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klikbeep
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Joined: 27 Nov 2006
Posts: 35
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 Posted: Thu Nov 30, 2006 10:33 pm Post subject: |
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| klikbeep wrote: | | Acting humanely is even more a bag of eels. |
This I agree with. I just look at Internet Kids as a whole, and I start to wonder an awful lot. Discussion always swings to the lowest possible point. If a forum is unmoderated, people do whatever they like. If a forum is lightly moderated, people test the limits and sink right to the point before they get banned. If a forum is heavily moderated, people scream CENSORSHIP and tear it down. If a forum is self-moderated (a la Slashdot), people post 200-word Me Too posts, trying to catch the prevailing wind.
What if an underclass is being created of people who find this behavior normal? I think it could be dangerous . . . or at least an awful waste.
| Quote: | | well, keep in mind that i was raised on videogames as well, in the wayback time of hazy days, and was supposed to be all sorts of fucked up. |
Come on -- you're WAY smarter then that statement. My dad collects guns, and nobody's been shot yet! There are way more car deaths every year than nuclear war deaths -- should we have automobile non-proliferation agreements?
Anyway . . . we are OLD people in regards to this industry. We grew up on hop-and-bop; by the time games got really psychotic, all of our moral winds were already blowin'. The whole Blue Sky In Games thing -- that's just the generation gap starting to manifest itself.
| Quote: | | humanity to survive |
I'm not really talking about survival. I've got things growing in my closet that are surviving. I'm talking about a sad and tragic waste. Probably a double waste, if you're talking about nerds. I considered the Axe to be full of genuinely bright people hitting F5 and waiting to die. If there was a place to update the IT HAS BEEN __ DAYS SINCE OUR LAST ENLIGHTENMENT sign, it would have been the Axe.
I see they're in the process of repairing the drink despenser.
4chan had an interesting post while they were rallying their troops . . . something along the lines of OH YEAH, INSERT CREDIT. THEY STEAL OUR MEMES!!!
Jesus.
| Quote: | | I am insulted by the presumption that I require herding, yet I understand that governing requires pragmatic generalization. |
Okay. I'm not suggesting a herding model, or more government intervention. I'm saying that we should hold the industry to a higher standard. This isn't even a violence issue. Rather than buying games or not based on purely visceral thrills, we should be supporting companies that produce games that teach problem-solving, heroics, team-building, and consequences (Dead Rising) over schizophrenic Pavlovian nonsense (Saints Row).
Last edited by klikbeep on Fri Dec 01, 2006 7:55 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Shapermc
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Joined: 14 Oct 2004
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| Posted: Thu Nov 30, 2006 11:34 pm Post subject: |
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Fuel for the fire:
"If don't want your child learning vicariously how to build a drug empire and experiencing violence as power, don't buy this game."
(seriously, follow the link, the site is interesting)
EDIT: Same link, different game, kid's perspective:
"but Saints Row isn't about promoting gang violence like Grand Theft Auto. It's about stopping gang violence by bringing all the gang's under your control."
_________________
“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932
"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!" |
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klikbeep
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Joined: 27 Nov 2006
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| Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2006 12:13 am Post subject: |
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| Shapermc wrote: | | but Saints Row isn't about promoting gang violence like Grand Theft Auto. It's about stopping gang violence by bringing all the gang's under your control. |
That sounds like something a kid would say.
That dog won't hunt, because of the rest of the game's attidtude. You cap grandmothers and run drugs and ram pedestrians to clean up the streets. The game is even worse than GTA, because it tries to hide its lunacy behind a thin veneer of rightousness. If that were really a gang out to clean up a city, it would toss you out for acting like that. |
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Winged Assassins (1984)
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Joined: 28 Nov 2006
Posts: 996
Location: Super Magic Drive
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| Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2006 12:35 am Post subject: |
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Like how you couldn't take over the streets in San Andreas right?
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Redeye
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Joined: 02 Oct 2006
Posts: 986
Location: filth
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| Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2006 1:53 am Post subject: |
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| klikbeep wrote: |
| Quote: | | I am insulted by the presumption that I require herding, yet I understand that governing requires pragmatic generalization. |
Okay. I'm not suggesting a herding model, or more government intervention. I'm saying that we should hold the industry to a higher standard. This isn't even a violence issue. Rather than buying games or not based on purely visceral thrills, we should be supporting companies that produce games that teach problem-solving, heroics, team-building, and consequences (Dead Rising) over schizophrenic Pavlovian nonsense (Saints Row). |
I would very much like to play a deeply involved game called Pheonix Project where I help the Free People Of Vietnam learn about Democracy and Free Markets by assassinating communist operatives and propping up semi-feudal landlords.
