What’s interesting is the definition of Adults Only:

“Titles rated AO (Adults Only) have content that should only be played by persons 18 years and older. Titles in this category may include prolonged scenes of intense violence and/or graphic sexual content and nudity.”


The primary difference between the Mature and Adults Only ratings is the amount or level of sexual content. To a certain extent, this is understandable. If in a game, a female character makes a pass on a male character, most would agree that it would not fall under the auspices of ‘adult content’. On the other hand, a full strip tease would, and one has to be an ‘adult’ (age varies on jurisdiction) to enter a strip bar. However, in a world where lawyers are filing class action suits against game publishers because a particular game ‘influenced’ a child into using guns, something doesn’t add up.

Looking at the M and AO ratings almost seems to imply that when a person turns 18, they magically became able to handle sex in a video game. On the other hand, it also seems like the M rating gives game publishers a target: trying to see how much they can get into a game before it gets nailed with the AO kiss of death.

Let’s face it. Games are more violent than they were a few years ago. Sure, older games didn’t have the graphics capability that we have today, but nobody can deny that it’s a lot more prevalent in today’s games. There’s also been an increase in the amount of incidents where a violent act was blamed on a game without an increase in the amount of games that were relabeled as AO. With the exception of the Leisure Suit Larry line, the DOA Extreme Beach Volleyball type games and maybe one or two others, there has not been the same increase in the amount of sex.