Extra Punctuation: What is Mature Anyway?

Dak_N_Jaxter

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Shjade said:
Dak_N_Jaxter said:
What was more horrific? That one chick getting cut up by Alien hordes, or Woody and his friends being thrown into furnace?
Definitely the chick getting cut up.

Does that make it more mature? No.
I would disagree personally on the grounds that character investment was more intense for Toy Story.
 

jjofearth

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Feb 3, 2009
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Hullo there. Genuine thirteen-year-old. From what I've seen and demo'ed of DN:F (I don't want to buy it - inb4 pocket money jokes), it appears to be a piece of juvenile, asinine, objectifying, quasi-misogynistic (I added the prefix because of the hordes of people who seem to think that preventing hatred [and it is hatred {really, I can't think of a single reason within the context of the game to have naked ladies other than because <Haha, nested brackets, you've forgotten what I was talking about>...well, naked ladies }in every sense of the word] is an affront to free speech) Frankenstein-ic, zombified, petrified, archaeologically fascinating, and fundamentally, necessarily *immature* game.

Or, you know. It's kinda lame.
 

geizr

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Would calling it "Sophomoric Adult" be a better description? We have to be careful not to conflate the literal meaning of mature with the meaning of mature as it is used for ESRB ratings. In the literal meaning, we are talking about a person who has a high sense of responsibility, self-accountability, and integrity. We are also talking about a person who is capable of putting the needs and desires of others before his/her own(the property of self-sacrifice). The mature person is able to take a balanced, reasoned approach to life and has a high level of self-discipline and self-control.

Mature in the sense that the ESRB uses it for ratings simply means that the material contained within is not appropriate for young, impressionable minds. The young, impressionable mind is not always capable of separating fantasy from reality, nor is it always capable of understanding the full consequences of its actions such to be able to engage self-restraint. It may end up imitating actions or utterances that it witnessed at inappropriate times or without fully understanding the consequences. Other times, it may not understand that a particular action is impossible to perform or that a particular state is impossible to obtain, and even when it comes to accept the impossibility of the things, it may not fully understand why. It just lacks the knowledge, insight, and complexity of thought to do so. Such minds do not always understand why certain behaviors or inappropriate or hurtful to others or are apathetic to the harm they may cause as a direct result of their actions. This is the sense of the ESRB mature rating, that the material is inappropriate for young minds that may not have developed sufficiently to exercise the self-control and understanding necessary to handle such material responsibly.

It can be argued that some adults are given to being impressionable and have difficulty with self-control and understanding the full consequences of their actions. Well, such adults are immature and are usually called such. It is true that age does not guarantee wisdom, but the inexperience of youth carries a high probability toward folly(essentially, young and foolish is a redundant statement).

Now, as for true maturity in games, I definitely agree that games, as a whole, are severely lacking maturity in the sense as I outlined in the first paragraph. Many games are really just sophomoric. They are like watching 13-year-olds playing at adult dress-up. The only thing that has really matured about video games is the graphics have gotten better and the play-time is extended(sometimes unnecessarily and beyond what is called for), but the actual content still takes the same immature approach to everything as they always have, be it love, sex, religion, politics, history, education, violence, or just the human experience in general. There is a complete failure to be informative, educational, or enlightening on such subjects, and the usual approach is to sardonically mock and sneer at those things or succumb to mere hedonistic revealry. The general attitude is often "give me what I want, let me do what I want, and then just shut-up and leave me alone", which is more the attitude of a 5-year-old.

Personally, I attribute the failure of video games to mature on the attitude that games must necessarily always be about having fun. While there is nothing wrong with having fun, it is not the only mode and means of enjoyment and enrichment of ones life. This failure to expand to other modes has stunted the cultural and intellectual development of video games for decades and is one of the prime barriers that I perceive as preventing video games from truly aspiring as a medium for expression. It is not necessarily bad having some things that tap the most base thoughts and instincts or are just simply fun. These can often provide quite a carathsis. However, these are not the only possibilities. Yet, the video games industry and community have pigeon-holed video games as a medium into such a narrow regime. Consequently, video games, as a whole and as an industry, have never done any more maturation than improve on graphical detail and extend play-time. But, based on the buying habits of us gamers, this is precisely how we like it to be; so, we should just stop pretending to anything more.

Addendum: An additional thought that just occurred to me, taking the approach to make a video game with a gruff, grim story-line is also not necessarily the mature approach; it only gives the illusion of maturity. While life as an adult can certainly be filled with difficult situations requiring difficult decisions and hardship, it can also be filled with much joy and fulfillment as well. It's often a matter of the choices we make and the attitudes we have as we go forward in life. It is the approach to the subject matter, not the subject matter itself, that truly delineates a mature(mature in the sense as I described in my first paragraph, not the mature rating) game from one that is merely pretending at maturity.
 

BrotherRool

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I think the problem is that it's the immature stuff you want to keep away from immature people and not the mature stuff.

Don't feed the trolls, right?
 

