(T)een or (M)ature

ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board):

Titles rated T (Teen) have content that may be suitable for ages 13 and older. Titles in this category may contain violence, suggestive themes, crude humor, minimal blood and/or infrequent use of strong language.

Titles rated M (Mature) have content that may be suitable for persons ages 17 and older. Titles in this category may contain intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content, and/or strong language.

There is some debate on just how teen WoW is, or more specifically how far is too far before this game officially becomes mature. Is it the liquor, or is it the ass-slapping succubus? No one really knows, but there is no doubt about it; WoW definitely could have carried an M rating.

Probably the most glaring 'almost mature' feature of WoW is the /flirt command. Are you comfortable with complicated machinery and are you afraid of snakes are just a few gems. On the female side we have the troll female that can mate over 80 times in one night, quite possibly the most straight forward saying of them all. These are funny and kids won't get them until they hit that magical age of 12 or 13 or so. In all honesty, it is more likely that the kid will see his best friend's mom naked than understand this. Still, there is always that chance that they will understand it, and then the problem starts. These sayings probably were not heard by the rating board.

Another step towards that infamous mature rating is the armor in the game. Though it's a fairly low percent of the armor, some armor is extremely revealing on women. We have all seen it before. The frayed robe is a great example of this. By simply taking the shirt off of your character you can see a lot of cleavage. This really isn't a problem for most people (some don't like it, some do, some could care less) but when you have kids that are just "learning" about themselves and what role each gender plays, this can be bad. Do you really want your daughter treating men as sexual objects? No, you don't. If you could have your way she would probably never come within 50 yards of a guy, but that's just a pipedream. The armor really is only a problem if you know the point behind showing so much skin, which is why an 13 year old wouldn't see a problem with it but a 30 year old would. Still, some of the stuff is borderline mature. Some comes just barely short of topless.

There are also a number of smaller things in the game that you likely don't miss but at the same time don't pay as much attention to. The succubus is one of them. She not only is scantily clad, she also slaps her ass and lets out a nice big "Ah!" every so often. Not only this, but the women are "exaggerated" in certain aspects. At least they stand flat footed, unlike Barbie. Horde side you have the Undead being exaggerated, though the other races are fairly proportional. Alliance side it's the humans, with the others staying fairly proportional. This is up for debate though, considering that no 2 people are the same, one person may see this as proportional and another may see it as over the top. I'm not sure if exaggeration counts as M content, but I know it sure doesn't bring it closer to T.

All in all this game probably got a T rating without most of this content being shown. A single piece of any of it would be ok, since it falls under mild, but multiple instances of each starts to bring it more up to par with a mature game. There are a few other things such as liquor use and a slight bit of blood, but we all know that on the rating scale sexuality takes top honors. You could blow a naked woman to pieces with a rocket launcher, and the rating board would be focusing on the naked part. I don't suggest you do blow naked women to pieces, that may hurt your love life. I do however suggest you look a bit deeper into the game and decide if this game should be teen or should be mature.