and MA-17 existed before the VRC, since the VRC was created in 1993 and Wolfensien 3D was created May 5th 1992, so the ratings predate the VRC.
@@soundspark PC-13 was a voluntary rating, it meant nothing, however the OFLC (Australian Classification Board) came up with the MA ratings long ago. That's how it was rated in Australia.
You missed an important point which was a big part of the discussion when music started carrying warnings for explicit language which is younger people are more likely to be drawn to media carrying those warnings. I can't remember which game it was but there was one that carried a warning pre esrb about the content not being suitable for cowards or something like that.
As a kid all we cared about is will our parents purchase it. Honestly I never had issues buying my own games and I was around 13 when mortal Kombat came out.
Can you blame them for being scared? If a game gets an AO rating, it won't be allowed to be on consoles like Playstation, Xbox and Nintendo. In addition, stores such as Walmart, Best Buy, Target and Game Stop won't sell them either. AO games are allowed on PC surprisingly enough.
Lets not forget that on the NES in Japan they had Takeshi's Challenge....which has full blown domestic violence in it if you don't choose to settle things amicably with your wife (The correct solution is to settle amicably...but structure it so that she gets as little as possible so you can go treasure hunting). Just something to think about when you remember Nintendo tried to take the high ground on their company name in hearings.
The guy in the bottom right corner? That's Dan Forden, MK2's sound designer. When performing an uppercut successfully, Dan occasionally appears accompanied by a sound clip of him saying "Toasty!" in a falsetto voice. This would extend into later installments of the Mortal Kombat series as well.
Please clarify, are you trying to say Beat em's by their nature are "Clunky"? in a mini review where the character controls like a plank of wood with a hurt box the size of a fridge?
Hah ma-17 which I prefer anyway you know teen will damaged their sales shadow the hedgehog game will get rated m for mature oh no if it’s censored but gets rated e10 instead for that treatment
Nah I still give Sega and Sega of America a world of credit for navigating that quagmire they found themselves in back in the 90's. Yall don't understand unless you were around back then, pretty much every major societal ill imaginable that you can think of got hoisted onto Sega's lap in such an absurd, cartoonish and disingenuous way. High ranking political officials, parental advocacy groups, police unions, mental health organizations, hell even the first lady were just dog piling to the point where in some cities and municipalities video games' got temporarily banned and some legislators even entertained the idea of taking away Sega's ability to sell products in the US all together. What's worse is that instead of most other companies in the industry having Sega's back, you had Nintendo joining in on the action to shift the blame off themselves in a wildly hypocritical way almost in an underhanded effort to ruin their market place standings for their own profitability. Be grateful they pushed back, called out Nintendo's BS and put everyone else in check otherwise we might have been stuck with vanilla bIble games for the last 30 years.
didnt the sega rating come because of night trap to begin with ??? the vrc was formed because congress and the parents had there pearls clutched so hard they were gonna break, yes the sega ratings were very biased and only used by them it eventually brought the esrb which is somewhat a good thing... my gripe on it was just like music back in the day... did parents bother checking these things out or did they just get the game or music for the kid to keep em quiet and not bother to know what they were buying... in the case of mortal kombat it recieved huge coverage so that was plain as crystal what was going on there, other games like the games brought up here splatterhouse 2 and death duel how much coverage was there on either game other then schoolground chatter... at least now we have the esrb rating systems and its been refined BUT if you buy a game digitally do you see those ratings??? parents should always be aware of the content they give there kids and as adults one should be aware of what your buying especially with games being so realistic like they are now
Well time to feel old. The reason it was introduced at all was the testimony and grand standing in front of Congress where there was talk of a government enforced rating system(a couple of months after Mortal Kombat released to arcades). To thwart the legislation, Sega introduced the VRC. Now for the weird. The real reason that the ratings seem weird is the actual qualifiers. You used to be able to call the VRC(when they were publicizing the virtues of a rating system). I called them, I was doing a school project and expecting to sight the new rating system proving a safe metric for informed parents. The ratings made by Sega were based on plot complexity... I was informed by the VRC technically someone could have made the most brain dead gore fest rated for GA as long as there was no plot or plot blurb in the manual. Where as if you made story heavy RPG it was automatically teen or above. Nintendo didn't join/do anything sighting their licensing review would prevent violent content(also there were not Nintendo titles shown at the hearings).
