Sweet... I'm getting more grown-up by the minute.
EDIT: I’m pleased and proud to see the site,
and specifically this story, cited by Z,
a geekdad blogger over at Wired Magazine.
***
o a video game with an ‘M’ rating ‘may be suitable’ for those aged 17 and up, and there are 25 such titles for the Wii, according to the ESRB website. Of those 25, how many truly cater to the tastes of older gamers?
Who knows? No one really seems to be keeping track.
MSNBC reported early last year that according to a survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, over half of American adults play video games. Old news by now, perhaps.
But today, the front page of GameDaily.com links to this article titled Wii Games for Adults, a rundown of recommendations for Wii titles with ‘mature themes.’
I’ll boil it down for you—the article is essentially a list of the bloodiest, most gruesome games available—the handful of stuff that gets an ESRB rating of ‘M’ for violence and language. In some cases GameDaily is almost apologetic about the picks (there were 15 I believe), acknowledging in a couple of instances that, while satisfying your inner gorehound, the games themselves are laughably bad.
While it’s clear this primer was assembled with a sense of irony, it still gets me thinking. Are an absence of gore, swearing and sex the only things distinguishing games for kids from adult fare? That’s just not very creative.
Now don’t read this wrong; I’m no puritan, nor am I thinking of the children. Nor am I thumping the Handbook of Appropriate Mario Game Conduct, which stipulates all corners must be rounded, all background mattes must include smiling clouds, all characters’ faces must be baby crib mobile-friendly, and of course, no weapon shall be admitted onto the grounds which is deemed to be deadlier than a turnip.
I love all of that for what it is, and I love Mario games. But I also loved No More Heroes and I’m having a satisfying experience with Call of Duty World At War, both rated ‘M’, and both very violent.
But why is there no measure for the age suitability of a video game, beyond a tally of f-bombs and shotgun decapitations? The ESRB ratings system is little help to adults seeking age-appropriate titles.
Stock photography? Whatever do you mean?
We need the ESRB to count swear words and nipples and rolling heads—fine, we can accept that. Given society with its standards (both single and double), I guess somebody has to do it. But just what the hell is ‘maturity’? How do high body counts and lots of side-boob make a game ‘mature’? For perspective: does the ‘mature content’ in the Jackass movies strike any of you as very mature? Wrong. Word.
By the same token, there is no clear definition for ‘maturity’ in the context of gaming, or in any content for that matter; you can easily make a case for 20 and 30-something gamers (particularly when it’s a guys night) not quite behaving ‘adult-like’ while playing video games. “Fuck yeah” and high-fives are probably not very sophisticated. But so be it; I make absolutely no apologies for the fact that gaming wakes up my inner kid.
But inner kids can be pretty smart and savvy, and some would say adult gamers are smarter, more sophisticated gamers, demanding a better product than teens (who are, I guess, dumber and less sophisticated). Maybe (and maybe). But teenagers are pretty demanding themselves, and not at all shy about dishing criticism to lousy titles.
I was eight, and I played this til my eyes bled
Yet I still think 80s gamers are unique in their understanding of the virtues of ‘good gameplay’. Because we were there. (**cues Battle Hymn of the Republic**). We grew up on the classics. In a world with blocky pixels, on platforms with limited technical capability. And without 5.1 sound. We were there.
And while we may have subsequently ‘grown into’ longer, deeper and more complex games… games presented at resolutions where graphical renderings of people actually look like people. Where 64k is no longer the size of the program we’re playing, but rather, the amount of virtual money we received for murdering a pizza delivery chain’s CEO. While we may have grown, we, the gamers from the golden age, love the Galagas and the Donkey Kongs and the Yar’s Revenges in a way that today’s teens just don’t get. Because we were there.
So what does this mean, when applied to present-day gaming for adults? Is gaming a base pleasure, appealing to the part of men (and some women, and some blithe patriotic idiots) which loves explosions, blood and breasts, and harbors fantasies about saving the world or running amok with a loaded 9mm or acting out adolescent action/fantasy/sci-fi movie scenarios? Is it about reliving our actual adolescence, getting our nostalga fix from artifacts of the time? Or is gaming a few notches better than that? Is it an art form and a strategic pursuit, challenging our reflexes and the sophistication and the tastes we think we’ve evolved?
I say it’s probably some of each. When I’m playing games I’m a critic, a fan, a theorist, a problem solver, AND a carnage-hungry jackass.
I also say to Wii publishers: give us more “grown-up” content, already! More top ten lists that reflect the tastes of adults and more online discussion about how our tastes might have evolved in the past, oh, twenty years. And more games which are mindfully built to be interesting to someone with 20 years gaming experience. We deserve it. We gave you our childhood. *gets off soapbox*
What do you guys think makes a game ‘adult’? Deep gameplay? Whether it gives you the willies? Whether it strokes your sense of nostalga? Anything? If you’re someone in your twenties or thirties with a couple or three decades of gaming under your belt, please comment on this one.
If you’re really young, or really old, please sit quietly and stare at your desks. Just kidding. Mostly. You can comment on this, too.
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Cant wait for wii sports resort to come out. Looks awesome!
An aside: Sega’s House of the Dead: Overkill, which I’ve written about here at 31up, has been awarded a Guiness World Record for “most swearing in a video game.” Anyone doubt that this will boost its sales?
