Games and morality - The Bear and Badger

[Deleted User]

Moves in for the spoon...

[Deleted User]

Page turns...

Tempy

i'm not worried, the collision detection would be crap.

[Deleted User]

Fatality!

g.man

So Div's ass is some sort of uncanny valley?

sounds legit

g.man

[Deleted User]

Don't be so presumptuous

g.man

dynamiteReady

dynamiteReady wrote:

Me thinks there's a conflation here between "accurate" and "realistic"

Illustrative, perhaps? Explicit? Anytime I see this topic, I always think of 'two girls one cup'...

Oh... Yeah...

Sorry.

Qualify all the things.

Lets say that the post-realistic (don't know if the term 'post-realism' has any mileage here, but meh) game is possible...
A VR one, with the most elaborate control system known to man...

In this game, you can rip off a hooker's head, skull fuck it, and beat a child to death with the soggy appendage...

In a world in which such a game may be sold as a mainstream title, which one would you find more disturbing?

A highly realistic, but ultimately virtual construct.
Or a document of an event in which people were made to suffer for the purposes of entertainment?

Tempy

Worth noting we're down a rabbit hole here that is entirely a tangent brought on by a largely, I thought, throwaway comment. I never did figure out why Hunk wanted AO to mean anything more than 'adult content within'. I have no answer to your thought experiment though, sorry. Can I go with C - neither?

[Deleted User]

AO is important. Ambient Occlusion is the one. Boss dem shadows.

hunk

Tempy wrote:

Worth noting we're down a rabbit hole here that is entirely a tangent brought on by a largely, I thought, throwaway comment. I never did figure out why Hunk wanted AO to mean anything more than 'adult content within'. I have no answer to your thought experiment though, sorry. Can I go with C - neither?

I guess I'm just dissapointed AO means disembowling graphic violence for the sake of violence and nothing more. Dunno why I was expecting it to be different from film.
But yeah, DynamiteReady's thought experiment is exactly why I made this thread. In a virtual 3d environment you can get gamers to do some really abhorrent fucked up things. All for the sake of gameplay?

Outlaw

I think my issue with games like this is that they seem devoid of morality in a way other mediums tend not to be. Films about serial killers, murderers, rapists, whatever tend to have layers of complexity, or nuance, or just other perspectives apparent. A lot have 'lessons' within, even if the lesson is just to make you question things. Games tend not to, perhaps because you literally play as the person? I'm just thinking of books I've read with truly awful themes, but they never implicitly condone what happens. Or maybe some do and I'm reading the wrong books. I dunno. I can't articulate what I mean.

Tempy

hunk wrote:

Tempy wrote:

Worth noting we're down a rabbit hole here that is entirely a tangent brought on by a largely, I thought, throwaway comment. I never did figure out why Hunk wanted AO to mean anything more than 'adult content within'. I have no answer to your thought experiment though, sorry. Can I go with C - neither?

I guess I'm just dissapointed AO means disembowling graphic violence for the sake of violence and nothing more. Dunno why I was expecting it to be different from film. But yeah, DynamiteReady's thought experiment is exactly why I made this thread. In a virtual 3d environment you can get gamers to do some really abhorrent fucked up things. All for the sake of gameplay?

I just don't see what else you'd add disemboweling and graphic violence for though. I don't really know what context it can possibly add that will make things better? How can it elevate anything?

I am still struggling to see the point. Especially with the inclusion of film too - Adult Only specifically dictates content. Do you want an epic with graphic violence in, but with the graphic violence just on the side? If that's the case, why have the violence at all, and why make it graphic? You only do that for the aesthetic titillation of graphic violence. A man having his head slammed and crushed in a door like a melon, but it's also a treatise on the death drive in all literature? I dunno what you're wanting. You keep saying "i expect more" but I have no idea what 'more' is, and why it needs to be adult only, therefore high reaching but also covered in tits and popped heads.

Diluted Dante

regmcfly wrote:

If there was a real modern warfare it would likely be greatly intensely dull and tedious and then completely so scary that you wouldn't want to ever play it again.

I actually think this hypothetical game would be really, really good. It wouldn't be fun, but that's not the same thing. I've said before that a game equivalent to Jarhead is near the top of my wishlist.

dynamiteReady

Tempy wrote:

Worth noting we're down a rabbit hole here that is entirely a tangent brought on by a largely, I thought, throwaway comment. I never did figure out why Hunk wanted AO to mean anything more than 'adult content within'. I have no answer to your thought experiment though, sorry. Can I go with C - neither?