The ESRB is terrible with its ratings as well. Halo, until 5, recieved an M rating, even though nothing in the series is objectionable to anyone 13 or older. The Batman Arkham games were all rated T until Knight, even though they all should have been rated M to begin with. GTA San Andreas was briefly rated AO due to content that shouldn't have been there to begin with, and The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion was rated T for the first few months before the ESRB realized that there was more blood than they expected and the Dark Brotherhood line of quests having horrific scenery. Trailers for Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown had a "Likely M" rating without any explanation why, until it was revealed to be a MUCH more reasonable E10+ rating. I would request you do an episode about questionable ESRB ratings.
As a kid in the early 90's we always went with the most violent games we could find because our parents hated them lol. If memory serves the SNES version of Mortal Kombat didn't have any blood or a code.
I'm not a fan of ratings where things over a certain rating legally can't be shown or sold to minors, because it leads to self censorship. Doubly so with the AO rating for games and NC-17 for movies where stores/theaters just won't carry it. That said what Sega did was bullshit. If GTA San Andreas got reclassified as AO for consensual sex that you had to mod your console to even access, than Mortal Kombat getting MA-13 because the blood and fatalities were hidden behind a code that everyone knew even before the game's release is absurd. Edit: AO and Nc-17 aren't legally binding in the US but there's a blanket refusal of companies to carry media rated as such which is a de facto ban. And ratings in other countries are enforceable by law.
You have two examples of Sega "manipulating" their rating system, but you describe it as "many examples". 2... is not many examples, and those examples are actually poor. Splatterhouse 3 did have less violence compared to Splatterhouse 2. Mortal Kombat 2 did have more violence than Moral Kombat 1. If you think a 13 year old can't handle Mortal Kombat 1, then you probably shouldn't be playing video games at all. The video is also kind of all over the place. You take way too long to get to what the video is even supposed to be about, you beg people for subs and likes twice in the video, and you end up reviewing some of the games, and suggesting censorship is a better alternative to a simple warning on the cover to the game's content... Umm no. Censorship is bad. Let the consumer decide what they want or don't want to buy.
If you were a developer, would it be worth it to have different versions of the same game? I know they do it with deluxe versions or DLC now days, but did they have games like this during the 8 and 16 bit era? Like here’s the “violent” version of this game…..just curious, mortal Kombat comes to mind?
@@Adam-Meijust to elaborate, Germany had some fairly strict guidelines that required games like Contra to be reworked to use robots, and “ninja” had to be replaced in some countries.
I think Pojr is an absolute baller for admitting he still goes to college. Brave move in current year™! Also, this "Splatterhouse 2" really makes me feel nauseous. 🤢 And I think that Mortal Kombat is so much better off with bad graphics. The violence level in anything after 9 is way too high. 🤮
There were actually some licensed NES games which pushed the boundaries of what was permissible by Nintendo's censorship bureau, such as _Golgo 13_ and _Bionic Commando_ to name a few.
And to be completely honest, even the ESRB and PEGI are susceptible to conflicts of interest as they are still run by an industry group led by game publishers. Case in point the dubiously low age ratings for NBA 2K despite recent entries having what amounts to simulated casino mechanics in a sports game of all things.
100% true, good points. Can't imagine they're always right on the ratings.
Look at the movie rating board too
Large companies get so much lee way. Because of all the tax revenue they generate
I mean, the ESRB is formed by companies in a trench coat and one of those companies are EA... so I'm not surprised that EA got away with it. It's even worse that some T-rated games are removing swearing entirely, which just waters down the rating into just E10 2.0. Not helping that the most popular T-rated game, Fortnite, is popular among very young kids.
@@yoshisreal I am not surprised as companies are run more by bean-counters than actual visionaries these days. One developer went so far as to urging people to pirate their own game as a form of protest against Take-Two whose scumbag CEO earned a $15 million pay raise.
Were those the only two?
MK2 genesis: too easy. MK2 arcade: If ninja gaiden were a fighting game.
Indeed. No other game - in the fighting genre, at least - has made me want to tear out what little hair I have left.
Well that game was broken western design.
@@heilong79 It was specifically designed to eat quarters. That's why the AI has both input reading and the ability to instantly do any move regardless of timing or situation.
My only exposure to MK is from DOS version of MK (not sure which one I've played though, might've been Trilogy).
@@heilong79 SF II Super Turbo says hi.
