I never saw any difference. The ratings system is pointless. If a parent actually CARED in the first place, they'd check the pictures and description on the back of the box. Adding more ratings and putting ads out doesn't make people care any more. That's one thing the world needs less of now. Control over kids. Let them do what they want. Was in not 30 years ago that a kid could leave in the morning, spend all day in the neighborhood and return that night without any question of where he went? Now we have companies that want parents to sit down and watch what their kids do? Not to mention that V-Chip crap.
Governments can say all they want about how they supposedly threatened to rate stuff themselves. It's a bunch of crap that makes them feel like they actually accomplished something. Even if they did decide to do it themselves it'd take years.
If we must have ratings, then why don't we create a rating system that applies to ALL media. We get a new system for a specific type of media every few years. Adding more ratings with separate meanings and unrelated names doesn't help anyone be less confused. And honestly, the Adults Only rating for both Movies and Games is pointless. Because there's a huge difference between someone who's 17 and 18, and if they see it the day before their 18th birthday, they could be scarred for life! oh noes! It should be either released as M/R or banned entirely. Europe does something similar, but instead of cutting AO they just cut M and say T is the max rating.
And really, violent games are no more of a training medium than a movie is. Supposedly terrorists used MS Flight Simulator to practice crashing the aircraft into the world trade center. So the video games are evil? One that was made by MS to allow people to fly planes around? So that means all games are evil?
It's a load of crap. We know it. Other people don't understand. And when they are force fed information about the ratings being some ultimate deciding factor of if your kid is a perfect angel or goes postal, they tend to do the lazy thing: worry, freak out, stress out, grow a few gray hairs, and then try to control every little thing because someone else told them to. These are the same people that you hear telling they got an email from a friend so the story is automatically real, even though you read the same thing on Snopes a few months ago.
