They may have good intentions at heart, and as an institution, I agree that they are better than the alternative, but they are just as much of an obstacle to advancing the state of the art as incontinent devs and customers. They set the tone for public perception of games, and the tone they have set is antithetical to the true maturation of the medium.

@George: I’m all up for some ass-kicking every now and again, but there is no reason why that ass-kicking can’t be in the name of the utopia, or for a higher cause. A lot of the action heroes I’ve seen in video-games recently are motivated more by primal instincts like revenge or survival than by noble ideals. And I believe the formula for action games can be subverted to serve nobler purposes. In fact, games themselves can and should be used to promote these nobler purposes. As you’ve said yourself, we have the keys to the very essence of culture in our hands, but we’re opening the wrong doors.

Between the two of you you’ve got me thinking: the games we make are the key. Games can be used to change people’s perceptions of the world, in the same way that the books we read as youngsters undeniably mold the way we think until we find ‘harder’ truths through personal experience. Thus, with the right games, it is possible to show kids (and adults) glimpses of a better world, one that they can aspire to help create. Games can be used as tools to shape culture. It is then a matter of identifying the problem we want to tackle, and create a tool to overcome it.

Of course, this then has me thinking that if the ESRB rating system is in itself flawed, it can be viewed as such an obstacle. Looking at it this way, the really subversive thing to do would be to design a game in such a way that it ‘breaks’ the system, and forces change.

Would that fit your definition of ‘revolution’?

As someone who is largely unable to cut through the dryness that permeates Star Trek, my appreciation for the series is purely philosophical, and you’ve hit the nail on the head there. Good literature – to use Aristotle’s definition – is about presenting the world as it ought to be. To make a game in which the player gets to experience an ideal world and understand it from the inside out should be one of our primary goals right now, but ultimately the apocalypse makes for better ass-kicking.

That would, of course, be the videogame EQUIVALENT to Citizen Kane, but much of the industry seems to be looking for a game LIKE Citizen Kane, which would of course defeat the purpose of making a game in the first place.

I’ve been accused of trying to tell utopia stories before, and frankly I’m guilty as charged. But isn’t that the point of art? To illustrate the change you want to see in the world?

Awesome writing, man.

I don’t expect complex sociopolitical commentary from something like DOA: Beach Volleyball or even God of War, the commentary in BioShock could have been done within a T rated frame, and an E/E10 game like Kingdom Hearts has plenty of thoughtful storytelling.

In other words, real maturity and careful storytelling operate on a completely different axis from the ESRB’s rating scheme. Until consumers *and* devs realize that, we won’t get very far in game storytelling.

Nice article.