Team Fortress 2 - M for Mature?

[The Mighty Stove]

I believe the Halo series is also rated "M" . Which is pretty funny, since it has a little bit of blood and some "bad" words.

"Standards and practices are a vital link in keeping new and funny ideas away from you: the television viewer."

Oh man, thanks for that. xD
I love ATHF <3

 

[Vegosiux]

Standard rule is that vidyer game ratings are always one above film ratings. Weirdly, that includes the BBFC ones (Fallout 3 an 18? Really?).

IMO, i don'tt care how cartoony and stylized the game is, if the main thing you do in the game is shoot in the face, blow them up, stab them in the back or the many other ways you can KILL A PERSON in a game, it deserves a high rating.

Why? You kill goombas in Mario all the time, why would that get a free pass? I say every game should be an 18 to stop this epidemic of child murderers. And homosexuality, because why the hell not.

You stomp on them and make them fly off the screen. I'm pretty sure if you stomping on them splattered their innards on your screen, Mario would be rated M...

 

[EHKOS]

There's blood and dismemberment. Hence a rating for violent content.

I honestly don't see how it matter either way. TF2 getting a mature rating doesn't hurt anyone.

In fact, it helps by making the single parent on the planet who cares about ratings not have their whiny little shit on a mic.

 

[ResonanceSD]

According to the ESRB's website, Team Fortress 2 is rated M for "Blood and Gore and Intense Violence." Being one of the many people who have played a ridiculous amount of TF2 on this forum, I can kind of see their reasoning here. However, as of late, I've come to question just as to why the game is rated as it is.

Is the sole reason TF2 rated M due to the intense style of "gibbing" that occurs when you or another player is detonated into a fine, chunky mess? Is that really the only thing that bars such a rating? It's not like there are other aspects of the game that attribute to it. There's hardly any language to speak of, for one thing. Even then, it isn't too bad, nothing one wouldn't hear when say watching TV nowadays.

I can understand how the rather dramatic nature of player deaths in-game can be a factor toward "Blood and Gore," but the art style kind of takes away from the severity of that, doesn't it? More often than not, the ESRB doesn't rate a game based on "online features."

Plenty of games have that disclaimer when you first boot it up. You know which one I am talking about.

Why is it that TF2 is rated M the way it is? The gibbing?

...is that really all it takes?

DO YOU VANT A SECOND OPINION? YOU ARE ALSO UGLY!

-Medic after I amputatored a demoman last night.


It's a humorous take on shooters and all of it is tongue-in-cheek, I can see why the rating is there, but I'm a) old enough to not care about it and b) find the game so damned charming I can excuse the fact that (on the servers here anyway), kids are setting people on fire, then whacking them with fire axes.

 

[DustyDrB]

You want to know what's funny?

The german version of TF2 has no blood or gore. The models explode in toys and stuff if you GIB them!

Somehow I see the german version as superiour.

You mean like....

Spoiler: this?

Yes, 'twas the low point in my TF2 career when the balloon poodle killed me.

 

[MagmaMan]

Team Fortress 2 isn't the only game to have this problem. Look at Halo. All three of the Halo games (remember I'm not talking about online here) really aren't bad at all. I'd have no problem letting a ten year old play it, especially when it's Halo 3 or Reach which have forge mode. I can't see forge mode being a negative influence. (Once again, I realize the online is a horrible influence, but that's the parent's own fault for giving their child access to Xbox Live Gold)

The Lego games are rated Everyone Ten and Up. THE LEGO GAMES are apparently too horrible and violent for a nine-year-old to play. Really?

Call of Duty (Once again I'm not talking online) also isn't bad at all for a 13-year-old to play. I started playing it's online when I was 13 and I think I've turned out a pretty decent person.

One of the major problems as to why parents are buying their small 8-year-old children games like Duke Nukem Forever is because ESRB rates it's games too high. How can a parent follow the warnings when the people presenting the warning obviously have no idea what they are talking about?

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Team Fortress 2 isn't the only game to have this problem. Look at Halo. All three of the Halo games (remember I'm not talking about online here) really aren't bad at all. I'd have no problem letting a ten year old play it, especially when it's Halo 3 or Reach which have forge mode. I can't see forge mode being a negative influence. (Once again, I realize the online is a horrible influence, but that's the parent's own fault for giving their child access to Xbox Live Gold)

The Lego games are rated Everyone Ten and Up. THE LEGO GAMES are apparently too horrible and violent for a nine-year-old to play. Really?

Call of Duty (Once again I'm not talking online) also isn't bad at all for a 13-year-old to play. I started playing it's online when I was 13 and I think I've turned out a pretty decent person.

One of the major problems as to why parents are buying their small 8-year-old children games like Duke Nukem Forever is because ESRB rates it's games too high. How can a parent follow the warnings when the people presenting the warning obviously have no idea what they are talking about?

Part of the problem is the lack of a rating between T (13+) and M (17+). We've got a rating for 3+, a rating for 6+, a rating for 10+, and a rating for 13+, but unlike pretty much every rating system aside from the ones used in the US, we don't have one for 15+. We really need it, because as you said, there's something wrong about Halo and Duke Nukem Forever garnering the same rating. Besides, 13 to 17 is a much bigger jump in maturity than 6 to 13 (on average). It's a bigger jump than 10 to 13, for that matter.