Is there a trope here?: Rated M For Money

This is basically just a list of mature rated titles.

Or rather, it's a list of games that have mature ratings for marketing purposes. I've only briefly skimmed through it, there might be some misuse, for example Oblivion getting the M rating over a nude mod, but there's more to it then "Have a list of M-rated games". The idea here is that M-rated games sell and developers pander to it.

That would require some insider knowledge on why a videogame has mature rated content to begin with. Not every game with mature content is doing it to pander.

The ones that do are generally blatant about it.

Which ones? It's not like people don't just often misjudge decisions made creators.

Well, the original Grand Theft Auto used its rating in Britain as a selling point. Mortal Kombat's big thing is the gore. There's definitely some shoehorning going on(and I'm going to kill a few examples in a moment), but it's a valid trope.

You're talking about two different things. Mortal Kombat has gore in it. This is dealing with the game itself. Rockstar advertised the fact that Grand Theft Auto has a mature rating. This is dealing with the advertisement for the game.

edited 7th Nov '11 8:32:00 PM by captainpat

I don't see the difference. Midway certainly wasn't after the rating itself(what with the ESRB not existing at the time), but Mortal Kombat's gore and fatalities have always been the big draw.

It's a big draw for the audience. Why the developers put made the game that way is something we'd need to learn from the developing themselves. Also, we already have Gorn for gratuitous violence.

edited 7th Nov '11 8:51:48 PM by captainpat

Not the developers, they just make the game. Marketers decide how it will be sold and who they're selling to.

So this trope should be limited to advertisements and not the product itself.

Advertisers also tell the developers, "you need to add X for our Target audience."

Unless you know that's the case with certain works then you're making assumptions about the creative process. Also what you're describing sounds a lot like Executive Meddling.

It depends on a lot of things, covers, advertising, and sometimes game content.

For Covers some are extremely alluring such a Dead Or Alive Extreme Beach Volleyball or Catherine, then there are the bloody ones like God Of War or back covers too. (and they could easily go with anything really even minimal white covers like the Final Fantasy games)

Advertising... Didn't Dead Space 2 run ads saying this is a game your mom won't let you play or something?

Then there are some games where the M seems tacked on like the could of easily made it T for Teen if they wanted to but no. (Metal Gear Solid comes to mind as does Fable).

They just need to pander to the M crowd thinking it will sell better I think.

edited 8th Nov '11 8:13:35 AM by Raso

There's nothing in this description pointing to anything tropable or what's been said in this thread. All it's saying is that there's more matured videogames today than when games started, there's a perception that mature rated titles are big sellers, and in actuality there's really only ever a small portion of mature rated titles that sell well. That's it. There is no trope is this description.

I strongly suspect it's a real... thing. But what would make it more valuable would be:

• Broadening to all media, not just games.
• Word of God. It would be interesting to find out exactly what mature content was added with a clear agenda to pull an audience. And how much artists and execs sit down and think this one through. Hearsay, not so much. But it's the kind of thing people tend not to go on the record for.

I have never heard of mature content being added to in a creative process of a work. Maybe it happens but it's not something a creator of a work would disclosed, let alone admit to adding content just to pander.

edited 12th Nov '11 3:49:26 PM by captainpat

bump, I really think we should cut this page or rework it into trivia.

edited 19th Nov '11 8:49:39 AM by captainpat

Yeah, this trope gets a ton of misuse. The Rabbids Go Home example sounds more like an inversion, if anything. It wasn't trying to be edgy, just wacky and marketable to children. The PEGI 12+ rating doesn't seem like would make the game sell any more copies, just less because it's not over-the-top violent or perfectly sparkly clean, the kinds of games kids' parents buy the most. It's in that uncomfortable middle zone for its target audience.

I don't think any usage would qualify as a misuse, consider this page isn't describing a trope to begin with.

bump

Yea, there's no trope here. Video games usually have things pulled - for example, the Oblivion example? Yea, Bethesda pulled the game over that to remove the content, then re-released it.

Simply saying "there are mature games that are marketed to mature audiences" isn't a trope. It's a fact, the same as "there are family-friendly games marketed to family-friendly audiences." What trope is that, "Rated E for Economics?"

Oblivion was removed a while back.

Ever hear of BMX XXX? Not sure if it fits the definition, but it was definitely accused of using nudity just to sell more copies.

Without Word of God or some advertisement (in that case we already have Sex Sells), the accusation are just useless speculation.

Before we decide which examples do and do not fit, does anyone have trope, Audience Reaction or something we could turn this page into? Because the extent of the description on this page is there's a lot more videogames these days and some mature videogames sell well.