TastyCarcass

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I feel a strange motivation to unthinkingly defend Duke Nukem Forever. It's the same mindless instinct that makes me offended when people talk shit about the UK, even though I don't live there anymore because it's a grey, flat, miserable place more hung up on its past glory than William Shatner. I guess because Duke Nukem 3D was an important fixture in my teenage emotional development, which probably explains why I still greet women by tossing them fivers.

UNTHINKING DEFENCE MODE ACTIVATED!

Well I live in the Lake District, Cumbria, where it's nice and green and mountainy so fuck you and your barbeques Yahtzee!
 

Steve the Pocket

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debossman21 said:
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.
Appropriately, that game is one of the only well-known games released in recent years to never get an ESRB rating because it is only sold online.

Which I think is what ought to start happening. Now that there's no fear of our government stepping in and imposing some sort of rating system on the industry, game companies are free to release their games without a rating. Publishers probably still won't bite, since there are potential lost sales at stake, but at least the whole "if we don't rate our games, the big bad gummint will!" argument is dead.
 

PrinceofPersia

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You know all this talk of the double standard between depictions of violence and the depictions of sex reminds me of all that whining and complaining Fox did about Mass Effect 1 and their "Se'xbox'" bits. Really just made me shake my head and want to send a letter to all those who work at Fox to act their age not their shoe size.
 

Loonerinoes

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Not that I'm saying that being able to ogle Sub-Zero's fat juicy combat boner would significantly improve the quality and tone of the game, but it is indicative of the attitudes involved that you can have all the unflichingly realistic gore in the world but the moment you want to extend that realism to full sexual anatomy then all the little boys shy away with red-faced titters. What are you, gay?
My favourite part, made me chuckle a lot.

Another awesome piece. I'd say the thing about the article noticing violence as being a lot less repressed than sexuality in videogames comes from the following. Most videogames are made BY and FOR America. And if there's one thing that stands true about America, it's John Cleese's analysis.

"Oh, it's simple. With them it's always all about sex."

Either the suggestiveness gone out of proportions to the point they might as well telegraph it as well as through censors calling for 'maturity', including to the more 'hip' online community preachers judging it by their own personal tastes and biases.

Which is wholly unsurprising why you found that Witcher 2 boob scene appropriate, given that it comes from a European developer. Granted, they also did the card thing in Witcher 1 and it's still aimed for the American market primarily, since they are the main body of consumers...but shaddap, it's still an improvement. :p
 

legend forge

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My parents used the ratings on games with regard to how I was behaving at the time. They would let me rent or buy games based on how mature I was acting, as opposed to my literal age. When I was really young that didn't come up as much, it was E or bust, but when I was a teenager I could rent or buy M games as long as I was being mature enough that they thought I could handle them. I think the system where it just lists the content would be a great way to encourage more parents to be aware of the content in games and maybe encourage awareness of what their specific kid could handle.
 

bombadilillo

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Kahunaburger said:
bombadilillo said:
Kahunaburger said:
bombadilillo said:
No, MK fatalities are literally impossible for the most part, A manly man could do what Kratos does.

One is possible one is impossible. Perfect difference. (I guess you cant really bone a Goddess)
Sex and violence, in the real world, don't work the way they do in God of War. Neither does architecture. (Because everything is stylized in that game.) So no, there isn't a huge difference.
What does stylized have anything to do with it, thats a filter that is a different thing entirely to the content. I can put a black and white filter over a porn and stylize it and its still a porn. The violence is ripping horns of a ogre, the sex is having sex with a woman.
That's kind of silly - unless the sex you have is with bizarrely-proportioned people who don't use birth control and lasts 30 seconds, I don't think you could call God of War sex "realistic" with a straight face. In other words, the whole "unrealistic/stylized violence against imaginary creature = okay, unrealistic/stylized sex between imaginary people = WILL SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!1!!" argument doesn't hold water.
Yeah, your wrong. But keep thinking misrepresenting the whole thread if you want. Whatever lets you sleep at night.

If you really can't see the difference between sex and violence in society, ask yourself why do can you play football in high school but not join the schools porn club? There is a difference, and your pretending and wanting there not to be doesnt magically make it so.

This whole discussion started from whining like you just said "SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN" Thats your hyperbole and its the problem. 20 comments later. Still the same think, misrepresenting it as some sort of mythical screaming Simpsons preacher wife. Thats the only thing ridiculous here. Your non position that from beginning to end is based on strawman hyperbole to have the least bit of traction.
 

Kahunaburger

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bombadilillo said:
Kahunaburger said:
bombadilillo said:
Kahunaburger said:
bombadilillo said:
No, MK fatalities are literally impossible for the most part, A manly man could do what Kratos does.

