Violence and sex in games Thread

I have re-written this post at least three times now. Even as I type this for at least the forth time, I wonder if I'm doing it right.

I want to talk about violent and sexual content in games.

I'm 27 and as such, I'm old enough to remember the old days of censorship and moral panic. The days when Mortal Kombat, GTA, Manhunt, Carmageddon and Thrill Kill were the evils coming to corrupt the youth of the day, and given how I turned out they were probably right.

In all seriousness though, the arguments today, as they were back then, are pretty weak and lacking in evidence. The difference is that today people should be old enough to know better. They grew up with games, so it's not as if they are some mysterious new thing that all the kids do.

To me, the whole thing seems pretty obvious, artists should be allowed to make what they want, and people can choose to buy/play it or not. Yet there seems no shortage of people willing to roll their eyes whenever a new FPS comes out. People willing to dismiss a horror game for the crime of having a gun in it. People willing to cry sexism should any skin be shown for any reason.

I hear talk of "developers responsibility", but I thought the developers only responsibilities were to their players and publishers. I hear that developers have to "justify" their use of violence and sex, but you never hear that in other mediums. When was the last time you heard of a rapper being told to ease off the swearing, or a film being looked down on because it had blood in it?

What also confuses me is this idea that sex and violence is the opposite of art. Akira, Sin City, Watchmen, Ghost in the Shell and Blade Runner are all classic works of fiction, and all have large amounts of nudity and violence. I'm currently reading Atlus Shrugged for the first time, and that has a fair bit of sex in it as well. The point is, the idea that a drop of blood or a hint of nipple doesn't automatically invalidate an entire work, so why are games treated as if it does?

Games are the new media. And as we all know, new media are evil.

But to seriously try to answer the question, it's probably because games are still seen as something for kids and teenagers, the two demographics that are traditionally kept away from violence and sex; rather like animation, actually. Not enough people have grown up with them to see them as anything else. It's also kind of like those novel series where the writer will start writing more mature books in the series, to have it grow with its established fans, only for people to decry them because "kids could get their innocent little hands on them."

Or, put another way, things that are considered most definitely not for kids are in a medium that is still considered to be for kids only/primarily.

I think Terran's on the ball on this one.

The people who are against violence in Video Games still think that it's a medium for kids only. That is why the only excuse they have is "for the children". They now know that movies are for everyone, that music is for everyone, that books are for everyone. Video games, to them, are not. These same people probably think comic books are for kids as well.

>>EDIT: Omg - I had too much time ^^

Good points in this thread!
Let me split my answer in two parts: personal first and sociological afterwards

1. I have just been through a similar train of thought, because I applied for funding for a game project and found that the state is only interested in funding "non-violent" games. This is like taking away the ball in a game of soccer, because it makes a violent game (fouls) possible. It also takes away a core principle of any shooter, which straight away excludes these kind of games from having any hope for funding. Weird - and all because the state doesn't want to be held responsible by the news. They don't want to hear they promoted another "Bowling for Columbine" by funding violent games.

I think this is a cowardly and "fake" response of the funding to the actual development of games by actual people. You can't hold me responsible for whatever might happen through playing my game, and I did not make it intently offensive and brutal, on the contrary. So, I should have artistic freedom here. But notice: artistic freedom can only be in place in a work of art. If you let game characters tea-bag other (dead) characters for an achievement, for example, that would just be tasteless. So it depends: art can easily be exploited as a means to an end and should probably not be an important factor in the whole violence discussion. It serves no purpose except showing gore - then it is not art. Without subtext mere violence can never be art.

2. If you have ever watched "All watched over by machines of loving grace", you'd become quite a bit disillusioned with the way we think + live today. What I took away from the documentary was more or less how different we learn today. Parents have to work more (instead of less, like it should be) than twenty years ago, when I grew up. So the easiest way to put your child at ease is to buy him a console and a couple of games. And that child will learn more from the console than from its parents. Among other things he/she will learn that decisions are binary, something is either on or off, or good or bad. That's how games and talkshows work - they polarize.
And if they come into a more complex situation, they will still judge it by their binary code of yes/no, instead of looking into the shades of grey, too. It serves a more utilitarian and machine-like logic, rather than the empathic and ethic-fueled thought processes of today. No doubt they will be smart and maybe even get along well, but they will be easier to influence than we ever were. People who think in an either/or way are strong in logic, but when the parameters change, they will also accept them. The same question may lead to another answer, depending on which parameters for right/wrong the politics feel fit.

