What's with all the Brutally Violent Video Games out there?

[The Meek Geek]

Ok.

This is a Topic that's NOT on my Blog, and I'm not trying to promote ANYTHING this time. I just wanted to know something. Maybe my fellow AGS Members can shed some light on this matter:

What's with all the Brutally Violent Video Games out there?

I mean, COME-ON! Remember the good ole days of Atari. NES, SNES, SEGA, PC, Tandy - with fun characters and games like Pac-Man, Super Mario, Maniac Mansion, King's Quest, Sonic The Hedge Hog. Games that required skill and thought. Games that were generally safe for your kid or baby bro to play.

I mean, I'm not saying, stop making Brutally Violent Games like Halo , Call of Duty, and Grand Theft Auto... etc - I'm just saying, It seems they are making more and more of those kind of games, and less of more family-friendly games.

Am I the only guy here who notices that the Video Game Industry seems to preoccupied with brutality, gore, horror and mayhem?  Is it too much to ask for more nostalgic and happy games? Games that make you feel like you just stepped into a nostalgic arcade?

Or perhaps, the consumers share some responsibility, only being interested in those kind of games?

At least we've got games like Rock Band, Guitar Hero, NHL 2009, The Lego Series, etc...

That's just my rant. Whew.

[Domino]

I remember the good old days of DOOM.

You can't just cater to one type of gamer. You have to have a wide selection of genre's to pick from, and people like playing gorey games.  I like games of all types, but don't mind playing blood filled gore fest games either.

[SpacePaw]

I guess that at least you're right about the amount of GOOD not-violent games It decreases dramatically :/

[nihilyst]

Look at at this chart:


That's the ratings of all the videos games released in 2007 and 2008 in Germany. The games you mention tend to have a red rating (not for anyone under 18), some might go into blue (16+), if they are heavily cut. Even if you cut those out, there are 75% of games suitable for 12yos and younger. Sounds reasonable to me.
Unfortunately, there aren't any charts of the early years of the USK.

The adult-oriented games might have become more brutal, but I might be wrong.

[The Meek Geek]

 

That's my point. If people want to play DOOM like games, that's up to them. And if the Designers want to make those games, cuz they will make a big profit, that's ok too. It's a free country.

I just wish there was an equalizing. More GOOD Non-Violent, like SpacePaw mentions, or at least LESS-Violent Games for the rest of us. I'm not an extremest - I like to jump on a goomba or slay a dragon once in a while. But I'm not big on REALISTIC, brutal gore.


nihilyst - thanks so much for the interesting charts! It goes to show, at least in Germany, that more gamers want less graphically violent games.

If anybody else can come up with some more charts, that would be great!

[ManicMatt]

Isn't Germany really bad for censoring, banning and cutting out violence in games? Or is that just exagerated?

[SpacePaw]

Isn't Germany really bad for censoring, banning and cutting out violence in games? Or is that just exagerated?

Yea I heard that from many people from germany too..I guess it's true then.

[nihilyst]

Isn't Germany really bad for censoring, banning and cutting out violence in games? Or is that just exagerated?

Depends, and there's much discussion here about the process. Sometimes, the censoring is ridiculous, not only with games, but with movies also. The Happening for example was rated 16+ and was cut on the more violent scenes (i.e. all the scenes containing blood). Watchmen instead was also rated 16+, and as far as I now, it was uncut. It might be me, but I consider Watchmen way more (unnecessarily) brutal than the Happening. So much about that.

As far as games go, most of the shooters don't have blood or rag-doll-characters in it, but are 18+ nonetheless. Dead Space on the other hand was 18+, too, and uncut, by the way. Sometimes I just don't understand it.

At least all the sex and boobies can stay. I guess that's the better alternative.

Oh, and they have increased the size of the rating stickers.


Cool, eh? I guess it would have been better to rate RA3 18+. A red one would be a tad more suitable, don't you think?

It's even cooler on the much smaller Nintendo DS covers:

[Ghost]

Isn't Germany really bad for censoring, banning and cutting out violence in games? Or is that just exagerated?

I think we do have the most harsh system indeed. I played all the Command and Conquer games, for example, while being told that the units were cyborgs. I needed to get highly creative just to purchase a copy of Duke Nukem 3D. We always get the blood cut out/disabled, german Fallout is hardly playable due to almost a dozen quests being cut, and so on. It's not exaggerated, it's the plain truth.

And each time a german pupil decides to shoot someone, Bild Zeitung makes sure to shove a copy of Counterstrike into his bedroom before they do any reports.

Sometimes makes me wonder why that must be so.

[BOYD1981]

if they do ban all violent games then it'll be interesting to see what they blame the next shooting on.
i really do dislike the way (as it seems to an outsider anyway) that Germany kinda throws a blanket over and just tries to censor/ban violent things.
i'm not entirely sure but isn't anything to do with teaching kids about nazis illegal - or is that just nazi imagery?
and they do say that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, but then again they also say that the only thing we learn from history is that we don't learn from history (and the second one is probably more true anyway).

it's also stupid how the media in all countries ignores the large amount of people playing games the very small amount of people who play games and go on to commit a violent act, and given how many people play videogames these days it's not surprising to find that somebody owns atleast one violent one.
it's really all too easy to blame games for bad decisions that people make rather than face the truth that some people just aren't good people to begin with or are turned bad by the actions of other bad people, and it's always exclusively violent actions that are connected with videogames - you never see Sim City being blamed for poor decisions made by politicians.

and while people may say "oh well the real problem is guns" (and i used to be one of those people) you have to realise that the popularity of guns, especially that of america, is more widespread and spread across a larger age range than that of videogames, and still there are very few shootings by people who either own guns legally or otherwise. and you know what? you could even argue that if more people had guns the casualty count of school/workplace/public shootings would be a lot less because people would open fire on the gunman.

and personally i don't think games are becoming too violent, i just think the way they portray it is becoming increasingly ridiculous and unrealistic, and as such i don't actually consider it violence at all.
pillowfights are more violent than videogames, but there are no calls to ban pillows.

