Scott Jennings: Morality, Controversy and Video Games
Scott Jennings takes a lesson from Modern Warfare 2 and looks at how MMOs handle (or don't handle as the case may be) controversy.
Column By Scott Jennings on November 25, 2009
Let’s step away from MMOs for a moment. Never fear, we’ll come back in a moment. But there are other games, really!
For example, Modern Warfare 2 is possibly the most financially successful game launch in history. The weekend of its launch, it sold 4.7 million copies, making its opening weekend, at $310 million, more profitable than most smash movies.
(SPOILER WARNING: The rest of this column discusses events that take place near the beginning of Modern Warfare 2’s single player game in some detail. Although this has already been discussed online, and in fact has been before the game was released, you may wish to stop reading until you’ve played the game if you haven’t, and plan to.)
When you start Modern Warfare 2, you are given the following warning: “Some players may find one of the missions disturbing or offensive. Would you like to have the option to skip this mission? (You will not be penalized in terms of Achievements or game completion.)” If you click “No, I will not be offended” (which is an odd thing to agree to sight unseen, unless perhaps you consider your ability to be offended already broken by the Internet in general), you’re asked again. Just to be sure.
If you haven’t been following the gossip online about the game, you probably have no idea what they were talking about, and after a while you probably forget about that warning. You play through a few levels, with the usual explosive pyrotechnics and snowmobiles and scenes ripped from television and the like.
Then suddenly, with little fanfare, your character, who is supposedly an undercover agent working with a Russian nationalist terrorist named Makarov, is given the following instruction for the next mission, in its entirety, with no other explanation: “Follow Makarov’s lead.”
;)
And, as you watch, Makarov and his men proceed to calmly massacre everyone in a crowded airport before your eyes, while you stand behind them, with a large machine gun at the ready.
You are given no prompting as to what to do next. You are only penalized for doing one thing: shooting your murderous erstwhile comrades. (If you do, the level ends immediately with the warning “You blew your cover.”)
You can, if you choose, do nothing. Or you can shoot wildly, blowing out glass and computer monitors and the like. Or you can shoot the wounded, screaming people trying desperately to flee from you. The game doesn’t care. As far as it is concerned, your job is to make it to the end of the level. How you do so is up to you.
What is interesting, to me, is the reaction that the “No Russian” (so called because of Makarov’s curt order to not speak any Russian before the attack) sequence elicits, or fails to. Perhaps you are revolted at being asked to, essentially, become a terrorist. Perhaps you think the sequence is badly done and fails to make a statement like it obviously aspires to. Or maybe you just think it’s unique and cool to “be a bad guy” in a video game, and enjoy how realistically the people you shoot crawl off to die in a corner. (For the record, I shot out a lot of glass and felt vaguely ill, but then proceeded to gleefully shoot up the riot police who showed up to stop the carnage.)
Much of this hinges on how seriously you take the game you are playing, and how much you identify with the actions you take onscreen. The entire point of the exercise, especially given Modern Warfare 2’s larger subtext (without trying to spoil too much) about the folly of blindly following orders, seems to be that reaction when you first realize what is going on: “they really expect me to start shooting those people, don’t they?” and then, perhaps, reflecting on the brief flash of emotion that you may have felt before the rationale of “it’s just a game” kicked in.
Some never get that flash of emotion, because to them it is really a game and nothing more (and the Modern Warfare online series, especially, being an epic paen to the art of stabbing people in the face), while others may never move beyond the shock of “they want me to kill those people? Uh… no.”
;)
And this is something that MMORPGs deal with as well (I told you we’d get back here eventually).
The argument over whether an MMORPG is “just a game” or “more than a game” has raged for years – essentially, since they were invented. From a design aspect, this usually hinges on whether a given MMORPG is a theme park, like EverQuest, World of Warcraft, and the many games that play similarly, with a straight line to the “cheese”, or a virtual world, such as Ultima Online, EVE, or to a greater degree Second Life, that give you no goals save that which you make. And from a market perspective, the theme park has won, overwhelmingly. World of Warcraft’s position in the market alone sees to that, if nothing else.
Yet among the players of games, the argument rages, and even in wholly “theme park” games such as World of Warcraft. Players of these games can take them very seriously indeed, and they have every right to given the amount of time that character development can entail. “Guild drama,” after all, can be far more riveting to experience first-hand than any canned quest.
Yet one thing that MMORPGs have shied away from is intentional controversy. Unintentional controversy, of course, happens with great frequency (I am reminded of the very offended woman who called the Dark Age of Camelot office wanting to know why there were no ahistorical black characters in DAoC – the existence of the vaguely historically correct Moorish “Saracens” entirely failing to placate her), but there never has been any attempt at a quest line that aims for the level of discomfort that “No Russian” tries to elicit.
Much of this, I suspect, is simply that no MMORPG developer wants to borrow trouble; the simple act of launching an MMORPG gives them quite enough, already, thank you. And, to be brutally honest, the writing within most MMORPGs just isn’t very good. Partially because in any given MMORPG there’s just so much of it. When you have to write thousands and thousands of quests and script NPCs to react accordingly for each one, your dreams of the Great American Interactive Novel tend to fall before the hamfisted hammer of reality’s scheduling requirements. Most MMOs have glimmers of creativity in their writing – one producer speculated that every budding quest writer has one excellent quest they’ve been dying to implement ever since they started making games, and you can usually tell in each game which one out of 50,000 or so that was. But in the main, writing for MMORPGs can beat the creativity out of anyone just out of the sheer massive workload. It’s a lot easier to just play madlibs with whatever fill-in-the-blank quest objectives your tools allow for, paste it into the tool, and call it a day.
But MMORPGs tend to make moral judgments simply by virtue of never consciously making any. After all, the story of the typical MMORPG is that of imperialism – you the player are tasked with exploiting weaker creatures, at sword point, and making yourself fabulously wealthy in the process. Few if any MMORPG writers, or developers for that matter (though there are notable exceptions) ever point out the fairly cynical nature of this exercise, or the fact that by the time a typical player has reached the end of their character development cycle, they are a virtual mass murderer, having killed literally hundreds of thousands of orcs and goblins and bandits and what have you in the endless journey that is the art of beating up entities for their lunch money.
Most MMORPG players would find the above analysis more than a little silly. It’s just a game, the monsters themselves are, well, monsters, and there’s certainly no deep meaning involved. And not every game that gives a player a rifle is a “murder simulator.” But I wonder if the MMORPG market will ever mature to a point that someone in one points out that, thanks to the players’ actions, they’re surrounded by hundreds of corpses, instead of just happily ignoring the carnage.
Until then, they really are just games. And more’s the pity.
Next week: “Does this island make my butt look fat?” Why MMOs make expansions, and why they probably shouldn’t.
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Aside from this column, Scott is also currently contracting with NCsoft.
Every Wednesday he provides us an insider's look at the MMO industry.
Great, Great read. 1 of the better articles on this site.
About the "No Russian" Mission I never saw it as anything else then a game. Actually my friend and I got quite the rush out of it.
It's been ages since a mission like that has been seen in gaming, if it ever have.
I went crazy and blasted everything in my way, shooting the ones hurt but still trying to get away. I had fun, like I should have..
It's a game.
I wish for TOR to kinda bring some kind of "evil" decisions into a MMO.
BUT, since its Star Wars and Bioware, it won't get that much attention, like this game has, because we are used to it from them and it isn't "real".
We can then continue to argue if MW2 is "real" or not. In my opinion, It's not.
I think the article was a really good read, but there was one thing I didn't see addressed. I think a large portion of contraversy is heavily weighed in on relavence. MW2 takes place in a fictional history of today's world, using characters that COULD exist and highlighting issues that are seen almos everywhere these days (terrorism).
MMOs have used IPs that already greatly distance themselves from what is known reality. And I think this direction has been good for the genre, games that really have to tread carefully with controversy comes from their IP's likeness to reality. World War II online I'm sure has to tread quite carefully around nazi germany. Another game to look at would be Funcom's upcoming game the Secret World, where today's world is depicted as a world with a brooding underbelly. Names of people and the likeness of characters to real life politicians and celebrities will be something that will need to have an eye kept on it.
So Where can a line be drawn? And in a form of entertainment like video games, "it's just a game" doesn't change the way the concepts may be relavent to people's lives. Liken games to books or movies, have you ever read a book where you identified with the character, or saw something in a movie that you think happened or could have happened in your life? The same principles apply to video games, and although many worlds exist in realms beyond our own, they all have similarities to our experiences in life.
Slaughtering millions of orcs over my game time is different than raiding a poor orc village, killing all the women and children and lighting their settlement on fire. In MMOs, the character you are playing is always the hero. Even playing as the bad guys, there is always something noble going on, remember the controversy of WOW's Deathknight starting zone? You are essentially a terrorist killing innocent people, this is the closest you'll get to MW2's controversy.
My bad for the long winded response.
I just finished Modern Warfare 2 the other night and must say the story was amazing. By far the best I have seen in a while. If we take a look at very memorable games from consoles, the ones that that stand out are the ones with amazing stories lines. Just look at Final Fantasy 7 with the death of Aeris and the the making of the second baddest known villain amongst gamers(only to beat out by Vader imo). People are drawn in to the story by the tragic story with a harsh villain to fight. Modern Warfare 2 will be one of the first shooters to do this.
If we take that idea and go to the mmo, which ones have succeeded based on story lines? UO and WoW? I just can't think of any others at this time if there are any. This might an avenue mmo companies might looks at. I know if I was to make a game I would want people talking about it even after it was outdated(UO).
No video game moment has ever bothered or offended me in any way, because it is just a game.
Movies are the same way, nothing really gets to me because it is acting it isn't someone actually being raped or mutilated.
I think some people just take things too personally.
Agreed. Something I have noticed is people don't see morality in the same way either with something like the WoW as opposed to games like MW2.
When most people look at fantasy, they know it's fictional. It's morality at its most basic, good versus evil; black and white. The more "realistic" a game is, the more people tend to relate and compare to reality and I think that's when serious concerns of morality in people tend to come up, though there are always exceptions.
They was, and still is, those concerns that today's and yesterday's military games are conditioning people into a violent and hostile mindset. Then I remember hearing gripes about the game America's Army, the FPS that's associated with the Army. Now, there are games being used by the military as training as well. All of this, for some, makes realistic military games a little too realistic. If the lines weren't blurred before...
Games have been offending people's morality for a long while, take JFK Reloaded for instance; that game is rather a touchy subject with some. Postal made some nose in regards to those postal shootings some time back. The list goes on and on and not just with video games.
Hm, I don't know, I would feel uncomfortable with being evil, games or not. Just being a terrorist for some stupid story... sounds fishy. At least nothing I regard as fun time entertainment.
I think there is room for both types of games. Alot of what games (and FRPG's in particular) offer people is escapism.... A chance to get away from the complicated "shades of grey" reality that we exist in and enter a simpler....more black & white reality.
A place where the enemy is truly and irredeemably EVIL (something that is far less common in real life)......and thus hacking them down and taking their treasure comes with no strings attached. For many players even role-playing it....there is no need for guilt in hacking down an orc.... because orcs are inherently evil creatures bent on torture, destruction and mayhem....and there would be no way one COULD co-exist with them, even if one were so inclined. In that sense players ARE being MORALE when taking them down.... according to the realties of the game worlds they are playing in.
Games satisfy alot of deep-seated emotional needs we have. A game which featured more shades of grey as to it's moral choices certainly would have an audience....but it would be a DIFFERENT audience and experience then the one many players are looking for.
I wouldn't call it fishy; but I agree, I don't like playing on the "bad guy" side and I do like rooting for the underdog.
The article was a good read, however I feel that you missed a major topic within it. Myself being a hardcore PvPer, without stroking my own ego to much, I've killed tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of player characters. Many killed were in loot based games, such as Shadowbane (inventory looting), DorkFail (full loot), Dark Age of Camelot-Mordred (Coin loot in the form of constitution penalties), and Planetside (Real time spent waiting to respawn). I feel all of the above have a far greater effect on me then killing pixels that are backed by lines of script and code rather then a real person sitting in front of a computer like me.
The double standard existing within entertainment media is completely asinine. You have movies depicting brutal rape, murder, torture, pedophilia, and horrific sexual and psychological abuse. All of which are happening as we speak. Yet one optional scene in which you witness or take part in violent actions against civilians is considered a "terrorist simulator". An act which is far more unlikely to actually occur.
Oh yeah, and rock & roll is the devil's music. Give me a break.
As for the violence in the MMORPG realm, well... I haven't seen MMORPGs prove themselves as a viable storytelling medium. They are mostly massively multiplayer hack and slash games. Your "quest" is the same one done by thousands of other people with no explanation as to why this person needs his brother avenged millions of times, or why tens of millions of wolves are roughing up villagers (cripes, they just keep appearing out of thin air!) -- there really is no sense participation in the story; you are not making a difference. You have little (if any) choice in where to go next and what to do. You get loot, a pat on the back, rinse and repeat.
Granted I don't like MW2, but a first-person perspective with semi-realistic graphics shooting civilians will always evoke more outrage than a third-person lumpy orc with a cartoon color palette killing villagers.
I play RPGs to be the hero. To do good in the world my character inhabits.
Games like the GTA series are disgusting and those who play them are not people I would ever choose to associate with. They are wish fulfillment for hoodlum wannabes.
I guess maybe I'm just sadistic and insane, but that's one of my favorite missions of the entire game. It's nothing really new, I can think of many games where you kill "innocent" people. Grand Theft Auto 4 sticks out like a sore thumb, I used to just run around and kill everyone until I died (almost never got arrested, "Not gonna take me alive coppa!" lol). Like I said, maybe I'm just wierd like that, but I think there's a huge difference between fantasy and real life.
I can agree with this. I am absolutely detested by rape. It makes me want to throw up, even when it is presented on movie screens. I don't mind if people enjoy these movies. I don't however watch them. It's that simple people. If something offends you, you don't have to do it, this is America, you don't have to ruin someone's fun or entertainment. I don't see why this is a hard concept, on all levels of American society. Most seem to think if they don't like it then no one should?
"It's just a game"
The ultimate excuse for acting like a dick to another person in an MMO.
Let's look at how you advance your Jedi in SWG...regardless of the "era" of the game.
By killing. The only way to do it is by massive death. All those piket corpses lying around the spin group's mission lair.
Somehow I don't think Yoda would have approved of such a mechanism for becoming more in tune with the Force.
Interestingly, this very point was highlighted in KOTOR II. The Exile's path is one of massive killing.
That was a pretty good article. The paragraph about beating up monsters for their lunch money and becoming a mass murderer made me grin........but at the same time I think its a real shame because its so true. That really is what all of these mmos boil down to - killing everything in sight without having to think or find any other alternative solution. This is perhaps why I never put any effort at all into treating any mmo as a roleplaying game. I've just never come across one that I can take seriously enough. Its kind of hard imagining a character with depth when you're stood in a field surrounded by crazy nutjobs hacking up the wildlife because they have nothing else to do and the local "cleric of happiness" wants a new pair of slippers. It also doesnt help that I am given no choice other than to be a violent mass murderer.
I remember when I used to play crappy old EQ2 with its supposed good city and bad city. I really couldnt see what was "good" about Qeynos at all.......except perhaps that it was puke inducingly childish and could give Harry Potter a run for his money. All the quests were still about murdering everything in large numbers so all of its inhabitants were just as nasty and uncaring as its rival city. I wasnt given any opportunity for playing as a good character at all......unless I was willing to skip half of the quests.
I have always thought it would be interesting to see an mmo where the players could choose different ways of interacting with the worlds denizens rather than just killing them......basicly a non violent approach. I'm not sure how that would work but I bet there would be a way of pulling it off. I know Vanguard had a go at it which was one of the few things I respected about that game. Unfortunately it was total shit and just boiled down to playing a crap card game that had no real influence on anything and just led me through reading paragraphs from a block of text like an online book. It would be great if an mmo successfully managed to implement some form of diplomacy.
Also I wonder about the difference between people that feel an emotional reaction to films or games and those that dont. Even though I know a film isnt real, if its done well then it can still get an emotional reaction out of me. In fact I seek those kind of films out. There have been quite a few films that have made me feel very uplifted and others that have brought tears to my eyes.......and I'm glad of that fact. I wouldnt have it any other way. In fact I cant help myself from trying to feel immersed in whatever film, game or book I am experiencing. Why would a person NOT want to feel anything? I guess its what seperates the people who have an imagination from the ones that dont.......the ones whose only response to a deeply moving scene is "I dont care its just a film". Good films, games and books are wasted on those types of people in my opinion. In fact I think this is why so many mmos are such a load of bollocks now. They lack depth because they are catering to the unimaginative masses that dont care about having an emotional response to anything. Its just "kill monsters......collect loot.....go up levels" and anything involving the creative use of imagination on the players part is just left out and ignored. As a result roleplayers in mmos are reduced to typing out irrelevant homemade stories in the chat channels while the non-roleplayers run past them on a fed-x killing spree (ie playing the game). Its ironic that you have to NOT play the game if you want to roleplay.
Nice read.
Gaming will always be under the cannon of "how far is to far" like when people believe doom 1 would corrupt children to do bad things.
However, I do find it interesting that in Australia is allowed to massacre innocent people in an airport (MW2), however hitting zombies with a frying pan in L4D2 is completely immoral and must be censored.
Not meaning to hijack the issue, but it does reflect on how bull our rating systems are.
I play a lot of different games across alot of different genres, but two days ago my 9 year old niece came over and I showed her about a dozen games because she asked what type of games I play. It kind of threw me off when she asked if I had any games that didn't involve killing something to win. I don't particularly care but besides racing games, I don't think I've ever played a game that didn't involve a lot of killing and even a couple of my racing games have that. I've never owned any sports games (and just realized tony hawk goes with my racing games in that regard), but from the days of our 16 megahertz tandy to today, that's a lot of killing.
