Note: the contents of the following post are SERIOUS BUSINESS! ZOMG! Don't wanna get serious, don't pay attention. Also, calibrate your sarcasm detectors, as this entire thing is almost purely BS. It is not meant as a serious piece of journalism or even thought, by any means, and is merely an opinion.

Lets face it. Games, today, aren't respected. They arerespected more thanseveral years ago, but they are still appearing to bein a rut that seems to deepen itself the harder they try to dig out. In many ways, they are looked upon as atopic of moral disgust for people,or some sort of juvenile obsession that has gotten out of hand and needs to be rectified. Despite the content of many games, the misconception that they were, still are, and will continue to be a child's venue is somehow deeply engraved in both the community and critics. I suppose the idea that a 'game,' professionally designed by intelligent, working individuals is somehow an alien idea to many people. "Games are only for children." But, why? The reasoning behind the 'childish' concept of games is quite bizarre, considering not just how they are made, but their content, their target audience, and even the effort put into the creation all point to a perfectly viable and difficult-- but rewarding -- field of work. Or, even on some level, the study of games as an art.

Creation of games today are a downright formal affair. Groups of many people, in full studios, formulate a concept. They get a publisher to help fund them. They then gather artists to provide concept art. This leads to music, visual resources, and -yes, as to one would refer to art- the style of the game. You could even say, video games are a combination of art, that breed an entirely new form of art. If games could be art, anyway. Programmers help to integrate this into a gaming 'engine,' through which the game's resources are played back, like a very interactive movie. This can take upwards of 100 or more people, as well as a few years (or more!), to accomplish something that the gaming consumers would even consider acceptable. Even in these cases, it's not always a guaranteed success; the creators and studio's are at the mercy of not just their publishers-which are fast turning gaming into an economic endeavor more than an art-based one. They are at the mercy of several thousand consumers, if not several million, across the globe, which have all seen fit to buy a console or establish a high-end PC with their own cash in order to play games. The pressure that one must feel in a position as this is certainly both accelerated as well as amplified when the gaming press is taken into account. One of the most popular and feared terms that every game creator feels is referred to as "Crunch Time." In some cases, people have sacrificed not just sleep and food, but emotional support. They would spend days in the office, away from loved ones, and it's often joked that caffeine alone was the singular fuel for many a game-creating crunch session. Look at the special thanks in any modern game, and such phrases as "Thanks for putting up with me being away for so long" or "Thanks for waiting for me!" will crop up in several. Creators take days of their own lives to focus on removing a critical bug buried deep in thousands of lines of code, making something in the graphics look just right, or tweaking the gameplay to make it more interesting. They work hard, long, and sacrifice a lot just to be able to see what comes of it. Exciting previews can garner a few pats on the back amongst the team of creators, and some morale reprieve amongst all the workers.

But then, all the public hears about is how their hard work portrays "Inhuman Savages." http://www.joystiq.com/2007/08/01/african-womens-blog-upset-over-resident-evil-5/

This leads to content. Modern games are obviously geared toward a variety of people, with a focus on an audience of intelligent, mentally functional adults-or, so it's assumed by the creators. Some honest violence, innuendo, and truly over-the-top situations are put into many games today; a rating system was introduced in America alone to deal with this specific and 'growing problem.' How it was a 'problem' in gaming, is hard to conceive; movies, music, fine arts. All of them had definitive supplies of violence, carnage, nudity, and otherwise adult situations. Topics like suicide, homicide, rape and genocide are discussed in schools across the country. Somehow, these ideas managed to become a taboo early and often within video games. It was likely the interactivity; the thought that a person would discover some dark and spiteful activity to be extended to real life through the goading of a video game's play is an ever-present fear. The thought that, for some reason, video games are - and should remain - a simple game for a child is commonly seen, in the same instant. Game designers have a ratings system, offer warnings before games (as in the previous case of the Resident Evil games), and have done a great deal - in conjunction with the ESRB - to keep more adult endeavors out of the hands of children. Games that are rated AO (Adults Only) are not even carried by most vendors, and instead must be ordered over the internet, with age verification. Game creators have tried very hard, in order to get games respected (or at least monitored well enough through ratings and parental supervision) on a level where they would be allowed to do what they wished without fear of forced censorship. They've tried, desperately, to get to a level where games aren't considered children's toys.