[Ghost]

i'm not entirely sure but isn't anything to do with teaching kids about nazis illegal - or is that just nazi imagery?

On the contraty. It's perfectly normal to be told at school how things were. It's part of our shedule. It's illegal to own and showcase nazi memorabilia though, and that's a thing I can understand.

you could even argue that if more people had guns the casualty count of school/workplace/public shootings would be a lot less because people would open fire on the gunman.

Now thats an intriguing argument... But then who would stop the gunmen that shoot the gunman?

[The Meek Geek]

 :o

"When young children see somebody shot, stabbed, raped, brutalized, degraded, or murdered on TV, to them it is as though it were actually happening. To have a child of three, four, or five watch a "splatter" movie, learning to relate to a character for the first 90 minutes and then in the last 30 minutes watch helplessly as that new friend is hunted and brutally murdered is the moral and psychological equivalent of introducing your child to a friend, letting her play with that friend, and then butchering that friend in front of your child's eyes. And this happens to our children hundreds upon hundreds of times.

Sure, they are told: "Hey, it's all for fun. Look, this isn't real, it's just TV." And they nod their little heads and say, "okay." But they can't tell the difference. Can you remember a point in your life or in your children's lives when dreams, reality, and television were all jumbled together? That's what it is like at that level of psychological development. That's what the media is doing to them."  :o


http://killology.com/art_trained_methods.htm

[rbaleksandar]

We live in a perverted, mind-twisted and bloodsucking world nowadays. I don't like this. I mean, I play action games (CoD, HL2, MoH, Doom (1&2), Wolfenstein etc.) but there are some really violent games - Postal, Manhunt etc. Movies with such content aren't my taste either.
1.It's stupid ketchup-effect that for an adult may be funny, but for a child it's real.
2.No content. Seriously, guys, how many games/movies with so much violence have somekind of fascinating storyline? This games are all visual and sound effects.
3.It's dull. If I play something like Postal (here's a >>link<< to see some video from this game to see what I mean), I'll feel stupid after that. I don't like it.
4.Being a "hero" that spreads pain, destruction etc. makes people think they are invinsible. BIG MISTAKE!

[Makeout Patrol]

nihilyst - thanks so much for the interesting charts! It goes to show, at least in Germany, that more gamers want less graphically violent games.

If anybody else can come up with some more charts, that would be great!

Germany might be getting more heavily localized games than the rest of the world, but video games are a global medium and they most certainly are not getting different games altogether. E's and T's are much more common than M's in the ESRB's stomping grounds:

[LordJerus]

What category does disaster report and Raw danger fit in?







Ok i just wanted to mention them

[Trent R]

E's and T's are much more common than M's in the ESRB's stomping grounds:

I think this is largely to the success (although not my fav. Gen Console) of the Wii. There are very few 'violent games' for the Wii, and the ones that are are usually on the 360 and PS3 as well.

Plus, small developers can rapidly kick out crap gimmicky games for the Wii, which probably constitute 1380+ of the 1677 ratings.


~Trent

[Ubel]

Back in the time of NES and such all gaming was considered to be for children so few adults took part in it by themselves. Some genius game developer thought they might find a potential new group of customers in adults. Now, how could gaming be made more appealing to adults so that they don't feel like they're playing a kids' game... Of course! Drugs, sex and violence! \o/

And they saw that it was good. The more violence they put in their games, the more money kept pouring in. It worked, so why change it?

Then they overdid it. And here we are, still buying their games but now complaining about the violence.

I don't think it's any more complicated than that. I'm not much of a gamer myself and I don't really enjoy all this bloodfest that's in so many games nowadays. I was surprised how unentertaining I found GTA4 in the end. I'm not sure if that's got anything to do with the violence but I do believe it's getting a bit old. Like with adventure games, people will eventually get bored of it and there will be a new fad in game development.

[SpacePaw]

I dont know about you guys but IMO violent games may in fact HELP to fight violence. When I feel angry I just turn on my wii and play dead rising, or beat up some guys on GTA IV, or play a L4D campaign. If you couldnt kill your stress in that way you would keep it in you and it would grow and grow and who knows, maybe when it finally explodes you just beat up someone on the street. Just for fun. So I think it's not always bad to have violent games. It helps people with the temporary need to beat someone up (not saying that's a good need in first place I would never beat anyone up just for fun, and violent games DO NOT make me feel like it either).
Anyone having similiar opinion?

[Trent R]

The real issue is 8 year old playing those games. But most of the teens that say "I shot him cause I saw it in GTA" are messed up in the first place and it has nothing to do with video games.

@SpacePaw--I totally get what you mean.

And finally, I don't care what ramifications it may have to my psyche, who doesn't have fun getting chased by the cops across Liberty City?!

~Trent

[rbaleksandar]

I dont know about you guys but IMO violent games may in fact HELP to fight violence. When I feel angry I just turn on my wii and play dead rising, or beat up some guys on GTA IV, or play a L4D campaign.

Totally true, Dr.Spacepaw For me it's a round in Mortal Kombat 4 on training and easiest level -> noone can kill you and you beat the sh*t out of the guys a*se. :D:D After that I feel so calm In a creepy way.