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Ken Levine: Games shouldn't hide the gory reality of violence
- Thread starter Poetic.Injustice
- Start date
DICKS AHOY
Banned
"... Or how people instantly turn into cartoony screaming skeletons when set on fire, like in Bioshock Infinite."
Intheflorsh
Banned
I completely agree. Hopefully, one day, games will be brave enough to tackle the difficult subject of shooting one hundred people in the face.
Phire Phox
Banned
agreed wholeheartedly.
NullPointer
Member
People shouldn't eat hot dogs they find in random trash cans.
Especially if they find it in a trash can.
Andrew Korenchkin
Member
I think you're on the right track Ken. But I do believe context is everything in regards to video game violence and making it effective as an artistic tool. Infinite needed a ton of work in that regard, although I'm not picking on just that game (I do love that game after all). Aside from a few games in the genre, combat games in general struggle with this, as we all know.
Having said that, I was still rather impressed with how visceral the game was, still. Even The Last of Us didn't feel as visceral. In fact, in comparison, TLOU failed miserably to match Infinite.
Hopefully, his future games will help hurdle that. I remember reading in interviews that this problem is one he feels that even he struggles with. Hope his struggles with pay off with more coherent games in the future.
Having said that, I was still rather impressed with how visceral the game was, still. Even The Last of Us didn't feel as visceral. In fact, in comparison, TLOU failed miserably to match Infinite.
Hopefully, his future games will help hurdle that. I remember reading in interviews that this problem is one he feels that even he struggles with. Hope his struggles with pay off with more coherent games in the future.
hey now, sometimes one of those cash register cakes can be swell too
i love cash registers, you can keep a whole fruit salad stocked in there
timetokill
Banned
Games shouldn't have to rely on violence as their primary game mechanic, either.
Iacobellis
Junior Member
Not until they make Bioshock Vita.
Family Fry
Member
Yeah, yeah Ken.
NullPointer
Member
Games should provide their players with more options than stabbing or shooting people to death.
dragonbane
Member
If it's done like in The Last of Us then I'm okay with this. The violence really enhanced the narrative.
a Master Ninja
Member
It was on a magazine, and it still had the doily on!
Night_Trekker
Member
Art has no responsibilities or rules about content. Levine's intentions are good, and I see were he's coming from on this one, but he fuck right of with that high-minded nonsense.
They don't have to. Plenty of games don't.
But if most games do, that says less about the industry than it does about the consumers and their appetites. (Also the challenges of creating conflict that isn't violent in an interactive medium.)
They don't have to. Plenty of games don't.
But if most games do, that says less about the industry than it does about the consumers and their appetites. (Also the challenges of creating conflict that isn't violent in an interactive medium.)
John Kowalski
Banned
I personally think that there should be more focus on displaying how dangerous situations can be dismantled through something other than violence, but he does have a very good point. Problem is, many genres would require quite a shake, because anesthetized violent behavior is so intrinsic to their mechanics, and truthful representations of violence are no way to incentivise a player.
Brainfreeze
Member
Oh wow, this quotes gonna get twisted in every way possible. Probably shouldn't have phrased it like that.
I agree it should be done in some games, but that's assuming this is talking about that violence actually being pulled off in a way that sticks out; however violent it is murdering ten+ people then walking on like nothing happened to murder another ten+ people a few minutes later is not showing the "reality of violence".
Dreams-Visions
Member
Depends on if it's worth the resources, which are partially determined by the visual style of the game.
Games like Borderlands 2 and Diablo 3? nope.
Games like Battlefield, ARMA, CoD, and Crysis? sure.
But even then, the amount of time and energy required to create realistic bullet holes and screaming peoples...and leaving them on screen exhausts manpower and takes away from other things. YMMV on worth.
Games like Borderlands 2 and Diablo 3? nope.
Games like Battlefield, ARMA, CoD, and Crysis? sure.
But even then, the amount of time and energy required to create realistic bullet holes and screaming peoples...and leaving them on screen exhausts manpower and takes away from other things. YMMV on worth.
SeventhSon
Member
Adjacent to trash is trash.
Riposte
Member
Not necessarily. They should aim to be compelling and maybe taking away from stabbing/shooting by adding other options of some kind will hurt that.
EDIT: Combat games are always being made for a pretty good reason. They have work and continue to work, they have depth and can be improved upon. Foregoing combat or some highly established "verb" (ugh, the way people say this shit), you ought to replace it with something with similar complexity and depth. That is, some form of interactivity that is interesting as something more than a vehicle for non-interactive media.
Intheflorsh
Banned
But war is also super fun.
a Master Ninja
Member
Why is the player flying above the ground?
Night_Trekker
Member
What really makes me laugh about stupid opinions like Levine's is that all games are arguably an abstraction of war. The only reason we (and most animals) instinctively enjoy play, which is competitive and which has clear winners and losers, is because of our instinctual capacity for violent competition.
