In May 2006, the North American Entertainment Software Rating Board changed the rating of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, a video game for PCs, the Xbox 360, and eventually the PlayStation 3. The ESRB cited the presence of content not considered in their original review in the published edition of Oblivion. The sexually explicit content was an art file, made accessible by a third-party modification called the Oblivion Topless Mod.
About ESRB re-rating of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion in brief
In May 2006, the North American Entertainment Software Rating Board changed the rating of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, a video game for PCs, the Xbox 360, and eventually the PlayStation 3. The ESRB cited the presence of content not considered in their original review in the published edition of Oblivion. The sexually explicit content was an art file, made accessible by a third-party modification called the Oblivion Topless Mod, that rendered the game with topless female characters. In that section of the game, there is a hanging corpse, as an example: What they originally disclosed to us was a corpse in the dark, yet when you bring a torch up to the actual mutilated corpse, you can see that it’s very very very alive. The fact that the content of Oblivion under investigation was inaccessible during normal play made no difference in the decision to give the game an M rating. Although certain retailers began to check for ID before selling Oblivion as a result of the change, and the change elicited criticism for the E SRB, the events passed by with little notice from the public at large. Other commentators remarked on the injustice of punishing a company for the actions of its clients, and one called the event a ‘pseudo-sequel’ to the Hot Coffee minigame controversy. Bethesda complied with the request, but issued a press release declaring their disagreement with the ECRB’s rationale.
GameSpot’s Pete Hines had discussed the mod with GameSpot staff before the game was re-rated, saying that he did not consider it a concern of anyone who alters the game so that it displays material that may be considered offensive. We haven’t received any complaints from anyone on the issue from anyone who altered the game to be consideredoffensive, says Bethesda Softworks, the game’s developer. If you would like to contact the author of this article, please contact [email protected] with the subject line ‘Oblivion Topless mod’ or ‘The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion: The Topless Mod’ (or any other mod that alters the code of a computer game for the Elder Scrolls game for that matter). For confidential support, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or visit http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/. For support on suicide matters call the Samaritans on 08457 90 90 90 or visit a local Samaritans branch or click here. For more information on suicide support, visit the Samaritans page on the Internet and the Samaritans on the Facebook page. For information on how to get involved in suicide prevention, visit http:// www.samaritans.org.
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