About Digital Gore and Ratings
BT: Do you think you might have sabotaged your attempt at reaching a wider market with the amount of blood and snot and gore though?
Jason: Ah, the gore issue. Ok. Here’s what I think; we have always been aiming this game at grown-ups. As long as we stay within the law then I think that, from a creative perspective, we should be allowed to do whatever the bloody hell we like. Especially with violent, gory base IPs like Alien.
Aliens are not nice things, they are exo-parasites. They eat you. They are supposed to be horrible and there’s all sorts of symbolism in the Alien world – and the Predator world too, quite frankly – whether it’s intended or has evolved over time. They aren’t nice. The Predator hunts for trophies and skins people and displays their bodies. It wouldn’t be right creatively to dumb that down.
That’s why I’ve reacted quite strong to the whole Australian thing. I had to stay quiet afterwards too because we’ve always pitched this game at adults and it’s actually really hard to make a game based on these licenses without exploring the horror. That’s what it’s all about.
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The German market responded and said they weren’t going to sell it in Germany, or not officially anyway. I’m sure that European laws allow grey importing, but we won’t get a USK rating and we’ll just live with that. I applaud Fox and Sega for supporting us though, especially when we’ve stuck to our guns so much and told people that it’s not suitable for kids, because we don’t want people turning around and saying that ‘my 12 year old found it scary’. Yeah, course they would. Your 12 year old shouldn’t be playing the game.