There could even be a waterboarding minigame.
It could be marketed as "Education Software".
More seriously, I do think about the way people develop when their childhoods have been spent marinading in the extended nervous system.
I think of all the wacky stuff I saw as a kid: SWAT, the muppets (especially Sesame Street), Tom&Jerry/etc., Red Dawn, early computer and console games.
Then I remember an episode of Knight Rider from the '80s where Hasselhoff informs somebody that he has to leave right away because he got an urgent phone call.
The person looks confused and says "what? how did you get a call" and looks around for a pay phone. Hass. explains that he has a car phone. The person looks impressed.
(Car Phones, as they were called back then, were expensive and rare. Hand cells didn't emerge until the late '80s and were like big walkie-talkies. If you played Vice City you know what I mean.)
It is all so much faster now, easier to "plug in,game on,zone out".
I recall reading an interview with one of the DEVO guys in "Pranks" by the defunct Re/Search enterprise. He said that some people are interpreting media information as "Instructions on how to behave...". He tied this in to the whole de-evolution bit, which he said was actually meant seriously.
Are the kids getting pathological conditioning from violent videogame materials?
Mush brains from internet forum socialization?
I am tempted to say "just the dumb ones who would have been worthless brainwashed drones anyway."
But no.
The "community" element allows social validation to be provided. In "Inside the Third Reich; Memoirs of Albert Speer", an anecdote is provided where an officer asks another officer: "Are you sure I don't have blue eyes?".
As if reality itself could be shifted by group consensus.
I see no reason why potentially smart people couldn't be sucked in by "netthink", as long as it provided them with identity and "strokes".
I could go on about many things from this point, but I'm not trying to write a paper.
Much of what I would say here will just go into later posts, it's more fun that way.
Back to the suggestions about supporting companies that make certain kinds of games.
I could easily assign pollyannic as an adjective to describe your suggestion.
Like those eurohippies that wanted people to delete minesweeper (free game that comes with Windows) in order to stop the global landmine problem.
But that would be silly and unfair, so I won't even bring it up.
I will instead point out that there really aren't many "moral" games worth playing.
So who do I support?
Of course, this is about "the kids", so I guess its more about what you would buy for them/let them play. This creates another problem, actually two.
1.)If I buy something for myself that is "innapropriate for children" am I not subsidising the manufacture of "games innapropriate for children".
2.) Does selective support (via consumer self-censorship which you cannot deny you are advocating) create "forbidden fruit". I know that to some extent my own reveling in simulated violence, net forum profanity, and porn is partially rebellion against bawdlerization and comstockery. (I remember the Soviet-style rock music show trials of the 80's, etc.)
That's enough for now.
edit:
Some younger person is going to post and say something to the effect of "I was born in that briar patch", insisting that they have thick mind-skins and well honed bullshit filters as a byproduct of an electromedia saturated upbringing.
I'm calling it.
Any wagers?
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Last edited by Redeye on Fri Dec 01, 2006 2:05 am; edited 1 time in total |
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klikbeep
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Joined: 27 Nov 2006
Posts: 35
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| Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2006 1:59 am Post subject: |
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| Winged Assassins (1984) wrote: | | Like how you couldn't take over the streets in San Andreas right? |
My main point is that GTA basically is what it is . . . they tried to pull some nonsense with the whole returning for the funeral-thing in San Andreas, but on the whole . . . yeah, you're just doing some antisocial stuff because you feel like it. Take it or leave it.
Saints Row gives you this song-and-dance about helping people and improving the 'hood, but there you are dragging their fresh corpses out of their cars. The cops hound you less than they do in GTA, because I guess that part was annoying for some people. Even worse is how they treat bodies -- they just disappear into bloodless ghosts. Although Dead Rising is orders of magnitude more violent, it has an overarching conscience to it. You're supposed to be helping people, and solving mysteries. You can disembowel grandmothers, but it's not the driving force behind the game.
I feel like I could sit a kid in front of Dead Rising and have them turn out okay, with a little talking and guidance. I feel like Saints Row would teach them weird lessons that they could only learn in a video game . . . and ones that would apply extremely poorly to real life.
