Not in the sense that you guys thought when you read the title.

Recently, I've been playing the Jak and Daxter Collection for PS3, and I've been really enjoying it. I definitely prefer this over Uncharted.

Which made me wonder: Why have the seventh gen games taken a turn for the worse, in terms of vulgarness and overall not-family-friendly content? Does that make the games any better by putting that stuff in? No it doesn't, because obviously people still like the classic games like Crash Bandicoot and Ratchet and Clank.

So why do developers put this stuff in the new games anyways? What is it doing that makes it sell better? Will developers ever go back to the cartoony, family-friendly style? Why won't they go back? What was wrong with the older games that needed to be fixed with swearing, alcohol and sixual themes?

I want to know your thoughts on this.

Because advlts are the people that buy games, and advlts like advlt themes.

I think it's cause gaming has gotten very popular in recent years, and i think a major factor is that devs strive to appeal and market more to young male teens as they are probably one of their biggest audiences... And of the young male teens I knew they certainly found themselves very cool playing such games. Lol

Freedom's response also is just as good perspective.
The wii for instance has - mostly - family friendly games, but it's mostly played on with the family/group.

There are still many cartoon, family-friendly games being made. More now than in the last decade, that's for sure.

The biggest video game boom was in the late 1980s to early 1990s, and now that large portion of the video game consumers are in their 30's. Meaning that the gamer audience has grown up and matured, and the games reflect what the majority of the audience wants.

Developers grew up, and their games followed (e.g. Naughty Dog and Insomniac).

"advlt themes" have been in video games for a long time...especially in the PC gaming world. I think the demographics in the console market have changed over the years and there are a lot more older console gamers than there used to be. That said, I don't think the two things need to be mutually-exclusive. The fact that there are a lot of gritty TV shows with advlt themes doesn't preclude the demand for family-friendly TV shows, for example.

For most of the 80s and 90s it was difficult for a game to not be bright and cartoony - graphics were simple by necessity, and had limited color palettes. If you tried something dark and graphic, it would still look a bit cartoony - look at Doom and Doom 2. So developers could either embrace this, or release something that looked a bit awkward.

On the subject of id games, compare Doom and Doom 2 to Quake and Quake 2. These games are much darker, much grittier, and more graphic. The simplicity of the polygons and textures are still a bit cartoony, but the content itself had shifted. Jump forward 17 years, and while those graphics have been refined, I don't think the content has changed greatly. As for the accusation that all games are brown and featureless, I recall plenty of dull gray corridors in Dark Forces and Jedi Knight (two excellent, and otherwise very pretty games).

More family-friendly games certainly haven't disappeared. I have an eight-year-old son, and for the past few years I haven't played mature titles unless he was asleep or out of the house. This has reduced my time with more mature titles, but hasn't prevented me from playing games. In the past few years, my son has watched me play Trine 1 & 2, Psychonauts, Quantum Conundrum, Portal 1 & 2, Scarygirl, and Minecraft.

As for my son, he's been playing Minecraft and Wizard 101 lately. Last year he requested Psychonauts costume for Halloween, the year before he wanted to be a Creeper.

I meant good family-friendly games. When I say this, I mean in the sense that anyone, even these advlts, can enjoy. Stuff like Sly Cooper.

Whatever family-friendly games that exist now have degraded a lot.

Growing up, I used to play Duke Nukem 3D with my dad, and Mortal Kombat 2 with my brother.

I haven't noticed any difference in gaming in this context.

I just bought Animal Crossing: New Leaf and have put over 150 hours into it. Your argument is invalid. They are still making "those" kind of games.

You're just looking in the wrong places.

Ah, but the days where you could find those anywhere were easily better! Why won't they return to this?

Well, we got Saints Row 4 coming out next month. Not exactly family friendly though.

I think right now, more than ever before, mainstream gaming is stuck in this absurd inferiority complex where gamers and developers alike seem to seek cultural validation from big brother Hollywood. This has really been lampshaded with the recent releases of Bioshock Infinite and The Last of Us.

It really hasn't changed though. You're letting high profile AAA games like Uncharted represent all of video games when the reality is they only represent a specific genre of cinematic action adventure games.

It's like complaining about there not being any good comedy movies when you're in the action aisle of Blockbuster.

Rated M for Money.

All the new Super Mario games are still really good. They even retain a lot of the "old-school" feel to them.
Same with Zelda and Donkey Kong (and Nintendo in general)

Little Big Planet
Rayman Origins
Journey
Most sport games and racing games are usually fun for all ages.

There are dozens of great independent titles on Xbox Live and the Playstation Marketplace that are family friendly.

I don't think you're looking hard enough.

Most of the good "family-friendly" games I've seen are for the PS3, not all of them, but still. I know they're out there for the 360, but I don't own as many of those kinds of games as I'd like to.

Crash Bandicoot was a good series but I think it stopped being owned by Naughty Dog. Well that's the only family-friendly game I can think of that stopped being continued.