A Question For Americans - What Is Your Perception Of "Adults Only" Games?

[Logan Westbrook]

As an outsider, the video game rating system of the USA is a strange and obtuse beast. I'm curious to find out how the Adults Only rating is perceived by the people it directly applies to.

When someone says "Adults Only" to you in a video game context, what do you think of?

 

[tiredinnuendo]

....games that only Adults should play.

Is this a trick question?

- J

 

[Mullahgrrl]

No children where killed during the making of this game.

 

[Necro82]

I think graphic nudity is the only thing that would push a mature rated game into the realm of adult only, if that's what you mean. Is there really even such a thing as adult only games? Besides cheap internet games?

Also extreme cruelty would probably do the trick. Like graphic decapitations and such. With that said, I'd love to see a game with decapitations and graphic nudity! =p

 

[Logan Westbrook]

....games that only Adults should play.

Is this a trick question?

- J

Not at all, that's a great answer. What I want is people's genuine views on the adults only rating. I'm from the UK so I find all the noise made about AO games to be genuinely perplexing.

 

[00exmachina]

ask an' ye shall receive http://www.esrb.org/ratings/ratings_guide.jsp,
M is equivalent to an R rating in the us ,and equivalent to a mythical 17 rating in the British rating system. (no one under 17 admitted)

AO which tired mistakes for M is the equivalent to (NC-17 , or X) in the us and 18 in the British system. M mostly exists because 18 is the age of legal adulthood in the us, and there are some games that mature children probably can play but are not appropriate for everyone. AO exists because at 18 in the government's eyes if you can vote you can think for yourself.

I chose the British movie rating system as my benchmark just because it was the first one I thought of that uses age numbers as ratings for the appropriate band.

 

[Mstrswrd]

I don't know what the movie ratings are there, but here, the game ratings and movie ratings match up well. AO is the same as NC-17, or No Children under 17. Ever. This is unlike the rating lower, M (mature) for games and R (Restricted: No childrenunder 17 unless they are with a parent). AO games often, in my book, are just porn games/games that have excessive nudity without a real purpose. Seeing as there are just under 30 AO games (if I remember correctly), obviously, they aren't to proftiable. What do I think of them? Useless wastes that not many are going to know of anyway.

 

[greygelgoog]

The problem is that there are no Adult Only games that I know of that aren't sexually pornographic. I know Manhunt 2 was threatened with an AO rating for pornographic violence, but then they toned it down so it would get a mature rating.

The reason there is such hoopla over AO games is that the ever ignorant moral guardians of America presume that the medium of video games is meant for children, therefore "Adult Only" video games are marketed towards children. Yes, it is odd to think that a game that is clearly meant for an adult audience is meant for children, but some people seem to think that. It's like with the whole "Hot Coffee" thing from San Andreas. The game was already rated "Mature," so young children shouldn't have been seeing it anyway. Despite this, when it turned out there was a way to break the game to get sex, everyone acted like it was somehow meant for 8 year olds instead of 18 year olds. Somehow, over the years, Mature rated games haven't suffered from this. For the most part (a few loons aside) everyone understands that a Mature rated game is meant for an older audience. But the moment it's rated Adults Only, then it's trying to corrupt our children.

 

[tiredinnuendo]

AO which tired mistakes for M is the equivalent to (NC-17 , or X) in the us and 18 in the British system.

Tell me how I mistook anything.

I see "Adults Only" and I think "This is a game that only adults should play." Since I've long since crossed into adulthood, I don't think too much more about it.

Ratings only really mean anything to people who might be limited by them.

- J

 

[Logan Westbrook]

Ratings only really mean anything to people who might be limited by them.

- J

That's quite poignant really. I would argue that even those past the age of majority are limited by the ratings though.

 

[tiredinnuendo]

Maybe so. I guess I'll have to start thinking about what games I'd be willing to buy for my kid as she gets older. Odds are, though, if the game has questionable content, I'll have played it already and will have composed my own review, which will be much more exact than the ESRB, tailored for her, as it were.

As to content "left out" to satisfy ratings boards, I've never found my fun enhanced by having extra blood or more tits on-screen. I just don't care. Some of the most "fun" in gaming I've had in recent years was playing New Super Mario Bros on the DS. If the rating system ever forces them to cut back on the actual fun of a game, I will immediately commence caring. I will be like a creature on whom is fixed the most powerful of Care Bear Stares. I will care with the fury of a thousand suns.

Until then, meh...

- J

 

[Dragonclaw]

AO is the marketing kiss of death though. It most certainly affects older gamers because an AO rating pretty much eliminates it from being a choice. A game that recieves an AO wont be carried by Gamestop, Walmart, Target, Best Buy, or any other major retailer. They worry about that one customer that would never play a game anyway screaming to corporate and the media about how the game's very existance offends her delicate sensibilities. Seriously, I had customers yesterday come into the store to ***** at me for carrying GTA4.

I've never really understood the need for a distinction between an M and an AO though...I remember being 17 and it doesn't impress me as a year of profound enlightenment before I turned 18...

 

[Loggymonster]

OK, here comes a train wreck of knowledge for everyone outside the US (and in).