Which is not to say games should be violent. I'm all for as wide as possible a variety of gaming experiences.
Realism.
Which is not to say games should be violent. I'm all for as wide as possible a variety of gaming experiences.
Realism.
PuppetMaster
Member
All these years Mario games have been hiding the gory details of what happens to a living thing when you stomp on it so hard that it literally is absorbed into it's surroundings.
Sounds like someones going to try and make a new popular modern war fps?
Absolutely make it realistically gorey and horrific and don't use the bioshock engine. Might have the opposite intention whereby it desensitizes people to worse violence if they replay it a lot - but should do some good still, if he actually cares
Absolutely make it realistically gorey and horrific and don't use the bioshock engine. Might have the opposite intention whereby it desensitizes people to worse violence if they replay it a lot - but should do some good still, if he actually cares
Is this why my first forced action in BioShock Infinite was to vivisect someone's face off because they were being kinda racist?
I'm okay with inflicting gory realistic violence if I feel there's a realistic reason for why I have to. Infinite just felt like a big string of comically disproportionate responses.
I'm okay with inflicting gory realistic violence if I feel there's a realistic reason for why I have to. Infinite just felt like a big string of comically disproportionate responses.
DICKS AHOY
Banned
Bowser's skin literally melts off when you dunk him in lava in the first NSMB game, so there's that.
SeventhSon
Member
I've seen plenty of things on the internet that show real people torn apart but I'm not getting digital high-fives for it and therein lies the problem. As soon as the shooting started in Bioshock Infinite I was done with the game.
I think the reality is that very few people are actually slaughtering hundreds of other people with glamourous tools and getting rewards for it. If we wanted to makes games realistic then I think mass killing would be the first thing to go.
Or maybe just DRM lock my game for the length of multiple life-sentences.
I think the reality is that very few people are actually slaughtering hundreds of other people with glamourous tools and getting rewards for it. If we wanted to makes games realistic then I think mass killing would be the first thing to go.
Or maybe just DRM lock my game for the length of multiple life-sentences.
Gentleman Jack
Member
I suspect the reporter is getting mushy with the meanings of 'reality of violence' and 'fidelity of human mutilation.' Games often intentionally avoid both realistic motives and consequences for murdering one or more people, usually because to depict either of those too realistically would make the player feel uncomfortably like a psychopath instead of a hero. To me the reality of violence is more than just how gross it is when high velocity chunks of metal encounter flesh. Suggesting games can do this when media outlets fail to cover the real atrocities of war is a disservice to the real wool pulled over people's eyes about the human cost of international conflict.
Did you not... play the original game? You shouldn't really be surprised that the sequel to BioShock had gore and shooting.
He was using hacks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B957ZQt3IWI
(Video and gif made by our own Alo81).
Night_Trekker
Member
And both are fine in fiction. To suggest otherwise is to suggest there's some harm in reveling in fictional violence. Nobody has any proof of that, which just means they're making moral judgements about what offends them. Beyond individual, subjective concerns of politeness, nobody needs to care about that when creating art.
Kenshin001
Member
TLoU did a good job. It can be done.
Gore for gore's sake is pointless though. To be honest I'd prefer to see a more realistic take on the psychological impact of violence and conflict in games. Games tend to depict human reactions to brutality in a very superficial way.
You never see soldiers surrendering or pissing their pants or reactions to death in any meaningful way. The scene where Wade dies in Saving Private Ryan towers over everything ever done in a video game. That sort of thing could even be gameplay, trying to save a dying soldier as he bleeds to death. Ultimately futile, not fun, but it'd make a memorable counterpoint to mowing down 2000 Middle Eastern people.
Gore for gore's sake is pointless though. To be honest I'd prefer to see a more realistic take on the psychological impact of violence and conflict in games. Games tend to depict human reactions to brutality in a very superficial way.
You never see soldiers surrendering or pissing their pants or reactions to death in any meaningful way. The scene where Wade dies in Saving Private Ryan towers over everything ever done in a video game. That sort of thing could even be gameplay, trying to save a dying soldier as he bleeds to death. Ultimately futile, not fun, but it'd make a memorable counterpoint to mowing down 2000 Middle Eastern people.
John Kowalski
Banned
I think it's fairly obvious that he is referencing the kind of violence that is being erroneously depicted in journalistic media, i.e. the kind of violence that occurs in contexts of war and other similarly inherently violent events. Not every instance or kind of violence.
His argument is that "[he] believes that only video games can allow the consumer to feel what its like to live with an objectionable set of values, or to act ignobly.", so i'm fairly sure that he isn't asking all games to let go of their potential for unrealistic violence.
Andrew Korenchkin
Member
Oh god, this scene. I can't even watch this scene without crying.
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