EDIT: Another example would be the Superman demo. Have you played this? |
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Dracko
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Joined: 10 Oct 2005
Posts: 2613
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| Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2006 7:22 am Post subject: |
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What about the Mercenaries series?
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dhex
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Joined: 13 Dec 2004
Posts: 6319
Location: brooklyn, Nev Yiork
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| Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2006 9:06 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Come on -- you're WAY smarter then that statement. My dad collects guns, and nobody's been shot yet! There are way more car deaths every year than nuclear war deaths -- should we have automobile non-proliferation agreements? |
unfortunately i am not smarter than this statement, and i meant what i said.
and that second part is a great rhetorical chestnut against firearm regulation, seeing as more kids are killed by bicycles than accidental gun deaths each year. cars are far more dangerous than guns are (and inactivity is more dangerous than both of those combined, which means mandatory exercise programs would be an efficient way to blahb la h b l a ba h b l a h b labjlkajdfl;kjs)
ANYWAY
had i known that things would be like this i would have kept the old clippings my grandmother used to make from the local paper about how games were training kids to resolve problems with violence, to have no attention spans; people would stop reading and children would have the lowest literacy rates and IQ of any population.
this is for the atari 2600 era, btw.
yet none of those things happened, but what did happen was this; culture changed, our parents grew older, we grow older and suddenly we're dismayed and freaked out by the next generation. (well, some of us are, i can't even muster half a shit, frankly, outside of being fascinated by this phenomena)
| Quote: | | Anyway . . . we are OLD people in regards to this industry. We grew up on hop-and-bop; by the time games got really psychotic, all of our moral winds were already blowin'. The whole Blue Sky In Games thing -- that's just the generation gap starting to manifest itself. |
maybe your reaction is a generational thing as well?
when you talk about "internet kids" you're leaving something out - the 4chan kids, by and large, aren't doing anything in real life along these lines. (hence my earlier fixation on crime rates and the like) this kind of behavior is antisocial because there are NO social controls, quite literally. what keeps people communal - even in a commune, or perhaps especially in situations like that - is a combination of shared values, shared resources and the threat of punishment for violating those values.
online communities only have limited resources in this avenue
the reason i'm perhaps rather not into your particular slant here is because if you said to me "dude, you've got all the power in the world - how would you make games better" well...
that rumbling you hear is the sound of japan sinking into the ocean. those shots you hear are the sounds of kiddie game mascots and cosplayers being shot in the back of the head and kicked into a lime-filled pit. those growls and screams? someone just turned a pack of dogs loose on the people who made nintendogs, the single most morally offensive game series ever produced. importers and translators chased down by heavy squads dressed in faux lolicon getups and touting cast-iron candycanes. and one wonders if hentai game producers would find actual tentacle rape nearly as fascinating on the recieving end.
ahem.
there is no accounting for taste, even when it comes to propriety. especially when it comes to propriety, actually. i count most of this as a matter of taste. there are dozens of values i don't think games should be promoting, from ecomysticism to "giant boobs for everybody," but i think a lot of stuff, and most of it is not suitable for any kind of moral code.
the issue simply isn't important, and i would have to see some actual evidence that the issue is important, or more important than film or books (120 days in sodom is so far beyond games in terms of vile excess, for example, regardless of the political angle) or any other media offering that impacts the hows and whys of behavior.
the greater problem is that people have children without considering why, perhaps - and then cede their authority to the culture around them. if only game xyz could be removed, why people wouldn't learn to be miserable shits, they say. nay, sez i. crime rates continue to fall, and whatever caused it appears to have had fuck all to do with electronic media, games or the internet.
they're simply not that important a factor in the coercive crimes against others that matter. cultural roughness? people are forced to be far more cosmopolitan simply by dint of having to deal with reality tv. is it model tolerance? no. is there ugliness in even the most plural societies, like nyc? sure. ugliness is all around us, but it is less ugly in some ways than ever before.
it is a wonderous miracle that we're even having this exchange in this format and manner, and thusly i can only say i am glad to be alive now and not 100 years ago. and not just because of the fabulous music and hardcore pornography.
| Quote: | | Some younger person is going to post and say something to the effect of "I was born in that briar patch", insisting that they have thick mind-skins and well honed bullshit filters as a byproduct of an electromedia saturated upbringing. |
i would be tempted to agree with them, at least in some cases.
edit: some lnks that were mailed my way:
http://www.ohek.co.uk/history/jass1917.htm
http://www.rawilsonfans.com/articles/critique.htm
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Shapermc
Hot Sake!
