No More Torture for Splinter Cell: Blacklist

[Stu35]

Yeah, torture is ugly and gritty, and it most definitely works. To be cowed out of something realistic in a game because "teh internets" have a problem show an amazing lack of spine for the developer.

No, it doesn't work [http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/the-lay-scientist/2010/nov/04/2], and Sam Fisher is the exact kind of operative who would know it doesn't work.

Basically what the article says is TL;DR there is no way to be conclusive one way or the other regarding torture as all we have to go on are peoples stories, as no one has actually done any kind of study on it.

And that's by the guardian. Who are the most left wing of all British broadsheets.


I'm not going to weigh in on whether or not I think torture works(In fact, fuck it, I will: I don't think physical torture does, and we have some far better psychological means of getting information in this day and age that don't leave a single physical mark on the individual... But that's by the by), but I don't think that we should be doing it in the civilised world - it's one of the things we need to keep the moral high ground over the Insurgents in the various countries we're fighting.

Same way that when one of our own desecrates and enemy body, we come down hard on it - Some of us may sympathise with the blokes who did it, given the circumstances, and knowing the emotions involved, but the fact is we have to be whiter than white in order to maintain credibility in a western world that turns its nose up at anything it finds distasteful, and won't hesitate to jump on any excuse they can to show-up organisations they don't agree with (and the media being the mercenary bastards they are will jump on any story that sells papers/gets clicks/whatever).

So, yes, it's effectiveness is, ultimately irrelevant in this day and age - it's inhumane, and our own lads shouldn't be doing it.


Now that I've veered off topic, I'm going to come back on and say that removing a scene like this from a game to avoid offence is about par for course these days - Companies don't actually care if what they make is offensive (and rightly so), however they have shown time and again that as soon as they come up against any kind of media storm that might hurt sales they will back down.

So, had they not shown that scene at E3, and had no one drawn attention to it, they'd undoubtedly have kept it in - however the power of the complainer these days is strong to the point that even a few indignant mothers screaming "think of the children" will get a company grovelling for forgiveness over a torture scene, even as they continue to sell a game in which the main character's job is to close with and kill an unsuspecting enemy in a fashion that would probably break the average person who had to do it (although I can't exactly speak from experience on that one).

 

[ShirowShirow]

Unless I'm mistaken from years of not playing the games, didn't Sam Fisher "extract" information from NPCs at gunpoint to further his objective? I'm finding it hard to believe that stabbing someone with a knife is worse than holding a gun to someone's head, with the option to shoot this NPC afterward, for information.

This sounds like politics getting its dirty hands into the video game industry yet again. If we don't want to touch these issue because the might be "too sensitive" then I worry about where this industry is going and if we'll ever evolve as a format. For crying out loud, Harry Potter gets tortured in a children's book, not even for information, and still no one seems to care! Oh well, lets all be hypocrites.

I'm not up and up on the history of Splinter Cell, but remember that Harry Potter getting tortured was supposed to be a BAD thing that the BAD GUYS did. Harry Potter DOES actually let his emotions run wild at a point and try to use a pain curse at one point, but it's specifically pointed out that he's actually too good a person to actually go through with it so the curse fizzles.

It's not about showing torture. It's about showing torture in a positive light.

 

[Riobux]

Why was this removed? It's fair enough that it's uncomfortable, but games shouldn't automatically be promoting an image of fun and happiness. Sometimes grim shit occurs, and it only serves to illustrate a point. See Spec Ops: The Line for more information.

 

[Scorpid]

Imagine if the white phosphore scene was removed from Spec Ops. No one "loved" the scene, but it was a part of what made the game so interesting.
So, if the torture scenes were part of the context of blacklist, than removing them would leave an empty space. The other option is that the scenes were there to be enjoyable, and since they aren't, removing them wouldn't effect the product.
Time will tell.

What did the white phosphorus scene have as intention though?

Discomfort, realization that you had done something terrible.

Now did it have that effect? Not really because it is a forced sequence and so you are basically absolved of the entire feeling of guilt because the game strong armed you into doing it. However the resulting feelings and the intent are the same. You are supposed to not feel good.

Now what is the intent of the torture scene? Suspense and thrill.

Not really the same thing right? They actually did have a torture scene in Spec Ops to. It was short but it wasn't offensive you know why? Because the depiction of that torture wasn't the same. It was a man wanting information and a man who had information whilst you stood by the sideline unable to interfere or change his faith.

It wasn't about the torture it was about the inability to save the man.

