Because stores won't carry them.
They fucking will when GTA VI is AO, they will when The Last Of Us 3 is AO, the will when Max Payne 4: PAYNE TO DA MAX is AO
Look...they don't because no major publisher has put them out to set the trend to push the medium forward. I think Sony, Take Two and Ubisoft have put many, many mature and adult themes in their titles and have greatly helped the medium go forward in regards to what can be done to allow others to see its no the end of the world, but I believe they can do more and there is no reason for M rated games, to be acting like PG13 films.....
The fact that Days Gone has fucking kid zombies is a big deal to gaming, yet thats not some unusual thing in film or something. I've said this many times on here, gaming would struggle with fucking 1960's Cape Fear, or Strawdogs, many of them argue for something new, yet seem to want games on training wheels or some shit. Gaming TODAY is literally DECADES behind other mediums in regards to this rating.
What would be in an AO game that is not in an M game that would make it "serious?" Explicit sex? That adds literally nothing to a game.
I disagree.
My issue is people sexualize that and remove all context from the rating. Look at gaming today, look at some of the most raw M rated titles. The Last Of Us 2, Red Dead Redemption 2 etc....I want you to imagine it was a film and you showed it to others who watch films
I think only The Last Of Us 2 might be able to get away with a lot of that and appear like any other film based on content, subject matter etc.
Red Dead Redemption 2 will have the violence of the wild west, heads blown off and such, but the literal words of what characters are saying is not only comical, it doesn't even fit the time frame in regards to how people interacted based on race, they were not just going to be saying "darkie" and leaving it at that sir. Anyone watching a film and someone said the N-word, it would just be like "well it is in the 1800s" and thats it, they wouldn't be like "OMG I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS", that is fucking normal in a film set in that time.
Why is that this taboo thing in a fucking video game already rated M? Its not merely sexualizing the title, its saying the violence of that time frame like lynching's, hangings, murder, rape all this shit went on then, is very much concepts in film, yet we are all able to understand that. Why is that something in games thats suddenly some mystery?
So gaming has a long way to go before it meets the context of what is in film today in terms of subject matter and I don't buy that this would hurt sales, it would if anything open up a whole new market of gaming for 30 plus year old who grew up gaming and want it to grow up with them.
As it stands, gaming couldn't handle American History X, Hard Candy, Funny Games, Cape Fear and many more. That sounds like they still got some catching up to do and the training wheels maybe need to be taken off for developers.