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Will M-Rated Games Find a Home on DS?
By Kris Graft
March 4, 2009
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"Dementium wasn’t sold at Toys ‘R’ Us, which isn’t really fair, because Toys ‘R’ Us sells M-rated Xbox 360 games. Retail was the obstacle, and unfortunately that’s the path we have to use to get to the buyers.”
The Nintendo DS has never been known as a bastion for sexual themes, blood and gore, violence, profanity, or other similarly "adult"-themed entertainment ingredients.
That hasn't stopped a few companies--emphasis on "few"--from dipping their toes in the very niche mature market on the DS. From a commercial standpoint, the most notable Mature-rated game coming to the happy-go-lucky handheld is Take-Two and Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, which the U.S.-based Entertainment Software Rating Board labels as chock full of blood and gore, drugs, sex, profanity and violence.
In other words, Rockstar's Chinatown is a world away from Professor Layton's Curious Village.
Smaller independent developers have recently tested the mature market on the DS, finding very limited company (ESRB's website lists only seven M-rated DS games). Graffiti Entertainment is publishing NoWay Studio's aptly-titled C.O.R.E., a first-person M-rated FPS that draws inspiration from classic shooters such as Quake. The game is due in April.
“It is a bigger risk, definitely, but we decided we wanted to take that risk," says Graffiti CEO Kenneth Hurley. "The feedback that I was getting from the older guys who are 17 or 18 years old, they have their DS, but they’re looking for more hardcore titles.”
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According to an early 2008 report, analysts at Wedbush Morgan said 80 percent of DS owners are between eight and 16 years of age, while owners of Sony's rival PSP handheld are estimated to be around 16 to 24 years old. Top-selling DS games include virtually anything with Mario, Brain Age and Pokemon--all E-rated fare.
But with DS hardware sales approaching 100 million units worldwide, surely there are a few owners who can legally by a pack of cigarettes.
“At first we weren’t sure about publishing C.O.R.E. because it was a mature title for the DS," Hurley says. "But in the end, I went and did a little bit of talking with some people, some gamers I know. There’s nothing but the 'E for Everyone' titles out there. Older gamers still have their DSes and really want to pick them up again, but there aren’t many mature games out there.”
GTA: Chinatown Wars will be an interesting experiment on the DS. It's the most popular M-rated franchise on the planet, released on one of the most popular gaming devices ever created, which just happens to be positioned by Nintendo as very kid- and family-friendly.
Sony has been happy to point out this paradox. John Koller, director of hardware marketing in North America, recently categorized the DS fanbase as primarily "under 12," adding in a later interview with MTV Multiplayer that the pairing of GTA and the DS "raises some eyebrows in a lot of areas." The GTA franchise found success on the PSP with Liberty City Stories and Vice City Stories.
But it's not the first time that GTA has appeared on Nintendo handhelds. Chinatown will actually be the series' fourth appearance across three Nintendo portables. Rockstar North and Rockstar Leeds appear to be taking especially good care of the development of Chinatown, more so than previous take-along entries.
Can Chinatown bust open a market for smaller companies looking to release M-rated DS games? “Yeah, I really think it can," says Hurley. "The good news is that the DS is the number one handheld platform. A lot of companies have basically toned down their games to get a T rating. I don’t think that’s doing the gamer any justice.”
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And I heard they're gonna replace the standard stylus with a double-bladed, poison-tipped spear courtesy of a tie-up between Logitech and Hattori Hanzo.
Honestly, let's not forget about that key demographic of minors' parents who just don't give a f**k what their kids play and buy them anything. Add that to the demographic of DS owners who are actually old enough to play and you've got yourself a nice installed base.
It just needs to be proven. I think most consoles' or handhelds' target audiences are established in a way by the first party games. Nintendo obviously doesn't do M-rated, so it took someone like Rockstar to make a high-profile M-rated game for developers to even think of M-rated games on the DS as a possibility.
That really sucks that retail is the major obstacle for M rated games on the DS. The article points out that Toys R Us carries M rated 360 games. The real question is, do they carry M rated Wii games? If they do, they are being hypocritical by not carrying M rated DS games. The Wii is marketed just as Kid and Family Friendly as the DS.
So, all of a sudden, games like Hotel Dusk and Final Fantasy IV don't qualify as "mature" any more? You don't necessarily need blood and sexual themes in a game for it to be mature as people below have pointed out.
I can't believe people buy into Sony's "12-year-old" bullshit. In fact, I can't believe Edge is actually promoting that kind of thinking.
With all due respect, I'm not sure where you and 4th are coming from. This article is obviously about the commercial viability of games rated Mature by organizations such as the ESRB, not what defines the term "mature".
Anyway, while I think Sony overstates the DS' youth factor, the fact is that the DS' demographic is younger than PSP's. That's why it's so interesting to see some developers embrace an M-rating on the DS. Assuming you read the article, you'd know that only seven M-rated games for DS are listed on the ESRB's website, and three of those are featured in this story.
Apologies if I sounded rude. While I think it certainly will be interesting to sell how GTA sells, I was just a little annoyed that you mentioned Koller's comments as if there was some truth to them. They are very obviously trash talk from a competitor and given their extreme nature, I figured it wasn't worth mentioning them as software in general tends to sell well on DS given its large install base and the fact that people of all ages own one.
Again, I think the M-rated issue is certainly an interesting one...I just didn't think Koller's comments contributed to the article in any meaningful way.
Edge basically answers the question of the article itself with another recent news:
http://www.edge-online.com/news/study-mature-ratings-labels-tempt-minors
And please, there is a difference between an M-Rated game and a mature game. Leisure Suit Larry may be rated M, but there is nothing mature about it. There is more to being grown up than consuming the same teenage fantasies only with added sex and violence. Brainage did not require a Playboy license in order to sell to adults.
Whilst I mildly agree with your first point. I disagree with your second because I believe you've taken the word 'Mature' in the wrong context. It is not meant as in whether a game is mature or immature in the sense of being serious or silly -- it is meant as it contains 'Mature' themes (in this context Mature meaning adult, etc). Whilst violence is a 'mature' theme (along with sex and drugs [and rock'n'roll?] -- it's adult), it can be immature (e.g. mario - jumping on the heads of turtles is fairly harsh [if real], but comic [in game]) or mature (e.g. soldier of fortune - even if their dead, keep shooting them to see the blood fly).
Apologies for all the ()'s and []'s. Examples and digressions are the folly of madmen (some might say)...
The article asks for M-Rated games on the DS and the answer is: Yes, there is an audience. Just not one that is mature in the sense the ESRB sticker suggests it.
Mature themes and topics are in no way limited to things unsuitable for children. Most mature topics simply don't interest teenagers. Turn on your TV, there are a lot of TV series aimed at people over 30 which do not get an "R" rating but are ignored by younger audiences.
The article calls into question the viability of making games available for the 16-25 demographic. Suggested are titles not including any new topics that might be relevant to that audience, but rather an increase in blood and sex over an old gameplay framework.
How would a real mature GTA game look? One where conflict resolution is as intricately designed as the blood spatter algorithms. A game retaining its biting satire and comments on society but instead of scaring us with pathological violence, it scares us with accuracy. A game where murder results in a real manhunt for your person, instead of an "Police getaway minigame".