Kotaku
For as violent a reputation as has been bestowed upon the video game industry, 'M' rated games only make a small percentage of their total numbers and, according to the ESRB, this small percentage is actually down 50% since 2005. Back then, 12% of titles were rated M. And in 2006, that figure was already down to 8%. In 2007, a year in which the ESRB rated 1,563 games, 'M' rated games only accounted for 6% of the titles.
More neat stats from the ESRB in 2007:
•94% of games were rated for children 13 and younger
•The 'E' (6+) category saw the biggest growth of all
•60% of ratings were 'E'
So it would seem that parents opposed to headshots can find plenty of alternative content for their children in today's video game market. So unless anyone feels like content has been mislabeled, it pretty much negates the bitchfest in my mind.
ESRB Newsletter Winter 2008 [ESRB via GoNintendo]
Comments
I blame Nintendo.
I think this has to do with more mini/casual games being released than less mature titles being made. Blame Nintendo's success for that I suppose.
I blame the massive flood of kiddie games on the DS with cheesy movie tie-ins. They tower above the rare gems of mature quality on the shelves, waiting, like a giant zerg rush desending on a protoss base.
Que the: "Nintendo killed hardcore gaming" comments in
3 ... 2 ... 1 ...
*sigh*
@Mr. SiThNiNjA:
haha we said the same thing
If anyone is surprised by this, you play too much Halo
@brent_w: looks like i was 3 seconds too late ... *double sigh*
@ssjmichael: At the same time, too.
Nintendo cornholed hardcore gaming
So...basically more minigames, less BOOM headshot.
That's just percentages though. There's such a higher number of gamers now than there was in '05, and the increase is mostly due to casual software. No brainer!
@brent_w:
Why sigh? It's true! There's really no other explanation for it. I don't really care if the % is down because of the disproportion of E rated games, since there's still plenty of games catered to adults out there
Is this not the same with films (at least here in UK)
never few 18 films these days
lotsa 15s and 12s
(UK ratings are easy to understand :D)
@brent_w: Too late, apparently.
I don't buy the assumption that M games are good and E games are bad. There are plenty of terrible bloody games, and also many great E rated games. The quality of the game is independent from the intended audience.
I am rather amused how the readers have taken a story about how the game industry isn't as violent as the mainstream press makes it out to be, and turns it around and uses it to blame Nintendo for ruining gaming again.
this is how it should be'
any more mature games- and we'll be raising a new generation of perverts and nerds
Nintendo killed Hardcore Gam...oh wait. That topic has already been covered?
6% of games but probably 60% of the revenue. M rated games are always the best sellers.
@ssjmichael: Its not true, its stupid blind whining.
.
There were a hell of a lot more A+ mature games to play in 2007 than 2005.
Hardcore gaming is just fine, and Nintendo isn't hiding in your closet waiting to take all of your FPS games away ...
It's probably more a saturation of games for kids as opposed to less 'M'-rated games.
If I think about it, nearly every game I bought this year was 'M': Bioshock, Halo 3, Call of Juarez, STALKER, The Orange Box, Company of Heroes Opposing Fronts, Crysis, Unreal Tournament 3, Call of Duty 4, even The Shivering Isles for Oblivion, and the list goes on. In fact, I think the only non-'M' rated games I picked up the entire year were NBA2K8, Sim City 4 (nostalgia), and Guitar Hero 3.
@King Seafoam:
Perverts and nerds? Don't you mean misogynists and sociopaths?!
-Jack Thompson
*looks at my games* Nope, still fine on M games here.
E = bad game
M = good game
amirite guys?
Why is it necessary for hardcore games to be M?
My favorite games are K-A though... I love me some SNES :)
Now how about they put that pie chart next to a chart that illustrates percentage of actual games sold, categorized by their ESRB?
It's somewhat irrelevant if there are 1000 E-rated games if each of those only sells a couple dozen copies while a lot of the M-rated games sell millions upon millions.
