Does the American Public See US As Grown Up?

by Jeff Adashek 

Several recent editorials have dealt with the question of "mature" content in video games, whether that be of a violent, sexual, or religious nature. Having universally agreed that we are mature enough to handle such controversial themes, Ben Bleything sums up the problem very nicely:

"Unfortunately, and this has been stated before, in various contexts, there is not a whole lot we can do. If Square decides they don't want to publish Xenogears, or any other game with "questionable" religious content, they won't publish it. It isn't like we (the US RPG community) are going to stop buying Square games. And if they do put such a game out, and it does cause massive religious upheaval, we could well see our entire community ostracized and persecuted until some great event sets everyone straight. Agreed, this is rather melodramatic, but I believe it is possible. Not likely, but possible."

With the negative implication that Square is not releasing Xenogears, etc. because it's covering its butt against a potential (though unlikely) backlash by people who don't want the possibility even raised.

With all due respect, I disagree with Bleything's assessment of the likelihood of said backlash, for a simple reason.

The debates surrounding these issues at RPGamer have for the most part followed a two-step reasoning:

STEP 1. We're adults; we're mature enough to handle this.

THEREFORE,

STEP 2. Square should be ashamed of itself for baby-sitting us.

The problem is in step one, because (heave a collective groan, everyone, yes, it's THAT misperception again) in the eyes of the public, these video games are NOT aimed at us. They're aimed at pre-adolsecent and adolescent children, children who are at just that level of reasoning where the kind of subtle sub-textual plot foundation which we see, discern, and enjoy as good and thought-provoking storywriting goes over their heads, but goes straight to their hearts in the form of unconscious assumptions which would then carry over into life.

While some areas, such as violence, are routinely played on television in forms hundreds of times worse than in a game, and other areas such as sexual content will completely go over their heads, (the public has pretty much given up on these areas after the Night Stalker incident a couple years back) areas such as religion (espectally religion, which is, according to popular belief, at the heart of why this country was colonized in the first place) hit just that balance, where the sub-text may not be explicitly recognizable, but is definitely implicitly transferable.

And if a product that, in the minds of the public, is aimed at children tries to cut into such an area -- worse, challenge it, or worse yet, challenge it subtly, as Xenogears does -- a backlash is inevitable.

In short, if we want games like Xenogears (especially now that with FFVII, RPGs have begun to move into the mainstream of the video game world) we're going to have to change the entire public perception of video games, and convince the American public that the video game market is primarily adult, not prepubescent.

Sadly, I doubt that will happen any time soon.