I know I already posted this week but I came across a pen and paper role playing game that sums up all that is wrong with gamers in general within the following introduction. This particular game was originally a joke that was distributed in an unmarked, brown paper bag during Gencon. This was an under the table sort of thing since Gencon would never allow something like this to be distributed on their convention floor. If you're interested in the rest, you can pick up the whole text here.
While the following introduction speaks mostly about pen and paper RPGs, a lot of what is said can be applied to video games as well. As you're reading this, think about the discussions you hear in regards to Age of Conan or Grand Theft Auto. Take a look at this Crackdown Co-Op video and tell me that this isn't dead on the money.
Enjoy....
Welcome to Violence™
You Degraded Turd
After many years of laboring in the vineyards of game
design, holding aloft the Platonic ideal of what the Ars
Ludorum can achieve, and working for the time when
game design shall achieve its place among the pantheon
of Muses—that fabled 21st-century day when games
shall be universally acknowledged as the premier form
of the age, as the 20th century acknowledged film and
the 19th century the novel—I have come to an unutterably
grim and depressing realization.
You puerile adolescent- and post-adolescent scum
don’t give a tinker’s cuss. Berg was right, when he told
me, lo these many years ago, that there’s no point in trying
to write a good set of rules because you idiots can’t
tell the difference between a good set and a bad set anyway.
Actually, one is better off writing a bad set of rules,
because it will take you lot longer to figure out that the
game itself is an unutterable gobbler.
Dunnigan had the industry dead to rights when he said
that games that sold were always about NATO, Nukes, or
Nazis. Or rather, he was wrong only because he was talking
about wargaming; the basic sensibility remains.
Games are about violence. Oh, not Go, say, or Bridge,
but the kind of games that fly in the dog’s vomit we gaily
call the Gaming Industry. From D&D® to Mortal Kombat®
to Quake® to Metal Gear Solid®; from the electronically roaring
arcade to the blaring TV speakers of the console
gamer, from the tabletops of FRP to the snow-draped
forests of paint-ball, from the hooligan-crowded stadiums
of English football to the smash-ups of NASCAR racing,
from the PKers of online gaming to the hyperkinetic
spasms of real-time strategy, it’s what really cleans your
clock, isn’t it? What gets your blood moving? What elicits
voyeuristic glee? The spray of blood, the intestines spilling
spaghetti-like onto the ground, the coarse death-rattle
of your foes.
You’re all a bunch of perverted little Attilas, without
the guts to pull a knife or shoot down that son of a bitch
across the hall in reality. And so you get your jollies
through ‘interaction,’ the simulation of what you long to
do but haven’t the cojones.
Am I right? Or am I right? Enough with this high-falutin’
crap about playing a role or telling a story. Enough with
the demands of strategy, the pitting of mind-to-mind, the
modelling of reality. There’s no future in that, is there?
No, let’s get down in the muck and wallow with the
pigs. Away, sweet Muse; what profits me your inspiration?
I see it clearly now; the route to success lies through the
charnel house. Henceforth, I listen to other voices.
Here, vile reader, you shall find what you desire. Violence
of the most degraded kind. Suppurating wounds,
whimpering innocents pleading vainly for mercy, torture
and rapine and cannibalism. Reality in its rawest and most
repulsive form. Here, you will find the tools you need to
sate your blood lust....
Are you nauseated yet?
As Yoda says... You will be.
thx for posting this (the designer of "violence" seems to be really very, very angry and disillusioned ....)
the video and foremost the comments beneath it are really horrifying, changing my point of view regarding violence in video games
Thu Dec 20 2007 9:16PMYet another ass who doesn't understand reality doesn't correspond to fiction. Fiction however, is based on reality.
I don't mean to lesson you, but lets talk about greek drama, shall we. You see, you can learn a lot from these old people, their fictions were either tragedy or comedy. Most important, for any plot to go forward, there must be conflict, doesn't matter if it's a tragedy or a comedy. Otherwise it would be about two guys reading the newspaper, talking about flowers without anything happening ever. In any case, the line between the two is sort of blurry nowadays, but what happens most is people inserting comedy into tragedy and even so, it's hard to escape either when writing a damn plot, unless it has no drama at all and the hero is mister perfect. When applied to games it's either mindless killing, mindless gardening, killing with some drama, killing with some funny jokes. Of course there are other styles of games, there are adventures, there are rhythm games, there are puzzles.
You see, unlike you (and some overly retarded children who shoot people in schools), we can differentiate reality from fiction.
Fri Dec 21 2007 10:39AMI'm not saying that games make people violent. Go read the entire rule book, I posted a link.
the point is that people don't give a flying shit about story or character or even the back and forth interplay of matching wits. The highest ranking games are gratuitously violent and sexual. There is a bare minimum of gameplay that you have to provide, but ultimately the player is there to kill, to destroy property, to rape, and to torture if the gameplay allows.