It’s important to note that at this time, all you had was the MPAA system for movies and the explicit content labels for music-TV got a ratings system a few years later.
Thanks for nothing, Tipper Gore!
I almost forgot that! I remember watching Nickelodeon and there being no kind of advisory for any of their shows until the TV rating system when reruns of The Ren & Stimpy Show would start beginning with an advisory stating the show was rated "TV Y7 for gross humor and silly slapping".
@@ShanetheFreestylerI’m surprised that ren and stimpy didn’t get a tv-oh rating tbh
@@russellwestbrook462 OH isn't a rating.
Its kinda funny looking back. Nowadays no one cares about Parental Advisory stickers. Its a rite of passage for some genres if anything.
12:49
Maybe those biases aren't present, but believe you me, the ESRB has no shortage of other biases.
For me,Is about the method of footage analysis,where a 60 minute footage was studied like a movie,that explain that grimgrimoire in 2007 went away with an E having a scene where the protagonist almost got SA 'ed by a teacher
I remember the Coding Secrets guy talking about an fps Lego game with robot characters that received an M rating because of shooting in first person style, though it wasn't' released or was retooled to third person to fix the rating. The characters fall apart like Lego blocks with no blood. Clearly M rating is deserved, right?
For a while it was apparent that stuff that would merit a PG-13 if it were in a film got a game an M rating. There's almost nothing in the Halo games that wouldn't be in a PG-13 action movie but they're M.
Isn't the ESRB run by an organization that's basically the equivalent of the "trench coat trick"?
Trick question, they were biased
Lol, yup
Good. These rating systems are corrupt and pretentious.
@@HaveYouTriedGuillotines Especially when it came to the loot boxes scandals all the games that required spending real world money in order to be able to get the loot boxes should have automatically bumped the games up to probably in adults only rating tact is a massive deterrent.
@@mrheroprimes
These rating systems were birthed from moral panic.
Kapp italist business controls the information ecosystem, and the means of communication. Hence why I have to work to bypass their sensorship.
They control the moral panic, and will never let it harm their profits if they can help it. Instead, they will use it to push an agenda that helps them instead.
Ergo these rating systems will never have any moral or ethical consequence that threatens big business, as business will never allow such ideology and information to trend unless it benefits them.
Gamers- Not activists, but the actual people who consume video games as a product or service- rejected the gambling en masse... And corrupt government officials and ratings boards were sluggish to so much as acknowledge it was happening.
This is not something that the ratings boards will address, and even if they would, it's not something that they *should* address.
This is the job of a consumer advocacy agency, but they're also extremely corrupt, weak or non-existent.
I remember seeing an early photo of Mega Man: The Wily Wars in video game magazines get an MA-13 rating on its box. Though that game was never released in the U.S., and yet nothing in that game that I can think of shows it deserved that rating in the first place.
Interesting, I didn't realize. You would think Sega would want to rate it GA, to improve the sales.
Might have been a placeholder?
Yes but Sega Channel (a cable channel for Sega Genesis) allows subscribers to play the US version of Mega Man: The Wily Wars.
@@TotallyLincoln-u1x I knew about that, though wondered why was the Wily Wars never released physically in the U.S. since Mega Man was popular.
@@Dj.D25 Correct.
Note to self: when playing Mortal Kombat II with Pojr, look out for the uppercut
😂
12:47 Well, we in Mexico use another rating system since the ESRB rating was not as clear to mexican consumers (mainly parents) because of the language barrier, even if some labels had the contents of the game translated and the rating explained. Hence in 2021 a mexican videogame rating was established, in which "A" is for all ages, "B" is for teens above 13 years, "B15" is for teens above 15, "C" is for adults only (+18) and "D" is mainly for erotic content, excessive life-like violence and betting.
The V.R.C . was full of contradictions. Jurassic Park on the Sega Genesis and Sega CD got a "GA" rating, but Jurassic Park: Rampage Edition got a rating of "MA-13." The Lethal Enforcers games were another weird case. The first one was "MA-17," while Lethal Enforcers II: Gun Fighters was "MA-13," even though both games required "The Justifier" gun to shoot enemies (and civilians, even though doing so meant getting demoted in rank) directly on the screen. Perhaps the weirdest game with a "GA" rating is... Castlevania: Bloodlines. Yeah, a game about fighting zombies, monsters, and VAMPIRES somehow got a "GA" rating from Sega through the V.R.C.
