Hard to believe isn’t it? It’s been a little over ten years since Duke first offered up cash-for-flash to those infamous pixelated pole dancers. It was a great moment for pushing the envelope in a relatively new medium. And if you ask me, these moments have been far too few in recent years.

Sure, we’ve had the Hot Coffee scandal for GTA:SA, but instead of standing by their own, Rockstar did everything it could to please the uninformed soccer moms of America. From half-hearted apologies and patches to firing employees. Of course, the ultimate irony is that a crude depiction of consensual sex is Adults Only, but beating prostitutes to a bloody death with a baseball bat is Mature so long as everyone has bits of clothing over the naughty parts. But that’s neither here nor there. The ESRB has always been destined to be as corrupt and arbitrary as the MPAA.

The problem is that with all the negative media attention, political talking points, and the incorporation of the industry, there’s this great fear of offending people…you know, the people that don’t play video games.

I read a little while back that Bethesda has already decided to take children out of Fallout 3. While most of the interviews on it don’t even have a straight explanation, it’s clear that we’ve got a perfect example of a big company afraid of taking risks. And by risks, I mean doing things that would keep faithful to the series. No self-respecting Fallout fan would say, yes, it’s okay to take children out of the game because some people might kill them. But I digress, this isn’t all about Bethesda.

This is about how the industry as a whole has grown too slick and polished. When all they really need to do is a grow a pair. Wired just posted a perfect summary of what is wrong with the rating system. This game, like an increasing amount of others, is going to be gutted for content because gaming is becoming too mainstream. Game stores not stocking games because of content? Are you kidding me? Sony not wanting to be affiliated with gratuitous violence and nudity? Are these guys delusional? That’s how you built this empire!

I played BLOOD when I was eleven years old and nobody complained. It only made me stronger. A part of me wants to blame this on the console wars, because ultimately, the console version of a PC game is always watered down. Developers who feel they have to hit every system and PC at the same time to turn a profit means that the only medium to suffer will be the one with no roof. But even without consoles, it still seems like PC games are getting wussier thanks to the big productions they’re being made into.

In closing, what I’m saying is, game makers: please, do something shocking. Make something that’s both ridiculously good and gratuitous. I’m getting bored, guys. If anyone has some good recommendations for me, please don’t hesitate to bring them to my attention. I’m waiting for the BioShock demo to finish downloading right now, so I’ve got a good three or four days to kill.

UPDATE: At this point, I’ve played through and beaten BioShock. It’s more ballsy than Bethesda, but it’s still not good enough. We all knew the game was overhyped, big deal. It was fun, but it’s not going to revolutionalize anything in gaming. A full review will follow, once I play through it again, doing some different things.