Apr 30, 2010
A thought about video game ratings
Like this post?
Let me get on a(nother) potentially offensive high horse for a second and say that I find it highly ironic that any video game is rated “mature.”
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© 2012 Abuyo. All rights reserved.
Yeah, maybe they should be rated “immature” to “Juvenile” to “Infantile.”
HA!
!!!!
Hmm. Mostly I agree, but there have been some fairly significant steps in the direction of compelling character- and narrative-oriented games (as opposed to simply run-and-gun) in the last few years. Perhaps we should agree that the field is pretty much in the middle of adolescence? Maturity may yet come…
Yeah, you’re probably right. But I kinda like taking the curmudgeon’s view of it.
Kids these days.
I took offense :P
how do I go about knocking you off your high horse?
Instead of M for Mature they should be PBGSD for Pointless Blood Gore Sex and Death. Maybe parents would think twice about letting their “mature for his age” 13 year old play Grand Theft Auto if it was labeled that.
I have a feeling that the audience for this particular blog might best be described as the “choir” to this “sermon”.
You’d be surprised.
I play video games all the time, and I love them deeply. I’m 31. I’m married and have two kids, and I have no intention of stopping. ;-)
Film-critic Roger Ebert wrote an interesting essay a couple weeks back entitled, “Video Games Can Never Be Art” (http://bit.ly/dqMP32).
I enjoy video games but I’m well aware of their current limitations with regard to characters, narrative, emotional resonance, etc. I do think that as computer processing speeds and data capacities increase, within 10 yrs or so video game designers will produce environments, characters, and scenarios that rival those found in film and literature.
Interesting essay, but ultimately futile as he obviously hadn’t played any of the games he cites. Would you trust the judgment of someone evaluating film as an art form if they hadn’t ever watched more than short slips of any given film?
Award. Favorite blog post of the week. Good job
This reminds me of “Adult” magazines. A term which was hilariously redefined on the Simpsons recently. Apparently I’m among the target audience, given that I read The Economist.
hahahaha. touche. :)
laughed out loud :)
What? Even Pacgirl?
It is ironic that in the ratings system, Mature is used to refer to sex and violence.
As a form of media, video games are still very young when compared against film and television.
However, while there aren’t many contenders for truly mature content, I would suggest that Heavy Rain, for the PS3, was an engaging story that made me connect emotionally with the characters and asked some poignant questions about fatherhood, depression, and the human condition.
I really want to check out Heavy Rain. But I need to buy a current gen console first. :-/
It would be interesting to see that played.
All my current opinions of video games are based on NBA Jam and Streetfighter 2.
You should come over sometime, Abraham. I could give you a crash course in modern gaming and the breadth and depth of content therein.
You know, the average age of a gamer is 35 years old, and…okay your original point stands.
Joking aside, there are games that have superior artistic qualities to some of the book I read or movies I watch. But it’s an interesting situation, as games are an inherently different kind of storytelling.
give me a virtual gun and let me shoot something…what’s wrong with that?
I have to agree with Stephen, “games are an inherently different kind of storytelling.” You get a different experience by being able to interact in a game and conquer something, and I think that is healthy. How much time you spend doing that, however, that is debatable. Nevertheless, I don’t think video games themselves are more of a waste of time than vegging out on tv or movies.
But to the point, I think we may have 2 different arguments going on here – are video games worthwhile, and what about mature rated video games. I think mature rated video games are theoretically made for adults, but I’m not naive enough to think they’re only marketed to adults. I also don’t think lewd and overly violent video games do any favors to our society, but that argument’s not going to stop them from being bought/sold by others.
Just as with books, films, music, speeches, blogs, newspaper columns, and tv shows, video games can range from juvenile entertainment to sophisticated and thoughtful art.
Take the game Mass Effect, for example. It’s basically a space opera novel in game form, and it deals with themes like freedom of thought, space colonization, intolerance, vigilantism, and artificial intelligence–while immersing you in the story better because you are actually facing the moral dilemmas yourself, rather than passively reading about someone else facing them.
It is ironic, though, that the “Mature” rating usually denotes gratuitous violence. Kind of like the “Adult” bookstore…
One day when a massive EMP takes out all the world’s power and the zombie outbreak occurs while aliens invade and everyone is scrambling for survival forgetting basic human decency and random people develop superhuman abilities and begin terrorizing the world of zombies/aliens/non-superhuman humans and everyone is just looking for one guy to come along and save them, one guy to show the way and get rid of the bad guys while trying to figure out the most efficient way to conserve the ammo, health, and resources available, one guy who has unlimited lives and time to figure out the best strategy…
You will fear me and love me.
That paragraph alone makes me fear you. Next up, love. :)
Perfect.
Spoken like a true noob!
I find calling movies ‘mature’ carries at least the same level of irony, since all the ‘mature content’ is included in film or television for the same reasons it is in video games. Except most video games don’t pretend to be re-enacting real life.
Meanwhile, I can improve my performance on video games, compare scores with friends, or play with friends and interact. Do you have sitting-still competitions at movie nights?
:)
Some of my friends like to play the quiet game during movies. I lose.
I think a distinction should be made between video games themselves and video gaming culture. One is, I believe, a legitimate expression of artistic talent and an amusing pastime. The other is a sad commentary on how many guys choose to throw away the hours of their lives.
People harp on video games because it’s such a male-oriented industry, when in fact I dare say I know many women whose television intake could seriously rival that of any Modern Warfare fan. Let’s be equal opportunity offenders, folks!
Play ‘The Marraige’ by Ron Hubble, available for free here:
http://www.rodvik.com/rodgames/marriage.html
This game is one of the saddest pieces of art I’ve experienced in a long time. It’s content is ‘mature’. You’ve been warned.
UK TV companies say “with Adult Humour from the start” when warning you of a ton of anatomy-based ‘jokes’ (you know the type) that is basically school-boy-of-around-10-years-old humour. It’s either content suitable only for adults, but not humorous, or childish humour, and so one of those adjectives is wrong!
I’m going to take a wild guess here and say that you haven’t played enough video games from the past few years to back up this assertion and you’re making it based on some combination of ignorance and stereotype.
On an unrelated note, I find it ironic that anyone would try to discuss an art form as advanced as video games in a medium as immature and full of drooling idiots as a blog.
Absolutely, I am. I already admitted that.
What fun would being judgmental be if I had all the facts?
Excuse me now, I have to go find a towel to wipe my chin. :)
Inre: http://trunc.it/7ttx9
Just because you can make money at it, doesn’t make it mature. There are lot’s of examples of this, “Jackass”, “Beavis and Butthead”, professional sports, etc.
The real irony is that although I agree with the irony of video games being rated mature, between the time this was posted and today, I bought a Wii. That’s just how I roll.