Where Politics And Video Games Collide

@Danny Ledonne

'It would seem that the legislators were using the aesthetic choices I made with SCMRPG as pejorative detractions rather than motivated themes for the game."

Please keep in mind that most of the people at that meeting were non-gamers, so of course they won't understand that graphics aren't usually a good indicator of a game's quality. Additionally, I would believe some of the legislators there still struggle to check their email. Thus, they won't understand the underlying distinctions between a homebrew online game and a big-budget title sold in brick-and-mortar stores.

Really, I think Sabey only made a point about your game's low production values to explain to these politicians that the game is not sold at retail. Although most of these legislators aren't gamers, they must know that games are becoming more advanced in visuals and audio and more popular at the same time. Therefore, most of them probably think that gamers judge the quality of a game by its graphics (which is partially true). So when they see a game of SNES quality, they arrive at the conclusion that no developer would design that game for retail, as nobody would want it. Knowing this, Sabey probably made up a correlation between SCMRPG's graphics and gameplay in order to emphasize to these legislators that it is not sold in stores and not even rated by the ESRB.

Bottom line: I wouldn't exactly take those words as an insult until we can be sure of Sabey's attitudes towards your game. His statement could have just been his way of communicating to the Utah legislature that your game is not being sold or marketed in stores, in language these politicians could understand.