Extra Punctuation: What is Mature Anyway?

[bobmus]

In my opinion violence in a videogame is mostly very different from any real life form of violence, as in most cases we can dehumanise the enemy, and focus on our action - the act of killing the enemy.
It is difficult to dehumanise any of the parties of sex without demeaning a person or gender as a mere 'sex object', as we might argue a faceless enemy to be an object to kill. The act of sex is implicitly a two-person (at least!) affair, so requires more than just the action of one player making the shot.

However, violence in games takes place in the realm of fantasy, with many unrealistic acts of violence appearing in all genres of games. The entire pornography industry is built around the fantasies of sex, and so there is clear potential for the crossing of two areas of fantasy. Realism does not always make for the best games, so there may be scope for wild and fantastical sexual acts in our games as well.

The very fact that people who play violent videogames can be unsettled by the thought of sexual content is that people have differing levels in what they find uncomfortable for different things. For instance, if we were to take several surgeons, who all have a high tolerance for gore, and ask them to watch a couple have sex, we would expect all of them to have differing reactions to doing so. Sexual content may then require its own warnings, and its own rating system for those who may be discomforted by it. A turn-off system might also be implemented, such as in games where you can opt for minimised gore.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

A long, long, time ago (two years, which is, like, FOREVER, man), I wrote a post [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.96480-Homophobia-Mods-And-One-Step-Too-Far?page=1] decrying the immature hypocrisy of teenage boys who had harassed a female Mod designer for creating anatomically-correct nude males for Oblivion (bizarrely calling it "gay" despite it coming from a woman). Why do I bring this up? Because just like those teenage boys, the current defintion of "mature" is locked in the teenage male's mindset of what is "adult": Boobs, blood, fists and guns. They're not looking for literature, for deep thought or the consequences that actions might bring or harsh decisions made with seconds to spare- it's about the boobs, blood, fists and guns. And since the teenage male is still the industry's number-one cash cow (and the industry itself is composed primarily of those who were either teenage males not too long ago, or those who still have the teenage-male mentality), that is the "maturity" they will embrace.

Can the industry branch out? Of course it can; the film industry has demonstrated that it can manage to put out rom-coms and dramas right alongside the popcorn action flicks, and Twilight didn't cause every one of Shakespeare's plays to burst into flames. But to do so, it needs more people in leadership and creative roles who understand that "maturity" is more than boobs, blood, fists and guns.

More intelligent and discerning gamers buying the games they make wouldn't hurt, either.

 

[Kermi]

I've been saying for awhile now that there's really no actual maturity, there's only play-acting.

When we're kids we giggle about sex because we don't understand it - most kids start learning about sex at an age when they think the other gender is "gross" or has "cooties" or... whatever. Most laughter in our formative years comes from a sense of embarassment, and we laugh to cover our shame however mild.

As we grow up and become jaded and cynical, we stop laughing at the things that we consider embarassing or shameful because we've learned that's not polite, and anyway, we've seen it all before. I think between the ages 12-18 we become too "grown up" to enjoy the little things.
When we act inappropriately as children we're told to "act our age" (ha!) or "be mature" and we inadvertantly interpret this as "don't ever have fun". So the ability to not giggle about sex or laugh at fart jokes or get caught picking your nose in public is a mark of your maturity, and you get to sneer at your former-peers who are still scrabbling in the mud of their adolescence.

I decided a few years ago that fuck it. I'm legally an adult. I work a 42 hour week, I pay taxes, I can buy alcohol and cigarettes and pornography. As long as I'm not breaking any laws what's the fucking point of being an adult if I let other people's values dictate how I get my kicks?

Maturity isn't about hiding tits because "who needs to see tits anyway, they're just tits, grow up" it's about accepting there's going to be some tits present and including them without feeling the need to qualify it.
I haven't played the Witcher 2 but I have seen a video of the scene Yahtzee refers to and I think it was conducted perfectly. Geralt is in bed with a naked woman and there is no reason for her to be shy - they've clearly got intimate history. The woman only covers up when, in video-games most effective cockblocking in history, a soldier bursts in without knocking. In all fairness, they are in a tent.

