Really a Useful Note: Adults Only Rating

The article is about an Entertainment Software Ratings Board rating, and it's about the rating, without attaching any narrative meaning to it?

Its description's paragraphs discuss:

1. That it restricts games to 18+
2. Why it's 18+, unlike Mature, which is 17+
3. Having an Adults Only Rating lowers sales.

And the list is just for games that have the rating, so this seems like a Useful Note instead of a trope? Or Trivia, instead?

edited 18th Dec '17 11:59:37 AM by Malady

Media ratings are Trivia, in my mind.

From my point of view, there is no need for this page - or for its sibling pages for the other ESRB ratings. UsefulNotes.Entertainment Software Ratings Board is a sufficient location to explain their various ratings. Having separate pages for each individual ESRB rating is frankly silly.

From what I can tell, it is the only media rating system where each rating has its own page. We don't have such pages for PEGI (European equivalent of ESRB), MPAA (US films), BBFC (UK films), etc.

edited 7th Jan '18 5:07:30 PM by Zyffyr

Most of the other pages don't actually list all the whatever that are rated that.

IMO I am on the other side of the fence, we should really split em all up and index em with every work page like this.

edited 7th Jan '18 5:10:55 PM by Memers

I second merging this with the ESRB article. If there's anything related to rating systems from outside North America (PEGI, CERO, etc.), they can be moved to the relevant articles.

The other thing about the Adults Only Rating page is, the related page does have it linked to non-video game pages for what I assume are adult novels such as a book called Cybernetrix. The usage on those pages were as Zero Context Examples; I've commented them out.

edited 10th Jan '18 11:52:39 PM by jameygamer

The AO rating is significant because of the culture of the gaming market.

Since:

A)Most major retailers won't care AO games

B)None of the console manufactures allow AO games on their consoles

C)There's only a handful games that have ever been rated AO

It's significant to gaming history and culture for how touchy a subject it is.

edited 11th Jan '18 4:57:48 PM by shoboni

Bumping this to say I've created Sandbox.ESRB to check if the Entertainment Software Ratings Board would become too long if we merged all the indexes on one page. It isn't showing a too long warning, but it's over 2000 difflines, and many of them contain lots of text.

Trying out auto PM messaging for the first time. ~Lakingsif, could you please check how many html characters Sandbox.ESRB has? It may not quite have 500000, but I estimate 400000+, in which case there's probably no point in merging the indexes if they'd have to get split quickly again.

Also, I've wanted to say that not all indexes have a narrative purpose and some are made just for convenience. Does, for example, Video Games of the 2010s have much narrative purpose in itself? No, but it helps readers find content related to their interest. So it's ultimately helpful.

edited 15th May '18 12:40:35 PM by Piterpicher

495,840 and your page worked :)

So it's less than 5000 characters left before it shows a warning. That's very little space left. Merging is close to pointless at this point, so I'd recommend keeping it split for every rating.

edited 15th May '18 10:11:18 PM by Piterpicher

The ratings are (ideally) determined by the content of the work, so you (theoretically) should be able to understand what the rating is just by playing the game. It isn't, strictly speaking, trivia. It also doesn't seem to be a Useful Note, as that would entail having some advice or useful information for creators of works. This is really more just being informative to audiences (like other Main/ page articles).

Also, the ESRB page says that it was founded after Mortal Kombat and Night Trap made the public aware of violent video games. The whole focus of the ESRB is video games, so it's a little silly to argue that these pages should include films and other media.

I disagree with merging all of these pages. Primarily because of the issue of length.

I agree with Zyffyr. There's absolutely no need for each rating to get its own individual page. Cut them all.

See my arguments here, they apply here too, only replace the first paragraph with my posts here and the second paragraph on "salted their Steam games category" with "not having ESRB ratings categories". Though I assume you also think "The new page would not feature these indexes of games, which are probably what make up the bulk of the individual pages' file sizes." and "A video game rating is not an "interest", it's info for parents. The genre indexes do a far better job at helping users find new games. Browsing the video game rating indexes won't tell you anything about a particular game, you're better off just browsing that ratings board's actual site, which is what most people are probably doing anyway."

Also, Zeffyr said "From what I can tell, it is the only media rating system where each rating has its own page. We don't have such pages for PEGI (European equivalent of ESRB), MPAA (US films), BBFC (UK films), etc." Should other ratings for other rating systems have pages, and should there even be pages for other rating systems? I've made Pan European Game Information and Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle pages a while ago, and each rating only has a folder, not its own page. Should those indexes be removed too?

Edited by Piterpicher on Aug 22nd 2018 at 7:23:08 PM

So, since there are pages for UsefulNotes.Pan European Game Information and UsefulNotes.Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle...

And both do list works that have their ratings...

Should this be kept?

I think it should be cut or turned into a disambiguation page, since merging it with rating boards' pages didn't make them too long.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Sep 22nd 2018 at 8:13:33 AM

- Disambig between what?

And if nothing happens, I guess it'll stay as is...

I'd like a decision to scrub or not, the wicks from Literature namespaced works, though.

Should scrub them, if nothing about this is called a Trope...

Edited by Malady on Sep 24th 2018 at 8:33:13 AM

Disambiguation between different rating organizations' pages.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Sep 24th 2018 at 1:14:06 PM

Well, I forget if it was ever typed as a Trope, but now it's just an Index, so I guess I'm fine with that.

But maybe it should be a Useful Note that does Indexing.

Maybe moved to Useful Notes/...

And if it's Video Game only, then we should clear out all those Literature/ wicks.

I don't see its value as an index. We don't have an index of MA-rated games, or R-rated films. Fold it into the ESRB article and call it a day.

- The problem with that solution is, for standardization reasons, I think it implies that all of the rating pages should get folded there as well, which then leads to the page being too long?

Although, I guess there could just be a note that Adults Only Rating is just special?

Just like how trope subpages for individual media only get made at need...

Teen Rating and Mature Rating being the longest pages... Everyone Ten And Up Rating and Everyone Rating, being of lesser sizes, and the rest being of minimal size.

The only reason for Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle and Pan European Game Information not being split, is because they're substantially less comprehensive than our pages for the ESRB ratings.

Edited by Malady on Oct 24th 2018 at 11:00:15 AM

There is absolutely no reason to have lists of products that have particular ratings.

Agreed. We don't have lists of R Rated Films or TV-MA Rated Shows. Cut.

Edited by Lymantria on Nov 7th 2018 at 5:54:04 AM