Gamertell Opinion: Retail outlets regularly rely on ratings hypocrisy

When all the hoopla about Manhunt 2 was flying around I started noticing the movies in my local Walmart. Walmart, as you probably know, does not sell AO games. It also does not sell NC-17 movies. However, when I wander down the aisle of new releases (which happens to be just opposite the XBox 360 and PS3 shelves) about a third of the titles are prominently displayed as “Unrated.”

These unrated movies were very much rated when they were shown in the movie theater, usually with an “R.” The r to NR rating switch typically means that all the content left out of the theater release to get down to that coveted R rating was put back into the DVD release. These movies are unrated because if they were…