The Struggle towards Game Makery

I cannot remember a time in my life where gaming wasn't a big deal. Even during high school, and a few times in college, when I tried acting how I thought an adult should act, and be interested in what I thought adults were interested in, I still snuck in game time. Sometimes it was on a DS, other times in a browser window, or on someone else's console at a party, or while at home over breaks.

However, it wasn't until recently that I really got into the indie gaming culture. Until that point, I had mostly stuck to the big names in the industry and mainly played on systems made explicitely for gaming. I had never wanted to make games or join the industry, in fact, the idea of making a game was such a huge, complex, team-based concept, that it had never even slightly appealed to me.

Once I saw individuals making creative, unique, amazing experiences without almost any outside help, funding, or control, however, I got very interested.

Playing Catch Up: Spring Break 2012

Life got hectic this semester. My plans of keeping this up to date got side-tracked by work projects, school assignments, and freelance opportunities. 

However, spring break is almost upon us, and with just one more class left between me and that sweet, sweet freedom, I figured it would be a good time to update this with what I've been up to before jumping into a serious post and shocking you with my presence here again.

Catherine: A Truly Mature Game

As an adult gamer, I purchase and play quite a few games with a Mature rating slapped on the cover. But, like most rating systems, the ESRB ratings are pretty worthless. Shitty parents still buy these games for their kids. Kids think the higher rated games are better or cooler and overlook sometimes much better and more interesting games for the likes of Call of Duty. And it doesn't help adult gamers decide what they want or whether will be interesting to them in the least, because the standards by which they rate are ridiculously short sighted (aka, there are naughty things in this box, don't let impressionable dipshits take this home).

Anyone with an ounce of common sense knows that retailers can't force parents to be responsible, that kids will still get their hands on these games, and that their system of deciding what age group is able to handle certain content is subjective to each individual. With this in mind, I don't understand why the ESRB doesn't retool the rating system to be more helpful for those who actually care. And,, Catherine, is the perfect example of this rating system gone wrong.

Its not that it doesn't deserve this MA rating, it does, but for reasons they don't list on the back cover of games: the story is incomprehensible to those who haven't faced the struggles of adulthood.