Joined: 14 Oct 2004
Posts: 6279
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| Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2006 1:18 pm Post subject: |
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| klikbeep wrote: | | Shapermc wrote: | | but Saints Row isn't about promoting gang violence like Grand Theft Auto. It's about stopping gang violence by bringing all the gang's under your control. |
That sounds like something a kid would say. |
| Winged Assassins (1984) wrote: | | Like how you couldn't take over the streets in San Andreas right? |
Neither of you actually went to the site did you?
_________________
“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932
"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!" |
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dhex
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Joined: 13 Dec 2004
Posts: 6319
Location: brooklyn, Nev Yiork
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Winged Assassins (1984)
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Joined: 28 Nov 2006
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Location: Super Magic Drive
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| Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2006 4:34 pm Post subject: |
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| Shapermc wrote: | | Neither of you actually went to the site did you? |
No, no I didn't.
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klikbeep
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Joined: 27 Nov 2006
Posts: 35
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| Posted: Sat Dec 02, 2006 7:19 pm Post subject: |
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| Redeye wrote: | | I will instead point out that there really aren't many "moral" games worth playing. |
Oh, agreed. Mind you, I'm not advocating the elimination of violence and boobs. . . I think it's more of a desire for some sort of realism and internal consistency in gaming.
The new EA Superman -- plenty of fun to be had there, but totally bananas. It's the Superman game you've always wanted -- go anywhere, do anything! Pick up cars (they're moving, so there's gotta be someone in there) and throw them a half-mile away! Burn newsstands to the ground with your heat vision! You can't kill people (strangely, they're far more indestructible than you are).
Superman wouldn't do those things. I know that making a game that was both open-ended and heroic would be quite a trick, but you could do it. Like . . . the Superman missions would be mission-based. People could die, and there'd be consequences. Then you could have a sandbox version where you played . . . I dunno, Bizarro Supes, or something. Maybe Superman would hunt you down after a while. Maybe you could escape him through clever gameplay.
I mean . . . good people can still be good people, and bad people bad. I just think that it's weird that we expect ragdoll-physics-realism, but not realism-realism.
| Quote: | | What about the Mercenaries series? |
I'm unfamiliar with this series! What can you tell me about it?
| Quote: | | culture changed, our parents grew older, we grow older and suddenly we're dismayed and freaked out by the next generation. |
Sorry -- was referring more to your sample size of yourself in the original quote. I often get accused of not really giving an entire generation of normal people enough credit. I'm more talking about the effects of the 1% 4chan types you mentioned.
Let's say I made a game called Angels. In this game, all blonde girls are secretly angels who are trapped in dirty human bodies. If I destroy their human bodies, they can return to Heaven where they can live happily. Someone without any moorings . . . you know, that game probably wouldn't do them any good.
I'm not talking about permitting the above game to exist, and I'm not talking about laws -- I'm talking about challenging the market to at least consider games with some kind of internal consistency. I know full well that that's a faint hope.
Do you consider tentacle rape to be "worse" than prostitute street execution? Or is this more of a taste issue for you? |
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Kipple
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Joined: 26 Nov 2006
Posts: 21
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| Posted: Sat Dec 02, 2006 8:21 pm Post subject: |
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| dhex wrote: | | those growls and screams? someone just turned a pack of dogs loose on the people who made nintendogs, the single most morally offensive game series ever produced. |
I'd like to hear more about this; this is interesting... I haven't played the game, but what's offensive about it? That they're selling you a simulation of an animal of which there are thousands without homes, readily adoptable? That it's an electronic emulation of interpersonal emotional contact and that people should be filling those needs by instead actually developing real-world social skills? And if it's the latter, then what about "bark mode"?
Or is it something else? Also, what framework of morality are you going by?
Not necessarily disagreeing, just honest questions. |
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klikbeep
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Joined: 27 Nov 2006
Posts: 35
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| Posted: Sat Dec 02, 2006 9:15 pm Post subject: |
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| Winged Assassins (1984) wrote: | | Shapermc wrote: | | Neither of you actually went to the site did you? |
No, no I didn't. |
I did! I'm wondering if those are quotes from a real kid, or just written in a kid-style. Either way. |
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Redeye
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Joined: 02 Oct 2006
Posts: 986
Location: filth
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| Posted: Sat Dec 02, 2006 9:55 pm Post subject: |
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Very entertaining.