But then, a game that is already unable to be sold to minors hits a snag. A company gets strong-armed from public backlash after their game is edited/hacked to include sexual content they all but removed in a perfectly legal fashion, and in no way endorsed the actual use of. In a game that, for some arcane reason, parents bought for little Timmy despite the warnings, ratings, and cries of "what the hell are you thinking, getting this for your kdis?!" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Coffee_mod (Never mind the fact that the main character was an African-american with gameplay revolving around severe criminal activities).

And then, an exceptionally violent game-one that rewards players for committing homicidal carnage that's on par with a movie- reaches controversy, one which the likes of Saw, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and various zombie movies have escalated both above and beyond. The original to the sequel, again, was somehow placed in little Timmy's hands-and people continue to fear that despite the ratings, despite the wealth of fresh and available public knowledge, that this will reach the hands of the youth en masse and bring about a sudden surge of murderous activities in teenagers. http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=166229

So, in the course of, say, a couple of years, a few different things have happened or will happen in the video game industry (exclusively to games, of course, because we all know people aren't the one's at fault):

Video games have apparently become too racist. They reward players for shooting droves of black people, all of which are wielding farm implements, and trying to kill a cop that was just minding his own business before one's eyes started to bleed from a mind controlling parasite and they started killing each other. There is absolutely, positively, no reason to shoot those murderous zombies, even in self defense. Even if they are killing each other and looking at you like you're next on their "Infect or eat this guy" list.

http://www.gamespot.com/video/929197/6175676/resident-evil-5-official-trailer-3

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Violence is an issue that sorely needs to be addressed in gaming. After all, games are entirely meant for children. Never mind the fact that an entire ratings system was invented, the education on such a system free and public in game selling stores everywhere (let alone the internet), and the enormous controversy even in newscasts around the globe. It doesn't matter if the game has "18+ only", "Adults Only," and brandish a knife-wielding maniac covered in his victim's bile and is using intestinal tubing as a makeshift noose for his own suicide. The parents should never be held responsible, since they didn't know the game 'might not be suitable' for little Timmy, simply by the virtue that a gaming company would only sell such a product to children and completely bypass the parent's consent. Not to mention, even the adults that buy this game have no concept of what reality is and will obviously learn how to murder people through the game's mechanics. Even if that game is outer space. With ninja aliens. Also, game developers are in the process of designing telepathic game consoles that directly teleport the violent content into a hapless children's skull, permanently. This is called "The Playstation 4." Therefore, all violent content needs to be stopped or strictly regulated before it gets into the hands of adults that could possibly, at some point in time, maybe buy this for their 12-year-old.

http://www.gamespot.com/wii/action/manhunt2/index.html?tag=result;title;2

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And lastly, lets not forget that sex obviously needs to be addressed in Gaming.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_a_tR-VYT-Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbMJSHrBMXM (By the way, this game is called Snake Eater for an entirely different reason than what you're likely thinking. It covers the violence issue pretty well too!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmakLVOOsTg (Hell, this one has sexual innuendo and violence simultaneously, instead of a "one or the other" scenario.)

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The reasoning that games aren't an art form yet is quite simple:

Art isn't racist. http://www.coxandforkum.com/archives/AffirmativeRacism-X.gif

Art isn't violent. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clockwork_Orange (hey, managed to cover writing AND movies on that one!)

Art is not, in ANY way shape or form, even remotely sexual. http://img525.imageshack.us/my.php?image=pic5ku5.jpg

Therefore, video games cannot equal an art, no matter how hard they try, no matter the content, and no matter the target audience.