In Splinter Cell it is about sticking knives in brown people because they are the bad guys. Did Sam Fisher employ these methods when fucking Japan was planning a world invasion? No. He snuck in the shadows and got his information from hacking computers, use of an intensive network of intelligence and of course little snippets of conversation between guards.

So on the brink of a world war he didn't resort to torture, but now all of a sudden you are telling me he has to? He is unable to use spydrones, wiretapping, regular old infiltration, spies, tracking devices, regular old searching through documents, eavesdropping etc. Which are also all much more reliable methods than torture.

The first thing I expect from a terrorist leader who is zealously religious when tortured is False information and that is what he got! The entire torture was POINTLESS! It had no emotional weight and the entire thing was basically Sam getting off on his anger and venting it.


Now on Ubisoft retracting the scene though. Why? Because people whines about it? Fucking seriously? If you want to put that torture scene in there, put that fucking torture scene in there. It's nothing but cheap exploitation but it is YOUR cheap exploitation of violence. If you think that the story benefits from it then leave it in. Why did you put it there in the first place if it wasn't a part of the story or character arc?

Thank you! These violence for the sake of violence loonies are losing their minds here but when Lara Croft gets threatened with rape they threw up their hands saying "Lordy save us from the sadistic exploitative developers", which actually made complete sense in context of the trailer.
Now a developer is saying that they're removing something they feel is needless and exploitative from the game and people are decrying them as 'balless'. What a bunch creepy mother fuckers... Go watch Saw or Hostel if you people feel the need to watch a human being suffer for your amusement without any real context.

 

[redknightalex]

Unless I'm mistaken from years of not playing the games, didn't Sam Fisher "extract" information from NPCs at gunpoint to further his objective? I'm finding it hard to believe that stabbing someone with a knife is worse than holding a gun to someone's head, with the option to shoot this NPC afterward, for information.

This sounds like politics getting its dirty hands into the video game industry yet again. If we don't want to touch these issue because the might be "too sensitive" then I worry about where this industry is going and if we'll ever evolve as a format. For crying out loud, Harry Potter gets tortured in a children's book, not even for information, and still no one seems to care! Oh well, lets all be hypocrites.

I'm not up and up on the history of Splinter Cell, but remember that Harry Potter getting tortured was supposed to be a BAD thing that the BAD GUYS did. Harry Potter DOES actually let his emotions run wild at a point and try to use a pain curse at one point, but it's specifically pointed out that he's actually too good a person to actually go through with it so the curse fizzles.

It's not about showing torture. It's about showing torture in a positive light.

True. I was thinking more along the lines that torture is torture, regardless of who uses it and for what purposes. Even the exposure to it, which happened to be in a children's book, was never thought of as a bad thing. I'll freely admit that when I read those scenes I was a little bothered by it, so what were kids thinking? Sure, the good guys can be pure and the bad guys using torture everywhere, yet that doesn't stop the kids, or whomever, from reading it and having a reaction to it. Is there that much of a difference of who uses it when you read about it? I'd argue that it would be worse to have it be done to someone you identify with, like Harry, than commit it virtually.

Plus, Sam Fisher a "good" guy? I always thought of him as a morally ambiguous one.

 

[Suave Charlie]

The whole reason torture was stopped was because nobody wanted their own group tortured. So we made a deal: We're all civilized, so if you don't torture our people we won't torture your people. All nice and happy, good rule o' war.

The terrorists in the middle east don't follow any rules at all. They dress as civilians during firefights, target civilians and children purposefully, and torture and murder any soldiers they capture. As of right now, there is nothing to dissuade them from these practices, because we don't do the same.

Before people can understand civility, they need to understand how bad bad can get.

That, and it absolutely does work. I've never seen any article that looks at it in purely scientific light, it's always about an agenda. I could make nearly anyone spill any secrets they've got eventually, and I have absolutely no training at all. A true professional could pull detailed information in a very short period of time.

It's all about getting someone to break. Some people may be able to hold out for a little while... but eventually everybody breaks. These coward terrorists are no different.

So your argument is to drop down to their level and use barbaric acts of violence that haven't proved one way or another whether they yield useful intelligence?

Classy as balls.

That, and it absolutely does work.

Citation neede-

I've never seen any article that looks at it in purely scientific light

OH WAIT.

Yeah I'm sure you could "break" people, get them to confess to things they've done, probably also get them to confess to killing Jesus if they think it'll stop the torture.

