- Joined
- Feb 17, 2021
The age-based content rating framework has allowed games publishers to push the boundaries of acceptable content more so than most games existing before the ESRB’s establishment. In the short term graphic and violent content will usually boost a game’s profile at least to a degree, increasing sales by playing to the strong appetite in the gaming community for violent and graphic experiences. In the long term gratuitousness for its own sake diminishes its impact and pigeonholes how the wider culture views gaming as a whole. This can apply not only to the games themselves, but also to a game’s marketing prior to release.
Most of the time controversy will be sparked by the actual content contained within the game. When gaming was in its infancy the Death Race and Chiller arcade titles were seen as taboo for depicting gruesome scenes of death and destruction next to family-friendly games like Donkey Kong and Ms. Pac-Man. The controversy led to it being shunned from mainstream arcades which hurt its marketability. This didn’t prevent similarly violent games from peppering the Coin-Op industry over the years but their impact was limited by owners who didn’t want to contribute to the arcade’s reputation as a den of vice. This need to appeal to parents carried over to the console space, where most adult titles were either released in extremely limited quantity or were adaptations of movies with little to no relation to their source material’s content. There were still titles which pushed the envelope in spite of how it would hurt their market capitalization, and their efforts in these early days would set the stage for later publishers to dare putting out adult content once the audience for games began to be seen more broadly than just children’s toys.
How a game’s marketing presents it can occasionally overshadow what’s contained in the game itself. Dave Mirra’s BMX was a reasonably popular sports game series published by Acclaim. In the early 2000’s, Acclaim didn’t think the newest entry would do very well so decided to drum up interest by cramming profanity, sexual innuendo, nudity, and as much other lewd content as they possibly could. Mr. Mirra took them to court to keep his name off the product and the controversy was covered heavily by industry press. But despite an enormous amount of media coverage the decision to add raunchy content to the game did not amount to increased sales. Most retail chains within the United States declined to sell it even after Sony demanded it be censored. The uncensored version sold poorly in PAL regions, and everything lewd was stripped out at the behest of the Australian government for that region’s release. The game sold poorly whether it was censored or not, because it was a bad game and even those who enjoy perversion and sin in their interactive entertainment want their sexual content to be a good time.
All of this shows that over time, contemporary community standards are always changing. There’s always been adult content in games and the only difference now is our reaction. Which shows that what’s controversial now isn’t going to necessarily be that way in the future. Publishers will keep putting out content that tests the boundaries, as long as they think it will make money. Ratings are just the set dressing to make sure the general public feels like somebody's watching out for them, an end unto themselves.
Harmony B
Creative Commons ShareAlike 3.0
A little shorter and with a less narrow topic, I think y’all will like this. I know my rule of three, no more for awhile now I was going to make a post on my page but it has a character limit >.>
Most of the time controversy will be sparked by the actual content contained within the game. When gaming was in its infancy the Death Race and Chiller arcade titles were seen as taboo for depicting gruesome scenes of death and destruction next to family-friendly games like Donkey Kong and Ms. Pac-Man. The controversy led to it being shunned from mainstream arcades which hurt its marketability. This didn’t prevent similarly violent games from peppering the Coin-Op industry over the years but their impact was limited by owners who didn’t want to contribute to the arcade’s reputation as a den of vice. This need to appeal to parents carried over to the console space, where most adult titles were either released in extremely limited quantity or were adaptations of movies with little to no relation to their source material’s content. There were still titles which pushed the envelope in spite of how it would hurt their market capitalization, and their efforts in these early days would set the stage for later publishers to dare putting out adult content once the audience for games began to be seen more broadly than just children’s toys.
How a game’s marketing presents it can occasionally overshadow what’s contained in the game itself. Dave Mirra’s BMX was a reasonably popular sports game series published by Acclaim. In the early 2000’s, Acclaim didn’t think the newest entry would do very well so decided to drum up interest by cramming profanity, sexual innuendo, nudity, and as much other lewd content as they possibly could. Mr. Mirra took them to court to keep his name off the product and the controversy was covered heavily by industry press. But despite an enormous amount of media coverage the decision to add raunchy content to the game did not amount to increased sales. Most retail chains within the United States declined to sell it even after Sony demanded it be censored. The uncensored version sold poorly in PAL regions, and everything lewd was stripped out at the behest of the Australian government for that region’s release. The game sold poorly whether it was censored or not, because it was a bad game and even those who enjoy perversion and sin in their interactive entertainment want their sexual content to be a good time.
All of this shows that over time, contemporary community standards are always changing. There’s always been adult content in games and the only difference now is our reaction. Which shows that what’s controversial now isn’t going to necessarily be that way in the future. Publishers will keep putting out content that tests the boundaries, as long as they think it will make money. Ratings are just the set dressing to make sure the general public feels like somebody's watching out for them, an end unto themselves.
Harmony B
Creative Commons ShareAlike 3.0
A little shorter and with a less narrow topic, I think y’all will like this. I know my rule of three, no more for awhile now I was going to make a post on my page but it has a character limit >.>
