HappySqurriel said:
I'm not sure but I don't think this really relates to what I was saying ... Back in the day, when I was in elementary school, "mature" videogames didn't really exist in the way they do today. There was a different medium that was similar enough that I think the behaviour is comparable; action and horror movies. At 8 to 10 years old boys would be bragging about which horror or action movie they were allowed to watch and kids that weren't allowed to watch these kinds of movies would regularly beg their parents to watch them. While many of these movies did have an adult following, the biggest audience for these movies was children and teens even though they often had a "Restricted" rating. Today, as an adult, I know of lots of adults who love animated movies and they regularly watch Disney/Pixar or Dreamworks movies. As an adult it is easy to understand this. The bulk of "Restricted" movies have bad acting, writing and direction, and the only thing they've got going for them is that they push the limits; but they do it in such a generic way that once you've seen one of these movies you've seen most of them. Many of the Animated movies are well written, well "acted", and have excellent direction and are exceptional movies even though they're accessable to everyone. While I wouldn't say they're exactly the same thing, I think there is a similar pattern in videogames. A lot of "Mature" games are generally generic and kids worship them because they're Taboo, and a lot of "Everyone" games are solid games that attract a lot of attention from older gamers because of their quality. With this in mind, the idea that "Mature" games are bought by adults and "Everyone" games are bought by children is not a correct breakdown of the market. |
Um...what? When I was very young Duke Nukem, Splatter House, Mortal Kombat, Killer Instinct, Conker, Doom were all beyond my reach and in those days those were classic games. Once Nintendo Sony lost their third party strangle hold and Sony got it their mature titles were bare bones. I managed to get around my parents to play certain games, but in my house they were off limits. In the 80's and 90's videogames were percieved to be for kids because Sega and Nintendo marketed them to be for children. Adults played by association and with Nintendo and Sega it is still the case. Sony came in and said adults can game too making and acquiring games adults can play as well as children. In the 90's the average age of the gamer had to be from child to teen, today its adults. Segas major association was with arcade gamers with its first party and with Nintendo it was home exclusivity save for games like Street Fighter and Killer Instinct.
Jak and Daxter, Sly Cooper and Ratchet and Clank are Pixar movies in games, Sony has had that covered since th early 2000's and anyone who has played them knows it. Nintendo has games that would be better associated with Disney characters.
Dramas require the best acting, yes, but Action movies make great amounts of money, especially in the 80's and 90's where building memorable characters was what mattered. Mature movies can span all these genres, they just have the age requirement which is 17+ when you pay for admission in America. The movie depends on the actors, script and director and mature films can be great. This is as far as I will speak about action movies. 300? Natural Born killers? The Texas Chainsaw Massacre? Hannibal? Saving Private Ryan? The Godfather? Scarface? Kill Bill? Mature does not mean bad acting, if anything you need to be good to be convincing you need to be a very good actor to pull off action/killing/dramatic scenes if they are all included in one movie.