It'd be even more useful if we could see the actual breakdown of what's being bought and played by what demographic, but that's pretty much impossible.
@StrangeLove:
last year, not this year, still stuck in '07, apparently.
@brent_w:
The point isn't that there are more Mature titles. The point is there is a much much larger array of casual game titles now than there were in 2005. Just look at what the DS and Wii comprise of. Can you actually deny the amount now compared to then? If it weren't for Nintendo's success with the casual market do you think the disparity would be this large? It's pretty much a given that that's the reason.
Don't try to counter blatant lies with concrete facts. The lies always win. Its the American way. Just as Fox News.
IMHO-This perception is all the fault of the publishers. M rated games get pushed a lot harder in the main stream media than E or E10 (or even Teen really). So the mainstream population only has experience with these advertisements and product pushes.
Anyhow, back to COD4....
Yeah, but what percentage of *sales* are M-rated games? Don't get me wrong, I love my violent video games as much as the next guy, this just seems like a somewhat misleading statistic.
Nintendo didn't kill hardcore gaming, because relatively speaking a rise in casual gaming shouldn't necessarily bring forth a decline in hardcore gaming. Hardcore gaming has declined, though, but for different reasons.
First, note that this decline started (or at least increased) around the start of this console generation. While the Wii's influence has been blamed for casual market growth, it's more the fault of the inverse- the fact that it's really a lot more difficult to develop complex games for the 360 or PS3 than the Wii. You need money, time, and people resources that small game companies don't always have.
Now, as to the increase of casual games on the Wii instead of hardcore games: They're cheaper and sell just as well, if not better. Economically speaking, it's so much better to develop a cheap and catchy casual title than a hardcore title, as you save the three things mentioned above- time, money, and people (who need to get paid money).
So I personally blame the money-driven game market on the decline of hardcore games. Nintendo really has little to do with it, besides having a console that happens to be easy to develop for.
Save that pie chart for the next time JT goes on one off his "I am off my meds" tyraids about how the industry is only out to corrupt and warp young minds.
@StrangeLove: The first half of every year I live in a mindset of the previous year. The other half is waiting for the next...
Back to topic: I think that the numbers will bolt up once every gets tired of casual gaming and up's to hardcore. Maybe.
@cowondinosaur: As you said, impossible. But so, so true that we need those stats instead.
Statistics lie, they lie so horribly. I'd guess 30-40% of those rated E games didn't break 100k lifetime. Of course, my numbers are based on nothing but the fact that some of these games are horribly marketed knockoffs of good titles, but I'm still confident in them.
Point in case, GTA IV will sell more than Barbie's Magical Horse Adventure. But there's probably 50 of said Barbie titles or titles fairly similar.
Hmm, I guess Nintendo can take most of the blame. But before you start bashing them did you know scientific research provesthat the amount of casual games released is inversely proportional to how dorky you are perceived by others. More Brain Age clones = we (gamers) seems cooler than before. Yeah. The study was done by...uh...Harvard grads....
Ha, jk, I just made that crap up. But it kinda makes sense if you think about it. Since the DS, Wii, Rock Band and Guitar Hero hit it's been so much easier to be a hardcore gamer in public.
If any of you guys are in college like me, throw a Rock Band party. Add in women and drinks and you'll be unlocking Victoria's Secret achievements. *nudge nudge wink wink*
Or at least it worked for me.
Censorship kills gaming.
Game-making is ART (believe it or not vintage and/or retards).
Thus censoring a game is pretty much the same like censoring a movie, or any form of art.
And that kills the art. Any art. Because you limit the creator's imagination, etc.
I give Nintendo credit for taking flash games, forcing your to do aerobics to play them and making a ton of cash doing it.
General Custers Last Stand was the original hardcore game.
I blame Nintendo, and Industry bullying from government officials and the like.
