Do you think it's childish to refuse to play M-rated games?

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Hey, I'm in my 30's, and I still enjoy playing Minecraft, Pokémon, Fire Emblem, and Legend of Zelda.

It seems like, nowadays, they want to pepper the dialogue with excessive F-bombs just to make them more "mature" *cough* As if! *ahem*, but I think they're doing this just to be pretentious.

I tend to get annoyed by mature content in videogames. I don't mind violence so much, but I don't like it when it's deliberately OTT and clearly designed to appeal to some 15 year old boy's masturbatory fantasy and then labeled 'mature'. That's not what mature means. Even when I was 15 and games like Carmageddon and Duke Nukem 3D were coming out I found it a turn-off. Although Duke 3D was a good game, just the humour and sexism I found embarrassing.

I got really annoyed by the Witcher 3 when the opening cutscenes were about him having sex with his wife or whatever, I don't remember exactly. I think she was sat in the bath or something. It was like the game was desperately trying to convince me it was a 'grown-up' story but it just sounded like adolescent soft porn to me. It didn't add anything to the game.

If it's genuinely mature like the handling of sex and violence in a game like Immortality for instance I don't mind.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who felt this way. Duke's "personality" was a big part of why I liked Doom a lot more as an 11-15 year old.

I really want to see a mature version of Mario. But I'm also worried it might become the Nintendo Velma...

I'd worry they'd end up with something no more mature, just edgier.

Idk if Shadow 2005 was considered good or bad but it would probably be like that.

I've heard that game get dunked on for trying too hard to be edgy, so I think you're right.

Never played it though. I don't actually play a lot of games.

If it does happen I would like it to focus on Waluigi, because kids like Bowser. But all Mario characters are like MLP characters compared to other games...

I think you're on to something with that and it might explain why it would be hard to set a more mature themed game or show in the Mario universe.

What would motivate it? If the entire universe is too buddy-buddy, there's nothing to really drive serious drama, meaning both the conflict and the emotional depth it reveals will come off feeling forced.

Ultimately sex and violence aren't just in more mature-themed entertainment for the sake of it (at least not always), often they're incorporated because they're strong motivators and have a heavy emotional impact. Adults understand why those things impact other adults the way they do, so it's easy to fallback on using them as what is driving the drama.

That doesn't mean they make a show or game mature though. Awkwardly incorporating sex or violence into an immature story just results in a darker, edgier immature story.

This means the opposite should be able to exist too (mature story, not focused on sex or violence), but perhaps those stories tend to be boring to too many people. A mundane slice of life might be emotionally heavy and still boring AF because it offers zero escapism.