User blog comment:Cloverfield monster/Why does every single game coming out need to be rated M?/@comment-1187559-20130926035332

I've been looking though the comments and can't help but think many people don't know how ratings work. Instead thinking ratings are just an age guideline they put on the box. This is not the case. Games have to adhere to the same legislation as TV and films. Below is the ERSB rating system: As you can see M ratings are given to games of "Intense violence" and "Swearing". These two items happen in many games today, and in fact Intense violence is a very popular selling angle. For a game to be any lower than M it would have to drastically alter how combat works be either the enemies non-humanoid, or by removing death (similar to Shadow the Hedgehog). So that is the reason why most games these days are coming out at M ratings, it's not so they appeal to young people.