This post contains affiliate links.
Old PC games used to let you do video graphics settings and remove blood and such, a simple thing like showing the action without any blood or gore can really make the rating go down and not be as disturbing. There is no reason with the technology in place today for the Playstation 3, Xbox360 and Nintendo Wii that game developers can’t add the additional programming to remove certain aspect layers from a game to make it playable by a wider audience.
My kids love to watch me game but I have to restrict what I can play in front of them because I have a hard time finding kid friendly versions of games that appeal to the role playing genre these days, I remember when all games in the RPG genre were PG or PG-13 at best, why do they feel the need to add more shock, gore and such?
There isn’t enough high quality content for the kids who want to play the older kids games, and most parents don’t care enough and just let them play it anyway.