Gay Marriage, Child Molestors, Torture, Abortion & Nihilism

[MetalMagpie]

I'm actually struggling to think of many games that have marriage in at all. The Sims (1, 2 and 3) includes marriage and very much does allow gay marriage. (Although I'm still awaiting a version of the games where you can give your sims a defined sexuality, instead of them all being completely bi.)

Torture seems to come up just as often in games as it does in films. That is, not often graphically (because it hikes the age certificate) but implied a reasonable amount. I'm not sure quite what there is to "address" about torture beyond "it's not a very nice thing to do to someone". I guess a game could have a moral choice over whether or not to extract vital information from an NPC by waterboarding them.

Abortion seems like a difficult thing to add into any game without it feeling tacked on for shock value. And I'm fairly sure child molesters have been included in at least a couple of (indie) titles. Again, it doesn't feel like there's much to address beyond "They are not nice people". And the all-important headline-grabbing shock value, of course.

 

[hazabaza1]

Objection! Mass Effect 2 DID speak out against torture!

Again, purely implied- never actually demonstrated.

"Look at the poor jabbering insane man in a completely sealed body suit! *See* how he's suffered! *Hear* the pain in his voice. Doesn't he just sound totally distraught? ... You still here? Go shoot some robots in the face."

Actually, you do see that prisoner getting the shit beaten out of him.
It's kind of separate from the player's experience, but it's still there.

 

[Meatspinner]

Isn't every game where you are fighting those pesky rebels/insurgents/terrorist but end up switching sides because they are "a-ok", a nihilist themed game?
Hell, aren't most games that have you fight a oppressive authority a nihilist themed game (Half-life 3 anyone?)

Or am I just not getting it?

I'm really curious as to what exactly you think "nihilism" means...

An ideology that seeks to challenge established norms with objective truth. I know there is a lot more to it than that but i didn't feel like writing an essay.

That or or it's a doomsday cult of baby eating, bad guys that hate god or something like that

I probably should have said those games have an element of it instead of a theme though

 

[DoPo]

Isn't every game where you are fighting those pesky rebels/insurgents/terrorist but end up switching sides because they are "a-ok", a nihilist themed game?
Hell, aren't most games that have you fight a oppressive authority a nihilist themed game (Half-life 3 anyone?)

Or am I just not getting it?

No, not exactly. Fighting Da Man is not really the crux of nihilism, unless it's additionally painted that way. Nihilism would be the belief that any of the values we perceive in anything are not inherent. Fighting a corrupt power because you think they are evil is not nihilistic, especially if you claim your side is in any way "better" than them. Both "good" and "bad" would be meaningless labels in this case when it comes to nihilism.

In a way, Assassin's Creed touches upon the subject but doesn't expand as much as it could - "Nothing is true. Everything is permitted." That is actually nihilistic - the beliefs, the values, the thoughts about the world we have...are meaningless in the grand concept of things. They may make sense to you, but they are purely a construct of your own mind - without your thoughts and consciousness to back them up, they are without sense. That's it - nothing you think is true. The laws of society are to be ignored if they get in your way, same with the notion of good and evil. That's the whole meaning behind the phrase: nihilism at it's core - don't hold any values as absolute, for they are artificial - invent your own.

 

[James Joseph Emerald]

Isn't every game where you are fighting those pesky rebels/insurgents/terrorist but end up switching sides because they are "a-ok", a nihilist themed game?
Hell, aren't most games that have you fight a oppressive authority a nihilist themed game (Half-life 3 anyone?)

Or am I just not getting it?

I'm really curious as to what exactly you think "nihilism" means...

An ideology that seeks to challenge established norms with objective truth. I know there is a lot more to it than that but i didn't feel like writing an essay.

That or or it's a doomsday cult of baby eating, bad guys that hate god or something like that

I probably should have said those games have an element of it instead of a theme though

Where did you come up with that? Nihilism is a general belief that everything is meaningless and life has no point.
So, for example, Kefka from Final Fantasy 6 is a nihilist because he wants to end the world just for the craic.

 

[CaptainMarvelous]

Gay Marriage - how many games address marriage at all? I can think of...less than five, and one of them is Fable which allows it.

Child Molestors - touchy subject. Games try to stray away from depiction of kids especially ones where they are hurt, because they fear the media outcry.

