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I was looking through my copy of PCZone today, when i saw this:
"I should explain why we haven't run a demo of Undying, despite the fac that it is freely available over the internet. Over the past couple of months you might have noticed a tiny ELSPA certificate on the cover of your CDs. We've been told if we don't use these voluntary ratings we run the risk of being sued for any obscene material that might appear. Like Undying. Having raved about the the atmosphere and playability we were desperate for you to get the chance to play it for yourselves, but then the bad news came. "It's an 18 certificate." So if we run with an 18 certificate you'd find us on the top shelf in between Fiesta and Escort."
So what does this mean for us games players then?
Well, having managed to download the demo, 96.8Mb, and just finished playing it i can safely say that it is quite scary and i agree with the 18 certificate. I'm 20, and if a game can make me jump and shock me, then i can understand why people don't want 14 year olds who buy games magazines to play it as well.
The thing is, as hardware increases and games become more realistic, we will probably see more and more games have ratings. It was quite obvious in the original Doom that things weren't real, when you shot something the blood was a big, square, pixellated mass. Games are now coming along like Duke Nukem, which will almost certainly be an 18, others will be released as well that may be too realistically gory for some, Return To Castle Wolfenstein, the new Doom game as well. Both of these may have some shock tactics in, and certainly have a fiar amount of blood. So more games will get the rating and have demos we can't play.
Or will they? How many people buy computer games without playing a demo first? Reviews are good and can be informative, but i personally prefer to play the game myself as only i know what game i will be prepared to spend £30 on. I suspect the majority of people also like to play the game themselves. If they can't get the demo from a magzine, or spend 3 1/2 months downloading it over their 33.6K modem (after all, not everyone has broadband net access, something developers would be wise to remember), will they still go out and buy the game?
So what is the answer? Tone down the demo so it is acceptable to the magazine publishers? But that will have it's own problems, people may complain when they get the game and find out it is more scary/gory/rude than the demo indicates. Imagine it, you play a demo of "Violent and Rude Game 3", which has been toned down, so all you do is walk around. You enjoy this, for some reason, so you buy the game. When you load the game up, oh no! There's lots of swearing and violence and blood, cue a law suit against the magazine and the games publishers. So maybe that's not an answer.
Another option would be to keep the gore/rude bits/scary bits in the demo so only a few people can get their hands on it, and hope word of mouth does the trick. Nothing sells ssomething better than rumour and expectation, look at the GBA, there has been so much on the 'net recently, only a handful of people have played one and yet that doesn't seem to be doing the sales any harm.
The third way would be for a special 18-rated magzine to come out. This magzine could deal primarily with 18 rated games, have all the disturbing demos on the one magazine. However, i feel that this option would cement gaming even further into the "geeky" section of some peoples minds if they saw a games magazine on the same shelf as Mayfair etc.
The answer that i'm hoping won't happen is for games developers to tone down the actual games themselves. We may see more FPS going along the same route as Nerf:Arena Blast. Oh god, please no!
All in all it's an interesting problem. Please discuss.
"I should explain why we haven't run a demo of Undying, despite the fac that it is freely available over the internet. Over the past couple of months you might have noticed a tiny ELSPA certificate on the cover of your CDs. We've been told if we don't use these voluntary ratings we run the risk of being sued for any obscene material that might appear. Like Undying. Having raved about the the atmosphere and playability we were desperate for you to get the chance to play it for yourselves, but then the bad news came. "It's an 18 certificate." So if we run with an 18 certificate you'd find us on the top shelf in between Fiesta and Escort."
So what does this mean for us games players then?
Well, having managed to download the demo, 96.8Mb, and just finished playing it i can safely say that it is quite scary and i agree with the 18 certificate. I'm 20, and if a game can make me jump and shock me, then i can understand why people don't want 14 year olds who buy games magazines to play it as well.
