Penny Arcade's ESRB adds

[Necromagus]

 

Has anybody seen these yet? They're part of an advertisement campaign for the ESRB, the Entertainment Software Rating Board, that gives out ratings for videogames depending on their content. The goal of the campaign is to target gamers in stead of parents, to make them more aware of what the ESRB does for them. There will be characters for every possible rating, and these are the first two.

 

 

 

While I think that these illustrations will appeal to gamers in general and their target age groups in particular, I kinda wonder why they chose to make the text follow the contour of the characters. When you're 8 or 9 years old and not that good at reading yet, it's obviously going to be very hard for them to read the message. Other than that, I think this first attempt by the ESRB to address gamers directly could be succesful.

[Bubsa]

I kinda wonder why they chose to make the text follow the contour of the characters. When you're 8 or 9 years old and not that good at reading yet, it's obviously going to be very hard for them to read the message.

 

Yeah, that's a good point. Plus, when you're at that age (to be fair, I still am) you're not even concerned with reading the manual. You just get it out of that transparent crap, rip it open and whack in the CD. Manuals are for wooses! ...But um, yeah, I can't imagine that many gamers paying attention to the warnings, or not initially anyway.

[Stuart_G]

I kinda wonder why they chose to make the text follow the contour of the characters. When you're 8 or 9 years old and not that good at reading yet, it's obviously going to be very hard for them to read the message.

 

 

 

To quote Gabe from one of their news posts.

 

 

 

These are designed to be read in a magazine. The idea is that kids will actually be turning the page around in order to read the text.

 

 

 

I know if i were a little kid, i would have turned the magazine around to see what it all said.

 

 

 

As for the ads themselves, i think they are just trying to educate the young'uns from a younger age about what the age ratings are for and to explain to them that they arent just there for the hell of it and doing it by using bright cartoony looking characters is a good way to attract their attention to the page and get them to read what its all about.

[runesmithie]

I would actually kind of prefer the older style ratings (for the T and up games). These just seem like they'd waste a lot of box space :(

[Necromagus]

Ehrm... I doubt these are actually going to be on game boxes. Like it was said before me, they're meant for magazines, maybe posters at game shops, but I don't think the ESRB has the authority to claim that much box space.

[Bubsa]

D'oh, my mistake then :oops: