Letting children die horribly seems to be the new 'hook'. (Now includes video, due to popular demand

[Stoic raptor]

Jeez some people really hate children here. It kinda scares me.

I have no problem with children dieing if it is part of the story and not there just for the sake of killing them. I dont actually hate children, so a child dieing still gets to me, which can be important for a story.

Seriously what is with all the child hate?

 

[MetalGenocide]

Children die in some games? So what? Everyone dies in games.

 

[Kopikatsu]

Jeez some people really hate children here. It kinda scares me.

I have no problem with children dieing if it is part of the story and not there just for the sake of killing them. I dont actually hate children, so a child dieing still gets to me, which can be important for a story.

Seriously what is with all the child hate?

Well, my child hate comes from personal experience, what I see on the news (Seriously, who the hell straps a kid to a chair and lights him on fire? Only other kids.), and my friends experiences. (Actually, one of my friends daughter had broken her leg. At her middle school, another girl who didn't like her had her 'lackies' push her down the stairs. See, that's what I call 'Fucked up'. Thing is, situations like that happened often in the middle school I went to. I'm just writing off all middle school kids as having no soul and leaving it at that.

I dont want to be "that guy" but............



UWE BOLL DID IT FIRST!!!!!!



OT: I dont see how its bad, I mean, its a fucking apocalypse, there is a very good chance people will die regardless if they are kids or not, its not like being a kid activates sv_cheats 1; TGM or anything...........

No. You didn't just bring Uwe Bowl here. YOU DIDN'T. EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF!

 

[GLo Jones]

Children have been used in media to produce deeper emotional responses for ages, simply look at films like Ringu to see this isn't anything new.

It's probably just the current trend.

 

[Seives-Sliver]

I think it adds to the immersion of a videogame to toss in a child in a horrible situation, especially if it is your character's child. It sorta adds to the 'Reasons I must kill dude A' or something along those lines.

 

[Taunta]

Because it's a horror cliche. It's a cliche because it works. Basically, we're all animals, and animals have an innate instinct to protect their young, so something terrible happening to children is more evil or more cruel than terrible things happening to adults. We see a child, we want to nurture said child, so people have long taken advantage of this.

So as well as being terrible on an evolutionary level, culturally, we believe that children are the epitome of innocence, so having something pure and innocent desecrated adds an extra dose of spiritual/psychological pain as well.

Bottom line: The purpose is to make you feel scared/disgusted. Horror developers need to know how to manipulate the human psyche to get the reaction out of you that they want, so in most cases, the most effective way is to involve the harm of a child.

Other companies saw it, said "Hmm, our audience reacts better to a child dying than an adult dying, let's use this to our advantage." and ran with it.

 

[Verkula]

They are called games for a reason. Its not real.

 

[Taunta]

They are called games for a reason. Its not real.

Emotions are by nature irrational. That's why horror games make you afraid. Movies make you afraid. You can tell yourself it's not real all you want, it's still scary. (Your mileage may vary)

So if it looks like a duck, it quacks like a duck, you're going to feel for it as if you would a duck, and some (maybe not all) emotional response is going to happen if something bad happens to that duck.

 

[Tim_Buoy]

I just saw a trailer for a game called Dead Island. (Awesome trailer, by the way. It's in the thread like two below this one)

The trailer basically consists of a young girl and her parents dying horribly. (From zombies. Of course!)

I'm led to believe that if a game has 'Dead' in its title, it automatically hates children.

Dead Space: Lurkers, Crawlers, and Pack. Babies, Toddlers, and Infants! Death to all!

Dead Rising (2): The protagonist's 11-ish year old daughter can turn into a zombie and murder everyone! Death to all!

Dead Island: Focus of the trailer dies horribly and turns into a zombie! Death to all!

I'm not saying that its BAD to answer the question 'Well, what about happened to the children?' It's just kind of shocking that they include it. Probably because I'm used to games just straight up not having children, or if they do, the children are totally invulnerable. (Looking at you, Fallout)

Has killing children become the new way to garnish free publicity, as controversy always does? (For example, the Church's outcry against Angels & Demons probably made MORE people go see it.)

