The gaming industry is not the like the cigarette companies, which intentionally targeted youths and children, at least, not with the Mature games
Then why don't they want laws preventing kids from buying them? Kids are playing these games. Twelve year olds are the major gaming group. If a developer says that Hitman is an attempt to target 30 year olds...well, the tobacco industry spent years maintaining their ads were aimed at adults, and it's not like telling people you intended your gore splatterfest to be for kids will go over much better.
I remember years back a boy I knew told me about some game he was playing. I was in fourth or fifth grade. There was part of the game where you met prostitutes in a room, and you could shoot them and kill them, or you could pay them money to strip and have sex with your character. He told me that his favorite thing to do was pay them money, then shoot them while they were half undressed so that their guts exploded all over the place like that.
This same kid once told me he'd clubbed my cat to death with his rollerblades. He hadn't, but to this day, I don't know if that's just because my cat wouldn't come near strangers. Later he threatened to dig up the grave of another cat if I wouldn't come out and play with him. Another time he pretended he was electrocuting his much younger brother and kicked him hard enough to stun to try to lend enough verisimilitude to convince me.
Was this because he was playing videogames? I don't know. But none of the other kids who didn't behave like this ever volunteered the information that they enjoyed playing a game where you paid women to strip and then shot them halfway through. And I don't really see many adults as being people who would want to play a game like that, so I'm really left with the idea that he was the target audience for the game.
But Bioshock, I would want to play. It's moral quandaries are not the same as you would find in a game like Grand Theft Auto or Hitman.
Two points:
First, does the game need to be photorealistic and with an emphasis on hand to hand up close combat to cover the moral quandaries of the game? My issue isn't the basic idea of killing people or the choice of saving/harvesting kids. It's making those people look and act recognizably human, and then viewing the results up close.
Second, since you enjoy the game, you're going to be biased against the idea of removing it in particular. This doesn't mean your arguments aren't valid, just that you're weighting things to also include the fact you want the game around as well as the issue of causing desensitization or not. (Similarly, I tend to like fantasy violence with no real consequences over realistic, even though it's suggested that gives people impressions that violence is okay, so I'm biased in favor of keeping that around.) Enjoyment isn't a meaningless consideration, but at the same time, better to work out if the underlying thing is a problem by itself, then how much of that is acceptable given artistic licence and such.
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Re: Not this again...
Date: 2007-11-26 04:42 pm (UTC)Then why don't they want laws preventing kids from buying them? Kids are playing these games. Twelve year olds are the major gaming group. If a developer says that Hitman is an attempt to target 30 year olds...well, the tobacco industry spent years maintaining their ads were aimed at adults, and it's not like telling people you intended your gore splatterfest to be for kids will go over much better.
I remember years back a boy I knew told me about some game he was playing. I was in fourth or fifth grade. There was part of the game where you met prostitutes in a room, and you could shoot them and kill them, or you could pay them money to strip and have sex with your character. He told me that his favorite thing to do was pay them money, then shoot them while they were half undressed so that their guts exploded all over the place like that.
This same kid once told me he'd clubbed my cat to death with his rollerblades. He hadn't, but to this day, I don't know if that's just because my cat wouldn't come near strangers. Later he threatened to dig up the grave of another cat if I wouldn't come out and play with him. Another time he pretended he was electrocuting his much younger brother and kicked him hard enough to stun to try to lend enough verisimilitude to convince me.
Was this because he was playing videogames? I don't know. But none of the other kids who didn't behave like this ever volunteered the information that they enjoyed playing a game where you paid women to strip and then shot them halfway through. And I don't really see many adults as being people who would want to play a game like that, so I'm really left with the idea that he was the target audience for the game.
But Bioshock, I would want to play. It's moral quandaries are not the same as you would find in a game like Grand Theft Auto or Hitman.
Two points:
First, does the game need to be photorealistic and with an emphasis on hand to hand up close combat to cover the moral quandaries of the game? My issue isn't the basic idea of killing people or the choice of saving/harvesting kids. It's making those people look and act recognizably human, and then viewing the results up close.
Second, since you enjoy the game, you're going to be biased against the idea of removing it in particular. This doesn't mean your arguments aren't valid, just that you're weighting things to also include the fact you want the game around as well as the issue of causing desensitization or not. (Similarly, I tend to like fantasy violence with no real consequences over realistic, even though it's suggested that gives people impressions that violence is okay, so I'm biased in favor of keeping that around.) Enjoyment isn't a meaningless consideration, but at the same time, better to work out if the underlying thing is a problem by itself, then how much of that is acceptable given artistic licence and such.