Deus Ex Designer: "The Ultra-Violence Has To Stop"

[superbatranger]

Violence sells. Heck, I'm pretty sure most kids wouldn't go the diplomatic route when trying to rectify a problem in a game and would instead go for their gun.

 

[ReiverCorrupter]

snip

Very well put. It's just so hard to shake the AAA feeling. You just know when you're playing one.

They just have that vibe to them.

I would like a push forward for some games to make more limelight. Imagine our Sundance film festival for gaming if you will, to push the non-AAA games to the fore front. I find that lacking for this area of gaming.

E-sports is, a bit roughly, pushing a professional side to gaming forward, now we need a focus on the art side.

Well, like I said, the production value of AAA titles affect their content, so they're definitely their own category of game. They just aren't a genre, which is a more specific type of category.

As far as a gaming Sundance goes, it can happen if there's enough of an audience for it. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised at all if there are indie gaming scenes that we just haven't heard about. In fact, I'd put money on it. The only problem is that they are indie scenes, so they don't attract a lot of attention by their very nature. You probably have to go out and look for them, which defeats your purpose of getting more attention.

The fact of the matter is that games are expensive and most consumers are pretty selective because of this, especially in the console market.

Here's what I propose: an indie version of gamefly where people can try out new indie games every week. It would probably work best on the PC, but it might be also be possible on XBLA and its counterparts. That would probably get the word out a lot better than some indie gaming festival in the middle of Wisconsin.

 

[WindKnight]

I agree. I don't have a problem with violence in games in general, even extreme violence like Mortal Kombat, but the direction games are going in right now with violence is getting disturbing. Like the guy says, it's become very gruesome and being fetishised. It's no longer about theatre or even just getting past an obstacle, now it's about revelling in the suffering of enemies.

Games like MK or Assassin's Creed I don't mind because they make killing in to a spectacle, which is obviously supposed to be fantasy and not taken seriously. You're not supposed to be impressed by the fact you have killed someone, but how you've done it. Like in MK when you rip out someone's spine, or in AC when you expertly drop down off a roof on to your unaware target and sink a knife in to their neck. Those things aren't real, but they're fun to watch. But when you look at a game like Tomb Raider the death isn't like that at all. It's not impressive to watch. It's just focusing on screaming and pain. If that's what gamers really want then we have a big problem.

I play gears of war, where your fighting monsters and the violence is pretty over the top, with chainsaw bayonets and headshots literally making the enemies heads explode. the violence doesn't do anything for me, and some of the executions were a bit too far, but overall, it didn't bother me.

Then I played spec-ops, the line, and the game offered me a prompt to 'execute' a wounded enemy who was not a danger to me... and yeah, the fact it was another human being it was encouraging me to finish off left me very uncomfortable, and I just moved on. Context is a very important thing, but I do feel some games are going a little too far in how they portray thing now.

 

[ReiverCorrupter]

My basic attitude is that sex and violence need to keep moving forward in terms of intensity in video games and other media. Like it or not, that's what people find entertaining. It has been this way since the dawn of time, where many of the first stories were about violence and bloodshed and war. Sex and erotica has also been a part of human entertainment for as long as we've had such. You can decry human nature, but well, there it is. Truthfully I think half the problem nowadays is that people pull too many punches for fear of offending those in denial.

Actually, I agree with the vast majority of what you said, especially the first paragraph and most especially with the emboldened sentences.

I don't really think the level of graphic detail affects the acts any, killing someone or something is killing something, it doesn't matter how realistically it's presented.

I do, however, strongly disagree with this. Playing space invaders is a far cry from playing Gears of War. I think you can definitely notice a large difference in the psychological effect of a game when you make the NPCs the player kills seem more human. Graphic detail is one part of this, and a large part if you include realistic bodily movements, voices and facial expressions.

I don't feel much of anything when I kill grubs in Gears, but if a game pulls it off just right I will actually feel compassion for some NPCs. This is, of course, difficult to do with a set of default behaviors. Despite Peter Molyneux's best efforts I couldn't give less of a crap about the hordes of mindless NPCs in the Fable games. I find it only happens in the prerecorded conversations of primary characters played by decent voice actors.

Playing Call of Duty online might be a lot more disturbing if they made players have extended and graphic death sequences. Real dying soldiers often revert back to childhood memories when they go into shock, and sometimes call out for mommy in a distant and terrible way. That would probably be something that most people would have a hard time stomaching in their online shooters. It's really the realistic violence that people would find most disturbing, not the comedic nonsense where NPCs get blown into tiny pieces of steak.

 

[DJjaffacake]

Like what? Because it's also a fighting game? Doom's also a first person shooter; you progress through it and adapt to its challenges like any other game. "Well yeah, but it's also a game." can be said of almost any violent game where violence is the main draw.

