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Comment by bradwestness | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, there's no way they don't make an exception for legitimate mature rated games. The restrictions are just there so they have something they can point to when they reject malware apps or apps that are blatantly promoting violence or drug use or whatever.

They just released a Netflix app, and you can watch as many R-rated movies on it as you like. You can certainly view adult content with any Metro-enabled web browser. There's no way, as a corporation, that they're going to give up the revenue stream that is mature rated PC games.

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> Yeah, there's no way they don't make an exception for legitimate mature rated games.

Why should they? They don't have any reason to allow mature games, which certainly haven't been very common on consoles. It looks like PCs are headed in the same direction. Chances are these sorts of products will simply follow the path of least resistance and move to the web.

Edit: my bad, I'm not a big gamer, so I'm not familiar with the ratings terminology. When I said "mature" games, I was referring to games with adult content, not the games where you can shoot/kill people.

"Why should they? They don't have any reason to allow mature games [...]"

Can you elaborate on what you mean here? Microsoft publishes games that are designated with the M (Mature) rating. For example, see the Gears of War franchise, published by Microsoft Studios (formerly known as Microsoft Game Studios).

"Microsoft and Epic Games today announced that the Xbox 360 exclusive sold more than three million copies in its first week since release, cementing "Gears 3" as the biggest game of 2011 and catapulting the franchise beyond one billion dollars in lifetime sales." [1]

[1] http://epicgames.com/news/gears-of-war-3-soars-past-three-mi...

Edit: w1ntermute & freehunter: Thanks for the clarification!

Either it's sarcasm or he's thinking about AO (Adults Only) and saying Mature by mistake. AO is uncommon because no major console maker will let AO games on their system and no major store will stock them. Mature games are the most popular category of console games.

They have every reason to allow mature rated games. Mature rated games are among the most popular games out there on console and PC, Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty , Elder Scrolls to name but a few.

PC Gamers who like R rated games have been a fair chunk of MSs user base for years now, thinking all the way back to 1991 and Wolfenstein 3D. Games are a big reason a lot of people are sticking with Windows as opposed to getting a Mac or trying Ubuntu.

Another factor to consider here might be that not all R rated content is considered equal, for example it appears that in America strong violence is less taboo than sex or swearing. So maybe Blood'n'Guts 3 gets an exception but Karma Sutra: The Game doesn't?

I also think it'll be quite some time before we have AAA game engines running nicely under WebGL.

>When I said "mature" games, I was referring to games with adult content, not the games where you can shoot/kill people.

Find it interesting that sex is deemed more "adult" than murder.

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