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gutomatic
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Joined: 25 Nov 2006
Posts: 34
Location: Curitiba, Brazil
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| Posted: Sat Dec 02, 2006 10:17 pm Post subject: |
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| Harveyjames wrote: | | dessgeega wrote: | | and weren't the first movies about cowboys and cavalries shooting each other? |
No
They were just films of people leaving factories, busy streets and stuff. Then when narrative came in love, sex, fantasy, mischief were all common themes. I don't recall seeing any violent films when I studied this at school. I don't doubt there were some, but it wasn't as prevalent as you might expect.[/url] |
One of the most classic examples is Edwin Potter's western The Great Train Robbery (1903), where in the end one of the thieves points his gun to the camera and shoot. People were shocked, then in the late 20's came the Hays Code (read this, it's interesting). As a result, the same action (guy pointing gun to the camera) wasn't done again until Bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia (1974). |
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klikbeep
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Joined: 27 Nov 2006
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| Posted: Sat Dec 02, 2006 11:13 pm Post subject: |
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| gutomatic wrote: | | As a result, the same action (guy pointing gun to the camera) wasn't done again until Bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia (1974). |
Interesting. I think a little censorship could go a long way for the games industry -- self-imposed, of course. When you have rules, you're forced to be creative to work around them.
Hm. Maybe I'm looking for more of a unifying school of thought. Like those indie film guys that all shoot according to static rules. A manifesto.
1. All violence shall be as realistic as possible. No bloodless decapitations; no arteries spraying hundreds of gallons of crimson all over the screen. Blood loss should be a factor.
2. Actions shall have consequences. When busted for vehicular homicide, you should stand trial, either in the courts or in the streets. When you destroy property, someone should notice. When you steal an object, the owner should care.
...etc.
Hey, that last one was pretty good. I'd love a GTA where you pick up a power-up, only to have some guys scream HEY, THAT'S MY POWER-UP! and come after you. |
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gutomatic
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Joined: 25 Nov 2006
Posts: 34
Location: Curitiba, Brazil
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| Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 12:07 am Post subject: |
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I'm all for variety, but I'm against most kinds of censorship. The medium actually needs more provoking in order to mature and have more "artistic" value. I mean, people got mad at Buñuel when he depicted Jesus as a sexual leader / grandmaster of sorts, and at the beatniks when they did - well, what they did.
And what about ESRB ratings? I remember some good topics on how Red Steel has an outlined plot similar to Yakuza, but the violence and language on the former are much more discrete because it's a game for fourteen years old. I don't know how ESRB regulamentation is, but I believe it's not as stupid as it's movie counterpart. For example, a PG-13 rated movie can use the term "fuck" once. What the hell. |
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klikbeep
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Joined: 27 Nov 2006
Posts: 35
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| Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 1:24 am Post subject: |
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| gutomatic wrote: | I'm all for variety, but I'm against most kinds of censorship. The medium actually needs more provoking in order to mature and have more "artistic" value. I mean, people got mad at Buñuel when he depicted Jesus as a sexual leader / grandmaster of sorts, and at the beatniks when they did - well, what they did.
And what about ESRB ratings? I remember some good topics on how Red Steel has an outlined plot similar to Yakuza, but the violence and language on the former are much more discrete because it's a game for fourteen years old. I don't know how ESRB regulamentation is, but I believe it's not as stupid as it's movie counterpart. For example, a PG-13 rated movie can use the term "fuck" once. What the hell. |
Well, I think that I'm looking for more of a movement in gaming, rather than actual censorship per se, now that I mull it over a bit. In my model, you could say still say "fuck" all you want. You'd still have games that might not be child-appropriate, but I think you'd have more honesty in the way choices were presented and the consequences of actions.
There . . . I think that's what I want: consequences. |
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Dracko
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Joined: 10 Oct 2005
Posts: 2613
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| Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 8:25 am Post subject: |
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| klikbeep wrote: | | Quote: | | What about the Mercenaries series? |
I'm unfamiliar with this series! What can you tell me about it? |
The first Mercernaries game was called Playground of Destruction, and that's essentially what it was: A sandbox third-person game taking place in North Korea were you played from a selection of three PMC members. Published by LucasArts, funnily enough. As part of the game, you could team up with any faction you see fit, ranging from North Korea, South Korea, the Russian Mafia, the UN and China.
So, it's far more military in tone. You can loot tanks, helicopters and so forth and cause havok in neighbouring territories for the benefit of your current clients, but you have have to watch your relationships on the whole.
