5 ms·

Honestly I feel like the mainstream games industry is pretty chaste. A large part of the audience is younger, and it is their parents who are buying the games.

Honestly I feel like the mainstream games industry is pretty chaste. A large part of the audience is younger, and it is their parents who are buying the games. You want something to be engaging, maybe even edgy, but not so edgy that mom and dad wouldn't want little johnny playing it. Part of the equation is that combat is interesting to simulate. It has clear rules ( live or die ), a lot of different ways you can tweak the game design to differentiate ( swords vs guns vs spells vs karate ). The most popular games are NOT that violent. They simulate combat, but the draw is the competition created by the simulation, not the blood and guts. I can't name a game where "chopping people up" is the primary goal. I'm sure it exists, but I would find it dishonesty to disparage an entire medium because of the work of some niche game developer. I didn't grow up during a time when you could go out and wander the streets all day and your parents would be OK with that. You had to be home. Having friends over and competing over video games was a great way to pass the time. The game we played the most? Super Smash Bros. Rated E, 0 realistic simulations of violence, about as bad as any slapstick film.

SirYandi 6y ago
The closest examples of games where the main focus is violence for violence's sake are "Manhunt" and "Hatred". Both very controversial.
greggman3 6y ago
GTA3, Vice, SA, 4, and 5 are chaste? Far Cry 3, 4, 5? Red Dead Redemption series? God Of War 1, 2, 3, Reboot? The Witcher series? Mass Effect series? Are you sure we're talking about the same game industry?
- Macha 6y ago
  Honestly, GTA has been mellowing out over the years. the antics of running around a strip club beheading prostitutes as might have happened in vice city are replaced with a focus with the main story which most of the time would not be out of place on primetime TV - is it still set in a dark crime world, yes. But they've moved on from the level of shock factor of earlier titles. There's maybe one sequence in the first 40-50% of GTA V I played that I can recall as being very shocking.
  - shanemlk 6y ago
    I personally am not concerned about murder or shock, but I think it's worth saying what many people think. Many games containing violence are probably made in poor taste. For example, it would be a red flag for me when meeting someone if their favourite video game studio is Rockstar Games and that's all they like to play. It'd be like saying their favourite TV genre is reality TV and they're proud to watch it constantly. It's OK once in a while, but I hope they often expand their horizons. Rockstar's modern games certainly have some value, but relative to many other games they feel like technically-impressive immature time sinks. My snooty point aside, violent video games seem not to correlate with aggression, but I suspect they at least correlate with some annoying personality traits. Some artistic masterpieces worth consuming contain a lot of violence, I just don't think that's the norm, so it's easy for outsiders to lump "violent games" together as a threat.
- therealx 6y ago
  Yeah, they totally are. You aren't able to, in detail, say, operate on someone while they write in pain. Or, slowly cut up someone with a swored and watch their organs fall out as you laugh and kick salt in it. You can't try and force an abortion by kicking a pregnant NPC down the stairs over and over. These are just items off the top of my head. I am not saying I WANT or would play said game, but that level does not exist in these games.
  - tomc1985 6y ago
    GTA V has a fairly detailed torture sequence as part of the main plot, and IIRC it was the first AAA game to simulate a first-person lapdance Star Wars the Old Republic (the KOTOR MMO) gets pretty dark if you roll dark side. There's also torture, shooting innocents into the void of space, and a few of the class stories let you kill a lot of people for no reason other than that they're no longer useful to you. It's a bit campier than GTA but I can't think of any other RPGs that model being an real asshole quite so well. SWTOR is actually kind of an interesting example because it has EA and Disney behind it, even if the latter joined on after-the-fact and invalidated the canon the game is based on. Spoiler alert, but one of Far Cry 3's endings sees you murdered after climaxing during sex, all in first person. Hardly chaste, if you ask me.
- honkycat 6y ago
  Compared to Midsommar, Audition, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Antichrist, A Clockwork Orange, American History X, or The Human Centipede? Yeah I would describe GTA as pretty tame compared to those movies some of which have broken through to the mainstream. The average horror movie is more violent and gruesome than even the worst we see from video games. The Witcher and Mass Effect? Those are adult games with very lame sex scenes all of which are consensual. I don't see that as particularly scandalous.

SirYandi 6y ago

The closest examples of games where the main focus is violence for violence's sake are "Manhunt" and "Hatred". Both very controversial.

greggman3 6y ago

GTA3, Vice, SA, 4, and 5 are chaste? Far Cry 3, 4, 5? Red Dead Redemption series? God Of War 1, 2, 3, Reboot? The Witcher series? Mass Effect series? Are you sure we're talking about the same game industry?

Macha 6y ago
Honestly, GTA has been mellowing out over the years. the antics of running around a strip club beheading prostitutes as might have happened in vice city are replaced with a focus with the main story which most of the time would not be out of place on primetime TV - is it still set in a dark crime world, yes. But they've moved on from the level of shock factor of earlier titles. There's maybe one sequence in the first 40-50% of GTA V I played that I can recall as being very shocking.
- shanemlk 6y ago
  I personally am not concerned about murder or shock, but I think it's worth saying what many people think. Many games containing violence are probably made in poor taste. For example, it would be a red flag for me when meeting someone if their favourite video game studio is Rockstar Games and that's all they like to play. It'd be like saying their favourite TV genre is reality TV and they're proud to watch it constantly. It's OK once in a while, but I hope they often expand their horizons. Rockstar's modern games certainly have some value, but relative to many other games they feel like technically-impressive immature time sinks. My snooty point aside, violent video games seem not to correlate with aggression, but I suspect they at least correlate with some annoying personality traits. Some artistic masterpieces worth consuming contain a lot of violence, I just don't think that's the norm, so it's easy for outsiders to lump "violent games" together as a threat.
therealx 6y ago
Yeah, they totally are. You aren't able to, in detail, say, operate on someone while they write in pain. Or, slowly cut up someone with a swored and watch their organs fall out as you laugh and kick salt in it. You can't try and force an abortion by kicking a pregnant NPC down the stairs over and over. These are just items off the top of my head. I am not saying I WANT or would play said game, but that level does not exist in these games.
- tomc1985 6y ago
  GTA V has a fairly detailed torture sequence as part of the main plot, and IIRC it was the first AAA game to simulate a first-person lapdance Star Wars the Old Republic (the KOTOR MMO) gets pretty dark if you roll dark side. There's also torture, shooting innocents into the void of space, and a few of the class stories let you kill a lot of people for no reason other than that they're no longer useful to you. It's a bit campier than GTA but I can't think of any other RPGs that model being an real asshole quite so well. SWTOR is actually kind of an interesting example because it has EA and Disney behind it, even if the latter joined on after-the-fact and invalidated the canon the game is based on. Spoiler alert, but one of Far Cry 3's endings sees you murdered after climaxing during sex, all in first person. Hardly chaste, if you ask me.
honkycat 6y ago
Compared to Midsommar, Audition, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Antichrist, A Clockwork Orange, American History X, or The Human Centipede? Yeah I would describe GTA as pretty tame compared to those movies some of which have broken through to the mainstream. The average horror movie is more violent and gruesome than even the worst we see from video games. The Witcher and Mass Effect? Those are adult games with very lame sex scenes all of which are consensual. I don't see that as particularly scandalous.