Culture Clash

(February 2006)

Silly Rabbit, Trix are for Kids

I saw a preview for some bad Ring -inspired horror movie the other night. Amidst the jump cuts and attempts to make little girls crawling on the walls into frightening imagery, it said something like “There are 100,000,000 gamers in the United States. One in four are addicted.”

Setting aside the absolute fallacy of the statement, and the fact that studies on game addiction only claim that video games stimulate the same neurological pleasure centers as drugs (so does sex, getting promoted, petting a kitten, candy and any number of other harmless endeavors), there's a darker problem in there. Why can this movie – and Jack Thompson, and the mainstream news – get away with blatantly lying to the public about the dangers of video gaming? It's partly because video games are a relatively new and widely misunderstood medium. But it's also because of the word game , a name that doesn't do this industry any good.

Despite reams of animal kingdom proof to the contrary, “play” is seen in western culture as childish and pointless. Zoologists and gamers both know that's not the case, but to everyone else a game is empty entertainment: insignificant, worthless, something to be set aside in adulthood in favor of drearier and more mature pursuits like paying the bills and regretting things. There is a Puritanical view that games are something bad, or at least something meaningless, and that grown ups should know better than to play or (God forbid) make them. This philosophy is strongest in North America, which after all is where the Puritans put down roots. Their “be ashamed of everything” mantra implies that while children can maintain visions of sugarplums, adults should frankly know better.

Japanese culture doesn't seem to share the disdain for the word “game.” While western gamers are subject to far greater social stigma than, say, chronic television watchers, the Japanese prefer to view games as just another consumable medium. Similarly, animation in Japan is perfectly acceptable for adults to enjoy, while here it's still seen by many as “just a cartoon.” Why the Japanese are more culturally liberal on this is anyone's guess; the western problem with games is etymological and has a long history. And it's not just limited to the view that games are childish. “Gaming” isn't always taken to mean the whole spectrum of play, but gambling and gambling alone, with all the associated negative connotations. This is especially true among the generations that did most of their growing up before the rise of the video game market.

Interestingly, despite the fact that serious gamers and developers should know perfectly well that games can be much more than puerile entertainment, the misapprehension has seeped into hardcore gamer/developer culture as well. This is best typified in the games-as-art dispute; there are many in the industry who react angrily – even abusively – to those who claim that games may have greater meaning. John Carmack's insistence that games are only entertainment is just the best-known remark in the debate, which has gone on for many years. While developers who don't see games as art are welcome to hold that opinion, the vitriol in some of their responses is baffling. It's almost as if some developers are ashamed of the medium, which is very sad.

Though it may be alluring to suggest that being seen as infantile might have its advantages, that is a dangerous viewpoint. Something easily dismissed is easily attacked, and even outlandish accusations stick well to media that are viewed with contempt. As if it weren't enough to claim that games make kids shoot up their schools (they don't), some uniquely idiotic people are now saying that they promote… wait for it… cannibalism. A medium that is not accepted as anything more than a childish waste of time is easy to vilify and difficult to defend, even against ridiculous accusations like this one. Recall that in the 1950s, the similarly ill-viewed comics industry was accused of making kids gay and Communist, a claim just as off the wall as some of those made about games. Comics, too, were viewed as juvenile and not worthy of serious attention. Indeed, the destruction of the comics industry in the United States was made possible in part by the fact that it was so easy to tear down something that few adults viewed as worthwhile in the first place.

So calling the medium “games” is harmful; yet at the same time it seems both pompous and rather weak to change the medium's name to “interactive entertainment” or something like that. They started as games and games they shall remain. Plus, they are games. The problem is less the word and more the way people interpret it. But the efforts to reeducate the populace about what play really means are an epic – possibly insurmountable – undertaking. The fact is westerners see games as toys; they see toys as fun but useless; and they see fun as something that should be had by kids and repented by adults. Even so, renaming the medium is a cop-out; the nomenclatorial equivalent of debating what “is” means. Changing Datsun to Nissan works better for products than concepts.

A fledgling medium hungers for validation and acceptance. In the wake of a year that can only be described as a public relations disaster for the industry (and 2006 isn't showing signs of being much better), we recognize more than ever that image is important. And though the debate over the validity of video games as relevant cultural contributions will eventually swing profoundly in a favorable direction, for now there are still plenty of people out there who see nothing wrong with chucking the entire medium into a kid's toychest. But it's important to bear in mind that reeducation of the nongaming populace isn't just about making people see the value in video games – it's about making them see the value in play itself.