Extra Punctuation: What is Mature Anyway?
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
- Start date
I have a dream, that one day my grandchildren will be viewing sexual organs with the kind of apathetic respect that they should, and when I cringe, they will call me an old man and tell me to "get with the times" in whatever derivative dialect is common at the time.
A very valid point Yahtzee I don't understand (as several others have stated) why sex is filtered far more than excessive, crazed violence. Sure I can understand rape and the like being heavily censored but sex is not a bad thing. Hell I believe that if there was more sex in the world today it would be a much happier place.
Men are by definiton not mature, and since most games are made for the immature gender games themselves are not mature.
Come on lets admit it. We like tits, we like gore and violence. And we especially like it if the immaturity is hidden away ever so slightly so we can pretend to be mature. Thats what maturity means, being immature in a way so that we aren't confronted with our immaturity.
Come on lets admit it. We like tits, we like gore and violence. And we especially like it if the immaturity is hidden away ever so slightly so we can pretend to be mature. Thats what maturity means, being immature in a way so that we aren't confronted with our immaturity.
Personally I see Yahtzee's point of view as one that brings many good questions to the table. The ratings system could use with an overhaul in this day and age anyway. But when sex or violence are brought up in any media format, people tend to go up in arms about it, yet parents still buy mature rated games for their children...Honestly it should be up to the judgment of the parents to know what not to expose their children to at different times in their life. Yet we still have issues with video games being pegged as the culprit for children's problems, when it's obviously the parent who is to blame...video games do need a more "up to date" ratings system, but the real filtering power lies with parents. If the child is interested in those types of media and is of an emotional maturity where they can understand them, then let them experience the media.
Are ESRB ratings with content descriptors a useful guideline? Sure. But they're just a guideline. Unthinkingly relying on them without personal reflection is basically outsourcing your parenting to bureaucrats running down a checklist. Maybe your 9-year-old is fine with decapitations, or maybe your 12-year-old is horrified by them. The ESRB can't know that.
If you raise your children in a loving and supportive home, with values and integrity, then you give them tools to deal with the dark things in our world. Then you don't need to shelter them from every little thing. You can't guarantee your children won't be traumatized, emotionally scarred, or hurt by the world--though I think trauma is far more likely to come from other people instead of popular media--but you can give them a stronger chance.
If you raise your children in a loving and supportive home, with values and integrity, then you give them tools to deal with the dark things in our world. Then you don't need to shelter them from every little thing. You can't guarantee your children won't be traumatized, emotionally scarred, or hurt by the world--though I think trauma is far more likely to come from other people instead of popular media--but you can give them a stronger chance.
Yahtzee has a point. I think this illustrates it very well.
http://satwcomic.com/anything-but-that
And while America isn't the only one, we certainly make the biggest deal out of it.
http://satwcomic.com/anything-but-that
And while America isn't the only one, we certainly make the biggest deal out of it.
I don't think a rating of mature/immature is a good axis. I think the axis of Serious/Silly or Deep/Shallow is a better way. Mass Effect, Fallout, Heavy Rain would be on the deep/serious side and DNF, God of War, and Mortal Kombat would be shallow/silly.
Also in my opinion the less realistic violence is the MORE it desensitizes and the more damaging it is. TV action shows show people getting shot and falling over silently. When more realistic depictions would be a lot of screaming, twitching, gurgling, begging and last but not least crapping in the pants.
Also in my opinion the less realistic violence is the MORE it desensitizes and the more damaging it is. TV action shows show people getting shot and falling over silently. When more realistic depictions would be a lot of screaming, twitching, gurgling, begging and last but not least crapping in the pants.
I'll admit that I could've phrased that better. What I mean is, while a lot of other countries are a lot more prudish (MINE being an honest example), they aren't the world's dominant cultural super-power.mjc0961 said:
For better or for worse, a lot of people follow in the US' footsteps when it comes to cultural viewpoints. The US changing it's viewpoint would simply be more influential than others.
You pose some very interesting points Yahtzee. The age rating system is flawed because it only gives you an age to which you can play the game, not listing what your letting yourself in for. I reckon we shoudn't have age ratings, but rather warnings about what content is in the game. Like Blood, references, drugs, sex etc. If the person still wants to buy it then they should be able to regardless of age because not every kid is not not going to understand it. Kids should be able to learn about these things as quick as possible because there going to be surrounded by it a whole lot. There is the issue of abusing it, but thats why you also teach them about the consequences of there actions and the do's and dont's.
I am all for a rating system so parents will know if its a childrens game or if its an adult game. its in the middle where it gets hazy on how they get rated. and that there are multiple rating systems for different media with differant criteria for the rating. I think game rating system should be the same system as movies. this way there is one major rating system so stupid parents dont need to know multiple. and games should be held to the same standards for ratings as movies and not like they are treated now wich is worse in some ways (example RC in Australia) when movies can have the same gore and sexual content get rated and released. And once they are under the same rating and the same rules for sales/rental should apply. argument over, and if you buy your kid an adult game or movie when he is 10 then its your lousy ignorant parent fault for not looking at the rating but he sure as shit couldnt buy it himself.
I agree with the points raised in this column, but there's something I simply can't shake.
What if there are no male reproductive organs in Mortal Kombat X-Ray moves because they exclusively shows muscle and bone?
To illustrate my point, here is an image of the male human skeletal muscles:
This would explain why there are no "dicks" visible, without necessarily implying anything else.
Still, a bit too convenient to be entirely coincidental. I just thought I'd throw that out there.
What if there are no male reproductive organs in Mortal Kombat X-Ray moves because they exclusively shows muscle and bone?