Especially with the 'Video games make rapists and murderers!' craze that seems to be flaring up again. (Not that it ever died down, just seeing more articles about it all of a sudden. Again.)

Edit: Weeeeeeell, I was asked to put the Dead Island trailer here, and I suppose it would make it easier on people who didn't see the thread I mentioned. Sooooooo...here it is!


In other news, stay tooned for my Sympathy-Powered Death Ray! (Patent Pending)

yeah seems like but regardless of whats in the video OH MY GOD the graphics on that vid were amazing a couple of times i could swear that girl looked real !!!!!!!!!!

 

[Kopikatsu]

its obvious isn't it? lots of kids play games, how to draw the kids into the story: include a kid in it, so they can identify.

And have nightmares.

theirs scarier shit going on the the real world then in most video games

What would scare a kid more? A war going on in the middle east (they see plenty of that shit on TV and in CoD games which they play) or a kid getting ripped apart by a zombie?

i prefer the zombies to being stuck against the us military, at least zombies cant shoot me with a drone missile.

Depends on the kind of zombie. Dead Space has exploding 'zombies'. In some incarnations, zombies are basically just crazy humans, but can still somewhat use machinery and guns. (I forget the name of the book series, but the only reason the few zombies that had normal intelligence couldn't use guns was because they had difficulty gripping objects. One was able to, though. He could totally fire a missile!)

 

[Dfskelleton]

It's a sign of uncreative attempts to gain an emotional response when they have to resort to having children die. I noticed that a lot in Dead Space 2.

 

[Serge A. Storms]

It's one of many things that should have been in GTA IV.

 

[Dfskelleton]

I just saw a trailer for a game called Dead Island. (Awesome trailer, by the way. It's in the thread like two below this one)

The trailer basically consists of a young girl and her parents dying horribly. (From zombies. Of course!)

I'm led to believe that if a game has 'Dead' in its title, it automatically hates children.

Dead Space: Lurkers, Crawlers, and Pack. Babies, Toddlers, and Infants! Death to all!

Dead Rising (2): The protagonist's 11-ish year old daughter can turn into a zombie and murder everyone! Death to all!

Dead Island: Focus of the trailer dies horribly and turns into a zombie! Death to all!

I'm not saying that its BAD to answer the question 'Well, what about happened to the children?' It's just kind of shocking that they include it. Probably because I'm used to games just straight up not having children, or if they do, the children are totally invulnerable. (Looking at you, Fallout)

Has killing children become the new way to garnish free publicity, as controversy always does? (For example, the Church's outcry against Angels & Demons probably made MORE people go see it.)

Especially with the 'Video games make rapists and murderers!' craze that seems to be flaring up again. (Not that it ever died down, just seeing more articles about it all of a sudden. Again.)

Edit: Weeeeeeell, I was asked to put the Dead Island trailer here, and I suppose it would make it easier on people who didn't see the thread I mentioned. Sooooooo...here it is!


In other news, stay tooned for my Sympathy-Powered Death Ray! (Patent Pending)

yeah seems like but regardless of whats in the video OH MY GOD the graphics on that vid were amazing a couple of times i could swear that girl looked real !!!!!!!!!!

Wait... that wasn't real?

 

[KalosCast]

i prefer the zombies to being stuck against the us military, at least zombies cant shoot me with a drone missile.

...yet

I was playing Dwarf Fortress a couple of weeks ago when a goblin ran onto my map, stabbed a baby in the face, then ran off again.

That game really hates children (And everyone else...)

Armok does not care where the blood comes from, as long as it flows.

 

[Xan Krieger]

Maybe it is because children are the most annoying thing on this earth?

Um... so why if that was true would they use it in this context? It's actually for the opposite reason, that the majority of mature adults feel a strong emotional attachment towards children so depicting their death or injury is an easy way to invoke emotion.

The emotion of course being pure joy, especially if you've ever been sitting in a restaurant with a crying kid at the next table.

 

[BlumiereBleck]

I called it! Five years ago I called it! In the We Don't Need to Whisper album by AVA Tom Delonge used dead kids several times in his lyrics and i said "Gee soon that will be a hook"