Games are a unique art form entertaining and enriching the lives of countless millions of players the world, yet often receive condemnation from people who have never touched a joypad.
Yesterday it was
parenting groups condemning Bully: Scholarship Edition from Rockstar, makers of Grand Theft Auto.
I'm not usually in the habit of defending Rockstar, who often seem to deliberately court controversy (free publicity) yet don't often have the courage to defend their art. But obviously Bully's critics didn't bother to actually play the game, otherwise they would have realised it is satire, and that protagonist Jimmy Hopkins is trying to fight Bullworth Academy's bullies, not be one.
Some research might also have informed the critics that the same game was released two years ago in Australia for PlayStation 2 (under the obscure name Canis Canem Edit) and did not suddenly cause an outbreak of bullying across the country's playgrounds. The game is not even meant for "kids" to play - its rated M. The dangerous myth that games are only played by children (and that all games are suitable for youngsters to play) is still prevalent in this country.
What this episode once again tells us is that the generation gap can be relied upon to produce criticism based upon ignorance or the shock of the new.
Games are in good company as today's scapegoat for society's ills - rock 'n roll, movies, comics, television and even books have received similar condemnation in the past. Hopefully, one day games will be recognised as just another form of entertainment that has the potential equally to aid a child's development as to harm it, and that generalising that all games are violent and anti-social is as absurd as the once commonly held notion that a gyrating rock star would create depraved sexual deviants.
Brett Hutchins, a lecturer in new media at Monash University, once wrote in The Age that the most visible representatives of the "gaming subculture" - young, male players - "are among the least likely to offer an articulate, considered public defense of their chosen activity and the industry that underpins it".
It is an excellent point, but now as game playing becomes increasingly mainstream (the average age of game players in Australia is 28, and women and older Australians are the fastest growing audiences) I think it is time for a call to arms. Intelligent, passionate and eloquent gamers need to stand up and become culture crusaders for their favourite past-time.
They need to educate the likes of politicians, newspaper and magazine editors, television producers, censors, academics, critics and parents alike about the wondrous possibilities of virtual worlds for both entertainment and education. They need to explain that the few controversial games that garner headlines are not representative of the majority of titles released, nor the wondrous potential of the interactive medium. Australians have a particularly great opportunity at the moment, as our Federal and State Attorneys-General are actively seeking feedback from the public on a proposed (and long overdue) R18+ games classification.
As gaming god Peter Molyneux pointed out to me at a Electronic Entertainment Expo a few years ago, computer gaming is a unique form of entertainment the world has never seen before.
"For countless centuries we've had storytellers and the written word," Molyneux says.
"In the last century we've had movies, radio and music. Those are all other people's dreams played out before me, a spectator. What computer games can do is for the first time they give those spectators control."
Hutchins agrees, writing that our lives are enriched by play, and games "can open our eyes to new horizons of experience, possibility and mutual recognition".
It is interesting that many passionate (hardcore) gamers actually detest the games industry's efforts to attract new players. They want to keep their favourite hobby to themselves and not have it polluted by the kind of banality that Hollywood so often produces in its attempts to capture the widest possible audience.
But if gamers want cultural recognition for this most exciting new medium, want developers to be free to explore its boundless possibilities, want the end of tabloid persecution and the right to play whatever they wish, they are going to have to educate the world's policy makers and thought leaders that there is much more to gaming than mindless violence.