I say AO. I'm half kidding. Bethesda should not be afraid to include anything that would make a better game, whether it is tasteful nudity (temples, dark seducers) or realistic gore. My main reason for this though is that if the content is too "mature" for the kiddies, maybe the game itself won't be tailor made for the D students of the world.

I sooooo agree with you. A M rating could open up more doors like, sixual themes, gore plus it can have a dark story and gamplay to it.

I agree with this. The game world feels wrong when there's not a darker aspect, that's one of the things I love about games like Deus Ex & Vampire: Bloodlines, they feel real...

I voted for an 'M' rating. Not so much because I simply want to see more gore or nudity, but because I think it would give Bethesda more freedom to explore more mature situations or themes. If that happens to include prostitution, drug use, alcahol abuse, rotting corpses, more realistic blood/gore, etc., then so be it. With a 'T' rating, Bethesda is forced to ignore these 'darker' elements of life.

I went with T, a great game doesnt have to have over the top violence or nudity as long as they focus on things that would be alot of fun im happy no matter how bloody it is.

Oblivion was origionally a T, but by Morrowind's standards lacked the enuendo. It got an M for the secret boob file anyone with morrowind's cs could replicate. I think the devs will shoot for M, unfortunately that doesn't mean "better".

Heh, I didn't give my opinion :facepalm: I'd be fine with T or M. Maybe E if it were set in Elsweyr and plenty campy.

I wish I could believe that. But, let's face it, game developers are more likely to strive for the 'T' rating for the same reasons Hollywood strives more for PG-13. They are able to sell to a larger audience that way.

I actually think that it works differently. An 11 year old will see an M-rated game and go, "Oh mah gawdz!!!1!! It must haev blood and deth and six and beerz!!! Im gettin taht!!!11!!1!!!" and nag their parents to get it, wheras with a T-rated game they think "Eeehhh looks kinda nasty, but this game ovr here, Counterstrike, looks much better!!1!! Lookz at the gore!!!"

You're partially right. Kids will generally look for the game that has the best graphics and the most mature content and try to dupe their parents into buying that game. But the bottom line is who's laying down the money? The answer: parents. Some parents are lax enough to let their kids play a game that might be inappropriate for their age (according to the ESRB), but developers are more likely to play it safe and make a game that ALL parents will be comfortable purchasing.

M rating or disappointment.

I want more realistic blood and gore, the ability to cleave my enemies' heads in half, blast them to bits with a fireball, or smash their face in with a warhammer.

Nudity could be in there, just as long as it isn't the selling part of the game.

funny thing is I was pretty young in the early/mid 90s back when the genesis and SNES had been out for awhile, my parents were fairly strict about what I played but didnt mind too much. Though I'll admit I cheated sometimes and would play gory games like Doom at my buddies place. generally though I played mostly platformers on the genesis and saturn for years and was perfectly happy. I didnt care if a game had a ton of violence or not.

Im 22 years old now just for reference so im not old or anything and my girlfriends nephews are 10 and younger and they play games like GTA and I slap my head thinking jeez Doom isnt even close to that violence for there age .

I think they should aim for the T rating. No reason to have it to explict.

The M rating makes the most sense for a game like Elder Scrolls. Oblivion was M, and really in some regards it was too tame, too "sanatized" and content edited to be realistic. There were texts on sixuality (some very emphatically insisting that one is wasting ones life if one has not had it fairly recently and explicityly. . . see the Kajiit tome from the brotherhood member in Bruma), and implications about invitations and prosttutes but not even the most minimal follow through. Both God of War and Conan manage to maintain the M rating, and they go down to the line on both partial nudity, gore and sixual content. And of course there is always GTA, and less graphic but still quite suggestive, Fable I and II. It seems only reasonable that the game should have at least the same level of sixual content as say, Fallout3. And, as I have said before, a nvde bottom is not really grapic sixuality. Everyone knows what they look like, everyone has one, and depending on the depiction a film can show one and still have a pg rating. The mutilated ones we see on the corpses in Oblivion are far more disturbing than an intact one would be. I wouldn't push for anything super graphic. Neither in the sixual nor violence department. I don't need to see anyone's head cleaved in two. I am an American. . . I live in the same state Bethesda calls home, albiet further north. Yet I must have some mildly European sensibilities or something. . . a lot of the hometeam attitudes on nudity and six are so illogical. . . and inane. It never ceases to amaze me when I read game forums, and see a poster call people sick or perverse for advocating sixual content (that thing that pretty much all mammals are profoundly programmed to seek out from about early adolescence until. . . oh about death), but will turn around in the same sentence and talk about what they really want to see being. . . severed lends and more bloodspray. Is that psycho talk?

