CONKER the squirrel, the title character in a new Nintendo game, is having a terrible day or, as he puts it, a bad fur day. It all began with a few too many drinks at the local saloon. After throwing up outside the bar, Conker heads through the darkness until he comes to a sign that points in two directions, Naughty and Nice. ''Emmm,'' Conker slurs, teetering down the Naughty path, ''this way, I suppose.''
Can this really be Nintendo? Long considered the squeakiest of squeaky-clean game publishers, the company is venturing into unknown territory with its ribald release for the Nintendo 64, Conker's Bad Fur Day.
The game, developed in Britain and released in March, is filled with plenty of naughty and vulgar bits as Conker tries to fight his way through a hangover and find his way home. Players encounter an enemy made of feces, a bunny doing aerobics in hot pants and the evisceration of the very same kind of small furry animals one would usually find smiling in the shrubs in a Mario adventure.
Games like Conker's Bad Fur Day, which is rated Mature by the Entertainment Software Rating Board, the industry's self-regulatory body, reflect maturing demographics. Long considered the domain of young boys, the $7 billion-a-year video game business now attracts an increasingly diverse audience, not just children.
A study conducted last year by Peter D. Hart Research Associates estimates that of the 145 million Americans who play electronic games, a majority are older than 18. Among these are many adults in their 30's who grew up with Pong, the Atari 2600 and other early game consoles and still like to play games.
''The industry has changed significantly,'' said Dr. Arthur Pober, president of the ratings board. ''Video games conjure up the image of little kids. The reality is, it's not that at all.''
Older gamers, however, don't necessarily mean more risqué games. Many adult players prefer the same kind of teenager-friendly sports and adventure titles as their younger counterparts. And others play classic board and card games like Scrabble and bridge online.
But the niche of Mature titles is beginning to show signs of growth. While most of the Mature ratings (which the board gives to games deemed to have ''content that may be suitable for persons ages 17 and older'') have gone to ultraviolent shoot-'em-up games, new titles like Conker's Bad Fur Day and Fear Effect 2: Retro Helix, for the Sony PlayStation, are paving the way for other kinds of adult-oriented content, with things like explicit gross-out humor and heavy sexual innuendo.
In the past, games that have headed down that path have hardly been mainstream. The Leisure Suit Larry series turned players into hapless casanovas on a crass mission for sex. A game called Custer's Revenge, released in 1982, depicted a naked General Custer raping an American Indian woman tied to a stake, and most retailers refused to carry it.
But the new wave of sexually oriented games represents a major shift because major players like Nintendo and Sony are taking the plunge.
For Nintendo, the decision to go down the naughty road comes after years when it seemed to go out of its way to avoid offending gamers (or their parents). The company was among the first to set stringent guidelines for child-friendly gaming, like changing blood color from red to green or, more curiously, in Wolfenstein 3D, substituting rats for guard dogs as shooting targets.
Perrin Kaplan, vice president of corporate affairs for Nintendo, said there was a feeling within the company that it had to do more for its gamers as they grew older.
''One of the things Nintendo has been criticized for is just being a kiddy system,'' she said. ''People who fell in love with Mario at the age of 6 are now in their 30's. They have expectations of Nintendo that we have not met.''
The green light for Conker's Bad Fur Day came in great part, Ms. Kaplan said, because of the reputation of the game's developer, a reclusive and idiosyncratic company called Rare that was started by two brothers in the English countryside. From its office near the village of Twycross, Rare has churned out some of Nintendo's biggest hits in recent years, including two acclaimed M-rated shoot-'em-up games, GoldenEye and Perfect Dark, as well as the E-rated (for everyone) Donkey Kong Country and Banjo-Kazooie.
The character of Conker had already had a bit part in earlier games when Rare brought up the idea of a starring vehicle for the puckish squirrel. The developers wanted to use him as, essentially, a personification of the adult gamer.
''I think the best way to view Conker with respect to his earlier incarnations is that like people, he's changed and matured -- or become more cynical -- with age,'' an unnamed developer from Rare (they prefer anonymity) told Amazon.com in an uncustomary interview earlier this year. Rare officials declined to be interviewed for this article.
''Nintendo initially had concerns regarding this issue,'' the developer added, ''because kids might confuse the product as being aimed at them, but I'm sure you'll agree if you've seen the box that Nintendo is making sure nobody makes that mistake.''