Maturity is about accepting things as they are and resolving that with yourself. If you hide the 'mature' themes or hide your feelings about them, you're being just as immature as the kid who giggles at sex jokes because he doesn't understand them.

You could argue that in a medium where everything is created, from the ground to the sky, from the swords to the boobies, that making a decision to include or not include tits lies with the designer, that any content in games has a greater impact because it was deliberately included and cannot be considered incidental. Hours upon hours went into carefully sculpting the perfect rack for this scene.

I watched the first episode of season 4 of True Blood this week. I was aware that Tara (who is now a lesbian cage-fighter called 'Toni') once again left her bra on during a pre-sex scene (presumably because the actress isn't paid enough to take it off) while her partner was topless (as a bit-part character, I assume her willingness to show her nipples on camera was the only reason she was cast for the role).
I noticed the 'incidental' Sookie sideboob at the end of the episode.

I noticed these things because I'm a guy, and I bring them up because there is no difference between making videogame breasts and giving us a scene where Sookie undresses, we see her bare back, and just a hint of sideboob as she tosses her dress at (I presume) a hamper somewhere. Someone decided that was how much Sookie breast we'd get that episode. Why not more? We've seen Sookie topless several times in previous seasons. Did she renegotiate her contract or are they saving them for later? Why show her undressing at all?

 

[Ashcrexl]

whoa, that is EXACTLY my plan for raising my future kids. pain is the greatest teacher. of course i wouldnt let them do anything fatal or near fatal, but everything else is fair game.

 

[Mad1Cow]

Here's an interesting point with the ratings system. See, Zelda OoT for the N64 got a 7+ rating for it, whereas the recent release for the 3DS received a 12+ rating. Now the graphics haven't improved drastically, the story is still the same, there is no increase in gore, Navi is still annoying etc etc. So, why is it that the age rating has gone up. I can't think of any besides the fact that what wasn't acceptable for kids of today but when we were growing up with it, oh no, everything's fine and dandy.

See, this is why I agree with Yahtzee's "F*ck it" policy. In fact, I was raised on that policy and I think it's a dieing British trend. I was raised with my parents thrusting alcohol into my face at the age of 3 (no they weren't alcoholics, I hated the taste, put me off it until I was 16, I never got drunk and they mostly just wanted to see my reaction). The same was said for cigarettes, my parents weren't smokers but the rest of my family was. They'd never offer me one but they were fully open about them and they weren't these "mystical adult objects", they were just normal. The only thing they freaked out about was nudity and...well...yeah I've sorta travelled down that field just to see what was so bad about it and had a run in with the police at some point, so if anything that further strengthens the policy.

Of course I'm not saying let kids run around free, but don't make everything "adult only" because then kids will just try them constantly when they can finally do them and it will have more of a chance of ruining their lives.

 

[sleepykid]

sex, an act of love

Adorable.

 

[Dak_N_Jaxter]

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.

Character investment increases tragedy and pain, not so much horror. I'd be just as horrified by a car crash sawing a stranger in half in front of me as I would if it did so to, say, my sister. It's equally nauseating and visceral either way; one just causes more emotional pain than the other.

That said, as the poster above you pointed out, nothing happens to the toys, so why would that be anywhere near comparable to someone getting hacked up?

That and, y'know. They're toys. Plastic. They go through the motions, but I have a hard time picturing how it would physically hurt. Would it be terrible that their consciousness was snuffed out? Sure, okay. Not particularly horrifying though.

Okay, maybe horrific was a poor word to use.
My point was that I cared more about what happened to the characters.
I was brought to the brink of tears during that scene. I lost all consideration that it was a family film, and I really believed they were all going to die.
It was powerful, dramatic, and "mature", in the sense that it was able to give me that emotional reaction.

However, Heavy Metal, did no such thing (with the possible exception of the flying birdy thing).
Its a movie all about gritty, extreme and "mature" themes, such as sex, drugs and violence.
Yet, its one of the most juvenile films ever made.

