Blue made a mistake in his paraphrasing... TONS of games are rated 'M,' but very few are ever rated higher than that, i.e. AO - Adults Only. And for reasons exactly like the ones discussed here; America is full of a bunch of politically-correct, immature babies. Because of policies held by distributors and retailers, publishers are virtually forced to make sure they don't get higher than a Mature rating, or else suffer vastly reduced exposure in the marketplace.

Aside from the obvious pornographic games out there, I can only think of a couple off the top of my head. The original version of GTA:SA was re-branded AO, before they had a voluntary recall and re-issued later copies with the Hot Coffee patch built-in. They actually sent out little ESRB stickers for retailers to put on the boxes if they didn't want to send them back. (I pre-ordered a special edition of that game, wondering if that original M-rated disc in a hardback "Traveler's Guide to San Andreas" would be worth something now...) Rockstar also had either Manhunt or Manhunt 2 that was rated AO from the start, so I'm not surprised they never made any more of those, since the culture has only become more disapproving and restrictive of such things in recent years.

I have a very strong suspicion that Gearbox had to tone down the violence in Borderlands 2 compared to the first game (no exploding noggins from head shots, no reducing enemies to skeletons when they're electrocuted, bodies and rare gibs from explosions disappear very quickly, etc.) because they were facing an AO rating. It's basically a death sentence for any mainstream title, which is a crock of shit.

This comment was edited on Oct 11, 2012, 13:48.