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[ViewtifulJC]

Not Nintendo games, if that's what you're getting at

 

[Spring-Loaded]

No supervision ("ramirez, do ____!")

 

[jimi_dini]

Silent Hill 2 is one of those mature games.

this

+Killer7
+NieR
+Drakengard (haven't played it yet though)
+Spec Ops: The Line

and that's basically it

The rest is just violent + sexual themes for the sake of it (to appeal to teens, kids). In that case it's simple. Just look for the M for "wanna feel mature" sticker

 

[Shaanyboi]

A game that treats its subject matter and its audience with a level of intelligence and isn't focused purely on power-fantasy wish fulfillment, despite whether or not that element exists.

Mature games in my eyes...

Silent Hill 2
Gone Home
Last of Us
Silent Hill: Shattered Memories
Spec Ops: The Line
Thomas Was Alone
Brothers: Tale of Two Sons
Journey
The Fall
Wind Waker

Definitely not very mature

Gears of War
Resident Evil
Call of Duty/most military shooters


And there's stuff that's thoughtful but may or may not be very mature depending on who you talk to like the Bioshock games, and there's stuff that either just doesn't really care because it's so mechanics focused like XCOM: Enemy Unknown or Mario Galaxy

 

[Carcetti]

Spec Ops the line is a great example of a game that uses the imagery of the usual faux mature games and is actually mature on the inside as well. Gone Home and the Last of Us are good examples of games with themes that you can appreciate more if you're an actual adult and have certain life experiences.

 

[Tellaerin]

For me there's two types.

First one is the rare one, the actually mature game with adult themes that are handled in non-ridiculous manner.

The second one is the one that wants to be called mature but is more like 'teh m4tur3' with flying guts, dismemberment, silly quicktime sex scenes etc. God of War series is a good example of this. It's something you'd imagine a 12 year old would describe as mature.

No one's pretending games like GoW are "mature" in the sense of having great depth and nuance, or that enjoying them is a mark of sophistication. No one, that is, except the people who criticize them for supposedly "wanting to be mature" in the way you're suggesting, despite the fact that they don't seem to aspire to that at all.

 

[Hyperzephyrian]

This is an interesting video that's about maturity and its relation to realism (in the literary sense). I highly recommend the channel in general.

Edit: I've never honestly asked myself while playing a game, "Is this mature?" But I guess I'd consider a game to be mature if it doesn't pander to the player (in narrative or gameplay) and if it clearly has something to actually say, has real and effective themes that don't exist simply to be window-dressing. A game like this can still be crap, though.

 

[Avex]

Personally, I think the most indicative concept that makes a game mature is presenting situations in which the player doesn't have a clear black and white moral guideline. Whether it be an active decision the player has to make, i.e. The Walking Dead, or something more cinematic like one of the many scenes from The Last of Us, namely the intro

Spoiler

where the soldier has to go against his moral ideals and ends up killing Joel's daughter

. Provoking some form of mental dialogue within the player that causes them to question the moral choices of the protagonist, or the society the game is portraying makes a game "Mature" for me.

 

[Vulcano's assistant]

Games where the important bit would be lost on you without certain age.

 

[Hiltz]

A game with a thought-provoking story. Killer7's gameplay was alright, but its story, while convoluted, open-ended and pretty nonsensical , it enthralled me due to how imaginative it is, and it was unlike any other game's story I'd experienced. It was original, eccentric, outrageous, memorable, but beyond its bizarre nature, it was fun to analyze aspects to its storytelling by putting the pieces of the puzzle together and trying to not always interpret things in a literal sense. I mean, there's things relating to cultural references, history, psychology, religion and the supernatural that fascinated me about the game's concept. Of course, there's no definite answers to all of the game's questions, but in a way, keeping some things unexplainable/mystery is part of the fun.

 

[Hero Prinny]

to me a game is mature if it does one basic thing: respect my intelligence. Most mario games aren't mature most of the time as in they're still explaining the same exact shit to you after like 5 hours of playing. Another example is when a game points out basic things to you right from the get go, like "OOOH LOOK AT THAT BUTTON, IUNNO MAN, MAYBE IF YOU PRESS IT THE ELEVATOR WILL TURN BACK ON!" yea no shit, i don't need you to tell me that. Honestly I think most games give kids too little credit, feels like most of the time their disrespecting their intelligence if you ask me. A game having blood and sex or whatever doesn't make it mature imo. For example, I think LBP is more mature than God of War.