I was just reflecting on Yahtzee was pointing out. Mature is a somewhat fickle term.
Can you really say Toy Story isn't mature because it's family friendly?
Is Heavy Metal mature just because of its more adult themes?
Do you measure maturity by integrity or content?

 

[Inkidu]

Yeah, it is mechanical, Yahtzee. That's all you can really do. It's the same way with the film industry in the U.S.

I don't think they should rate them Everyone, Teen, Mature. They should change to age ratings and bring back Kids to Adults. That was a good rating.

I mean, I played Resident Evil 4 at... sixteen... I'm not really sure, but I had to ask my parents if I could buy it. Just like I had to ask them if I could go into an R-rated movie.

Ultimately. What one person finds mature over another is going to differ. I don't think thirteen-year-old kids should play DNF, but hey, that's what parents are for.

I know I was shocked to hear damn in Portal 2, and it was more because it had a E10 rating, I was playing Bulletstorm at the same time.

So, yeah, move to strictly age-based ratings. 10, 13-16, 17+. The only fair way to rank it then would be on the number of forks in eyes and F-bombs.

 

[deathtopenguins]

It's John Joseph Yossarian, so you're both right enough.

On the note of censorship, I totally agree that censoring/warnings should be context, or 'case by case' evaluated. However, films aren't like that yet, and that's a much older medium. Granted games are more controversial because of the interactive element, but 'if wishes were fishes' ..etc. The problem of kids wanting to see things rated above their ages is nothing new but I think definitely indicates a problem with the current rating system, rather than a problem with the media itself.

Also on a picky note, I haven't played Heavy Rain yet, but from what I've heard it's a very gritty, hard to watch thriller with plenty of suspense/look away moments. That really doesn't sound like 'Slaughter house five' or 'catch 22' (or more accurately, the characters in them). Both of those books I love, and both are extremely dry/black comedies about the idiocy/madness of war (and life generally). There are stressful scenes, but it's not the main focus of the novels. Maybe Yahtzee pulled a couple of names out of the hat, but I really don't see how these characters convey the game's tone. Maybe heavy rain is different to how I've heard?

 

[Thyunda]

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.

I was considering buying it until that part with the alien hive and the breasts on the wall that you could slap. That really turned me off the game. Not because it has breasts...but because they're not actually breasts, they're alien tit things. And you slap them. For no real purpose.
That whole business with the spanking the girls in the capture the babe mode? That's in context. Didn't care about that. But why wall-tits?

 

[CrawlingPastaHellion]

People will complain about everything given a chance. I think MK violence is laughable in terms of physical improbability. The only thing that made the fatalities sinister all the way through the series, except the last two where they toned them way down, were very terrifying screams of the victims. I never found fightings that interesting personally, especially the MK series where it all comes down to performing a fatality for everybody's vicious bloodlust.

I seriously have no idea why sex is considered such a taboo in our society. Witnessing an act of physical love on public channels is considered vile, whilst seeing somebody's head blown off on TV is a-okay. What's wrong with you, people (I don't include anyone who shares my confusion on the matter)?

Letting the kids experiment around on various issues is probably the best way to go. If a kid dies because of it, the better the rest of us are off. It's called evolution, one of the main reasons why we're all here. The world is overpopulated as it is and there are just too many idiots around.

Yeah, before I forget: always and I mean always think of the children!

 

[uguito-93]

Man I got all giddy when he mentioned Billy Pilgrim from Slaughterhouse-Five. In my opinion one of the greatest war books ever written. It doesn't try to glamorize war in anyway, the author even gave it the subtitle "The Children's Crusade" to highlight the fact that many, like the author himself, were barely men when they were forced to fight.

 

[Hyperactiveman]

I was part-skim reading the forth paragraph, pausing a couple of times and waslike lulwut?

 

[thequixoticman]

I've always been of the opinion that maturity boiled down to a degree of self-knowledge. It's one of the reasons that the older I've gotten, the more I've been interested in reading and watching things created by people with a sense of humor. I find work that's able to laugh at itself to be intrinsically more mature than something that feels a need to slap tits on everything - maybe that's just me.

