"Why would you buy a GameCube?" the stranger asked me. "You should have bought an Xbox. All GameCube games are for kids."

I quickly responded, "No, that's not true. Just look at Eternal Darkness; exclusive to the GameCube, and most definitely not for kids. It was probably one of the top 5 games last year."

"Well, regardless of the gameplay, you have to admit that GameCube games are targetted for people somewhere around 12 years old," was his retort. I let the subject drop.

"Adult" games are the reason that people buy the PlayStation 2 and the Xbox much of the time. What are some games for adults? Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, in which you hijack cars, sometimes bodily throwing their drivers out of their seats. Halo, in which you kill other people with all manner of fancy weapons. (Really, any first-person shooter.) Real-time strategy games of all kinds, which involve battling competing armies with your own forces and allow you to build replacement men for those who die in the line of battle. Some of these strategy games even allow you to recreate actual wars, the lowest points of human history.

Notice a pattern?

Somehow "games for adults" has been equated with "games which trivialise life." The object in many "adult" games is to find bigger and better weapons with which you will kill your opponents. What's more, games which lack needless death are labelled as "for kids" even if they contain exactly the same gameplay elements which make the "adult" game fun.

Somehow the common gamer has lost sight of the fact that games are a method of having fun—no more, no less. For normal people the act of having fun isn't predicated on blood and guns, pain and suffering.

The reason I bought a GameCube is clear to me: I wanted a system on which I would be able to play innovative and fun games. I feel no need to hurt people in my gameplay, although I have played (and will continue to play) games in which that is an element. When I play games, I feel a need to be entertained. I suggest that many gamers need to re-evaluate their priorities; instead of judging the game based on the superficial content, they should judge the game based on gameplay and fun level.