Good article! Heres my take. I lean toward the left and generally have little to no moral issues with things in games or movies and figure as long as its not hurting anyone then who cares. Now with that said I did take issue with the MW2 mission. Also if you have to include a warning and ask if someone wants to skip it then obviously you also in a way question if it should be in or not. Now if this was in as a cut scene and not something to participate in I would have no issue with it but frankly other than shock value this served no purpose to the game and could have been done as a cut scene. This did nothing more than give some 14 yr old or for that matter 40 yr old picked on goober a way to get out some kind of sexual tension. I served in the military and lost 2 friends on 9/11 and several more in Iraq so nothing about the mission remotely amuses me. There is a line and IW knows dammed well where it was otherwise as I stated there would be zero warning or option to skip it. Thats bout it.
It is actually quite disturbing when I really think about it. Thats the problem though. No-one thinks about it. No-one cares. Non-violent games do get made but they are vastly outnumbered by the violent ones. I think this is due to the fact that we have lived in a male dominated society for......well......forever I guess. As a result the majority of computer games seem to be aimed at men. The same goes for most sports too I guess.
There ARE peaceful games that have been successful such as puzzle games like Tetris, cerebral adventure games like Myst or life simulators like The Sims but games developers tend to go where the money is......and death has always been the number 1 best seller. It always has done. Men are fascinated by it. Its ingrained in most of us. In the dark old ages of our past we used to pay money to watch people kill each other for sport. We used to gather to watch executions take place. Even our most dominant religion on the planet is a death cult that is focused on what happens after you die and is obsessed with a battle between good angelic beings and evil demonic monsters. Hmmm and who invented that one? Yep that one came out of the minds of men.
So yeah when a 9 year old girl asks a simple straight forward question like "Do you have any games that dont require me to commit murder?" it does kind of put it all into perspective.
I remember when they were talking about the Super Columbine Massacre RPG and how some people were offended that someone would even make a game like that. I was kinda put back at first but after checking it out on youtube it didn't really bother me. At first glance it might look like a parody esp being called Super Columbine Massacre but it depicts what actually happened in the past just like a WWII game.
So many people were shocked by what happened that day, they blamed video games and easy access to gun for the violence, but they never could figure out what the real reason was. When they bring morality into games it seems to make you think more, or at least choose your path a little more wisly.
This is not so much a controversy of morality but one of personal freedom and artistic expression. No irrefutable evidence exists that proves beyond doubt that killing npcs makes an individual immoral, amoral or anything else.
It's an ongoing debate that occurs in music, tv and now video games. There are people that want to control and censor others by making specious arguments about morality and such. Anything to justify their agenda to deprive free people of their rights to make their own choices.
"Just following orders" is the real world saying that pretty much matches "its just a game" within the game context. If a games story doesn't engage you, and thus make you think, what good is it? Just more fluff, such as network TV is filled to overflowing with. This gets into the difference between physical courage and ethical courage. Physical courage is much, MUCH more common than ethical courage. Which of course is how atrocities happen.
Did you just compare WW2 with Columbine and try to rationalize it? Look it would be like making a WW2 game and saying here you be Hitler and btw heres a bunch of Jews to torture and kill and as a preorder bonus from gamestop get special nerve gas. Thats about what your comparison would amount to.
It is suposed to be just a game and an escape. I think folks put to much though into things, and we have become a country of way to policaly correct bunch of folks, oh you cant do that your going to insult somebody.
Ill make a case point for you. Here about 3.5 years back we had a deranged teanager who stole a car. He was arested, and taken to the sherifs office in fayete county. One of the sherrif's deputies mad an error and the boy bgrabed the fellows gun. The sherrif 3 dupties and the dispatcher all dead. His legal defence I thought I was playing grand theft auto. Needless to say the judge did not buy into that argument. Heck even they boys dad got on the news and said yea I knew that boy was bad, and it was a matter of a time before he killed a bunch of folks.
The way I see it there are plenty of games, if you find one that offends you you got so many others to choose from.
If I want to play a game where I am shooting russians, nazi's, or whatever thats on me, or the person playing that game.
We need to get over the political correct bug and grow thicker skins. I am so sick of hearing you cant do this because it offends folks. Im like baaaa what about freedom of speach.
I didn't read all the preceeding comments (my bad) so if someone already mentioned this, apologies in advance.
There is a quest in WoW (WotLK expansion) that requires you to commit torture in order to progress. It's all justified of course, but the NPC ordering you to do it can't get his own hands dirty, which contributes to a truly slimy feeling. Unfortunately, the quest is not optional if you want to progress along its chain.
Of my toons who have done it, they make sure to /slap the NPC before walking away after it's done.
t. If a games story doesn't engage you, and thus make you think, what good is it?
When did games become entertainment that was supposed to make you think? We have enough political and social commentary in life. There was a time games were supposed to be an escape from reality and now they seem to want to mirror reality which frankly judging by the reality of most things is on the depressing side. But then again like all things games follow a trend and that trend these days is growing tiresome.
Did you just compare WW2 with Columbine and try to rationalize it? Look it would be like making a WW2 game and saying here you be Hitler and btw heres a bunch of Jews to torture and kill and as a preorder bonus from gamestop get special nerve gas. Thats about what your comparison would amount to.
Kinda. The fact is both WW2 and that massacre happened in the past and the games go by what has already happened. People seem to get offended if the murderer they play as is a bad guy while they don't think about how evil they are in most FPS games as they kill hundreds of guys since they are good.
Kinda. The fact is both WW2 and that massacre happened in the past and the games go by what has already happened. People seem to get offended if the murderer they play as is a bad guy while they don't think about how evil they are in most FPS games as they kill hundreds of guys since they are good.
Part of the problem in all honesty is the mirror of real life episodes. Lets say 9/11 never happened, I would bet money that no one would have noticed this. Same with your columbine scenario, if it never had actually happened then it would be seen as just another Grand Theft Auto or something. Problem with gaming...at least in the single player realm is how much the line between the game and real events has become blurred.
City of Heroes deals with this issue nicely I think. The titular heroes of the game (the player) aren't killing anyone at all, you are actually arresting them and sending them to prison. If you like, you can go to Brickstown and visit said prison--known as "The Zig" and resembling a giant ziggurat--and if you play City of Villains the tutorial mission even involves your new villain breaking out of the Zig.
This way, people can still feel heroic, noble and righteous while still mowing down enemies at every opportunity. I know the role-players of CoH appreciate this in game explanation, but they are an extreme bunch. They are adamantly opposed to merging the hero and villain markets because their characters would never touch the black market goods that no-good villains deal in.
I used to love COD ,but in trying too hard to create new ideas ,they weakened the game badly,to where i have no interest in it any more.
I guess WOW does the same thing,it weakens the gaming experience,something i don't like,i like to be challenged,i don't much like scripted missions that have no replayability ,or in WOW's case you MUST use quests to replay a new player,but boring 101 is not good.
If i was a MMORPG developer,i would not try to copy too much from a first person shooter or a war game,for the simple fact they are designed to be 20-40 hours of game play PVE and ALL PVP,for the multiplayer.It is pretty hard to dwelve into a PVE role in a MMORPG if someone is constantly badgering you to PVP,it just does not work.
MMORPGS take more time to develop ,so they need to last beyond that 50 bucks you pay for the box.For a game like WOW because it is so superficial,quest+level>>end game PVP,you could probably create some scripted content,after all WOW has a million instances,why not turn them into something that can be fun and show off the developers skills/talents.However in case of WOW that would be stretching it,i do not think they could come close to creating any meaningful missions like you would see in CODMW2,not even close.
Imagine the content however?i would have to say "WOW",imagine those 500 instances were now 500 meaningful missions ,similar to COD?that game then would truly be full of content,but as is,you get what you pay for...umm well i guess they paid a lot for WOW,too bad you can't see it in the result LMAO.
A good read... thanks.
Of course it's all just a game... but I kind of like the idea of trying to make it more; a virtual lab where you make virtual decisions and see and feel what it's like. I think that's part of immersion, something games need more of... why not?
I guess I'm trying to say this: sure it's a game, no sweat... but honestly, I would like a game where I could choose to be really evil; and really feel what that is like, maybe some shame or guilt or whatever. Where I could explore the effects of different choices... really get the feel of it. why not? And if there is any failure is MW2, it's that there is not some other options to choose from. Maybe I would get repulsed by the slaughter, say to hell with my cover, and shoot the killers in the back of the head? Again, since I'm not given any real choice, it's like a movie, and thus not much immersion or feeling of consequence.
I think games should make immersion and choice the goal. I know it's hard, but I'm looking forward to it...
What we dont want to happen from this discussion is to bring up the old "myth" that children will be infulenced by this and turn to murdering everyone they see. I'm 43 and ive been playing RPG games since D&D in 1978 when they only had the soft cover books. I remember my mom telling me she heard that D&D would turn me into social misfit and that it wont let me deal with the "REAL" world.I also remember people saying Led Zepplin records had the Devil's message in them if you play them backward or if you listen to Ozzy you might become a devil worshiper.In fact its just a game and the people who let it change thier lives were already going to change at some point.These games for me are my escape the responsiblities of real life , but no more than someone going to a movie or reading a book or just watching TV.I enjoy the exploration , adventure, challenge and pvp competition.I dont go into my office and say "Stand back fair maidens as i slay our sales manager!".Ive seen far worse examples of humanity from regular people who have never played a video game in their lives.
Bad morales come from your parents or some chemical imbalance in your brain , not from a game.
This article was very well written and did make me think.
This is sad...
Growing up with violent movies/games, I'm not one to say much about most things...
But the "it's just a game" mantra is getting a little ridiculous.
It's not just a game. It is well-known in social sciences that people who become desensitized to violence become more aggressive. While this won't spark something as ridiculous as what Modern Warfare shows (virtual Genocide) it is certainly not healthy for society and is quite barbaric.
It's one thing when the horde of enemies are murderous thugs or "evil goblins" or an honorable war. But to kill defenseless civilians who scream and cry out for mercy? It's just taking it too far.
What's next? A virtual torture game where you win the level once you get the information out of your victim?
Enough is enough. Corporate greed needs to back off and take their hands off their wallets for a second and consider something most of us like to call: Dignity.
Because the only reason they did this is because it sells.
I look down on Shameless Corporate Greed. If you're gonna be greedy... at least have a little respect for yourself and the society you pollute.
While it may be a myth that children will be influenced by this and turn to murder everyone they see, it is NOT a myth that it increases aggression.
There is an indisputable amount of evidence from the vast majority of social scientists which prove that "media" violence DOES in fact increase aggression. That doesn't mean it increases violence, school shootings, or the like. But it certainly does increase aggression.
A lot of this evidence is recent (2006-2009) so you may be behind in your education of the social sciences. Pick up a new (2009) psychology/sociology textbook and you'll quickly discover it is as proven and factual as any science (chemistry, physics, or the medicine you put all your faith in believing is factual when swallong the supposed pill).
Just the same that rape-pornography which desensitizes people actually DOES increase rape and aggression with a belief that "the girl secretly likes it." or "she actually wanted me to."
These things do have effects on people. It may not mean "See a gunfight, Start a gunfight!" but it DOES mean "See a gun fight, increase likelihood of all forms of aggression." which can include extreme forms (violence), but mostly just increases small forms (verbal aggression, subtle aggression, competitive aggression, slightly more apt to violence even if still not much more ACTUAL violence)
Says who?
MMO's make as much money, if not sometimes more, than console video games solely based on box sales alone. Especially considering they're the same price, so price + units = $$$$$$$$$
You could argue "MMO's take more money to make!" but that's relative. Some MMO's take less money to develop than console games. It really just depends on the management of resources and the company and developers behind it.
Some developers are so talented that with $100,000 they could make a game in 1 year that matches $1,000,000 and 10 years. Sure that's an extreme difference, but such is "real talent" vs the average joe (retard).
MMO's could more than get away with making a game amzing for 40-60 hours of gameplay, get rid of all time-sinks, and still manage to walk away with thousands upon thousands of subs even after the majority quit the first month.
In fact, it could be as easy as making 40-60 hours of amazing console-worthy content for $50, but a user-created method of content justifiably to extend for years to come.
And server costs aren't that much considering how many subscriptions even the most dead of games retain.
And although you could argue "MMO's have failed within months of release because they couldn't retain subscribers." but I guarantee that's significantly more about Debt and poor money management than it ever is about actual subscribers. If a game REQUIRES [x = successful MMO's number] of subscribers just to make up for the cost of development, of course it might close. There are many corporate reasons for closing servers, and most of them do not have to do with "not enough subscribers" for profit. Usually it's more to do with "not enough subscribers for our boss."
DAoC has probably 20,000 subscribers, and is mostly a dead game.
That dead game makes almost 1/3rd a million dollars a month. 3.6 million a year for a dead game, which is almost entirely profit because it's more than made up for the cost of development many many many years ago.
Server and Patch team doesn't even cost a fraction of that; especially when taken over by a huge company like EA which has server/developers feeding more into the pocket of EA general than DAoC specific.
Well to be completely honest, MW2 wasn't the first game that made people run in horror from you. Hell Assassin's Creed made them beg for their life. In the first one you were limited to killing due to the "desyncing" now the player can kill any amount of npcs. As they all run around cowering in fear, begging you for their life, right before you land that final death blow upon them. Whether you kill women, men, harlots, thieves, or guards, they all react the same right before they die. They beg you for their life. Some try to run away, but you can leap towards them and send out your hidden blade, and they die in a pool of their own blood.
It doesn't "force the player to do so" but it allows you to. And mmos are pure carnage, i'd much rather see one that truly shows exactly what it's doing. Sure WoW as you said is a "theme park ride to the cheese" but that's exactly how it's supposed to be. As players go through killing and brutally slaying the opposite humanoids. As they go through, they get better and better at it. They're all supposedly "good" in their own aspect but in reality they're both evil. No one cares about this as they're just playing the "game".
Define "murder". Everyone has their own definition, and for most people, not all killing is considered murder.
Frankly, if a 9 year old girl has a definition of "murder" already in place, I smell the stench or parental moral superiority and news cameras waiting around the corner.
Even games as innocuous as Axis and Allies or even Chess could be considered simulated "murder". The replacement of graphic violence with statistics and numbers is the only real difference.
This is a symptom of our common humanity. Life is hard, and we venerate those people who take a hard existence and succeed spectacularly. Our old stories are all about heroes who slay the dragon and rescue the princess. The only difference now is that we can give players the opportunity to play as the dragon and his minions, maybe even defeating the "good guys".
Our games, like many things, are merely a product of our existing society. Some people just like blaming a symptom so they don't have to face the larger problem.
<Rolls eyes>... So what is this "greed" you use multiple times above? I've yet to hear any non subjective definition for that word. All too often it translates to "You have more than me" or "You have more than I believe that you should". Other that than though, you have a couple of valid points. Look at the military(and these days the police) for examples of groups that use training to desensitize their personnel to the use of brutality and violence. I'm not so much concerned about abstracts like "society" as I am about the individuals involved. WAY too many people are pushing their conscience aside, and doing what they are ordered to, no matter what the horrific consequences are. Video games usually don't go quite that far, but some push the edge.
The way I looked at the MW2 mission was that it was a chance to reflect. I took no particular "joy" in the mission and the outcome at the end was pretty much what I expected. I attempted to not shoot any civies and would have avoided shooting the police if the game would have allowed me that option. Unfortunately, in order to complete it you MUST shoot the police. You, on the other hand did not have to shoot the civies (thankfully). But as I said, the mission is a chance to reflect on a lot of subjects....terrorism....crime....morality...death and destructin of civilians caught in the crosshairs. Most importantlly, it reflects how the "bad" can think of people while the soldier has to worry about protecting the civilian populous.
First of all, wrong. There were a few flawed studies that showed a connection between watching violence and being more violent as a child (no studies showed the correlation in adults, or bothered to restudy the children once they were adults). But many more studies showed that there was NOT a direct correlation between video game violence and real world aggression/violence. So nice try on that one.
A virtual torture game? Sounds great, I'll get started on the project right away and put a thank you message in the credits when I'm a millionaire, truly fantastic idea. All though I don't know if th extracting information part, let's just go pure senseless torture for absolute no reason other then the character you play is a psychopath. You should put these gifts to the world and get into game design,
There was a movie made with a fairly graphic and long rape scene. People actually got up and left the theatre because they just couldn't handle it. The director was asked about it and said something to the effect of "I wanted it to be painful to watch, I wanted people to see how horrific an act this is since when it is talked about in the news it is easy to dismiss since a person who hasn't gone through it would not understand how truly awful the experience is." And the director talked more about it and how she felt many people act like it isn't that terrible of a thing and it was just sex and she wanted to show those people how wrong they were.
We can't spend life sheltering people for how horrific parts of life are, that is what truly desensitizes people. This country all but forgot about the war going on in Afghanistan until recently, and forgot about the soldiers over there being killed and maimed. It was easier to forget about the issue then to face how terrible war is, even Iraq war was hardly ever brought up in casual conversations. It is reduced to a few statistics in news bites and that is all the average person thinks about it. But if you were to make a war movie that showed in detail all the terrible things that happen in painful detail, perhaps some people would have to face it head on and not ignore it or pretend it doesn't happen at all. So why is it wrong if a game does it as well? You know how much genocide goes on in third world nations that is never reported on or known by most people? This world spends way too much time ignoring the terrible acts that go on in this world, and perhaps if they paid more attention then more of it would be stopped. So no don't shelter us and hide it from the world, don't prevent movies and video games from showing uncomfortable scenes.
The moral depravity evidenced by some of the posts in this thread disgusts and frightens me.
Pulling the wings of flies isn't murder, and neither is killing small pets, but that is a road many serial killers travelled down early in their lives. It would not surprise me at all to hear of killers who played some of these games in their youth. I think the Columbine killers played FPS games. Not saying that was a trigger, but I bet it made the idea of what they planned more acceptable in their eyes.
The question is whether the games encouraged (not "caused") their evil, or they were just feeding a desire already there.
I guess the fact I use the Fallout 3 mod that allows the kids to be killed makes me depraved, huh?
