NEW YORK CITY, NY — The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) has announced a change in the rating of Bethesda Softworks and 2K Games title The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion from T (Teen 13+) to M (Mature 17+).In a statement issued by the ESRB, the video gaming industry’s self-regulatory agency made the change after discovering content in the game that was “more detailed depictions of blood and gore than were considered in the original rating, as well as the presence of a locked-out art file or ‘skin’ that, if accessed through a third party modification to the PC version of the game, allows the user to play with topless versions of female characters.”
Unlike the “Hot Coffee” incident that occurred with Rockstar Game’s Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, the sexually explicit content in Oblivion is not content which exists in the game to be accessed by unlocking it with a given code. In this case, the third-party mod alters the game content itself.
In a statement released by Bethesda, the company objected to the change in rating, saying that Oblivion was not comparable to other M-rated games.
“We believe that this critically acclaimed game is not typical of Mature rated titles, and does not present the central themes of violence that are common to those products,” said Pete Hines, Bethesda’s vice president of marketing, in the statement.
In its release, Bethesda also noted that the mod only exists for the PC version and that they did not “create a game with nudity and do not intend that nudity appear in Oblivion.” The company added that it was enacting measures to prevent future tampering with the game’s art files.
The ESRB’s ratings are based on pre-release previews submitted to the ESRB by game publishers. As it often take hours of play to unlock all of a game’s content, publishers must include videos of the game’s most explicit sexual and violent content along with the submission of each game for the ESRB to use in its ratings determinations.
Bethesda said in its statement that it hid nothing from the ESRB and that the game’s pre-release submission was “full, accurate, and comprehensive.”
Still stinging from criticism over the Hot Coffee incident, the ESRB is clearly making every effort to look proactive in this case.
“Parents across the country depend on ESRB ratings every day to make sensible choices about the games they bring home for their families,” said ESRB president Patricia Vance in the board’s release. “Rating changes are extraordinarily rare, but if ever one does occur, ESRB recognizes that parents must be made aware of the change as quickly as possible so they are certain to have the most current and accurate information.”
Both the ESRB and Bethesda stated that a patch for the PC version of Oblivion will be made available shortly which will disable access to the art file and the ability to introduce the topless mod.