To illustrate my point, here is an image of the male human skeletal muscles:
This would explain why there are no "dicks" visible, without necessarily implying anything else.
Still, a bit too convenient to be entirely coincidental. I just thought I'd throw that out there.
Rating video games as mature should be based on intellectual stimulation and difficulty. Puzzle games and insanely difficult games (but not those that are simply annoying) that kids and stupid people can't solve should be called mature video games.
While I'm a little late to the argument, referring back to the guy who was comparing God of War-style combat and sex with reality as being over-the-top-but-possible...not so much.
If you want a game that includes realistic violence against titanic foes, realistic meaning someone with adequate strength and endurance could probably do at least the majority of the combat maneuvers the main character executes in the game, you don't want to use God of War as your example. You want to use Shadow of the Colossus. The protagonist barely demonstrates any particular proficiency with his sword work, his main efforts are comprised of 1) holding onto to something and 2) climbing something, with some running and swimming and horseback riding thrown in for flavor, and his kills have definitive, obvious consequences both in their results as pertains to his goal and on the boy himself, each kill darkening his place in the world as he goes on - stylistic representation of remorse/guilt/consequences in general, yes, but more than most games provide.
Now, in a setting that presents violence like that, I wonder how the game might have come across if, between the final colossus kill and the final battle, there had been a peaceful moment where he actually got the girl in an equally believable fashion? That seems like a potentially useful area of discussion for this kind of topic as opposed to just debating which games have the goofiest violence-to-sex ratio. Maybe it's just me.
If you want a game that includes realistic violence against titanic foes, realistic meaning someone with adequate strength and endurance could probably do at least the majority of the combat maneuvers the main character executes in the game, you don't want to use God of War as your example. You want to use Shadow of the Colossus. The protagonist barely demonstrates any particular proficiency with his sword work, his main efforts are comprised of 1) holding onto to something and 2) climbing something, with some running and swimming and horseback riding thrown in for flavor, and his kills have definitive, obvious consequences both in their results as pertains to his goal and on the boy himself, each kill darkening his place in the world as he goes on - stylistic representation of remorse/guilt/consequences in general, yes, but more than most games provide.
Now, in a setting that presents violence like that, I wonder how the game might have come across if, between the final colossus kill and the final battle, there had been a peaceful moment where he actually got the girl in an equally believable fashion? That seems like a potentially useful area of discussion for this kind of topic as opposed to just debating which games have the goofiest violence-to-sex ratio. Maybe it's just me.
This has always bothered me, cuz when you think about it, which is more mature, "Heavy Metal" or "Toy Story"?
What was more horrific? That one chick getting cut up by Alien hordes, or Woody and his friends being thrown into furnace?
What was more horrific? That one chick getting cut up by Alien hordes, or Woody and his friends being thrown into furnace?
I have looked up rating boards like the ERSB, and found that they have no guidelines at all. Its all done by a volunteer who plays the game for any amount of time, then out of his/her judgement picks if the game is an E all the way to an AO. While the movie boards have guidelines to the G rating to the R rating. Thus leaving all game ratings unconsistant and almost as accurate as the next weeks weather.
Well, I gotta have to say that the chock takes it, simply because she actually is cut up.
Woody and his friends on the other hand end up in a furnace but they are saved before anything happens to them.
The chick is dead and cut up.
Woody lives....
Now, if we had been treated to a montage of woody + friends slowly melting away, their faces literally melting, mimic getting out of control, maybe the speaker in woody belly sounding one last time, though not finishing his sentence, then it would have been way more horrific.
Especially if there had not been any music or sound at all, and if Pixar had managed to make it seem tasteful.
Heck, Woody would still take the price if they had just ended the movie the moment he grabbed the hands of his companions, with their deaths being implied but not shown, the way it is, Heavy Metal takes the cake.
Although the cake is still eaten by the self-dismemberment in Heavy Rain.
Seriously guys, that was a brutal, brutal, hard to watch scene and I never want to have to play it again, although I probably will.
P.S. I admit it: I am a man and I love me some tig ol bitties.
I love seeing virtual men get killed by virtual means and explode, brains and bones and guts everywhere and blood all over the screen.
I am not offended by Mortal Kombat NOT showing me the various genitals of their contestants. Why do you all want to see virtual dicks so
badly?
I can be perfectly happy with a game the plot of which does not make sense but which features awesome gameplay, gore and violence.
Case in point: Prototype.
Most games are badly written and if I want a good story, I shall read a book.
Woody and his friends on the other hand end up in a furnace but they are saved before anything happens to them.
The chick is dead and cut up.
Woody lives....
Now, if we had been treated to a montage of woody + friends slowly melting away, their faces literally melting, mimic getting out of control, maybe the speaker in woody belly sounding one last time, though not finishing his sentence, then it would have been way more horrific.
Especially if there had not been any music or sound at all, and if Pixar had managed to make it seem tasteful.
Heck, Woody would still take the price if they had just ended the movie the moment he grabbed the hands of his companions, with their deaths being implied but not shown, the way it is, Heavy Metal takes the cake.
Although the cake is still eaten by the self-dismemberment in Heavy Rain.
Seriously guys, that was a brutal, brutal, hard to watch scene and I never want to have to play it again, although I probably will.
P.S. I admit it: I am a man and I love me some tig ol bitties.
I love seeing virtual men get killed by virtual means and explode, brains and bones and guts everywhere and blood all over the screen.
I am not offended by Mortal Kombat NOT showing me the various genitals of their contestants. Why do you all want to see virtual dicks so
badly?
I can be perfectly happy with a game the plot of which does not make sense but which features awesome gameplay, gore and violence.
Case in point: Prototype.
Most games are badly written and if I want a good story, I shall read a book.