Why Video Games are Given a Bad Rap

There was a time when smashing bricks and jumping into pipes was considered fine entertainment. These days, if you got your gaming news from television instead of fine places like this, you would hear mostly about the terrible things you can do in video games and how they turn our children into little soldiers. But when I sit down in front of my game console, I do much more than fight intergalactic war.

One amusing aspect of the controversy stands out to me: recently, I was playing GTA IV and it occurred to me that, in-between hit jobs, I had just spent ten minutes bowling on a date with a fake girl named Michelle–and I didn’t even get a kiss. It may be that the gaming world is not really made up of guns and tanks as we are led to shame ourselves into believing. The truth is that gaming is dominated by games like Guitar Hero. Games that aren’t about hurting people. Games that bring people together in order to level each other in a non-violent, everybody-wins kind of way, like it was to begin with.

The Nintendo Wii is the most constant exercise in wholesome entertainment: Carnival Games? Cooking Mama? Major League Eating? What kind of a preschool gaming system is this? Really, I just want to blow somebody’s head off. I personally have an impressive collection of Karaoke Revolution games, as well as Dance Dance Revolution. All completely bloodless entertainment. And I am very proud of the Buzz! trivia game I just added to my PS2 collection. Video Game enthusiasts may have a fair amount of blood lust, but it’s likely to expend some repressed anger they have when they get home from work. Most of their time will probably be spent exercising their star power with Guitar Hero or trying to make flan on the Wii.

Senators like Hilary Clinton have become known for riding the controversy train into the hearts of voters. The fact is that many of these game controversies get started when someone brings a segment or two of a game to the attention of someone in power and the fires start burning. What you are unlikely to see any senator or presidential candidate talk about is the advanced level of story-telling involved in most games that are considered violent. Gamers may come to see the carnage, but they stay for the cinematics.

In recent polls, we find that the average gamers’ age is, believe it or not, 33! Yes, really. What’s more, less than a third of all gamers are under 18. So not only are most gamers more than mature enough to play violent games, but most of them are a bit too mature. This may tell us why music games rule the sales chart with such oldies as Lynyrd Skinner and Ozzie Osborn. What better way to relive the joys of your failed college rock band than vicariously through a plastic guitar controller. These are needs that go far beyond smashing zombies or driving over hookers.