Developers are not catering to the mature market in the right way, says Amnesia: The Dark Descent developer Thomas Grip.

“This goal to be ‘mature’ is a problem in many games where you add gore, curse words and a palette of grey, thinking that makes the experience more adult,” he said.

“But they just end up making it even more childish.”

The Frictional Games head lamented the lack of true mature titles featuring themes that appealed exclusively to adults.

“Take just about any big game release and the core concepts of that game is something that a ten-year old can enjoy,” he said.

“This means that just about any games that I can enjoy today would also have been enjoyed by my ten-year-old self.

“Sure, there might be some stuff in games that I can enjoy more now that I am older, but this is almost always a minor part of the experience.”

This was in stark contrast to other entertainment mediums, he said.

“When you look at film, movies, music, etc. there are tons of stuff which I like today that my ten-year-old self would not.”

Grip’s preference was for more cerebral experiences that may even bore younger players.

“For our next game, we want to have more thought behind everything that happens, and tie things together so if the player thinks some more about it, it will take things a step further,” he said.

“So we want these extra layers to the gameplay that will really get below the skin of the player. It is also about bringing up certain subjects that make the player think about things they normally would not.”

Frictional Games is currently working on a non-Amnesia horror game, while Amnesia follow-up A Machine for Pigs is in development at thechineseroom.