The Videogame Rating Council (VRC) was introduced by Sega of America in 1993 to rate all video games that were released for sale in the United States of America on the Sega Genesis, Game Gear, and Sega CD and rarely, some computer games. The rating had to clearly appear on the video game box and on all the advertisements for the video game. The three different ratings were as follows: Sega (セガ) is a video game software and hardware developer, and a former console manufacturer. ... 1993 (MCMXCIII) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar and marked the Beginning of the International Decade to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination (1993-2003). ... Computer and video games A screenshot of Tetris for the Nintendo Game Boy A console game (better known as a video game) is a form of interactive multimedia used for entertainment, which consists of a moveable image displayed on a screen that is usually controlled and manipulated using a handheld... The Mega Drive/Genesis was a 16-bit video game console released by Sega in Japan (1988), Europe (1990) and most of the rest of the world as the Mega Drive. ... The Sega Game Gear was Segas first portable gaming system. ... The Sega Mega-CD (Japanese: メガCD) is an add-on device for the Sega Mega Drive released in Europe, Australia, and Japan. ...

• GA - General Audiences. Appropriate for all audiences. No blood or graphic violence. No profanity, no mature sexual themes and no usage of drugs or alcohol.
• MA-13 - Mature Audiences. Parental Discretion Advised. The game was suitable for audiences thirteen years of age or older. Game could have some blood in it and more graphic violence then a "GA" game.
• MA-17 - Mature Audiences. Not appropriate for minors. The game was suitable for audiences seventeen years of age or older. Games could have lots of blood, graphic violence, mature sexual themes, profanity, drug or alcohol usage.
• NYR or Not Yet Rated - The game has not yet been rated by VRC. This symbol only appeared in advertising for the game.

Before the Videogame Rating Council

Before 1993, Sega was known for a more liberal policy with regards to what type of content it would allow in a video game release on a Sega home console. Where as Nintendo became famous for its strict censorship polices, Sega allowed blood and graphic violence in video games provided that such games had a generic parental advisory label on it. Nintendo (Japanese: 任天堂, ニンテンドー Nintendō; NASDAQ: NTDOY, TYO: 7974 ) is an international company originally founded in Japan on November 6, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi to produce handmade hanafuda cards, for use in a Japanese playing card game of the same name. ...

The first company to take advantage of Sega's moral liberal polices was the company Razor Soft. In 1990 they released the 1988 computer game Technocop for the Sega Genesis. In the game you played a cop waging a one-man war against crime. Bits of what was intended to be red blood would come out when you shot criminals and civilians. The game had limited commercial success, but Razor Soft would continue use mature themes in video games.

In 1991 they released a second computer game called Stormlord for the Sega Genesis. In the game you played a knight out on a quest to rescue female fairies you were imprisoned by an evil queen. In the computer version the fairies were nude, but Sega forced Razor Soft to give the fairies clothing when the game was released for the Sega Genesis. Like the game Technocop, Stormlord had limited commercial success and the implied nudity was panned as a cheap gimmick to cover up mediocre games. Stormlord is a game developed by Hewson Consultants circa 1989 for the ZX Spectrum, Sega Genesis, Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari ST, Amstrad CPC and DOS-based computers. ...

That same year Tengen released the popular arcade game Pit Fighter for the Sega Genesis. The fighting game's characters were created by digital filming. The character looked realistic and the game was a preview of what Midway Games would perfect with its Mortal Kombat arcade game. Pit Fighter had limited success because while it fighting looked more realistic then anyone had ever seen before on the Genesis, the animation was choppy and control did not provide you with many fighting moves. Activision would try and create a popular fighting game when it released Mondu's Fight Palace for the Sega Genesis. Mondu's Fight Palace created characters through the traditional means of animation, but the game's alien characters had a certain subtle mature allure. One of the characters was a female punk that would attack with her mohawk hair. Tengen was a video game publisher and developer that was created after the video game crash of 1983-1984 by Atari Games. ... Pit-Fighter is a 1990 arcade fighting game by Atari Games. ... Midway Games (NYSE: MWY) is an American video game publisher known for such game series as Mortal Kombat, NBA Jam and Spy Hunter. ... Mortal Kombat has multiple meanings. ... Activision, Inc. ...