One is possible one is impossible. Perfect difference. (I guess you cant really bone a Goddess)
Sex and violence, in the real world, don't work the way they do in God of War. Neither does architecture. (Because everything is stylized in that game.) So no, there isn't a huge difference.
What does stylized have anything to do with it, thats a filter that is a different thing entirely to the content. I can put a black and white filter over a porn and stylize it and its still a porn. The violence is ripping horns of a ogre, the sex is having sex with a woman.
That's kind of silly - unless the sex you have is with bizarrely-proportioned people who don't use birth control and lasts 30 seconds, I don't think you could call God of War sex "realistic" with a straight face. In other words, the whole "unrealistic/stylized violence against imaginary creature = okay, unrealistic/stylized sex between imaginary people = WILL SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!1!!" argument doesn't hold water.
Yeah, your wrong. But keep thinking misrepresenting the whole thread if you want. Whatever lets you sleep at night.
Clearly you have some idea or argument that you aren't communicating clearly to the rest of us. So please explain what you want to say clearly - otherwise it won't be possible to have a discussion. Also, don't get angry at people for failure to read your mind :)
 
Feb 13, 2008
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Yahtzee Croshaw said:
Now, admittedly this is a policy that ultimately leads to children suffering emotional scarring or even death, but there comes a time when you have to stop letting that sort of thing bother you, generally when you're riding the bus home at around the time the schools close.
Preach it brother.

You want something that scares you far more than anything an 18 certificate puts out?


Your parents still think about doing it. To each other. Perhaps they still do after you sleep.

So do your grandparents.

Your kids probably have already thought about it.

Ask your mum how you were born, one day.
 

lokiduck

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Jun 5, 2010
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Thank you Yahtzee, really thank you. I have to admit that I was bothered by DNF but only because of the comments on videos on Youtube talking about how it's okay to laugh at rape, besides the fact that vagina doors and wall boobs next to impregnated naked women moaning just plain creeps me out.

But I was born in 1990, these games were not meant for me... especially since I am a straight woman, but I really like what you said.

it does bother me how much people are upset by nudity in anything, especially since there is some pretty twisted shit going on tha tis allowed, but I do like your rating by book pictures idea, XD it could work. I wonder what games and movies would have pictures of Alex from Clockwork Orange though XD
 

debossman21

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Steve the Pocket said:
debossman21 said:
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.
Appropriately, that game is one of the only well-known games released in recent years to never get an ESRB rating because it is only sold online.

Which I think is what ought to start happening. Now that there's no fear of our government stepping in and imposing some sort of rating system on the industry, game companies are free to release their games without a rating. Publishers probably still won't bite, since there are potential lost sales at stake, but at least the whole "if we don't rate our games, the big bad gummint will!" argument is dead.
thats not the argument im making at all. i was merely pointing out the whole "sex = ban" thing.
 

Redd the Sock

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Apr 14, 2010
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Yeah, the "mature" label is very ironically named. It used to be a term likened to advanced or wisened, not the existance of boobs (something we ate from for the first months of our lives). Violence isn't much better, as if quanitiy of blood is represenitve of the impact. I saw more than a few slasher flims in my younger days and was never bothered by the acts of Jason or Freddie as much as say the death of Bambi's mother, the shooting of Old Yeller, or the darker parts of the Neverending Story.

So much of me agrees to dump the system entirely. It served some purpose years ago when we bought or rented or saw things largely in ignorance, but with the internet, we can look up God of War, dragon Age or anything and get a handle of the intensity level of things outselves. Sadly that takes work for a crowd of people that may not take the effort to read a rating label put in front of them, let alone do a google search. I'd like to add depth to things. You know, breking out grades of violence, language, nudity, and overall conent and explaining why they got those ratings. Sadly again, the back of game boxes is alread too full of legal crap to leave much room for screenshots. That would just put a novel on the back.
 

BehattedWanderer

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Jun 24, 2009
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Nice point. Thinking past the immediate "Whoooooaaaa!" moment of the aforementioned pencil scene in TDK is a much, much more horrific happening than what happens to the meat clusters in Mortal Kombat. But maybe that's the difference itself--a thinking pain. Without the faculties to imagine the gruesomeness of the results, the more visceral, bloody, broken bones/ruptured artery imagery is worse. It's the the same line of thought that the first layers of hell are the emotional layers, but the worst crimes, those punished further down, are the crimes where things are often smaller, more precise, more thought out. The personal or intellectual crimes, if you will. It's in the same light that the Heavy Rain Sequence sits so much more uncomfortably on the psyche than ripping off someone's legs in God of war.
 

BonGookKumBop

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Feb 24, 2010
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CyricZ said:
I do have to give some credit to the ESRB in that they are including content descriptors and actual paragraphs that describe fully the content in the game. Of course, that can only work so far when you realize that the masses need to go to the website and actually look this stuff up in order to get this info.

Ah well, I've been telling myself lately that we're gradually getting better at this, that nothing noticeably changes even in one generation. So we set the precedent and let history sort us.
I have to fully agree with this. The letter on the box is almost meaningless and the single phrase descriptors of the reasons for the ratings are only slightly informative. I do, however, appreciate the short rating explanations that you can find on the website for newer games. We could probably get away without a rating system that the government can use to regulate, but I do advocate parents having some control over what their children play. whattheyplay.com has some decent information, but it is generally behind the release schedule. The ESRB information is detailed and available a month before the release date; you just have to do your own homework to find it.
 

G Skunk

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Apr 19, 2010
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Isn't it funny that when "mature, high-minded, forward-thinking" people start talking about sex, their heads IMMEDIATELY disappear up their asses?

I dunno, I find that kinda funny.