I'll start by admitting that I don't see children as particularly sacred, so I tend to hold atrocities against them on par with atrocities against any other human being. That being said, if a game allows for slavery, forced prostitution, drug use and abuse, robbery, and cold-blooded murder, why shouldn't harming children be included?
I know the Fallout 3 example has been thrown out quite a few times before, but it bears repeating. The team behind Fallout 3 did a pretty good job of allowing the player the freedom to be as good or evil as they wanted, and that freedom extended to killing pretty much anyone in the world except for necessary plot characters... and kids. This wouldn't have been so bad if they didn't populate an entire town with particularly mouthy and grating kids. Now, if anyone else in the game spoke to the player like that, the option is given to respond with a bullet to the face. By not having that option in Little Lamplight, much of the immersion and feeling of freedom in the world was lost.
Oh, and no one else has mentioned nuking Megaton. It's implied that everyone in Megaton (except for one person) dies in the blast, including at least two kids.
Now, let's move on the a game like GTAIV. The development team behind that game decided that they didn't want to deal with the controversy of killing kids, so they made the simple design choice to completely remove them from the game. I actually really like that decision. By not dangling something in front of my crosshairs that I can't actually shoot, my sense of immersion is kept intact. Maybe more game developers need to think about consistency in their game worlds. If part of the story you want to tell will compromise the player's sense of immersion, then you either need to re-write the story or re-evaluate how dedicated you are to keeping the player immersed in the world.
I know the Fallout 3 example has been thrown out quite a few times before, but it bears repeating. The team behind Fallout 3 did a pretty good job of allowing the player the freedom to be as good or evil as they wanted, and that freedom extended to killing pretty much anyone in the world except for necessary plot characters... and kids. This wouldn't have been so bad if they didn't populate an entire town with particularly mouthy and grating kids. Now, if anyone else in the game spoke to the player like that, the option is given to respond with a bullet to the face. By not having that option in Little Lamplight, much of the immersion and feeling of freedom in the world was lost.
Oh, and no one else has mentioned nuking Megaton. It's implied that everyone in Megaton (except for one person) dies in the blast, including at least two kids.
Now, let's move on the a game like GTAIV. The development team behind that game decided that they didn't want to deal with the controversy of killing kids, so they made the simple design choice to completely remove them from the game. I actually really like that decision. By not dangling something in front of my crosshairs that I can't actually shoot, my sense of immersion is kept intact. Maybe more game developers need to think about consistency in their game worlds. If part of the story you want to tell will compromise the player's sense of immersion, then you either need to re-write the story or re-evaluate how dedicated you are to keeping the player immersed in the world.
(Children patch 4tw. If you killed kids in FO 1 + 2, it had an affect on how you were treated for the rest of the game. Most people hated you, but the evil people sometimes liked you a bit more I believe)