*Shrugs*

Internet's doing a lot of funny stuff to our ideas about morality...

A quick example.

One could make a concerted effort to catalogue every ISIS execution vid currently extant, and very likely, not get arrested. To do a similar thing with child pornography though, will put you in all types of shit. Physically reenacting either of those crimes will most likely put you in jail for similar sentences.

In all four cases (ISIS exec vids, child porn vids, ceremonial violence, pedophilia), someone is getting harmed. If you take those two physical crimes, virtualize them, make a cathartic experience of them, and can demonstrably prove that those "videogames" reduce the rate of real crime, then isn't overlooking that benefit to the rest of humanity for the purpose of moral grandstanding the truly inhumane thing here?

Tempy

If that benefit exists, possibly.

Tempy

It brings porn to mind for me. Instead of being an outlet, it seems to fuel perversions in sexual behaviour. Gross assumptions, anecdotal is all we have for this discussion.
Edit:
Instead of being satisfied with witnessing the specific act, it makes people want to emulate it. I'm not saying a game would, but I'm saying that demonstrating that they reduce the rate of real crime is very pie in the sky.

Like some kind of strange virtual anger management. It'd also have to be mandatory i guess.

Blue Swirl

On free speech:

EDIT: Click here because the forum won't let me hot link images today.

I.e., to go back to an example from the first page, I would totally support your right to make a game in which you manage a concentration camp in the Second World War. Just don't expect me to buy it. I also wouldn't force a game shop/distribution service to sell it.

On morality in games, it's an odd one. Bowser kidnaps Peach, which Mario uses as an excuse to go on a murder and looting spree across the entire Mushroom Kingdom. We kinda blank it out because it's wrapped up in cutesy graphics. Make the violence realistic, or even revel in it MKX style, and then I start to feel uncomfortable. It's a smidgen hypocritical, really - horrific deplorable violence is OK, as long as I don't see any gory consequences, to paraphrase the South Park movie.

WorKid

Penn Jillette does some great stuff on free speech along the same lines as that. Pick a podcast at random, always a good listen.

hunk

Here's another thought experiment.
Which game has more chance of succeeding: Hatred or a game featuring explicit (gay) sex scenes in glorious3d4kvr with ssao enabled?

fullspectrum

hunk wrote:

I'm just genuinely curious. What if this game has flawless gameplay, structure and mechanics but makes you feel awkward and perverse at the same time. That must account for something right?

Sounds like Hotline Miami. How I feel abut that is I don't play it any more.

hunk

Hotline miami features SSAO?

[Deleted User]

mistercrayon

hunk wrote:

Here's another thought experiment.
Which game has more chance of succeeding: Hatred or a game featuring explicit (gay) sex scenes in glorious3d4kvr with ssao enabled?

What do you mean by succeed?

hunk

Critical reception I guess.
They'll prbably both fail to sell because of the AO tag.

hunk

SpaceGazelle wrote:

Jesus

[Deleted User]

I blame the parents.

g.man

A game with that much lens flare has to be awesome.

Blue Swirl

Kill the Faggot pulled from Steam.

"I decided to release it on Greenlight to see people's reactions," Herman [the developer] said. "The reason behind this particular game is because of how tired I am of people being overly sensitive and how easily offended people are by every little thing, especially with LGBT issues. [...] The point being that a crappy made video game would offend people so much. I mean so offended that people will waste all their time posting on forums, Reddit, etc of how disgusted they are, offended, how much everyone involved in the game should die, and even getting into large debates over it."

Naturally, that's what happened and Herman couldn't have been more pleased. "Successfully trolled the entire LGBT community," he wrote on Twitter. "Thank you media for spreading this troll game around. You did exactly what we were hoping "

[...]

Voice actress Rachel Lally wrote a lengthy Facebook post revoking the usage rights of her recordings to Skaldic Games, which she claimed tricked her into recording audio for The Shelter, then released her work in a much more damaging context.

"I don't see the merit, humour or artistry in 'pissing people off' and was certainly not made aware that that is what Skaldic is about or aims to do," she wrote. "It is easy to 'piss people off' as you say, what is difficult and what we as creators, artists and collaborators should strive to do is to reveal, challenge and hopefully change attitudes in an enlightening and thought provoking way. Not by relying on outdated stereotypes and intentionally offending easy targets or minorities simply for attention."

Yes, I'm aware that I'm doing exactly what the developer wanted. But it's an interesting case of what we're talking about.

Skerret

Yer, popped that in the General games fred (FRISTlol), what an SC.

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