Yeah GA for Bloodlines makes no sense considering Eric's death animation has him get FUCKING IMPALED BY HIS OWN SPEAR!!
In fairness, even the ESRB is inconsistent with Splatterhouse. The TurboGrafx-16 port of the first game got an M when it released on the Wii's Virtual Console, but the Namco Museum on Switch included the original arcade version and was merely rated T.
Either the rating system got loosened
*or there were bad things in that TurboGrafx-16 port*
@@Sonictheoofhog4
The TG-16 version was somewhat censored actually. The 4th stage boss is an inverted cross in the Japanese version while the US version is a generic blue head. I think it just has to do with whoever was in charge of rating the game that day.
Times change what was profane in past is tame now
@@jaysherman2615 Yeah, there was also slightly less blood and gore, although that was likely due to hardware limitations
@@newmarketdispatch4830 The Wii was only two console generations ago.
I have played Grand Theft Auto V, Resident Evil 2 (the remake) and Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl on PS4. I got through the entire game as Claire Redfield without dying or getting hurt or injured. I also played a few times as Lincoln Loud (a character from The Loud House) which I started giving Danny Phantom the boot.
Grand Theft Auto V and Resident Evil 2 (the remake) are both rated M while Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl is rated E10+ due to the violence in all 3 games.
Teen Digital Diva, however, is rated T because it doesn’t have any rating descriptors due to it being a edutainment game.
Still not as bad as Nintendo controlling the software companies on who they could make games for.
While not video games in the strictest sense, I have a ton of information on the Barcode Battler.
Though under-supported in North America and Europe, the product line had three generations of hardware in Japan, where over 1500 exclusive cards were released.
Silpheed for the Sega CD was rated GA and had cursing in its spoken dialogue unlockable with a code.
The fact that Night Trap originally was released without any kind of rating on it, only to be given one after the backlash Sega received should tell you everything you need to know. Good work Pojr!
Thank you so much!
And the game decades later got rerated from M to T when it was released on PS4, Xbox One, and Switch (Despite Howard Lincoln back in the early 90s saying that it would never appear on a Nintendo system due to it violating Nintendo guidelines).
And those that filmed the scenes deliberately went out of their way to make it completely ridiculous to avoid any controversy or violence to not only avoid controversy, but also to prevent others from actually attempting those in real life.
I think it was due to FMV being actual film rather than pixilated visuals that made everyone think otherwise.
I remember enabling ABACABB code on the Genesis version of MK back in the day, I thought it was super cool. The older version of me now sees the monty-python style gushers of blood coming out of the character as so excessive as to be laughable, and nearly cringe. Great memories though!
MK was always meant to be campy and comedic. The fact it caused so much controversy shows exactly why there should be no regulation of art, only the economy that's related to it: Out of touch moral busybodies don't care to understand, only control. People should not give them an inch, and should vote them out of office.
Mortal Kombat was meant to be silly. The devs very clearly show that they love gory b-movies
Only issue i got with gore in old mk is how in mk3 they like copy pasted gibs so people lose 30 ribcages during some fatalities.
@@eightcoins4401
That's part of what makes it funny.
I still remember setting the variable for gibs to some really high number in old multiplayer FPS games, so enemies would just explode into a pile of meat and bones.
At least Sega tried to provide a rating. It had to start somewhere. And even today, with an independent rating system, the ratings regularly make no sense. I wouldn't take a shot at them for not getting it right on the first try.
Good point. Nintendo certainly didn't try anything like that. It was better than nothing.
13:07 : There's one thing I don't like about this music: It signal the end of the video! I REALLY love what you're doing pojr!
Have you made a video on the now discontinued K-A (Kids to Adults) rating by ESRB that stopped being used in 2008? I've seen a few of those ESRB stickers that are in stores still list it but nowadays is E for Everyone by default.
These ratings always intrigued me. Its nice seeing you talk about them.
Death Duel looks fun to me. It's like first person Space Invaders with a wall in the way instead of a barrier. lol
1v1 space invaders
Don't forget on Wii Virtual console alot games ratings became E+10 from E or K-A(Kids to Adults) except Nintendo games with similar themes. It made people mad.
Thanx pojr another great video coming at me! I love ur channel, its about all I watch on yt, bcoz i usually just like audio... Can you dig deeper in to sega channel. I would love to see old vhs recordings of lost material!