I also play the GTA games. Oh my God, somebody rehabilitate me!!
People need to get a grip. Games do not equal reality.
I'm a big fan of morality in the player, not the game. Too often in the MMO world we run into people with morals different from us, or none at all, who use the excuse, "It's only a game." to justify anything they do. It's only a game is probably one of the most annoying things I ever hear from people. It dismisses all other arguments by simply classifying them as ignorant or not worthy of consideration.
Now I had no real problem with the MW2 mission "No Russian". In fact I thought it was rather good writing, to include that mission to lead the story along the way it did. Now when I first went through the mission I got a little sick watching people die like that, but when I saw the ending and understood what had happened I was alright with it. It drew me into the game story more by bringing to life just how wrong that sort of terrorist attack is. It helped me get good and angry at the enemy and on the whole made the rest of the game more fun.
But since this mission is only a single player mission and no one else was on the other side, actually suffering. Then I've no problem with the "morality" of this. My only worry is that kids will play this mission and then go onto WoW or some other MMO hoping to "gank" and grief players like they did in MW2.
Thankfully most MMOs don't let players run around killing other innocent players who can't defend themselves.
Some do approximate it, though. You really should look into why you want to play games like those. Perhaps you are afraid of the answers.
I believe what Modern Warfare was trying to show is how shit could totally get real if you don't stand up against it - and even if you do stand up against it, it won't stop terrorists, or an invading country, from killing people in their way - even a child is a possible distraction, and would likely get taken care of.
That was their angle, and they didn't want to cushion the impact of the seriousness of those situations by, say, having a cut-scene where someone talks about the attack instead of actually playing through it.
I would likely just walk on through and not kill people - because I have good morals. Grand Theft Auto had good sandbox play, though, and fighting against police, etc., was some really fun gameplay, especially with how ridiculous things could get with a full gang and such. Beating a woman that sells herself with an item of pleasure is not really that fun for me, though.
*shrugs*
To each their own?
I loved MW2, and I had the "holy shit I'm murdering civvies" feeling in the No Russian mission. I still did it, but it did hit me somewhere deep. At no point was I mad at the people making the game because I knew the message they were trying to convey, in fact it is part of what made that game so great.
Great article.
Politicians think they understand TV and films, they watch it themselves in their homes. They don’t play games so they have no idea what they are like and fantasise about the effect they can have on people.
The fact is any form of media can shape a persons actions and belief. The influence of TV, film and radio is very underrated, broadcasters would have you believe that their product has no effect on anyone. On the other hand the effect of computer games is overrated, it could turn us all into mass murderers.
But don’t worry some right wing politician will ban them once they realise the evil that they are doing to our kids!
Mr Jennings shows that MMO’s don’t exactly fit with the liberal agenda and could be regarded as imperialist. Don’t worry some left wing politician will ban them once they realise the evil that they are doing to our kids!
Like this article correctly states there is quite a big difference from the themepark MMORPGs and sandbox MMORPGs which usually has much higher risk/reward.
As an example there was a person, who I actually played with, in Eve who managed to scam his corp of 500 billion ISK (Eve ingame currency) and this has a street/RL value of over 100.000 US dollars. So when we are talking these kind of numbers it really cease to be "just a game" but rather a virtual bussiness.
Themeparks on the other hand are a completely different ball game. There you have many ways of gathering virtual goods and much less risk/reward so I doubt there will be any heists the like I mention above in games like WoW where there is a straight line from start to finish and there really isnt much of a risk/reward for anything and also where ingame virtual goods has much less value.
That being said I think morality certtain exists in many games, more so in Eve than in WoW. When you kill a person in Eve and take his belongings we can be talking about hours, sometimes days of playing that you take away from that player. So you need to be quite morally deprived to do that and not care about it. The "just a game" mentality does not work there because games like Eve are as much games as they are virtual worlds with a real economy and professions that require you to actually work (like mining, trading, manufacturing etc).
If it is an AI mob you are talking about then yes, but in MMORPGs you have a real human being behind the avatar you just killed, maimed and stole his items which he played for weeks to get.
He is not an AI bot and he feels when you do that to him and then it ceases to be just a game.
I think that is an important distinction to make. Killing an AI bot is just a game, killing an avatar that is owned by a real person is a whole different ball game.
There are people who say, "it's just a game". Like there are people who watch the most gruesome movies and just shrug "it's just a movie".
I am not such a suscpecting person as to doubt your word, however, I must say I can not imagine that at all. It is utterly and totally beyond me. When I see people suffer, it gets to me, and when it is displayed convincingly enough, it does not make a difference whether it's movie, game or a real newsreport. Sometimes I think people just pretend, but thats just a guess. Maybe you should ask a Psychologist, but IMPOV the human subconsciousness always feels with people, real or virtual. For the human mind it is not possible to negate such things you see, but the conscious can rationalize them, push those emotions away. Though it is kinda odd as why someone would do it. If you feel a movie or a game is "just a game", it would be utterly pointless for me to play it. Either I do care, then I am interested to play, or I don't care, then I don't play it.
I read that saying from a Psychologist, you can't fake to be angry any yell more than three times without beginning to feel real anger. And thats true. Because your subconscious does not know negation. It takes "images" for real. So from a scientific view I regard those claims as impossible. You can't really watch movies and games just "as if". I assume many people have such a habit of pushing their empathy away that they themselves don't even realize it anymore. It is as our society works. Empathy is still regarded a weakness, especially for men. See the unending flood of forum posts everywhere against people who are "emo".
It is pretending nonetheless, and as someone said, I think some people are indeed wannabe hoodlums. If you enjoy such games and doings in games you should seek out counsil.
So I been playing Violent Video Games for maybe the past 9-10 years now such as War games Grand Theft Auto hell I even watch violent movies guess that means I should be in prison for murder right about now huh? I kill the civilians in GTA sometimes on accident most of the time on purpose does this mean I am going to go ahead and do it in the real world?
Yes some people might play these games and do it but that is because they are mentally unstable but for the most part people just play a game when they have free time. If games were all fuzzy bunnies hopping around I wouldn't want to play it unless you toss in some guns.
Most people know the difference between reality and a game the select few that don't know the difference have mental issues in which they can't comprehend the differences. Like I said I have been playing violent games watching violent movies yet I'm no more aggressive then before I started playing and watching.
Now I see two people in this thread talking about how bad it is yet you are here you read the article so chances are you have played and watched violent games. I honestly don't see whats so wrong with killing a pixel character or playing a pixel bad guy.
When I do get Modern Warfare 2 I will sure look forward to this level.
guild drama can be very interesting, but you need to remember guilds only have what 100 or 200 people? and the entire server 10k people?
that is why drama and morality can be observed on a much larger scale in eve where one alliance can be as big as a single sharded server.
and when you get alliances this big in coalitions fighting for space, things become even more interesting. you have players playing as spies, in other alliances, pretending to be friends over ventrilo with members of said alliances, just to give all that information back to their original alliance. this always looked morally interesting to me, i never knew if i would be able to do it.
gets even worse. as the first titans were introduced into the game, the decision was made by one alliance to cut the electricity to the house of the player with the titan, so they could kill him in-game.
then there are scams. easy ones, or the likes that take up to or more then a year to execute.
so yeah, if you want to experiment with morality try eve online. because of the scale of it all, there have been some very interesting events...
Some do approximate it, though. You really should look into why you want to play games like those. Perhaps you are afraid of the answers.
Quite frankly, if I needed therapy I wouldn't be looking for it here, nor would I asume you'd be qualified to give it.
WHY do I use that mod? Because I can. I'm more than confident in my ability to kill a "child" made of 0's and 1's not translating into mowing down the neighborhood kids when I get bored.
Why do I play GTA games? Because they're damn fun, is why. And again, I'm more than confident that I'm not going to start jacking people's cars or go on a cop killing spree.
The only one's who need to question themselves about the games they play already have issues of their own beforehand.
I play RPGs to be the hero. To do good in the world my character inhabits.
Games like the GTA series are disgusting and those who play them are not people I would ever choose to associate with. They are wish fulfillment for hoodlum wannabes.
Lol. WHo ever you are. You come straight out of a comic book. Even in games there is no hero. The line is not as clear cut as that. It's not even that defined in World of Warcraft and it's definatly not that clear cut in real life. Even as we sit here the world looks at eachother as the villian. The amerian men and women in Iraq would be considered evil. You bag on GTA series as though the main character in the game are bad people. In some ways they are and in many they'er not. Take Nicko Belick. He come state side to live a better life. To start anew. But some how he ends up get caught up with the wrong people. Something like that you can try to walk away from but it's not that simple. As it is in real life. Some situation you just have to play the villian. I went in to the military myself I did want to be a hero, but I didn't want to play the villian. I rather play the part of the necessary evil. Heroism is only clear cut when specificlly defined like Champions Online. To make the line clear cut in World of Warcraft though. The only villian in that is the demon pulling the strings and the Forsaken.
There are two saying I go by.
"In order to become the hero you must first walk the path of a Villian."
The other is. "You yourself and other may see you as a hero, but stand with your enemy for a while. You may start to see it differently."
Just cause you see you self as the Hero doesn't make it always necessarily true. The same could be said about God and Lucifer.
Related to this is the lack of relevance of your choices evident in too many MMOs. Why even bother thinking about whether your actions are right or wrong when no matter what quest you do it only gives you more XP and assets, with no further consequences. Standard procedure : Pick up all quests in an area and do them. No need to engage brain.
For the same reason I can understand why a lot of people don't bother to read the Quest-texts ... they can be sure that beyond the basic instruction on what to do, where to do it and whom to do it to, the text contains no information you actually need to think about.
Some MMOs have things like Faction-Quests where you standing rise for one Faction and decrease for another when you finish them. That way there is at least some consequences to your actions. It would be nice to see that kind of systems be more common and more expanded in the future. Perhaps with the characters moving through a complex web of Factions.
And I don't mean that one behaviour should be punished and another rewarded in the game. Just that there should be consequences to your actions, and some of those consequences _should_ limit your character to what he or she can do.
That way you would have to take responsibility for your own decisions. For good or bad.
Great read-I didn't buy the game because of the brutal attacks at the airport. The real world is crazy enough and this type of game play where everyone was murdered at the airport just fuels the "crazies" that much more. Game or no game, it wasn't okay to put that kind of violence into the game.
I do find it interesting that there seems to be zero grey area for most people which is the reaction I am sure IW was going for. Sometimes I have to wonder where its all going. I still fail to see the purpose of some of this stuff they put in games. Most likely its to stir this and sell the games to people who are generally seen as the lowest common types. In the case of MW2 it worked. They sold a overhyped product based on a supposed leak that stirred up a ton of debate and free publicity.
I played that part of the game. I broke my cover. Started shooting the bad guys. Fuck them!
I wouldn't go so far as to say 'utterly pointless'.... but that's what I'm talking about with the word immersion. Honestly, (like you), I want more immersion in games/movies/books than less. But that's where choice comes in, as well as some themes we can relate to.
For example, I see some movie, some crazy guy killing young girls, cutting them up, selling their parts at a butcher shops, etc. It's gross, extreme, and something clicks in the back of my mind "ridiculous... I would never do that" ... then I just turn it off with "it's just a movie...boring actually". So I don't relate, I don't feel anything... to me, it's a waste of time to watch such a movie. Same with a game... actions/choices resulting in extremes, or perhaps no-choice at all, then I can't stop the switch flipping in my mind "it's just a game... click ... click... yawn".
But give me a choice related to something closer to home. I see a movie with a guy named Joe who gets mad at his peer Bill who has back-stabbed him at work to take his promotion... so he looses it, punches him out, and Bill dies. Joe runs... police find him, jail time, kids suffer, just a ruined life all around. If told right, it's sort of chilling... why? because we are tempted (possibly) in RL with the same scenarios.
That's when it gets chilling and immersive, when a game has choices (good and bad) and they are made in scenarios closer to what we might really experience in RL. If no choice, it's easy to watch anything and just turn it off... it might desensitize, but that can happen with any media (books, movies, games etc)... and the end effect of desensitizing is boredom (there's a lot of that around here imo).
Good read.
Personally, I believe that a game is a game. Like a terrorist killing people in a blockbuster movie (which seems entirely acceptable,) a game should be no different. The scene in question is an important one that sets up the whole plot line of the video game, so why all the outrage?
Should your kids be playing Modern Warfare 2? Are they old enough to understand the difference between right and wrong? Can they understand that the game is just a game, and in real life, you have consequences for your actions? That's your decision to make.
But as far as controversy in general goes, every intelligent person should only take from it what was meant to be taken.
People create controversy to entertain themselves, and those who feel personally attacked.
I personally hope you 'are' attacked. By dogs. Big ones.
Man I laughed when I realized my level 80 holy priest is a mass murderer...
Actually if there was no participation on the part of the player then I dont think this is an issue. If it was a cut scene I would almost bet it would be dismissed. Problem is the participation and if people want to admit or not the dismissal of the seriousness of shooting of innocent and wounded people. The other part is that parents these days just want their kid out of their hair so they buy them anything to get that without any research. No that is not the game developers fault but more of a reflection of the fact most of the population shouldnt be allowed to breed.
Lol. WHo ever you are. You come straight out of a comic book. Even in games there is no hero. The line is not as clear cut as that. It's not even that defined in World of Warcraft and it's definatly not that clear cut in real life. Even as we sit here the world looks at eachother as the villian. The amerian men and women in Iraq would be considered evil. You bag on GTA series as though the main character in the game are bad people. In some ways they are and in many they'er not. Take Nicko Belick. He come state side to live a better life. To start anew. But some how he ends up get caught up with the wrong people. Something like that you can try to walk away from but it's not that simple. As it is in real life. Some situation you just have to play the villian. I went in to the military myself I did want to be a hero, but I didn't want to play the villian. I rather play the part of the necessary evil. Heroism is only clear cut when specificlly defined like Champions Online. To make the line clear cut in World of Warcraft though. The only villian in that is the demon pulling the strings and the Forsaken.
There are two saying I go by.
"In order to become the hero you must first walk the path of a Villian."
The other is. "You yourself and other may see you as a hero, but stand with your enemy for a while. You may start to see it differently."
Just cause you see you self as the Hero doesn't make it always necessarily true. The same could be said about God and Lucifer.
Even an elaborate rationalization is a rationalization nontheless. It is semantic playing around, or simply said, bollocks.
Hey Scott,
Cool story bro and I'm gonna let you finish but....
Now how about you get back to your new job.
Israphael is still filled with botters, gold sellers and spammers. Less MMORPG and more Game Security IMO.
In the time it took to write this you could have done the job personally. Public perception and all.
This kind of stuff may be interesting to read but only makes me think I'm already paying you not to do your your new job.
/nerd rage off
I had fun playing the bad guy for once and I oddly enjoyed the Airport massacre as well, however to the topic at hand games like this should be available to adults and only adults not 13yr kids the whole issue for years has always been about the children but parents are too stupid these days to look at the box they say do you want that Johnny? Ive seen it before at gamestores then they complain about the violence , sexual content, etc its not the developers , governments fault its your fault for failing to be a responsible parent and say no you cant have it. Dont ruin it for the rest of us that have hair on our balls.....
I'm not an enormous fan of shooters, although I will cop to liking Painkiller, as twisted as that was, because nothing in gaming is much more fulfilling than dicing zombies to millions of bloody bits with a weapon that resembles a blender made with straight razors....lol. There were no "moral" considerations in chopping up baddies in this game.
ANYWAY.....
I have never had this "moral dilemma" feeling in any MMO. However, I'm a big single player RPG fan, and I have run across that in a couple of single player RPGs....ONE of them to the point that I actually had to LEAVE THE QUEST and go sit on a hill in the game overlooking the city and THINK about what I would do.
To explain, while trying not to spoil anything, those two games where I did actually question the "morals" of my decision, were Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines, and maybe MORE surprisingly notable....The Elder Scrolls: OBLIVION. In the latter, during your "growing up" as an assassin, for the Dark Brotherhood, you are required at one point to decide how to "handle" a certain situation amongst people (npcs) that you have grown to like and trust. And they have grown to like and trust you. Now you are called upon to perhaps do something very very....horrible. If you choose to do it.. there may be great benefit to you. However, if you choose not to do it....that also will lead to another path.
I literally.....had to go sit outside of the city walls, on a hill overlooking the town.....and THINK about this decision. And I found myself pondering it very seriously, and reminding myself...."it's only a game." However, after making the choice that I did....I didn't feel too good about myself. I felt a little ill. I think this speaks to the great immersion of Oblivion.
In VtM: Bloodlines, it was a little easier because, well....even as a more "human" Toreador....I was still a VAMPIRE, ya know? So it made it a little more palatable. lol.....pun intended. :)
So all in all....I think this tactic can be used in games to create tremendous immersion, for one, and secondly, perhaps.....a bit of self-discovery. Even if you choose the option you likely wouldn't choose in RL.....at least you stopped to consider your choice for a few minutes....or maybe not. Either way....it says something about us, and about how we view our games.
Great article! I really enjoyed reading it and remembering some times of great decisions that were "life altering" to my characters in games.
What about those of us who shave?
My problem with the 'No Russian' mission is that the game will not let you do the morally right choice: defending the civilians. If you attack the terrorists, you lose. If you want people to think of the choices you make then you have to give them real choices with real consequences and not just shoehorn them into paths that you want them to go on. It creates a binary setup that excuses any number of immoral or evil choices.
Years ago I part of a Pen & Paper D&D campaign where the DM was an idiot who pretty much offered us the choice of do someting disgusting or your character dies. I promptly said 'thanks but no thanks' and packed up my dice.
Th big part of 'it is just a game' is that you can choose not to play if the choices you are presented are not acceptable to you.
Absolutely right. I always moved Undead characters out of the starting zone in WoW after the first few quests, because I was repulsed by all the poisoning and plague-spreading involved in the later quests.
We are still Human beings when playing these games, and I do believe that moral choices do have a small effect on how we live our real world lives.
