Gamasutra kills children

[Starseeker]

Well, I think it's about acceptance into the mainstream media.

I have the nagging suspicion that gaming companies are going through a identity crisis for a while, and after seeing all the video game commercial on TV, I think I can confirm it.

There has always been this idea that games are for kids, and as "adults", we would eventually grow out of it. Gaming companies are similar in a strange way. Couple young guys good with computers have this great idea, pour in their blood, sweat and tear to make a product, and boom, it's a hit. The money rolled, and they get bigger. As the company gets bigger, the funders are encouraged to "grow up", and deal with the "adult" side of the business, sales, marketing, etc. And if they want to stay in control, they usually do.

But in NA, gaming has never really been accepted into the mainstream media. You will be hard pressed to find a game TV show that isn't catered to the 12 and under. Most gaming movies tank. I don't think I have ever seen a serious A listed actor/director been involved in a gaming franchise.

I mean, if painting was a father, music was a mother, books and photographs are the uncle and aunt, TV is the big brother, and movies the big sister, video games feel like the awkward little sister/brother that is trying to fit in but feels left out.

So gaming companies are trying to make decisions based on .., say, broad, cross-genre appeal, mass media coverage, and mainstream acceptance. I bet the PR department won't be happy if they had chose to leave the child killing in the game. The rational could go like this: 1. Success = respect, 2. a bad PR job could damage our chances of good media coverage, 3. our industry has already been haunted by incidents like Columbine.

 

[Iozeph]

I believe you hit the nail on the head, Starseeker. The last few generations have developed increasingly shorter attention spans in parallel to the evolution(I say devolution) of entertainment and news media.

News, theatre, and gaming have gone from hands-on activities that you'd actively participate in, on a more local level, to instant gratification over the modem/airwaves.

This "information" culture of instant gratification has evolved(again I'd say devolved) us into a generation used to getting our news/entertainment in easily-digested, but equally forgettable, soundbites and snippets. The problem with this is what we're seeing today.

When getting global, to-the-minute, news is as easy as flicking on on the telly or the PC, we don't have the proper time to mull over these issues before more are shoved in front of us- the so-called "information overload". I'd wager that, to compensate, we've become increasingly knee-jerk in our reactions. If anything, this is an unconscious rebellion, on our part, to reassert our impressions of self.

Look at how volatile world markets/national economies have become since the advent of the telegraph/teletype. Fortunes are now made and lost in minutes based solely on impressions of confidence and/or fear- and, as we're often finding today, when the commodity is something as intangible as a debt receipt.

So yes, first impressions mean even more today. If a big commercial retailer like Walmart declares your game as "inappropriate" you can have an overnight disaster- regardless of whether the game(possibly the end product of 5 or more years of your life) is actually something of quality.

Trust me, this is scarier than it at first appears. Our arts and entertainments are the reflexion of our hearts, minds, and souls. If we allow commerce to become the solitary arbiter of this creative process, then creation ceases in favour of imitation. Once that happens, we stagnate. We become nothing but mindless, heartless, and soulless automata.

And one could certainly argue that Bethesda's games, at the very least, lack soul.

 

[Sorrow]

Well, I think it's about acceptance into the mainstream media.

Games will not get the acceptance of mainstream media. Not when they are stealing potential audience from TV. Also, games offer tens/hundreds hours of fun for ~5-60$, so they are a very dangerous competition.

 

[Claw]

The moment Bethesda releases editing tools, I'll create a ChildKiller mod.

I also urge everyone else to do the same. Also, call Jack Thompson and accuse Bethesda of promoting murdering children.

 

[Lancelot]

Also, call Jack Thompson and accuse Bethesda of promoting murdering children.

Well, luckily that's not gonna happen. He got disbarred for 10 years.

 

[Kashrlyyk]

...No player should suffer from an in-character decision. ...

So Choices and consequences without the consequences!! So all the consequences talk is just bullshit! You don´t want them. "I want to play however I want and get away with everything I do."

If I'm satisfied with the kill and I want to play the game that way, I would like that possibility. Fallout games did well with this because as soon as you are a childkiller bounty hunters begin to acose you and the game gets rather difficult.

And? "Rather difficult" for you is "at last challenging" for someone else. For most players bounty hunters are just "more enemies, more XP, more loot, more challenge and more fun". Ergo the complete opposite of a disincentive. The problem is that real disincentives need to be annoying, but games are for entertainment. Just look on this forum, how many people are telling you that killing children with dynamites is fun and how many say the don´t like the consequences of killing children? I have never seen the latter, but quite some of the former.

