So I had set up in my first article a foundation to our gaming journey. My aim is to give a fair amount of idea to you guys about the mammoth development that’s happening in the field of gaming. So basically to you non-gamers I want to give insight about how awesome it is; to have gaming as your first most habit. Yes am calling it habit because I don’t do gaming for my living (yet.. hopefully someday I will) and let me tell you; I don’t get enough time or resource to be considered as a Pro-gamer as well. You can call me a hardcore gamer because am damn serious, crazy about it and love gaming. In fact, Gaming is an industry like movies, like Hollywood, like Bollywood.
[dropcap]L[/dropcap]et me tell you a fact, just a month ago a Swedish guy bought mansion (I guess it’s a palace) for 70million dollars beating rapper Jay-Z and in bidding, you know how? He Markus Persson developed a simple yet complex game called Mine Craft. So in my last article I told you the average gamers age is 30 years. You did not know it because you did not know a few important things. You might have thought that gamers are those who play temple run, subway surfer, candy crush in their phone… or people who play hearts, checkers, jetpack joyride in their computers, People who do all these are very casual about games or they might have no idea about gaming at all… they just do it pass the time or just to get relaxed from their everyday schedule.
Let me tell you, to be considered as a gamer you should have at least one gaming console (could be a handheld as well) or an entry level gaming PC and more importantly have played at least one licensed gaming. Yeah don’t say what the hell does licensed mean, what I mean is playing a pirated game on your PC or console does not make you a gamer or bragging about a game with your friends without actually purchasing it, doesn’t make you a gamer because my friend you are not supporting the developers, you are not supporting the gaming community when you play a cracked or pirated gaming. As per government rules piracy is offense, be it gaming, movies or music.
Okay now the question… Question about the average age of gamer…why it is 30 and how it is 30. Yes, guys… the answer is simple; the way movies have rating like U, A, U/A as per suitable age, games have rated as well. When it comes to gaming it’s not that explicit content that brings rating to the table, it’s the violence, the language and the subject that puts the rating label on the game disc. What you have to understand from this that, when I say that this game is suitable for 18 years and above only, it does not mean that game is having only sexual content , it means that the game has strong violence, you might be killing thousands of enemies.. The games have strong language –meaning lot of F words n so. The game displays gore and blood at will. Because such content when exposed to children, they may not understand that the violence that’s happening on the screen is for fun, they may take it practically. This is true for movies as well but in my opinion gaming industry has better control over exposing content to children than movies. Based on these contents a game is given rating by PEGI, ESRB, let me just list it out for you guys , you can see these rating in the front and backside of the game disc , and it applies to digital version of games as well. Take time, read it thoroughly, it’s so important
| ESRB(Entertainment Software RatingBoard ) | PEGI(Pan-European Game Information) | ||
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EARLY CHILDHOODContent is intended for young children |  |
PEGI 3 The content of games given this rating is considered suitable for all age groups. Some violence in a comical context (typically Bugs Bunny or Tom & Jerry cartoon-like forms of violence) is acceptable. The child should not be able to associate the character on the screen with real life characters, they should be totally fantasy. The game should not contain any sounds or pictures that are likely to scare or frighten young children. No bad language should be heard. |
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EVERYONEContent is generally suitable for all ages. May contain minimal cartoon, fantasy or mild violence and/or infrequent use of mild language. |  |
PEGI 7 Any game that would normally be rated at 3 but contains some possibly frightening scenes or sounds may be considered suitable for this category. |
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EVERYONE 10+Content is generally suitable for ages 10 and up. May contain more cartoon, fantasy or mild violence, mild language and/or minimal suggestive themes. |  |
PEGI 12 Videogames that show violence of a slightly more graphic nature towards fantasy character and/or non-graphic violence towards human-looking characters or recognisable animals, as well as videogames that show nudity of a slightly more graphic nature would fall in this age category. Any bad language in this category must be mild and fall short of sexual expletives. |
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TEENContent is generally suitable for ages 13 and up. May contain violence, suggestive themes, crude humor, minimal blood, simulated gambling and/or infrequent use of strong language. |  |
PEGI 16 This rating is applied once the depiction of violence (or sexual activity) reaches a stage that looks the same as would be expected in real life. More extreme bad language, the concept of the use of tobacco and drugs and the depiction of criminal activities can be content of games that are rated 16. |
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MATUREContent is generally suitable for ages 17 and up. May contain intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content and/or strong language. |  |
PEGI 18 The adult classification is applied when the level of violence reaches a stage where it becomes a depiction of gross violence and/or includes elements of specific types of violence. Gross violence is the most difficult to define since it can be very subjective in many cases, but in general terms it can be classed as the depictions of violence that would make the viewer feel a sense of revulsion. |
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ADULTS ONLYContent suitable only for adults ages 18 and up. May include prolonged scenes of intense violence, graphic sexual content and/or gambling with real currency. | ||
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RATING PENDINGNot yet assigned a final ESRB rating. Appears only in advertising, marketing and promotional materials related to a game that is expected to carry an ESRB rating, and should be replaced by a game’s rating once it has been assigned. | ||
Source: http://www.pegi.info/ and http://www.esrb.org/
Besides these ratings, I should also tell you about genres …. There are Action, Adventure, Board/Card, Educational, Music/Dance, Puzzle, Racing, RPG, Sports, and Strategy (there are more to these but these are the main categories). Most famous of them all is Action, Adventure, RPG which is basically shooters/sword fighting games in Third Person View, First Person view or over the Top view also to some extent Sport games like FIFA, PES-Pro Evolution Soccer and NBA which are widely played by pro gamers. These games are usually not the one that kids play; they are extremely entertaining with strong language, strong violence, real life like game play and graphics and stupendous acting by Mo-Cap Actors (Motion Captured). These are widely played by adults, contributing to the average age group of 30. If you see the rating of extremely popular games like Call Of Duty , Battlefield , Assassins Creed, Dragon Age ,they are all rated 18 and above.
Yeah I get it, now you are saying that how someone make sure that games with 18 above rating are not played by kids, or teenagers. Well teenagers may not be a problem, They might digest the game content.. But it should not definitely fall into the hands of kids. One solution to the problem is better parenting; another solution is the game itself. These games even if a kid gets his hands on are typically unplayable to them; the game play is designed such that only adults can get it. Another solution is the market; games cost a lot, a console game costs generally 3500Rs and a PC game costs 1500 Rs approximately. The price gets reduced as the game becomes older and looses popularity. Under aged guys cannot buy them in legal store be it retail or online. If you find someone do it’s either because of bad parenting or the piracy. There are pirated retailers or online sites and I literally hate them, so is the game developers, so are the other gamers worldwide.
If you put forth the argument, what’s the difference between playing a pirated one and licensed one? Why I should pay damn 3000 Rs, when I get it for free or cheap rate through piracy. There is hell lot of difference; it’s like a flower without color and essence, it’s like breathing carbon instead of oxygen, it’s like playing cricket without the bat. I can’t explain to you in couple of words, lets discuss this in my next article. Till then happy gaming.
