Should you be allowed to kill children in games?

[Unrulyhandbag]

That's exactly what political correctness is about tho. It's about minimizing the social and political awkwardness, and apparently portrayal of children in games, especially as moving targets, stirs enough emotions to be an issue. [/quote]

That's just social homogenisation. Political correctness is about redressing social inequalities like active discrimination and marginal social interaction with other groups. If something stirs emotions that is not a reason in of itself to not do it; such things require discussion and careful examination of how to use that emotional reaction not a simple knee jerk avoidance.

How many of games however managed to deal with it properly ? For such implementation of children in the game you need a more evaluated system of action-reaction mechanics that takes notice of something called consequence.

Name a game that's had children in and caused a problem. If you search the internet with Fallout children and the date range of 1997 you only get articles on chemotherapy, the effects of Chernobyl on a new generation and the results of a sixties nuclear war study on the effect of radiation. Not one single article about the horrific child-killing game fallout.
Most games have managed to have simple social feedback for years and seeing as child killing is SO horrific a simple "OMG bad person" type response should suffice as a basic start.

Every time there is a discussion about the place of games as a medium in enriching the society or about it's effects on our daily lives. Enjoy your mindless fun, we all do need something like that sometimes, but don't ever try to pretend it's something more. What purpose in such games would placement of children have? If it doesn't affect the character or the world it's simply pointless.

Why would children be in GTA? why are the populace? why isn't the game just full of gun waving gangsters, police and military? because it makes it feel like a city, children would aid in that and simply scaling a model does the job nicely so it's not exactly hard to add. The difference to you may be nothing but to others it may something to think about; even if a designer didn't think about something thoroughly doesn't mean somebody else won't find it thought provoking; as in any literature the devil is in the detail.

Simply by being there something has effect, you choose to ignore a world full of details then that isn't the creators fault. Yes we do have games where children would be pointless Serious Sam needs no toddler to validate his existence and one could do nothing to aid him and a military shooter doesn't NEED them either (although having some huddling among civilians in a war torn town certainly wouldn't hurt the game and would be provoking).

But I'm not talking about simple shooting galleries GTA is a recreation of a city and roughly simulates the behaviours of one. Yes as a backdrop for it's shooting gallery but it's what differentiates it from generic brown shooter #143.
Hitman was a thinking game with a storyline threaded through it.

And RPG's can be either tell a story, certainly not hurt by presence of children or be about the exploration of a world, children can be an aid to this. In general these are the most thought provoking of the games available and usually have fairly complex social behaviours economies and NPC behaviours and games makers keep working to make them better in this respect. There is no reason whatsoever that children shouldn't matter in this game type.

Bottom line is, if someone makes a game where it actually matters, feel free to do so. If you want to re create a world with as much gritty realism, do so. I don't object. If it all serves to enrich the atmosphere and add a moral layer it's perfectly fine. But adding such options just for sake of it, without any impact and consequence? Waste of development time.

As it is with every other medium - song, literature or movie - games should aim to be consistent with themselves. If you add a random chapter to a book or a verse to a song that doesn't match the rest of it you create unnecessary content. It ruins the way the product as a whole is perceived. When creating something there should a purpose in every little detail of it. Pointless things are just pointless if they exist without a reason.

Realism isn't going to be a valid goal for computer games for a long time to come and nor should it be.
Why did games start to add passive creatures? it sure as hell wasn't to be useful or even for realism it was to aid suspension of disbelief, things that feel natural are easier to accept. Something doesn't have to be rubbed in your face to make it important, children have been in games before, they made those games a better place no matter how marginal that benefit it's still a benefit that is missing now for absolutely no good reason.

As in film and literature the extras and background are what stops the experience being bland and uninteresting, going the extra mile and stimulating the reader or watcher is the point of the entire game. And yes the only stimulation some people need is a straight fistfight but that's no reason to pander only to such people.

 

[bruunwald]

I do not believe video games, rock music, movies, or any other media influences a person in any meaningful way. Those things may inform, but as to whatever behavior a person is bent on, the factors that set him on that road run far deeper than any casual input could sway, for good or bad. For that reason, and for others, I do not believe in censorship.

That said, killing is bad, and wrong, perhaps even badong, and so should be avoided when possible in the real world. In a fictional world we do need baddies, and baddies must be overcome, and often through killing. On the other hand, though I do go for the headshot in RE like anyone would, I cringe at people who shout out celebrations about same as if "cool" and "awesome" make gruesome and horrible okay.