Anyway, the games will be far more immersive and realistic if they add more sixual content (tastefully, not graphically), more partial nudity (again, bums is enough) and SLIGHLTY enhanced gore. . . but it really doesn't need to be anything gruesome like what you could do in Jade Empire or mortal combat. There is realistic violence, and then there is warped, Al Queada/Hannibal lecter, psychopathic, person is deeply sixually repressed and is substituting excessive violence to make up for denied sixual aggression/fullfilment. We really don't need the latter. Even a small child could walk in on a game scene of someone running down the street with their bum exposed. . . most children under a certain age wouldn't even realize there were any sixual connotations. . . they would just start laughing at the half naked idiot. . . a small child walks in and sees someone's head explode. . . . you've got some explaining to do.

I know. Really.
What I ment was how can a game like TES4 be rated Mature when it's obviously aimed for kids?


This guy must be wearing speedos as he showers.

What else is useless in a roleplaying game?
-Nudity
-six
-Food
-Drink
-Sleep
-Seasons
-Weather
-Physics
-Children
-Skills
-Attributes
-Factions
-Fun
-Immersion
-Challenge

What's left, a sword fighting game without any realism. Who first lands 300 hits wins.

I remember my parents and my friends parents abhorring the idea of Mortal Kombat in the early 90s. Regardless, I couldn't play games with much gore, and it even took some convincing to let me have Ocarina of Time. They've always pretty much been okay with the general mario, star fox games, but were a little cautious with Altered Beast. That's the kind of house I grew up in. Wasn't till I was older and more mature did they start not minding blood in games, as long as I don't play it in front of my siblings (not that they liked those games anyway)

One more thing. Dark Messiah was rated +18 here, while the plot and characters were aimed for 12-15 year old boys only.
I couldn't take that game seriously, neither as a joke.

The target audience shouldnt even be playing the game according to law. Thats just frigging stupid.

Let's have a game made by advlts, for advlts, please.

Silly kids, TES is for grownups.

TES is for mature ppl, not all advlts are "mature", some kids are "mature". It doesn't matter what age, as long as the player is "mature".

Ratings are based almost solely on how bloody stuff is and how many boobies can be onscreen at once and is thus non-indictive of the actual content of the game. Morrowind certainly had a much darker atmosphere, it should've been rated M and Oblivion T.

AO or M for mature.

Yup, M is good. (fatted the reasons.)

Voted ao: Mature/tripple x :twirl:

I'd prefer Bethesda mainly "shooting" for a T rating, but if the situation calls for it, don't be afraid to do something that might get an "M" stuck on it. In other words, no "M" just for the sake of it, but if the game would actually be much better for it (as opposed to impacting certain marketing segments), I'd settle for it.

The unused "topless" MW file that you could only find with the CS was a pitifully stupid reason to have an M rating tacked onto a game; if you're going to get the rating, the buyers at least ought to get the "benefits" of it, with grittier dialog, more "suggestive" themes, and a little more harsh reality on the combat graphics. A hidden file causing a rating change just shows poor internal controls.

Yeah, but a rating of "M" doesn't mean psychological maturity, it just means there's suggesting themes, partial nudity, excessive violence, drugs, alcohol, and cussing. Which, when you think about it, really isn't that mature.