The sequel, World in Flames, is supposed to take place in Venezuela. Not without controversy.
Speaking of, I'm keeping an eye on Army of Two.
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dark steve
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Joined: 17 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 7:34 pm Post subject: |
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man mercenaries would have been so good if it wasn't for the mother-may-I crap that was held over from GTA
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Redeye
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Joined: 02 Oct 2006
Posts: 986
Location: filth
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| Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 9:09 pm Post subject: |
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| klikbeep wrote: | | gutomatic wrote: | | As a result, the same action (guy pointing gun to the camera) wasn't done again until Bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia (1974). |
Interesting. I think a little censorship could go a long way for the games industry -- self-imposed, of course. When you have rules, you're forced to be creative to work around them.
Hm. Maybe I'm looking for more of a unifying school of thought. Like those indie film guys that all shoot according to static rules. A manifesto.
1. All violence shall be as realistic as possible. No bloodless decapitations; no arteries spraying hundreds of gallons of crimson all over the screen. Blood loss should be a factor.
2. Actions shall have consequences. When busted for vehicular homicide, you should stand trial, either in the courts or in the streets. When you destroy property, someone should notice. When you steal an object, the owner should care.
...etc.
Hey, that last one was pretty good. I'd love a GTA where you pick up a power-up, only to have some guys scream HEY, THAT'S MY POWER-UP! and come after you. |
Of course, there is the "artistic license" factor.
While I would love to see a game with real mayhem, there should be a cheat mode where the thermodynamics-defying "people flying backwards from gunshots"/etc. is enabled.
Stylization helps create a mood.
Like a swordfigting game with ritualistic machinima sequences integrated into the combat. It would use controls more like a dance game than a fight game. Suppose it had a "gracefulness meter", and if you did things just right the camera would go to a combination of soft focus and stark detail combined with black/white with dayglo color and time slows down while the endgame music from Chariots of Fire plays.
Blood arcs through the air, followed by the camera, and lands in an artful pattern on the snow.
Yes, this is just another permutation of death fetish.
But you gotta have art.
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dhex
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Joined: 13 Dec 2004
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Location: brooklyn, Nev Yiork
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| Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 9:49 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Let's say I made a game called Angels. In this game, all blonde girls are secretly angels who are trapped in dirty human bodies. If I destroy their human bodies, they can return to Heaven where they can live happily. Someone without any moorings . . . you know, that game probably wouldn't do them any good. |
what you say is reasonable. but what would do them good?
i'm not sure i understand what you mean by "internal consistency" outside of being realistic without going overboard; your actions have consequences which are coherent within the framework of the game world. which is a decent goal, at least for some titles. (some are meant to be cartoonish and absurd, even if violent. gta is one of those. saints row, apparently not so much.)
| Quote: | | Do you consider tentacle rape to be "worse" than prostitute street execution? Or is this more of a taste issue for you? |
worse if only because it seems to be a central facet of a whole genre rather than a potential choice found in a sandbox game. freedom turns into ugly, stupid things.
i never killed any hookers on purpose in gta, but i have murdered thousands of townspeople over the course of playing western rpgs. the ability to commit genocide in ultima 4, for example, or picking fights with everyone in daggerfall and morrowind.
re:nintendogs
| Quote: | | I'd like to hear more about this; this is interesting... I haven't played the game, but what's offensive about it? |
it creeps me out. there's a bunch of other stuff i could tack on there, but long and the short of it is it strikes me as a bad idea. (which is worth two cents, give or take)
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JasonMoses
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| Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 10:06 pm Post subject: |
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And as a result it's the most morally offensive game series ever made? |
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dhex
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| Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 10:10 pm Post subject: |
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by my moral standards, yes.
again, two cents. i find it hard to consider it anything other than depraved. other people feel differently. ships pass in the night. solar eclipses, etc.
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Joe
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| Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 10:12 pm Post subject: |
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| dhex wrote: |
| Quote: | | Do you consider tentacle rape to be "worse" than prostitute street execution? Or is this more of a taste issue for you? |
worse if only because it seems to be a central facet of a whole genre |
What genre is this, again?
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dhex
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| Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 10:15 pm Post subject: |
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genre of cartoon pornography.
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Joe
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Joined: 27 Nov 2006
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| Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 10:18 pm Post subject: |
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Its more a product of subverting censorship laws than it is any particular fetish.
Though I'm sure some poor souls have said fetish.