So we have to be careful about the reasons, why we are using certain tropes. Violence itself is meaningless if it is just graphic. It needs to have a backstory or a reason to it. As long as you can give a reason for it in the game, violence can be justified. Take Akira. It's a great movie, because nothing happens without reason. Manifestations of a supressed and underdeveloped mind can become quite violent, when granted the right measure of power. However, if I were to say someone is killing people, because of Akira, I would feel nuts. I could say the same about Counter Strike and feel far less nuts. Yet, I'd still not believe it.

The problem I see is that Computer Games are not supposed to display reality. They are works of art and fiction. However, lately "realism" rules over all, and even though it's often just better animation and bigger textures, people take games they see for far too real. That is partly the developers goal, because "real" things don't appear cheap or out of place. However, reality asks for different decision-making. A game won't have any consequence, except perhaps a reset of your character after death. The danger in game lies mostly in the way violence and sex is displayed. It's all about the motivation for someone to do something, and games with their often terrible stories and dialog cannot fill in the role of a piece of art. They cannot replace the real human interaction with all its shade of grey, either. So, in the end when violence and sexual content is shown in games it is usually as a sort of shocker. And these scenes become more and more used, so we always need to up the ante and go more shocking, more violent. And what everybody misses is that it doesn't make for a better game.

In a few sentences: Art can do what it wants, because art doesn't care about you. If you don't like it, walk on! Games on the other hand, use violence and sex in a scheming way, because they know exactly what scenes the players expect to see. They want to get you to buy the game, because of the violence or the sex in it. If people find it funny to be able to T-bag dead enemies, developers will make that an achievement. Even though it is really just sad and primitive...

Edited by: SinKing

By coincidence, just recently, NHK World Newsline did a report on the effects of video game addiction in Korea. It stated that online games were addicting and caused problems with kids and teenagers to the point of violence as it reported one teenager killed his parents and hung himself after he had his game taken away. The government implemented a blackout rule where anyone under 16 would be shut off from an online game from midnight till 6 in the morning. The report ended by saying that the government believes the solution for all this was more restrictive policies.

You heard that right. "More Restrictive Policies" is what they said. Me and my brother scoffed at this. More restrictions just leads to people circumventing these rules. The aforementioned blackout was a failure because you were required to have an ID to log into online games. Kids simply just used adult ID's to play past midnight. Also, the news report also said that there is a backlash against all the regulations from the gaming community in Korea, stating that it is bad for the economy due to the gaming industry in the country being in the billions.

Though I must point out that this was not a report on the industry as a whole but on gaming addiction, yet the government wants to lock down gaming as a whole instead of doing research on why these people are addicted. In other words, they want an easy answer rather than work to found out the true cause, which is obviously psychological.

Just wanted to share this and let you guys decide on what to make of it. Sadly, I couldn't find the news report online so I can't show it to you guys.

SinKing

While I haven't seen or heard of that documentary, unfortunately you present some of the weak arguments I mentioned in my original post.

First off, why is that parent letting buying the kid 18 rated games?

Second, designers, publishers, players, what have you, can't be held responsible for other peoples actions, choices, and misuse of the work. We don't try to force or pressure pizza places to become salad bars because some people choose to only eat pizza and thus get fat. Your specific example is even more bizarre as games never pretended to be virtual parents. It would be like holding a takeaway responsible because somebody tried to use a pizza as a bullet proof vest.

Third, you say games use sex and violence to sell more. Films, TV, books and music do as well. What's interesting is that often times, the sex (and sometimes the violence) in other mediums is real, whereas in games it's all virtual. This is not some archic thing other mediums grew out of either. Just recently you have 50 shades of grey, Blue is the warmest colour, Black Swan, "Twerking". All of these are fairly recent developments, and what's funny is that I couldn't tell you much about the works because the only aspect people really care about is the sex aspects. While I will admit there do exist cases of bad taste, on the whole, games are fairly minor when it comes to this stuff compared to other mediums.

Edited by: SabreXT

SabreXT wrote: SinKing

While I will admit there do exist cases of bad taste, on the whole, games are fairly minor when it comes to this stuff compared to other mediums.