That is the point of ultraviolence though. Violence for it's own sake and without any reason. A game can be very violent, but if that violence is there to stop the terrorists/Russians/aliens or whatever, ultraviolence it is not. That's my gripe with the use of the word.

...And again, that's only what you know of it. Let's say that some of the fetishism doesn't take place without the violence. Look up videos if you must, but you'll be better off if you don't, at least if such things bother you. Hell, you'll probably be better off anyway.

And my point with mentioning older games is that extreme violence has been around for a long time, and that it's been built upon along the way, not that those games are the current trend. Sniper V2 is a game that just came out that features a delightful view of your shots traveling through digitally rendered heads and limbs as you shoot them. It that the point of the game? I doubt it. But you still watch bullets plow through peoples' brains in slow motion. And again, to be fair, you don't seem to have the largest video game resume in the world, and that's fine, but it also means you don't have as much exposure as you could. But the games are there, whether you're aware of or have played them or not.

I'll take your word for it on Duke Nukem, and I agree that there's no good reason for the killcams in Sniper Elite beyond, "It's cool to see someone's skull shatter." The thing is, these are just some games, not all AAA games. In the same way that there being many sports games doesn't mean the whole industry is predominantly sports games. Something else that has just come to mind is, how is the "sexy" stuff combined with the violence treated in Duke Nukem? I've heard about the, "You're fucked" bit, but is it treated as, "Isn't this hot?" or more, "This is happening?"

 

[ReiverCorrupter]

snip

No, I get it and agree. My problem is when people don't keep it in perspective and decide to do stupid shit, like greasing their fellow students, joining the army for dumb reasons, being overly obsessed with violence and carnage and so on and so forth. It's the minority, but still troubling.

That's probably a result of very poor parenting more than anything else. What I find far more disturbing than violence in media is the fact that parents are letting media raise their children, allowing them to plop down in front of the TV or computer for hours on end. Even if the subject matter isn't objectionable, they are still allowing their children's values to be determined by an inherently consumeristic product. They should hardly be surprised when their kids turn out to be vapid, greedy, superficial and completely lacking in work ethic.

That's the real threat to family values: people aren't really raised by their family anymore. Parents who pass on stories about their ancestors and teach their children time honored cultural traditions are becoming an ever rarer phenomenon. You certainly can't expect people to learn about their history through the public school system either. All these children have to form their worldviews and sense of identity from is the freaking Disney channel and MTV.

Society is boned.

 

[Soggy Toast]

Welly welly welly welly welly welly well.

 

[Carnagath]

What's funny is that he doesn't even mention kids anywhere, he's talking about adults here. He's lecturing other people on what they should and should not like, about overdoing violence in mature-rated games such as Hitman. Maybe he also expects people to bow before him, kiss his hand and confess their sins?

As adults, I think we have a choice on whether we want to subject ourselves to violence in all forms of entertainment (books/movies/videogames) and I don't think we need his guidance in the matter. It's a matter of preference. I like violent paperbacks, I liked the original Saw movie because it had a very interesting setup, I love every Tarantino movie ever made, I do NOT like most torture porn movies because I find them rather pointless. That's just me, others think differently, and it is their right to have access to their preferred form of entertainment, as long as it does not hurt other people. Violence as an element of entertainment is purely aesthetic, there's no morality or immorality attached to it.

If he's really looking to protest against something, how about prioritizing, you know, actual violence instead? Like domestic violence? Or like the one his country has been causing all over the world for the last 50 years? Or like the one my own country inflicted upon me, by forcing me to abandon my family and friends and go through a year of mandatory military training, with racist fucktards screaming at my face at 5 in the morning and forcing me to sing racist hymns about how I want to bathe in the blood of innocent people who just happen to be living in my neighboring countries? But yeah, who cares about that, as long as your videogames are full of rosepedals and friendship.

Fuck him and everyone like him.

 

[Kingjackl]

We hear this discussion brought up every year, and the sad truth is that the games that reflect the market are the ones that sell. And if violent games sell, then more will be made.

 

[Tradjus]

The violence in Deus Ex: HR was designed to make us uncomfortable, eh?
Well, it certainly didn't make me uncomfortable. I guess it's just that no matter how advanced games get, there's always going to be that level of detachment from what is going on onscreen.
That isn't to say that games can't make me uneasy, but typically the only games that can do that are not very violent, usually psychological horror based games like Amnesia the Dark Descent. Violence in games just can't bring that same level of unease and discomfort, I guess because it's just not realistic enough. The process of death in even the most gritty, realistic modern shooter is so cartoony it's utterly meaningless, no matter how violent. A guy's head can erupt into a cloud of pink and white particles after being exploded by a sniper rifle round in SHOOTER GAME 3: THE RE-SHOOTENING and it's no more disturbing than watching a caterpillar inch it's way up a branch.
Part of it is desensitization of course, but even when I was first getting into gaming the violence just didn't disturb me, and I think now as always it's simply been the lack of realism. You can always distance yourself psychologically from the death and destruction on screen because it's not real and it doesn't look real.