@ BucketsOfBullets: great comments. I would love to see the ESRB ratings system expanded to differentiate ‘adult’ (sex and violence) from adult (having some inherent appeal to adults).
It has occurred to me since I wrote this, that the ‘conventional wisdom’ has for years held that adults are clueless and kids are in the know with regards to technology. When comparing the tech-literacy gap between myself (33) and my parents (mid-60s) I see this holding true to an extent… but it’s been 30 years since Pong, and we’ve grown up with computers. In the next decade or two we’re going to become the first generation of fully tech-literate middleaged folk; teenagers will just have to discriminate against us on some other basis.
After reading this blog and the posts following the article, it appears that I was in position for a new perspective on game ratings. I’ve played games from the Atari to the current Wii & PS3. Historically, the rating (I believe) was established to ensure children were not purchasing games that were inappropriate for them. Now….I see a different need in the game rating, or is it the rating that needs to be changed? Overall, I feel the rating system works as well as it can and announces to the purchaser the amount of (negative) “adult” content in the game. From my current perspective, I can view it being difficult to change or alter such a delicate and controlled rating. However, the genre label of the games are ever changing. How about a new category? Yeah, we have RPG, FPS, RTS, etc. What about a new genre for us that enjoy the original Marios, Sonics, Donkey Kongs, or even Dig Dugs? Currently, I have to research a game to find out if it’s a first person or third person shooter. Is it a Turn Based game or Real Time Strategy? Is this a game that will please the new generations with precise button combinations, or grab the audience of us experienced gamers with a more classic style of controls..or both? Overall, a new genre for classic game styles will direct our attention towards new games that we may have overlooked in the past, allowing us to continue to experience the gameplay we enjoy without having to plug in the old NES and beat the same boss we’ve defeated for the last 20 years!
One suggestion would be to put the genre label next to the ESRB rating. This could help categorize games for consumer review, however, (like everything else) there’s pros and cons to this idea and would ultimately come down to the Marketing/Sales department of the company to decide if it would be finacially benficial to make this change/update.
To sum things up, maybe it’s not the rating that we should be reviewing (since we’re adults and we’re not censoring ourselves), maybe it’s a genre that needs to be established. Then, the games could be categorized according to demand and we would look in the right direction for the games we want to purchase.
It’s just one perspective to weigh against the many others out there. One thing I have learned from personal experience is it’s very difficult to find a game my wife likes better than the Marios and Sonics. I feel that a genre of new games based on the classic gameplay would bring in revenue not currently being tapped while keeping programming costs low. Same gameplay, updated graphics and levels, new category of purchasers. In theory, it sounds like great idea, but it has to be profitable.
Good news for gamers, Pac-Man is turning 30 and it’s getting a makeover.
I like the old school games Mario & Sonic, but I do enjoy Black Hawk Striker and a few others games like it.
Dear blogger: love your blog but I take exception to your implication about turnips not being dangerous. a turnip once assaulted me. Also, celery stalks at midnight.
I’ve recently been playing The Dig lately (ScummVM FTW!) and I have to say I’m enjoying it a lot more now as an almost 30-year-old than I ever did as an adolescent. Sure, younger gamers can play sophisticated point-and-click adventure/puzzle games just as much as the next person, but do they really appreciate them as much as us adults?
There’s no blood and guts in The Dig. No foul language. There is a death, pretty early on actually. I doubt this game would receive anything higher than a T to the ESRB (can’t remember if they were around in ’94), but does that mean it’s best played by teens? Does M for Mature mean all these games are targeted to adults? Doubtful. House of the Dead Overkill looks like complete schlock to me, as does Madworld. That doesn’t make these games bad to those that enjoy that sort of thing, but it certainly doesn’t make the game or the gamer that plays it any more “mature” just because of its rating.
It seems these days ratings have become the measuring stick for the audience, when it really should just be a guide. It took a while for the MPAA ratings to do that; no one would say that an R rating means ONLY adults can enjoy or understand the movie, just that any other audience should be cautioned by the content it contains. Still, the audience that actually wants R rated movies are those that technically can’t see them, i.e. adolescents. Guess who are the ones that clamor for M rated games? An adult can enjoy all sorts of content no matter what the rating, but it seems an M rating does not equal adult tastes.
Katie, I feel your pain. I’m not a woman and I agree (and game similarly) to your all points.
I’ve just found that while Gamespot and ign have really comprehensive information about gameas in general (I personally always check those sites to see how a game was rated), none of the information is tailored specifically to older gamers (or to women for that matter).
Ya I mostly just have to ask the guy at Gamestop what games are good lol
I think that this list of ‘M’ games applies mostly to male adult players. I’m a female adult who still loves to play, and for me it’s Mario games and the like that hold the most fun. Those are like the games I loved when I was younger, and they are what I still enjoy. You know, the basic ‘run, jump, smash’ games.
I got out of playing video games when they started to all be fighting and killing games. I.e. the ones where most girls resort to ‘button mashing’. I love Nintendo games because they appeal to my desire to play a more technically simple, aesthetically pleasing (bright colours!) and peaceful games.
I’m certainly not trying to speak for all women, but I imagine a great deal of women (who still enjoy playing video games) would feel the same. We’re not the target audience for systems like Xbox, but Nintendo has a following.