Torture - what would you want to see addressed? Because more than a few games featured torture (offscreen or fade to black) with the clear implication that it's not nice. I would say games feature close to the same amount of torture (maybe a bit less) as other media. Torture isn't really popular anywhere.

Abortion - it's a bit outside the scope of games again. Very rarely do they deal with pregnancy and/or birth.

Nihilism - plenty of games feature their take on villains who want to destroy all because nothing has a meaning (to paraphrase). Arcanum does it really good, too. Again, what do you want addressed in particular?

Birth/marriage are kind of joint issues that games need to start acknowledging at some point if the medium is ever gonna mature.

Go ahead and mention your ideas on how to make that the central theme of a engaging game.

And child immortality is a joke. It cheapens gaming, and it cheapens morality. "Kids are automatically innocent and good! We can't let anything happen to them! Send for plot armor!"

Except that they kind of are. Have you ever met a child that way able to comprehend and do something bad enough to warrant it's death? No? Didn't think so.

As for torture, I wanna see it represented in a non disney fashion. It's only ever *implied* to happen, it doesn't actually happen. If there was a more visceral representation of the act you'd get a much much stronger reaction to it. (Also: Saw, Hostel & The Human Centipede. I win.)

Black Ops had you in both the role of the tortured and the torturer at some point.

And I know there are nihilistic *characters*, I wanna see a nihilistic *game*. One where hopelessness, self deception and oblivion are central themes.

Isn't that pretty much the theme of every JRPG ever?

Actually, this kinda hits the nail on the head of what I was thinking. You can say games need more Gay Marriage, or Child Molestation or whatever but how do you get it into the game? Nihilism you can work in as the main theme, heck it'd probably be good, but Torture and what not? Saw: The Game, there -I- Win.

Games could well include more of this stuff but WHAT game? A grittier MGS maybe? Call of Duty when they run out of shocking mid-game moments?

Genuine question for OP, what kind of game would have this in?

 

[Meatspinner]

Where did you come up with that? Nihilism is a general belief that everything is meaningless and life has no point.
So, for example, Kefka from Final Fantasy 6 is a nihilist because he wants to end the world just for the craic.

That was the impression I got from the Russians and the ancient Greeks, my history classes didn't really delve deep in to that ideology

No, not exactly. Fighting Da Man is not really the crux of nihilism, unless it's additionally painted that way. Nihilism would be the belief that any of the values we perceive in anything are not inherent. Fighting a corrupt power because you think they are evil is not nihilistic, especially if you claim your side is in any way "better" than them. Both "good" and "bad" would be meaningless labels in this case when it comes to nihilism.

In a way, Assassin's Creed touches upon the subject but doesn't expand as much as it could - "Nothing is true. Everything is permitted." That is actually nihilistic - the beliefs, the values, the thoughts about the world we have...are meaningless in the grand concept of things. They may make sense to you, but they are purely a construct of your own mind - without your thoughts and consciousness to back them up, they are without sense. That's it - nothing you think is true. The laws of society are to be ignored if they get in your way, same with the notion of good and evil. That's the whole meaning behind the phrase: nihilism at it's core - don't hold any values as absolute, for they are artificial - invent your own.

Thank you clarifying. Pretty much everything I know about nihilism i draw from 19th century Russia.

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

Someone hasn't played The Path.

 

[CaptainMarvelous]

The Abortion Clinic : Abortion Overload

Level 1 Doctor at the start of the game gets a coathanger and a baseball bat.

And suddenly I can't look at my Wiimote any more

 

[Kennetic]

There is torture in plenty of games and the Sims 3 has gay marriage and that's just off the top of my head

 

[spartan231490]

Gaming as a medium isn't well equipped to deal with most of these. I mean, how do you build a game around gay marriage? How do you build a game around abortion? It's not really surprising it hasn't been seriously addressed in a game, these topics are way to important to just tack on a 5 minute section about them, and the medium of gaming isn't well suited to spending a large amount of time on them. It could be done, I'm sure, but it would take a lot more time and creativity than goes in to almost any game.

 

[spartan231490]

There is torture in plenty of games and the Sims 3 has gay marriage and that's just off the top of my head

Just because a game has a topic, doesn't mean that it addresses it in a meaningful way.

The Abortion Clinic : Abortion Overload

Level 1 Doctor at the start of the game gets a coathanger and a baseball bat.

