ESRB President: We Could Use More “Adults Only” Games
12 Apr, 2012
The stigma of an “Adults Only” rating – and the subsequent ban many top retailers have on all products that achieve said rating – have kept most publishers from producing anything that could go beyond “M for Mature”. It’s a stigma that Patricia Vance, President of the Entertainment Software Ratings Board, wants to see diminish.
“You know, up to this point most people associate AO with sexual content,” Vance discussed in a recent interview with Gamasutra, “We’ve actually assigned AO ratings for violent content as well; it’s just that most of the time that product gets edited or changed in order to warrant an M rating, so you never see it in the market.”
The transition from brick-and-mortar retail to digital downloads will only help acceptance of “Adults Only” video games, Vance continued, “It’s very possible that there will be greater acceptance of an AO rating going forward…And by the way, I think that would be a good thing for the system. It’s very frustrating that publishers can’t release AO product, in many cases.”
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Gavin Greene
Elder Geek installed GavinGreene.exe into its News editorial directory in May of 2009. The resulting mobile humanoid server has developed frighteningly realistic obsessions with RPGs, Adventure Games, and Industry Politics, and may be the harbinger of the inevitable singularity. Follow him on Twitter @ElderGeekGav
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1 Comment
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April 12, 2012Good idea for a more ‘adult themed’ setting or something but kids will still get their hands on it because of their parents buying ‘em games, the parents are to blame if a kid that’s not mature enough to be playing a certain kind of game plays it.
I think if a game is as serious as Manhunt for a good example then people should be told when they’re buying it how serious it is because the ESRB or PEGI message usually isn’t noticed, I know I don’t pay attention to that.
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