Fun fact: Sega created this rating system in order to help them sell more games. An MA-17 rating was used to create a mystique around games, MAKING KIDS WANT THEM MORE
Why censor them??
That's cool you made a video about SEGA's rating system. ;) It's really rarely mentioned.
Anyways, I my opinion, video game ratings systems - ESRB and PEGI - should also care about difficulty. There are many games rated 'E' by ESRB and PEGI 3+, whith kid-friendly cartoon graphics that are actually too hard for kids and targetted for hardcore gamers.
It wasn't always true that stores didn't check IDs; I remember getting Lethal Enforcers which was MA-17 and I was like 11 years old and my dad had to vouch for me. He told them he'd seen it and it wasn't really more violent than stuff I'd already played.
Regarding the more violent SNES games, I'm surprised you didn't mention Killer Instinct, which is almost just as bloody as Mortal Kombat, and the most shocking thing about is that it was published by Nintendo itself.
Sorry, but the snes was for sensitive snowflakes.
I like splatterhouse 3, I just really don't like the time limit that they impose on you.
Great video as always, good luck in the new semester!
Thank you so much!
It's a shame the rating system wasn't really taken advantage of. I can't think of any Sega Genesis / CD / 32X games with strong profanity, except maybe some FMV games and the implied swearing in Comix Zone, which came after ESRB. The rating could have allowed for darker themes, dialogue, topics, etc. which may be respected in Japan but taboo in America at the time, mainly around sexuality.
A shame but at least the ESRB mitigated that to an extent by 1994, shame we didn't see any official Sega Gen, NES, or SNES games with profanity though, would have been allowed by the end of all these console's lifespans.
Play Rise Of The Dragon (MA-17) and Silpheed (GA!) on Sega CD. More profanity can be heard in Silpheed with a code. Contra: Hard Corps and Phantasy Star IV have some mild profanity.
Hey, Pojr! Still enjoying your videos. I don't know if you're aware, but there was actually one more rating in Sega's system that was above MA-17. It was called "Deep Water," and to my knowledge there were only a small handful of games that had it, one of which being the Sega CD version of Eternal Champions (the only one I played that had it). I guess it was for extra violent games? Eternal Champions CD had some crazy fatality-like finishers that were super over the top.
Only 2 games actually used that- Eternal Champions on Sega CD as well as as the Sega Saturn port of Duke Nukem 3D.
Another interesting thing is that both of these games came out AFTER the ESRB was formed, meaning the rating was VERY redundant
@@megahedgehog2039 yeah I have yet to see a single picture with that rating it feels like trying to find lost media
ESRB only had control to choose what's appropriate in the US.
There were PEGI in Europe, RARS in Russia, ACB in Australia, USK in Germany, and CERO in Japan.
Another great video. I'm glad to see your hard work paying off with a growing user base. Keep it up!!
I really appreciate that!
Technically, Sega was not the only one to use a rating system prior to the ESRB. I remember seeing one on some PC games that had like a thermometer, and I think the record industry might’ve been behind it or something like that. I have to look it up for sure, but I remember seeing it on some games I bought like doom and rise of the triad back in the day.
Hexxen used that meter rating too
"TOASTY!"
Says Sonic 2 received the GA rating, but the box doesn't have it at all.
Yeah, Sonic 2 came out before the VRC ratings were invented. My bad.
It was probably still in print when the system was implemented, so maybe later copies had it.
The "realistic gun controllers" for the MA-17 Lethal Enforcers being controversial is ironic, because the ESRB never considered the realism of a light-gun a reason to rate a game higher than T.
I remember when I was back in high school seeing that rating on a rental copy of splatterhouse 2 when Sega first started doing this and thinking it was absurd because it was just Sega handling it themselves.
Yeah it's a bit of a conflict of interest if Sega is rating their own platform.
I think that they were somewhat biased. However, I think after the hearing about video game ratings, Sega got stricter and there was pressure on them to be strict until the ESRB took over.
I honestly don’t know why that at that time they had a rating system. I mean, at least with movies live action for the most part and seeing someone decapitate another person can be scary. But video games had not at that point really gotten even close to having realistic graphics at most it was digitized sprites and in a few cases FMVs but even those were grainy as hell.
Even then, a lot of the violence he saw those video games. Is it to a Grimms fairy tales and I don’t see parental advisory on that book.
