In my game design class yesterday, someone gave a short presentation on Cards Against Humanity, and they called it a "mature" game. During the discussion, I decided to press this a bit: is that game really "mature"? The students unanimously agreed that it is actually immature. This is what I expected, so I pressed a bit more: how is it that this word got to mean two opposite things, and who benefits from that? A student immediately jumped to GTA as a canonical example of an "M" rated game.
Now my wheels started turning. GTA is hardly "mature," but it's also definitely not for kids. However, a movie that is not intended for youth is restricted.
The ESRB and the MPAA provide rating systems for their respective media. Neither rating systems is mandated by law: rather, they represent industry self-regulation. In movies, gratuitous violence and sex gets you a rating of "Restricted," but the same in a video game gets you "Mature." One implies that consuming the media is restricted to adults, the other that the adults are made for this media.
The cynic in me suspects that this asymmetry is not accidental. I bet that you can sell a lot more games to teenagers if you convince them that it is the kind of thing adults consume.
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