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."

Comments

EA wants a piece of the pie...

[splerdu]

Sure it's only 11.9%. But if GTA accounted for 90% of that 11.9% that's a lot of sales. Fact is there aren't many popular M-rated games.

Might be better than duking it out with the hundreds of other titles.

Only 11.9 per cent?

[Kidbro]

Yeah, cos we all know that 11.9% of $35.8 billion is next to nothing.

Gamers are getting older

[fozzmeister]

Just like on TV there are kids films (for kids) there are Family Films (something for everyone), teen flics for teens, and things like The Godfather etc, so it will be natural that as the Gamer covers more and more of the age range, some games will be made that target those different areas

Re:Gamers are getting older

[raygundan]

Very true, but I suspect that "gamers get older" has very little to do with the popularity of "mature" games. ("mature" is a bit misused, here, i think...) In fact, I would go so far as to surmise that these games are most popular with teenage boys. I don't think overwhelming bloodiness is the way into the pocketbooks of actual adults, except by way of their children.

What do adults play in stupendous numbers? Bejeweled, The Sims, Myst, and Mario Kart.

You're not going to catch your parents opining over the lack of realtime 3D evisceration in their games. I will, of course, continue to get a good laugh out of the gibs in quake, though.

I don't think they're important at all.

[Mantrid]

I'm not sure that I've ever bought a game based on its rating; well perhaps in the Mortal Kombat days it was interesting to see what all the fuss was about, but those days are long past. Only how fun the game is matters, and I must confess it must look decent for me to be interested as well, but I wouldn't buy or not buy a game based on whether or not I could see a decapitation or some T&A.

Absolutely!

[Mongoose Disciple]

..Takes maturity on the part of the developer. Assuming an "M" rating when creating a game should be a freedom to not worry about toning down the game's flavor, not an excuse to add meaningless cursing, sexuality, and violence.

GTA and Vice City have excellent storylines and great voice acting to string together the amusing gameplay. Without the memorable characters or the hilarious radio talk shows the game loses much of its charm.

I couldn't agree more.

In a lot of ways, I think this fixation of game developers upon "mature" games is a mistake. For people not very familiar with GTA, it's easy to make the (incorrect) assumption that the game sells because of its adult content.

The truth is that GTA sells because it's a good game.

There's always going to be a market for good games of any genre, platform, maturity level, or whatever. That's the lesson game developers should be learning here.