We constantly talk about how games suck nowadays, but have you ever stopped to consider why they suck? It's because gamers demand the shallowest experience covered in titties and bloodspray.
The fact that those two idiots spent several hours just throwing random pedestrians off of an overpass and into oncoming traffic is depressing as hell. Sure I would have done the same thing... once. I'd have a good chuckle and go back to playing the game. These two talking monkeys did this shit for hours on end! Low intelligence? I think so. Even more depressing, the comments on both videos made by these guys are requests for more!
But what else are we to expect? People still think that GTA is the greatest game ever. Never mind the fact that you spend most of the "game" just driving from one checkpoint to the next. Sure you can mug random pedestrians, crash some cars, pick up hookers, and then shoot them, but the novelty is gone after you do it once. Yes, GTA 3 was technically impressive, but now everyone does the "free roaming checkpoint hunt" and it's mre than a little stale. Question: Why do people like GTA more than all the other "free roaming checkpoint hunts" that have been released since? Could it be because of the violence and the anti-social bent? hmm.....
There's the question between honesty and bullshit being asked here. Do we really want "games as art," or do we just want to do socially deplorable things without consequence? And can we really claim to be morally superior to those that actually do socially deplorable things when we've already expressed a desire to do the same thing when the threat of reprisal is removed?
Again, I'm not saying that games encourage this kind of behavior in real life. I'm saying that we need to cut the bullshit and live with the implications of the raw naked truth.
Fri Dec 21 2007 2:42PM*cough* The Sims *cough*
Fri Dec 21 2007 11:01PMhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJRX5gJbiHs
Admit it, if you've played The Sims then you've probably done all of these at least once.
Fri Dec 21 2007 11:15PMOf course, but being able to randomly set someone on fire or drown a sim in a pool is not what propelled the series to sell over 70 million units and the original to become the best selling PC game of all time.
Even now, with Guitar Hero and Rock Band being so big... games like Madden, series based off the other sports leagues (these may even be better examples, because they are essentially a yearly expense. Let's see GTA try and release a new game every year and people not become bored quickly). All non violent.
You are stating absolutes when they do not exist. Are some games downright deplorable? Yes. Could someone potentially love a game simply for the violence? Yes. Do all people feel that way? No. GTA became popular in part due to the free roaming nature (which was new at the time of GTA 3), and due to its well written story. If people had bought it purely for the opportunity to commit digital violence, then Vice City and San Andreas would not have sold at all. But they did, because there's more to the game then blood and hookers.
Fri Dec 21 2007 11:59PMThe thing that Madden, Guitar Hero, and The Sims have in common is the fact that they aren't aimed at mainstream gamers. In fact, game developers are just now beginning to realize that there's big money catering to non-gamers and casual gamers. The hope here is that these "lite," "casual" games will act as a gateway drug for more mainstream gaming. As of yet, I haven't heard of a single person that went from Bejeweled to Call of Duty 4....
To go more in depth, Madden and all other sports games are made for sports fans. People that play sports games don't often venture outside of the genre. Who has time for other types of games while <insert sport> season is going on?
Guitar Hero is basically Simon with a guitar shaped controller and has replaced Kareoke night at most bars. I remember there was a very similar game and it's sequel, Frequency and Amplitude, that were basically the same thing, but didn't fair nearly as well. Mainly because the latter games used an actual controller and therefore didn't appeal to non-gamers.
Then there's The Sims. To this day it only gets grudging respect from the mainstream gaming community. It's popularity being something of a mystery. My take is that somebody was browsing software at Office Depot and saw The Sims wedged somewhere between Civ 3 and Norton Utilities. Out of curiosity, they picked up the box and tried it then told all their friends about it. it could have also caught the eyes of some parent waiting for their kids to get done in the game aisle. The Sims was different enough to stand out from the rest of the gaming crowd, but it certainly wasn't taken seriously by mainstream gamers until it was painfully obvious how well it was selling.
No, mainstream gamers (you and me) don't respond to anything but violence or violent themes. Remember when they showed the first screens of Fallout 3? You know, the one with the guy's head exploding in freeze frame? I couldn't count the number of "sold" comments that were based on that image alone.
You're right, not all of humanity is like this. But those people that label themselves "gamers" are. We just don't like to admit it because of assholes like Jack Thompson.
Sat Dec 22 2007 9:37AMI'm no mainstreamer, but some games are good because of the freedom, and/or violence. You see, games are very stuck up things. Just the fact that you can do something it enough to put a game up yet another step. Which is one of the reasons I tend to dislike most mmorpgs. They're mostly contaminated by levels and static progression. Static environments as well. It's no fun. It's one of the reasons Wurm appealed me so much, despise all its horrendous flaws, it has been a lot more fun than any other mmorpg around. Just because you can terraform, build, and destroy anything to a certain limit.
As for the sims, it seems to please young unhappy people who want to get out of their parents house. I played it for a while, just to make silly things, just because I could. Like some untold soap opera.
Sat Dec 22 2007 10:40AMMMORPG.com writes:
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