THE TOP-SELLING video game of the past year was rated “mature.” You could say that about the entire video-game industry, too.

It’s an industry whose lifespan has reached young adulthood. The average game player is a 20-something man, and, not coincidentally, more games have adult themes, from the over-the-top violence that has become almost commonplace to a new game from Acclaim Entertainment that will have actual video of topless dancers.

Revenues from video games rival those of Hollywood box-office receipts, and, like movies, blockbusters are built around franchises with multimillion-dollar budgets.

In short, it’s way past child’s play.

Many entertainment software companies’ fiscal performance rides on how well their games sell during the holiday season. It’s estimated about 65 percent of the industry’s revenue–which Port Washington, N.Y.-based tracking firm NPDFunworld estimated was $9.4 billion last year, including hardware, software and accessories–comes from sales during the last three months of the year. That’s why, like the film industry, game companies will save big releases for when people are in the mood to spend.

“It makes or breaks quarters,” P.J. McNealy, of the Stamford, Conn.-based research firm GartnerG2, says of a game company’s potential hit.

The biggest of them all may be “Grand Theft Auto: Vice City,” the sequel to the bestselling game of the past year, “Grand Theft Auto 3,” for the Sony PlayStation 2 and PCs.

For proof of what can happen when a company produces a hit title, look no farther than Take-Two Interactive, the Manhattan-based publisher of the “Grand Theft Auto” series. Released a year ago, GTA3 remained among the top three bestselling non-PC games for nine months.

As a result, the PlayStation 2 and PC versions of “Grand Theft Auto 3” have sold a combined 7 million units through August, according to Take-Two, and preorders of “Vice City,” to be released Oct. 29, could reach a staggering 4 million, according to an estimate from U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray.

In the year since “GTA3” was released, Take-Two’s stock price has doubled, despite the cloud of an ongoing Securities and Exchange Commission investigation that resulted in the restatement of financial results for fiscal 2000 and the first three quarters of 2001.

“What ‘GTA’ did was it struck a chord in the marketplace,” said Paul Eibeler, Take-Two president. “That game just took off. It was a blockbuster game for the PS2.”

Part of the maturation of the video-game industry can be attributed to a lesson learned from Hollywood: the value of a franchise. Just look at the number of movie sequels during the summer, from a fifth “Star Wars” movie to the third Austin Powers installment to “Men in Black II.” Take-Two improved its “Grand Theft Auto” series until it hit gold on the third try, while two months ago, Electronic Arts shipped “Madden NFL 2003,” the 13th version of that series, which has sold more than 25 million copies.

The trend is being driven further by the film industry, which has employed video games as one more medium in which to promote its movies, says GartnerG2’s McNealy.

Because the cost of developing a game can range from $1 million to $4 million to sometimes more than $10 million, media companies will help absorb some of that financial risk if it means further promotion of its film properties, according to the GartnerG2 report.

Some companies, though, don’t have the support of Sony to promote all things Spider-Man, or else they’re launching a new game with hopes of it becoming a lucrative franchise. That’s where the game industry has borrowed some marketing tactics from Hollywood while also experimenting with some of its own.

“GTA3” benefited from the old adage that there’s no such thing as bad publicity; despite critics lamenting the game’s over-the-top violence, the title kept selling.

To emphasize the game’s plot line–a low-level thug tries to rise among the ranks of the criminal underworld by performing illegal tasks for various mob bosses–Take-Two also advertised the game with TV commercials resembling movie trailers, another common tactic.

But while some companies stick to traditional means of marketing, others take a more atypical approach.

Acclaim, for example, promoted its September release, “Turok: Evolution,” by offering a $10,000 savings bond to the family of the first child born the day of the game’s launch whose legal first name, for at least one year, is Turok. (None of the 140 families that registered gave birth during the contest window.)

Earlier this month, Edison, N.J.- based video game company Majesco announced a contest awarding a “guided vampire tour” in Louisiana with a Playboy Playmate to promote the Halloween release of “BloodRayne,” starring a Playmate-esque half-vampire heroine.

“There are 250 games being released between now and the end of the year, and you maybe have five of them,” says Gregory Fischbach, Acclaim co-chairman and chief executive. “How do you give them exposure? How do you kind of separate the stuff from the clutter? That’s what it’s all about.”

As it turned out, Acclaim ended up revising its earnings outlook, saying it expected a revenue shortfall due in part to lower-than-anticipated initial sales of Turok.

Whatever the outcome, some in the industry bristle at such promotional tactics, saying the strength of the game, not the marketing plan, should be the deciding factor of how well the title does.

“At the end of the day, that (marketing gimmicks) doesn’t sell any games for us,” says Steve Allison, vice president of marketing for Manhattan-based Infogrames, another game company. “When you do something like that, it’s a cry for help.”

But that doesn’t mean Acclaim has stopped looking for ways to make a dent in the industry, where it is an independent in the middle of the pack.

Following a trend toward mature-rated titles (the “R” rating of the video-game industry) that got a gigantic boost from “Grand Theft Auto 3,” Acclaim in November will release “BMX XXX,” a bicycle-riding game that’s extreme in more ways than the stunts.

Not only will the game have topless female riders, but a license with the Manhattan men’s club Scores allows players to access actual footage of topless dancers, which becomes available when enough tokens are collected in the game.

On the recently launched Web site for the game, which carries the tagline “Keep it dirty,” Acclaim displays the raunchy print ads for “BMX XXX” that it says were rejected by video-game publications.

“Video gamers are getting older and bolder,” Acclaim spokesman Alan Lewis said. “They don’t always want content that’s warm and fuzzy. They want something funny, impressive and that has a bit of an edge to it. There’s a definite consumer demand for mature content.”

According to the Washington, D.C.-based Interactive Digital Software Association, more than 90 percent of games are bought by people 18 or older.

The organization, which oversees the Entertainment Software Rating Board, says only 10 percent of titles are rated mature, with 25 percent rated “teen” and 62 percent for “everyone.” Still, those in the industry agree that more mature-rated games are likely to hit shelves.

Schelley Olhava, a product manager and video-game industry analyst for IDC, says that, for the past four years, the average age of console gamers–those who play such systems as the PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube or Microsoft Xbox–has remained at 21, while PC game-players tend to be in their late-20s.

The age difference is due to the greater complexity of PC systems, while console games are plug-and-play.