Yes, but like I said in the last paragraph, violence and sex in games are often completely out of context and have literally no meaning. Take a movie like Full Metal Jacket. It is violent and full of lunacy, because that was what the director wanted to depict. The "heroes" don't come across as being heroic at all, they just do what they must to survive. In most games I start off by killing someone for whatever motivation. They don't get a lot of exposition or build-up, because the structure of a game demands to jump right into the action.

I think it is a dangerous argument to say designers can't be held responsible for other people's choices, because those choices exist, because of the designer; there is a reason they are in the game. And if the designer decides it is ethical sound to give you an achievement for T-Bagging dead enemies in a modern military shooter, you will do just that in-game. It depends on the intention and the impact on gameplay, if something is just violent or if there is a message in it. I don't demand everything to mean something. Sometimes sex and violence just move the story forward. However, in most games they are just there for a shocker effect and have no impact on the story.

If the use of violence enhances the believability of the story and characters it is justified. If the message wouldn't come across without sex and violence, you need them in your game. However, often these things are tagged on, either for bad taste (give the public something to laugh and moan about), or because the designers wanted to reach out to a new audience. I feel, for example, that a lot more girls played Mass Effect, because you can have a relation and socialize. Those were smart design choices, because they added to the game. And nobody complained about indecency, because the whole thing works and is fun and adds to the experience.

And about kids buying games they aren't allowed to. I did that too Everybody did. We just didn't have Steam and our dad's credit card to go by. Kids don't play children games, they want adult games and I can relate to that. In general, I think I paint things a little black and think a little too far ahead.

Edited by: SinKing

Why is it dangerous?

Also you changed the context. The designer has influence on the choices you make within the game. Outside of the game, they have no power, it's you as a person who makes those choices. A designer doesn't hold a gun to your head to force you to buy the game, to play the game, to emulate the game in the real world.

On the idea of designers having to justify the use of sex and violence. Why? What justification beyond "we wanted to" is needed? Which justifications are ok, and which aren't? Why do films and TV shows allowed to show graphic violence and sex, when the same effect could achieved with a cut away and a sound effect?

Games don't need story, but they tend to have them. The same way film doesn't need music, but they tend to have it. What practical solution do you propose to justify games without a deep story? If a Tony Hawks game can give you 2 minutes to get a high score "just because", or a pizzle game can you clear the screen of green gems "just because", then why should that be any different when the game in question is shooting things?

SabreXT wrote: Why is it dangerous?

On the idea of designers having to justify the use of sex and violence. Why? What justification beyond "we wanted to" is needed? Which justifications are ok, and which aren't? Why do films and TV shows allowed to show graphic violence and sex, when the same effect could achieved with a cut away and a sound effect?

Like I'm trying to explain: without context there is no meaning or you get a completely wrong impression of what is right and wrong. (Film and Series show too much violence and sex unmotivated too; it's ecclectic)Not every game needs violence or brutality to work. I feel like most games are more violent than necessary and make it look like it's okay to kill without reason. In most games the player feels like a pawn that just follows orders and shoots when promted. Nothing wrong with that, but nothing original about it either.

Whether we want it or not - games are part of culture and part of education and information, same as books and movies in that regard. They have meaning and responsibility, even though they really shouldn't for the most part. Game designers can chose whether they want to be original, like their literature and musical counterparts, or if they just want to copy each other and bash together features that sell (follow orders). One of those features is gratuitous violence. They just put it in as a sales argument, so to say. Sex and violence sell, so put some into your game and make every female character look like a whore with silicone tits. It results in an immature treatment of sex and violence. I feel like the big studios just put their games together from modules that proved to work: violence, generic invasion story, cool vehicles, sex, etc. Their only responsibility is towards making as much money as possible with the current game. They just bash these things together, because it is difficult to make something of meaning and with a meaningful story (something original + meaningful), when you are under pressure from deadlines. Groups don't produce unique things or make creative decisions. That's up to individuals.

Games tend to just take functions out of context and bash them together. They have no meaning. When I watch a violent movie, there is a reason for all of it. There is either a war, or a vendetta going on. The main character has a believable motivation build up through proper exposition. I can relate to him/her or he/she completely alienates me; either way, there is a connection. Game stories almost never are convincing. That's because they usually do neither of the above and put you in the hero seat and at the trigger right away. There can be no consequence, because there is no meaningful choice, yet you are supposed to feel in charge of the game world. However, you are still forced to pull the trigger, if you want to advance the story. Violence and sex are game mechanics, they don't have meaning beyond that.