In 1992 Namco released Splatterhouse 2 for the Sega Genesis. In the game you played a male character who wore a cursed mask, and had to fight the forces of evil to save your girl friend. The blood in the game was green ooze that came out of the monsters that you killed. As with the case of the two Razor Soft games, Splatterhouse 2 had a parental advisory label on the game's box in tiny, red print. Splatterhouse 2 was a commercial success and led to the release of Splatterhouse 3 in 1994. Namco is a company based in Japan, best known for developing video games. ... The title screen for Splatterhouse 2 on the Sega Genesis Splatterhouse 2 is a sidescrolling action/adventure survival horror video game released in 1992 on the Sega Mega Drive/Sega Genesis home video game console by Namco. ... Splatterhouse 3 is the title of a video game released by Namco for the Sega Genesis in 1993. ...

These games represented a small trickle of pre-VRC. games for the Sega Genesis. Most games were suitable for all audiences and most of these more mature games had limited commercial success because the blood or partial nudity was treated as a gimmick. Yet, two Sega Genesis games in 1992 created a national debate over the content of video and compelled Sega to develop the Videogame Rating Council.

Mortal Kombat

Previous attempts had been made at making an arcade fighting game that had realistic graphic violence and gore. Yet, Mortal Kombat was the first arcade game to combine realistic digitally created characters with the graphic violence and gore without making the objective mistakes that video & computer game reviewers would point out. The game had a wide range of fighting moves and combination of fighting moves that the player could learn. The arcade game had great graphics and animation and sound. Thus the controversial content could not be seen as a simple gimmick to cover up a mediocre game.

The video game company Acclaim brought the popular and ultra-violent video game to the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo in 1992. Both Sega and Nintendo ordered the game's graphic violence and blood to be toned down. Acclaim Entertainment, Inc. ... The European SNES design is identical to the Super Famicom. ...

However, Sega allowed the player to restore the controversial content with a secret code, announced the creation of the Videogame Rating Council and gave Mortal Kombat a MA-13 rating because you need the secret code to get the controversial content. The result was that the Sega Genesis version of Mortal Kombat outsold the sanitized Super Nintendo version. However, the commercial success of the game, including a huge marketing campaign by Acclaim to prepare consumers for "Mortal Monday", and the fact that the Videogame Rating Council opened the doorway for games to be sold on a Sega console system with adult content promoted national outrage.

Mortal Kombat was not the only game to prompt Sega to create the video game rating.

Lethal Enforcers

In 1993 Konami released the popular arcade game Lethal Enforcers for the Sega Genesis and Sega CD. In the first person game you shot at digitally created images of criminals. The game worked with an optional, blue toy gun that you could buy and shot at the game's criminals with, as opposed to simply using the regular controller. Lethal Enforcers was part of a series of first person shooting games that came out for the Sega Genesis and Sega CD in the early 1990's. 1993 (MCMXCIII) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar and marked the Beginning of the International Decade to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination (1993-2003). ... Konami Corporation (コナミ) TYO: 9766 (NYSE: KNM) (SGX: K20) is a leading developer and publisher of numerous popular and strong-selling computer and video games. ... Lethal Enforcers was created as an arcade shooting video game by Konami. ...

The major difference in each game was the setting and the introduction of games on a compact disc (CD). A CD could store much more memory then a cartridge and thus replaced the digitally created characters with streaming, full motion video. In 1993 American Laser Games brought Mad Dog McCree to the Sega systems set in the world of the Old West. In 1994 Who Shot Johnny Rock? changed the setting to the era of 1920's American gangsters, while Drug Wars was set in the contemporary environment of our Drug Enforcement Agency's War on Drugs. The Compact Disc logo was inspired by that of the previous Compact Cassette. ... American Laser Games was a company based in Albuquerque, New Mexico that created a wide variety of light gun laserdisc video games. ... Mad Dog McCree originally appeared as an arcade shooting game in the early 90s. ... Who Shot Johnny Rock? is the title of a full motion video game produced by American Laser Games and released for the DOS. Versions were planned for the Sega CD, DOS, 3DO and CD-i but never materialized. ... Since 1973, the DEA has enforced the drug laws in the United States. ... Operation Mallorca, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, 2005 [1] The War on Drugs is an initiative undertaken by the United States to carry out an all-out offensive (as President Nixon described it) against the prohibited use of certain legally controlled drugs. ...

Digital Pictures entered into the first person, shooting genre with zombies Corpse Killer in 1994 and space aliens in Ground Zero Texas. Sega even got into the genre with enemy aircraft in Tom Cat Alley. These full motion video Sega CD games had cheesy actors, low budget special effects and the Sega CD video capabilities where no where near film quality. Often the full motion video was not full screen and it looked grainy and pixelated due to the hardware limitations of the Sega CD. Yet, the graphics were realistic enough to ensure that the games automatically got a MA-13 or a MA-17 rating. Digital Pictures logo taken from the opening of one of their Sega CD games. ... Corpse Killer is a game released for the Sega CD, Sega 32X, 3DO, Sega Saturn, Sega Genesis and Windows 95 computer that featured full motion video in a format similar to other games developed by Digital Pictures. ...