I would say it’s only in the last 10 to 15 years where graphics have gotten far enough to give us very convincing horror games.
The funniest thing is that i haven't met anyone who cared abot the age the ESRB or PEGI gave to a game, yet developers are still censoring their games to not be Ao
I think that the ESRB is fairer with their ESRB ratings than what Sega did prior to that ratings system. Sega's rating system was stricter.
Great shirt pojr!
The NES had a lot of games with blood, violence, religious themes and nudity even in licensed games, they just weren't brought to the US or were censored.
just discovered this channel, enjoying your videos so far. you consider doing longer documentary style videos in the future?
I wouldn't mind doing longer videos, although it would take me more time to make them, which could affect the weekly videos.
Is this a video about game ratings or a Splatterhouse review?
Ratings, but there's definitely lots of Splatterhouse content.
11:50 You may have forgotten 3DO also had their own rating system.
In early 2021, the ESRB was replaced by the Sistema Mexicano de Equivalencias de Clasificación de Contenidos de Videojuegos (translation: Mexican Videogame Content Classification Equivalence System) in Mexico, it almost works as the Mexican movie classification system, only that AA doesn’t exist and instead there is D for pure adults, it started to circulate in 2021, A is E, B is E+10, B15 is T, C is M and D is Adults Only
Loving your channel so far but what is the name of the song you play after every video?!
@@VincentShaw-by6tk Thank you, you should suscribe, it depends, last year it was Hikaru Michi (Sonic X 2nd Ending theme) and this year is Blue Dream (Saint Seiya 2nd Ending theme, but the one from the Latin Spanish dub)
@@Alexmaquina2023 just subscribed😎👍 But as far as the song I was referring to, it sounds like a chiptune beat and starts around 13:01 on your last video👍
I always thought the "13" rating for Splatterhouse 3 was kinda low
Probably because you only fight monsters and not people. That’s my guess of Sega’s reasoning.
@@bildo1977 Makes sense, also like the video said it bumps up sales. I never thought about that!
@@droketheroperThen there’s RoboCop vs The Terminator being slapped with an MA-13 rating. Why? Because you don’t kill female enemies without a code? 🤨
Go figure.
2:28 Rail shooters have movement. Chiller was only static screens.
Sick BurgerTime shirt, my dude!
Thanks!
Tbh, I think there was a bit of manipulation in there. But the ESRB is no different... I find it odd that they considered StarCraft good for teens when it uses language that gets other games slapped with a mature rating, but thats just ONE example of the craziness.
To say Sega was ahead of its time and then the rest follow with ESRB, to say Sega had a jump start in the video game rating system.
When I bought Mortal Kombat 2 at the time they Id me. I had to be 17 years old to buy it otherwise they would not sell it to me.
It's not SEGA's rating system, PC games also had this rating system. (Look at Wolfenstein 3D, it was rated MA-13 and MA-17)
The VRC is Sega’s rating system, they created it and assigned their own ratings.
@@Destron5683 VRC may be but the ratings aren't Sega's, MA-13 and MA-17 existed before the VRC, since the VRC was created in 1993 and Wolfensien 3D was created May 5th 1992, so the ratings predate the VRC.
@@daedalus547 that's... not the point. the issuer of the ratings is all that matters.
Wolfenstein 3D had its own "PC-13" rating described as equivalent to a PG-13 movie.
@@soundspark PC-13 was a voluntary rating, it meant nothing, however the OFLC (Australian Classification Board) came up with the MA ratings long ago. That's how it was rated in Australia.
You missed an important point which was a big part of the discussion when music started carrying warnings for explicit language which is younger people are more likely to be drawn to media carrying those warnings. I can't remember which game it was but there was one that carried a warning pre esrb about the content not being suitable for cowards or something like that.
As a kid all we cared about is will our parents purchase it. Honestly I never had issues buying my own games and I was around 13 when mortal Kombat came out.
Sega gettin cancelled for this
Lol
It’s because esrb didn’t exist yet idiot
Yes
Or Nintendo getting canceled for this
Good luck to you during this new semester.
Thank you!
And now developers are scared of the ESRB AO (Adults only) rating
Can you blame them for being scared? If a game gets an AO rating, it won't be allowed to be on consoles like Playstation, Xbox and Nintendo. In addition, stores such as Walmart, Best Buy, Target and Game Stop won't sell them either. AO games are allowed on PC surprisingly enough.
