I felt like a bad father. I let my 10-year-old son play a Rated M (for Mature) video game, and I felt like I was going straight to bad-parent hell. How did I get myself into this mess?

It all started innocently enough. I had, in a previous column, more or less predicted the Xbox's demise. More precisely, I posited that Microsoft would abandon this piece of gaming hardware, much as it had walked away from so many other past hardware ventures. That bit of prose resulted in a rapid response from one of Microsoft's chief PR agencies, and a lengthy discussion about the bright—brilliant would be a more apt description—future that lay before the Xbox and its legion of customers/admirers.

I'd never tried out an Xbox and was willing to admit that perhaps I didn't understand the platform well enough. My contact offered to loan me a unit and added another bit of good news: Halo 2 was soon to arrive. Not much of a video-game follower, I asked dumbly, "What's Halo 2?" The PR flack went onto describe the game and its protagonist, Master Chief (what kind of name is that?) and how the original Halo was the most popular game on the Xbox platform. He said he'd send along a copy of Halo 2, too, as soon as it was available.

Within weeks, I was surreptitiously setting up the Xbox and Halo 2 in my master bedroom. I found this necessary because I knew that if my video-game-junkie son, who already requests playtime with his GameCube on a semi-hourly basis, discovered the Xbox, he'd think it was meant for him. The other reason was that the lower left-hand corner of the Halo 2 Special Edition tin container sported an ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board) rating of M. (The ESRB is the not-for-profit organization that developed the video-game rating system and applies ratings to all new games.) This is a mass-market game, the most popular one on Microsoft's gaming platform, Why, I wondered, would the company let it ship with a "Mature" rating? I was shocked, but even more so, I was certain that I was not going to let my 10-year-old play this game. So I hid myself and the game away so he would not find it or see me playing it; with an M rating, there was no telling what might appear on the screen.

Ah, the best-laid plans. My son did happen to walk into the room when I was deeply engaged with Master Chief and his troops, trying to forestall an all-out alien invasion and victory.

"What's that?!" he asked.

"Uh, an Xbox," I replied.

His eyes darted left and right, looking at the Xbox, trying to see my TV screen, and then they settled on the distinctive Halo 2 case.

"Ohmygod! You've got Halo 2! Can I play?" he inquired.

"No. It's rated M," I snapped back.

What followed was the expected seesaw of "oh, come on!" "no!" and "Billy plays." In the end, I held my ground and he stormed off, slamming the door in a huff.— Continue reading

A Change of Heart

Oddly, by this time, my resolve had actually begun to slip a bit. Not because my son was wearing me down, but because in the hours that I had played the game, I had trouble finding the reasons for what I considered a harsh ESRB rating. I kept waiting for the scantily clad women to jump out of a spaceship closet, or for some naughty sexual banter to be exchanged between Master Chief and one of his female counterparts. I even found myself cringing, waiting for someone to drop the "F-bomb." None of these things happened. There is no sex (that I've encountered) and the language, while occasionally profane, couldn't compare with some of what's said in my own home. And over time, I began to see that the primary reason for the rating was the violence and gore. Yet even this was nothing extreme. Yes, there was a lot of blood, but most of it is "alien" blood, and though the Xbox's graphics are excellent, it is not so real as to be repulsive. You blow up aliens, but they become more or less unrecognizable in death. People get hurt too, but their injuries are PG-13, at worst.

I began to think that maybe my son could play, albeit with me. However, I still wanted to make sure there were no "Mature" surprises. I told my wife this, and her face blanched.

"It's rated Mature," she said.

"Yes, I know, but I've played it, and there's nothing there that would shock him," I countered.

She never really agreed and as my son Dan and I played, she gave me grave, sideways looks that indicated I may have fallen a couple of rungs on the "really good dad" ladder. And to be honest, I have not stopped worrying about whether or not I made the right decision. I understood why my wife was angry, and I realized where my own fears were coming from. We both knew that games like Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude and, most notoriously, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas are both rated "M" for mature. We'd heard about the kind of content found in Grand Theft Auto—extremely hard language, sexual activity, violence, and most horrifyingly, game players can even beat up prostitutes. How could I let my son play any game that has the same rating as a game like GTA? What would he encounter in Halo 2?

By this time, I was willing to admit to the Microsoft PR flack that, yes, the Xbox looks like it has real staying power. The graphics, sound, and controls are all excellent, and though I feel the console box itself is too big, I know the next version should address that minor issue. Even so, I was now much more interested in Halo 2 and its Mature rating, and I pressed him for an answer as to why it got tagged with an M. He assured me that I would not see any nudity or sex, but for a better explanation of the rating, he passed me to someone in the Entertainment Software Association, who recommended that I talk to Patricia Vance, the president of the ESRB. — Continue reading

The ESRB Speaks

I began my conversation with Vance by telling her that I had long equated ESRB ratings, such as E, T, and M, with movie ratings, assuming that E=G, T=PG and PG-13, and M=, well, R or worse. "That's your first mistake," she said. "We don't have anything to do with movie ratings."

