Missing the Mark

While we’re talking about how to make cowboy games, there’s one very important issue that needs to be addressed. What is the target demographic of the Western themed game?

Some people say that cowboys are kids stuff. Now, we all know that’s just not true. Cowboys spit and swear. Cowboys kill indiscriminately. They hunt for gold in all the wrong places; they chase skirts, ride horses, and steal land from our Native American brothers. Does that sound like kid stuff? Course not, unless of course your kid is a full grown cowboy. No, no. That isn’t kid stuff. For all you foreigners, that is what we refer to in the U.S.A as the “American Dream”.

Really, the problem isn’t the cowboys. The problem is that in our society only a child is allowed to dress up and play cowboy without being considered a “public nuisance”. Of course, with the advent of video games, we can now play cowboy at any age. And we do it from behind a computer screen where no man alive can judge us.

Yes my friends, the cowboy is not for kids. The cowboy is for adults. Now we know that for certain. But despite that, here at the Johnny Outlaw studio, we have made it our mission to spread the cowboy gospel to all mankind, even the children. After all, what could be more important than passing on the cowboy to the next generation, to make the cowboy for kids? Much as I hate to say it, that’s getting harder and harder to do.

As I said before, cowboys aren’t kid stuff. The cowboys we call “kid stuff” are stripped of all the rude behavior and viciousness that made them cowboys to begin with! And if that isn’t enough, the good people at Microsoft prohibit games from having too much indiscriminate killing, alcohol, spitting tobacco, and God knows what else. My friends, Microsoft has literally outlawed the cowboy. And when the cowboy is outlawed, only outlaws will be cowboys.

Now our children will never know the joys of being a real cowboy. What can we do about this? Some people might protest. Maybe even start a boycott. I tell you, if former American president and cowboy enthusiast Theodore Roosevelt were here, he’d be mad as all Hell, and he’d sure do something about it. So what are we going to do? We’re going to do what a true cowboy would do: stick to our guns.

So we come to the greatest weapon in Johnny Outlaw’s arsenal: the euphemism. Every cowboy action can be euphemized so that the kids can experience the real cowboy way and those goons at Microsoft can be placated.

Things that might be considered offensive can be slightly altered, and made "kid friendly".
-Cigarillos can be replaced by the smoking toothpick.
-Whiskey is gone, but "tasty cowboy juice" is not.
-Instead of killing a man, we simply "shoot his hat off".

Of course some things just plain had to go, but the cowboy spirit remains.
-Instead of profanity, we have the uplifting words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
-The cowboy’s often ignored sense of duty and honor is replaced with a comically inept anthropomorphic cactus sheriff.
-The deep-seated greed that rests in every man’s soul and drives our villains onward has been replaced with an inexplicable deep-seated hatred for fun and good times.

Did we betray the cowboy? No. Microsoft did that. But we will overcome. We will one day have cowboy games tailored to every demographic, for the cowboy is timeless. At what age, in what nation, under what creed does a man tire of ogling women, drinking whiskey, and taking lives? This is the heart of the cowboy. And a cowboy's heart won’t stop until he’s dead. And a cowboy is only dead if he was killed by a better cowboy.