The thing is, as hardware increases and games become more realistic, we will probably see more and more games have ratings. It was quite obvious in the original Doom that things weren't real, when you shot something the blood was a big, square, pixellated mass. Games are now coming along like Duke Nukem, which will almost certainly be an 18, others will be released as well that may be too realistically gory for some, Return To Castle Wolfenstein, the new Doom game as well. Both of these may have some shock tactics in, and certainly have a fiar amount of blood. So more games will get the rating and have demos we can't play.
Or will they? How many people buy computer games without playing a demo first? Reviews are good and can be informative, but i personally prefer to play the game myself as only i know what game i will be prepared to spend £30 on. I suspect the majority of people also like to play the game themselves. If they can't get the demo from a magzine, or spend 3 1/2 months downloading it over their 33.6K modem (after all, not everyone has broadband net access, something developers would be wise to remember), will they still go out and buy the game?
So what is the answer? Tone down the demo so it is acceptable to the magazine publishers? But that will have it's own problems, people may complain when they get the game and find out it is more scary/gory/rude than the demo indicates. Imagine it, you play a demo of "Violent and Rude Game 3", which has been toned down, so all you do is walk around. You enjoy this, for some reason, so you buy the game. When you load the game up, oh no! There's lots of swearing and violence and blood, cue a law suit against the magazine and the games publishers. So maybe that's not an answer.
Another option would be to keep the gore/rude bits/scary bits in the demo so only a few people can get their hands on it, and hope word of mouth does the trick. Nothing sells ssomething better than rumour and expectation, look at the GBA, there has been so much on the 'net recently, only a handful of people have played one and yet that doesn't seem to be doing the sales any harm.
The third way would be for a special 18-rated magzine to come out. This magzine could deal primarily with 18 rated games, have all the disturbing demos on the one magazine. However, i feel that this option would cement gaming even further into the "geeky" section of some peoples minds if they saw a games magazine on the same shelf as Mayfair etc.
The answer that i'm hoping won't happen is for games developers to tone down the actual games themselves. We may see more FPS going along the same route as Nerf:Arena Blast. Oh god, please no!
All in all it's an interesting problem. Please discuss.
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Man Resident Evil scared me absolutely witless, you see at the time i had a Wardrobe facing my bed, and i had just done the bit where the zombie bursts out of the wardrobe after reading his diary. I couldn't sleep for ages, even though i knew there were no zombies there i just couldnt close my eyes through sheer terror....
Itchy. Tasty......
Itchy. Tasty......
I didnt really get too scared with the Resident Evil series. The thing that Resident Evil does is make you jump. I remember that the first one had a few jumping moments and so did the second. I do agree that Resident Evil is scary and would make quite a few people scared out of there witts.
Silent Hill is a more disturbing game and has a more sinester and scarier feel about it than RE has. But this is my opinion.
Silent Hill is a more disturbing game and has a more sinester and scarier feel about it than RE has. But this is my opinion.
Thanks everyone!
Silent Hill was quite disturbing though with nurses bleeding to death etc.., although it didnt have the shock value of Resident Evil (i.e. Zombies appearing out of nowhere etc).
I personally think the Resident Evil games are scariest although Silent Hill messed with my mind, probably my fault though as I replayed it until I got all of the endings.
Resident Evil = Scream Type horror value
Silent Hill = More of a Omen type horror flick
I personally think the Resident Evil games are scariest although Silent Hill messed with my mind, probably my fault though as I replayed it until I got all of the endings.
Resident Evil = Scream Type horror value
Silent Hill = More of a Omen type horror flick
Silent Hill scary? I didn't think it was at all. Just go and check out my review of it! I found it pretty boring actually. Am i brave or something? Resident Evil 2's the scariest game ive ever played-the 2nd scenario thiugh-with the tyrant in the trenchcoat...following you...smashing walls down...ARGH!!
So Tony, how did you get Ali to work on a Saturday then?
So he has!
Well done!
Well done!
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