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chompers po pable
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Joined: 10 Nov 2005
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| Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 10:37 pm Post subject: |
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joe, i think you're being a bit too optimistic. though either way of looking at it is probably equally valid and difficult to prove.
either way, there are probably more mature/healthy ways to subvert censorship, if not as shocking as tentacle pedo penetration. |
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Scratchmonkey
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| Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 11:42 pm Post subject: |
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| klikbeep wrote: | | I did! I'm wondering if those are quotes from a real kid, or just written in a kid-style. Either way. |
Written in kid-style. |
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Ketch
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Joined: 17 Sep 2005
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| Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2006 7:30 am Post subject: Bully. |
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| Quote: |
EDIT: Same link, different game, kid's per pective:
"but Saints Row isn't about promoting gang violence like Grand Theft Auto. It's about stopping gang violence by bringing all the gang's under your control." |
Yes, this is the problem that I had with Bully / Canis Canem Edit, it promotes the idea that violence can be used to dominate others and bring about 'peace' in society. I know that a lot of kids are going to be fooled by such a line.
Okay, now if you look REALLY REALLY closely at Bully there is a subtext which is that "the pen is mightier than the sword". Your enemy uses words to manipulate people against you, and the climax helps reinforce this theme. But, the OVERTONE of the game is that violence solves problems, and gets you respect and can make things better.
It also promotes vandalism either destroying headstones, windows, or garden gnomes. destroy all 50 gnomes to get a gnome costume (or some such pathetic reward). But, in reality gnomes belong to people! Who are going to be very angry if you copy this behaviour mindlessly. |
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Dracko
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| Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2006 8:09 am Post subject: Re: Bully. |
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| Ketch wrote: | | it promotes the idea that violence can be used to dominate others and bring about 'peace' in society. |
That's not exactly off, you know?
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dhex
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| Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2006 11:18 am Post subject: |
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got nowhere else to stick this link.
drop the playstation and come out with your hands BLAM!! BLAM!! BLAM!!
| Quote: | | either way, there are probably more mature/healthy ways to subvert censorship, if not as shocking as tentacle pedo penetration. |
this may be the understatement of forever and ever.
it's not the tentacles so much as the rapey-ness. though i seriously doubt such material will cause people to rape anyone, with or without calamari, who weren't already inclined to do so.
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Mister Toups
Hates your favorite videogame
Joined: 26 Jan 2005
Posts: 1693
Location: Lafayette, LA
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| Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2006 12:21 pm Post subject: |
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| chompers po pable wrote: | | joe, i think you're being a bit too optimistic. though either way of looking at it is probably equally valid and difficult to prove. |
| wikipedia wrote: | One idea that Maeda brought to the manga world was an almost archetypal image of a tentacle, which became a staple in his later work. Below, he explains the meaning behind this idea in the same interview:
At that time, it was illegal to create a sensual scene in bed. I thought I should do something to avoid drawing such a normal sensual scene. So I just created a creature. [His tentacle] is not a [penis] as a pretext. I could say, as an excuse, this is not a [penis], this is just a part of the creature. You know, the creatures, they don't have a gender. A creature is a creature. So it is not obscene - not illegal. |
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stotelheim
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Joined: 26 Nov 2006
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| Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2006 12:24 pm Post subject: |
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| Well, what the tentacles started as is really not what it's developed into. |
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Redeye
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Joined: 02 Oct 2006
Posts: 986
Location: filth
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| Posted: Thu Jan 25, 2007 6:11 am Post subject: |
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| klikbeep wrote: | | When you have rules, you're forced to be creative to work around them. |
This reminds me of something off-topic which is also at least tangentially on-topic.
Let's say you want to make an "adult" game. You can't say "fuck" or have sex, guns, or violence in the game.
(I am not suggesting that such restrictions are being recommended here, it's just an example.)
You could still have a very "adult" game. The determinant would be sophistication and complexity.
Working within regulations could force an "economy of ideas"/etc.
Compare design to programming structure
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Ketch
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Joined: 17 Sep 2005
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| Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2007 11:47 am Post subject: |
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| klikbeep wrote: |
Well, I think that I'm looking for more of a movement in gaming, rather than actual censorship per se, now that I mull it over a bit. In my model, you could say still say "fuck" all you want. You'd still have games that might not be child-appropriate, but I think you'd have more honesty in the way choices were presented and the consequences of actions.