That's why imo PEGI is better. No stupid distinctions between M and AO, just simple 18+ tag and everybody's cool.
@@galaxyglow5187 You can release anything for PC without going through any licensing.
Yes. Riana Rouge (Black Dragon Productions) was one of those PC games to carry the AO rating.
@@LordIvul In other countries, they have differing views on age ratings and stuff like that. Some are strict and some are lax.
Publishing CEO's sit on the ESRB board. They are also biased.
oh, Sega definitely gave higher ratings to some games to seem edgier.
To seem edgier? Nope, sega were edgier.
Lets not forget that on the NES in Japan they had Takeshi's Challenge....which has full blown domestic violence in it if you don't choose to settle things amicably with your wife (The correct solution is to settle amicably...but structure it so that she gets as little as possible so you can go treasure hunting).
Just something to think about when you remember Nintendo tried to take the high ground on their company name in hearings.
What's up....SLAPPERS
Who's the guy at 9:42 ?
The guy in the bottom right corner? That's Dan Forden, MK2's sound designer. When performing an uppercut successfully, Dan occasionally appears accompanied by a sound clip of him saying "Toasty!" in a falsetto voice. This would extend into later installments of the Mortal Kombat series as well.
Please clarify, are you trying to say Beat em's by their nature are "Clunky"? in a mini review where the character controls like a plank of wood with a hurt box the size of a fridge?
Good work on this obscure topic, Pojr.
i love how you went to play these games
I miss the thermometers...
Hah ma-17 which I prefer anyway you know teen will damaged their sales shadow the hedgehog game will get rated m for mature oh no if it’s censored but gets rated e10 instead for that treatment
Hey Pojr, we used to use the ESRB system on México, but we started using our own managed by the mexican goverment since 2021 :) just a note hehe
Am loving the sorta "trashing" of Sega with all of your videos. I love Sega but I was always more of a Nintendo fan.
Love the show 👍 one question are you married to those fkin braces 🤣
I've had them longer than I should have. I've had scheduling conflicts with the dentistry I go to, so my appointments are more spaced out.
@@pojr I think your dentist might be padding your bill 😂
9:57 real
Nah I still give Sega and Sega of America a world of credit for navigating that quagmire they found themselves in back in the 90's. Yall don't understand unless you were around back then, pretty much every major societal ill imaginable that you can think of got hoisted onto Sega's lap in such an absurd, cartoonish and disingenuous way. High ranking political officials, parental advocacy groups, police unions, mental health organizations, hell even the first lady were just dog piling to the point where in some cities and municipalities video games' got temporarily banned and some legislators even entertained the idea of taking away Sega's ability to sell products in the US all together. What's worse is that instead of most other companies in the industry having Sega's back, you had Nintendo joining in on the action to shift the blame off themselves in a wildly hypocritical way almost in an underhanded effort to ruin their market place standings for their own profitability. Be grateful they pushed back, called out Nintendo's BS and put everyone else in check otherwise we might have been stuck with vanilla bIble games for the last 30 years.
The ESRB is flawed, but they've been more trustworthy than the MPAA
Good work as always pojr. Keep smiling.
didnt the sega rating come because of night trap to begin with ??? the vrc was formed because congress and the parents had there pearls clutched so hard they were gonna break, yes the sega ratings were very biased and only used by them it eventually brought the esrb which is somewhat a good thing... my gripe on it was just like music back in the day... did parents bother checking these things out or did they just get the game or music for the kid to keep em quiet and not bother to know what they were buying... in the case of mortal kombat it recieved huge coverage so that was plain as crystal what was going on there, other games like the games brought up here splatterhouse 2 and death duel how much coverage was there on either game other then schoolground chatter... at least now we have the esrb rating systems and its been refined BUT if you buy a game digitally do you see those ratings??? parents should always be aware of the content they give there kids and as adults one should be aware of what your buying especially with games being so realistic like they are now
Well time to feel old. The reason it was introduced at all was the testimony and grand standing in front of Congress where there was talk of a government enforced rating system(a couple of months after Mortal Kombat released to arcades).
To thwart the legislation, Sega introduced the VRC. Now for the weird. The real reason that the ratings seem weird is the actual qualifiers. You used to be able to call the VRC(when they were publicizing the virtues of a rating system). I called them, I was doing a school project and expecting to sight the new rating system proving a safe metric for informed parents. The ratings made by Sega were based on plot complexity... I was informed by the VRC technically someone could have made the most brain dead gore fest rated for GA as long as there was no plot or plot blurb in the manual. Where as if you made story heavy RPG it was automatically teen or above.
