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[Paul Eres]

yeah but an M is different from an R. things that make a movie get an R would make a game get an AO. M is really much more like PG-13. and it's a big problem when 99.9% of games are the equivalent of PG-13 or less, whereas probably only 90% of movies are PG-13 or less

but that really isn't the biggest issue. the biggest issue is that artistic/mature movies made for adults are much more accepted and common than for games. hollywood movies tend towards "drivel", but not to the extent that games do

[Mipe]

Oh, it is just the videogame publishers wanting to sell more games to juniors.

[Paul Eres]

yeah but that market is already saturated. pretty much most people in the 13-25 range play videogames already. you can't really sell "more" games to that audience than you already do. whereas the 40-something audience isn't saturated yet, there's still room for expansion there. and casual puzzle games for housewives isn't really going to get all of the 40-something audience

[capn.lee]

movies look after themselves and have a known bias towards the big studios that fund them.
if games follow the same path, it could lock out indie games from a lot of distribution.

indie cinema is not what it used to be because of the governing body, do we want that for games?

[C.A. Sinner]

Yeah there are very few games being made for non-casual mature audiences. Don't get me wrong, over-the-top B-movie violence and stuff is great, but a little bit more diversity in terms of themes and aesthetics would be nice.

@capn.lee: Movies are more expensive to make than games. It's very hard to make a decent movie without some kind of funding unless you're rich, so comparing them directly seems wrong.

[Christian Knudsen]

yeah but an M is different from an R. things that make a movie get an R would make a game get an AO. M is really much more like PG-13. and it's a big problem when 99.9% of games are the equivalent of PG-13 or less, whereas probably only 90% of movies are PG-13 or less

M is for persons age 17 and older. As is R. Why do you think that things that'll get a movie an R will get a game AO?

yeah but that market is already saturated. pretty much most people in the 13-25 range play videogames already. you can't really sell "more" games to that audience than you already do. whereas the 40-something audience isn't saturated yet, there's still room for expansion there. and casual puzzle games for housewives isn't really going to get all of the 40-something audience

One is an existing market that has been proved financially viable. The other isn't. I really don't think it has anything to do with self-censorship. It's just the big publishers going the safest route financially.

[William Broom]

stuff like Paula being fully nude the entirety of the game, demons coming out of Paula's vagina, and other things that would've pushed the game into AO territory.

Oh, clearly this is some important content of great artistic merit that is being censored here. It's truly a blow to the creative freedom of auteurs when a man can't play with vagina demons in his own home.

[alastair]

I fight against demons in games, not have sex with them!

Take care, Alastair.

[Paul Eres]

Oh, clearly this is some important content of great artistic merit that is being censored here. It's truly a blow to the creative freedom of auteurs when a man can't play with vagina demons in his own home.

you say that sarcastically but it is literally true

M is for persons age 17 and older. As is R. Why do you think that things that'll get a movie an R will get a game AO?

the ages are the same but the content that gets you placed in each differs. if you have a sex scene similar to the kind of stuff in, say, basic instinct, it'd get an AO rating for a game, but an R rating for a movie; the guidelines are just different

[Richard Kain]

so considering that there are other media besides games which much less publisher self-censoring, and that those media aren't forced by politicians to censor themselves, it seems fair to expect that if there were less publisher self-censorship in the game industry that the politicians would do no more than they're doing right now

i think in some respects this publisher self-censorship even hurts the credibility of games; games are seen as 'for kids' because, in an attempt to self-censor, only games that are 'for kids' are allowed to be made by publishers

How much does it cost to write a book? The financial pressures on book authorship are far, far less stringent than game development. Not to mention the technical hurdles. Of course, as an indie game developer, you are already well aware of that distinction.

There's no arguing that hypocrisy is involved here. A six year old child can walk into a govenrment-funded public library, sign up for a library card, and check out books that feature graphic descriptions of sexual intercourse and deplorable violence. Any underage child can do that right now, and no one is stopping them. There is essentially no censorship for the written word at all.

Yes, we would probably be better off without this hypocrisy. It is an artificial limitation and doesn't really make sense any more. (in this age of the internet) But for the time being, the door is still open to loosen these self-imposed restrictions. I for one am still grateful that censorship is left up to the industry, rather than the government.

And of course, in the wonderful world of indie development and self-publishing, there are no censorship restrictions at all. Thanks to this Supreme Court decision, that will continue.

[Paul Eres]

actually it often doesn't cost any more to make a book than to make an indie game; you can just use game maker and free programs. immortal defense was made on a 25$ budget (for game maker 7)

[Richard Kain]

but that really isn't the biggest issue. the biggest issue is that artistic/mature movies made for adults are much more accepted and common than for games. hollywood movies tend towards "drivel", but not to the extent that games do

I will refer you to this quote from Max Planck...

"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it"

[Christian Knudsen]

the ages are the same but the content that gets you placed in each differs. if you have a sex scene similar to the kind of stuff in, say, basic instinct, it'd get an AO rating for a game, but an R rating for a movie; the guidelines are just different

What guidelines are you going by here? All the guidelines I'm aware of place M and R at the same level, as well as AO and NC-17 (Basic Instinct originally received an NC-17 rating, by the way).

Also check out this quote from Wikipedia:

The AO (Adults Only) rating is seldom awarded; in the fifteen year history of the organization and thousands of products rated, only twenty-one titles have officially earned and kept the rating.

So are you really saying that only 21 of the thousands of games rated by the ESRB in the span of 15 years have had content similar to that of an R rated movie?

[C.A. Sinner]

stuff like Paula being fully nude the entirety of the game, demons coming out of Paula's vagina, and other things that would've pushed the game into AO territory.

Oh, clearly this is some important content of great artistic merit that is being censored here. It's truly a blow to the creative freedom of auteurs when a man can't play with vagina demons in his own home.

Oh, clearly this is some important content of great artistic merit that is being censored here. It's truly a blow to the creative freedom of auteurs when a man can't play with a robot shooting animals in a cave.

Oh, clearly this is some important content of great artistic merit that is being censored here. It's truly a blow to the creative freedom of auteurs when a man can't read about some fictional Danish prince who kills his family.

Oh, clearly this is some important content of great artistic merit that is being censored here. It's truly a blow to the creative freedom of auteurs when a man can't watch an old dude (who's actually a young dude with some makeup on) say the word "rosebud" as he dies.

etc. etc. I think you get the point.

[Christian Knudsen]

That's quite the slippery slope you've got there...