***and yes, it is a difficult topic for any game developer. I think violence and sex are in the nature of games, but they have to mean something. It's weird for example, how in Tomb Raider you get a cutscene of Laura crying after killing her first deer. Yet you already killed a dozen guys by then and didn't even flinch ^^

Edited by: SinKing

That says more about the audience than it does the designers or games themselves. If, as you say, violence and sex in video games exist solely as fanservice, gimmicks to sell games, then that's because, relating to my post above, nothing has been done to dispel the image that games are a juvenile form of entertainment, played primarily by adolescents. Specifically, adolescent males, who, also stereotypically, are often portrayed as aggressive and sex-hungry.

Logically, then, if that's who your perceived audience is, and you want to make money, you cater to that. It's simple business. It is only produced because the market (is perceived to) exist(s). Developers think that that is what their audience is and wants because their audience has done precious little to contradict that (memes such as "there are no girls on the internet" or "tits or gtfo" prove that).

Developers follow the same logic every other purveyor of entertainment does. The difference is that perception of every other form of entertainment is matured, and thus other forms of entertainment acknowledge, and cater to, multiple potential audiences. They all have just as much violence and sex, and it is all just as gratuitous as it is in games, but it's not as prominent because they're all catering to audiences more varied than "boys between the ages of 11 and 20", and gratuitous violence and sex get buried under other works that don't have it.

You can already see the change happening in games, though, in the areas where developers have been able (or forced) to acknowledge audiences beyond that, primarily, so far, in the casual market.

TerranAmbassador wrote: Specifically, adolescent males, who, also stereotypically, are often portrayed as aggressive and sex-hungry.

Logically, then, if that's who your perceived audience is, and you want to make money, you cater to that. It's simple business.

It's true, you could just say: "if we didn't do it do it, someone else would have". That is the same excuse German soldiers used after WWII to justify their crimes, though. What I am trying to get acknowledged here is that there is a feedback relation between demand and supply: making gratuitously sexy and violent games creates a demand for more sex and more violence in the next game. And suddenly it's not about creating a feature rich game, but about creating a more violent game. Something to be talked about. And the next game will have to hit harder and deeper into the same crevice. I don't see how this production process can improve the quality of games, except for the visual quality.

Games like Doom are violent and yet I played the shit out of it, without wanting to beat someone up afterwards. It clearly depends on the message you are getting from a game. Doom was like a bad movie with fake blood and a lot of laughs. It was a game you couldn't take seriously. And it was unique as a vision of only a few people, instead of a gigantic studio enterprise with hundreds of artists involved. In other words, they could have afforded to try making another game, if Doom had failed. A big game studio invests too much money to go broke in the process. So they fall back on tropes that have always worked: sex and violence. That they are neither making better games nor have an exit strategy is obvious by now. But it's working fine for them, so why change a working system?

The last hope rests with indie games. They can still do original things, free from fear and peer pressure. And they do. Thanks god!
Also, I am not against violence or sex in games and movies, but you have to ask why something is there and if it helps making the game better.

My thoughts on video game violence are neatly summed up in this graph:

If you hurt others "because of a video game," you have other problems.

Also

Someone wrote: First off, why is that parent letting buying the kid 18 rated games?

Age =/= maturity.

Edited by: ANumberSquared

Squared55 wrote: My thoughts on video game violence are neatly summed up in this graph:

If you hurt others "because of a video game," you have other problems.

Also

Someone wrote: First off, why is that parent letting buying the kid 18 rated games?

Age =/= maturity.

Crime rates don't have anything to do with violence in games. Less crime doesn't mean anything in relation to computer games. All of those criminals could be gamers, y'know

To quote myself:

"What I am trying to get acknowledged here is that there is a feedback relation between demand and supply: making gratuitously sexy and violent games creates a demand for more sex and more violence in the next game. And suddenly it's not about creating a feature rich game, but about creating a more violent game. "

That's my problem with the whole violence in games discussion. We are being made into pawns of studios like Gearbox, who actually want you to demand more violence and sex, because it will make it easy for them to justify making bad games. Wake up people, don't be so susceptible to manipulation!