This data is a bit misleading; just because there were more unique E rated games doesn't mean they sold well at all. Halo 3 has sold an estimated 7.13 million copies and Call of Duty 4 an estimated 6.76 million copies on the PS3 and 360, but it's rated Mature. Both of these games have outsold Super Mario Galaxy, even though it received higher ratings and was rated E. Of course, it's not like the game sold poorly at 5.54 million copies, but being on the most popular platform with the highest scores, and the most accessible game rating hasn't caused it to outsell it's more violent competition. Then again, there is the multiplayer aspect which could be a deciding factor as well...
This has always been the case. Though Es are more common now because of all the minigame collections, M-rated titles have always been a tiny minority, with most titles rated in between E and M.
The problem with this stat, however, is that it ignores the fact that, other than Nintendo first-party and sports, M-rated games tend to be the huge sellers.
@EnigmaNemesis:
The former isn't a bad thing, just means there is more games that are shoveled most average gamers don't care for ... the latter gets scary, since they are having censorship in gaming, where there is more obscene material in a PG-13 movie.
I wouldn't say it's gone down that much.
There's just more 3+'s swarming the market.
But yeah
Nintendo, blame, casuals etc.
Does this mean that AO games got 0%?
guess you could call this the 'manhunt effect' eh?
@PGGB: can you tell i'm canadian...
@ScratchFury:
Yeah, no AO rated games. They just don't sell and I believe each console company has a policy against them
Guys, think of it this way. This data just helps show that parents who bitch about kids being violent due to videogames are completely at fault. They've got more non-violent, non-sexual games to choose from than you can shake a bloody dismembered hooker at.
Of course, the question has to be asked; why don't they buy these games? They don't do the research they should be doing into the activities that interest their kids until it's too late. Whiney McCandykid points at FRAGSEXFEST 4000 with his fat grubby little fingers, and to shut him up before he starts screaming, they get it for him. Then, when Whiney starts trying to decapitate and hump the family pet, they get bitchy.
Point is, there's no excuse you damn irresponsible pricks.
@Mr. SiThNiNjA: I blame media outlets like Fox News who will burn game designers at the stake for making games that are adult in nature and claim that they are marketing to children. Mass Effect anyone... I for one want to see more games like Mass Effect or games that aren't afraid to push the envelope. Manhunt 2 got castrated to get on US shelves. I say they should have just sold the game themselves and kept it the way it was, even if that meant they were gonna lose money, at least they kept their integrity as artists
@Heyyou27: But...but... Mario Galaxy had that awesome multiplayer "point at the screen" mode!
@Futuresex: You forgot the lawyers and politicians.
@PGGB: Eh is not exclusive to Canadians...[en.wikipedia.org]
I guess it's Nintendo's fault since they made two gaming systems?
Or maybe everyone should shut their mouths until we see a decline in the quality of adult games, or the quantity since last year was one of the best years in memory for adult games.
And only 6% of games are good... not true i know. But you get my point, most of the games i prefer are mature.
@Ethereal006: Definate yes to more Mass Effect, definate NO to more Manhunt 2. They could have not changed a thing and released it the way they intended it and it still would have flopped. All the blood and guts in the world does not make a game playable. The bottom line is that it is just a bad game that never should have been made in the first place. There is no artisic intergrity involved with that franchise, just horrible game play and shock value.
This stat surprises me...because there is no drought of quality M rated titles.
@RonJeremy4Pres: You are right the number of M rated games is down but the quality is all that matters.
BTW: Is that a pic of Ron Jeremy dressed as Mario??? You are my hero!
I'd say 80% of the games I own are rated M for Mature. 19% are T for Teen and 1% would be E for Everyone. And I've still had plenty of games to play over the past couple years. Still, I hope this trend doesn't continue or it will get to the point where a lack of M rated games becomes apparent and annoying for those of us who prefer adult themes to brightly colored cartoon characters.
Can we put that pie chart next to another (delicious) pie chart that shows sales by each category? I'm interested in seeing what percentage of the actual money that 60% ends up taking home.
@Stormrider: QFT. Next people will try to tell me Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends isn't a good show.