How Would YOU Explain This...

[The-Epicly-Named-Man]

Children are weak and defenseless. Who would harm a child? Nobody. So why add a feature that will do more harm that good?

If no one wants to kill a child, why would it do more harm than good to add non-invulnerable kids to games?

 

[zerobudgetgamer]

Adults are also weak and defenseless in their civilian form. Why is it okay to murder them?
And how come we still have games like Dead Space, which floods you with killer-zombie children?

And why do you think it will add more harm than good? Because of public outcry from non-gamers? Here is a newsflash: People get used to anything if you just expose them to it, so the sooner we start actually doing stuff, the sooner people will forget about it.

Also, saying nobody would harm a child is very incorrect. I'll just quote Yahtzee here: The character of your ingame personality is not the same as your real personality. It's about as usuful an argument as saying "Who would take a flamethrower and start burning people to death in a major city?" I'll answer that: I would, and have done so several times in Grand Theft Auto. Would i do it in real life? Obviously not, but when I'm playing GTA, I'm not playing myself.

I'll try to answer your questions in the order given.

Well, technically it isn't okay, it's only slightly less cruel to murder an adult because they have a higher capacity to defend themselves than a child does. Whether or not they utilize that capacity is irrelevant, they are more capable, thus it is not considered as bad when it is an adult.

I believe "Killer-Zombie" is the operative phrase there. As long as it isn't "human," there's less flak given about killing something that is a youth. Most games implement this. Wolf Cubs, Dragon Hatchlings, and then the aforementioned Zombie children. As long as they can show that the thing your killing isn't human, then the age of that thing is up for grabs.

Yes, public outcry would be risen should games showcase the killing of youth. It would give anti-gaming lobbyists further ammunition to try to ban certain games from being sold and/or made, and in some rare cases it could rewire more impressionable minds into thinking that killing children is okay, especially if the game in question handles said killing poorly, which would then multiply said ammunition massively.

Now, for my own comments. You say people will get used to "anything," and to just "start actually doing stuff" so they'll eventually "forget about it." With that mentality, how can you really say that a game involving the murder of children, especially to the extent that some games take with killing zombies or aliens or even other humans, is going to do ANY good AT ALL?? Is there a reason we NEED a game that involves or focuses on killing children? Do we really NEED a game with such "realism?"

Now, while I'll give kudos to quoting Yahtzee, you have to remember he's a well-adjusted, handsome god of a man, who would never kill another human being in real life unless they wholly deserved it. However, he would not be against burning down an entire city of civilians in a video game because, let's be honest, we've all had such thoughts percolating deep down within our psyches, and video games help us vent them so that we are not so tempted to recreate them in real life. So, saying that, allow me to ask you this. Have you ever wanted to kill a child? I don't mean hit a child, or shake a child, I mean outright MURDER a child, possibly in front of their parents? I know we've all met a child or two we just want to give a good backhand to for being such a pain in the ass, but I don't think many of us would outright want to KILL them.

Now, if the child were to pose a legitimate threat to the player, then sure, fine, go ahead and kill them. But as I and many others have said, children are relatively defenseless compared to adults, and many of us feel an inherent need to protect them. A game that features child-killing, without doing it in some sort of tasteful or meaningful manner, is just going for shock factor, which is only going to fuel the flame wars even further.

 

[Blunderboy]

Sorry for my prior post, missed the point of the thread.

All the children live elsewhere, like the Krogan females.

 

[RevRaptor]

I used the mod that added children to morrowind, now all I need is a mod to launch the little buggers from a catapult. The villagers will be talking about the mysterious day it rained babies for years to come.

 

[Joccaren]

Umm. I think the point of this thread was an in game explanation for fun, not a full on talk about why children aren't allowed to be killed in most modern games - which we pretty much all seem to understand.

I personally believe it is a form of old magic imposed when the world began, making any child invulnerable until they grow to an age where they are deemed 'able' to defend themselves, with the intent on keeping the human/Player Character/Child's Character from going extinct. In the past this was abused, and too many invulnerable children were had, and it began to damage the community and land. Those children were taught about the danger of having too many children, and as such do not shag unless the child quota of their village falls below a certain level, to keep the population alive but not overflowing.