Night Trap

Games such as Lethal Enforcers restricted game play to shooting digitally created criminals, zombies and aliens. Yet, in 1992 Digital Pictures would release a second type of full-motion video game based on voyeurism. Digital Pictures logo taken from the opening of one of their Sega CD games. ...

The premise of Night Trap was borrowed from slasher films. Sometime in the 1980's, a group of attractive, college coeds drive up to a lakehouse for a weekend slumberparty only to find out that their friendly hosts -- the Martian family -- are Yuppie Vampires and that house is invaded by the "Augers." Your mission is to watch the B-minus acting, low budget special effects and PG-13 violence to trap the Augers, save the college girls and their annoying kid brother. The game has a timer running and you must figure out when you have to switch the cameras to trap an Auger, save one of your special forces soldiers -- including Dana Plato-- or listen to when the Martian family decided to change the security code. Once you memorized what camera you needed to view at what time, the game became a simple mad rush to switch between cameras leaving little time to watch the story unfold. Needless to say Night Trap has not aged well as full motion video games quickly became an "interactive" fad that died quickly. Night Trap is a video game released on October 15, 1992. ... The slasher film (also known simply as slashers) is a sub-genre of the horror film genre. ... The MPAA film rating system is a system used in the United States and instituted by the Motion Picture Association of America to rate a movie based on its content. ... Plato as she appeared as Kimberly Drummond in the late 70s sitcom Diffrent Strokes. ...

Yet, in 1992 Night Trap's extensive full motion video was groundbreaking and while the game's content was PG-13 the fact that it had scenes with red liquid in jars and another scene with a female in a nightgown hinted at what full motion video could do in the future. Sega gave Night Trap a MA-17 label and the video game industry soon forgot about full motion video games because consumers grew weary of playing games that were either a format of a first person perspective shooting game or a format of switching between cameras in a house or hotel.

The only reason that anyone remembers Night Trap is because it was the game most often cited by media watchdog interest groups and members of the U.S. Congress that the video game industry was allowing games with graphic sex and violence in them. The Congress of the United States is the legislative branch of the federal government of the United States of America. ...

Entertainment Software Rating Board

Sega phased out the Videogame Rating Council in 1994 when the entire American video game industry agreed to follow the independent Entertainment Software Rating Board. The old Sega ratings can still be found on video games and advertisements that appeared from 1993 - 1994. The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) is a self-regulatory organization that applies and enforces ratings, advertising guidelines, and online privacy principles for computer and video games and other entertainment software in the United States and Canada (officially adopted by individual provinces 2004-2005). ...

Criticism

Many video game reviewers and consumers saw the introduction of the Videogame Rating Council as a sign that Sega of America was no longer going to censor the content of video games sold for a Sega home console. While Sega had tolerated blood and graphic violence in video games pre-VRC, nudity, profanity, and homosexuality had remained prohibited themes and were often themes removed before an original computer game or a role-playing game was released for the English speaking Sega market.

However, Sega of America never explained the qualifications for a game getting a particular rating and thus there seemed to be inconsistancies. For example, the Sega CD editions of two computer games; Rise of the Dragon and Snatcher both got the MA-17 label and it was assumed that it was because of the violence, profanity, and sexual innuendos that existed, but Sega never explained. Another example, would be the fact that the Sega Genesis version of Mortal Kombat was given a MA-13 label, while the Sega CD version of the game was given a MA-17 label, with the only major content difference between the two games was that you needed to enter in a secret code in order for all the blood and graphic violence to be seen in the Sega Genesis edition. In the Sega CD edition you had to enter in a secret code to which would actually tone down the blood and graphic violence. Rise of the Dragon is a graphic adventure game that was released in 1990 for the DOS computer and later remade for the Sega CD (1994). ... Sega CD Snatcher, the first and only English version made. ...

Further complicating the situation, was that games sold for the Sega home console systems were still being censored. Despite the MA-17 label, both Rise of the Dragon and Snatcher had some of the mature images edited. Even Sega of America did not seem to taking its own rating system seriously as it radically altered Streets of Rage 3 before it was sold outside of Japan; including the removal of a playable gay character and a playable transsexual character. Streets of Rage (known in Japan as Bare Knuckle) was a popular beat em up series made by Sega, composed of three games, spawning from 1991 to 1994. ...