No, that's not the case at all.

First, supply and demand doesn't work like that. Let's look back. Doom clones, World War 2, waggle/motion controls, Tony Hawks, plastic instrument games, 2D side scrolling platformers, RTS games, adventure games, fantasy RPGs, JRPGs, stealth games, survival horror, 2D fighting games, scrolling beat em ups, kart racing. All were fads at one point or other, killed off by a lack of innovation and similarity. If your model of supply and demand was correct, World War 2 games would still be going strong, on the grounds that more WW2 games would create a demand for more WW2 games, until all games all the time are WW2.

Second, your special pleading on behalf of Doom doesn't work. Doom is exactly the kind of game you complained about. Little story or justification. A pre game screen of text and then wave after wave of demons to gun down with the flimsiest of context or justification. This again brings me back to the question you still haven't answered. What is justified, and what isn't? Failing that, who decides what is and isn't justified? Let's look at one game that comes up alot when it comes to sex in games. Dead or Alive volleyball. The women are on a tropical island resort playing volleyball on the beach. That already is more justification than Doom has.

You say you played a lot of Doom without wanting to beat someone up afterwards. I play a lot of violent games. FPS is my favourite genre after all. However, I don't want to beat someone up after having played a game for a while. Call of Duty multiplayer is played by millions of people. That's as context free as it gets. Team A and team B. Yet there is clearly no spike of murders or violence around the release of a new CoD game, and so far no studies worth anything have shown a link between violent games and violent behaviour.

Finally, there's the indie game thing. You say they do things free from fear and peer pressure, then in the very next line say we have to ask why something is there. What you should have said is "indie games are free from fear or peer pressure, provided they adhere to my moral values.". We keep coming back to the same questions over and over. Why do we have to justify it? There is no evidence that it does any harm, so why not do it? What justification is required beyond "the designer wanted it"? You ok Doom, but that is arguabley one of the worst examples. You want big studios to make games you want, but complain that people are buying sexual and violent games that they want to have.

Edit due to ninja- The graph shows that, if people were more violent due to playing games, the violent crime rate would rise, not fall.

Also, you say not to be manipulated. Manipulated by who, to what end, and how?

Edited by: SabreXT

Ok, let's clarify - I would never imply that the real world is violent, because of games; but I do say violence in games is just a selling point - and it should be more than that. It should have ethical and moral implications. However, if games were the sole cause for violence, the dark-ages and the 30-Year-War and everything since would not have happened the same way. Humanity is a violent species, we don't need special motivation to show it.

Let's look at the reasons for violence and how it comes about (in the real world) first.

Clearly, one cause for violence is injustice and suffering, another is madness (Nero style), poverty, bad education and psychological illness. These don't trigger violence and there is no single reason for someone or for a situation to turn violent, however, I am threading into a general direction. Violence happens as a cause of conflict, either inner(psychological) or outer (with society). So whatever the reason - there is not a single positive reason why violence breaks out. It is also not a means to an end and solves no conflicts. So that's violence in real life.

Now let's look at violence in games :

Stomping heads to curbstones, ripping out spines, electrocuting enemies - we've all done it and we know it isn't gonna be enough. There always has to be more! And all of this while the realworld motivations for violence are completely absent. Violence is just there, in order to give the player something to do (shoot mostly). It's just another game mechanic. It's completely detached from the world and out of context. In games, violence solves problems and the hero sleeps soundly, even after killing 100 enemies . Hero is who kills the most and gets achievements for doing it in many different ways.
And all of this in games that strive towards being photo realistic and come closer to that goal with every passing year.

So, think the process to the end. We say: Yeah, give us more violent games! We will buy them like crazy!
-> results in over the top violence, yet topped again by the next game which will be even more violent and graphic. I think the only thing that limits this process is the lacking graphics power.

I am not complaining about people making or buying violent and sexual games. I am complaining about how that influences the future development of society and games. I think I have been over this again and again. Violence and Sex are unmotivated, have no relation to their real world counterparts and serve only as yet another selling point for a game. It never gets old - at least not to the developers of those games.