 

[mateushac]

snip

snip

Plus, Sam Fisher a "good" guy? I always thought of him as a morally ambiguous one.

That's pretty much my point of view too. Why must every protagonist always be the good guy?
I can't help but feel a little awkward when people expect me to see a guy who's been trained to kill people with his bare hands as the good guy. Sure, he is American (which seems to be enough for you to be the hero nowadays) and he has a child, but if you want to portray him as the guy who's doing the right thing, you should probably be making a game about doing charity instead of performing military ops.

You see... Playable characters ARE NOT the player him/herself. It's okay for them to do bad stuff once in a while, and that doesn't mean the artist is trying to pass his bad deeds as positive. Sometimes writers just want to expose the grimmer side of things (eg. Fisher's immense commitment to achieving his goals sometimes has him doing large atrocities, such as torturing people).

Actually, if the torture is, by any chance related to the story's development (Which it must be. Why else would you write something into the plot if it doesn't contibute to the overall narrative or exposition?), then I think it's the right way to go about advancing videogames as a narrative medium.

Much of the same thing happens with Tomb Raider's rape scene. The developers probably just wanted to point their view on Lara's character: They wanted to show us that, in their interpretation of the character, she's not a born badass. She gradually grew such a hard shell in consequence of all of the bad stuff she had to come through in order to survive.

I'd also like to take this opportunity and give a shout out to all the developers out there who are giving in to those stupid demands: "If you believe what you're doing is art, defend it as the art that it is!"

 

[JWAN]

Breaking news: French owned studio surrenders. In other news: Grass still green.

Lol, this is the first thing I thought of too.
It reminds me of ET when they re-released it and took out the guns. South Park did a great jab at that where a newscaster announced the re-release of ET without the guns and also "saving private ryan" where they again replaced all the guns with walkie talkies.
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ON ANOTHER TANGENT:
The more oversensitive we as a culture become, the weaker we become. Just think of it. How many times throughout the day do you have to stop and think about what you said just because you are afraid that you just accidentally offended someone? Maybe everyone should just suck it up, accept that everyone has different opinions, cultures, religious beliefs and not worry about stepping on toes and not OVERREACTING when someone does accidentally (in that case the person doesn't deserve the crazed reaction OR purposely where the person meant to be an offensive asshole to grab attention and the reaction from the general public gave the jackass just what they wanted). Shit happens, life moves on. For me this is still a video game, I saw the torture scene in Lethal Weapon and I still haven't tried to torture anyone (as of yet, I'll keep everyone here in the loop). Also I just watched The Godfather the other day and I didn't start up my own Sicilian crime syndicate and last week I listened to an Elvis song and I repressed the urge to waggle my hips and wear blue suede shoes. Am I saying throw sensitivity out the door? No, no I am not. I am saying being oversensitive is the issue here. The more people try to bury issues with large amounts of sensitivity the larger the issues become because now they are being built up through repression instead of being explored and dismantled through discussion and debate.

 

[scrivello]

Silly, really.

 

[RedDeadFred]

Stupid Internet Explorer

There's your problem.

OT: Threads like this always make me die a little inside. Not because I necessarily care that torture was removed from the game but because there are people saying that they won't buy the game because it's gone. If getting to torture someone is what makes the game for you, you seriously need to rethink your life.

 

[Suave Charlie]

Drop down to their level? We're trying to kill them. We torture them and maybe they play nice. We lose nothing by following this and have potential to gain some level of civility for our people.

Prove it? How will torturing them create civility? Not sure what your angle here is.

I'm sure you lack the spine to do it yourself. Call it "morals", "ethics", or whatever else you want so you can pretend to be superior to other people. Fact is, you're able to cower underneath you covers every night because of the people who are willing to do what is needed to save your sorry life.

Yep, not wanting to torture someone means I'm spineless. Fucking genius. Having morals and ethics doesn't make you superior to other people.. it makes you people.
Again; Torture hasn't been proven to yield significantly positive or negative results. So I disagree it's "what's needed"
Also, what's this about saving my life? I know some areas of Manchester can be sketchy but I've never seen a terrorist jump out to attack me only to be stopped by a soldier with a pair of pliers and a scalpel.

You weep for the terrorists and you curse the Americans. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that torture, while tragic, probably saves lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives...You don't want the truth, because deep down, in places you don't talk about at parties, you want them to torture. You need them to torture.