It's better to treat in-game characters as real people than to treat real people as less than Human. Even in the PS2 game Ico, I made a point of guiding the girl gently along, rather than dragging her forcefully by the arm.
Does this woman actually play MMORPG's.
Warhammer Online, if you play chaos, your 4th or 5th quest is to kill civilians. Oh yeah, they are armed, with farm yard equipment and are no challenge whatsoever to even the most incompetent player. So whats the difference?
EQ2 has you killing humans for body parts to cook.
Lotro Monster Race kills hobbits to collect parts.
So, tell me again please how MMO's don't do disturbing stuff?
The point with Modern Warfare is that they crossed a line. And a line that didn't need to be crossed. They even did it cowardly because else they would have made the criminals involved muslims. They didn't. Not afraid to upset the western world but afraid to offend the middle east?
And the game is supposed to make a point about blindly following orders? Yet if you don't follow the orders of not blowing your cover, the game ends. No, sorry. MW2 just tried the shock approach to marketing, and it worked but in doing so it has lost all credibility.
I think the most interesting thing about the "No Russian" scenario is that it calls into question the priorities of your off screen superiors.
What is your primary mission? Why are you an agent in the first place?
Is it to protect and serve the innocent?
Or is it to "play the game" and infiltarate the organization, no matter what the cost...to include your soul?
What is the cost in blood to keep your cover? Is there a limit to how many civilians can die before too many have, and the cold cost/benefit analysis reverses itself?
That's the moral dillemma here that isn't being examined by the mechanism of the game...which simply tells you that if you don't go along with the terrorists, you've failed.
Real life doesn't work like that. The pixelation distorts the moral issues involved.
One of the problems with MMOs in general is that when you've got PvP, there are all sorts of rulesets and artificialities put into place in an attempt to regulate player behavior. Temporary enemy flags provide an example of one of these ruleset "solutions" that don't exist in reality. Also the fact that the consequence of your life being over, as in permadeath, doesn't exist in MMOs, This fact alone changes the dynamic considerably.
IRL, PvP is turned on all the time. There are no game master imposed rulesets that regulate it. Well, except for the ultimate one, of course. Permadeath.
In almost 25 years of running pencil-and-paper RPG games, this is something I have long grappled with. I've run a world that has run the whole gambit of history: from see-an-orc/kill-an-orc, to a re-envisioning of orcs as victims of history, through a grand peaceful unification of cultures and then plotting through a long, slow collapse of empires to where all empathy and understanding have been forgotten and there is no peaceful coexistence even though deep down a few old-time players tragically know there aught to be a better way.
I have a deeply held but ill-defined notions of "good" and in games nothing turns me off faster than being forced to act out scenarios that cast me as an anti-hero. As I get older, my feelings both soften and harden. I would never PvP in an MMO - it just has an elemental feel of being wrong and I also find I feel more empathy for the faceless pixel orcs and have to stretch my imagination further and further to rationalize why my character is wading through them instead of trying to understand the root cause of their grievances and make peace. On the other hand, I feel embarrassed that I can still root through ancient newsgroup archives and find one of my earliest Internet posts naively worrying that some day someone might write a Star Wars game with a player playing on (*gasp*) the wrong side.
However, I can't help but think that in MW2, the "controversial mission" was just a part of the coldly calculated marketing plan intended to get it free advertising on every evening newscast: the ultimate amoral use of morality.
Wow, there certainly are a lot of would-be moral policemen in this thread making a lot of baseless accusations and ridiculous claims.
You would think that violence was invented the day video games hit the market by the some of these people talk.
But talking to people like this is like talking to a wall. Most people who think violent video games cause violence in kids just believe it because they've heard it somewhere, and it's a convenient explanation. We certainly wouldn't want to probe too deeply into the real issues that cause violence: Wealth disparity, Resource problems, Uncontrolled population growth, Religion, and Ignorance. Then we might actually have to blame ourselves rather than pixels on a computer screen and the programmers behind them.
What people are really upset about is being put in a situation where concepts like "good" and "bad" become fudged and moral decisions are turned on their heads. People are so hilariously uncomfortable with taking on an "evil" persona or seeing the world as something besides black and white that they cower in the corner and scream how morally depraved the people are who show them a different perspective on the world. It would be funny if these people didn't have so much political power in real life.
This is all just scapegoating. All the moral police can go sodomize themselves with pine cones as far as I'm concerned. Their scapegoating hurts our economy, it hurts our species, and it detracts from the real issues at hand.
The problem lies with the inability of many of the fps players to realize the persistence of the avatar in an online world dictates a different behavior. A MMO is on no longer just a game it becomes a living world where the avatar establishes a prescence that follows them throughout their existence.
Some rebel at this situation and react by attempting to ruin the experience of others. They soon find themselves ostracized and react negatively by attempting to demean the genre instead of trying to understand it.
A great deal of truth in this sentence.
There is no such thing as bad publicity.
They're afraid of true empathy and thinking of others because then they might have to change and admit to things they aren't willing to admit. They're like that complete moron several posts above that wants the terrorists to be arabs. White, English-speaking mass murderers can't possibly exist.
Every time an issue like this comes up in this forum, I see this horde of intolerant assholes circle-jerking throughout threads and making the world even worse than what it already is. I do hope they grow up someday, though, and learn to think instead of holing themselves up in an illusory bubble of reductionism.
Well kudos to MW2 for actually invoking emotions of the players. In the big picture this will help demostrate the potential of this form of entertainment. Whether you did it or not, killed or blew your cover, you had to take a minute and consider it.
Now as far as the "controversy" and how it applies to MMO's...well how about "not so much" I can count off on one hand the amount of "moral and or ethical" decisions I've had the opportunity to make in the 8 years of MMO game play I have endured.
Most MMO story lines boil down to "take the mission or leave it" and that is that. No true dialog trees no true impact on anything, kill your 10 rats and move on to the next farmer Bob. IMHO, that's not really a choice. It's the choice of "play the way we designed the game or log off".
Sandbox or themepark, there is virtually no dynamic impact whatso ever.
Now in regards to sandbox, that is slightly different. If the game has some type of open PvP you can be faced with all sorts of "moral & ethical" decisions but that is because of the game environment and how the players behave. EVE doesn't captivate it's cultist because it has a great story and great content, it's because you need to be on your toes and you can saw your mates head off at any time if you want. BUT IMHO you end up playing "Days of our Lives Online" in these type games with groups of players all trying one up each other day after day. The game itself never throws you a curveball, which is fine. All these types of game do is set down a playfield with some basic rules of engagement.
Everyone hopped into MW2 thinking "cool, time to kick some bad guy arse" and ended up in an awkward situation for a few minutes.
It's a shame that it's FPS games that are excelling at this type of thing more and more while MMO's which should be the leaders of the pack, stay the course and refuse to change at all.
Well, single player games are much more controlled from a story telling perspective. You lead the player down a path, and they're on it. They can vary things a bit (KOTOR with lightside/darkside, GTA with its sandbox elements) but overall, you don't have many options. There's only one way to advance the story.
MMOs, especially sandboxes, offer a lot more freedom...and developers lose control. Which scares them. A lot. It's not just a control freak thing, but the fact that you can't anticipate what will happen like you can in a linear RPG or FPS. Players stress the rulesets in ways that you didn't anticipate because "working as intended" is the holy grail...you see this in WoW where players find other ways to beat raid bosses that the developers never saw coming, because they get tunnel vision, fast. So they go back and change the rulesets of the raid to get the players back on the path THEY (the developers) want them on.
HelloKitty Island is thatta way ---->
If I want morality....I'll go to church.
All of your examples are in FANTASY games whereas the one we are discussing is a real world mirror.
And talking to people like you isnt talking to a wall. So what are the real issues o enlightened one? The sad part of all of this thread and kudos to the conversation is people like you will breed and have a child and they will sadly be as ignorant as yourself and thats the true sadness of it all.
Interesting article, I enjoyed reading it.
As far as Modern Warfare 2 is involved, i think Grand Theft Auto was more immoral and controversial than this one, maybe some players have reacted strongly to the Terrorist acts of MW 2 situations however to me that is no different than when one kills a father of 3 to steal their car or runs over a granny while avoiding to be caught by the police in GTA.
But games tend to downplay the moral considerations involved with the action that they contain, as Lum is is hinting in the article as well.
I however have some comments relating to the following points.
"And from a market perspective, the theme park has won, overwhelmingly. World of Warcraft’s position in the market alone sees to that, if nothing else."
I am sorry, but I do not agree with this. I do not think WoW can even be used as the point of reference to make that assertion.
First, we fail to consider the "what if" WoW was designed as a Virtual World instead of a Themepark game. We do not know if it would have had the same success, but chances are, in my opinion, that it would have, simply because WoW introduced so many non MMORPG players to the genre which came over from other genre of games as part of a loyal following of Blizzard.
Hence, since WoW did not get its success by attracting over to its side the majority of the existing MMORPG players, to assert that the Themepark has overwhelmingly won is false.
Even if from a market perspective, there simply haven't been two equal side that measure to one another in the History of MMORPG's. Ultima Online was the first that popularised the genre (in a sence EQ etc WoW etc would not be there if it were not for UO), but UO did so 12 years ago within a different demographic and Internet Gaming Period.
So when several games of AAA caliber make it to the market within the same gaming period then only can we have an accurate measurement of which design approach has more merits or even start thinking declaring a winner I think.
Until that actually happens, the question is not settled at all. Themepark games are simply easier and more manageable to make than Virtual Worlds, and the Industry is simply going after the $$$ here.
On the other hand, how many Themepark games have "failed" recently? And how does that make the Themepark game overwhelmingly victorious? There is really only 1 themepark game that made it big and it actually won over ALL of the rest of Themepark games, other Themepark games were the competition when WoW was launched, and ever since everyone and their dogs have been trying to copy WoW in hopes of a peace of the pie and ended up starving...
EVE did not lose any customers over WoW nor did UO. So i think someone has it wrong here in that regard, and would need to reconsider from making such statements.
"or the fact that by the time a typical player has reached the end of their character development cycle, they are a virtual mass murderer, having killed literally hundreds of thousands of orcs and goblins and bandits and what have you in the endless journey that is the art of beating up entities for their lunch money."
This is so very true, again however, in my experience, this is more kin to Themepark games than Virtual Worlds, since when we say World we also imply possibilities and there is more than 10 ways for a character to make a living in a Virtual World rather than in a Themepark game.
Therefore, if there is a statement to make in relation to this here, it would be that Themepark games encourage Immoral behavior in a much greater degree than a Virtual World game which in many case could actually also invite its players to make moral choices and encourage moral behavior.
Something that has sadly been lost over the years since the Lust of $$$ has taken over, and it is only normal that an immoral decision spawns immoral designs.
Other than that, a fine read :)
I see a lot of hate for pvpers here... Keep in mind if people didn't want to pvp they would not put themselves into a position to be attacked (ie: Reroll pve ffs). It's called risk and reward. The best farming areas are usually in pvp enabled areas (0.0 in EVE, high level areas etc).
The best cure is prevention, if you go into an area of il repute at night, undefended and flouting your wares, and you get attacked and robbed, well you should have thought before you went there... In a perfect world you'd be safe everwhere, but the world is not perfect so you must take your safety into your own hands.
An example from EVE that i've seen and heard too many times is people whining after getting ganked after passing through certain camped gates - a little research and route planning could have kept them safe, but people want everything on a plate these days...
As said earlier, prescripted quests get bland after a time, the only true stories are the ones the players make, again citing EVE, a sandbox. It's tough to get real emotion in a theme park game, whereas sandboxes with real interaction between real people fosters emotion and roleplay greatly.
The EVE devs have been on record saying that everyone playing EVE is roleplaying just by participating, that there is no other option. The metagame is held as part of the world.
Sandboxes are very tough to play however, since you must make your own goals and work together to achieve them.
If you want an easy theme park you can't expect to have the potential rewards of a more difficult sandbox.
Anyway, having not played the MW2 scene in question i only have other's opinions to go on, and from what i've heard, it ranged from a good way of bringing out emotion in the game world, of making you really want to fight these terrorists (an enemy you can hate is much easier to fight, a technique used repeatedly in the real world) to a clumsy shoehorning of "morals" into an otherwise railroaded plot.
It could have been done much better, but it's good that we are having these discussions of ethics and immersion. I think gaming deserves to become a respected medium like art, film, music etc. Being able to cover important and taboo subjects without an outrage each time...
There are bad examples of all of the above, and I don't want to open the can-of-worms that is "Gaming as an Art Form" in this thread, so i'll leave it there...
Interactivity is a great tool for getting closer and closer to your target audience, making them feel strongly. I don't think gaming should just be about "fun" all the time, but rather "entertainment". Gaming will hopefully grow up some in the next few years to come. Here's hoping TSW and APB, being contemporary as they are, have some aspects we can all relate to....
edit @ Suraknar's awesome post that was done while making my post...
Great points there indeed, i remember gta4, though you were never forced to drive unsafely really. I had a friend that would never speed or run civilians over.
I would have prefered better police in gta4 however (what boils down to "consequences for actions), they did market it somewhat on how good the police would be at chasing you, but they were still useless.
Would have been interesting if jail actually forced you into an annoying minigame (peeling potatoes? :p), so you'd be more inclined to avoid it.
About virtual worlds, indeed immoral actions will ruin you in a virtual world, when the community turn their back on you, exile is the worst form of punishment a virtual society can give, and an effective one when no-one is buying your goods or spending time with you. Though ofcourse, troll communities also thrive, it's an interesting mirroring of real societies, and honestly, it helps make the place more colourful.
As long as the infrastructure itself is solid (balanced, that holy grail of system design), I don't think players should have so many restrictions, let the players have the tools to police themselves and watch a society blossom...
I play terrorist side on Counter-Strike ~50% of the time I play. I dont feel bad at all or think its "fishy".
People need to get over themselves. Games and movies are made to interact with a different level of thought than reality.
Even bring religion into it. How many people of a monotheistic religion play games where the character worships other god(s)?
You just cant compare games with reality.
Stop
writing
about
modern warfare 2
"controversy"
...
i had that " do they really want me to shoot these people flash" and then proceeded to not only shoot the injured people on the floor but the people running away/ hell i even replayed the mission a few times cause i had never seen a game where this was a mission and i thought it was hilarious and awesome. maybe to some of you that makes me sick but it is jjust a game and i think its pretty safe to say that im never going to walk through and airport shooting people.
I agree with this :) , and actually think very much in the same lines, unfortunately we have not seen any games since a very long time which give the tools to the players to police themselves and at the same time have a design that is conducting to an in game community blossoming within the virtual world.
Honestly, i haven;t experienced it in any game after UO, which I played from 1997 for 5 years thereafter before moving on not that long post Trammel.
The problem with Trammel is not really the fact that it reduced PvP in Feluca, the ramifications of Trammel were felt on a social level within the Virtual world, in one stroke the Virtual world seized to be a World and the tools the players had at their disposal were removed from them.
At the same time, the moral responsibility and accountability that every player had in that virtual world vanished as well.
At that moment, the dynamics of the game changed, the game itself changed, and it lost its appeal and beauty in the process, at least for me and many of my friends.
The point in relation to the OP here remains, that Themepark Games do not give their players the opportunity to make moral choices, and can only offer to their players immoral actions (such as developing a mass murderer).
Personally I'm a WoW / Second Life / EVE veteran (and a shorter time in Anarchy online, Age of conan) , so that's where i'm pulling my opinions from.
SL can pretty barely be described as a game though since there is not content that isn't user generated. Virtual world in the purest sense I guess.
I do not like multi-server gaming really, splitting the community indeed makes it worth less, why care for your reputation if you can just reroll :/
I'm like you, except I didn't have the flash. My first thought was, "They went there, ok", and I then proceeded to shoot the place up. It's a game, it's not real life. Games are there so we can do things that we normally wouldn't. I will never walk into an airport (or anyplace) and start to shoot people at random in real life, but I'll do it in games...numerous times.
Given choice, such as in Fable, I generally choose to be good. Sometimes it's just fun to be bad though.
Bottom line is...it's a game.
This is the exact thing the writer or the article was talking about I believe. All too often gamers hide behind the excuse "It's only a game", well guess what, even games, especially games, have RULES. And whether anyone likes it or not, there are players, real people playing other characters they interact with in mmo's and eventually the online community is going to get so desensitized from amoralistic violence or debauchery that the government will have to step in and start throwing rediculous laws and restrictions on what people can say or do on the internet. Don't believe it? The senate has been trying to pass laws since the day the internet went public to try to restrict it but yes, it always gets shot down...for now.
The easy solution is for gamers to show some responsibility for their own behavior online and act like they have a little bit of common sense. The reason games get designed the way they do because gamers right now have no control over their own desire to be as disrespectful to others or even themselves. Otherwise, it's all downhill from here but the ones who revel in the chaos won't even see it coming because they enjoy being insensitive to their surroundings.
I love mmo's, played them for a lot of years but that doesn't mean I play them "as intended" or buy every shooter or rpg that comes out. MW2 is one that I would never buy for example; I don't buy modern warfare or warefare sims in general because I have been a soldier in RL and I know what that is all about and have moved past it since I got out. It's not my place to judge those who do llike those kinds of games, but many like them for the wrong reasons. Many I hear talking about it because they "like being the bad guy" they say, they like killing and watching someone die. Those are usually people who have never seen it for real or they wouldn't get so excited about it as much. Yet those same gamers wonder why the government is trying to restrict violent video games...
It is sad because so many people in this world are racists, bigots, fascists, discriminatory, selfish hate-mongers. The internet and mmo's in general could easily be a gathering of human-beings behaving in an environment that should make it easier to show what the world could be like without all the negativity but yet most choose to use the internet for the opposite. To hate, to harass, to discriminate against anyone who doesn't give them what they want immediately. Those gamers hide behind the anonymity of game characters to act out what's in their mind, their true personality in RL. They always use the same line "It's only a game" because they have no other defense to deny the reality of having to actually think about how they behave online.
I am glad someone mentioned this.