Vance explained that there are some age ranges associated with the ratings, and that M, in a general sense, could be considered "17 and over." However, this assumption would neglect the two-part system that the ESRB rating employs: There's the letter rating, which relates to age appropriateness, and then the content descriptors, which, as the name suggests, literally tell you which kinds of content you'll find in the game. The letter rating always appears on the cover of the game. Flip the game over and the descriptors are next to the letter rating.

Halo 2 gets its M, Vance told me, "because of the blood and gore. Particularly in single-player mode, it can get intense. It's a low M, but definitely an M." The phrase "low end" gave me pause. The degree to which something is an M, I now realized, is wholly dependent on the descriptors it earns. In the case of Halo, its descriptors are Blood and Gore, Language, and Violence. Grand Theft Auto has five descriptors, including Intense Violence, Strong Sexual Content, Blood and Gore, Strong Language, and Use of Drugs. Vance calls it a "high-end M."

But, I asked Vance, isn't there a world of difference between these games? Couldn't the ratings be misleading? Vance defends the ratings, adding that the descriptors clarify the differences, and she stresses that Halo's M is rightly earned, "Lots of blood and gore, sticking to walls and the floor. It's alien blood and it's gory. [You] wouldn't find it in a teen game. [It] might have shooting, but you won't see injuries or blood on walls or anything like that. You'll see limited blood, usually quite static."

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying the ESRB ratings don't work. Vance says she has evidence that shows parents get it. In the organization's own surveys of mall-going parents (those who say their children play video games, which is essentially the parents of every child under 17), 83 percent told researchers that the ratings are on target, and 5 percent think they're too strict.— Continue reading

How Well Do These Ratings Work

Of course, what parents mean by "work" is another matter entirely. The way the ratings worked in my house is that for a while, the only GameCube games we bought were those rated "E" for Everyone. We never looked at the content descriptors. In fact, I wasn't really aware of them. This was, in part, because they're on the back of the games, but mostly because I wrongly assumed that an "E" meant the same thing on every game. When I bought my first Teen game a couple of years ago, Star Wars Rogue Leader: Rogue Squadron II, I agonized over letting my son, then 8, play. What would he find in a Teen game? I played the game the night before, and found he'd see nothing more intense than what he encountered in the original three Star Wars movies, PG-rated films he'd already viewed dozens of times.

I'm not sure that many parents even take this step. Too many, I think, make my initial mistake and take all the ratings at face value. They stand about five feet away from the shelves at GameStop and see ratings they've found acceptable on other games, then willingly buy the new games for their kids. In other instances, the kids use the ratings to their advantage. They pick up Grand Theft Auto, and when the parent notes an "M" rating, they say, "Mom, Halo has an M rating. It's cool." Whatever warm or fuzzy recollections the parent has about that game will then be applied to the new M contender, and home it comes. If, instead, the kid said, "Hey Mom, this one lets me have sex with prostitutes and then beat them up," I doubt the reaction would be the same. Most parents, I fear, don't even know what kind of content really exists in the games their kids are playing.

A few things need to happen here. One, parents need to become much better educated about all of these games. There are sites that can help. I found one I like. Current Attractions spells out, in detail, what you can expect to see in a number of popular games (they also cover movies and DVDs). There's a 30-day free trial, or you can pay $20 for a year. The ESRB offers a free title search on its site and an advanced search that helps you whittle down games to an acceptable list by marking off what you don't want to see in the game.

The second thing I'd like to see is ESRB work with game developers to get ratings descriptors on the front of all games. Third and most important, I'd like to see the ESRB add more letter ratings—perhaps T-16, M-21 and A (for Adult Zone) for games like GTA. I'm sorry, but Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas should not have the same letter rating as Halo 2.

Am I now absolving myself of responsibility for letting my son play Halo 2? Not entirely. I feel pretty comfortable having let him do it. I do, however, wish the game developers would use a little more sense when creating these games. If you're going to have a hero like Master Chief, let him remain heroic, and do not let him have the free will to kill his fellow soldiers. I've noticed this in a lot of games. Maybe the ESRB should add a game descriptor: "Lacks Respect for Fellow Man."

It could be worse. There could be no rating system. It took decades for the film industry to add ratings, and even longer for television to finally get with the program. The software industry was still relatively dewy with youth when the ESRB began rating games. And with just a bit over 10 years under its belt, I guess I should be thankful that the system is as rich and widely used as it is. Vance, for her part, is pretty satisfied: "We want people to understand and use our rating system. So far, so good—until someone proves otherwise."

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Copyright © 2005 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in PC Magazine.