Video Games as ‘Kid’s’ Toys - Wordplay and the Discourse of Video Games - page 38

2 Video Games as 'Kid's' Toys

Understanding wordplay requires analyzing both the content of video
games and the larger context in which those games are discussed, designed,
and played. The framing discourse surrounding games has a tremendous
impact on both what gets played and the kinds of games that are devel-
oped. One of the key elements of the rhetorical environment surrounding
games is a belief that video games are kid's toys. Although demographic
data fi rmly refutes the idea that video games are the exclusive province of
children, dominant themes most typically advanced by non-gamers focus
on how video games are corrupting the young. The establishment of the
perception that children are the target audience for games is a persistent
one, more clearly developed in certain regions of the world than others.
This belief grounds elements of how society at large processes discussions
about games, making it a key element of the discourse of video games and a
topic in dire need of deconstruction to better understand how words about
video games impact the design and play of them.
The establishment of children as a key target market for video games is a
relatively recent phenomenon, even in the truncated history of video games
as a whole. Initially designed at places like research laboratories 1 or by a
group of students at one of the world's leading universities 2 and requiring
sophisticated equipment to play, video games were more available to adults
and college students than children. Early arcade games continued the trend,
with Atari user testing taking place in a local bar. Arcades then became a
place that parents warned their kids to avoid because of perceptions about
their clientele and sometimes seedy locations. The introduction of home
gaming systems, like the Atari VCS/2600 and Intellivision, changed the
dynamics of users somewhat as games were introduced into private space,
but the audience for video games cut across many major demographics,
not just children. In the United States, the roots of contemporary discus-
sions surrounding video games were formed in the wake of the video game
crash of 1984, as the video game industry in North America shrank, subse-
quently opening space for the introduction of the Nintendo Entertainment
System (NES).
A substantial part of Nintendo's advertising campaign for the NES was
aimed at children as potential consumers of video games. Children had cer-
tainly been a target market prior to the NES, as video games were generally