Firstly, we have to go back to the original issue of the terminology for our pastime and the connotations it still evokes. We as gamers have been with the medium every step of the way and we’ve seen how it’s changed. To us, each development of videogame subject matter has simply been a natural and slight progression from what has gone before. To us, there’s never been any shocking jump in explicitness in gaming and we rightly accept most subject matter as just another aspect of the medium. To less knowledgable mainstream on-lookers though, the rich canvas of gaming is largely unknown, and as a result they only get to hear of the more adult side of gaming when a particularly extreme example causes a stir.

With only these minority examples as experience, the content seems far more pronounced than it may actually be, and as a result the effect is far more shocking to the uneducated viewer. But cinema also throws up the occasional inflammatory text. In fact a quick look through the DVD shelves will show up all kinds of extreme material which rarely if ever earns an attack from the watchful eye of the moral majority. Any fan of Miike Takashi will tell you that. So why the problem with games? It’s all down to that word.

The word “game” just compounds the assumptions that the non-savvy still hold. Many of these people have never played a game, and if they have it usually isn’t regularly or recently enough to really understand what they’re now about. Many still hold the idea that it’s all Pac-man and Tetris, and the fact that videogames are called videogames does nothing but confirm their flawed perception. You only have to look at the amount of parents who unbelievably still pay no attention to game ratings, or worse still, have no idea they even exist. They hear the word “game” and assume it’s all sweetness, fluff and singing daisies. That does not give them an excuse to ignore the unambiguous big fat “18” badge on the box, but for whatever twisted reasoning, the fact that they’re dealing with a game causes some kind of mental mis-fire which sees them happy to gloss over it. It’s a sad indictment of lazy parenting, but perhaps things would actually be more clean cut if we used the hated old PR maxim “interactive entertainment” instead.