(For the record - I haven't played MW2 yet)
The original article says:
Then suddenly, with little fanfare, your character, who is supposedly an undercover agent working with a Russian nationalist terrorist named Makarov, is given the following instruction for the next mission, in its entirety, with no other explanation: “Follow Makarov’s lead.”
And, as you watch, Makarov and his men proceed to calmly massacre everyone in a crowded airport before your eyes, while you stand behind them, with a large machine gun at the ready.
You are given no prompting as to what to do next. You are only penalized for doing one thing: shooting your murderous erstwhile comrades. (If you do, the level ends immediately with the warning “You blew your cover.”)
You can, if you choose, do nothing. Or you can shoot wildly, blowing out glass and computer monitors and the like. Or you can shoot the wounded, screaming people trying desperately to flee from you. The game doesn’t care. As far as it is concerned, your job is to make it to the end of the level. How you do so is up to you.
So, where's the moral choice?
Regardless of what you do - you are still an 'undercover agent' and so (presumably) always on the 'good side'.
So even if you shoot the civilians it is presumably so you can 'maintain your cover' in order to save many more?
And I would presume at the very end of the game you deal with Markov and his terrorist buddies? (Good on you - see you were a goody all along! The civilians were just collateral damage.)
And shooting the riot police is okay too - because you must maintain your cover. Your still a goody - after all I have no doubt you are trying to locate a stolen nuke or bio weapon or some other WMD?
And if THAT gets used then many more will die? Right?
My point is that the game has set it up so even when you are bad... you are still good.
A moral choice would be allowing the player to join the 'terrorist' cause - totally.
Betray the 'goodies' and join the 'baddies'?
Maybe even discover that the goodies are behind the baddies and the whole situation is just one big grey area?
Maybe provide endings that have very different possible futures?
Join the 'terrorists' to establish a new state for example which goes on to have a benevolent government and is a beacon of peace?
Stay with the 'goodies' and see a police state emerge with a dictator?
From what I am reading though - the moral 'choice' presented to the player really isn't one.
Great post. Although I served my time in the military I still enjoy the occasional shooter to be honest. But all your thoughts I agree with.
They're afraid of true empathy and thinking of others because then they might have to change and admit to things they aren't willing to admit. They're like that complete moron several posts above that wants the terrorists to be arabs. White, English-speaking mass murderers can't possibly exist.
Every time an issue like this comes up in this forum, I see this horde of intolerant assholes circle-jerking throughout threads and making the world even worse than what it already is. I do hope they grow up someday, though, and learn to think instead of holing themselves up in an illusory bubble of reductionism.
Unlikely. One, such types are rather easy to control due to their petty hatreds, fears and envy, which is exactly how control is maintained. Two, absent that knee jerk ignorance and lack of thought, they might look around and realize just how screwed up things are, and that might require them to actually do something about it. FAR better from both perspectives (controlled/controller) if they stay as they are. People don't want the truth, or anything even close to it. They want to be told comforting lies, so that they don't have to think about reality. Ask any soldier who has been foolish enough to speak openly and honestly about the real horrors and terrors of war, what their audiences reaction has been.
Activision is smiling all the way to the bank with this one. Such a pointless mission in an already lacking story.
This game's story is like something a half-baked Hollywood director would come up with.
Serves no purpose other than to create controversy and everyone is eating it up.
Ugh.
Yep very true. Its about as impressive as that shitty Kane and Lynch title from what I have seen. The hype machine was strong with this one. 2 yrs and they gave people 4 hrs of a campaign and more or less copy paste multiplayer.
Sure, let's suspend the first amendment to restrict violence in video games.
Sure, let's suspend the first amendment to restrict violence in video games.
The US First Amendment only applies to government.
What about those of us who shave?
Err...hmmph....
What about those of us that don't HAVE balls?
Great article. I am one who understands the lines of reality and video games. I approched the scene of that level as just that a video game, I felt no guilt nor remorse as I gleefully skipped throught the pile of bodies shooting in too the running crowed knowing full well its a game and something I'd never do in real life at any point in my life.
I just now want too bring up, What changes this from a scene in a movie where something like this happens? do you stop watching it and push it off as a bad movie or do you keep watching too see how it turns out. Look at it how ever you want peoples perceptions of events will always be different.
One of the differences is one is passive, while the other is active participation. That is where choice comes in. Sure its "only a game". Just as some *choose* to "follow orders". Thats typically the safer personal choice.
I think you are talking about "Irreversible" there.
The largest difference between games and films is audience participation. A film will have the audience sit passively to watch the story, a video game will have the player actively take part. A scene such as the one in "Irreversible" if it appeared in a game would either be a passive cutscene or would require the player to actively involve themselves in order to progress / get the ding gratz. In the latter case, the game actively rewards you for taking part in an abhorrent act. There certainly would be moral concerns about players sexually assaulting virtual characters.
That is part of the problem with MW2: there is no moral choice, just participation (same with most MMOs, actually). Now, the intent could be to show how 'just following orders' leads to some horrible atrocities or the pointlessness of mindless warfare, but forcing players to take part - sure, it's optional but sight unseen you don't know what you are opting out of - to progress is certainly a questionable design decision.
As a general observation, I think people need to be very careful in the use of "It's just a game", because that basically says it is unimportant and shallow. If that's the case, it makes it very easy for an argument to be made that these unimportant and shallow pieces of entertainment need to be better regulated and certainly don't need to be as violent and graphic as they are now. After all, it's just a game - who cares if we cut it down to something more publicly palatable?
While most of the games, and MMOs, we play have a large emphasis around killing, or otherwise harming, there is still a disconnection between the game, and reality. But this gap has increasingly become smaller as graphics, sound, animation, and other such things advance the immersion into the gaming experience.
Take a game like World of Warcraft. Yes we kill hundreds, thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of pretend monsters and people. But it's presented to us in a stylized manner, which helps to remind us it's just a game. It's set in a fantasy world of elves and magic, and most often the case, what we fight would either attack us first or fight back.
Yet I'm reminded of starting area for the latest class that was added to the game, Death Knights. While this area serves to not only teach you the basic functions of that class, it also serves as an introduction to the lore of that class. Part of this requires killing civilian NPCs. My first thought was "heh, well this is a little abnormal". I didn't really think about it, until I carried on with the quests. Many of the NPC civilians wouldn't fight back, they would instead shake in fear or flee in terror, and you could hear their screams in the sound of the game. This... was different. No longer was it simply killing yet another NPC, it started to feel like it was more.
Perhaps this was the intent of the developers, but I couldn't help but feel that tinge in my gut that I just didn't like it. I did keep pushing, and got through the starter area, and never had to worry about it again. But whenever I think about those quests, I can't help but remember the feeling I had doing them, to the point where if at all possible I would prefer to avoid doing them again, or in the least turn my sound off next time.
This is why I feel there is a line. It's different for everyone, but it always exists so long as you have some measure of empathy. The more realistic of a situation the game creates, the stronger of an emotional response it will elicit. Therefore the more realistic killing innocent civilians, even if they are not real, the more disturbing it will be. This is especially so if the setting of the game is based upon somewhere that exists in our world.
So whether or not our games contain violence or not is not what should necessarily be called into question. I would say that the degree we are immersed within games with such controversial violence that we should be worried about. Perhaps this game crossed the line for some, but not others, but I think it has tread a little too closely to be acceptable at all.
Blossom, or descend into anarchy?
You probably won't (whether that is due to morality or cowardice), but you are more likely to do so than someone who is greatly offended by such game 'content'.
I honestly think that many people who enjoy such 'pretend' actions as games like GTA encourage would indeed perform in the real world if they knew they could get away with it. It's not morality that prevents RL atrocities from these people, but fear of repercussions and reprisal.
My question is: WHY won't you do that in real life?
Yeah, the DK starting zone is quite the trip in WoW. For one thing, you're a minion of the Lich King...true, not a mindless zombie or wight or something similar. You're not quite undead the way some plague of undeath sufferer is...which makes for an interesting time as a Forsaken DK. Still, you've got some degree of free will, which is why you're valuable to the Lich King, it allows you to be more flexible than a Stitches knockoff...and be given more challenging and interesting missions than being mere cannon fodder.
So, you're sent into the Scarlet Crusade's enclave and, yup, your going in there to deliberately terrorize Scarlet Crusade non-combatants, which is explicitly a quest objective. Some fight back, but most cower in fear. You're supposed to slaughter them to complete the quest. True, they're affiliated with the Scarlet Crusade, which is not a nice organziation, as we all learned when we visited the torture chambers in the Scarlet Monestary, but still...
Then you get to the chapel that's burning, and you are directed to kill a captive Argent Dawn NPC of your race who you apparently knew before you fell under the Lich King's influence, who pleads with you to remember your old self, the hero and do the right thing for your particular race, be it Night Elf, Tauren, Orc, Gnome...or Forsaken (you fought him off once, you can do it again!).
Of course, once you get to the battle at Light's Hope Chapel, you're liberated from the Lich King and you become, once again, a "good guy", although your homecoming to Stormwind or Orgrimmar is less than festive., unless you think being pelted with fruit is festive.
Still it disturbs me a bit that they were not able to keep the story going...how NPCs should be a bit wary and not quite sure about a Death Knight, even one vouched for by heroes of the Argent Dawn. The terrible things you did in the Scarlet Enclave should haunt your newly liberated psyche, but it's like it never happened at all. You just carry on like you started up in Dun Morogh or Mulgore, no big deal...
Blossom, or descend into anarchy?
More like ascend, for self government is the only real path to personal freedom.
As technology progresses, its going to be ever more possible to set up games that have far fewer inherent limitations. That obviously has both positive and negative implications. The entire nature of entertainment may change within our life time, as different modes merge.
My question is: WHY won't you do that in real life?
My personal principles forbid it.
Its just a GAME, nuff said.
There is something to be said about desensitization, however. Whether it's real or not, we're bombarded by images and concepts of violence more than we were even a decade ago. I'm sure if you went back further, of course things were far more bloody, but back to the point... As our minds are bombarded by all of these things, we become familiar with them, and we start to get numb to them. Realize that most games with violence in them, the player is inflicting harm towards a 'bad guy', from the role of the hero. When you flip it around and you're the bad guy causing harm to innocent people, it becomes more questionable.
Additionally, to say it's just a game is ignoring that it the differentiation of what is just a game, and what is reality is becoming more vague. As gaming becomes more realistic through graphics, sound, and genuinely more immersive, our brains have a harder time detaching the game from reality. Once we turn off our console or PC, we know it wasn't real, but in the moment our senses are experiencing a simulation, which is increasingly becoming more convincing. Who is to say that if things continue down this path, that there will not be long term consequences on not only our individual mental health, but on society as a whole as we essentially create true to life murder simulations?
Of course, that is a far stretch from where we are today, but it is still something to keep in mind. Reality is the sum of our senses, and our minds are shaped by our perceptions of the world. If we perceive realistic killing of innocent people as an okay and fun thing to do... who's to say for certain that there wouldn't be consequences?
Nowadays, church is the LAST place to look for morality.
Nowadays, church is the LAST place to look for morality.
Well stated. One need only watch the evening news to see THAT.
Just Following ORDERS.....
Nowadays, church is the LAST place to look for morality.
You got it Z .
Can't remember the last time a Deist, Atheist or Agnostic flew an airliner into a building, shot an abortion doctor, painted signs saying "God hates gays", massacred a bunch of unarmed comrades screaming "God is great", started a holy war or tried to commit genocide.
Religion is evil and there is nothing moral about it. It teaches hate and intolerance. (rant off)
My question is: WHY won't you do that in real life?
That's a stupid question, sorry ..not trying to flame you but that's nothing but antagonistic to Kaneth.
How about
Why DON"T you do it in real life. Your answer is probably the same one everyone else will give.
Because your not a blood thirsty murderer willing to butcher real innocent unarmed people in cold blood for an ideology. If you were it is very unlikely you would be playing video games.
If this is a defense as to why you don't feel bad about doing the "bad" stuff, it begs the question, do you feel good about the "good" stuff? Or any of it, to be honest. If a game generates any emotional response at all, either good or bad, then this can't be used as a defense. So you don't feel bad when you die? Or feel good when you PvP? Or overcome some particularly challenging raid for the first time.
If it can't make you feel bad, then it can't make you feel good ... so why even bother playing the game?
But it DOES make you feel something, else you wouldn't play games at all.
Talk about being naive, that statement could be used as a definition. No MMO is just a game, The persistence of the world and it's avatar's makes that statement ridiculous. Wake up to reality.
Just Following ORDERS.....
That is ironic because what most people don't hear about a lot on the news is when military units are given random surveys from year to year asking if they would bears arms against american civilians if ordered to...This shouldn't be a surprise really considering the world's history during times of revolution. You have to ask yourself though, what if in that MW2 scene, it were american civilians you are "getting a kick out of shooting", as some put it?
By the way, hiding behind the 1st amendment Windssoul, won't last for long either, the senate, among other things, is always adding amendments in order to work on removing other amendments every year. The 1st and 2nd amendment being the highest priority on their list to control since they can't remove them yet. Not to mention that part of their reason for their trying every year, is because of what they deem as violent video games.
while this is true, you will have people argue against it, as you can see. For me it is a game, i don't really put don't emotionally attached to a video game, yeah i find enjoyment in the entertainment, but honestly my morals don't associate with the fake stuff going on inside a video game.
Argue whatever you want it just doesn't apply to me, when i leave a game i leave the game, i don't think hey it would be cool to go jack these people cars! lol i think a lot around here have mental issues and want to put that on others.
i play all games, i don't care what happens in the game, kill innocents? sure thing, kill villians? sure thing, kill kids? sure thing...its not real to me in any way, if it is too you, well i guess it sucks to be you then.
while this is true, you will have people argue against it, as you can see. For me it is a game, i don't really put don't emotionally attached to a video game, yeah i find enjoyment in the entertainment, but honestly my morals don't associate with the fake stuff going on inside a video game.
So "enjoyment" has no emotional "pay off" for you? When you "enjoy" something....do you FEEL anything? Do you feel "happy" when you're enjoying yourself? Do you sometimes laugh? Those things are based in emotion. Entertainment is made TO INCITE emotion. People are entertained by a lot of different things, and the TYPE of entertainment incites different feelings in different people. So while you may not be "emotionally ATTACHED" to a video game....video games DO cause you to attach emotions to them, even if it's just the feeling of "hey....this is FUN!"
Argue whatever you want it just doesn't apply to me, when i leave a game i leave the game, i don't think hey it would be cool to go jack these people cars! lol i think a lot around here have mental issues and want to put that on others.
The more telling question than what happens when you "leave a game," would be why do you return to a game? What makes you want to come back and play it again?
i play all games, i don't care what happens in the game, kill innocents? sure thing, kill villians? sure thing, kill kids? sure thing...its not real to me in any way, if it is too you, well i guess it sucks to be you then.
It's not entirely true that you "don't care what happens in the game." If that were true....you wouldn't bother to play the game. At the very least....you care if you win. You may not FREAK OUT if you don't....but you care about winning. You WANT to win. When you want something....that's "caring about it."
The rest of your statement there I do buy. No...it's not real. But games can stimulate real FEELINGS about things that happen in them, unless you're a sociopath and have no feelings. Movies do the same thing. THOSE, quite frankly, are the people that shouldn't play games. I'm not worried about the normal people that have feelings and realize that, yes.....it's a GAME. They play games of all kinds and are able to differentiate between the feelings you might have playing a game, OR.....watching a movie..... that might make you tear up, because the story is sad, or whatever. It's the ones, like you said really, that are ALREADY mentally ill in some severe way, that can become problematic by re-enacting violence over and over virtually. Those people just MAY NOT be stable enough for playing in virtual worlds.
However....do I think games should be censored because of a minority? Absofuckinglutely NOT.
Very good post, GirlGeek.
That is ironic because what most people don't hear about a lot on the news is when military units are given random surveys from year to year asking if they would bears arms against american civilians if ordered to...This shouldn't be a surprise really considering the world's history during times of revolution. You have to ask yourself though, what if in that MW2 scene, it were american civilians you are "getting a kick out of shooting", as some put it?
By the way, hiding behind the 1st amendment Windssoul, won't last for long either, the senate, among other things, is always adding amendments in order to work on removing other amendments every year. The 1st and 2nd amendment being the highest priority on their list to control since they can't remove them yet. Not to mention that part of their reason for their trying every year, is because of what they deem as violent video games.
If you are speaking of the 29 palms marine base survey,(link below) yes, I'm familiar with that. Its been an on going low level probe of what the general attitude within the services is, for years now. I leave speculation on the motivation of those behind these surveys to the reader.
www.geoffmetcalf.com/419.html
As I've stated, physical courage is MUCH more common than ethical courage. "Following orders" is much safer from a personal and professional stand point. But its not a course that I'd recomend for anyone with an active conscience.
this is the whole question do games/films make you in to a killer . i think in some ways it dose trigger some drak thought in back o f the brain . but that thought would of all ways been there hiddded away . lets look at himler he never had pc game are films yet he manage to dream up some of the worst ways to kill millions of people . so what made him in a mass killer . every one can kill it just needs that trigger to set it off
You know....you actually sound very stable. Reminds me of my ex-husband. He was like a rock. He was a wonderful person (we were actually friends for years and years after our divorce until he moved to another state). There wasn't anything "wrong" with him, he just wasn't a very "emoting" kind of person. :) He wasn't mentally ill, a sociopath, or cold-hearted. He was just very reserved. His favorite game was DOOM, and he loved killing demons....lol. :D
I don't think you're weird for the way you, personally, use video games as a time filler for "something to do." Nothing wrong with that at all.
You're probably a good example of ...."We're all different." Just because someone is different than me, or you, doesn't make them less valid in any way.
This is why censorship in gaming is such a ridiculous idea at the bottom line. People are like snowflakes....no two are IDENTICAL. And while a certain video game may not be my personal "cup of tea," it certainly shouldn't prevent anyone else from enjoying it. While it may contain "emotional triggers" for me....that doesn't mean it does for EVERYONE and the opposite can also be said.
