Great article.

http://tamrielfoundry.com/2014/01/m-for-mature-an-opportunity/

"I am in no way advocating for over the top fountains of blood, and not every cave should be littered with gore and decaying remains; when a game does those things, it completely negates the benefits of having them in the first place. The same can be said of sixual content. The Elder Scrolls lore is overflowing with mature content for the designers to make use of, and with the shackles of the ESRB Teen rating lifted, ZeniMax is now free to include it in The Elder Scrolls Online."

Hahaha:

"I’ll see you all at the release of the pimping skill line."

I like the fact that it has been rated "M". Allows for more and better "serious" themes to be worked into the game.

I like that it is rated M because no matter what content is included in the game nothing will compare to the vile filth that will be scrolling bye in the chat window.

IMHO all online games should be rated M unless the players are unable to communicate with each other.

I am much less concerned that my son will cut someone's head off than the majority of stuff that comes through the chat window or through the headset on a console.

100% agree and well said.

Good read, very well said.

This 10/10

So now we will get to meet in person the Lusty Argonian Maid.

Good read, thx

Good read, thanks for posting it.

Game devs strive for a low ESRB rating in order to make the game accessible to as many players as possible and thus sell as many copies as possible. High ratings means less customers as many people, unsurprisingly, do indeed give a [censored] about the game their children play and won't allow them to play something not meant for their age. Once again, this translates into somewhat lower sales.

Sure, it's excellent news for customers over the age of 18 as it allows for content to be more...gritty and advlt oriented but for the actual game developers...it's not that great news.

Yeah I was thinking about this... I'm wondering if zenimax is happy with this rating? Have they said anything about it? I don't care either way but maybe they weren't expecting this game to have an M rating.

Is it possible they might delay the release and change things to try to get it a lower rating to make it more accessible? I hope not.

I do have more interest that this might have a more serious feel to ESO.

Very very very unlikely that they'd move the release date. If I had to guess...they're probably feeling more like: "Well F-you then ESRB, why did we waste our time trying."

From ESO's facebook:

"The ESRB advised us that it has given The Elder Scrolls Online a Mature rating. While we may disagree with the ESRB’s determination, we do not plan to challenge the rating, and we are unwilling to change the game’s content to achieve a different rating. The game we have created is the one we want our fans to be able to play.
As a result of the ESRB rating, we are in the process of promptly updating everything with the required rating and age gates, including game trailers, web sites, and ads. Thanks for your understanding. We can’t wait to welcome players into The Elder Scrolls Online soon."

Ohhh this is good to hear, thanks!

I don't think an M rating will have much of an effect. Plenty of games are already plenty popular and sell tons of copies with M ratings. Just look at previous games released. Elder Scrolls typically has had an M rating. GTA games are extremely popular as well as the Saints Row games. I was playing M rated games when I was just a wee lad. These days just about anyone can get a hold of those and seems majority of parents don't even really pay much attention to what their kids are playing anyways any more.

Personally I prefer games being M rated just because to me it gives developers more freedom to basically do what they want and not have to sit and worry about if it's too much.

The players are governed by their credit/debit cards for P2P online access anyway, so realistically it will fall to the parents of those who fall under the 'M' bracket (typically these players will not have their own bank account) to judge on whether they will allow the younger peeps to play on their cards. Basically it comes down to parental gating - which honestly is better than many 'M' rated games where the person simply gets X amount from their folks and goes and buys it or downloads it without any overseeing.

Most likely you will need a credit card to create an account to verify age. Parents that do buy their kids the game will probably do this but most will not.