Team Fortress 2 - M for Mature?

[Z of the Na'vi]

According to the ESRB's website, Team Fortress 2 is rated M for "Blood and Gore and Intense Violence." Being one of the many people who have played a ridiculous amount of TF2 on this forum, I can kind of see their reasoning here. However, as of late, I've come to question just as to why the game is rated as it is.

Is the sole reason TF2 rated M due to the intense style of "gibbing" that occurs when you or another player is detonated into a fine, chunky mess? Is that really the only thing that bars such a rating? It's not like there are other aspects of the game that attribute to it. There's hardly any language to speak of, for one thing. Even then, it isn't too bad, nothing one wouldn't hear when say watching TV nowadays.

I can understand how the rather dramatic nature of player deaths in-game can be a factor toward "Blood and Gore," but the art style kind of takes away from the severity of that, doesn't it? More often than not, the ESRB doesn't rate a game based on "online features."

Plenty of games have that disclaimer when you first boot it up. You know which one I am talking about.

Why is it that TF2 is rated M the way it is? The gibbing?

...is that really all it takes?

 

[Emiscary]

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA.

Wow that's uh... yeah that kind of neatly illustrates what's wrong with the ESRB.

 

[Fappy]

I don't know, it seems pretty obvious to me though I have always thought rating violence should be more based on context than blood/gore so I don't really agree with ESRB's methods. They censored the US release of Blazblue Continuum Shift: Extend by removing the shadows of hung corpses from one of its scenes. Yes... they censored shadows so they could keep a T rating.

 

[Zhukov]

There's blood and dismemberment. Hence a rating for violent content.

I honestly don't see how it matter either way. TF2 getting a mature rating doesn't hurt anyone.

 

[DarkRyter]

Is the sole reason TF2 rated M due to the intense style of "gibbing" that occurs when you or another player is detonated into a fine, chunky mess? Is that really the only thing that bars such a rating? It's not like there are other aspects of the game that attribute to being given such a rating. There's hardly any language to speak of, for one thing. Even then, it isn't too bad.

People need to stop thinking of the ESRB as a group of people making judgements. Really, all they do is look for a certain thing in a game, and if it has a thing, it gets a rating.

Really, they have a whole Excel spreadsheet that details "If it has BLANK, it gets BLANK".

TF2 has "Blood and Gore" and it has "Intense Violence". So, it gets an M. Not like that's a bad thing.

The ESRB isn't censorship. It's an excel spreadsheet.

 

[Z of the Na'vi]

There's blood and dismemberment. Hence a rating for violent content.

I honestly don't see how it matter either way. TF2 getting a mature rating doesn't hurt anyone.

I've played plenty of T games with blood in it. The dismemberment in TF2 is done so over-the-top that there's no way anybody would be able to take it seriously, hypothetically of course. I guess what I'm attempting to understand is how a game that is so tongue-in-cheek is given the same rating as that of say the GTA series, much more known for far worse things than blood.

 

[Emiscary]

"Standards and practices are a vital link in keeping new and funny ideas away from you: the television viewer."

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

"Blood and gore" in ESRB speak specifically means dismemberment, and it almost always means an M rating. They at least used to differentiate between animated and realistic, but even animated blood and gore usually merits an M. This sort of makes sense, since the people who rate the games are soccer moms, pediatricians, daycare workers, teachers, and other individuals involved in child care who have been specifically selected to be conservative on stuff like this. The ESRB was implemented to get the self appointed moral guardians off the industry's back, after all.

 

[trebor 25]

.

 

[bobmus]

It's the gib kills, but it's hardly affected the game's population, so doesn't bother me.

Out of interest, what kinda numbers does ridiculous amounts of TF2 mean? Thousands of hours?

 

[Soviet Heavy]

I'd say the only reason that it's rated M anymore is because of the sprays that players use. That's really about it.

 

[Z of the Na'vi]

Out of interest, what kinda numbers does ridiculous amounts of TF2 mean? Thousands of hours?

I'd say so. I know quite a few people whose TF2 playtime has reached the quadruple digits.

I'd say the only reason that it's rated M anymore is because of the sprays that players use. That's really about it.

That's a fair point. I hadn't considered that.

 

[scorptatious]

Well there's gibbing in the Oddworld games and yet they are all rated T. Of course then again, there really isn't all that much blood and gore among the gibbed body parts in those games.

 

[Vegosiux]

I thought it was rated M for MANLY. I kid.

But, as light-hearted and humorous as it can be, graphic depiction of violence, and the gibs flying around, even if cartoony, do warrant an M rating...and no amount of silly hats can change that.

And I like silly hats.

 

[Aerosteam]

I'm pretty sure exploding heads counts as gore.

 

[Freechoice]

I'm pretty sure exploding heads counts as gore.

I'm pretty sure decapitations count too.

Also

 

[allinwonder]

It would surprise me if it's NOT rated M.

 

[Aerosteam]

I've seen that video about 10 times before. So God damn awesome.