Let's face it. This isn't about games anymore.

(Paul, let me tell you beforehand, you don't want to read this)

So, I was thinking recently about a study by the CEA, which said that adults spend more time playing games than children. It suddenly occurred to me how we could solve this whole “Won’t somebody think of the children” problem.

 

Consider this (from the ESA website): “Ninety-five percent of people who make the actual purchase of computer games and 84% of people who make the actual purchase of video games are 18 years of age or older. The average age of the game buyer is 37 years old.”

 

The ten-year-old kids who played in the 80’s, the height of the arcade game era, are now around thirty years old. And statistics show that they never actually outgrew their love of games. Those same ten-year-olds are now just adult players.

 

As the generations progress, we will see more and more of this. More adults will become gameplayers, and will dominate the market. After all, the single biggest selling video game series (GTA) has been rated M for quite some time. It wasn’t just naughty children that made it the most successful. It was adults who actually enjoy video games that are not necessarily about butterflies and unicorns.

 

So here’s the thing, we’ve got a lot of adults who want to play adult-themed games. We’ve got a lot of parents that don’t want their children playing adult-themed games. But we can’t curtail the rights of some, without curtailing the rights of all (after all, if anyone can buy the game, then my son can go over to a friend’s house to play bad games).

 

The natural impulse is to let parents take control of their children, because the alternative is to let the government control children’s access to games. However, parents seem to want to turn that control over to the government, after seeing our government’s long and sterling track record of caring for the children.

 

Part of the parents desire to turn censorship control over to the government, is that they are just tired of tracking the kids, and they don’t want to have to watch them every second. However, another (more pervasive) issue is that parents generally don’t like adult game players. They see us as trivial, shiftless, childish people, based on broad generalizations about the games we play. So, when it comes to curtailing freedoms, they don’t mind denying games to adult gamers one bit.

 

Another thing is, most parents assume that the solution to this problem is to destroy all non-child-related games. They assume that, if action is taken to censor games, the obvious answer will be to disallow violent and/or sexual games.

 

But I think there’s another way.

 

As I said at the beginning, adults spend more time playing games than children do. And, as the years unfurl, we’ll see even more adults playing games, and even fewer children (by comparison, anyway). So, what if, instead of trying to destroy all adult-themed games, we go the other direction? Take children out of the equation.

 

Separate all games into two categories: Edutainment and Adult. Make this an actual rating system, which is enforceable by law. The edutainment games would be forced to adhere to a strict set of guidelines (perhaps slightly more restrictive than what the Germans use for their video games). No humans harmed in the games. No bodies, No blood. No religious or pagan symbolism. No nudity or even suggestive clothing. No kissing or intimate contact.

 

Meanwhile, the adult games would be completely open. Anything goes. You could make the most horrifically scatological, diseased game, and it could be sold behind the counter to anybody with an ID showing a birthdate around 1984.

 

Sell two types of systems. One is small, light, portable, brightly colored, and generally low powered. That one can only play kids games, and cannot connect to the evil internet. At the same time, you can sell the sleek, black, heavy brick that’s made to fit stylistically in any entertainment system, cost a small fortune, and is the pinnacle of modern technology and net access. That one could only be sold to adults, and would only play adult games.

 

Here’s the kicker though. We could actually enforce this. Make it part of the ATF, which would create the new ATVGF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Video Games, and Firearms). It makes sense, in a way, because the ATF already regulates things which are legal to buy, but are regulated to protect us from ourselves. The ATVGF would police vendors, and make sure that children aren’t buying video games. They would also be responsible for making sure that adults aren’t buying the games for kids (after all, you wouldn’t let them buy cigarettes for the kids, would you?)

 

Best of all, we could give power to a cultural force already in progress. If we can convince children that the adult video games are bad, we can make sure that only bad kids play adult games, and we can make children feel guilty about doing what they shouldn’t. After all, making adult games seem dangerous and bad has worked really well to stop teens from looking at porn, smoking, and drinking.

 

It could even be seen as a rite of passage, where a child learns that, when he gets to be old enough to drink, he can play the kick-ass games that he heard about all through his childhood.

 

By making games less interesting to children (and lets face it, edutainment is less interesting to them), we can spark a more active lifestyle for kids, with lots more sports and socialization outside of the home. Get the kids off the games, and back on the streets, where it’s safe.

 

If you think about it, this is really a great way to go about policing video games. After all, the game makers can get more money by selling multiple versions of their games. The hardware makers get more money because they get to sell two sets of systems. And the government will back it, because it’s a new way to police the populace, and a new set of laws they can use to fine people with. Everybody’s a winner!

 

 

( Disclaimer: my wife required me to point out, that the preceding has been a work of satire. If it actually sounds like a good idea, you should head to the local library, and take a look at some of the following stories:

 

1984, by George Orwell.

Animal Farm, by George Orwell,

Brave New World, by Aldus Huxley,

Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury,

The Trial, by Franz Kafka)