About a year ago, Take-Two Interactive and Rockstar Games released "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" which included code that turned the 'M'-rated game into an 'Adults Only 18+'-rated game. Now it seems that the much lauded "Elder Scrolls: Oblivion" (published by Take-Two Interactive) has also been re-rated from a 'T'-rating to an 'M 17+'-rated game, partially because according to the ESRB: "more detailed depictions of blood and gore than were considered in the original rating, as well as (with the PC version of the game) the presence of a locked-out art file or 'skin' that, if accessed through a third-party modification, allows the user to play with topless versions of female characters." The ESRB is adding a Nudity content descriptor to the PC version of the game until it "can be remastered and the topless skin removed."
When the ratings system first started, software developers didn't think it would work very well, but here we are, almost a decade later, and the ratings system still isn't doing what it ought to be doing (on the first pass, anyways). The reason for this is that the ESRB, while they do review the game, don't play the whole game throughly looking for hidden things such as this -- the person who fills out the form for ESRB submission might not be a developer with any knowledge, and ESRB does not ask for code to do an audit (nor should they -- developers should be open and honest about such hidden features to the ESRB). However, the nature of the Oblivion player mod (a third party app unlocking an art asset) is one that is difficult to prevent. While including a nude texture was a mistake on Bethesda Software's part, there is little to stop a player from applying a nude texture of their own, which makes the whole thing seem kind of silly. I remember in the early days of playing Quake, in games that allowed custom models, it was only a matter of time before one saw a unclothed player run by -- or worse, a flying body part. In short, having any kind of custom modifications leaves one open for this kind of behavior.
But it seems that in the world of PC and console games, the ratings have another effect, one that strikes a little closer to the game publisher -- the lower rated your game is, the bigger audience it can reach, and the more outlets one can advertise on. 'M' rated games are targeted mainly for the PC audience, the big game publishers like EA won't make 'M' rated console games because they're not likely to sell well -- 'T' games sell much better, and 'E' games sell even better than 'T' games. EA however doesn't make the most 'E' rated games, the 'E' rated games are actually most likely to be published by Nintendo (out of the major publishers).
Some retailers won't carry 'M' games because the penalty for selling M games to those under 17 years of age is a really heavy fine. Major retail chains like Wal-Mart and Target don't carry them for this reason, so there is definitely motivation on developers to underrate the amount of violence and sexual content in their games. (Of course one could argue that by having controversial content, one generates free advertising as the incident is broadcast on the media -- sales of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas spiked when Hot Coffee was discovered).
For a game like Oblivion, which was selling well before it was re-rated, a re-rating to "M 17+" stops sales in its tracks as retailers are forced to pull the game from their shelves and wait for remastered versions to arrive.
Shack News: Hot Coffee Strikes Again, Oblivion Re-rated
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