In Third Person

Last year, my 7 year-old cousin at the time discovered Modern Warfare 2 through my 12 year-old cousin. Ever since that day, my now 8 year-old cousin has become enamored with the Mature-rated Call of Duty series. For him, Modern Warfare 2 was his Mortal Kombat; it was his gateway drug to Mature-rated games. As of now, he owns Conflict: Denied Ops and Sniper: Ghost Warrior, which he brags about being M-rated all the time.

I didn’t bring this anecdote up to talk about parenting. I don’t approve of him playing content I would deem inappropriate for him and I do what I can to keep that stuff away. The reason I bring this up though, is because my 8 year-old cousin now views that M rating as a symbol of cool. He loves the fact that he owns games that he knows he’s too young to be playing. They’re his forbidden fruit and he’ll take anything he can get at this point.

All of this made me think about my video game collection and how it relates to the ESRB. Once upon a time, the Mortal Kombat series was my forbidden fruit. Did my catalogue of games evolve in relation to the ESRB guidelines or did I overdose on forbidden fruit? I do the math to answer these questions and highlight any insights regarding gaming as I grew up.

Nintendo 64 (E: 77%, T: 15%, M: 8%)

The Nintendo 64 was part of the first generation of systems to be governed by the ESRB from beginning to end. At the time, I was an awkward adolescent trying to survive the ‘hardships’ of middle school. It’s easy to look back on those days and laugh at myself, but back then, the gravity of middle school drama was immeasurable.

Anyway, my gaming at the time mainly consisted of E-rated games, which lined up well with my age. However, I think the skew towards E-rated games has more to do with the Nintendo 64’s catalogue of titles. Most people buy Nintendo systems to play first-party games such as Mario and Zelda. I bought my Nintendo 64 mainly to play those Nintendo-made games. Since Nintendo has always focused on making family-friendly titles, this factor directly correlates to my heavy skew towards E-rated games.

As far as T and M-rated titles go, there were slim pickings on the Nintendo 64. I’m sure I would have bought more T and M-rated games had they not all ended up on the Playstation. I don’t think I missed those too much at the time though, cause I was too busy playing Goldeneye and Perfect Dark.

Gamecube (E: 69%, T: 23%, M: 8%)

The Gamecube’s life-cycle was in sync with my later years in high school and early years in college. Outside of games, I was working as a stock boy at a pharmacy, a member of the high school basketball team and doing everything in my power to be ‘gangster’.

The Gamecube was not a gangster system at all. That system was ‘kid-zoned’ the moment Nintendo revealed that it looked like a purple lunchbox. As with the Nintendo 64, my Gamecube catalogue still skews heavily towards family-friendly first-party games.

Despite that, there was a rise in T-rated games. Some of those games had T ratings because of licensed music (Tony Hawk series), while others were clearly more ‘grown-up’ affairs. In particular, the Metroid Prime series is T-rated.

The only M-rated Gamecube games I own are Resident Evil games. The Resident Evil remake opened my eyes to the series and Resident Evil 4 still stands as one of my all-time favourite games.

Nintendo Wii (E: 72%, T: 23%, M: 5%)

The Wii came out during a very weird time of my life. I had been out of school for just over a year and my young adult life was off to a rough start. I was working part-time in the industry I wanted to be in, but in a position I didn’t necessarily want. I was hoping that I could use it as a stepping-stone towards a full-time job in my desired role, but it wasn’t panning out. In order to pay the bills, I was working three part-time jobs and heavily contemplating making some serious changes to my life direction.

The Wii also signified a change in my gaming platform tastes. I bought one at launch, knowing that Nintendo’s focus would not be on the core gamer. I still thought that there would be enough on the Wii to keep me satisfied, just as the Gamecube did. That didn’t pan out. I eventually couldn’t ignore the fact that this system was not for me and I responded by buying an XBOX 360 a few months later.

Just like every other Nintendo system I’ve owned, almost everything I have is first-party. I’ll probably always buy a Nintendo system just for that. However, I’ve essentially grown out of Nintendo’s platform and looked elsewhere to satisfy my tastes.  As a young adult, I’ve done next to nothing as far as mature gaming on the Wii. The only M-rated title I own is The Godfather: Blackhand Edition.

XBOX 360 (E: 21%, T: 31%, M: 48%)

After years of T and M-rated deprivation on my Nintendo systems, I really went nuts on the XBOX 360. In terms of percentages and raw numbers, I have way more T and M-rated games on this system alone than I do on all my other Nintendo systems combined. In hindsight, I missed out on a lot of great games appropriate for my teenage and young adult self because I was a Nintendo loyalist. Though most of my mature games are only mature in the blood and guts sense, Mass Effect 1 and 2 are definitely games that feature more adult themes, such as moral conflicts and romance. I don’t think I would have appreciated that series as much as I do now had I played them when I was younger.

I did not include my new PS3 in this post because I don’t have a deep enough catalogue to make any solid judgments at this point. My guess is by the end of this console cycle, the ESRB rating breakdown of my PS3 catalogue will likely look similar to my XBOX 360 breakdown, but its too early to say.

In conclusion, my ESRB story isn’t really an ESRB story at all. My parents never put any restrictions on what I could and couldn’t play. However, I was totally restricted by my self-imposed platform preferences. Once I grew out of my Nintendo loyalty, my stash of T and M-rated games grew dramatically.

I’m not sure if my cousin will continue down the same path he’s heading in, but it’ll be interesting to see where he goes. Unlike me, he already owns multiple consoles and has basically shunned his Wii to play XBOX 360 instead.

What’s your ESRB story? Did your gaming tastes stay in line with their age guidelines as you grew up? If they don’t, why did it vary? You don’t have to crunch the numbers like I did, but I’d love to hear your stories!