Apply the Adults Only Rating Consistently to Explicit Video Games
The Issue
Video games are a legitimate form of entertainment and artistic expression enjoyed by adults and children alike. Mature games can explore violence, sexuality, crime, addiction, trauma, and other difficult subjects without being inappropriate for adult audiences.
Parents and consumers nevertheless need clear and consistent information about what games contain.
This petition was originally created following the release of Cyberpunk 2077, and that game remains central to the concern being raised.
Cyberpunk 2077 is currently rated Mature 17+ by the Entertainment Software Rating Board. The ESRB identifies its content as including Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Nudity, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, and Use of Drugs and Alcohol. Its own rating summary describes graphic violence and dismemberment alongside first-person sexual encounters, prostitution, nudity, genital customization, drug use, and other explicitly adult material.
These elements are not merely incidental to the world in which the game takes place. Cyberpunk 2077 places players in the role of a mercenary operating within Night City, a dystopian environment built heavily around criminal activity, extreme violence, body modification, drugs, sexuality, and other adult themes. CD Projekt RED itself describes V as a hired gun or mercenary navigating the violent corporate-controlled metropolis of Night City.
None of this means Cyberpunk 2077 should be banned or censored.
Adults should be able to play it.
The question raised by this petition is considerably narrower: If a game containing this combination of explicit sexual material, graphic violence, nudity, drugs, and immersive adult criminal themes qualifies for a Mature 17+ rating rather than Adults Only 18+, where exactly is the boundary between those ratings?
The ESRB already maintains both classifications. Its content descriptors also distinguish between sexual material and Strong Sexual Content, which it defines as explicit and/or frequent depictions of sexual behavior, potentially including nudity.
We call on the Entertainment Software Rating Board and the video-game industry to strengthen transparency and consistency around the Adults Only classification.
Specifically, we ask for:
- Clear public guidance explaining when extremely graphic sexual, violent, or other adult content crosses the boundary from Mature to Adults Only.
- A transparent review of Cyberpunk 2077's M rating under those standards.
- Consistent application of rating standards regardless of a game's publisher, popularity, budget, or commercial importance.
- Detailed rating summaries explaining the material responsible for a game's classification.
- Periodic review of rating criteria as technology makes interactive entertainment increasingly realistic and immersive.
- Accurate and prominent rating information on digital storefronts before purchase or download.
- Continued integration between ratings and parental controls so families can restrict access according to age.
- Transparent procedures for correcting ratings when material content was omitted or inaccurately represented during the rating process.
- Clear distinctions between adult themes appearing within a larger narrative and interactive content that reaches the ESRB's Adults Only threshold.
This petition does not call for banning Cyberpunk 2077, Grand Theft Auto, or mature video games generally.
Nor does controversial subject matter automatically justify an Adults Only rating. Violence, sexuality, drugs, criminal behavior, and difficult themes can all have legitimate roles in artistic expression and storytelling.
The purpose of a rating system is not to determine whether art is morally acceptable.
It is to tell consumers who the material is appropriate for.
Cyberpunk 2077 provides an unusually useful test of that distinction because so many categories of explicitly adult material exist within a single highly immersive game. Rather than pretending those elements do not exist, the industry should be willing to explain clearly why their combined presence falls on one side of the M/AO boundary rather than the other.
Adults should remain free to choose adult entertainment. Parents should have meaningful tools to decide what their children can access. Developers should know the standards against which their work will be evaluated.
Cyberpunk 2077 should receive a transparent review, and the line between Mature and Adults Only should mean something.
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The Issue
Video games are a legitimate form of entertainment and artistic expression enjoyed by adults and children alike. Mature games can explore violence, sexuality, crime, addiction, trauma, and other difficult subjects without being inappropriate for adult audiences.
Parents and consumers nevertheless need clear and consistent information about what games contain.
This petition was originally created following the release of Cyberpunk 2077, and that game remains central to the concern being raised.
Cyberpunk 2077 is currently rated Mature 17+ by the Entertainment Software Rating Board. The ESRB identifies its content as including Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Nudity, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, and Use of Drugs and Alcohol. Its own rating summary describes graphic violence and dismemberment alongside first-person sexual encounters, prostitution, nudity, genital customization, drug use, and other explicitly adult material.
These elements are not merely incidental to the world in which the game takes place. Cyberpunk 2077 places players in the role of a mercenary operating within Night City, a dystopian environment built heavily around criminal activity, extreme violence, body modification, drugs, sexuality, and other adult themes. CD Projekt RED itself describes V as a hired gun or mercenary navigating the violent corporate-controlled metropolis of Night City.
None of this means Cyberpunk 2077 should be banned or censored.
Adults should be able to play it.
The question raised by this petition is considerably narrower: If a game containing this combination of explicit sexual material, graphic violence, nudity, drugs, and immersive adult criminal themes qualifies for a Mature 17+ rating rather than Adults Only 18+, where exactly is the boundary between those ratings?
The ESRB already maintains both classifications. Its content descriptors also distinguish between sexual material and Strong Sexual Content, which it defines as explicit and/or frequent depictions of sexual behavior, potentially including nudity.
We call on the Entertainment Software Rating Board and the video-game industry to strengthen transparency and consistency around the Adults Only classification.
Specifically, we ask for:
- Clear public guidance explaining when extremely graphic sexual, violent, or other adult content crosses the boundary from Mature to Adults Only.
- A transparent review of Cyberpunk 2077's M rating under those standards.
- Consistent application of rating standards regardless of a game's publisher, popularity, budget, or commercial importance.
- Detailed rating summaries explaining the material responsible for a game's classification.
- Periodic review of rating criteria as technology makes interactive entertainment increasingly realistic and immersive.
- Accurate and prominent rating information on digital storefronts before purchase or download.
- Continued integration between ratings and parental controls so families can restrict access according to age.
- Transparent procedures for correcting ratings when material content was omitted or inaccurately represented during the rating process.
- Clear distinctions between adult themes appearing within a larger narrative and interactive content that reaches the ESRB's Adults Only threshold.
This petition does not call for banning Cyberpunk 2077, Grand Theft Auto, or mature video games generally.
Nor does controversial subject matter automatically justify an Adults Only rating. Violence, sexuality, drugs, criminal behavior, and difficult themes can all have legitimate roles in artistic expression and storytelling.
The purpose of a rating system is not to determine whether art is morally acceptable.
It is to tell consumers who the material is appropriate for.
Cyberpunk 2077 provides an unusually useful test of that distinction because so many categories of explicitly adult material exist within a single highly immersive game. Rather than pretending those elements do not exist, the industry should be willing to explain clearly why their combined presence falls on one side of the M/AO boundary rather than the other.
Adults should remain free to choose adult entertainment. Parents should have meaningful tools to decide what their children can access. Developers should know the standards against which their work will be evaluated.
Cyberpunk 2077 should receive a transparent review, and the line between Mature and Adults Only should mean something.
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Petition created on December 14, 2020