There is Sex on My Screen

I can’t say that there have been a whole lot of topics as touchy with as how video games are treated in the mainstream. Violence within gaming is something that has always been there, but as we’ve come to an age that media plays into life and politics more and more each day, we see how the public looks at the industry. Grand Theft Auto IV is a fantastic example, as is Mass Effect.The latter of the two is a prime example of how things are just taken wrong. Bad reporting might go hand-in-hand with Fox News, depending on your opinion, but saying that Mass Effect allows you to choose when to have sex, how to have it, and who to have it with is just terrible journalism.

But look at the big difference between “gamers” and the rest of the world. We look at that and ask how such a deep piece of entertainment can be taken like that. Others look and see a game with sex- and that’s just an issue: GAME. Of course it’s a game, but that’s the big problem. Movies, TV shows, books, and the like all have deep elements and full fledged stories that come along with them. So when there is violence on the television, people don’t think much of it because if they recognize good writing or an engaging plot of any sort, it makes everything else a side note.

Not so with a piece of software. People don’t expect top of the line stories with character development and the like – at least not those that think games are still just that. How can one expect the industry to gain respect if everything it spits out is seen only as a game. Sure, that’s what it is, and there isn’t another option, but until the mainstream consumers think beyond a control pad and guns, they won’t realize that video games are much more nowadays. As far as I’m concerned it won’t be a time when video games are seen the same as movies until the older generations have passed on.