Let''s face it, we all crave violence, even before tv, even before books, humans craved violence, though us, in the game industry keep being blammed for todays wrongs and woes, it isn''t true. It has been the same throughout history. Some things about violence however, you should seriously think about when making your game.... Over do it - We are constantly being blammed for making kids think they are "gods". Such as in games where you have health, etc. You get shot, you fall on the ground, and respawn. Gore-- Reality is disgusting, yes sometimes i get a kick out of looking at pictures on rotten.com but still. If you where to see this non stop in a computer game, your feeling towards it would get numb. like me today, i see things like the WTC... For some sick reason, i really didn''t care. I do not know why, but i actually laughed a little. I would have to say, that me constantly playing the games, it has numbed my feelings towards death, chaos, and destruction. And now, i crave it, i want it, i want to see it, i want to feel it. IT is all part of what you see and what you overdo. There really is no way to get around this obstical, at all. A game showing no blood at all, if you kept playing it over and over, you would think the same thing would happen when you hit a kid, if you where a little kid for say, if you make a game ultra violent, like Soldier of Fortune, then you are going to either A) Think it is funny B)Get your feelings numbed or C)Lose all nerver and want to do what you do in the game. I am a strong believer in "Not a single thing can MAKE you do something". It is always the persons final decision to do something. YOu can chose to die at the electric chair, or you can make a run for it on your way down, they are not making you do it. They are dragging your body, not making your conscious mind do it. So the fact is, you do what you want to, however, there are ways to get a message to people. A message in the beginning of the game reminding it is fictional, not real, and if you can''t tell the difference between reality and fiction, you shouldn''t play it. This will do/could do 2 things. 1) get critics off your back, those medling women rights activists piss me off for always dogging on me. They seem more violent than the games we make. 2) You could actually send a message to someone, and have them have a clear mind while playing the game and know what they are seeing is fake...not real. Health--- Yes it is fun to run in a room with a blazing m-16 assault rifle in one hand and a minigun in the other shooting rockets all over the place, you run in there, about 40 people are in there, you kill all of them, piss on them, whatever. And you come out with 45% health remaning....Wait a minute! In real life, you don''t look at yourself and say "oh shit i only have 60% life remaning! I better go find some health!" In real life, if your are shot, either 2 things are going to happen..1) you die, plain and simple, 2) you slow down, problably fall on the ground, can''t get back up, bleed to death, lose an arm, an eye, can''t see, can''t breath, the pain is so bad you can''t aim. now, if everyone was to make a game with realistic health, then the gaming industry would problably go bankrupt. So what do you do? I would say a good example of how people controlled this is games like Delta Force, they have missions, if you die in the mission, you have to start ALL over again. you also die in like what, 2, 3 shots? Max payne is also a good example, although i would say it is a little unreal with the supreme slow downs and awesome effect, which undboutably is super kick ass, but it can influence someone into believing they can dive into a room full of people shooting at your ass and to get up and shoot them. Chances are you are going to be ripped into shreads, your brains all over the wall, blood splattered all over the place, while you are still in mid-air. So what should you do? keep making ultra - violent games/ultra-real games and have critics all over your ass? Keep making unrealistic games and still have them all over your ass for "making kids think they are god"? Or, stop making games at all? There is no way around it, it is something we are going to have to keep constantly fighting, it is a non-stop, non winable situation, where as neither side is right, nor is either side wrong. It has been this way ever since the first cartoons, critics seeing little kids chase each other and beat themselves religously with bricks after reading Krazy Kat comics. It is the same with religion vs. athiesim. Its a non-stop, un explainable battle, where there is no one right, and there is no one wrong. I personally say... FUCK THEM ALL Make the next most goriest game on earth where you get split in half, blown apart with huge gashing holes that show the inside of a burnt stomach. I also say rating policies should be inforced more...im tired of seeing kids (mainly teens) go in to the computer store and i see them blabbing on about how they played these games that people over 18 should only be playing. you might be thinking "your just another one of them" actually i am not, we are all game developers here (or wannabe game developers) and you should seriously know, you are the middle man, you are in the middle of this raging battle, you need to be on the neutral side. SERIOUSLY look at things with an open mind, not a fixed mind on what side is right and what side is wrong. But thats about all i have to say.... E-mail Kedhrin@conwaycorp.net

I personally don''t see how critics would stop a potential game from ruining society. Sure they might slow it down a little, but in a capitolist(sp!) country it is impossible. I don''t know if video games have -desesitized- me, but something did. Although I rather like it like this. I usually take the side without weakness'' rather than the one with strengths. I have also been shot in real life. Of course I was looking at myself saying "Man, I think I only have about... oh 35% health left, time to pick up some of those boxes with red plus signs" Really though it depends on the person, people have been shot and still moved and done things normally. You might think these are abnormal conditions, but isn''t that what a game is all about. A police officer was shot, but didn''t know until 3 hours later after his shift was over, and he was shot in the leg... Also, I don''t know about you, but I have never heard critics complain about kids having too much power in games and are becoming gods within them... that is just because games nowadays are too easy... Most nintendo games were action, but even the other categories were sometimes overdifficult, modern games are made for everyone to win.