Doom was a cartoon and gory world where you just couldn't take anything seriously. It was a satire more or less. It didn't promote violence, it made it look silly. Maybe that means Doom marginalized violence, but it didn't pretend that any of what happened did actually take place in reality. It was a Heavy Metal like fantasy of a game. A citation of the wild subculture of the 80's. A saying in screenwriting goes: if you show a gun hanging on the wall in the first act, you have to show how it is fired in the third act.
It's the same with Doom - just a lot of guns and the fun you can have with them all. It didn't put me in Irak or into an airport, firing at civilians. It was clear to me that this is a fictional story with a fictional setting and silly ideas. That's not so clear in a modern day shooter. Is it still a game or a simulation of real life? Can I trust what the game is telling me, for example when it praises the military? Are all women supposed to dress sexy and act horny?

Games can be used to manipulate us and we may just be demanding more violence, because that is what Game Developers are giving us. Whenever technology makes it possible, games will become more detailed and more graphic in nature. Is that really for the best? Is that the pinnacle of what we can do? - to Combine Realistic Looks with Graphic Violence? I feel that there is a lot more than that and I wish that violence and sex are not displayed out of context and just to score a few more sales. These things have meaning in real life, so why not in games?

Edited by: SinKing

Someone wrote: making gratuitously sexy and violent games creates a demand for more sex and more violence in the next game. And suddenly it's not about creating a feature rich game, but about creating a more violent game. "

Completely disagree. In fact, adding TOO much gore turns me off from playing a game at all. Bioshock Infinite, for example.

SabreXT wrote: Edit due to ninja- The graph shows that, if people were more violent due to playing games, the violent crime rate would rise, not fall

Which was the point of the graph. If anything, violent video games REDUCE crime rates (although I don't think that video games have any effect one way or the other).

Edited by: ANumberSquared

I make/play violent games because I like them. I don't really care if it's realistic violence. But it's probably more just about shooting things.. and any blood splats, etc are there just to tell me that I hit the thing. Yea, and it could be about shooting robots/spaceships too and blood splats replaced with sparks and metal pieces flying off. Doing a destruction/fatality move in OMF2097 was just as cool as in Mortal Kombat.

Don't know about all that other stuff.. but it seems like lots of people get addicted/attached to things easily and want more of it.

I'll wait for the game... XXXtreme Chess 3D: The Ultra-Violence Edition!

Sinking- I think I've found why I'm so confused by your stance. It's this bit.

Someone wrote: I am not complaining about people making or buying violent and sexual games. I am complaining about how that influences the future development of society and games.

What influence? You keep saying it's having a negative influence on society, but you won't say what influence that is. You keep getting side tracked by talk of big publishers adding violence or sex for some quick cash. AAA publishers are not society at large.

One aspect you bring up is the idea of being able to tell what is real, and what isn't. I disagree completely. Films are extremely realistic. Stage blood looks just like the real thing. The horror genre goes out of it's way to depict gruesome acts of violence that look extremely realistic, and yet people can still distinguish between fantasy and reality.

Someone wrote: I'll wait for the game... XXXtreme Chess 3D: The Ultra-Violence Edition!

Will this do you?

It's a similar dilemma like in writing, where you have to separate author and work. You can't hold the author responsible, because his work is fictional. So you can't hold the game devs responsible either?! I would agree, if studios would not have chosen to abandon the fiction and pretend they are showing a slice of life and the nearby future. Modern Military Shooters are really important in the FPS genre. I cannot quite accept that. I can accept a game like Vanquish, but I can't approve of BF4 and similar games, which strive for more and more realism.

Also, my criticism doesn't entail all violent games. It is directed at all those studios that create pseudo-realistic games within the Modern Military FPS genre. Those games shouldn't exist, COD, MW and the likes.

I am talking about purposeless violence unfounded by anything but the feedback loop some studios are stuck in. Every new release is more violent and more graphic than the last. They wouldn't have to fall back on making games more violent, if they knew a creative way out. Conclusion: We are not getting better games, but more violent games.

And then I take this idea and project it, let's say 10 years into the future. How will it affect people, especially young ones? It could numb them to violence and turn their whole decision-making process into binary solutions: shoot or get shot. The shades of grey are lost. We will see more predator-like behavior and less compassion. If the most popular games keep getting more violent, it doesn't mean society does (like the graph shows). However, these games will influence the decision making and thought processes. Life is Gamification, we accept and adopt rules from games in society already. It's a slow change and it works subconsciously.