And on the topic of why we really can't kill children in games, its not just sick people that want children to be able to die. Imagine this, Fable 4 or something and they decide to implement destructibility.
You gather up your strongest fireball and shoot it at the house of some guy who gave you a bad look. The house collapses down in a massive inferno, the guy and his wife and his father and his mother and their friends all come running and screaming out of the house and burn to cinders at you feat. The top layer of the house collapses, then the bottom, and in a huge cloud of dust and smoke the whole thing falls down. You look at all the corpses just outside the house, and the utter destruction you've caused. Suddenly, from the rubble, out walks a little kid who isn't hurt, isn't covered in charcoal, isn't even phased by what has happened. He just walks up to you and says you have a big nose or something then goes back 'inside' and waits for dinner or something. Kinda immersion breaking and stupid - YOU are the chosen one, not this snot nosed kid!
If that kid had of been carried out by the mother and died with her, or run out on his/her own and still burnt to death, or escaped or something, it would have had a much greater emotional impact. You may regret killing the kid, seeing as no-one regrets killing fake adults but people regret killing fake kids that much that its not allowed, you may spare the kid seeing what you've done to his family. There is far more room for emotional feedback if the kids are allowed to die, and they can be collateral damage someone didn't think about. Sure, some sick people might decide to use it to torture fake kids, but that's time their not spending doing it to real kids, and they would be in that small a minority that I honestly wouldn't worry about it.

 

[Red Bomb]

I don't really care either way. I don't like children and do not see a problem with them being kill-able in games. Doesn't mean I'm going to do it in real life.

But I also agree with Blunderboy. The daily Fail (Mail) and the like would have a field day with it and stigmatize gamers even more than they already do.

 

[Rawne1980]

Children are weak and defenseless. Who would harm a child? Nobody. So why add a feature that will do more harm that good?

In Fallout 3, about 6 mods came out where you could kill the children in that game.

Those mods had a combined total of 136.000 unique downloads.

That means 136.000 people wanted to kill those little bastards in Little Lamplight.

I was one of them. Me and my Mini Gun had a good old game of hide and seek with them.

Now on to your point.....

IT'S A GAME, IT'S NOT REAL IT DOESN'T RESEMBLE REAL LIFE.

Getting so sick of people trying to pin their morals on a form of entertainment that doesn't involve real people or cause any real harm to a person.

 

[Exerzet]

Ok, try thinking of the dead island trailer, and the controversy that sparked. The "monsters" in the dead island production team were going to - le gasp - add children to the apocolyptic events of the game. This generated so much nonsensical hate for the game, and even some activist groups wanting the game banned, that they had to scrap all the child models in the game, and replace them with fully grown humans.

Am I the only one finding it retarded? Especially considering all the other stuff going on in that game, to cencor THAT out?

Also, trying to talk to a grown-ass woman who asks me (in a child's voice) to fetch her teddy or she cannot sleep, is creepier than any ammount of zombies. -_-

 

[ExileNZ]

Children are weak and defenseless. Who would harm a child? Nobody. So why add a feature that will do more harm that good?

Children are, much of the time, rotten little cunts. I'm sorry, but it's true. We were bad enough when I was one myself, they didn't get any better as I left my adolescence and they're not showing much sign of improving now.

Don't get me wrong. I don't hate children. But as often as not, they're no more intrinsically "weak and defenseless" than women are (and if you want to argue that latter point, go right ahead but do it FAR away from me).

Children are "innocent" in the sense that they can't be expected to appreciate the full implications of their actions towards other people, so they can't be held accountable. To some extent, at least. That doesn't mean they don't do horrible, HORRIBLE things to each other. That doesn't mean they don't enjoy beating on the weak, ostracising the different or pulling limbs off bugs and small animals. It doesn't mean they don't beam with pride when they push their school teacher to a mental breakdown (I've seen all these happen and I'll bet anyone reading this has seen at least 2 of them).

