Hi. I'm Peter Merkin and I'm a video game serial killer(sometimes spree killer). I play almost exclusively to kill things, or at least for the adversarial rush. Whether that's in the form of mowing down hapless pedestrians in GTA or competing with the developer via proxy in something that just has difficult obstacles, for me it's the
only game in town.
The obvious question is, why is this inferior to how
you enjoy yourself in your free time? Entertainment is entertainment is entertainment, it doesn't really matter how you do it, and one form isn't intrinsically better than any other. Or if it is, good luck demonstrating exactly why that is. You're probably going to have to find an objective, universal source of value and solve a bunch of other multimillennial old philosophical quandaries along the way. But that shouldn't be much trouble for you, right? After all, you've got the power of CONSUMER GRADE FICTIONAL NARRATIVES at your disposal!
Heh.
Why do I kill? Well, some people need excitement in order to be excited. And unlike sex, food, intellectual pursuits or emo bullshit, there's no safe, inexpensive way to enjoy it in the real world. This is, I think, why violence is so prevalent in the media. I'd dare go so far as to say that this is entertainment multimedia's most important role. Where else can you sate this perfectly natural human desire without risking imprisonment or hurting something? The simple answer is that you can't, and we're all better off for exploring these urges within the safe confines of virtual worlds.
Next time you feel like bashing someone who enjoys killing in games, stop and consider this: would you rather have us killing fake people on a screen or out there in the real world trying to find more creative ways to entertain ourselves? Hunting animals, or getting into fights, or actually trying to rape and murder other human beings? And "I'd prefer you did neither" simply isn't a realistic option; the world belongs to us, too, and we have(or give ourselves) the same right to pursue happiness as anyone else.
P.S.: here's a screenshot from when I positioned a disembodied head to 'watch' me 'rape' her body in Fallout 3 waaay back in 2008. It was among the very first things I did in that game, and something which I feel has far more macabre cred than that silly old head collection.