 

[Darkness665]

As has been stated many times in this thread already, Warren Spector was the creative director for the original Deus Ex, not Human Revolution. The article even states that he left Eidos some years ago. Learn to read properly before you start criticizing...

Yep. I definitely missed that. Sorry bout that.

I never played the original. I had a few friends that did and we all agreed it sucked. You could go absolutely bat-shit-crazy and the story would chug along like the little corridor shooter it wasn't. No matter what you did it just went straight on until morning. So, yeah he did fail.

 

[Darkness665]

-blather I already knew about so not new snipped-

Methinks you have not the slightest clue what you're talking about. The fact that you admit you haven't actually played the game says as much...

Methinks you should log onto a clue server. I didn't play the original because it wasn't worth buying! It was just a pile of semi-okay graphics and it claimed to have this morality BS system. Well, when I watched the buddy play it we all laughed. Nobody reacted to what the designer said he wanted to have happen. They went out and did whatever they wanted and felt nothing. No reaction except, oh wow! Or, funny! It doesn't care about anything you do. Sure the story changed. Nobody felt any different. Nobody reacted to the violence on a personal level.

So, if you can possibly recall the actual article jeffers, he claimed the violence has to stop and he had done some super violence reaction solution that made the player f_e_e_l regarding the naughty things they did. Well it did pretty much the exact opposite of that which is why I am saying he f-a-i-l-e-d. Stated a goal. Failed at the goal. Happens every single day. Get over it.

Two games did what he claimed he tried to do. Fallout 3 and blowing up Megaton. Mass Effect Whatever and destroying all the Geth. Both of those situations actually had me stop and think about the reaction. In a game. Made me stop and think about what I was going to have my character do. Interesting that none of those designers came out and said "we did this so gamers would stop doing the ultra violence without feeeeeling it".

I am really glad you liked the game. Big deal. Go play it again. Now stop getting so violent about it.

 

[Weaver]

I agree just so we can start having games with at least a modicum of depth again instead of super flashy explodey guts and gore shooters that are just boring as absolute fuck.

 

[Therumancer]

My basic attitude is that sex and violence need to keep moving forward in terms of intensity in video games and other media. Like it or not, that's what people find entertaining. It has been this way since the dawn of time, where many of the first stories were about violence and bloodshed and war. Sex and erotica has also been a part of human entertainment for as long as we've had such. You can decry human nature, but well, there it is. Truthfully I think half the problem nowadays is that people pull too many punches for fear of offending those in denial.

Actually, I agree with the vast majority of what you said, especially the first paragraph and most especially with the emboldened sentences.

I don't really think the level of graphic detail affects the acts any, killing someone or something is killing something, it doesn't matter how realistically it's presented.

I do, however, strongly disagree with this. Playing space invaders is a far cry from playing Gears of War. I think you can definitely notice a large difference in the psychological effect of a game when you make the NPCs the player kills seem more human. Graphic detail is one part of this, and a large part if you include realistic bodily movements, voices and facial expressions.

I don't feel much of anything when I kill grubs in Gears, but if a game pulls it off just right I will actually feel compassion for some NPCs. This is, of course, difficult to do with a set of default behaviors. Despite Peter Molyneux's best efforts I couldn't give less of a crap about the hordes of mindless NPCs in the Fable games. I find it only happens in the prerecorded conversations of primary characters played by decent voice actors.

Playing Call of Duty online might be a lot more disturbing if they made players have extended and graphic death sequences. Real dying soldiers often revert back to childhood memories when they go into shock, and sometimes call out for mommy in a distant and terrible way. That would probably be something that most people would have a hard time stomaching in their online shooters. It's really the realistic violence that people would find most disturbing, not the comedic nonsense where NPCs get blown into tiny pieces of steak.

The only reason things like "Space Invaders" were so abstract is because they didn't have the technology to produce an alien combat simulator like "Gears Of War".

Like it or not, people inherantly want to fight, kill, and see death and suffering. There is more to us than that, but it's the yin to your yang (positive) aspects. People might deny it, but there is a reason why people flocked by the thousands to watch people be fed to lions or to cut each other up with swords in an arena.

Some people seem to be in denial about this part of humanity, and really I think trying to pretend things aren't this way causes more problems than good. I think we really need to come to peace with it, and understand that violent entertainment exists for a reason.

Your point about dying soldiers misses the point that there is a reason why when we go to war properly we both demonize the enemy, and condition our soldiers to make things much easier. In the end a part of being human is to enjoy killing and inflicting pain, which is why so many people who go to war have trouble adjusting back to living normally.

