Why produce a game with blood and risk getting a M-rating? By getting a M-rating your game isn't going to be distributed properly. WalMart and K-mart don't carry M-rated titles. So a thought just occured to me...

Why don't all companies leave the blood out of there games and just offer the option to put blood in your game via patch. So when you give your game to the rating board they will rate the tame version and your game will get slapped with a T. Then the game companies can offer the blood in a patch or if you don't have an internet connection, they will send you a disk with the patch (blood). Giants did this last year.

Will MOA offer the blood patch option when the game hits retail?

Would this work?

You sure Wal-Mart doesn't carry M-rated games? I'm almost positive that I got both Goldeneye and Perfect Dark there...Or do they view console games differently, since they're locked up?

Don't recall seeing many M-rated PC games there, so maybe...I dunno.

Interesting idea, though. Seems feasible. Wonder if there would be any legal implications...

Sending out free disks gets expensive very, very quickly. Also, probably 75% of people will either never bother to download a patch, or will never send for the fix.

People who post on this board, you must realize, are in an elite minority of PC gamers who will actually download patches, or create scenarios or add-ons.

"People who post on this board, you must realize, are in an elite minority of PC gamers who will actually download patches, or create scenarios or add-ons."

I think your definitely right about that. But imagine if all M rated games came down to a T rating. Would sells increase? I think so. So why not try and educate your fans about downloading a simple patch that will let you have blood in your game. There must be an easy way to do that. Then once it becomes a common practice, game developers can produce violent games and not have to worry about getting a M rating, which will effectively hurt sales for that particular game. I think today, there are more savvy PC gamers that would have no problem downloading a patch to make there game bloddy as hell.

One problem Benjamin,
Giants is/was rated Mature despite the removal of blood (and addition of bras). The content was rated mature for the violence. For the shooting. Not for the blood or gore factor.

So, if they could only remove the shooting, then they could get that T for Teen, and then add the shooting back in.

"Then once it becomes a common practice, game developers can produce violent games and not have to worry about getting a M rating"

Name a "violent" game that got a Teen rating.

-Andrew

Wal-Mart most certainly does carry M-rated games. They have Diablo II in full view of all their customers. However, they do force some games to tone down the violence to make it on their shelves. In particular, I bought Sacrifice there (replacing my lost copy) for $10 about three months ago. It was a special version that's less violent (no blood and gibs I guess), but when I patched it, that stuff seems to have returned.

BTW, while we're on the Wal-Mart thing, they are now carrying a large area of PC games with the standardized PC game box. There is a smaller area with the bigger PC games boxes too, but apparently the move to the smaller box is on in Wal-Mart locations. It's a nice box size too.

--Dave

"Name a "violent" game that got a Teen rating."

What about Metal of Honor? Here is a game that does not have blood in it, and it will be labeled a Teen rating. Also, in the game people are shooting at each other. It's war!!! And yet, no M rating. It must be because of the lack of blood.

Hmmm, just checked the website and you're right. Of course the game isn't done yet, but the ESRB is calling it right now Teen. Seems fairly inconsistent.

What a mess, it's not like the blood is the offensive part. Then again, our real GIs didn't bleed in WWII so I guess it's realistic.

"War is Inoffensive!"
-Grant's Teenage Son

ESRB rates games by having the developer send a video tape of the game to them depicting some amount of time of the most graphic/explicit themes of the game, which is how in part they rate it. One problem is that they have to have this video months ahead of time, to account for the evaluation process and time to get it printed on the box.

So ESRB ratings can be misleading in certain cases.

--- Alan

"It's war!!! And yet, no M rating. It must be because of the lack of blood."

It absolutely, positively is because of the lack of blood.

MOH:AA is a perfectly violent game. You'll see some soldiers get shot down and try to crawl away in their dying moments. You can put them out of their misery, naturally.

But no blood, hence Teen rating. EA probably fought tooth and nail for that, though God only knows why. For what it's worth, the PlayStation MOH games were all rated T, but their violence wasn't nearly this real-looking I'm sure.

I'm actually very distracted by the lack of blood in the game. It detracts from the experience for me. If you're going to make a game about shooting people in the face, you might as well go the whole nine yards.

"If you're going to make a game about shooting people in the face, you might as well go the whole nine yards."

I think you should go ten yards and get a fresh set of downs.

Greg, doesn't that make it doubly weird that Giants still got saddled with the 'M' then? Wasn't the bras and blood maneuver a last minute concession to get a T? I wonder, does this have something to do with EA's clout?

-Andrew

In addition, I wonder if bloodless war games are actually doing society a disservice. It's sending mixed messages about the consequences of violence.

- Alan

"I wonder if bloodless war games are actually doing society a disservice. It's sending mixed messages about the consequences of violence."

I think this sort of statement--a very valid statement--will often be used to criticize MOH:AA. At least Wolfenstein has no pretense of realism. MOH will confuse a lot of people, though. It's a run-and-gun shooter, and it takes itself seriously, but it's clearly fictional. I think that might really rub off the wrong way on some people.

The game's Normandy beach sequence, clearly inspired by Saving Private Ryan, is missing that one imporant detail--gore. It's just bizarre to see piles of bodies strewn about on that level, but impeccably clean sand everywhere. I clearly remember SPR's scene where you see the ocean water all tinted red. Well, it's nice and blue here.

Anyone but me think SPR is a bit hypocritical? It's not some scathing indictment of war--it's this really cool action movie that's inpired movie makers and game designers. Well, whatever.

As for Giants, that game deserved an M rating regardless of its gore, because its cutscenes were downright raunchy. They used South Park-style humor that clearly wasn't intended for younger audiences (though, naturally, someone in his earlier teens would probably appreciate it more than anyone else).

"its cutscenes were downright raunchy."

Er, so this deserves an M, but bloodlessly shooting someone in the face doesn't? What are you, an American?

-Ron

I'm not saying Giants didn't deserve an M (though it seems pretty futile to try and protect kids from "raunchy humor" when its also a fixture of Prime Time and MTV). It just seems Giants should be considered far less offensive than a Teen rated game with "bodies strewn about" and face shooting.

And I know what you mean re: recreating D-Day in a fanciful arcade shooter. That does seem ... dodgey.

-Andrew

>I wonder if bloodless war games are actually doing society a disservice. It's sending mixed messages about the consequences of violence.

I agree with this statement in the context of war movies. Now that it's possible to replicate the horrors of war (on film), you're essentially glorifying it when you show it in a less horrific fashion. Bloodless John Wayne-style war films are offensive, at least as dramas.

The same reasoning may hold true for games, but I think games aren't necessarily designed to be realistic. I do find it ridiculous that the presence or absence of blood absolutely determines whether or not horrific violence is "adult" or not.

> Anyone but me think SPR is a bit hypocritical? It's not some scathing indictment of war--it's this really cool action movie that's inpired movie makers and game designers. Well, whatever.

Hunh? Why should a movie be considered hypocritical because of how someone else was inspried by it? That person is being hypocritical, not the movie. If you want an SPR-inspired beach sequence, you put in the blood and gore in. That's part of what made it so memorable in the first place. Or maybe you were trying to say that :)

--- Alan