So I would say that context plays a big part in whether one should be allowed to gun down children in a game. Hardly any of us flinches at all when a zombie kid gets shot in a horror movie. But violence depicted against the innocent can - and SHOULD - revolt normal human beings, even in a game or movie. You might tolerate it for story reasons, you may even laugh out loud depending on the situation, but if you are glorifying it, then you might consider re-reading the first part of my post. That is, that while video games may not have made you psycho, something did, and you need help.

See, the thing is, that while even normal people are capable of horrible violence at times, and while human beings' imagination allows us to view things through different moral compasses and within different contexts, mountains of study have shown that being repulsed by violence, and especially by violence against children, is built into our primate DNA. It is normal to be horrified, frightened, and to feel guilt and remorse. Glorifying the horrifying is aberrant behavior for primates.

So, do I understand that violence against children can be important to a dramatic narrative? Yes. Do I think it needs to be explicitly depicted? No, if you're a feeling human being, your imagination can fill in enough of the horror. Do I think there is something wrong with celebrating it? Yeah. But then, I think there is something wrong with celebrating any gruesome, awful, horrifying act of violence.

It may be necessary to act violently sometimes. But violence is never a thing of goodness to be tucked in with you at night like a happy, sleepy teddy bear.

 

[Duskwaith]

Well you couldnt in fallout 3(outside of consol comands) didnt really make much of a difference since there was kids skeletons lieing in most of the houses.

I say you should if the age rateing is available

 

[EHKOS]

I got really pissed off when Fallout 3 broke my immersion. There I was, gunning down that guy dave, when all of a sudden my bullets flew through his children. Ok....What about explosives? Nope. Stupid kids living through plasma grenades mummble mumble....

 

[Jaded Scribe]

If it's added in for shock value, I say no, as it's just going to give more fodder to the likes of Jack Thompson.

If I could kill the two obnoxious brats in Stormwind, however....

 

[MasterChief892039]

I always try to punch or kill kids in games, but it's been censored from games for so long that if I ever actually succeeded I'd probably be pretty offended. I remember one time playing GTA with my friend, I had just discovered that you could slit people's throats with the knife if you snuck up behind them - we went around killing a bunch of prostitutes and guys, and then suddenly we saw a little palsied old man in knee socks - giggling, we snuck up behind him and slit his throat - and instantly felt just awful.

Morality in video games is tricky ground. It's not a simply matter of "is doing this wrong?" because committing an act in a video game is not the same as committing an act in real life. I find it interesting that people enjoy their shooters like COD and Halo, but people draw the line at shooting digital children.

 

[JoJo]

You kill everything else, right? Why not children?
I really don't see the issue. Can someone give me the other side of the argument?

A lot of people including myself would think it odd at the best, and worrying at the worst, for someone to get pleasure out of killing a child on a game. I don't understand people who want this, surely it goes against your parental instincts (which all normal adults possess, regardless of whether they actually have kids or not).

 

[PureChaos]

i don't see why not

 

[WrongSprite]

Why not? I don't understand the difference.
Killing an adult is hardly legal. Neither is killing a child.
If you can kill an adult in a videogame, then you should be able to kill a child.

 

[zehydra]

Morality in games != morality in real life. Whatever you do in a game is fine, as long as you don't do it in real life.

 

[JWAN]

violence in videogames just to make a political statement just fucks over everyone who plays games.

But if its a game like GTA where its about ORGANIZED CRIME and the MAFIA then violence in general is apart of the story. gunning down children is just stupid.

 

[JoJo]

Should you be allowed to kill children in games?
Me and my friend often have this discussion, is it morally wrong? Just sick? or SUPER AWESOME!
Tell me what you think.

Super Awesome!

And don't ever ask if it's morally wrong to kill virtual things. Hell I can think of a few situations where it wouldn't be morally wrong to kill real children.

For instance some armies use child soldiers.

What would give you any justification to kill a poor little child who had been forced, or brainwashed into joining an army?

 

[Pist0l 07]

I'd be fine with allowing children to die in video games... only if they talk like the Turrets from Portal when they die .

I definatly agree with this. Those damn turrets in Portal always made me feel bad when I killed them even though they just shot at me. An enemy saying "no hard feelings" when you kill it just makes me feel cruel.

It makes sense to have kids in sandbox games like Oblivion, Fable, and Fallout, but making them invincible breaks the immersion. Therefor they should be killable, espacially if they make in a large karma lose.

 

[Ubermetalhed]

Yes definitely.

I was always pissed off in Fallout3 that you couldn't kill them.

For example after murdering the sheriff in Megaton and dressing up in his clothes I decided to go end the family line in brutal fashion. Unfortunately I couldn't kill the sheriff's kid and ended up just chasing him aimlessly round the house with a sledgehammer.

I was unsatisfied.

 

[Atmos Duality]

As emo as this sounds, I'll it anyway: Death is still the only force in this world that does not discriminate.