 

[gblues]

As I think about it, I find that it's really only possible to define "mature" in terms of being "not immature." And I can give a list of some of the immature shit that pervades video games these days:

- Adding swearing to spoken game dialog (I would love for PG/PG-13/R filters to become a thing).
- Borderline-lecherous camera angles, costume designs, and animations for female characters.
- Shooting as the primary means of problem-solving.

That's not a knock against games that feature those things--there's nothing inherently bad about games being immature, but maturity to me has more to do with behaving like an adult than with features that pander to horny teenage boys.

 

[shinobi602]

Games where the important bit would be lost on you without certain age.

I like this train of thought.

 

[NewGame]

Games that explore interesring and unique ideas and concepts. Mature in the sense that they don't consider the player as stupid, but rather as someone who plays a game to learn and discover.

Journey - A story about discovery, self pity and humility.

Silent Hill 2 - A character who explores concepts of sex, death and broken promises.

Fire Emblem 7 - A tale of ideals and people clashing, how diplomacy and war intermingle.

Stuff like that.

 

[Kai Dracon]

I tend to see "maturity" in two dimensions.

Mature design.

Mature content.

Mature design can happen in any style of game, regardless of the game's "content". Mature design benefits an experienced, more adult mindset - you can get more out of the game, even if it's accessible to younger and less experienced people. Street Fighter 2 is a very mature game in terms of design. Colorful cartoon characters and chop-socky action hide a deeply strategic game that only gets deeper the older and more experienced a player gets.

Mature content is often confused with graphic and explicit content, aka, the old blood, guts, and saying fuck twice a minute. While explicit content is inappropriate for children, it's not the mark of maturity by itself. Generally, mature content speaks to adults on a level they can appreciate. That doesn't necessarily mean said content is adult in a cliche way. A story that can be understood by, and appeal to, children, can also be mature. The classic modern example in films would be something like a better Pixar movie.

Generally speaking a game that is rated M really only earns a badge of honest maturity if the rating is due to explicit content that is required in the service of mature themes. Going with God of War as the example, it's rated M mostly due to bloody gore, and tries to encompass "mature" themes in story and character arcs, but it's pretty silly. The gore, sex, and violence are largely there for their own sake, and the story is a bit tryhard with the mature themes.

 

[the21O]

No one's pretending games like GoW are "mature" in the sense of having great depth and nuance, or that enjoying them is a mark of sophistication. No one, that is, except the people who criticize them for supposedly "wanting to be mature" in the way you're suggesting, despite the fact that they don't seem to aspire to that at all.

This is so true. It has become exhausting having to read through all the snide comments from posters who can't wait to tell us how mature they are for liking E rated games and how immature everyone else is for wanting to play whatever M rated game. All the M rating means is that a game has content that some would find objectionable for people under a certain age.

 

[staticneuron]

Has content fitting for interpretation by adults, whether explicit or implicit.

This simple.

So what you're saying is that this...

... is a "mature" game? It was marketed as "a booze-chugging, stripper-ogling, baddie-blasting good time". Sounds more like an immature game to me.

So you know alot of young adults that chug booze, oogle strippers and blast baddies as an after school activity?

Mature themes and Mature content may not be the same exact thing but the attitude and approach being juvenile doesn't mean the content is.


Edit:

For me there's two types.

First one is the rare one, the actually mature game with adult themes that are handled in non-ridiculous manner.

The second one is the one that wants to be called mature but is more like 'teh m4tur3' with flying guts, dismemberment, silly quicktime sex scenes etc. God of War series is a good example of this. It's something you'd imagine a 12 year old would describe as mature.

No one's pretending games like GoW are "mature" in the sense of having great depth and nuance, or that enjoying them is a mark of sophistication. No one, that is, except the people who criticize them for supposedly "wanting to be mature" in the way you're suggesting, despite the fact that they don't seem to aspire to that at all.

That is not what makes God of War mature. The glorification of the violence and the horrible way humans are treated is an homage to the source material. Seriously, alot of horrible things that he does are influenced by those stories. What is fantastic about it is that they created a story which used those tropes as a physical embodiment of what kills the greek gods and ends their rule over humanity. But if all you got out of the series is, blood/gore/tits, then that speaks more about your interpretation as an individual and less about the product they created.

 

[toythatkills]

Swearing and boobs!!!