This isn't necessarily an argument for including the ability to kill them in games, but it does break immersion and any game with an open world and an 'anything goes' attitude will suffer for its removal.

Children can be wonderful. I hope to one day have my own. But let's not kid ourselves.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Children are weak and defenseless. Who would harm a child? Nobody.

Psychopaths and people who want to see if it's possible, both of which should be satisfied by the only game in living memory that lets you do it: Deus Ex.

[/shameless plug]

OT: No, really. You can use a pistol, crossbow, shotgun, assault rifle, flamethrower or rocket launcher against absolutely anyone in Deus Ex, including unarmed civilians and children. And it doesn't give you an instant game over; all you get is a tongue-lashing, and not even right away in most cases.

 

[Athinira]

Well, technically it isn't okay, it's only slightly less cruel to murder an adult because they have a higher capacity to defend themselves than a child does. Whether or not they utilize that capacity is irrelevant, they are more capable, thus it is not considered as bad when it is an adult.

I believe "Killer-Zombie" is the operative phrase there. As long as it isn't "human," there's less flak given about killing something that is a youth. Most games implement this. Wolf Cubs, Dragon Hatchlings, and then the aforementioned Zombie children. As long as they can show that the thing your killing isn't human, then the age of that thing is up for grabs.

Whether or not it's human is more or less irrelevant. What matters is that the killer-zombie children in Dead Space was portrayed as having BEEN actual children (and babies) once.

In Dead Space 2, you walk through kindergardens, nursing homes etc. which are quite clearly portrayed as places where children used to grow up from when they where less than a year old, and the setting and story clearly conveys that these poor things have been turned into monsters. You don't actually see it happen, but it's there, and you get to see their new incarnations attack you, explode and you get to kill them yourself.

Yes, public outcry would be risen should games showcase the killing of youth. It would give anti-gaming lobbyists further ammunition to try to ban certain games from being sold and/or made, and in some rare cases it could rewire more impressionable minds into thinking that killing children is okay, especially if the game in question handles said killing poorly, which would then multiply said ammunition massively.

The same argument could be made for violent games in general. You could argue that GTA rewire people into killing civilians and cops.

Listen. Either we take a stand, and accept that all the "Games are turning people into killers" talk is bullsh*t or we don't. You don't just go half-way and say "It's okay if people get the impression that killing civilians, cops etc. is okay, as long as they don't kill children". I'm sure you can see how silly that is.

By not taking a stand, we as gamers (and game designers/publishers) are admitting to the very thing those anti-violent-games lobbyists are trying to make people believe, even if it isn't true. One game that stood out for me was Modern Warfare 2 and it's Airport Terrorist attack. Even if Infinity Ward made it possible to skip that level and warned you about it, i applaud them for taking a stand and basically saying "Screw this, we're going for something that makes sense, even if it portrays something terribly cruel that touches some peoples most primal fear of terrorism in this day and age".

We both can't and shouldn't let those non-gaming idiots affect our passion for the medium, because that just empowers them.

Now, for my own comments. You say people will get used to "anything," and to just "start actually doing stuff" so they'll eventually "forget about it." With that mentality, how can you really say that a game involving the murder of children, especially to the extent that some games take with killing zombies or aliens or even other humans, is going to do ANY good AT ALL?? Is there a reason we NEED a game that involves or focuses on killing children? Do we really NEED a game with such "realism?"

Again, same argument could be made for basically any game that involves any form of violence. You might as well have asked "Do we really need blood in shooters"?

My answer to this is, that if we are going to an immersive experience, then yes we need it. Fable 2, for example, pulled the ridiculous move that they did have children, but you couldn't hurt them. You could kill your wife, but your children were immortal. And guess what happened: People notice stuff like that. And they started asking how the hell that made any kind of sense. Why do you think this thread exists in the first place? Short answer: Because things that breaks immersion will always be nagging people. Hell, even Yahtzee noticed it and mentioned it in his review of Fable 2 [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/346-Fable-2].