Now, I'm American, born and bred. BUT I think that the vast majority of this country is inhabited by brainless sheep that sway to the lightest whim of our overblown "media experts". The problem with AO isn't a problem with AO at all, it's a problem with this countries perception of video games. Every year it seems that some dumb ass kid decides that the world is too much to bear and instead of back in the good old days when the twat would just off himself, he turns a gun on his entire school killing innocents then finally doing the world a favor in the form of a shotgun blast to his own cerebrum. Now instead of blaming the REAL causes like bad parenting and poor society and the kid just being a Grade "A" nutjob, media big wigs will sit there and point the finger at VIDEO GAMES and how they "are murder simulators created to teach our children the acts of violence" (To quote video gamings biggest threat in the US, Jack Thompson)

Now here is where AO fits in: IGNORANCE. Too many American parents will buy their kids video games that are WELL out of their age group. They are ignorant of what the video games consist of. They treat games as some magical thing they could never possibly understand. Unlike movies, many parents don't sit down with their kids and watch what they are playing untill it's too late. (I remember often going to pick up a game for myself and steering parent after parent away from "Conker's Bad Fur Day" because they didn't understand that "M" meant mature, not "You're free to disobey the law, cuntbag") IGNORANCE leads parents to not think that buying a video game for a minor is in NO WAY different than buying them porn or cigarettes. In this way, whenever a game comes along that would even MERIT a rating of Adult Only, the media goes CRAZY. The media will blame the VIDEO GAME for BEING violent. That's like blaming JACK DANIELS for BEING alcoholic.

So to bring this rant full circle I will come back to the point of this thread, the Adult Only rating. American's react to it so violently because most of them seem to think that children are going to be able to pick these games up off the street and play them magically. When I think of the Adult Only rating i think of EDUCATION. We need proper EDUCATION to teach parents to look at ratings, to interact with their own children, and to control what they play just as they would control movies they watch. Given the system is still flawed because we all know kids will usually end up drinking before they are 21 (legal age in US) or see porn before 18 (legal adulthood in US) but it's up to parents to explain and teach morals and they can't do that without having any explanations themselves.

Video games are this ages rock and roll and the media will keep blowing AO and M rated games out of proportion just as they blew up Elvis Presley waggling his hips. I think it's a shame but until people get their heads out of their bums we will have to deal with it here in America and fight for our right to game.

 

[Weaver]

AO is the marketing kiss of death though. It most certainly affects older gamers because an AO rating pretty much eliminates it from being a choice. A game that recieves an AO wont be carried by Gamestop, Walmart, Target, Best Buy, or any other major retailer.

Thank you someone who isn't just throwing pure conjecture around.
This is exactly the case why companies here (well, I'm Canadian... but we're still governed by the ESRB) don't want AO games, they just won't sell. It's not because of moralistic qualms, or some kind of "everyone will hate me if I release an AO game", it's because of money.

I find the whole thing ridiculous. Here are the ESRB descriptions

MATURE
Titles rated M (Mature) have content that may be suitable for persons ages 17 and older. Titles in this category may contain intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content and/or strong language.

ADULTS ONLY
Titles rated AO (Adults Only) have content that should only be played by persons 18 years and older. Titles in this category may include prolonged scenes of intense violence and/or graphic sexual content and nudity.

Basically, one you have to be 17, the other you have to be 18...
If you wonder WHY it exists, it's because both here and in America it's illegal to solicit sex to a minor, AKA a person under 18. So, if a game has too much sexual content it will be dubbed AO. Games will even release edited versions here that contain less nudity to maintain an M. Bioshock, as some people may or may not know, was edited in North America to contain less nudity.

My whole problem with this is WHY won't the big retailers stock AO games???

 

[00exmachina]

AO which tired mistakes for M is the equivalent to (NC-17 , or X) in the us and 18 in the British system.

Tell me how I mistook anything.

I see "Adults Only" and I think "This is a game that only adults should play." Since I've long since crossed into adulthood, I don't think too much more about it.

Ratings only really mean anything to people who might be limited by them.

- J

You didn't miss it I did. Guess I failed reading comprehension for today. Sorry.

 

[Rolling Thunder]

I fail to see why Wall-mart can stock submachineguns and weapons that are purpose-built to kill, maim and generally terrfiy, but object to violence and sex in a digital form. Such hypocrites should be tied to a large rock next to the edge of the sea at low tide.

 

[Thisusernameisjustanotherwasteofspace]

Show a tit in a movie/game and it will be rated X / Adult Only, cut it off with a butcher knife and presto! PG-13!

 

[Xen Monkey]

I fail to see why Wall-mart can stock submachineguns and weapons that are purpose-built to kill, maim and generally terrfiy, but object to violence and sex in a digital form. Such hypocrites should be tied to a large rock next to the edge of the sea at low tide.

It's because they are family friendly of course.


(I nearly managed to type that with a straight face)

 

[erikvduyn]

I think graphic nudity is the only thing that would push a mature rated game into the realm of adult only, if that's what you mean. Is there really even such a thing as adult only games? Besides cheap internet games?

Also extreme cruelty would probably do the trick. Like graphic decapitations and such. With that said, I'd love to see a game with decapitations and graphic nudity! =p

holy shit, that game would be awesome!