Gadgetopia

I got an email on Wired Rants and Raves a while back (the last one in the list). Just found it, five months later. Reading it again, I believe it even more strongly.

The article “The Games Wal-Mart Doesn’t Play,” (Dec. 2, 2002) quotes: “It’s almost impossible to get a game with nudity on the shelves in the major retail stores, which is ridiculous…”

Why is it so desperately important to “get a game with nudity on the shelves”? Is this is the be-all and end-all of video game interaction? Is this the next frontier that some developer with no kids thinks he needs to foist on mine? How crappy does your game have to be that the only way to spice it up is with nudity?

Hats off to Wal-Mart. This is not censorship — this is a great American company taking a stand for what it thinks is right. The world is full of rules, and Wal-Mart has laid down its own. We need more companies, and more people, like Wal-Mart. If not for them, anything would go, and games would degenerate into sex, (more) violence, and God knows what. Call it a line in the digital sand.

Wal-Mart keeps game companies honest. Instead of just using shock value to make up for their collective creative bankruptcy, they should try coming up with an entertaining title that doesn’t require skin to sell. Good luck.