The generations that grew up with gaming and getting older.

[gonzo20]

Well, I suppose another reason is more "realistic" graphics. I mean, violence in games is nothing new, indeed. But, it's not as cartoony as it used to be. I suppose if it's very over the top and exaggerated, there's still a degree of detachment, as in "Yeah, this isn't real, it's not like something like that -can- happen because human body doesn't actually work that way".

With more "realism", things drift closer and closer to the uncanny valley, and that generally creeps people out.

I agree, and I also think this is why people should stop complaining about games not being as creative as they used to be (which isn't true anyway, but I digress.) The better graphics now mean that the kind of games we played in the 16-bit days would look utterly ridiculous when put through the HD ringer (a star with arms and legs and levels where you fight mice in their pyjamas that throw swiss cheese at you, what the hell even is that?)

In terms of the violence though, as ever, I think context is always important. I heard Heavy Rain had some exceptionally realistic violent parts but they were designed to make you uncomfortable not to excite you, but if they re-released a modern take on this...

I would consider it nothing but immensely bad taste and hugely fucked up.

what. the. hell. is wrong with the people who made that game!

 

[Eclipse Dragon]

Well, I suppose another reason is more "realistic" graphics. I mean, violence in games is nothing new, indeed. But, it's not as cartoony as it used to be. I suppose if it's very over the top and exaggerated, there's still a degree of detachment, as in "Yeah, this isn't real, it's not like something like that -can- happen because human body doesn't actually work that way".

With more "realism", things drift closer and closer to the uncanny valley, and that generally creeps people out.

I'm reminded of Final Fantasy 7, specifically when Shinra HQ was attacked by Sephiroth, he left bloody chibi bodies all over the place, blood was spattered all over the walls, the president had a sword sticking out of his chest... and the game was rated T.

I imagine if the game existed with modern graphics true to it's original, the rating may well change.

Dont forget about Jenova and her twisted monster tittys!, honestly when i was 12 and playing through FF7 jenova scared the bejebus out of me on that boat! x)

Oh no you had to go and remind me...
I think I'd subcutaneously whipped that memory from my brain, the only other thing from my childhood that could probably equal that trauma would be Band Land from Rayman. If you've never played Rayman, count yourself lucky so....much.... music.

 

[Rastien]

Well, I suppose another reason is more "realistic" graphics. I mean, violence in games is nothing new, indeed. But, it's not as cartoony as it used to be. I suppose if it's very over the top and exaggerated, there's still a degree of detachment, as in "Yeah, this isn't real, it's not like something like that -can- happen because human body doesn't actually work that way".

With more "realism", things drift closer and closer to the uncanny valley, and that generally creeps people out.

I'm reminded of Final Fantasy 7, specifically when Shinra HQ was attacked by Sephiroth, he left bloody chibi bodies all over the place, blood was spattered all over the walls, the president had a sword sticking out of his chest... and the game was rated T.

I imagine if the game existed with modern graphics true to it's original, the rating may well change.

Dont forget about Jenova and her twisted monster tittys!, honestly when i was 12 and playing through FF7 jenova scared the bejebus out of me on that boat! x)

Oh no you had to go and remind me...
I think I'd subcutaneously whipped that memory from my brain, the only other thing from my childhood that could probably equal that trauma would be Band Land from Rayman. If you've never played Rayman, count yourself lucky so....much.... music.

Oh god T_T dear god the irritation in that place everything you jumped on produced some form a tune and i believe the boss was some big ass saxaphone that shat notes at you >:/

 

[Kahunaburger]

I dunno, I wasn't particularly impressed with violence during my angst teenage years, either. I guess I thought Mortal Kombat was pretty cool when I was like 9? I think it's just, as people have said, the video game version of the grimdarkgrimdarkgrimdark thing.

 

[TheCommanders]

I don't have a problem with violence, at least not on principle. It's more about either how fun the game is, or how well it tells its story. Some games can only do one or the other, and that's ok, but now that I'm a bit more mature I really start to appreciate the games that can do both. Of course, this doesn't mean all games have to be filet mignon, I still like a good pizza and coke everyone once in a while. Gamers seem to like to hail the games they grew up with, or were introduced to gaming with as the best, when every year brings new titles which are undeniably better (and of course, tons that are the same or much worse). The ability to pick out the good from the bad of every age of gaming is the mark of a good gamer, not the ability to pretentiously defend "their" games and ignore the merits of all others.

