Question about Game Violence

Hello everyone, I'm making a game for the Indie Game Maker competition and there are key items like collecting heads of slayed monsters.

Would that make my game rated M?

Would that make my game too much for teenagers?

There's no brutal graphics to display it but there are key items to define it.

Please leave down your thoughts and comments below.

Thanks!

Ummm. Doesn't an M rating involve F and C-bombs and depictions of graphic sex? In RPGs I think we're pretty much used to video game violence.

So no, I don't think collecting the heads of monsters is worth an M rating. Probably not a G, though ;)

...I suppose you could circumvent any violence by, well, plundering graveyards and the like. Though I imagine grave-robbing might be a bit harder to accept than abstract violence. ;)

i agree with alkorri... as long as you arent dropping f bombs all over the place and having graphic intercourse in the game you can pretty much put what you want.

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I thought decapitation automatically made something rated R? Maybe that's just for movies.

He seems to be saying no actual decapitation will be shown ("no brutal graphics to display"). Just key items (I imagine icons?) to represent the heads.

They're monster heads?  I don't think that's such a big deal.  If they were human heads it might be.

I don't see it as an issue. I mean, I do come from a part of the world where people hang deer heads on walls a lot...

That's how I see it, too. They are monster heads, and the actual decapatation won't be shown, should fit easy in a teen rating.

Edit: Just checked out the ESRB website, to see if they had their standards laid out. If you check out this link (http://www.esrb.org/ratings/ratings_guide.jsp) you will see that Violence is in the Teen category, and that violence is defined as 'Scenes involving aggressive conflict. May contain bloodless dismemberment'.

Other ratings boards in other contries would have different standards, of course.

Ah, but carrying severed body parts is not, last I checked, the same as dismemberment, which refers to the actual, well, act of separating bits & pieces. I figure you'll be in the category of "Violent References" here, which is filed under... odd, it's not actually listed under any rating. o_O
You should be well in the clear.

I.think as long as you're not depicting bloody, gory violence visually or describing it graphically through text, you're okay. Do you have a screenshot you could post?

Thank you all for your input on this!  It's appreciated.  I really want to make sure I don't get disqualified.

Sorry I don't want to put up any screenshots.  The monster's head is just a key item with a skull icon which you get after defeating the monster.

Okay. Then it sounds like you're good. I wouldn't worry about it.

Good luck!

To add further to what others have said (although i'm sure this won't be the case with your submission), I'm pretty sure certain "themes" in the narrative can warrant an M rating regardless of whether they are explicitly shown. I could be wrong on this though.