The age ranges for games these days seem, in large part, to be decided upon somewhat arbitrary values. Games designed for children are often sweet, cuddly, and unchallenging. Meanwhile the games aimed at mature audiences, as far as their PEGI ratings would have us think, are usually simply characterised by violence. I make no judgement of the violence but it’s the most common route for games to incur the apprehension of the moral custodians.
While many of the games that fit into the PEGI-16, and especially PEGI-18, categories are violent, very few of them are what we might consider to be “grown-up” or “mature” in terms of their themes. If we look at Middle Earth: Shadows of Mordor for example, this is a game rated as a PEGI-18 by virtue of the fact you’re chopping off orc heads left and right, but the actual story is hardly mature at all. It’s a heroic power fantasy drawn around a very simple revenge plot. This isn’t a bad thing in and of itself, but there is a sense that the only thing really grown-up about the game is the bloodletting and the headlopping.
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