Kotaku: Mature

Microsoft Looking into Auto Mature Filtering Options

Brian Crecente — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 15:40:00 EDT

Gears of War 3 is the latest in an increasingly long list of games that include the ability to filter out adult language and gore through the game's settings. More »

Has Aging Changed the Way You Game?

Mike Fahey — Tue, 17 May 2011 11:20:00 EDT

Commenter Sumada feels he doesn't appreciate games as much as he did when he was younger. In today's Speak Up on Kotaku we explore how aging has changed the way you play and appreciate video games. More »

This Is The Bloodiest Lord Of The Rings Game Ever

Mike Fahey — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 11:00:00 EDT

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One would assume that cutting your way through countless orcs would leave your clothes rather messy. Snowblind Studios, the developer of The Lord of the Rings: War in the North makes that happen in what looks to be the most violent game the fantasy series has ever seen. More »

Ar Tonelico Qoga Doesn't Skimp On The Sexual Innuendo

Mike Fahey — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 11:00:00 EDT

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The Ar Tonelico series features a mechanic in which the main character dives into the psyche of his female companions, unlocking powers by travelling deeper into their subconscious. Developer Gust takes advantage of this feature to make incredibly dirty puns. More »

Dragon Age II Conspicuously Bereft of Demonic Breasts

Owen Good — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 15:00:00 EST

It's with a heavy heart that I retire our "Demon Tits" tag. Introduced with Dragon Age: Origins, it seems to be not applicable to Dragon Age II. But it does have blowjobs, according to its ESRB listing. More »

Implied Fisting Is One Sure Way To Get A Mature Rating

Mike Fahey — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 15:20:00 EST

Ar Tonelico III was rated teen in Japan. The ESRB isn't being as kind, slapping on a mature rating on the PlayStation 3 RPG for, among other things, a male character reaching inside a female character's body while she moans. More »

Predict The Mature Content In Fight Night Champion

Owen Good — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 14:00:00 EST

Yesterday, EA Sports confirmed that Fight Night Champion will be its first M-rated sports game ever. The sweet science is a dirty business - how far will the game go in presenting that? More »

More than Guns Go Bang in Red Dead Redemption

Owen Good — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 16:00:00 EDT

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The ESRB's served up a no-surprise M for Red Dead Redemption but enlightens us as to why - drugs, blood and a whole bunch of words Roy Rogers never said to Dale Evans. More »

BioShock 2 Rated M for Intense Violence, Wirty-Dords

Owen Good — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:00:00 EST

No surprise BioShock 2 picked up an M from the ESRB, but that's not to say its newly minted rating certificate isn't interesting. The writeup says we can expect F-bombs, mother F-bombs, the C-word and the past tense of "tweet." More »

Sega Still Keen On Mature Wii Games

Mike Fahey — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 12:30:00 EDT

Despite the poor sales of House of the Dead: Overkill and MadWorld, Sega still has plenty of publishing love set aside for mature games on the Nintendo Wii. More »

Adult Gaming on the DS: The Chinatown Conundrum

Brian Crecente — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 18:00:00 EDT

With 100 million DS and DSi in the hands of gamers worldwide, Nintendo's portable is a mighty tempting platform for developers. So why are only seven of the nearly 1,100 games for the DS rated Mature? More »

M-Rated Games That Actually Have Mature Themes

Owen Good — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 20:00:00 EDT

Remember the old HBO Guides? All the movies in there carried the MPAA rating and then handy-dandy abbreviations telling you why. I'd spend a good 20 minutes going through it looking for everything flagged with SSC and N - because that meant Strong Sexual Content and Nudity. Holy shit, they even had R - for "rape", which led to a very uncomfortable explanation from my babysitter when I (six years old) asked what in the hell that meant. I realize that "GamesRadar" and "mature" in the same sentence is like matter and antimatter (or pasta and antipasti). But they've (rightly) judged that "adult" and "mature," as applied to video games and films anyway, usually mean T&A and lots of SSC and really immature depictions of both. So they've provided a list of games that actually do contain mature, as in grown-up, themes. You might be surprised to find Braid on here, but they sorta justify it. Warning, those expecting a chucklefest absolutely will not find it in the last two on the list. Mature Games That Are Actually Mature [GamesRadar] More »

Bionic Commando: Rearmed Rated M

Mike Fahey — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 11:40:00 EDT

Hey kids! Better get a parent's permission before purchasing Capcom's Bionic Commando: Rearmed for Xbox Live Arcade or PlayStation 3! Various ratings organizations have made the call, and the game has gotten mature ratings all around, due to violence and such. The announcement is being made via the Bionic Commando website in the form of a cute little faux in-game communique, which makes references to other Capcom titles like Lost Planet and Dead Rising. Just remember kids, if your parents give you any grief, the game is all about making Hitler's head explode, and if they don't support that sort of thing they are goose-stepping, tiny-mustache wearing Nazi supporters. More »

Mature Games Sell Very Well On Consoles

Mark Wilson — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 14:00:23 EDT

Not so long ago, we ran some ESRB figures revealing that games rated 'M' for Mature are only a very small portion of that which developers released in 2007. However, a new report in which Next Generation compiled some sales statistics from the NPD Group shows us that even though M-rated titles may be few and far between, they sell quite well when compared to their peers with less extreme content. Here you can see how well M-rated titles sold in a boom from 2006 to 2007 (driven by a few AAA titles, for sure). More »

Mature Games Are Down 50% Since 2005

Mark Wilson — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 13:40:47 EST

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 »

TIGRS Game Ratings: Tantalizing Overhaul

Mark Wilson — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 20:00:23 EDT

TIGRS is the on your honor, give a penny take a headshot ratings system for independent game developers. And just recently, their designations were revamped in full emoticon style. From TIGRS:

Over a year in the making, the design was tested with many gaming and non-gaming audiences for appeal, attractiveness, and its ability to communicate clearly what the viewer can expect to find in the game.

I'm not sold. The Teen rating reeks of perverted, candy-toting uncle, while the Adult graphic screams, "I'll grab the eggs and you steal the whip-its." More »

Denver Group Seeks to Ban Mature Game Ads

Brian Crecente — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 17:35:11 EST

Remember when I posted about that Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories ad on Denver's local train months back? More »

Grand Theft Auto: Elementary School

egauger — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 18:40:40 EDT

Dan, from tadpole-oriented gameblog GameFam, was shocked and appalled after witnessing the following scene at a local fleamarket: More »

Penny Arcade's ESRB Ads Unveiled

Brian Crecente — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 22:00:05 EDT

First a warning, I'm a huge PA fanboy. That being said, the thrust of these new ESRB ads by Penny Arcade are completly lost on me. More »

Warning, Mature-Rated Games Contain Mature Content

kotaku.com — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 20:40:00 EDT

In a boggling bit of news, a study has concluded that a big black "M" on the front of a game may not be enough of a clue that the game contains violence, nudity, or other deliciously unsavory content. The games apparently don't go into quite as many details as they might, and Kimberly Thompson, the study's author, is concerned that parents might take that as a sign that the game is just peachy for kids, saying "Parents should not interpret the absence of a content descriptor to mean the absence of content." More »