Going for the Throat

An Examination of the Pending "M" Rating in Age of Conan

It’s no surprise that Funcom is placing an M rating on their newest MMO Age of Conan.  The license lends itself to quite a bit of violence as well as other mature content.  The struggle for Funcom right now is keeping away from the new AO (Adult Only) rating.  Because they are trying to release the game worldwide, they have to deal with the strictures of the different countries.

For instance, in Germany, they dislike the visceral violence that the game demonstrates.  The North American and French markets seem to be ok with the random beheading and blood spatter. However, don’t let the French hear you swear.   This comes as a surprise, since I don’t know a Frenchman who can’t swear better than a sailor.   The North American market is no surprise.  The challenge faced on our side of the pond deals with the sexual situations within the game.  While these situations are not overt and certainly stay within the M rating standards, the moralistic attitudes up at the capital certainly hinder the company’s vision.

An M rating at this point wouldn’t hurt the worldwide market that Funcom is catering to.  However, an AO rating may kill it.   So let’s talk about the current MMO market.  The average age lies between 20 and 45 years old.  This is absolutely the right age to sell an M rated game.  However, there is always the liability of the unsupervised 13 year old kid who gets a hold of his parent’s credit card and goes to town.   With this knowledge in hand, the ESRB uses extra precautions to ensure that children aren’t exposed to that type of violence and sexuality.  Therefore, Funcom has to limit itself into the lines that the Board creates.  

At the upper level, it doesn’t seem to make much of a difference.  But, with that said, the deeper you delve into the problem, the more you realize that suddenly the game isn’t what Funcom wanted to create.  It’s not the game that the fans of the Conan franchise want to see.  They’ll stay within the strictures, but in the end should we worry about the loss of the essence of the games?

Now, from what I’ve seen, Age of Conan actually doesn’t display more violence or bad language than say God of War or even Gods and Heroes.  The major concern is going to be the occasional prostitute or the scantily clad villagers.  Again, this isn’t any worse than God of War which also had an M rating.   Some could argue that the decapitation is a bit much but this is old hat. It’s already been done (and done well might I say) by Fable and Prince of Persia 2.

In essence, companies who make run of the mill MMOGs should not have to worry about reaching the AO barrier.  That rating should be reserved for games that are; well, adult in nature.  I’ll lump myself into the typical North American stereotype and say -- games that are of a sexual nature.  Eros Island absolutely needs to be rated Adult Only.   Age of Conan does not.

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