Mental illness is an ENTIRELY different topic. This is where the people that want to get rid of violence in games, seem confused, I think. Without treading on the rights of the vast majority to choose their own form of entertainment, whether that is movies, art, games, or golf....there is no way to prevent "bad things" from happening within the minority. If we babysit society to the point of taking away CHOICES....it's not going to prevent people from still doing what they want to do, ultimately.
And before someone says, "but it would only be taking away choices in video game entertainment...." right. That's how freedom is eroded....one right at a time. The price we, as a society, have to pay for some of our freedoms....is that some people aren't going to be able to HANDLE those freedoms responsibly. But, like I said, we cannot "babysit" society without it eventually becoming a state of martial law. The price for freedom is that sometimes....there will be problems. Sometimes those problems will be big. But it's not worth, in my opinion, giving up the right to make choices.
Life is just not so black and white.
"Just following orders..."
The "No Russian" scenario has you just following TWO sets of orders:
That of the terrorist leader...and of your superiors who gave you the infiltration mission. "Don't blow your cover" means you are, at mininmum, a passive observer to a massacre. The entire purpose of your larger mission is one that is, ultimately, to protect the very people you're watching being slaughtered by the terrorist cell you've infiltrated.
Of course, the game only gives you one way to "correctly" solve this puzzle.
RE: "Hitler didn't have video games"
Good observation. But that only proves you don't need video games to be a psychopathic killer. That doesn't say anything about people who do have access to violent video games. See what I mean?
Personally, I am deathly afraid of the results this video game and this terrorist level will have on our society.
Yes, violent video games should not have any effect on one's ability to make rational decision. But I think that is only the case when someone has enough positive influences in their life to stabilize/balance them. And I think Western society in particular doesn't have enough of these positive influences.
In particular, Google the discussion "does access to guns result in more murder?" And the answer is no. There are societies that have a higher gun-to-people ratio than the US, and have almost no violence. And the only logical conclusion is that Americans are so violent because they don't know any better. Just compare a movie like Rambo (an American hero) to James Bond (an English hero). America has a pre-disposition to breeding blood thirsty killers. As a result of media influence, culture disposition, lack of parental presence in the childhood years lol.
So realistically, I am expecting to see an increased amount of random violence and murder as a result of this video game. Especially because of how successful it's release weekend was. I'm actually disgusted and disappointed at all of you that bought the game. Your behavior is very sheepish. Paying $90 for a video game, are you retarded? And yes, I will be wearing a bullet-proof vest the next time I'm at an airport.
I'm a realist. I think you can't pack all that crappy mental imagery into someone's brain, and expect a positive result. It's not logical.
Im a hardcore gamer... 30+ hours a week on my PC playing various games.
Anyone who views in game actions as immoral or wrong needs to stop playing video games. I say this because it would be obvious that they lack the ability to seperate reality from fantasy.
In game actions are not reality. this is why we are given age ratings on games so that based on your maturity level you should be able to seperate reality from ficiton. Those who can't do this should also stop watching TV. it is also rated and provides us with much more graphic and disturbing images of reality than any developer could ever imagine in a game world... Again, this why rating systems are posted on games, movies and TV shows.
This reminds me of my mother who feels the Newmoon movie promotes the glorification of monsters. She is very Christian and is afraid of Vampires, says she always has been since she was a kid and read horror comics. if she was fully able to sperate reality from fiction she wouldn't have this fear as Vampires are not real. Just like the dead victims of the russian terrorists are not real. They are simply 1s and 0s arranged in very complicated sequences. Once a person wraps their head around that it takes the immorality out of these games as it is never a moral issue, only an issue of what you enjoy or dislike. As soon as you begin to question the moral integrity of the game or show you are watching/ palying it's time to put it down and examine your ability to seperate fiction from reality.
It is our right to play violent games & watch violent movies and TV shows. For those who have issue with it, it is their right not to participate. It is, however, not their right to tell me or anyone else who enjoys these pieces of fiction that we are not allowed to participate because of their opinions. That is our freedom, and I wish for it to remain intact.
Nice points, i always found it funny how the game tries to paint you as "the hero"
"Their not dead, just arrested and telported away" Say the guy gunning down Hellions with a assault riffle and flaming hands.
"their just mindless monsters," say the Paladin cutting up Orc, and Goblins in a Hoarde Camp.
"Their aliens, this is a hostile world!" rationalizes the Tauren mage char broling humans.
Sure its their right to tell you whatever they wish. I think most people are missing the point but this is the internet and people will use their cyber soapbox to not read what is placed forward but manage to spew a poorly thoughout opinion anyways.
I am a sadistic bastard. I loved the no Russian level. It was fun. I laughed gleefully as I mowed people down because I was like "wow I can't believe they are allowing this." I would never do such a thing in real life of course but it was a fun surprise. People need to realize it's just a game. Its not real. What about violent TV shows, movies, books, and the like? Also what about how Price launched off a EMP that basically screwed over America? He didn't directly kill anyone but he still is a somewhat questionable "hero" with that act. Now of course the "No Russian" level is pretty bad but it's just a game. I had fun with being a bad guy for a level and then going back to being a hero. Not to mention no matter what you do the agent dies so if your a monster and join in on the killing you get yours in the end. I hope Makarov dies pretty horribly in COD Modern Warfare 3.
Sure its their right to tell you whatever they wish. I think most people are missing the point but this is the internet and people will use their cyber soapbox to not read what is placed forward but manage to spew a poorly thoughout opinion anyways.
You mean like you just did?
"The Asians does not value life the way we do"
"The Slavs are sub-humans"
"The only good Indian is a dead Indian"
"The wogs begin at Calais"
Making your enemy less than you is a time tested method of breaking down moral taboos against killing fellow humans.
Once again, someone who only helped proved the point about desensitized gamers and at the same time his only defense was "it's only a game". I am so glad he took the time to post that and enlighten us all...
That is ironic because what most people don't hear about a lot on the news is when military units are given random surveys from year to year asking if they would bears arms against american civilians if ordered to...This shouldn't be a surprise really considering the world's history during times of revolution. You have to ask yourself though, what if in that MW2 scene, it were american civilians you are "getting a kick out of shooting", as some put it?
By the way, hiding behind the 1st amendment Windssoul, won't last for long either, the senate, among other things, is always adding amendments in order to work on removing other amendments every year. The 1st and 2nd amendment being the highest priority on their list to control since they can't remove them yet. Not to mention that part of their reason for their trying every year, is because of what they deem as violent video games.
If you are speaking of the 29 palms marine base survey,(link below) yes, I'm familiar with that. Its been an on going low level probe of what the general attitude within the services is, for years now. I leave speculation on the motivation of those behind these surveys to the reader.
www.geoffmetcalf.com/419.html
As I've stated, physical courage is MUCH more common than ethical courage. "Following orders" is much safer from a personal and professional stand point. But its not a course that I'd recomend for anyone with an active conscience.
Actually I was referring to my own unit's survey in San Mateo on Camp Pendleton, but the survey is passed throughout all military units and bases. Not consistantly of course, but it always seemed to get done about every couple years.
You know....you actually sound very stable. Reminds me of my ex-husband. He was like a rock. He was a wonderful person (we were actually friends for years and years after our divorce until he moved to another state). There wasn't anything "wrong" with him, he just wasn't a very "emoting" kind of person. :) He wasn't mentally ill, a sociopath, or cold-hearted. He was just very reserved. His favorite game was DOOM, and he loved killing demons....lol. :D
I don't think you're weird for the way you, personally, use video games as a time filler for "something to do." Nothing wrong with that at all.
You're probably a good example of ...."We're all different." Just because someone is different than me, or you, doesn't make them less valid in any way.
This is why censorship in gaming is such a ridiculous idea at the bottom line. People are like snowflakes....no two are IDENTICAL. And while a certain video game may not be my personal "cup of tea," it certainly shouldn't prevent anyone else from enjoying it. While it may contain "emotional triggers" for me....that doesn't mean it does for EVERYONE and the opposite can also be said.
Mental illness is an ENTIRELY different topic. This is where the people that want to get rid of violence in games, seem confused, I think. Without treading on the rights of the vast majority to choose their own form of entertainment, whether that is movies, art, games, or golf....there is no way to prevent "bad things" from happening within the minority. If we babysit society to the point of taking away CHOICES....it's not going to prevent people from still doing what they want to do, ultimately.
And before someone says, "but it would only be taking away choices in video game entertainment...." right. That's how freedom is eroded....one right at a time. The price we, as a society, have to pay for some of our freedoms....is that some people aren't going to be able to HANDLE those freedoms responsibly. But, like I said, we cannot "babysit" society without it eventually becoming a state of martial law. The price for freedom is that sometimes....there will be problems. Sometimes those problems will be big. But it's not worth, in my opinion, giving up the right to make choices.
Life is just not so black and white.
Nice post except the point myself and some have been trying to make is not censor anyone persay but to at least give choices of right and wrong moral choices. There is no good excuse for a game designer to force a gamer to choose only one moral decision path based on his/her views of the world. 1st amendment aside, if that game designer wants the game to sell to a wide audience, then they have to give options or fail. If you as a gamer chose to support that game just because everyone else buys it or there is nothing else to do, or you are immoral anyhow...then maybe that gamer needs to do a reality check. If game designers get sent a message of no sales for games like that they will change their type of IP they make whether they like it or not.
I know because I have been to game design school and have friends in the industry who have had to make IP's quite often that they don't like, only because it's their job and it's what sells.
This topic is way too sticky to get into without delving into some pretty intense topics. Perhaps we could go deep into psychology or even sociology, find a primal need to conquer through brute force that has been largely suppressed in modern society. When was the last time you had to pillage and raze another village just to eat for another week? When was the last time your tribe had to go wipe out that other tribe over a well or some other vital resource?
And this is just some idle armchair speculation of the issue. I am very confidant that it goes much, much further.
As far as saying we feel nothing based on what we see in a video game, that's sad. Not because I think it makes others heartless or anything retarded like that. I think it is sad because it remains one of the reasons that games can't be more than cheap, disposable entertainment for the masses. As long as people don't try to project into the game even a little bit, or suspend disbelief enough to analyze how they'd feel in similar situations, they'll never find a game that actually engages them like great works of literature, movies, etc. can.
But, whatever. To each their own.
So, I'm curious - what is the 'right' answer, or is the answer used to determine duty assignments?
There is a moral difference between watching someone else commit evil, and doing it yourself.
So, I'm curious - what is the 'right' answer, or is the answer used to determine duty assignments?
The "right" answer depends on the individual. One suspects that what those behind the surveys are looking for is personnel who will follow orders, no matter what is involved. That has its own implications. While the UCMJ is official doctrine, following orders is safer personally and professionally.
There is a moral difference between watching someone else commit evil, and doing it yourself.
Your last comment...about the difference between WATCHING evil and doing it yourself, made me think of this.
I absolutely unashamedly enjoy the Showtime series called DEXTER. I have watched every single episode of every season to date. I find it to be fantastically creative writing and one of very few compelling television shows on today. For those that have been living in a cave and don't know....DEXTER is the story of a serial killer. And some of the scenes in the show are bloody horrible and brutally graphic. You could reason this away with, "Yes, but Dex only kills people who kill innocent people. He's really a vigilante." And while that might be true....the WAY he "takes justice into his own hands," can be really frightfully awful, to be honest.
Would I PLAY Dexter in a game and....in a game....kill people and chop them into bits and throw their body parts into the ocean? Uhmmmm.....no. I would not be at all interested in a game like that or in roleplaying a violent criminal. But...admittedly....that is just ME and how I personally feel about the difference between interactively ACTING OUT the role of a serial killer, and watching one on a story on television. Acting it out, and actually being in control of a character that does those things....would probably make me vomit.
Killing other human beings isn't the same, to ME, as killing elves, orcs, and dragons, or other assorted fairytale creatures. This is also why I don't really enjoy PvP as an over all style of play, although I have done it.....some. And it's definitely why I don't play ANY....that's zero, nada, zip....war games. To me....war isn't a good game "topic."
Now I realize that a LOT...a whole lot....of gamers do not share my feelings and thoughts about this, and I'm perfectly okay with that. But I also think there are a great many gamers that DO think and feel the same way I do about this.
I absolutely think in a game, a gamer should be given multiple choices about how to handle things....much like in Fable. That would ALWAYS be my preference. If a game FORCES me into doing something that is outside my own moral code....I probably won't be very drawn to play that game. Granted....this is just ME here. I don't feel it's my job to determine someone else's sense of morality (if we MUST use that particular word). At the end of the day...I don't have to live with anyone's conscience but my OWN. Yes....I know games aren't real, the same way as I know television shows and movies aren't real. But I simply don't feel it's a healthy choice, for me, to interactively play a human being brutalizing other human beings, whether that's re-enacting war, or something more sinister, like in the game "Manhunt," or "Postal 2," or whatever. Those kind of games don't appeal to me.
Just more evidence that gamers are as different as snowflakes...after all....we're human. No two of us are identical in the way we game or in the way we PERCEIVE games. And I don't agree with censorship, even if I don't choose to participate in the potential object OF censorship.
Exactly... and I think all this relates to something else... boredom. The people who spout the mantra "it's just a game"... are the same people who post in other threads "why are MMOs so boring? I don't FEEL anything when I play them". duh. You've turned it off, so of course you are not going to feel anything but disconnected... clicking through drudgery .... it's like the modern slasher/gore movies; not nearly as entertaining and engaging as the old black-and-white Hitchcock movies that didn't show that much of anything really...
immersion, choice, identifying with the characters, feeling guilt, hate, joy, fear, etc. That's what is MISSING in games today. The number of people that can easily say "it's just a game" is directly proportional to the failure of the industry.... imo.
I guess I wouldn't care to play the No Russian level only because the game is forcing me into a behavior that I would never condone or do. Had they put it in and made all choices a win, whether it be from slaughtering the civilians or shooting the terrorists I'd have no problem with it. But the fact that designers make you lose the scenario for choosing to do the right thing is annoying to me.
I'm not likely to ever play this game (if its not an MMORPG, its not a game to me) but if I ever do I'll be sure to heed their warning and opt out of that mission. Thanks for the heads up.
As far as morality goes, I do feel that a lot of players in MMO's exhibit sociopathic tendencies and I do feel it probably represents how they are in real life somewhat.(even if real life's punishments and consequences helps them stay in check)
You know....you actually sound very stable. Reminds me of my ex-husband. He was like a rock. He was a wonderful person (we were actually friends for years and years after our divorce until he moved to another state). There wasn't anything "wrong" with him, he just wasn't a very "emoting" kind of person. :) He wasn't mentally ill, a sociopath, or cold-hearted. He was just very reserved. His favorite game was DOOM, and he loved killing demons....lol. :D
I don't think you're weird for the way you, personally, use video games as a time filler for "something to do." Nothing wrong with that at all.
You're probably a good example of ...."We're all different." Just because someone is different than me, or you, doesn't make them less valid in any way.
This is why censorship in gaming is such a ridiculous idea at the bottom line. People are like snowflakes....no two are IDENTICAL. And while a certain video game may not be my personal "cup of tea," it certainly shouldn't prevent anyone else from enjoying it. While it may contain "emotional triggers" for me....that doesn't mean it does for EVERYONE and the opposite can also be said.
Mental illness is an ENTIRELY different topic. This is where the people that want to get rid of violence in games, seem confused, I think. Without treading on the rights of the vast majority to choose their own form of entertainment, whether that is movies, art, games, or golf....there is no way to prevent "bad things" from happening within the minority. If we babysit society to the point of taking away CHOICES....it's not going to prevent people from still doing what they want to do, ultimately.
And before someone says, "but it would only be taking away choices in video game entertainment...." right. That's how freedom is eroded....one right at a time. The price we, as a society, have to pay for some of our freedoms....is that some people aren't going to be able to HANDLE those freedoms responsibly. But, like I said, we cannot "babysit" society without it eventually becoming a state of martial law. The price for freedom is that sometimes....there will be problems. Sometimes those problems will be big. But it's not worth, in my opinion, giving up the right to make choices.
Life is just not so black and white.
Nice post except the point myself and some have been trying to make is not censor anyone persay but to at least give choices of right and wrong moral choices. There is no good excuse for a game designer to force a gamer to choose only one moral decision path based on his/her views of the world. 1st amendment aside, if that game designer wants the game to sell to a wide audience, then they have to give options or fail. If you as a gamer chose to support that game just because everyone else buys it or there is nothing else to do, or you are immoral anyhow...then maybe that gamer needs to do a reality check. If game designers get sent a message of no sales for games like that they will change their type of IP they make whether they like it or not.
I know because I have been to game design school and have friends in the industry who have had to make IP's quite often that they don't like, only because it's their job and it's what sells.
But the game designer did offer a choice. Right at the beginning of the game. You could choose to skip the morally questionable content or not. The problem that no one will admit to is that even if we view ourselves with very high moral fiber, there are very few who would actually NOT want to see what this morally questionable content is once they see a warning like this. So, in that moment we make a choice... to allow our curiosity to be satiated by something some view as imorral or to put the blinders on and hope we didn't miss something interesting.
Again I'd like to say that if you feel a real moral dilemma over something a video game character is doing you need to put the games away and rejoin the real world.
Seperate reality from fantasy.
There is a moral difference between watching someone else commit evil, and doing it yourself.
MMO_Doubter you are one of the people who shouldnt play video games. You have a tough time seperating reality from fiction.
Playing a video game is never something that should be looked at in terms of "This is something I'd like to do in real life." It's more like watching a movie that's interactive, you become a part of the action making it more engrossing, and should never be looked at as a real life scenario.
I agree that there is a huge moral differance between watching someone commit an act of immorality and commiting one yourself. Watching Arny mow down people in the Terminator movies was not watching an act of immorality. It was me watching a science fiction movie. Not real.
Playing Grand Theft Auto is not me commiting acts of immorality it is me becoming engorssed in a crime game. Not real.