So my train of thought is more Sociological and Philosophical versus Capitalistic and Pragmatic. Of course we can make money now and give the audience what it wants. But with the growing importance of gaming with regard to society, game studios should try to create more diversified products. Part of this is setting a game up as a fiction and not as a slice of reality; games don't depict reality and when it comes to violence, they really shouldn't (the Doom Argument: Games are fiction and should be instantly recognizable as such).

The funny thing about this citation "I'll wait for the game... XXXtreme Chess 3D: The Ultra-Violence Edition!" is it actually hits the nail on the head, but in a reverse kind of way. In 90% of the games that present gratuitous violence in realistic ways, the violence is not necessary. Just the same like a chess game wouldn't need it. It is there for immature and voyeuristic purposes only. It's there, to make you feel powerful about yourself and to make the player feel important. In no way does it help create a better game.

Edited by: SinKing

This "10 years into the future" is based on ...what exactly?

As I mentioned back in my original post, this has been said to be happening for as long as there has been violence in games. It was said that kids play these violent games, become desensitized to violence are thus grow up thinking violence is ok. This didn't happen. I listed games above as just some examples I recall from my youth. Before games, it was violent films. The so called "Video Nasties" scare. There was a similar moral panic over explicit lyrics in music. Again, the kids turned out fine.

And here you are, repeating the exact same argument verbatim. The only difference being you throw in some fancy words like "gameification", and the cause has changed. This time it's modern army shooters instead of fighting games, open world crime games, or whatever else it was back then.

I am being polemic to make you crawl out of your shell. It's my method. I don't believe everyone knows the truth when they start writing, but writing and keeping to write about the same thing brings out some kind of truth. Often to ones own surprise.

I said various times that there is no direct relation between violence in games and in society. So I guess that's why you think I should believe violence in games will never have any impact on society. I do think it will, though. I think games are much more important than movies ever were. Those violent movies were never mainstream, violent games are. They influence our thought process and will have a bigger impact on decision making. I tried to explain how we are beginning to become binary thinkers (like machines), however, you already can't see shades of grey yourself, so you're a perfect binary man. Scream yes or no, but don't have an opinion of your own. And if you do, is it really your own?

What I tried to stress is how stupid your attitude towards violence in games is, because it plays right into the hands of lazy developers. Sex and violence sells, but so do great ideas and novel thoughts; they are just harder to fabricate. Do you think we will see anything new, as long as people accept and demand more violence from their AAA games? Can't these games actually be made to be meaningful or interesting, instead of being mere consumables? It is in our hands. If we show the developers another way out, they don't have to drown each game in pointless and senseless violence and sex. As I said: in 90% of violent games these depictions don't add anything to the depth or quality of the game. So this is my point. Violence and Sex are cheap measures. And we scream for them, making it easy for developers to neglect any kind of morality or intelligence. We foster idiots when we could be creating thinkers.

I don't throw in fancy words, I throw in words that have meaning. Gamification, Sociology, Philosophy are all topics I like dealing with and indulge in. A lot of what I write isn't necessarily right (polemic has that effect), but I do know it's idiotic to follow a sheepish notion of "violence in games has no impact on society, so lets make more violent games!". I at least try to see where that could lead instead of nodding my head and agreeing on everything. My advice: question everything, especially statistics. And watch that documentation "All watched over by machines of loving grace". It might challenge your perception of things you take for granted.

Edited by: SinKing

SinKing wrote: Those violent movies were never mainstream, violent games are.

Nearly all hit movies have violence in them. Quite a few mainstream TV shows have violence in them (The Walking Dead). Read any books recently? Those can get pretty graphic with their depictions of violence, even those aimed at a younger audience (The Hunger Games).

SinKing wrote:
They influence our thought process and will have a bigger impact on decision making.

Proof?

Someone wrote: I do know it's idiotic to follow a sheepish notion of "violence in games has no impact on society, so lets make more violent games!".

It's equally foolish to say "violence in games might, maybe have an impact on society, so lets not make more violent games!" without any proof to back it up.

I don't think anyone is demanding more violence. No one is buying the games because there is more violence. In fact, they've been staying at about the same level for the last few years. The only reason you see modern military shooters create a "shocking moment" is in a desperate attempt to recreate dramatic impact of the nuked helicopter scene from COD 4. More realistic =/= more violent.

Could you summarize "All watched over by machines of loving grace" ", please?