 

[KingGolem]

Great column as always. Thought provoking and such. Anyway, I've long had my own definition of what is "mature," and I believe it is best illustrated through comparison.

I say that themes like sex, drugs, violence, and so forth are not inherently "mature," but rather merely "adult," as in, not for the kids. Duke Nukem has all three of those, and it's intentionally immature. It is merely "adult."

In order to be "mature," as I see it, something must be made to provoke thought or genuine emotion in someone. That pencil scene was quite mature, but you can have "mature" themes without them necessarily being adult themes. My favorite example would be the Klonoa games. It's a cutesy, colorful platformer that's good for all ages yet it deals with very serious themes such as friendship, betrayal, and death (outright murder, actually). The way it treats these themes is emotionally affecting and thought provoking, and thus I call them mature. They're appropriate for people of all ages, and they are very mature.

So! I'm not really sure how you can gauge that sort of thing objectively with ratings. I believe somebody offered the idea of ditching the Mature rating and making all Mature games Adults Only. I think that's a pretty good idea, for then the parents REALLY have no excuse. As for whether they're mature or not, I think that something as complicated as that does not distill into a ratings system very well, and should best be left to the reviewers. After all, the only people who'd care about that sort of thing are the ones likely to read reviews, aren't they?

 

[deserteagleeye]

In my opinion, seeing an X-ray of a guy's junk when he gets struck there far surpasses Heavy rain's finger scene in terms of squeamishness.

 

[General Vagueness]

I hadn't heard of A Serbian Movie before... so of course I Googled it... does anyone have some mind bleach?

 

[VladG]

I find all this media censorship aimed at children just a "get-out-of-parenting-free-card" designed for the people who'd rather park their children in front of a TV than take an interest in their upbringing.

I do understand why people rely on television (and more recently computers/internet/interactive media/whatever) to help keep their kids busy and out of trouble while they work to put food on the table, since it was for the most part how I too grew up.

Both parents had to work and in the time between school and when they'd get home I would mostly spend time in front of the tv or at the computer. Also due to very, very lax regulation of content where I grew up, I also got to consume what would be considered adult oriented media from quite an early age (more or less with my parent's knowledge). I think I watched my first porn movie at around 10. I was certainly playing stuff like Quake and Mortal Kombat by then. Ultra-violent movies were really nothing uncommon. And yet I didn't grow up to be a serial-rapist eating babies for breakfast strangely enough. And this I put down to 2 things

1 exposure to "mature" media isn't as bad for children as people think it is
2 I actually received a good education from my parents that allowed me to put all the "inappropriate" content into a healthy perspective early on and assimilate it with my own mental faculties and form my own damn opinions on it. I feel it ultimately led to a better personal development and made me a better adjusted person than censoring and denying it ever could have.

Finally I feel that proper explanation and education concerning the content, putting in a healthy and mature perspective early on is much better than outright banning the content.
Children are going to be exposed to this kind of stuff. On the street, the internet, some randomly discarded magazine... whatever. It will happen, and since these things are never put in the correct light for them by their parents, they could then do some of the damage everyone is so worried about.

You teach your kid how to cross the street, despite it being dangerous, so he can actually better avoid the danger when you won't be holding his hand. What exactly makes "mature" content any different? Why not gradually prepare your kid and educate him on the matter so he can be better prepared to understand and assimilate the content when it does show up?

Sure, that doesn't mean forcing 6-year-olds to watch a full gruesome decapitation, or a 6-hooker anal spectacular, because that might just really scar them for life. But a gradual approach to normal mature content might just make them better prepared for when they will watch that stuff at 7, on the internet, while the parents are asleep.

 

[Gman6789]

Yatzee, I will never forgive you for making me Google "A Serbian Film". My mind is forever scared. Why in the hell would anyone make a movie like that!!!!!!!!

Have to actually SEEN this disgusting film?!

 

[Gman6789]

I hadn't heard of A Serbian Movie before... so of course I Googled it... does anyone have some mind bleach?

If you ever find any give me some!