Learn to seperate reality from fiction. - This is a huge problem in our society these days.
People finding entertainment in harmful (to others) activities is a much worse one.
If you enjoy performing evil acts in a game, then you do, indeed, have a problem.
People finding entertainment in harmful (to others) activities is a much worse one.
If you enjoy performing evil acts in a game, then you do, indeed, have a problem.
I can see both sides of this "disagreement" we all seem to be having here.
While I wholeheartedly agree that a game is NOT reality (and neither are motion pictures), one is passive and one is interactive. If passively watching a motion picture were the best training device for battle, then the military wouldn't use video games and interactive media in their training programs. They would simply sit them down and have them watch films. Human beings tend to learn more effectively when they are not just seeing, but having other senses immersed in the learning process as well.
Interactive, hands on participation in ANYTHING, whether a game or cooking, for that matter, conditions you better to perform the REAL task you're learning much better than simply watching a film about it. This is a combination of training the muscles (motor skills) to react and act, and training the mind to perceive and respond. It's even used in grade school classrooms on computers to help children to more easily learn even basic mathematical skills.
Don't you suppose there is a reason these methods are being used more and more? They're used....because short term studies show that they WORK.
In your above statement, however, I underlined two words....."enjoy" and "evil." I underline these words because they are the operative words, in my opinion, in that sentence.
If you are playing a video game and you "enjoy" some "evil" act (let's use a crime against children as an example, because I think pretty much everyone can agree on THAT being "evil").....say you're stabbing a child with a bayonnet in a war game, or even more horrific, raping one of the enemy's female children....whatever.....if you ENJOY THIS, even in the context of a GAME.....I would have to say that there is quite possibly something askew within your personality at the very least. I don't think it's generally without some form of social aberration that one could find those things "enjoyable," even when the actions are not "real."
BUT....this conclusion brings us RIGHT BACK to square one. If "immoral" (for lack of a better word) behavior in a video game has a cause and effect real life consequence.....I believe it predominantly originates with PRE-EXISTING psychological pathology. A mentally healthy individual will not suddenly be turned into a mass murderer as a result of playing an interactive video game.
Yet I wonder what the research would show if that SAME mentally healthy individual was isolated outside of normal social relationships, and intentionally conditioned via this interactive means, TO become a killer (something akin to how the military conditions recruits to "acceptable and needful killing")? A purposeful conditioning using these means to train anyone for anything, according to research, seems to show promise, at least at the short term level. This is why it's used by the military for both warfare and flight simulation (and even helping those with post traumatic stress), and....in a different form....in the public school system to teach other types of things. It's called "Immersion Training." (Immersion Training uses a combination of real life role-playing AND virtual play).
There are no LONG TERM studies (spanning 20 years or more), as of yet, to show the long range outcome of such immersion training or therapy. So really....our whole conversation here is really, on both sides, heavily laced with speculation.
People finding entertainment in harmful (to others) activities is a much worse one.
If you enjoy performing evil acts in a game, then you do, indeed, have a problem.
While the highlighted statement above, is INDEED true. It is also true that a huge problem in our society is in not realizing the power of the mind itself.
"Brainwashing," of ANY KIND is a very powerful conditioning tool.
Example: Why do you suppose it is SO DAMN DIFFICULT for someone that was raised a fundamental Christian, to open their minds to examine ANY other possibilities for the origins of life outside of creationism? And before people start saying, "Because they're idiots," let me remind you that they have been completely IMMERSED in this belief system, many of them, from birth.
If you are told something over and over and over again....eventually, your mind assimilates it as "fact." In the military, they taught us this as a type of interrogation technique. Repetitive "conditioning" to the mind is a very powerful tool that can be used for health and well-being, as well as for destructive purposes.
I think people greatly underestimate the power of the human mind, and also it's inherent weakness to constant suggestion, whether subliminal or outright.
"The Asians does not value life the way we do"
"The Slavs are sub-humans"
"The only good Indian is a dead Indian"
"The wogs begin at Calais"
Making your enemy less than you is a time tested method of breaking down moral taboos against killing fellow humans.
And unless there were video games for the last 6000+ years, your point is?
And unless there were video games for the last 6000+ years, your point is?
Simple. "Thinging" people is the first step to removing most peoples inherent restrictions about brutalizing, killing them. Look at past history as an example. By the time of Vietnam, 90% plus of the soldiers had been effectively conditioned to kill. Before that point, one of the major "problems"(from the political/military leaderships perspective) was that the majority would only fire their weapons in the *general direction* of the enemy.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killology
Look at current police training as an additional example. All too many have no problem what so ever making *any* "perp" do the "electron dance"(use of taser). In fact, use of the taser is so far out of control, its become second nature to far too many. After all, its non lethal(which WAY too many translate to non harmful). Leaving entirely aside that people HAVE died from the use of tasers.(go to YouTube as an example and check out the large number of such brutality videos).
Is this the type of behavior that should be encouraged in a free societies peace officers? Or is it more akin to what one would expect of a repressive societies enforcer class? At what point does a police department stop being peace officers, and become little more than an army of occupation? Its all about the perceptions and expectations of the public and the military/police. Gamers, like it or not ARE part of that public. Sure its "only a game", but in some contexts its much, much more.
And unless there were video games for the last 6000+ years, your point is?
Simple. "Thinging" people is the first step to removing most peoples inherent restrictions about brutalizing, killing them. Look at past history as an example. By the time of Vietnam, 90% plus of the soldiers had been effectively conditioned to kill. Before that point, one of the major "problems"(from the political/military leaderships perspective) was that the majority would only fire their weapons in the *general direction* of the enemy.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killology
Look at current police training as an additional example. All too many have no problem what so ever making *any* "perp" do the "electron dance"(use of taser). In fact, use of the taser is so far out of control, its become second nature to far too many. After all, its non lethal(which WAY too many translate to non harmful). Leaving entirely aside that people HAVE died from the use of tasers.(go to YouTube as an example and check out the large number of such brutality videos).
Is this the type of behavior that should be encouraged in a free societies peace officers? Or is it more akin to what one would expect of a repressive societies enforcer class? At what point does a police department stop being peace officers, and become little more than an army of occupation? Its all about the perceptions and expectations of the public and the military/police. Gamers, like it or not ARE part of that public. Sure its "only a game", but in some contexts its much, much more.
And again, "dehumanizing" the enemy has been a popular military and social tactic for over 6000 years. So again, video games have nothing to do with it.
Simple. "Thinging" people is the first step to removing most peoples inherent restrictions about brutalizing, killing them. Look at past history as an example. By the time of Vietnam, 90% plus of the soldiers had been effectively conditioned to kill. Before that point, one of the major "problems"(from the political/military leaderships perspective) was that the majority would only fire their weapons in the *general direction* of the enemy.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killology
Look at current police training as an additional example. All too many have no problem what so ever making *any* "perp" do the "electron dance"(use of taser). In fact, use of the taser is so far out of control, its become second nature to far too many. After all, its non lethal(which WAY too many translate to non harmful). Leaving entirely aside that people HAVE died from the use of tasers.(go to YouTube as an example and check out the large number of such brutality videos).
Is this the type of behavior that should be encouraged in a free societies peace officers? Or is it more akin to what one would expect of a repressive societies enforcer class? At what point does a police department stop being peace officers, and become little more than an army of occupation? Its all about the perceptions and expectations of the public and the military/police. Gamers, like it or not ARE part of that public. Sure its "only a game", but in some contexts its much, much more.
And again, "dehumanizing" the enemy has been a popular military and social tactic for over 6000 years. So again, video games have nothing to do with it.
Except that the military(Marines and Army) ARE using such games for training their troops. Games can teach many lessons. Some are overt(small unit tactics, situational awareness and others) others are less overt. Its the less overt ones that should be of concern in civilian settings. Yes, its "only a game", but in some cases it can have a great personal impact on disturbed individuals. Does that mean that I want to see such games banned? NOT IN THE LEAST. Everyone is responsible for their actions/inactions. But minimizing it by saying "its only a game" doesn't address the very real and subtle changes such games can have on perceptions/expectations.
Short of them making a point to point that mission out I'd say no big deal. I can't recall off the top of my head any specific instances but there have been video games (though not many) based off of being the villain and while the missions you recieved may not have been as brutal as slaughtering an airport full of civilians you weren't fighting for good. I tend to think alot along the lines of the ending of the article in that in any "action" based game I play I'm going to be doing things that in my real life I consider pretty attrocious anyway I don't care if you are the "No Russian" terrorist or Snake from Metal Gear, sneaking up behind people to snap there necks is not a noble calling no matter what "side" you are on.
Again I think had they not made it a point to ask if people wanted to do the missions it would not have even caused quite the stir that it has.
First of all, wrong. There were a few flawed studies that showed a connection between watching violence and being more violent as a child (no studies showed the correlation in adults, or bothered to restudy the children once they were adults). But many more studies showed that there was NOT a direct correlation between video game violence and real world aggression/violence. So nice try on that one.
We can't spend life sheltering people for how horrific parts of life are, that is what truly desensitizes people.
I am not wrong. I am a real Psychologist who follows scholarly journals based on real science. You on the other hand I guarantee get all your news of such studies from DATELINE episodes of "Do video games cause violence? The Columbine Massacre."
Epic fail. Saying "First of all, wrong!" doesn't make the facts go away. In fact, it just shows everyone else that you truly don't know what you're talking about.
Second, not allowing mass-murder and horrific violence in video games isn't sheltering people. It's in fact the exact opposite- purposefully feeding them aggression, violence, and what all people would be considered "evil". The middle ground would be to not purposefully shelter them from it, but not purposefully feed it to them either.
Also, sheltering people from horror in NO WAY desensitizes people to it. In fact, sheltered people will find it SIGNIFICANTLY more "horrific" than someone who wasn't sheltered. Sheltering others will make them MORE sensitive to things (often considered overly-sensitive) which is the opposite of desensitizing them.
Couch Potato Psychology FTL.
Please leave it to the experts who actually study these fields with real scientific studies... not internet rumors, DATELINE commercials, and common ignorance.
I won't argue anymore than this post though. What are your credentials in psychology or sociology? None?
I actually have a degree in it, and real evidence not random assumptions. Seriously... since when does sheltering people DESENSITIZE them? LoL.../
I liked reading this article ^^
Maybe its not popular or perhaps a little sexist, but
I think the base of the problem is with, well, mostly young men. They are usually very bad empaths, always want to swing their 'e-coc.ks' around, are loud and abound, unsensitive and crave violence. Among each other that might fall on good terms, but to me its just a primitive bunch of nerds Id rather stay clear off . Also met a sparse few girls/women like it, but still more reasonable usually
Bearded older men are more often the kind, gentle spirits who you can drink tea and have a fine christmas dinner with ^^ ( And yes, that was a compliment especially made for Mr.Jennings + the others I know in my life)
Hope I didnt upset anyone, Im personally just a little fed up with dealing with the 'target audience' myself .
Good Read.
I played though MW2 and that mission was not an issue. Sure you killed a bunch of "people" but not really. All I did really was kill a bunch of 0s and 1s. They are not real people, they are not real guns, they are 1s and 0s. PERIOD.
Its a video game, its not real. Parents need to pay attention to what their kids are doing, their is too much of this blame everyone but myself shit going around.
I just cannot understand why people get so worked up over something that is not real. It is not real at all, you cannot get shot a bunch of times and still live, it just does not work that way.
I am not wrong. I am a real Psychologist who follows scholarly journals based on real science. You on the other hand I guarantee get all your news of such studies from DATELINE episodes of "Do video games cause violence? The Columbine Massacre."
Epic fail. Saying "First of all, wrong!" doesn't make the facts go away. In fact, it just shows everyone else that you truly don't know what you're talking about.
Second, not allowing mass-murder and horrific violence in video games isn't sheltering people. It's in fact the exact opposite- purposefully feeding them aggression, violence, and what all people would be considered "evil". The middle ground would be to not purposefully shelter them from it, but not purposefully feed it to them either.
Also, sheltering people from horror in NO WAY desensitizes people to it. In fact, sheltered people will find it SIGNIFICANTLY more "horrific" than someone who wasn't sheltered. Sheltering others will make them MORE sensitive to things (often considered overly-sensitive) which is the opposite of desensitizing them.
Couch Potato Psychology FTL.
Please leave it to the experts who actually study these fields with real scientific studies... not internet rumors, DATELINE commercials, and common ignorance.
I won't argue anymore than this post though. What are your credentials in psychology or sociology? None?
I actually have a degree in it, and real evidence not random assumptions. Seriously... since when does sheltering people DESENSITIZE them? LoL.../
How can video games cause violence? Seriously it makes no sense. Violence has been around since the dawn of man not the dawn of video games.
Let me ask you one question. Since you seem to think you are smart or something.
If one million people play the same video game and one person goes out and shoots up a school. Can you explain to me how it was the video game that cause this to happen? Since only 1 out of 1 million did the shooting?
It makes no sense. Video games, music, movies cannot cause people to be violent only violent people can cause violence.
I am not wrong. I am a real Psychologist who follows scholarly journals based on real science. You on the other hand I guarantee get all your news of such studies from DATELINE episodes of "Do video games cause violence? The Columbine Massacre."
Epic fail. Saying "First of all, wrong!" doesn't make the facts go away. In fact, it just shows everyone else that you truly don't know what you're talking about.
Second, not allowing mass-murder and horrific violence in video games isn't sheltering people. It's in fact the exact opposite- purposefully feeding them aggression, violence, and what all people would be considered "evil". The middle ground would be to not purposefully shelter them from it, but not purposefully feed it to them either.
Also, sheltering people from horror in NO WAY desensitizes people to it. In fact, sheltered people will find it SIGNIFICANTLY more "horrific" than someone who wasn't sheltered. Sheltering others will make them MORE sensitive to things (often considered overly-sensitive) which is the opposite of desensitizing them.
Couch Potato Psychology FTL.
Please leave it to the experts who actually study these fields with real scientific studies... not internet rumors, DATELINE commercials, and common ignorance.
I won't argue anymore than this post though. What are your credentials in psychology or sociology? None?
I actually have a degree in it, and real evidence not random assumptions. Seriously... since when does sheltering people DESENSITIZE them? LoL.../
How can video games cause violence? Seriously it makes no sense. Violence has been around since the dawn of man not the dawn of video games.
Let me ask you one question. Since you seem to think you are smart or something.
If one million people play the same video game and one person goes out and shoots up a school. Can you explain to me how it was the video game that cause this to happen? Since only 1 out of 1 million did the shooting?
It makes no sense. Video games, music, movies cannot cause people to be violent only violent people can cause violence.
Video games(books, etc) do not *cause* violence, in and of themselves. But they can influence peoples internal mental processes(for good or ill). What choices people make determine if their actions are good or evil. Saying something like "its only a game" is much akin to saying that the bible is "only a book". Both are true, after a fashion. But neither takes in to account the impact they can have on people. Once again, I do NOT want such games banned. But people *are* responsible for their actions/in actions.
How can video games cause violence? Seriously it makes no sense. Violence has been around since the dawn of man not the dawn of video games.
Let me ask you one question. Since you seem to think you are smart or something.
If one million people play the same video game and one person goes out and shoots up a school. Can you explain to me how it was the video game that cause this to happen? Since only 1 out of 1 million did the shooting?
It makes no sense. Video games, music, movies cannot cause people to be violent only violent people can cause violence.
Video games(books, etc) do not *cause* violence, in and of themselves. But they can influence peoples internal mental processes(for good or ill). What choices people make determine if their actions are good or evil. Saying something like "its only a game" is much akin to saying that the bible is "only a book". Both are true, after a fashion. But neither takes in to account the impact they can have on people. Once again, I do NOT want such games banned. But people *are* responsible for their actions/in actions.
Yes "PEOPLE" are responsible for their actions not video games, not movies, not music. PEOPLE.
It is only a game and the Bible is only a book. Those are facts. People choose how to react to those things. They cannot influence people unless they want to be influence by them. A person is going to comit violence if that is what they want to do, they will blame (along with the media) whatever they want to blame. People do not take responsiblity for their actions anymore.
The problem I have with people like yourself is that you believe that games, movies, books, ect can influence people to do bad things, that simply is not true, bad people do bad things. Period. No outside influence is needed.
Violence has been around as long as humans. Humans are violent by nature. That is just how it is, we as humans forget that we are nothing more then animals. We want to believe we are more then just animals but we are not.
We are more than animals. Animals don't have morals. Animals have no concept of the future. Animals aren't aware of their own mortality.
Yours is the philosophy of the sociopath.
We are more than animals. Animals don't have morals. Animals have no concept of the future. Animals aren't aware of their own mortality.
Yours is the philosophy of the sociopath.
No books cannot inspire people to do good things unless they are looking to be inspired. Again a weak minded person will be easier influenced then a strong minded person. Its not a hard concept. Its along the same lines as peer presure.
Yes I dispute the concept of role models. Again unless the person is looking for someone to learn from or follow then a role model is nothing.
I had "hero's" growing up but they were not my role models, if anyone was my role model it was my father and that is because I do want to be like him. My parents taugh me to think for myself and not to be a follower and to not bend to others peoples wills.
My philosophy? How do you know what my philosophy is?
Humans are animals. It is pretty common knowledge that we are animals. We maybe more aware of ourselfs then other animals but it does not change the fact that we are animals.
Again we as humans try to pretend we are more then animals. My dog has morals, she does not attack other dogs, she is friendly towards people that she knows. She knows right from wrong. My dog has a sense of the future, she knows when I am going to come home from work, she is always waiting at the door when I come home. She would not be waiting at the door when I got home unless she had a concept of time. (my roommate currently is out of work and says that my dog will come to the door about 5 to 10 minutes before I pull into the drive way.)
How can video games cause violence? Seriously it makes no sense. Violence has been around since the dawn of man not the dawn of video games.
Let me ask you one question. Since you seem to think you are smart or something.
If one million people play the same video game and one person goes out and shoots up a school. Can you explain to me how it was the video game that cause this to happen? Since only 1 out of 1 million did the shooting?
