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ESRB asks Dark Sector publisher to pull trailers
- June 25, 2007 15:19 PM PST
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The Entertainment Software Rating Board asked D3 Publisher to immediately pull two Dark Sector game trailers the publisher said on Monday due to overly mature content. As a result, D3 has asked the gaming media to comply with the atypical appeal.
by Blake Snow
The mere presence of an age gate does not permit a publisher to simply put whatever content it wishes into the trailer...[Trailer guidelines] prohibit the display of excessively violent content or any content likely to cause serious offense to the average consumer.
-- ESRB president Patricia Vance
"We recently received a ruling from the ESRB stating that the two officially released Dark Sector gameplay montages have been deemed to contain excessive or offensive content," said a company spokeswoman in an email to GamePro, among others. "[The trailers] are not to be available for download or viewing, regardless of being placed behind an age gate," she added.
As a result, D3 cites the ESRB requirement in that the trailers must be pulled immediately upon receipt of the notice and that the videos will no longer be made available for public viewing. Typically, all trailers must be pre-approved before release, but strangely, no specific infractions were mentioned in this case.
"A lot of companies have been calling about this" said D3 before deferring further comment on the subject. They did, however, note that the announcement will in no way affect final gameplay.
Just prior to publishing, ESRB president Patricia Vance offered an e-mail response, which said, in part:
"The ESRB's Advertising Review Council (ARC) regularly monitors game ads and trailers to make sure that they adhere to industry-adopted Principles and Guidelines for Responsible Advertising Practices...If a third party site insists on carrying a trailer for an M-rated game without placing it behind an age gate, our guidelines require the publisher to request that such trailer be removed and/or provide an edited version of the trailer to be used in its place.
"However, the mere presence of an age gate does not permit a publisher to simply put whatever content it wishes into the trailer. All trailers must still conform to ARC's Principles and Guidelines, which prohibit the display of excessively violent content or any content likely to cause serious offense to the average consumer. When ESRB notifies a publisher that the content in a trailer is in violation of these ARC requirements, or that there is an age gate issue on a third party site, that publisher then must notify third party sites to rectify the problem. The notices issued recently by game publishers to third party websites are simply that -- steps in a chain of publisher compliance with ARC guidelines and the ESRB enforcement system that have been occurring since their establishment seven years ago."
Read the full ESRB statement.
The news comes amid Manhunt 2's de jure banning throughout Europe, and its "Adult Only" rating in the US that effectively disallows the game from gracing Sony and Nintendo platforms unless the content is first compromised. 2K Games has since put the game on hold.
The above request is rare, to say the least. It makes us wonder if D3 Publisher forgot to first approve the trailers before releasing them online, or that the ESRB made a mistake in what they allow for public consumption and are now trying to rectify the situation. Touchy times, my friends!
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