But seriously, this isn't the only factor but I'd say it's essential: don't treat the player like a fucking moron. If the start of your game is tutorial after tutorial, and then you're reminding players every few minutes what happened in Tutorial X, then your game is not a "mature" representation of the art form. Not enough games trust the players these days so when something like Toki Tori 2 comes along with a staggeringly good way of teaching the player to play, it really stands out. I'm not necessarily saying that TT2 is a mature game, but its trust in the player is mature.

I can't comment on TLoU being mature, I played it for a couple of hours and it was so fucking basic that I got bored. Block pushing puzzles and fetch quests, shoot-out set-pieces, comedy blood pools. Its gameplay was far from mature, it was straight outta 1995. Obviously it could have improved massively beyond that, but it left a pretty shit first impression. And everything is explained in so much detail, there was no room for experimentation or anything, there's a game that didn't trust me.

It's a difficult question though, mature means different things to different people.

 

[ForsakenLotus]

There are games that are mature because they address mature themes in a reasonably intelligent manner. However, while a game may address its themes poorly or in a juvenile way, but that doesn't mean it's not mature - just stupid.

So for instance, The Last of Us, BioShock and Catherine are really good examples of "traditionally" mature games. Battlefield, God of War and Killzone are mature games that handle their themes in a juvenile way.

And c'mon guys, no mature video games? Way to be elitist...

 

[royox]

Precisely.

Nintendo games tend to be categorized as 'kiddy' and immature for all the wrong reasons. People typically focus on the art style and sound design of Nintendo games, and use those two factors as the basis for calling their titles 'kiddy'. We're all guilty of judging a book by its cover. Once we 'open' Nintendo's book, we realize that it's the story, characters, and gameplay design that make their games more fitting for a younger audience than an older audience.

At the end of it all, it comes down to the markets that these platforms are intended for. Nintendo deliberately avoids creating games that are more suitable for adults than children. Microsoft deliberately avoids creating games that are more suitable for children than adults. Sony sits in the middle - they invest in a library of titles that can be enjoyed by both adults and children. They've had their share of flops (e.g. PlayStation Move Heroes, EyePet, Fat Princess) and their share of successes (e.g. LittleBigPlanet, The Playroom, Singstar, Buzz, Sly Cooper etc.).

Nintendo is like Pixar. They make movies for kids that can be enjoyed by an adult...but they are still movies for kids.

 

[Zimbardo]

a mature game to me is basically something similar as to what you'd see in a rated R movie.

 

[Trust me. I'm a PhD]

I am going to go ahead and say that there are a lot of M rated games that have a lot of Immature content. For me, the game needs something that speaks to adults or older teens in a way that a younger audience would not be able to appreciate. I guess the first one that comes to mind for me would be a game like Hotline Miami. A younger player (or even most adult players when first seeing it) only see "cool" violence and not what the game is and says underneath that. Or even outside of violence a game like Deus Ex Human Revolution deals with some pretty heavy subjects and context (Discrimination, evolutionary fear, Transhumanisim, and the social/political implications of them) in a way that a general "Teen" player would not nor could not fully appreciate. But a game does not need a mature rating to tackle such subjects maturely. Valkyria Chronicles was a teen rated "Anime game," but tackled racism, historical revisionism, racial identify as informed by said historical revisions, and even the political relationships that exist between militias and standing Armies during war. But it also had a "Beach episode" so you can see a bunch of 17 year old girls in bikinis. No game is mature all the time^^

But for me the TLDR is that games are truly mature when they ask you questions or challenge your way of thinking in a manner that would go over the heads of a younger audience.

 

[EGM1966]

Adult themes and content handled sensibly for me. Silent Hill 2 for example behind the fog deals with some pretty adult themes and in particular the effect of a partner sucumbing to terminal illness on their partner. TLOU would be another example.

Most mature rated games i view as immature such as Gears Of War or GTA (although the latter has some adult satire at least).

 

[PetrCobra]

I don't even think games as a medium have matured yet. They've just about managed to reach puberty as far as I'm concerned.
And that's okay. I'm playing games to have fun.
As for the definition, I sure as hell don't associate game's qualities with the style of cutscenes, amount of swear words or visual presentation. If there's a story in a mature game, it needs to be told through the gameplay, or at least not separately from it. A mature game takes place in a world where it makes sense to do what I'm doing as a player. In a mature game, I'm not told an irrelevant story to motivate me to jump from one platform to another, that motivation should either come from the gameplay itself or it should make sense as a part of the story to keep jumping between platforms.
Portal and Portal 2 are good examples of mature games I think.

 

[Floridian]

Games that have content that justify a mature rating such as blood/gore/sexual content/themes/language/etc.