Do not misunderstand what I'm saying, part of being human is also being a social creature, and trying to control those impulses. Expression through video games and such is one of the ways of doing this. Denying such things and trying to surpress violence is however counter productive and just causes more problems.

When people kill, mutilate, rape, torture, etc... in video games for fun, and are asked "why do you do this" the reason why there is generally no good answer is because it's how we're instinctively wired. Humans are predators (and the greatest predator on the planet). This doesn't mean your a total sociopath, just that your normal, a sociopath is more someone ruled by those instincts and not having a lot of the contridictory social ones that go along with them.

Really, they used to talk about this to some extent in both psycology and sociology. It's also a key element to why Utopias can't be achieved, and part of the "science" in science fiction stories where people get trapped in some faux utopia that couldn't be real.... as well as part of the point (survival) to stories where humans surpress those instincts and need to learn to fight again (a key element to Niven's "Man-Kzin War" series).

 

[ReiverCorrupter]

I don't really think the level of graphic detail affects the acts any, killing someone or something is killing something, it doesn't matter how realistically it's presented.

I do, however, strongly disagree with this. Playing space invaders is a far cry from playing Gears of War. I think you can definitely notice a large difference in the psychological effect of a game when you make the NPCs the player kills seem more human. Graphic detail is one part of this, and a large part if you include realistic bodily movements, voices and facial expressions.

I don't feel much of anything when I kill grubs in Gears, but if a game pulls it off just right I will actually feel compassion for some NPCs. This is, of course, difficult to do with a set of default behaviors. Despite Peter Molyneux's best efforts I couldn't give less of a crap about the hordes of mindless NPCs in the Fable games. I find it only happens in the prerecorded conversations of primary characters played by decent voice actors.

Playing Call of Duty online might be a lot more disturbing if they made players have extended and graphic death sequences. Real dying soldiers often revert back to childhood memories when they go into shock, and sometimes call out for mommy in a distant and terrible way. That would probably be something that most people would have a hard time stomaching in their online shooters. It's really the realistic violence that people would find most disturbing, not the comedic nonsense where NPCs get blown into tiny pieces of steak.

The only reason things like "Space Invaders" were so abstract is because they didn't have the technology to produce an alien combat simulator like "Gears Of War".

Like it or not, people inherantly want to fight, kill, and see death and suffering. There is more to us than that, but it's the yin to your yang (positive) aspects. People might deny it, but there is a reason why people flocked by the thousands to watch people be fed to lions or to cut each other up with swords in an arena.

Some people seem to be in denial about this part of humanity, and really I think trying to pretend things aren't this way causes more problems than good. I think we really need to come to peace with it, and understand that violent entertainment exists for a reason.

Your point about dying soldiers misses the point that there is a reason why when we go to war properly we both demonize the enemy, and condition our soldiers to make things much easier. In the end a part of being human is to enjoy killing and inflicting pain, which is why so many people who go to war have trouble adjusting back to living normally.

I hate to break this to you, but you're preaching to the choir. In fact, you didn't really even disagree with anything I said. I totally agree with violence being a part of human nature. My point, which you seem to have missed entirely, was that the level of realism in the game changes the psychological reaction of the person playing it. Yes, I agree that people generally demonize the enemy and don't think of them as human beings. You can blow up glowing dots in an AC130 all day, and it probably wouldn't affect you.

My point was that if you made graphically real violence where dying soldiers cried out for their mommies, people probably wouldn't like it very much because it humanizes the enemy. That's the kind of thing that traumatizes people. If anything, what you said supports my argument.

Now, if your point was that people would enjoy the sounds of the dying soldier crying out for his mommy, then I would say that goes beyond a mere instinct for violence and verges into the realms of sadism. That's the kind of thing serial killers feel when they torture kittens.

An instinct for violence is distinct from a desire to inflict pain. Violence usually doesn't involve any reflection upon the mind of the targeted individual: it's an immediate re-action. You see an enemy, your adrenaline pumps, you pull the trigger. You generally don't ask yourself what that person had for breakfast this morning. You don't perceive him as a person; he's a target.

A certain level of instinct for violence is healthy because it helps humans when they inevitably come into contact with one another. But pure sadism isn't; it's extremely unhealthy and doesn't really serve a purpose. It could maybe help one with torture, but the fact of the matter is that torture is pretty useless. People tell you whatever they think you want to hear just to make it stop. Extreme pleasure is actually a better way to extract information. Get your captive addicted to crack or meth and they'll eventually tell you everything you want to know.

Not to mention sadism is antithetical to everything the traditional warrior stands for. The will to power =/= the will to feel powerful. It doesn't make you a big man to take pleasure in the suffering of the weak and helpless. As Nietzsche put it, "You may have only enemies whom you hate, not enemies you despise. You must be proud of your enemy: then the successes of your enemy are your successes too."