Pet Peeve

[willbryant]

It should not be hard to convert Sega's old VRC rating system to the current ESRB system. I mean, you have GA, MA-13 and MA-17. It seems to me that it should be clear that they're analogous to today's E/E10, T, and M, respectively

Comments

[willbryant]

Heh, I thought I had a note clarifying this but I guess it got deleted before the final post.

I wasn't talking about how there might be a difference in the VRC rating of a game's original release and the ESRB rating of the same game's rerelease. They're different boards with, presumably, different standards and guidelines, so it makes sense to see the occasional difference in rating. That isn't what was bugging me.

What I was actually getting at is the odd case where a game hasn't been reviewed by the ESRB, but a site still lists one unofficially anyway. As far as I can tell, places like Amazon and GameFAQs only use the ESRB system when listing ratings. So, if a game happens to have a VRC rating, they might just go by that. On occasion, it'll be converted inaccurately, like I mentioned.

For an example, see Liberty or Death, which was the case that sparked my post. It was only reviewed by the VRC and was rated MA-13, as seen in the box shot. However, the information box lists it as having an ESRB rating of Mature.

I don't really understand why it was rated MA-13/Teen in the first place, so seeing it be upped to Mature in conversion just stood out as being wrong.