Ever since the massacre simulator Hatred was announced, it was met with controversy and confusion. The controversy was only furthered today as the ESRB revealed that Hatred would receive an Adults Only rating.
"I'm not quite convinced why Hatred got AO rating while it lacks any sexual content, but it's still some kind of achievement to have the second game in history getting AO rating for violence and harsh language only" said a Destructive Creations developer in response to the rating announcement.
The Adults Only rating is the harshest rating the ESRB can hand down to a game for content. It is rarely used and is described by the ESRB as "suitable for ages 18 and up for prolonged scenes of intense violence, graphic sexual content, and/or real money gambling". The Adults Only rating also forbids the game from being release on any platform besides the PC as Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo all have policys against Adults Only rated games being put on their consoles.
Hatred was pulled from Steam Greenlight recently but was reinstated just over a day later by Gabe Newell himself. Valve has never made Adults Only games available for sale on Steam before this, however.
Destructive Creations is going to have to make some major game changes if they want Hatred to be pushed to the mass market as they originally intended.
Do you think the rating is justified? Let us know in the comm, ents!