Every time you have something in a game that breaks immersion, then the reason that the immersion is broken is always going to plunge down in the gamers mind. If it's a bad game design decision that broke the immersion, then the gamer will think "Oh [Insert development team here], why did you c*ck this up". And guess what: When it's the attempt to comply with political correctness that breaks the immersion, then gamers will think "Oh, when are those damned violent-video-game-activist-hippies going to leave my games alone so i can have some damned fun!!" Being reminded that those annoying people exist out there is the last thing you need WHILE playing the game.

So yes, if having killable children in the game world means that the Immersion is going to stay alive, then that's what i want. Obviously it's been nagging people beyond me, so the short answer to your question is "Yes". If the Airport level in MW2 hadn't allowed you to fire your gun (even if it is entirely optional already), then people would also have asked the same question, because it doesn't make sense to not be able to participate given that you are an undercover agent.

 

[Ranorak]

Children are weak and defenseless. Who would harm a child? Nobody. So why add a feature that will do more harm that good?

I agree with this. I could not imagine what sick f*** would want to hurt kids in a game. I could never bring myself to harrvest the little sisters in Bioshock and i can't imagine what kind of sick perverted mind thinks even thinks about it.

Hold on..

Now I'm not someone who is jumping on the Couch in excitement to kill virtual kids.
But honestly... calling killing children in a game "sick" and "Perverted" while killing regular grown ups is just fine?

You know they're both just pixels, right?
The shape if a child doesn't make things any more "sick" or "perverted".

Besides, those kids in Fallout 3 deserved a shotgun blast to the face!

 

[WindKnight]

I just don't see how having said option would make the game 'better', but them I'm the sort to avoid hurting non combatants in a game.

The more important question is this - why do you WANT to kill the kids? Why is this option to be able to do it so important to you?

 

[Simeon Ivanov]

Children are weak and defenseless. Who would harm a child? Nobody. So why add a feature that will do more harm that good?

I would. Those things piss me off.

 

[Simeon Ivanov]

Children are weak and defenseless. Who would harm a child? Nobody. So why add a feature that will do more harm that good?

I would. Those things piss me off.

Now before you think I'm psychotic (which I am), I see no reason to kill adults but not children. They're both just a blob of pixels. Sometimes they're glitched.

 

[EHKOS]

Children are weak and defenseless. Who would harm a child? Nobody. So why add a feature that will do more harm that good?

I would. Those things piss me off.

Now before you think I'm psychotic (which I am), I see no reason to kill adults but not children. They're both just a blob of pixels. Sometimes they're glitched.

I agree. I'm a half-sociopath so I don't really feel bad when I put a bullet in anyone's brain in a game. And if there is anything moving on a battlefield I don't feel like I did my job right. So I usually end up command consoling them into Oblivion.

 

[Ruwrak]

Children are weak and defenseless. Who would harm a child? Nobody. So why add a feature that will do more harm that good?

Except the average gamer with the "Hah why not?" attitude.
Which are alot more then you'd think. Not to mention people might get worried or upset that there is a game where you can murder children, and that is political incorect.

Killing men in suits working for an organisation is less of a problem.
Hell killing any grown person with a gun is easily justified. Even without a gun there is not always a reprecussion for killing adults. But shooting / stabbing a child is apparently a line that just goes to far.

 

[Magicmad5511]

I think I remember hearing that it is actually illegal to depict children being killed in games. This might be complete rubbish but it would explain a lot.

As for the "no one else having sex" thing. For things like Fable it doesn't let you see it when you do it because of the age rating. It just makes weird sounds over another screen. Why would it show you other people?
Also imagine having to be the guy to code the random selection of people to go and randomly ave sex.
Unless your creepy you shouldn't care if other people in your town are having sex. There are kids running around anyway so reproduction is happening so don't worry.

 

[ajemas]

Showing any kind of violence towards children is extremely looked down upon. It really would not surprise me if the game was given an AO rating if it allowed for children to be maimed and killed. Sure it's a little unrealistic, but so is shooting fireballs out of your hands and murdering giant dragons.