Also, here's a video on the subject with which I agree 100%: Youtube.com

EDIT: You've also contradicted yourself here.

Someone wrote: said various times that there is no direct relation between violence in games and in society. So I guess that's why you think I should believe violence in games will never have any impact on society. I do think it will, though. I think games are much more important than movies ever were. Those violent movies were never mainstream, violent games are. They influence our thought process and will have a bigger impact on decision making.

How can games have no effect on society, yet affect our decision-making?

Edited by: ANumberSquared

Along with what squared55 said, I have to ask you this Sinking. Do you turn the gun on yourself?

You say we are binary thinkers, yet you are the one who holds the view "agree with me or you are unthinking sheep".

You say we are easily led, but you don't any rational arguments to the table, instead relying on rhetoric and your holy book, "All watched over by machines of loving grace". If the arguments in that documentary are so powerful, share them with us. At present, all we have is "this show says it's true so it must be true!".

To expand on what squared55 said. I'm not demanding violence for the sake of violence. Ironically, you (Sinking) in demanding more intellectual, original and creative games are actually against more intellectual, original and creative games being made. By removing violence from the table, you remove a tool, an option from the artist tool box. Not every artist needs to use it, certainly, but it's there. Again, you don't seem to notice this, but you are, perhaps unwillingly, advocating for a world where stuff like Ghost in the Shell, Bioshock, Spec Ops, or the like would never exist, because it would have "justify" the nudity and violence within, and even if it did meet whatever criteria, which you still haven't provided, it would be cast aside as low brow entertainment for the masses.

Very interesting for a topic and sadly we have an overactive government and community response that can actively destroy developers.
Exampled best by the reaction to games like the witcher 2 which was banned from certain places until they were modified regardless if adults that would prefer to buy the unchanged game.
In certain places its unconditional must abide by rules ,ones imposed by supposed "free countries" are at best the most laughable and it is surely difficult to stop this with the apathy most gamers display.
There is rare incidents of protests and these are usually against games rather then "for" games , this will always mean developers take all the risk when they add in something new.
You want Artistic freedom in video games ? If the answer is yes tell me how do you plan to fight for this freedom ?

Another one calling use of violence "artistic freedom". It has nothing to do with artistic freedom. It is about quite the opposite - limiting artistic freedom. Look at Companies like ID (psychology) or Eidos (philosophy) - the people behind these companies were no wall-street suits. They were smart and unique groups of individuals. They didn't calculate that they need sex and violence in games to sell better, it just happened to be part of the concept. And all those early games are satirical. Take Duke Nukem, or GTA - these are satires, or started as satires (listening to the radio in GTA is still one of the best satires in gaming). They are original games that is the important part.

And today - here is another fancy word - game making is ecclectic for the big studios. They copy themselves, and they copy successful mechanics from the past. Spicing things up with sex and violence where it's not always necessary. These games aren't original, they are not satirical and most of all they are mere products, year after year. The artistic part of game design and development for a big studio is individual (models, animations, etc.). Just like in life the easy way out, isn't usually the best. If games were Meth, you could say most of the big studios cook with the same recipe.

A game franchise I admire for staying true to the source material, is Batman, for example. It's based on a cartoon, so there is a reason for characters to look ouvertly powerful and sexy. It's based on a fiction. Batman is a detective, so the game is about solving crimes and hitting thugs while doing so. Batman doesn't kill and he punishes the bad guys/bosses. Even though it is a very simple story, it works, doesn't feel forced and the degree of violence is just about right for the game. It's not neccessary to give him a rocket launcher and blast about his day. I feel like we need more thought-through games like this.

Like I always say: I have high hopes for indies. I am also not saying it's completely bad to have violent games, but there has to be some reason/motivation for the violence. And if it is over the top violence, you need to adjust your narration to that. Keep the realism or rather relation to real events and real (military) people out of it. Don't make people heroes for shooting other people én masse. This is sending the wrong signals to the player and has nothing to do with artistic freedom. Game Developers need to take on their responsibility, they don't prevent crimes in society, but they can make better games. If we force them to.

The documentary is hard to summarize without doing it injustice. The most important part with regards to this discussion is probably the Randian philosophy in part 1 and the feedback idea in part 2. It may be a bit dry sometimes, but it's worth hanging on to, until it's over:

Vimeo.com

Edited by: SinKing