{"id":53041,"date":"2013-04-22T12:47:55","date_gmt":"2013-04-22T10:47:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/?p=53041"},"modified":"2013-04-22T12:54:45","modified_gmt":"2013-04-22T10:54:45","slug":"bioshock-infinite-blasphemy-doesnt-discriminate-esrb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/business\/53041-bioshock-infinite-blasphemy-doesnt-discriminate-esrb","title":{"rendered":"Bioshock Infinite “blasphemy” doesn’t discriminate: ESRB"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bioshock Infinite has sparked plenty of debate around its violent, racial, and religious themes<\/a>. MyGaming spoke to game classification and rating agency ESRB (Entertainment Software Ratings Board) to get their view on the recent controversy surrounding the game \u2013 a widely published story about a\u00a0BioShock Infinite player being refunded due to a religious complaint<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A blasphemy complaint<\/a> by Breen Malmberg raised questions of why a notification of blasphemy or religious themes wasn\u2019t indicated on the box. PEGI (Pan European Game Information) explained to MyGaming that it\u00a0didn’t\u00a0see an encouragement of hatred<\/a> in the baptism scene, and therefore didn\u2019t warrant a \u201cdiscrimination\u201d tag.<\/p>\n

The ESRB, who handle North American territories, explained that: \u201cthere is no specific Content Descriptor that advises of religious elements, such content could impact a game\u2019s rating information, particularly if it is considered discriminatory against a religious group\u201d.<\/p>\n

The ESRB added that: \u201cIt is also very likely that we would describe such content in a game\u2019s Rating Summary.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regarding Bioshock Infinite\u2019s rating summary on the ESRB database<\/a>, the description\u00a0doesn’t\u00a0highlight any discrimination of religion, and instead focuses on the violence and racial discrimination the game features.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe social\/political backdrop of the fictional city (set in the year 1912) includes the use of derogatory ethnic\/racial terms (e.g., the words ‘gook,’ ‘chink,’ ‘negroes,’ ‘injuns,’ ‘crackers’); language such as ‘sh*t’ can also be heard in dialogue,\u201d reads the summary.<\/p>\n

In conclusion, it appears that both PEGI and the ESRB take the same stance on the matter, saying that while there are religious themes in the game, they by no means emphasise the hatred or discrimination of religion.<\/p>\n

Check out MyBroadband’s Jan Vermeulen discussing his view on violence in Bioshock Infinite<\/a>.<\/p>\n

More on Bioshock Infinite:<\/h3>\n

Bioshock Infinite blasphemous? PEGI weighs in<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cBlasphemous\u201d Bioshock Infinite: upset gamer gets refund<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Violent video games debate rages on<\/a> (and the follow-up<\/a>)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bioshock Infinite \u2013 living up to the hype?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Bioshock Infinite hands-on: revolution in the wings?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

BioShock Infinite tackles religion<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The ESRB responds to the lack of religion descriptors in its Bioshock Infinite rating<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":53075,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[283,21,2013,9573,2219,5275,8455],"class_list":["post-53041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-bioshock-infinite","tag-headline","tag-irrational-games","tag-kirk-hamilton","tag-megarom","tag-religion","tag-violence-in-video-games"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53041"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53076,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53041\/revisions\/53076"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mygaming.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}