It makes no sense. Video games, music, movies cannot cause people to be violent only violent people can cause violence.
Video games(books, etc) do not *cause* violence, in and of themselves. But they can influence peoples internal mental processes(for good or ill). What choices people make determine if their actions are good or evil. Saying something like "its only a game" is much akin to saying that the bible is "only a book". Both are true, after a fashion. But neither takes in to account the impact they can have on people. Once again, I do NOT want such games banned. But people *are* responsible for their actions/in actions.
Yes "PEOPLE" are responsible for their actions not video games, not movies, not music. PEOPLE.
It is only a game and the Bible is only a book. Those are facts. People choose how to react to those things. They cannot influence people unless they want to be influence by them. A person is going to comit violence if that is what they want to do, they will blame (along with the media) whatever they want to blame. People do not take responsiblity for their actions anymore.
The problem I have with people like yourself is that you believe that games, movies, books, ect can influence people to do bad things, that simply is not true, bad people do bad things. Period. No outside influence is needed.
Violence has been around as long as humans. Humans are violent by nature. That is just how it is, we as humans forget that we are nothing more then animals. We want to believe we are more then just animals but we are not.
Which part of people *are* responsible for their actions/in actions didn't you understand?? It doesn't matter what influenced them, they are still responsible for their own actions. Correlation is not causality. Games are games. Books are books. People are responsible for their own actions(again). But attempting to claim that games, books, etc have no influence on people is foolish. But influence does not force choices. Those *choices* are still made by the people involved. Given that humans are the dominant *predator* species on the planet, I'd say that inherent violence is a given. But its the choices people make that determine the nature of their actions.
An interesting article.. and certainly something that deserves a good debate.
I think there is a difference between PvE and PvP morality.. as in.. how you 'treat' computer generated 'enemies' versus how you treat other flesh & blood players. If your pretending to be the bad guy, its your job to do things that are 'bad' or order to create the illusion.. otherwise the story is irrelevant.
Still... I believe there is a limit to this, or at least.. some morality that needs to be exerted by the game developers to ensure that the game is not simply about being a mass murderer. I think I have to be a lot more dilligent in what games I allow my kids to play.. particularly when not supervised.
George Lucas stated it pretty well in an interview... I don't have it verbatum, but the gist of it was:
'Most bad guys justify doing bad things for their own perception of the greater good. They don't see themselves as evil, but rather are willing to bend or break what is perceived as good or bad for their own advancement."
I think MMO's do 'miss the boat' on this quite often... and in ways that seem uncessary. Some games allow 'mining' for credits... while also allowing 'privateering' off those very same players as a more lucrative and.. to a large degree.. more exciting game choice. There are few ways to be a 'good guy' and still fire a blaster or weild a sword. Protecting others is not generally done very well.. particularly in PvP based missions.
I think Star Wars The Old Replubic intends on creating more 'moral' or 'decision based' consequences to games in their theme-park storylines. They seem to have the gigantic budget necessary to pull it off (with voice over).
There are few games that reward being a good guy and not simply killing everything in sight. City of Heroes seems to pretty well at it in theme.. good guys stopping bad guys.. but then there is also City of Villians produced to cater to the 'bad guy' crowd as well.
However, for the smaller MMO's.. the 'moral' community tends to be between players.. all NPCs actions being more a matter of whats more 'efficient' than any sort of moral choice.
What this means to me.. as a father.. is that some games my kids simply will not get to play till they are adults and have a firm foundation in what is 'right or wrong' behavior.. even if its 'virtual' behavior.
I remember when I was showing my 10 year old daughter the SWTOR 'Deceived' game trailer. She was upset.. why.. because the 'good guy lost'. Her moral compass at age 10 is better that a lot of adults three or four times her age. I didn't even think of it before hand.. what kind of message it was portraying.. by looking at it now through my daughters eyes, I see it clear as day.
There is a prime example of a role model, even though muich younger than the person she inspired.
We are all role models. Denying that is just abandoning moral responsibility.
I haven't read the all the post in the thread. My thought isn't so focused on the impact of violent entertainment on those who consume it. I don't think it has an impact in determining whether someone becomes violent or not.
What fascinates me more is the demand in society for these violent products. Why do people think it's fun, or cool, or exciting to play violent games? In my mind, we are asking the wrong questions. Why do some people feel it's cool to play evil, or to do evil things in games? Why do they revel in virtual criminality?
Why is goodness not an aspiration for these players?
It is because evil is more in line with the exercise of power, and feeling powerful kills fear. It makes us feel safe to hurt others.
We really aren't that far removed from monkeys screeching at each other in tree tops.
Well for one thing you said "Yet one thing that MMORPGs have shied away from is intentional controversy" yet they've blundered into it hard in the past.
Take for example Australia, recently we got a lot of crap thrown at us over a comedy (The Jackson Jive) that only really offended Americans, Australians had no clue what you guys were offended about, it wasn't something we did back in the day to be racist dicks, to the extent we had to bend over backwards and apologise.
However in the past I've been really really offended by a Quest in WoW to the degree I emailed blizzard about it. It's the quest about "saving" (read stealing) baby wolvars from their parents to "protect" them, to an Australian, especially one of aboriginal decent whose grandmother is part of the stolen generation this is incredibly offensive, and when I got back a pat email that didn't address it other then "we'll look into it" I was even more pissed off.
I think that the people who make MMORPGs need to consider that there are things out there offensive in their games, not just ones that offend Americans
You know...I completely understand your thinking here. But I'm not sure that it's the developers being callous, when something is brought to their attention, but more the simple fact that Americans, SADLY.....and I am NOT proud of our reputation for this....we just SCREAM the loudest.
Have you heard the old adage, "The squeakiest wheel gets the oil" ? Well....the U.S.A. is one SQUEAKY damn place. I don't know if it's just an arrogant sense of entitlement, or a brazen selfishness (maybe both). And this isn't true of ALL U.S. citizens, any more than it's true to generalize all citizens of any other country. But we do have a tendency to piss and moan here....a LOT. I think the "freedom of speech" that we have.....can be a curse as well as a blessing.
I am sorry that you were offended by that quest. It makes me kind of ashamed that Blizzard didn't seem to care. I can see why that would be offensive and it's probably likely that Blizzard was so busy fending off other complaints about purely idiotic stuff....that somehow your issue fell through the cracks. At least I'd like to THINK that they didn't just ignore it......
I can tell you what the posts following yours will probably say though....."Hey, there's something that offends someone in probably every game....deal with it." Because....well....you know how kind-hearted and empathetic a place these forums are....HA.
Interesting question. But who gets to define "goodness"? Those with the power to make the definition stick? Violence is simply one aspect of power. Two others are wealth and knowledge. In all too many cases evil/good are defined by those with the power to be able to make such definitions. Look at "freedom fighter" and "insurgent" as just one of many examples. I suspect most people find that its "cooler" to have that type of power. The tragic part is the lack of examination of the consequences for all parties involved.
You know...I completely understand your thinking here. But I'm not sure that it's the developers being callous, when something is brought to their attention, but more the simple fact that Americans, SADLY.....and I am NOT proud of our reputation for this....we just SCREAM the loudest.
Have you heard the old adage, "The squeakiest wheel gets the oil" ? Well....the U.S.A. is one SQUEAKY damn place. I don't know if it's just an arrogant sense of entitlement, or a brazen selfishness (maybe both). And this isn't true of ALL U.S. citizens, any more than it's true to generalize all citizens of any other country. But we do have a tendency to piss and moan here....a LOT. I think the "freedom of speech" that we have.....can be a curse as well as a blessing.
I am sorry that you were offended by that quest. It makes me kind of ashamed that Blizzard didn't seem to care. I can see why that would be offensive and it's probably likely that Blizzard was so busy fending off other complaints about purely idiotic stuff....that somehow your issue fell through the cracks. At least I'd like to THINK that they didn't just ignore it......
I can tell you what the posts following yours will probably say though....."Hey, there's something that offends someone in probably every game....deal with it." Because....well....you know how kind-hearted and empathetic a place these forums are....HA.
Well personally I didn't mind that people found the Jackson Jive skit offensive, I found the whole thing that followed to be insulting. If people had found it offensive and said "hey that's horrible" most Australians would of been "oh sorry, we didn't know this would piss you off, sorry", however it was more like "this is indicative of how backwards Australia is" and "how inherently racist it is as a nation" that's what we got, I think might be a direct quote from one of the American TV networks too, Fox I think, I saw it on Youtube.
When I saw the WoW quest, I didn't think Blizzard was doing it to be racist, or offensive, or even edgy like some companies do, no, what I considered truly offensive was them blowing me off like it didn't matter, yet when they had that vanity pet named a "coon" I think it was they copped so much flak they renamed it. It was an American issue so like you said, the squeakiest wheel got the oil, yet issues that are just as offensive to people which are brought up in mature thoughtful ways like a private email rather then public rallies are dismissed.
I'm okay with people making mistakes and stuffing up, but you've got to own up to them, otherwise it compounds the issue.
Well personally I didn't mind that people found the Jackson Jive skit offensive, I found the whole thing that followed to be insulting. If people had found it offensive and said "hey that's horrible" most Australians would of been "oh sorry, we didn't know this would piss you off, sorry", however it was more like "this is indicative of how backwards Australia is" and "how inherently racist it is as a nation" that's what we got, I think might be a direct quote from one of the American TV networks too, Fox I think, I saw it on Youtube.
When I saw the WoW quest, I didn't think Blizzard was doing it to be racist, or offensive, or even edgy like some companies do, no, what I considered truly offensive was them blowing me off like it didn't matter, yet when they had that vanity pet named a "coon" I think it was they copped so much flak they renamed it. It was an American issue so like you said, the squeakiest wheel got the oil, yet issues that are just as offensive to people which are brought up in mature thoughtful ways like a private email rather then public rallies are dismissed.
I'm okay with people making mistakes and stuffing up, but you've got to own up to them, otherwise it compounds the issue.
I'm familiar with that quest(having two 80's and a 75), and I can see your perspective. That having been said, *no one* has a "right" not to be offended. WAY too many people believe that they are some how entitled to go through life un offended. From Blizzards perspective, its bad enough having to deal with all of the quirks(I'm being charitable...) of the various nation state governments involved... On top of that they are supposed to keep things bland enough so as not to "offend" millions upon millions of people in different cultures spread around the entire world? Your main recourse in issues like this if you are offended enough, is to take your business elsewhere.
Well personally I didn't mind that people found the Jackson Jive skit offensive, I found the whole thing that followed to be insulting. If people had found it offensive and said "hey that's horrible" most Australians would of been "oh sorry, we didn't know this would piss you off, sorry", however it was more like "this is indicative of how backwards Australia is" and "how inherently racist it is as a nation" that's what we got, I think might be a direct quote from one of the American TV networks too, Fox I think, I saw it on Youtube.
When I saw the WoW quest, I didn't think Blizzard was doing it to be racist, or offensive, or even edgy like some companies do, no, what I considered truly offensive was them blowing me off like it didn't matter, yet when they had that vanity pet named a "coon" I think it was they copped so much flak they renamed it. It was an American issue so like you said, the squeakiest wheel got the oil, yet issues that are just as offensive to people which are brought up in mature thoughtful ways like a private email rather then public rallies are dismissed.
I'm okay with people making mistakes and stuffing up, but you've got to own up to them, otherwise it compounds the issue.
LOL....Fox. Well, actually, to a lot of us over here in the States...that ALONE explains a lot. But we don't want to go down that road in this thread, because then it will become a political argument. Suffice it to say....ANYTHING stupid coming from Fox Network, doesn't surprise me, and probably wouldn't surprise most of us. Fox is about the LAST bunch that has ANY footing to accuse anyone ELSE of being "backwards."
Well personally I didn't mind that people found the Jackson Jive skit offensive, I found the whole thing that followed to be insulting. If people had found it offensive and said "hey that's horrible" most Australians would of been "oh sorry, we didn't know this would piss you off, sorry", however it was more like "this is indicative of how backwards Australia is" and "how inherently racist it is as a nation" that's what we got, I think might be a direct quote from one of the American TV networks too, Fox I think, I saw it on Youtube.
When I saw the WoW quest, I didn't think Blizzard was doing it to be racist, or offensive, or even edgy like some companies do, no, what I considered truly offensive was them blowing me off like it didn't matter, yet when they had that vanity pet named a "coon" I think it was they copped so much flak they renamed it. It was an American issue so like you said, the squeakiest wheel got the oil, yet issues that are just as offensive to people which are brought up in mature thoughtful ways like a private email rather then public rallies are dismissed.
I'm okay with people making mistakes and stuffing up, but you've got to own up to them, otherwise it compounds the issue.
LOL....Fox. Well, actually, to a lot of us over here in the States...that ALONE explains a lot. But we don't want to go down that road in this thread, because then it will become a political argument. Suffice it to say....ANYTHING stupid coming from Fox Network, doesn't surprise me, and probably wouldn't surprise most of us. Fox is about the LAST bunch that has ANY footing to accuse anyone ELSE of being "backwards."
Very true. Just don't leave the Clinton "News" Network(CNN) out of the same statement. ^^ Both of them have a VERY dim grasp (at best) of the difference between news and propaganda. Both pander to the types of ideologies(and problems) that tie in to this thread.
[quote][i]Originally posted by Wraithone[/i] [quote] [/quote] I'm familiar with that quest(having two 80's and a 75), and I can see your perspective. That having been said, *no one* has a "right" not to be offended. WAY too many people believe that they are some how entitled to go through life un offended. From Blizzards perspective, its bad enough having to deal with all of the quirks(I'm being charitable...) of the various nation state governments involved... On top of that they are supposed to keep things bland enough so as not to "offend" millions upon millions of people in different cultures spread around the entire world? Your main recourse in issues like this if you are offended enough, is to take your business elsewhere. [/quote]
The problem is they do cater to some people but not others, either you decide "screw it, our creative freedom allows us to write what we want" or you don't.
The issue of stolen children isn't just an Australian one, a lot of former colonial nations have similar stories in the past of "savages" being taken "for their own good", but rather then deal with something like that they'd rather cave in over the name of a cat.
As for the right not to be offended, if ignorance of another culture doesn't work as an excuse for one group (i.e the Jackson Jive crap that they slung at Australia) then it shouldn't work for blizzard either.
Yes, as I said I'm familiar with your perspective on this. That having been said, there are almost *endless* numbers of such hot buttons spread through out the world. Of course they are selective, thats human nature. If one of the Official Victim classes starts howling like a banshee, of course Blizzard is going to do the Politically Correct thing. But PC is part of the entire idea I've spoken of.
As for your last, ignorance isn't my point. Even if one knew *all* of the nearly endless hot button points for every culture in the world, that still doesn't translate to a "right" for *anyone*(including the Official Victim classes) to not be offended. Taking "offense" at something is entirely up to the individual in question. If one is that offended, the main recourse is to take ones business elsewhere.
I am not wrong. I am a real Psychologist who follows scholarly journals based on real science. You on the other hand I guarantee get all your news of such studies from DATELINE episodes of "Do video games cause violence? The Columbine Massacre."
Epic fail. Saying "First of all, wrong!" doesn't make the facts go away. In fact, it just shows everyone else that you truly don't know what you're talking about.
Second, not allowing mass-murder and horrific violence in video games isn't sheltering people. It's in fact the exact opposite- purposefully feeding them aggression, violence, and what all people would be considered "evil". The middle ground would be to not purposefully shelter them from it, but not purposefully feed it to them either.
Also, sheltering people from horror in NO WAY desensitizes people to it. In fact, sheltered people will find it SIGNIFICANTLY more "horrific" than someone who wasn't sheltered. Sheltering others will make them MORE sensitive to things (often considered overly-sensitive) which is the opposite of desensitizing them.
Couch Potato Psychology FTL.
Please leave it to the experts who actually study these fields with real scientific studies... not internet rumors, DATELINE commercials, and common ignorance.
I won't argue anymore than this post though. What are your credentials in psychology or sociology? None?
I actually have a degree in it, and real evidence not random assumptions. Seriously... since when does sheltering people DESENSITIZE them? LoL.../
"Psychology" in itself is a non-scientifically provable concept. So you could be the new Sigmund Freud ( wow, THERE was a real winner, a.k.a. nutjob ), and your supposedly credentialed opinion is still worth no more than the opinion of the person you are attempting to discredit.
Hell, psychologist all think an hour only has 50 minutes in it.
By the way, do you consider "epic fail" to be acceptable scientific jargon?
Edit: And unless your going to post your degree here with proof of its' belonging to you, stop trying to whip people with your e-peen, Dr. Spock.
"I wonder if the MMORPG market will ever mature to a point that someone in one points out that, thanks to the players’ actions, they’re surrounded by hundreds of corpses, instead of just happily ignoring the carnage."
In the days when Windows 2.0 was the newest thing on the block, Chris Crawford wrote Balance of Power, a global political simulator. This was in the final years of the Cold War, and nuclear arms escalation was still a current and constant threat in the international jockeying between the US and USSR.
If you screwed the pooch in Balance of Power and your actions led to nuclear war, the game ended with a black screen and a chastizing statement to the effect of "You have started a nuclear war. We are not going to show you pictures of mushroom clouds. There is no reward for failure."
While that statement is paraphrased from memory, the last sentence is a direct quote. It sticks in my mind after all these years. "There is no reward for failure."
It is the only time I've seen seen a game take a stark moral position about carnage, even hard-coding it into the events/reward side of the game itself. So this sort of thing has happened - but as far as I can recall, really only in this one instance.
Remarkable.
Sorry to be spoilsport and play the moralist here: but there is NO MORAL JUSTIFICATION WHATSOEVER to support a game like this which support the shooting of innocents. NO SINGLE ONE. End of story. If you support companies to put you into such a position and dont give you a chance to prevent the shooting you educate people to accept such things.
There are many issues where morality is something in many shades of grey and not black-white. THIS IS NOT ONE. Who buys this game knowing it and who participated creating it IS evil. Period.
The Elikal has spoken.