 

[GiantEnemyGoomba]

Games that deal with thematic elements that an average pre-adolescent person wouldn't really "get."

 

[ishibear]

Games that deal with themes I (or people like me) can relate about, instead of fighting demons for the sake of fighting demons. Games that will make me re-evaluate my own life.

Silent Hill 2 is one of those mature games.

A game that requires the player to have the maturity to appreciate its themes and complexities.

Mature rated games can be among the most immature though.

I like these answers. Very accurate.

 

[popyea]

I wouldn't know. I've never used the word to describe games or even movies. I've used it to describe cheese though.

 

[MaximoffZero]

Most misleading rating ever.

 

[Riposte]

Games are not mature or immature, people are. (And what it means to be mature is highly arguable.)

EDIT: A game that can be enjoyed (or let's say, thoroughly enjoyed) by a mature person suits mature taste, thus is a mature game.

That's one meaning of maturity, the kind people seem to be referring to here, but a more appropriate meaning would be how "complete" the game is. An immature game is one that still needs to grow, e.g., a beta.

 

[Diprosalic]

Silent Hill 2 is one of those mature games.

funny thing is, i bet the vast majority of gaffers played it as a kid.

 

[McNum]

Another kind of mature game that people here are missing is the simulation games. Games that take some serious matter really seriously. Train Simulator being the standout here. You want trains? You got trains. (And a zombie apocalypse DLC since everyone else was doing it.) And before MS killed it, Flight Simulator. There were even people playing traffic control there, like all they did was be on voice chat and direct the other players in their planes.

Also games like Civilization, the Total War games, and the even more complex nation builders like the Europa Universalis games. Managing finances, building armies, handling diplomatic connections, waging war, building alliances, breaking alliances, caring for the welfare of your people versus developing the atomic bomb first. That's pretty heavy material, even if some games dress it up to be more easily accessible and a few do not.

And on that same note, Football Manager. There's FIFA, which is for people who want to play the game of football, and Football Manager, for those who want to play the other game of football, with managing a team, finances, player transfers, tactics, stadium building and all that managing a football team covers.

So, yeah, there are plenty of mature games around. Some might not seem obvious at first, but I can't see how a simulation game like these aren't mature games.

Of course, we have grey areas like the XCOM games. Serious gameplay, B-movie aliens. Kind of hard to place that one... A very mature setting of action and consequence with little grey men as the enemy. Of course, when you have the "Aliens invade!" story, and you're playing a squad of teched-out supersoldiers, the needle points to immature.

 

[Sentenza]

Well, for a start, the acceptation of the term is contextual, not absolute.
As a side note, I tend to have an implicit distrust for anyone trying to use the word "mature" as a seal of quality, rather than a mere adjective.

 

[Woffls]

A game's maturity is, for me, proportional to how much it makes me think. Not necessarily about the story, a puzzle, platforming design, or what I'm being asked to do, but about anything at all.

If the game can present a question that I care to think about, then I consider that a display of maturity, because it implies depth.

 

[-Horizon-]

Needs at least 3 waifus, no exceptions.

 

[bobbychalkers]

It depends on the context, 9 times out of 10 I would just say anything with an M rating.

 

[Astral/H3X]

IMO, a game's maturity is usually inversely proportional to how much it leans on "mature" things to identify itself. Gears of War, which let's just point out has a bloody skull stamp as its logo, is to me one of the least mature games. Call of Duty is all spectacle. Halo tries too much to "be more than it is", if that makes sense.

To me, what makes a game mature, is that it knows what it is. I haven't specifically played it, but The Last of Us, from what I've heard, is supposed to be good at telling a story, and not one that's just "DA RUSSIANS AGAIN~!", but one that actually focuses on characters having real depth, and not just people that it pretends you give two shits about when you don't (Looking at you, Battlefield). Mario is mature, because it knows exactly what it is; here's some colorful shit to jump on, it's fun, bring the family, great for everyone. It doesn't try to lure people in with violence or sex, or pretend to have the greatest story ever when it really isn't even good, it's exactly what it wants to be. I'd consider many visual novels to be mature as well, though Danganronpa is kind of in that weird border zone.

Ultimately, it's based on how confident the game is on being able to stand on its own merits, without having to resort to the typical big bux money making violence and sex for the sake of violence and sex.

 

[Hyperzephyrian]

IMO, a game's maturity is usually directly proportional to how much it leans on "mature" things to identify itself. Gears of War, which let's just point out has a bloody skull stamp as its logo, is to me one of the least mature games. Call of Duty is all spectacle. Halo tries too much to "be more than it is", if that makes sense.