Nintendo didn't join/do anything sighting their licensing review would prevent violent content(also there were not Nintendo titles shown at the hearings).
A 13 year old can see bllod and cartoon voilence no problem so I agree with Sega's ratings.
The ESRB is terrible with its ratings as well. Halo, until 5, recieved an M rating, even though nothing in the series is objectionable to anyone 13 or older. The Batman Arkham games were all rated T until Knight, even though they all should have been rated M to begin with.
GTA San Andreas was briefly rated AO due to content that shouldn't have been there to begin with, and The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion was rated T for the first few months before the ESRB realized that there was more blood than they expected and the Dark Brotherhood line of quests having horrific scenery.
Trailers for Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown had a "Likely M" rating without any explanation why, until it was revealed to be a MUCH more reasonable E10+ rating.
I would request you do an episode about questionable ESRB ratings.
If anything the Batman Arkham games should've all been rated T.
son! what about mortal combat 2! good idea! (if mortal combat was released in the 70's 💀) (there where no rating systems)
Seems All Over the Place, Slaughter Sport is N for Nobody
Early upload today
Yeah lol. I have a class early in the morning, so I decided to upload then.
As a kid in the early 90's we always went with the most violent games we could find because our parents hated them lol. If memory serves the SNES version of Mortal Kombat didn't have any blood or a code.
Wow im not late
SHIDDD this chick id me for mk 2 and turned me down my grandma had to buy it for me
I find Mortal Kombat and MK2 boring
all my childhood friends played MK2 they were 7 or 8 at the time
Hi...
I'm not a fan of ratings where things over a certain rating legally can't be shown or sold to minors, because it leads to self censorship. Doubly so with the AO rating for games and NC-17 for movies where stores/theaters just won't carry it. That said what Sega did was bullshit. If GTA San Andreas got reclassified as AO for consensual sex that you had to mod your console to even access, than Mortal Kombat getting MA-13 because the blood and fatalities were hidden behind a code that everyone knew even before the game's release is absurd.
Edit: AO and Nc-17 aren't legally binding in the US but there's a blanket refusal of companies to carry media rated as such which is a de facto ban. And ratings in other countries are enforceable by law.
You have two examples of Sega "manipulating" their rating system, but you describe it as "many examples". 2... is not many examples, and those examples are actually poor. Splatterhouse 3 did have less violence compared to Splatterhouse 2. Mortal Kombat 2 did have more violence than Moral Kombat 1. If you think a 13 year old can't handle Mortal Kombat 1, then you probably shouldn't be playing video games at all.
The video is also kind of all over the place. You take way too long to get to what the video is even supposed to be about, you beg people for subs and likes twice in the video, and you end up reviewing some of the games, and suggesting censorship is a better alternative to a simple warning on the cover to the game's content... Umm no. Censorship is bad. Let the consumer decide what they want or don't want to buy.
got here at 1,555 views
Gamessssssssssssss. I don't know why but I noticed your lisp a lot
I don't even know why sega bothered, they didn't have to do it and I'm sure nobody really cared anyways
There was a congressional hearing. Sega made a ratings system so that the government wouldn’t be pressed to.
Splatter House 3 is the Resident Evil of Mega Drive
If you were a developer, would it be worth it to have different versions of the same game? I know they do it with deluxe versions or DLC now days, but did they have games like this during the 8 and 16 bit era? Like here’s the “violent” version of this game…..just curious, mortal Kombat comes to mind?
They released different sprites in different regions of the world.
@@Adam-Meijust to elaborate, Germany had some fairly strict guidelines that required games like Contra to be reworked to use robots, and “ninja” had to be replaced in some countries.
@@pokepress Thank you for agreegumenting with me, those were character sprites.
I think Pojr is an absolute baller for admitting he still goes to college. Brave move in current year™! Also, this "Splatterhouse 2" really makes me feel nauseous. 🤢 And I think that Mortal Kombat is so much better off with bad graphics. The violence level in anything after 9 is way too high. 🤮
No rating system is perfect. X-com for the Ps1 got a K-A rating despite bloodbath visuals and a nude woman being dissected by an alien in one graphic.