Alright, this idea has been stemming around the midsection of my brain for a while now. It starts out with reading through an explanation of a theme in The Shawshank Redemption, but quickly spread to gaming as well. The recent thread about quality villains has amplified this idea for me.
Now, when we play through a game and follow along with its story or start going through its gameplay, there is an inherent means in method. The player will start developing gradual emotions towards the nature of the game, which will eventually manifest itself into one of two things: a sense of retribution or a sense of justice. Let me elaborate on this using examples from games; Mass Effect had a primary villain, Saren, who was simply a badass. Sure, there was the whole save-the-galaxy-from-unknown-threat plotline, but the reason most of us kept playing through to the end was because we wanted to finally triumph over Saren specifically, and punish him for his deeds. This is a feeling of retribution; we did not want to deliver justice, we wanted to punish him. The GTA games play off of this immensely; San Andreas had an early betrayal that kept us wanting to play through the game, while both GTA IV and COD: MW2 had late game betrayals that wanted us to punish the people who performed said betrayals. There are countless games where retribution is our motivation for progressing onwards.
On the other hand, there are far fewer quality games that play off of justice. Fewer games put us in situations where we want to simply correct the world of the game. Okami is perhaps the most notable game where the player does not generally feel a sense of retribution. But is the story praised so highly? It's more the unique art style that makes Okami such a great game. I guess this leads us to ask the questions:
Can you create a game with a rich story or rich characters and avoid creating motivations of retribution or personal punishment? Can games that lack this "Now it's personal" attitude still have a rich story?
Because in my estimation, attachment to characters invariably leads to more passionate motivation towards finishing the game. If good story and violent motivations come hand in hand, can video games ever be a widely accepted form of media? Are other forms of media subject to this attachment?
Call me rambling, it's still an interesting idea.
Now, when we play through a game and follow along with its story or start going through its gameplay, there is an inherent means in method. The player will start developing gradual emotions towards the nature of the game, which will eventually manifest itself into one of two things: a sense of retribution or a sense of justice. Let me elaborate on this using examples from games; Mass Effect had a primary villain, Saren, who was simply a badass. Sure, there was the whole save-the-galaxy-from-unknown-threat plotline, but the reason most of us kept playing through to the end was because we wanted to finally triumph over Saren specifically, and punish him for his deeds. This is a feeling of retribution; we did not want to deliver justice, we wanted to punish him. The GTA games play off of this immensely; San Andreas had an early betrayal that kept us wanting to play through the game, while both GTA IV and COD: MW2 had late game betrayals that wanted us to punish the people who performed said betrayals. There are countless games where retribution is our motivation for progressing onwards.
On the other hand, there are far fewer quality games that play off of justice. Fewer games put us in situations where we want to simply correct the world of the game. Okami is perhaps the most notable game where the player does not generally feel a sense of retribution. But is the story praised so highly? It's more the unique art style that makes Okami such a great game. I guess this leads us to ask the questions:
Can you create a game with a rich story or rich characters and avoid creating motivations of retribution or personal punishment? Can games that lack this "Now it's personal" attitude still have a rich story?
Because in my estimation, attachment to characters invariably leads to more passionate motivation towards finishing the game. If good story and violent motivations come hand in hand, can video games ever be a widely accepted form of media? Are other forms of media subject to this attachment?
Call me rambling, it's still an interesting idea.