There . . . I think that's what I want: consequences. |
Well, to a good extent Obliion has some of this, if you get caught comimitting crimes you get a bounty, guards start trying to catch you.. when caught you can either pay the fine or serve your sentence [which goes by in a flash but you lose a couple of stat points] if you don't have enough money / don't want to pay. Your stolen goods are confiscated to evidence lockers which you can find later on.
Sure a large part of the game is fighting / sneaking, but there are other side-lines you can dabble in. It would be interesting to see games with more consequences, but I think that they would need to be based around something other than combat. Ie. a visual novel with lots of branching dialogues? Or ones where you can gain an advantage by 'cheating' but you face penalties if you are caught (a boxing game where you can low blow the opponent or take steroids?). But run the risk of being kicked out of the licensed boxing clubs and into the more dangerous and nasty underground ones. |
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ApM
Admin Rockstar
Joined: 14 Oct 2004
Posts: 1210
Location: Ottawa, ON
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| Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2007 2:16 pm Post subject: |
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Ketch, I think you're conflating consequences with choice.
Not that I've played Oblivion, but it kind of sounds like there are only consequences if you fuck up somehow. It would be more interesting to me if the only reasonable option, to get past a particular point, was to steal something, and have to deal with the shit that goes down because of it. Maybe the ends don't even end up justifying the means.
(I'll leave bringing up Shadow of the Collosus here to others.) |
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Ketch
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Joined: 17 Sep 2005
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| Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2007 4:20 pm Post subject: |
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| ApM wrote: |
It would be more interesting to me if the only reasonable option, to get past a particular point, was to steal something, and have to deal with the shit that goes down because of it. |
(minor spoiler)
Yes, there are at least one of these moments. You need to get an evil magical artifact, and there is an option of several different artifacts with missions that you must do to get the artifact. The one I chose had me pull off a magical "practical joke" in a well-guarded dinner party, at which point loads of people start chasing you down to arrest /kill you. but the spell confiscates your gold, so you can't pay off the fine and have to go to jail (or make a successful escape).
The thing is the fighters guild frown on criminal records, so if you get arrested too often they will kick you out of it. |
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Dracko
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Joined: 10 Oct 2005
Posts: 2613
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| Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 8:37 am Post subject: |
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Moral Kombat is an upcoming documentary on video game violence. The trailer is hilarious and I'm guessing willingly misguided.
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dhex
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| Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 9:21 am Post subject: |
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that trailer was awesome.
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simplicio
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Joined: 03 May 2005
Posts: 1091
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| Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 2:42 pm Post subject: |
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I like the
Flight Simulator :: 9/11
as
GTA :: Columbine
analogy. |
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Dracko
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Joined: 10 Oct 2005
Posts: 2613
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| Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 2:44 pm Post subject: |
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On the other side of the fence:
Trailer for Uwe Boll's Postal
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simplicio
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Joined: 03 May 2005
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| Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 2:53 pm Post subject: |
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| Dang. Can he succeed where the Date/Epic Movie people have failed though? |
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Dracko
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Joined: 10 Oct 2005
Posts: 2613
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| Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 4:17 pm Post subject: |
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RAGING BOLL!
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Ketch
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Joined: 17 Sep 2005
Posts: 420
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| Posted: Tue Feb 06, 2007 3:10 pm Post subject: |
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Forget about 'killers' do you think that some games could actually contribute to juvenile delinquancy, ie. thieving, vandalism general thuggery, etc. for laughs. Because lets say that GTA, Bully and the third party GTA-rip offs all downplay the emotional effects of crime on other people. I mean in these games, the 'characters' you rip-off are cardboard cut-outs with no family or real emotions. They are one-sided characters who forget what you did after ten minutes.
Saying this after having had my mum's car rear window smashed and the food shopping taken out the the back last night. (Yes, we know you aren't meant to leave things in view even for ten minutes). Thank god they didn't get anything worthwhile, haha they got soya-milk and veggie stuff.
Little gits. |
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dhex
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Posts: 6319
Location: brooklyn, Nev Yiork
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| Posted: Tue Feb 06, 2007 3:14 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Forget about 'killers' do you think that some games could actually contribute to juvenile delinquancy |
emphatically not.
sorry to hear about your car, though.
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Scratchmonkey
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Joined: 02 Mar 2005
Posts: 1439
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| Posted: Tue Feb 06, 2007 3:15 pm Post subject: |
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Maybe they busted in the window with a PS3.
Would be one of the better uses of one so far.
(Please nobody respond to this post as if it's serious.) |
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Nana Komatsu
weak sauce
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Nana Komatsu
weak sauce
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