I think you mean "inversely proportional."

 

[meppi]

Personally I feel that a "mature game" is just a term invented by insecure people trying to justify why they only play certain games in an attempt to make their circle of friends/relatives not comment on how silly it is that they play game X.

Bit sad really.

 

[Astral/H3X]

I think you mean "inversely proportional."

Ah, I suppose I do. Thanks for catching that.

 

[MrFrankFontaine]

Games I won't let my kids play basically. If the content is of a nature that is beyond a pre-teen or even a teenager, then it's mature.

It could be because it's too violent, has sexual content or the story has a sofitication that would be either over their head or that they're not ready for.

 

[Oersted]

Games that have content that justify a mature rating such as blood/gore/sexual content/themes/language/etc.

This and/ or games which deals with heavy topics like death/freedom etc. in mature ways. They don't have to have a high age rating. The former you mentioned often enough doesn't result in the latter, I mentioned. Or in short, mature content, immature handling of it.

 

[Tain]

I don't describe games as "mature", but I guess if I had to use the label it would be for games that reflect of a lot of refinement in their genre. Muchi Muchi Pork would be mature, Flower would not.

 

[Mory Dunz]

Beyblade

 

[orthodoxy1095]

Two kinds of mature games:

1. Mature games based on mature themes and topics: Catherine, NieR, TLOU, maybe The Witcher
2. Mature games based on complex mechanics such as ARMA or Gran Turiso.

In other words, games I wouldn't really play with a kid around. Would a kid enjoy Catherine? Doubt it. Would a kid enjoy playing Gran Turismo? Perhaps. But I would rather bring out LBP Karting or MK8 since I think they'd enjoy those games more.

 

[DevilFox]

I really like some answers. Now, my turn.

My definition of maturity has nothing to do with content or skills required, that's more a matter of audience than maturity. A game about hens looking for the ancient gold egg could be mature to my eyes, really.
What defines maturity is the mastery of the tools available in this media, the perfect blending of the components and the game being honest with itself.
Other media already reached this step a lot of times: cinema for example has learned the direction, how to use the camera, sounds and music, lights, how to write a good screenplay, they learned that even moments of "fucking nothing happens" can actually be very expressive

or that by inducing the viewer's mind to do the dirty job can be worse than show it (Hitchcock's shower scene for example)
They both learned how to use the tools they had at their very best.

Therefore, when a game does this job, I consider it mature.
Examples of mature games to me are The Last of Us, Bioshock, System Shock, Portal or Half Life. Story and gameplay are not separated, a different way of storytelling that uses the tool of this medium rather than other's: the gameplay (or interaction if you prefer), for better and stronger results.
It's a very important point and the reason I consider MGS3 mature, more than MGS4. In MGS3 the player itself develop John, from the Naked Snake to the feared Big Boss, the man who killed his emotions and his Joy to live. All this is done with gameplay (through a metaphor) and when we shoot that last bullet in that field of flowers, that button means A LOT to us, because we were linked to Snake.

A special moment of amazing visual, music and the most important [] pressed of the game. If this was a cutscene, that would be very immature.

And just to say, I think that cartoonish games can be mature as well. If visuals, music, sounds and motion controls all together managed to give that magical feeling of Mario Galaxy, for example, why not consider it mature? They did a good use of the tools they had and the game is very expressive in its own way without the need of deep characters, story or themes.

I don't know if I explained myself. Anyway, one thing is sure: if a game can have the "fucking nothing happens" moment and still manage to tell a lot, that's the moment I realize I'm playing a mature game.

 

[orthodoxy1095]

I really like some answers. Now, my turn.

My definition of maturity has nothing to do with content or skills required, that's more a matter of audience than maturity. A game about hens looking for the ancient gold egg could be mature to my eyes, really.

I agree with the rest of your post and your analysis of themes story and direction etc, but I have an issue with this. Most games do have stories and themes worth analyzing. But how then would you take games like Gran Turismo which seem to be fundamentally about complex and detailed mechanics?

 

[SerTapTap]

I prefer to not use the term at all. It's an invitation for people to argue that the game and/or all games are inherently immature by their own personal definition.

Has content fitting for interpretation by adults, whether explicit or implicit.

If I were forced to use the term, this is roughly what I'd use it as.

 

[Pro from Dover]

Any game I keep from the hands from all but the wisest of children.

 

[MidgarBlowedUp]

Manure maybe.