 

[GonzoGamer]

Well, I suppose another reason is more "realistic" graphics. I mean, violence in games is nothing new, indeed. But, it's not as cartoony as it used to be. I suppose if it's very over the top and exaggerated, there's still a degree of detachment, as in "Yeah, this isn't real, it's not like something like that -can- happen because human body doesn't actually work that way".

With more "realism", things drift closer and closer to the uncanny valley, and that generally creeps people out.

I agree, and I also think this is why people should stop complaining about games not being as creative as they used to be (which isn't true anyway, but I digress.) The better graphics now mean that the kind of games we played in the 16-bit days would look utterly ridiculous when put through the HD ringer (a star with arms and legs and levels where you fight mice in their pyjamas that throw swiss cheese at you, what the hell even is that?)

In terms of the violence though, as ever, I think context is always important. I heard Heavy Rain had some exceptionally realistic violent parts but they were designed to make you uncomfortable not to excite you, but if they re-released a modern take on this...

I would consider it nothing but immensely bad taste and hugely fucked up.

Holy shit; someone else who remembers Chiller. If that shit came out now, it would probably get an AO not to mention a big banhammer from Germany & Australia.

Even though we do see a lot of shooters this gen, they are at least trying to be creative with that format. So much so that my favorite games from this gen are shooter(ish)s. I especially like the mashups up shooters and RPGs: Fallout 3, Borderlands, and Valkyria Chronicles; the latter probably being the most original thing to come out this gen.

In my day we played our games with one stick and one button...and we liked it.

 

[xPixelatedx]

What are your thoughts on this? Do you think this might be the case?

It has nothing to do with killing people. You know what I remember about gaming when I was growing up? Going to different worlds and doing different things as different things. Now, (more often then not) in every game I am always some... guy, pointing the same weapon I have in every game at something inconsequentially interchangeable. Puzzles, boss battles, maneuvering through complex environments and anything super involving (the reasons why I play games) is either muted or absent so my hand can be held down a pretty hallway. A pretty hallway crafted by a dev team more determined to tell a cinematic story (a movie, if you will) then make a fun video game.

So again, all these shooters at E3? Yawn 100,000,000x. It doesn't matter what decade this is or the age of the participants. Most people can only take so many 'point & click violent movies' before they get sick of them.

 

[Eve Charm]

Meh i think it's just we don't need COD or medal of honor/battlefield being shoved down our throats every year to get us to buy it or not. You don't have to spend 20 minutes of the biggest gaming thing of the year to advertise your yearly 60 dollar expansion multi-player pack, That also looks a lot like someone else's 60 dollar yearly expansion multi-player pack. That looks slightly better then last year's and the other similar games that came out.

It's the madden effect, you change a bit, sell the same game, people still buy it because they want the update, but unlike madden every company can make a shooter, hell the last big thing COD did was stop doing world war 2 for a year, then went right back to it the next but went back again to modern >.>

If your not gonna innovate or make some splashes in the water, people are just gonna look at you bored and want you to move on already. Adversely people go nuts when you do innovate, even if it is a yearly game. Assassin creed 3 being in the civil war? people ate that up and are still drooling over it.

Maybe when COD stops printing money they'll hold off a year or two to let people get excited about it again.

 

[General Twinkletoes]

Yes, completely.

Same thing with tv shows too. Simpsons is still funnny, guys. The older seasons had iffy writing sometimes :/
Hearing people whining about how good games were in the old days is really, really annoying. There's plenty of good things out there.

 

[Gene O]

On a side note, I'm also witnessing my generation talk about the newest generation coming in with scornful remarks about how dumb or obnoxious they are. Which makes me really really sad.

As an adult I have to stop myself from doing this. When I see adolescents doing something I think of as dumb or shortsighted I have to remind myself that kids today cannot be any more dumb or short sighted than my friends and I were at that age. If they were they'd start wandering into traffic.

So kids, if adults treat you like you're an idiot it's not necessarily because you are. It's mostly because we remember what we were like at that age and we were. If you want to take the high road take a moment to pity us and live your life such that you won't be embarrassed about it ten years later. If not, then shout whatever version of, "Your Mother!" is most appropriate and go back to what you were doing.

 

[burningdragoon]

I've never really been into FPSs that much, so no, the "too much shooty guns" feeling is not because I'm older now. In fact, I still really don't have a problem with lots of shallow mega-violence. The problem is saturation, not what the specific content is.

