What if, young Laura Croft actually did get raped, like the newest Tomb Raider trailer is suggesting she's in danger of. For arguments sake, lets say she escaped the cave, made it into the forest, was doing well for a while, got captured again, was raped, and left for dead. But she perseveres, confronts her captors, and saves the day.
In real life women get raped all the time, and those women have to find a way to get past that. Some do, others end up stuck there forever. Some speak as if games need to move closer to real life in order to be taken seriously, but when the dark, horrible, reality of this mortal coil finds itself anywhere near a game, the song changes.
Real world "Adventure," is short and scary, most real world "Heroes," are sad and fucked up. It sucks, but that's life, it is what it is. We have it pretty good right now as gamers in being shielded from that. We warp zone straight to the good stuff.
No matter how many E3's, GDP's, and wall street public offerings we acquire, video games today are still escapism and empowerment fantasies, as evidenced by how fans react when challenging concepts are introduced. There is a real and lasting cost in moving away from that, a cost I think we are not ready to accept.
The Protoculture Mixtape v.90 Issue : People : Pandora
