I’m tired of this stupid argument by ignorant people, so I just had to copy this comment I just saw on Slashdot (it’s by an AC so I can’t give proper credit, unfortunately):
What the fuck does a game’s rating have to do with who it’s aimed at? Just because a game doesn’t feature exploding corpses, lakes of blood, automatic weapons, random senseless violence, demonic possession, bouncing boobies, or gratuitous sex, it doesn’t mean that it’s “for kids”. In fact, games with stuff that earns them an M rating are exactly the kind of games that are intended for kids, specifically teenagers between 13 and 18 - the hormonally imbalanced “I want to be grown up” lot, who think that playing a game where you go around beating up prostitutes makes them more of a man.
Games that are aimed exclusively at young children (in the way you seem to think Nintendo’s games are) are extremely rare, and far more likely to be released for everything that’s electronic and plays games (PS2, Gamecube, Xbox, PC, GBA, DS, PSP, possibly others). Stuff like the endless stream of Spongebob Squarepants or Disney games, or whatever. These games are absolutely awful, because they’re developed with the idea that kids are too stupid to know any different, and they largely sell because parents who don’t know any better buy them. Anyone over the age of 6 finds them unplayable, and even then they aren’t very good games.
That’s not even close to what Nintendo’s games are like. Nintendo’s games are designed for everyone. They aren’t intended to exclude everyone over a certain age as kids’ games are, and they aren’t intended to exclude everyone under a certain age either. In order to be playable by everyone, they need to qualify for the appropriate ratings, so that means they can’t include content that would kick their rating too high.
If you thing those ratings are the same as the age ratings on a toy, or a jigsaw puzzle, or whatever (the ones that say things like “Ages 6 - 11″ or “12 and up”), you’re seriously deluded.
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Well, you have to admit the so-called “Nintendo Game-style” is extremely colourful ^^
And something having lots of colours is either tagged as being kiddy stuff or for use after consuming narcotic substances
Of course I wouldn’t like to see blood in a Mario/Donkey Kong game, it’d ruin the franchises, but I wouldn’t want to have games who do need to have it without it (How would’ve Mortal Kombat been without blood? Here’s what it would’ve been: a complete flop!).
Let’s keep both the bloodbaths and the colourshowers going on!
And “colorful” means “kiddy”, right? Hmm, now I know why the first Quake was 99% grey and brown…
The comment I copied makes another great point: unlike, say, a toy that, when it says “for 6 to 12 years old”, means that anyone older than 12 will probably find it childish, games don’t work like that. A game can be the most complex, most involving, most “kids won’t ever understand it” thing in the world, and yet it’ll be labeled “G” if it doesn’t have blood, sex or swearing.
Add blood or swearing, and it gets an “M”; add sex and it’s “AO”. No matter how dumb and basic the game remains.
When I think about “mature” games, I think Planescape: Torment, Ultima VII, Fahrenheit, Darklands, etc. - not GTA or BMX:XXX (remember that one? They thought that adding topless women to a bicycle game would be a good idea…) or Dead or Alive or Mortal Kombat.
But I digress. Anyway, my point is that “playable by everyone” doesn’t mean “childish” - and it’s stupid that people still think “mature” = “swearing and killing people in bloody ways”.
I never said it was so
I said being colourful is TAGGED as being kiddy/”druggy”, I did not say I shared that view of things
I don’t even think it’s the colors. It’s more like that guy said: people still think in terms of toys, where “ages 3-6″ means that an 8-year old kid will find it too easy and boring. Therefore, if the game doesn’t have sex or violence, it’s rated “for everyone”, which, by that line of thought, means it’s “for kids”.
What if they applied that dumb logic, for instance, to chess? No violence, no sex, no swearing… must be a kids’ game, which no adult would ever be interested in! Right?
I think they could make a Mario GTA-like game with stomping goombas and firing those fiery things he does instead of shooting and it would still be rated E
There’s “The Simpsons: Hit & Run”, a GTA-like game with the Simpsons. It’s available for the Cube, so I may get it someday - it should be cheap now…