That being said, yeah getting older does color your view of things, but I don't think that's the issue here.

 

[rob_simple]

Even though we do see a lot of shooters this gen, they are at least trying to be creative with that format. So much so that my favorite games from this gen are shooter(ish)s. I especially like the mashups up shooters and RPGs: Fallout 3, Borderlands, and Valkyria Chronicles; the latter probably being the most original thing to come out this gen.

Totally agree, people seem to forget that in the days of the SNES and the Mega Drive pretty much every game we were offered was trying to ape Sonic or Mario; and how many times did we slowly advance along a corridor, punching and kicking increasingly tough waves of stereotypical enemies (I lost count of the number of skinheads in sunglasses and muscle shirts that I dispatched.)

Everyone gets so lost in the whole 'gritty gunmetal grey (possibly space) marine' bullshit that they forget that Gears of War is a totally different experience from Mass Effect as is Borderlands from Rage as is Call of Duty from Resistance 3.

The settings might be similar but not one of those experiences is identical if you're actually willing to enjoy them instead of complaining all the time.

 

[faefrost]

In the "old days" the realistic violence was harder to pull off, as a result the game makers had to rely more on actual gameplay subleties. We are still seeing a lot of that today. Just mainly on smaller platforms such as iOS.

The modern realistic violence is just a gimmick. One that we have seen before, be it super graphics, full motion video, whatever. It will fade as more and more outside of the rare few golden ticket winners (CoD) it doesn't really add much to sales. I think it says something that outside of the next CoD game, the most asked about games at my local gamestop seem to have "Lego" in the title.

 

[skywolfblue]

Back in the day when I was an angsty teenager, I didn't think twice about the people I killed. But now in today's games whenever I see my character kill someone or something, I'm like "Oh my god! You did NOT need to kill him!"

Absolutely.

I'm getting a bit tired of the whole "Dark and Edgy" thing where killing innocent (or mostly innocent) people in gruesome ways is the bees knees.

 

[ultrabiome]

as an old time gamer, there is a time and a place for everything. and i'm glad there are more 'mature' games, especially in theme. that does not mean i like everything being put out (the whole lara croft rape thing), but things like heavy rain and la noire are good to have available.

as we get older, we get wiser, but also more picky and our time is more valuable. i'd rather do something in some fantastic world than be in the real world (although SSX is an exception) with the little time i have to play. it had better be unique and generally well-polished and somehow pull at me like other games don't because i don't have the time to play FPS #10204.

 

[GeneralBigG]

For me, I've never been excited by violence-for-violence's sake. The trend for showing how you can kill someone in the most grisly way possible just turns me right off, whether it's the latest COD installment/clone telling you to kill all those pesky ruskies or Mortal Kombat's fatalities and x-ray camera showing all the internal damage.

 

[The_Lost_King]

I am 16 and sick of all these shooters. Give me a good game like Dragon age: Origins(2 was fine but not something I want more of) or Alpha Protocol. I like games with stories other than OMG RUSSIAN TERRORISTS!!11!!!!11!

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

I'm glad that we're getting older, because it means that a lot of the people who were playing games in the old days are now becoming game makers. Now obviously in some cases this will mean that it's just a load of tongue baths for old franchises, but I think the trend is noticeably towards games becoming more mature.

Now we just have to wait for those gamers not in the industry to grow up.

 

[Allthingsspectacular]

On a related note, I don't really agree with the whole Tomb Raider "torture porn" thing. From what I can tell, it looks like the turmoil she is going through isn't to excite us but rather to make us uncomfortable. And make the end of the journey all the more triumphant.

It actually reminds me of Diehard how the hero got really badly beat up and how this made it more satisfying by the end.

Is it overboard? Maybe. But I don't disagree with the concept.

 

[BodomBeachChild]

Gaming has been a hobby most of my life, and through the years it just seemed to rise and decline. In high school I think the industry was hitting a nice mark and really branching out. Then all of a sudden everything because "Look we can do things just like them" and things stopped being as fun and interesting.

Things started getting samey and as we grew we noticed it a lot faster than we would have before. Sure there are still JRPGs out there but they haven't changed in a long ass time. FPS games are just a dime a dozen. Games like Prototype and Syndicate come along once in awhile but are never good. They're just... there.