The blame-laying and assault on video games reaches new lows with underhanded and under-researched arguments.

http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/KevinMcCullough/2008/01/13/the_sex-box_race_for_president?page=full&comments=true

It's obviously already been covered how incredibly far off-base this "columnist" is in almost every detail of his argument. The single scene of physical romance (because that's precisely what it is for a whopping handful of seconds) is no different than sillouhette montage scenes of romance in movies rated PG13 or even R.

Rather than continue harping on his misinformation, I'd like to draw attention to the discussion about ratings for video games and who exactly they're aimed at these days.

Of course we can all agree that for the longest time, the majority of games were targeted at younger audiences. Of course, this was also over a decade ago that this trend started, and created the vast majority of today's gamer population. If we do some simple math (yay education, my parents did yet another thing right for me), those gamers are now adults, with adult tastes. This trend is reflected in the bulk of the video games being produced these days.

Honestly, at times I miss the days of Q-bert, Marble Madness, and other non-violent games from yesteryear, but advances in technology have yielded an environment to suspend disbelief. Isn't that what fictional entertainment is for? The reason Tom Clancy's "The Hunt for Red October", Isaac Asimov's "The Caves of Steel" and numerous other Science Fiction and Fiction novels are such incredible reads are because they suspend one's disbelief, allowing them to get immersed in the content, and therefore draw immense amounts of enjoyment.

Mass Effect is indeed heavily grounded in plausibility. But we all also realize that there currently is no interstellar travel on the scale represented in that game. We don't have daily contact with extraterrestrials. These things, however, are part of the draw in that game. It gives us a chance to do the impossible. A more advanced and interactive form of pretend.

You know, that thing we used to as a kid? Ever put a towel around your neck and run around pretending you could fly like Superman? Imagine if you could actually see yourself flying through a realistic looking city, stopping villains from destroying your city with gun-fights and bombs.

Mass Effect, along with numerous other games hitting store shelves and homes, is fiction. It isn't real. Anyone who can't tell the difference, and act accordingly, severely needs a reality check.

I've worked at Circuit City and Best Buy in the past. I know what happens when people buy video games. Little 11-year-old Jimmy brings his mom to the store so she can buy him some game called GTA because he and his friends talk about it with the same amount of excitement as some people have towards sports or even academia. Mom, however, didn't think to ask what the game's about. Of course, Mom, in Jimmy's case, doesn't like video games very much, nor does she understand them, so why would she understand what her son's talking about? I know it doesn't happen enough, but I was one of the few employees who informed parents of what exactly they were buying. It's then that parent's responsibility to use that information and make their own decision. If they continue to buy, that's their call. They know their kid better than I do.

Ratings and their labels are there for a reason. It's to let someone have a rough idea of what they can expect to see, content-wise, in the game in question. There are as many ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board) ratings for video games as there are for movies. Parents respond to their 11-year-old asking to see an R-rated movie. R, recommended for audiences 17 or over. Mass Effect. Rated M, for Mature. Mature audiences only (17+). I don't see any difference.

I've got two siblings, both younger. My parents wouldn't allow any of us to watch rated R movies unless they'd seen them first and approved. At the same time, they wouldn't let either of them play M-rated games unless they'd either done research or played them themselves.

Games are being targeted more towards the mature gamer than toward the children out there. This isn't an opinion, this is obvious, and all it takes is a 10-minute perusal of your local game shop to see. If you go to a movie targeted at adults, such as "The Libertine" or "The Matrix", you expect adult content and situations. Video games are little more than interactive movies. You merely take center stage as the main character.

If you prevent your child from watching a movie you've been warned is inappropriate for them, why wouldn't you do the same for a video game? Video games are at least as big an industry as the movie industry. Eyes need to be opened to this FACT.