Is School an Appropriate Video Game Setting?

This article was originally posted on GamerXChange.

School is a huge part of most people’s lives. Whether they’re still a student in high school, or are studying at a college level, almost everyone experiences a school setting for a good portion of their life. During the years spent at school, a lot can happen and change in lives. Friendships start and end, romances come and go, experiences are made, and drama spreads like wildfire. So if such a big part of the average life is spent in school, how come video games aren’t using this setting more often? Or is it even appropriate to use this setting for a video game?

Bully

Developers so readily rush towards the generic settings, like war zones, for their games, that they have become normal and quite boring. Now gamers can expect the yearly Call of Duty, Battlefield, and the odd third-person shooter. It isn’t that these games are bad, they just seem overdone. And if giant developers such as: Atlus, Square-Enix, and Rockstar can use the school setting successfully, and without stepping on too many toes, then I see no reason why other developers don’t take advantage of this hardly used setting. Making this type of game can be tricky, mostly because school deals with children, but time has shown that it can be done right. The school setting is something that I think everyone one can relate to and whether out of love or hate, revisiting this setting through video games is something special.