If by we you mean the US, you are mistaken.
Being carded for M games and R movies is just store policy, there is no law involved.
California tried not too long ago to make it illegal to sell M rated games to minors and the Supreme Court ruled against it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/27/supreme-court-violent-video-games_n_884991.html

That's interesting......where I live though they don't sell to minors so I thought it was an immovable policy that they had to not sell to minors period.

I have 1 the Kingdom Hearts series (don't laugh)

The story is a simple good vs evil, but the are so many twists .
It deals with friendship, what make one good/bad (many sades of grey) , what home means, concepts such as souls, purity, love triangles, and more.

I see your point. Adult content can play an important role in portraying mature themes and I do not have a problem with that. What I take issue with is the idea that mature themes cannot be explored without adult content.
I like your analogy of Pixar.

But I think the customer base of people who want mature themes without heavy adult content would be higher than you think. With generation X and Y (the first of the video game generations) haveing grownup and you have a large population of gamers with mature tastes that are less impressed with gimmicky violence or titillation than someone who is 18-22 (plus us older folks have more money to spend on games and also spend money on games for our kids, so we are a big market force).
I agree 100%

I think it is all in how it is portrayed though. Take Shakespeare for example almost all of Shakespeare has sex, violence, or profanity to some degree or another. But the beauty of Shakespeare is that there are no stage notes. So the plays can play up or play down those aspects as much as director wants without damaging the story. Young people can handle violence or death in story. But it is one thing to have a mock sword fight on stage it is another to graphic display someone have their heart run through with a sword. You can show it either way in a play or a film, and each way will lend itself to the tone of the production. But you can do it either way without damaging the themes of the story.

I do not think that violence, death, romance/sex, and anger have no place in games or art. It is just a matter of what level of depiction that I am comfortable with. I am not saying that one is better than another but I do not think it is selling out or cheapening something to make it accessible to a wide range tastes.

That being said there is nothing wrong with pushing the envelope either. I think a artist (or game designer) should be able to do want ever they like to create their vision. I was just saying I would like to see more games that dealt with mature themes that appropriate for a wider audience.

I agree. Look at games like or [url=http://www.molleindustria.org/everydaythesamedream/everydaythesamedream.html]Every day the same dream. Both look into mature elements to some degree and don't involve any graphic violence or nudity.

I believe that adult content in games should be included when relevant to the story that the designer is intending to tell. If sex and/or violence is integral to how the plot unfolds, or is relevant to get a feel for how characters interact, then I'm all for it.

Yes, you CAN have a mature story without the adult content, but if you're telling a story about a vice cop, you should expect gritty content. Likewise, you could tell a story about basic human nature and how it plays into a larger overarching story that impacts a cast of characters in mature aspects. Now, considering we're dealing with human nature, that COULD include the full array of things that leave a mark on an audience.

On one hand, parents have the full responsibility of interpreting what their children are prepared to see/assimilate. On the other hand, a designer/director shouldn't be handicapped because "Mr. Smith" doesn't want his little Johnny to see breasts, or violence.

As a plot device, adult content CAN sometimes be a pretty lazy way out, as in movies that revolve around, say, a rape scene, especially when it's fairly graphic. Now, I'm not saying that it's not powerful and impacting and used to provoke a certain response? However, it's SOOOO easy to take that road because you KNOW the kind of impact it's going to have on your audience, so it's less important to write up an impacting emotional event that's engaging without being shocking and gratuitous.

It's an issue that's not easy to deal with, so ultimately, it needs to be up to the parents to decide what's too much.

Your right, it not that these games are not out there. But I seems to me that over the past 5 year mainstream gaming has started to tread more toward games that with games with complex ideas and plots that are adult content and games that are targeted to teens and kids were ideas and plots are watered down.

Though this is just an impression of mine I don't have any data to back it up. But it has just seemed to me that fewer and fewer games by major developers target the "all ages" market with plot driven games.

It's a trend thing, imo. It's no different from how albums with a "Parental Advisory" on it used to sell more BECAUSE of it, not despite it.

Funny you chose Witcher for that example, it's probably the worst example you could have chosen :D Sapkowski was always quite ... Descriptive in sexual scenes in Witcher books and his other stories. While I would usually agree with you, Witcher is just not the best example, depicted sex really suits the world they chose for the game.

Dude, System Shock did it first, and was far better at it!

EDIT: Sorry Fenixp I did not see that you were responding to some else I thought that was a reply to the original post. (I should go back to sleep)

I was not arguing the sex and violence of Witcher was gratuitous, I specify said "I have no problem at all that there games like Witcher or Gears of War which is clearly games for an adult audience". Also I was not arguing that they should have made a "Family friendly" Witcher game. That would be sort of silly as it would need to veer so far from the scores martial you would not even be able to call it Witcher when you were done.

What I am saying is that there is a trend in gaming now where there are less and less games that treated the player like a mature individual without heavy adult content.

I always found it interesting that the term "adult themes" almost always correlates to sex and/or torture-violence. When in reality, there are plenty of G-rated "adult themes." Just look at the Pixar movie Up! It deals with aging, death of a beloved spouse, the idea of a wasted life, unfulfilled dreams... all of which are things kids (and even teenagers) have trouble understanding. So it's an "adult" movie in a sense, but since it's not SHOWGIRLS, who cares?

From what I've heard I assume the indie adventure "To The Moon" might be such a game with mature themes and without the adult content. I read that some people here were moved by it and found it deep and thought-provoking, but I haven't played it myself yet (and I remain a bit sceptical whether it's a good game or more of an interactive movie; I'll definitely try it sooner or later though).

Interactive movie by all I have heard. That's not necessarily a bad thing thou.

Heh, that's ok, a bit of elaboration is never a bad thing :D

The way I see it, this isn't a debate about values, or morality, or anything like that. It's about mainstream developers lacking creativity and/or finesse when they try to pursue mature themes. The same thing goes for movies, music, and books. In the case of videogames, there's having an appropriate level of violence or sex to help realize the world you're creating, and then there's just being lazy and putting it in for the hell of it. The second one is the case more times than people like to admit, I think. Because you really don't have to be extremely explicit to be effective (since horror movies were mentioned, I'll reference the original 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.' It's easily one of the most disturbing and brutal films out there, but it doesn't actually have to show much in the way of violence to accomplish this). In fact, I think that a lot of the effect can be lost when you just "show everything." It's not a particularly useful technique unless you're going purely for base level shock/titillation. But it is easy to do, and easy to excuse. Unfortunately, it's also easy to spot.