OT: Tbh, that'd be quite boring games either that or quite disgusting. These subjects are likely best explored via documentaries.

That was horrifyingly disgusting, I threw up in my mouth a little. Well done.

I think these things are just too mental to be well addressed via gaming. They are much easier to address seriously with books, where you get to experience the mental anguish of those involved every single page, or documentaries where the sheer numbers and statistics can overwhelm you.

 

[Emiscary]

Gaming as a medium isn't well equipped to deal with most of these. I mean, how do you build a game around gay marriage? How do you build a game around abortion? It's not really surprising it hasn't been seriously addressed in a game, these topics are way to important to just tack on a 5 minute section about them, and the medium of gaming isn't well suited to spending a large amount of time on them. It could be done, I'm sure, but it would take a lot more time and creativity than goes in to almost any game.

I'm honestly floored by how limited people's imagination is when it comes to birth/abortion in games.

Okay, you wanna know how to incorporate reproduction into a game? Let's start at step 1: courtship. Games have taken a crack at this already, so we've got something to work with right off the bat. The cycle of flirt -> fetch quest -> sex is well documented. So if you're going to include romances into your game, than set it up so that if you boink the right character at the right time- BAM. Impregnation. Which leads us neatly to the issue of abortion. Quite plainly, if you knocked someone up who you didn't *WANT* to impregnate (IE: that one whore you picked up at the pub/yourself if you're a lady), than you've got cause to wanna get rid of the child- correct? So give me a way to do so. And then design an encounter around it. (And don't just make it a checkbox. IE: Keep Bastard/Kill Bastard. It's a human life, and your opinion about its ultimate destiny is not automatically that of the other parent.)

Honest to god people get an imagination -.-

 

[Something Amyss]

What do these things have in common? No game (that I've ever heard of anyway) has ever made a serious attempt at addressing any of them.

Along with about a billion other things. Wondering why these specifically. If the rest of your posts stated why, I apologise, but it seemed unclear.

 

[Charli]

Putting them in main focus? Nope, but implications? Definately.

It's hard to want to put any of them (Minus the gay relationships/marriage one, that one will come with time) in focus to be honest..

 

[suitepee7]

As for torture, I wanna see it represented in a non disney fashion. It's only ever *implied* to happen, it doesn't actually happen. If there was a more visceral representation of the act you'd get a much much stronger reaction to it. (Also: Saw, Hostel & The Human Centipede. I win

Spoiler

i think you'll find there's a lot of torture scenes in games

 

[James Joseph Emerald]

Also, it seems to be a little-known fact that Big Boss is a child molester [http://ie.psp.ign.com/articles/109/1095337p1.html].

(Skip to 8:50)

 

[spartan231490]

Gaming as a medium isn't well equipped to deal with most of these. I mean, how do you build a game around gay marriage? How do you build a game around abortion? It's not really surprising it hasn't been seriously addressed in a game, these topics are way to important to just tack on a 5 minute section about them, and the medium of gaming isn't well suited to spending a large amount of time on them. It could be done, I'm sure, but it would take a lot more time and creativity than goes in to almost any game.

I'm honestly floored by how limited people's imagination is when it comes to birth/abortion in games.

Okay, you wanna know how to incorporate reproduction into a game? Let's start at step 1: courtship. Games have taken a crack at this already, so we've got something to work with right off the bat. The cycle of flirt -> fetch quest -> sex is well documented. So if you're going to include romances into your game, than set it up so that if you boink the right character at the right time- BAM. Impregnation. Which leads us neatly to the issue of abortion. Quite plainly, if you knocked someone up who you didn't *WANT* to impregnate (IE: that one whore you picked up at the pub/yourself if you're a lady), than you've got cause to wanna get rid of the child- correct? So give me a way to do so. And then design an encounter around it. (And don't just make it a checkbox. IE: Keep Bastard/Kill Bastard. It's a human life, and your opinion about its ultimate destiny is not automatically that of the other parent.)

Honest to god people get an imagination -.-

No, that's just not a legitimate way to address a topic this important. That's just tacking a 5 minute section onto the romance option, that's not enough. If you want to address a topic that controversial, you really need to do it well, which means you need to spend a lot of time on it. It needs to be involved in a major mechanic of the game, or it's just one of those idiotic "controversial" sections that they put in games to get free advertising. Doing that to something as controversial and important as these topics is a dis-service to everyone involved.