...
Precisely, you reload because you don't like the outcome. When you reload, your previous actions are undone, or rather, haven't been done. You're terribly misunderstanding the concept here.
.....

When you reload you are not facing the consequences/your decisions, you are running from them.

....
You can't prevent a player from reloading his game after doing something bad, but if he does, he admits he screwed up. What's the better way to make the point killing children is bad ? The inability to kill them, or the reaction this would cause in the world (all NPC are shoot-on-sight, contract killers at every corner, etc...) that eventually leads to player to admit he made a bad choice.

Yes, you can. You can´t stop them from restarting the game.

.....
Oh, really? And why should everybody (supposing there's a source from which each and every person in the world hears about it) care that you murdered a kid? I'm sorry, but that just isn't how real-life works. Not everybody cares and you can bet your ass almost nobody would take it on themselves to punish you.
....

Because he is endangering the survival of the human race. The "New BOS" would punish you.

...
Err... What?
Consequences of committing atrocities should be in game world as a realistic reaction of the game world, not as a game punishing the player....

Bounty hunters shooting your head of is a "in game world reaction" don´t you agree??

Personally I would make the bounty hunters five people. Two with sniper rifles aiming at your legs crippling them than shooting at your head. One flamethrower guy with the +50% damage increase. Two others with big guns shooting your arms off. Of course they all have maxed combat skills and combat stats and have all the perks that increase their combat effectiveness. Maybe add a thief that puts a life grenade in your trousers. Or how about an assassin with the sandman perk killing you while you sleep???

 

[TheRatKing]

So Choices and consequences without the consequences!! So all the consequences talk is just bullshit! You don´t want them. "I want to play however I want and get away with everything I do."

read his sentence once more very slowly. No "player" should suffer from a n "in-character" decision. You should not be penalized if the insane psychopathic murderer you were role playing wants to kill kids.

how many say the don´t like the consequences of killing children

Having consequences also makes the game world seem more alive and believable. For example, if I kill the every inhabitant of Megaton except one, and came back 72 hours later, he would still talk to me.

When you reload you are not facing the consequences/your decisions, you are running from them.

When you reload, you are basically going back in time before your character made a decision. Consequences should affect the game world and the character. Having to restart a game if you made a slight error is a bad design mistake. Imagine all of the times you would have to go through the temple of trials. *shudders*

Because he is endangering the survival of the human race. The "New BOS" would punish you.

Ug. The whole new BOS thing really doesn't fit with the Fallout universe.

Personally I would make the bounty hunters five people. Two with sniper rifles aiming at your legs crippling them than shooting at your head. One flamethrower guy with the +50% damage increase. Two others with big guns shooting your arms off. Of course they all have maxed combat skills and combat stats and have all the perks that increase their combat effectiveness. Maybe add a thief that puts a life grenade in your trousers. Or how about an assassin with the sandman perk killing you while you sleep???

Thats certainly not very believable. If they had a five man army like that, then why are they only bounty hunters? Who do they work for that can pay for their skills? If they are "good", then why are they not stopping the mutant threat? If they are "bad" why are they not slaughtering rich people and taking their money?

 

[ravenshrike]

AFAIK (maybe i'm wrong) there is an international consensus signed into law that the _image_ of children should be protected from unreasonable depictions or something like that...

Given that art and parody are forms of protected speech in the US under the Constitution and given that any treaties signed and ratified by the US are subservient to that Constitution. that argument doesn't wash. They could always have made children killable and then done what they did for the overseas versions.

For the bulk of the game they're abominations, and even then you can't just kill them on-screen outright.

Sooo, you're good with killing Down's Syndrome and autistic kids then? Good to know. Whether or not they are abominations DOES NOT change the fact that they are children.

I clearly remember my first experience of the pick pocket kids in the Den (FO:2)

If you killed their 'control' they stopped picking your pockets.

 

[UncannyGarlic]

AFAIK (maybe i'm wrong) there is an international consensus signed into law that the _image_ of children should be protected from unreasonable depictions or something like that...

After digging around wikipedia for a good half-hour, I found what you're talking about, the "Convention on the Rights of the Child" (note that the rules created went into effect in 1990 and that Fallout was released in 1997), and while parts of it have been signed into law (all US related), the part protecting the image of a child (passed as part of a couple "Child Protection" acts) has been ruled unconstitutional in both cases that made it to the supreme court for violating the first amendment. That said, all of these acts have limited sexual representation, none, to my knowledge in the states, have dealt with other depictions, namely violent ones, but I think it's fair to say that it's clear that it's perfectly legal in the states to depict children however one wants.