At the height of the 16 bit era, I was wading through those transitional years where we desperately want to be acknowledged as adults, but our erupting skin and hormones can only elicit disdain and secret smiles of pity from grown-ups. Who in their right mind would have looked at my braces and bad hair and said, "Yes sir, Nadia plays games rated for ages 13 and up. She is worthy of being counted as an adult?" In my frantic 14-year-old brain,
everybody.
I was as patriotic a soldier Nintendo could have asked for during the 16 bit wars, but even I occasionally doubted the company I stood behind. Sega marketed the Genesis as a console for a mature audience; it was an alternative for gamers who wanted speed and action versus dumpy old Mario. And from my teenage perspective, it seemed as Nintendo itself was pumping the billows for Sega's aggressive ad campaigns by censoring violent games.
It seemed as if Sega made all the right choices about game censorship, whereas Nintendo wussed out at every opportunity. Politicians put Sega in the line of fire by condemning
Night Trap, a cheesy "horror" game for the Sega CD that no one bothered playing until their parents started freaking out over it. Sega kept its cool, even as parents worked themselves into a lather over the upcoming home console ports for
Mortal Kombat. In 1993, the company introduced America to the Videogame Rating Council, which rated each Sega game MPAA-style according to content: General Audiences ("GA") for bloodless fare, Mature 13 ("MA-13") for games that were heavier on the violence and cussing, and Mature 17 (MA-17) for graphic titles. MA-17 games showed up rarely on the Genesis and instead ended up on the Sega CD, which had the resources for detailed story scenes, and therefore more potential for naughtiness.
Like Blast Processing and the Sega Scream, the creation of the Videogame Rating Council was, at a quick glance, a brilliant marketing decision that had no real substance or longevity. Sega's fans could certainly hold it over the heads of Nintendo supporters, and often did: "Sega trusts us enough to give us a ratings system instead of treating us like babies and censoring games." And parents had the comfort of a big fat letter on the front of their child's game, even if they had no idea what that letter meant (and Sega made little attempt to explain), or why a game fell under that particular classification. Some of Sega's more controversial games already had a barely-legible warning on the box, but nothing that carried the security and finality of a letter grade.
Moreover, the game classifications didn't always make sense.
Castlevania Bloodlines was the bloodiest installment of the 8- and- 16-bit Castlevania library (blood even dripped from the title screen--except in Europe, where drinking water dripped in its place), but it landed a tame "GA" rating. Mortal Kombat was another strange example. Nintendo nixed the blood entirely in the SNES version of the game by replacing the red stuff with grey sweat and gimping the Fatalities. Sega likewise kept blood directly out of the hands of children, but it could be restored by pressing A, B, A, C, A, B, B on the Genesis controller (think "Abacab," the 11th album by Genesis--not that any kid would. Maybe it was a well-hidden code after all). Despite the fully-restored blood and fatalities on the Genesis version of Mortal Kombat, the game was branded with an "MA-13" rating. It's likely the rating was applied so carelessly because the blood was optional; the Sega CD version of the game, which required no code for the blood to spill, was rated "MA-17."
The months ticked by. Sega continued rating its games, Nintendo continued censoring them, and I continued feeling mortified. But in the latter half of 1994, Congress demanded that all game companies start rating their games under one system--or politicians would start rating games
for them. A great equalizer came into being: The ESRB.
Political meddling into one's favorite pastime rarely indicates good times are ahead, but the birth of the ESRB took a lot of pressure off Nintendo. The company largely eased up on its strict regulations and gave localisers some slack. In fact, gamers who stuck with the SNES through '95 and beyond might remember a sudden increase in games with blood, religious themes, and liberal use of the word "damn."
For parents, it was the start of a unified ratings system that took the time to explain why letting their kids play Splatterguts XVIII wasn't such a hot idea. As for me, I felt like I'd finally made a real transition into adulthood; no longer did my favorite company feel the need to keep me away from content that was not mom-approved. Just in time for the 32- and- 64-bit era. Finally, it felt like video games were maturing at the same speed.
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