Today I read a post from the Age of Conan community forum in regards to the ratings the game has been given and what elements of mature content will be included/not included in each “version” of the game.

Apparently, US gamers will get the full-on gore, eviscerations, decapitations, blood spewing everywhere, etc. Germans won’t get to see a lot of the “over the top” violence, but they’ll get to see some tittaaaays (TM). The rest of the free world will get everything.

So what’s missing from the US version? Nipples. Yup. That’s right. No nippleage. The ESRB has determined that we can see all the guts and blood we want, but when it comes to a little T and A…nope. We must cover our virtual selves and our NPC’s with at least a fig-leaf and a piece of cloth over the ‘dirty parts.’

Now I’m not saying that I won’t play Age of Conan because of it. This is more of a rant about America’s crazy backwards attitude when it comes to violence, sex and language in any type of media format.

A TV series can’t show a woman’s bare ass on television without the FCC bringing down a huge fine, but when it comes to violence the sky is the limit. American’s have been freaking out over profane song lyrics since the beginning of time, yet it’s okay to show tons of people getting shot, stabbed, maimed, pillaged and burned every day.

There are plenty of groups out there who would love to see violence removed from movies/tv/video games and if they got their way we’d have no fun at all here in the States. I suppose that their voices aren’t loud enough yet and their numbers are too few to make a difference (for now).

Violence? No problem. Titties? Big problem. It is a bizarre dichotomy of moral standards American’s have that I’ve never been able to understand and probably never will.

***UPDATE***

Funcom made an error earlier when reporting this to the public. Now it’s Nipples in. Full-blown violence in. Full nudity out. Check it out here for details. A victory for nipple lovers everywhere.