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Take-Two has had its share of trouble lately, but that doesn’t seem to stop the company from finding more trouble to get in.
The ESRB has announced that the top-selling Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion will be rerated from T for Teen to M for Mature. The ESRB defended the ratings change based on “more detailed depictions of blood and gore than were considered in the original rating, as well as the presence of a locked-out art file of ‘skin’ that, if accessed through a third part modification to the PC version of the game, allows the user to play with topless versions of female characters.”
A patch will be made available soon to disable access to the topless characters.
“Parents across the country depend on ESRB ratings every day to make sensible choices about the games they bring home for their families,” stated Patricia Vance, President of the ESRB. “Ratings changes are extraordinarily rare, but if ever one does occur, ESRB recognizes that parents must be made aware of the change as quickly as possible so they are certain to have the most current and accurate information.”
Take-Two’s co-publisher, Bethesda, has announced that it “will promptly implement the ratings change that the ESRB has ordered for Oblivion.”
They also go on to say, “There is no nudity in Oblivion without a third part modification. In the PC version of the game only, some modders have used a third part tool to hack into and modify an art archive file to make it possible to create a mesh for a partially nude (topless) female that they add into the game. Bethesda didn’t create a game with nudity and does not intend that nudity appear in Oblivion.” Sound familiar, anyone (ahem, Hot Coffee…)?
“The pace at which the IEMA retailers reacted to the change in the ESRB rating for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion today stands as testament to the effectiveness and commitment to the industry’s self-regulatory efforts… When we were notified of the game’s ratings change today, we alerted our member company representatives who communicated to their stores the change in the game’s rating..” commented Hal Halpin, President of the IEMA.