So I was originally going to talk about attacks on gaming in general, you know, the old, video games make children violent drug addicted killers. I was going to talk about how people don't know anything about modern games and how in the 50s the big evil was rock and roll and how older generations always attack youth culture and blah blah blah. Since that is old news and others have covered it far better than I ever could; I've decided to talk about what I perceive to be the root cause of the problem: public ignorance around who is actually playing these games.

According to the ESA the average game player is 33 years old. What I find most interesting about this is that people who were kids at the start of the video game era would be in their mid-30s by now. Why is this interesting? Because when video games first appeared the people playing them were kids (ie. under 13). I think that this simple fact has influenced the public perception that video games are for kids, rather than being something adults can enjoy too. Does anyone care about 30 seconds of implied sex and side-boob in an R rated movie? Of course not (not to mention a movie with that little sex would be rated PG-13). So why the hoopla when it is in an M rated game? Because people understand that R rated movies are aimed at adults yet fail to realize the same thing about M rated games since in their minds, gamers are still pre-teens. I'd be pretty worried too if I thought a generation of 10 year olds was playing Mass Effect.

I know, I know, kids get their hands on the games. Kids also sneak into R rated movies; is Fox going to run an expose about how there is 30 seconds of implied sex and side-boob in the movie Fight Club? Probably not, since such an expose would be ridiculous. How about discussing the violence in a movie like 300? Nope, no controversy there. When it comes to movies it is understood that the audience for those rated R will be adults and that the production companies have no moral responsibility to remove any sex and violence just because some kids might manage to sneak into the theatre. Yet no one seems to understand this about games.

So, what is the solution? I have a thought: perhaps instead of getting defensive about a specific game or gaming in general, we as the gaming community need to do more to educate people on the facts about who is playing video games and why some games contain mature content. Once they understand that Bioshock and Mass Effect and Call of Duty 4 were developed for adults, maybe they will stop getting all freaked out. To get everyone started here is my best analogy: South Park. Everyone understands that just because South Park is a cartoon that doesn't mean it is for kids. The same thing is true for M rated video games.