(no subject)

[egypturnash]

As a side note, since some people seem to want to convince me that Bioshock is actually a really good game - an opinion you're welcome to have; it's clearly a finely-crafted instance of an experience I simply don't care to have - I would like to note that so far, the only FPS I've actually enjoyed as a game is Thief, which I've been playing on and off the past week via Rik's machine. I had fun with System Shock 2 a couple years back but by the end, I was sick and tired of the basic game mechanics and just wanted to find out what happened to SHODAN. I really don't like FPSs.

As I've gotten older, I've slowly learnt how to see people as, well, people. I'm not very good at it; I never was. As video-game technology marches on, the creatures the games pit you against have gotten more like people. When I play some games made in the last decade or so, I can feel them training me to see people as just things. I'm still working out what factors make this happen; it's only a handful of games that do this so far.

I really think that the increasing drive for 'realism' in video games means that the game industry has a big moral quandry coming up. The forty-year-long focus on the hurt button as the core mechanic becomes creepier as the things you hurt become more and more like people. What happens when the project lead on a game focused on killing and blood plays his game and feels that weird sense that it's gnawing away at something in his soul? What happens when this is a regular occurrence?

A few major choice-points over, there's another me who went into video games. Is she (or he; I might never have transitioned in that life-path) getting ever more uncomfortable with these themes, or has it been completely burnt out of her by this point?

Comments

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I find myself sometimes agreeing with the people gamer-nerds dismiss. Some of the stuff that 'anti-game crusaders' go after doesn't sit very well with me, and I've been loving the medium of video games since I first got hooked by Defender repeatedly handing my eight-year-old ass to me.

There are games out there that are not things that a kid should be able to buy and play; there are high-budget games that I'm not comfortable with anyone playing.

Thompson looked like an idiot when he went after 'Bully' just because it was from Rockstar - but, you know, that's a company whose whole brand identity has become 'games that trigger that queasy soul-corroding feeling in me'.

[circuit-four.livejournal.com]

Oh, there's no doubt that Jack Thompson is a complete and utter tool. All he's really accomplished is lowering the debate on game violence to the level of tabloid hysterics, and ensuring gamers will be (justifiably) suspicious of critiques of game violence for years to come. The only thing I think he has right is that there's too much violence in video games. Every conclusion he's drawn from this has been simplistic and self-serving and I don't want him on my side.