If Only “M” Really Meant “Mature”

That pleasant-natured, black & white “M” on the front of your favorite video game means a lot of things.

It means you have a scapegoat at the ready should your violent antics ever land you in a court of law, judged by a jury of your peers. (Fortunately, recent evidence indicates your peers aren’t that stupid.)

It means selling the game to someone who only looks 18 can cost you your job.

Unfortunately, an “M” rating doesn’t mean that a game is, well… mature.

Obviously, games for kids should remain simple and light-hearted, but titles aimed at an older audience should strive to reflect just how complicated this big, ol’ world of ours is. Right now, the only difference between child and adult entertainment is that in the adult’s escapist pleasure, everything gushes blood for some reason.

Also, there are way more tits.

Racism, genocide, sexual abuse… these are all very real social ills that need to be addressed. But if you were to examine the plots of most games out there, you’d come to the conclusion that the only pressing problem in our world is that you’re out of ammo and there are seriously like five snipers up on that ledge.

Those of us (myself included) clamoring to have games taken seriously as an art form are forgetting one thing: So far, our hobby has done a pretty poor job of holding a mirror up to society. Don’t worry… we’ll get this right eventually, folks.

Two-thirds of the puzzle is in place.

The average gamer is 35 years old, a demographic possessing a far broader view of the outside world than a gaggle of hyperactive, ultraviolent, horny guys still waiting on puberty.

And if the ERSB does its job, there should be an impermeable partition between games for kids and games for adults, in much the same way an “R” rating keeps a 10-year-old from getting his hands on a copy of “American History X.”

But therein lies our biggest problem: For the most part, gamers don’t have that mature piece of social commentary to withhold from a younger audience. Instead, we’re stuck wading through the video game equivalent of the “Saw” franchise, time and time again.

(Side note: If you actually liked those movies, then you deserve to star in them… and not as an actor.)

I feel like we’re getting close. Call of Duty 4 touched on some pretty serious themes of xenophobia and unchecked nuclear proliferation in the modern world. However, Call of Duty: World at War decided it was a better idea to go back to picking off Nazis.

(Yes, they were bad people, but I’m thinking they’re all dead by now. Several times over.)

And Resident Evil 5 raised some interesting questions about what is and isn’t racist, although probably not in the way the game’s designers intended.

Some games have gotten close to sparking discussion on serious issues. Beyond Good and Evil wrestled with tall orders like abuse of authority, media deception and genocide. But, the vivacious, anthropomorphic animal cast (no joke, there were Rastafarian rhinos) took the edge off the darker stuff.

Mass Effect, on the other hand, managed to examine both prejudice and the perils of aggressive foreign policy with gritty, straightforward clarity. Unfortunately, its one measly sex scene got blown way out of proportion by the media.

That, of course, raises another point: Sex happens (pretty frequently, from what I hear) in real life and has worked its way into every other form of art. So, the sun isn’t going to implode if two game characters bump digitally rendered uglies.

That being said, I’m hoping for something a little more tasteful than a Newgrounds flash game rendition of doing the deed.

The transformation from flashy, brutal distraction to moving social commentary isn’t going to happen overnight. But if we expect more from ourselves and more from our hobby, we can start moving in the right direction.

In no uncertain terms, we need to grow up.