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> It's sentences like these that make me think the author has completely neglected the technical and financial difficulty of game development. I tend to disagr

> It's sentences like these that make me think the author has completely neglected the technical and financial difficulty of game development. I tend to disagree. If the creators (and/or the players) thought it was important to portray death more accurately, effort would go into it. Look at the effort that goes into boob physics. The fact that that's even a term shows that video game writers are more than willing to work on simulating things that are _really hard_ if they think it will sell games. The fact that it wouldn't is the point.

TeMPOraL 11y ago
I disagree with the part you quoted too. First of all, games are art form, they're not purely money driven, and some are not even tech driven, but they drive tech. Secondly, games were experimenting a lot with death. It used to be that your character just fell and disappeared. Then you could wound or chop off its limbs. It would die differently when shot than when falling, etc. Heck, Dwarf Fortress actually does simulate arrows penetrating internal organs and its consequences in great detail. The ultimate reason why games portray death in simplified, binary way is the same as reason why movies portray death in simplified, binary way - because if you went into gory details of last moments of a person with a lung punctured by a bullet, desperately trying to catch a breath while slowly bleeding out, calling out to his god or his family, your player would freak out and probably puke. That is assuming that you'd be allowed to sell the game in the first place. Games and movies are meant to be enjoyable, not disturbing, so death is always simplified, unless there's a strong reason to go into details.
anonymfus 11y ago
Mortal Kombat is example of game series where significant effort was spent on death scenes ("fatalities"). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatality_(Mortal_Kombat) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatality_(Mortal_Kombat)

TeMPOraL 11y ago

I disagree with the part you quoted too. First of all, games are art form, they're not purely money driven, and some are not even tech driven, but they drive tech. Secondly, games were experimenting a lot with death. It used to be that your character just fell and disappeared. Then you could wound or chop off its limbs. It would die differently when shot than when falling, etc. Heck, Dwarf Fortress actually does simulate arrows penetrating internal organs and its consequences in great detail. The ultimate reason why games portray death in simplified, binary way is the same as reason why movies portray death in simplified, binary way - because if you went into gory details of last moments of a person with a lung punctured by a bullet, desperately trying to catch a breath while slowly bleeding out, calling out to his god or his family, your player would freak out and probably puke. That is assuming that you'd be allowed to sell the game in the first place. Games and movies are meant to be enjoyable, not disturbing, so death is always simplified, unless there's a strong reason to go into details.

anonymfus 11y ago

Mortal Kombat is example of game series where significant effort was spent on death scenes ("fatalities"). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatality_(Mortal_Kombat) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatality_(Mortal_Kombat)