"Practice means good, Perfect Practice means Perfect"

the whole violence in games thing has been discussed extensively about a month ago, just dig up that thread - i think most people have made their points already.

i think even children know that when they are playing a video game, it isn''t real. if they have that much of a problem with reality, they are f*cked up regardless of whether they play violent video games or not; they need better pills and/or better parents!
any child (or adult) who jumps into a room full of guys with machine guns (if such a situation could ever exist in real life) and thinks they stand a chance because they saw the matrix or played max payne deserves what they get; they are a weakness in the gene pool anyways.

quote: I would have to say, that me constantly playing the games, it has numbed my feelings towards death, chaos, and destruction. And now, i crave it, i want it, i want to see it, i want to feel it.

case in point.
back up for a moment and think how you would feel about a stranger who said such a thing to you, assuming that the general consensus among the sane is that this is abnormal and dangerous.
then go get some pills, or at least therapy.
i hope you took that as a friendly suggestion and not a flame.

--- krez (krezisback@aol.com)

I must reply to disagree...

Argument 1:
When I child is growing up, his/her surroundings are the crucial key to their mental stability and/or structure.

If you take three little boys, say, 3 years old, and raise one for 12 years giving him games like Mortal Combat, Street Fighter, Wolfenstein, Quake, give the second games like Mario''s time machine, edu-nation search, and super word blasters, then give the third no video games but movies like Friday the Thirteenth, Nightmare on Elm Street, etc, then you will most definitely get very different children.

Argument 2: (my personal one)
Games do not affect normally functioning people. As a small child (even a baby) I grew up with Freddy Cruger, Jason, Mike Meyers, Stephen King, and games like Wolfenstein, Mortal Combat; Basically, if there was no killing, I wouldn''t play it. I joined the Junior Marine Corp and have been in for almost 8 years now... A child psychologist would consider me an unstable and dangerously violent teen, but I am not...

Grant it, sometimes we think that games can affect children, and Indeed they can affect some (particularly kids who fall into trends, like sagging, cussing, etc), but we can always say that if games affected kids, then they all would be fat plumbers jumping really high and gathering tokens...

The fact of the matter is that violence affects people differently. I am currently studying sniper tactics and infiltration at my base, and every two weeks we have a 10 acre paint-ball war with over 200 enlisted junior soldiers.. There''s not one day of my life that I don''t see someone die somehow (whether fake or not)... If someone sees someone blown apart onscreen and smiles and laughs about it (I know I do), that does not make them crazy or psychotic...



Just remember my simple theory:

If a rocket were flying at you in a game, and you couldn''t do anything about it, you would just sit there, angry, and wait to respawn.

If a rocket were flying at you in real life, and you couldn''t do anything about it, you would shit your pants, cry like a selfish little girl, and scream until you are blown into tiny pieces.



~Dwarf

Self-psychoanalysis... how potent.

Thread is boring.

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Thanks to Kylotan for the idea!

Okay just a little off-topic message to Peeves here: You make me sick. To think that real world violence excites you..that''s just wrong. You laughed when you saw the WTC collapse? You get off looking at websites with pictures of people brutally killed? Man, you need serious help.
I''ve been playing games that are mostly violent my whole life but I still have feelings. I saw a cat that was hit on the road and it was still alive and even though I''ve probably killed a shitload of animals in games I still felt really sad as they were shoveling it off to the side..and that was just a cat..a living creature. I don''t know how I''d feel if I actually saw someone killed. I sure as hell wouldn''t smile though.

quote: Original post by mumboi
Okay just a little off-topic message to Peeves here: You make me sick. To think that real world violence excites you..that''s just wrong. You laughed when you saw the WTC collapse? You get off looking at websites with pictures of people brutally killed? Man, you need serious help.
I''ve been playing games that are mostly violent my whole life but I still have feelings. I saw a cat that was hit on the road and it was still alive and even though I''ve probably killed a shitload of animals in games I still felt really sad as they were shoveling it off to the side..and that was just a cat..a living creature. I don''t know how I''d feel if I actually saw someone killed. I sure as hell wouldn''t smile though.

We are living in the age of irony. People feel like they have to laugh at violence because they don''t want their real emotions to show.

quote: Original post by SpaceRook
We are living in the age of irony. People feel like they have to laugh at violence because they don''t want their real emotions to show.

Interesting analysis.

I prefer to think of it as regimented cowardice, particularly with males. We''re taught virtually from the get-go that "real men don''t cry" (bullshit), and other stereotypical nonsense which often leads to emotional unhealthiness.

Guys suck.

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Thanks to Kylotan for the idea!

I couldn''t of said it better myself. Well put, Oluseyi!

~Dwarf