How Important Are Mature Videogames To The Industry?

Thanks to GamesIndustry.biz for its editorial discussing whether the market for 'Mature'-rated videogames is really that significant, following "EA CFO Warren Jenson's announcement last week that the company is working on a videogame based on Francis Ford Coppola's classic mafia movie The Godfather. The resulting game is expected to be EA's first foray into publishing M-rated... titles for several years." But the editorial argues: "Mature games, although certainly a popular theme with the stock market, are still basically a hot topic because of one franchise - namely Rockstar North's Grand Theft Auto titles." It goes on to point out: "M-rated games accounted for only 11.9 per cent of videogame sales in the USA last year in total... despite this, publishers are rushing headlong into making mature games, believing that emulating the success of Grand Theft Auto is just a splash of blood and a bucketful of swearwords away."