It’s amazing what a couple of misunderstandings can lead you to.
I interviewed Harmonix co-founder Alex Rigopulos last week about the “Rock Band” downloadable album program launching this week.
We chatted on Thursday, at which time I had two things wrong:
- I thought, as we had reported earlier in the week, that the Entertainment Software Ratings Board prohibited downloadable content that would have a more severe rating than the game it was associated with. (Later in the week, we found out that the prohibition only applies to mandatory DLC).
- I thought Nirvana’s Nevermind was announced as “Rock Band” DLC (it’s not). Given misunderstanding #1, I thought that would force Harmonix to confront the possibility that the album cover and some of its lyrics could be considered M-rated content that didn’t suit their T-rated game.
It doesn’t matter that I was wrong, on both fronts, because, Rigopulos told me, the ESRB doesn’t factor into Harmonix’s decisions about “Rock Band” music.
“By and large we’ve tended toward using radio edits,” Rigopulos told me. “The ESRB is not, to my knowledge, as sensitive to language in M ratings. The use of radio edits on our part has been our decision, rather than an ESRB one.”
“Rock Band” fans, what do you think? Do radio edits affect your purchases? Would you buy uncensored versions of songs if they were available? Would they get you in trouble?