Here's me, sat in England just weeping for all dem turrists. I don't massively care about about terrorists or americans, doesn't affect me, but doens't mean I'll support something that hasn't been proven to work and is so barbaric. You yourself have said "it works" and now "probably saves lives"
Need them to torture? LOLWUT.

I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain this to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom America provides, then questions the manner in which it provides it! I'd rather you just said thank you and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a car battery and work over a terrorist. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you're entitled to!

Not american by the way. Never understood this, what freedom is being provided? Who would actually come and take away the average american's freedom? A group of men in the mountains thousands of miles away have scared the country into willingly giving up freedoms.. but that's irrelevant I suppose.

I don't give a damn about stuff either?

My house, whenever you like.

Welp, that's me intimidated!

You could if you're a big sloppy mess about it. Why do you think that anyone torturing someone will wield it like a salami? It's a scalpel. You can break someone to the point where they think that you are their God and they will do anything for you. You just have to apply the right... pressure.

Seriously, what are you talking about? Am I talking to SLJ in unthinkable?

I'm gonna say right now; you're gonna have a hard time intimidating me on a forum on a gaming website, halfway across the world.
I disagree with the wars but don't hold that against the soldiers there, but that doesn't mean I'll blindly support any and all actions they'll commit there. There's a reason there's laws against it, this is 2013, not 1200.

Also, why are you acting as if you're some big bad american torturer?

 

[SonicWaffle]

Stupid Internet Explorer

There's your problem.

My workplace's problem, really. If I were at home I'd avoid the thing like the plague.

OT: Threads like this always make me die a little inside. Not because I necessarily care that torture was removed from the game but because there are people saying that they won't buy the game because it's gone. If getting to torture someone is what makes the game for you, you seriously need to rethink your life.

I see it more like the uproar when Skyrim wouldn't allow players to kill children. Nobody wants to kill children (I hope) but when the game was advertised in a certain way - in that case it was almost total freedom - people resented having moral guardians limit that freedom.

Sam Fisher is a dirty scumbag, and as time wears by he's getting more and more like the kind of bastard who'd think nothing of torturing people for information. By removing it, people are annoyed that A) developers caved to what they perceive as pressure from the aforementioned moral guardians and B) that an intended part of the story cannot be used because of said pressure. I haven't been getting the impression that anyone just really, really wants to torture someone and was going to buy this game as an outlet for those urges.

 

[SonicWaffle]

...you realise you're coming off as more than a little bit crazy, right?

 

[Xan Krieger]

Mass Effect 2 had some light torture in which you can punch (and I mean really hard punch) a prisoner to get information out of him. Don't recall that causing an issue even though the guy was human and suffered visible damage. You hear a guy getting tortured in Spec Ops: The Line though you never actually see it. Personally I have no problem with torture in a game, especially if it has positive results (the guy in Mass Effect 2 telling me what I needed to hear for example).

 

[JudgeGame]

I think a huge problem with that scene is that after the torture which you perform yourself, you get the choice to kill them or just knock them out. Keeping a moral choice aspect in a game where torture is obligatory is a very difficult decision to defend. It sends a very strange message to the audience and indicates the creators have very little understanding of the real implications of torture. I'm glad they decided to address that and removing the scene entirely is probably the easiest way to solve the issue.

 

[RedDeadFred]

Stupid Internet Explorer

There's your problem.

My workplace's problem, really. If I were at home I'd avoid the thing like the plague.

OT: Threads like this always make me die a little inside. Not because I necessarily care that torture was removed from the game but because there are people saying that they won't buy the game because it's gone. If getting to torture someone is what makes the game for you, you seriously need to rethink your life.

I see it more like the uproar when Skyrim wouldn't allow players to kill children. Nobody wants to kill children (I hope) but when the game was advertised in a certain way - in that case it was almost total freedom - people resented having moral guardians limit that freedom.

Sam Fisher is a dirty scumbag, and as time wears by he's getting more and more like the kind of bastard who'd think nothing of torturing people for information. By removing it, people are annoyed that A) developers caved to what they perceive as pressure from the aforementioned moral guardians and B) that an intended part of the story cannot be used because of said pressure. I haven't been getting the impression that anyone just really, really wants to torture someone and was going to buy this game as an outlet for those urges.

All of this I agree with. However, the very first guy to post a response said that he LOVES torture and won't be buying the game. I wasn't getting at the people with legitimate arguments (I agree with most of them) I was aiming my statement at the few people who think the highlight of the game is getting to torture someone.

 

[mateushac]

massive snip

All of this I agree with. However, the very first guy to post a response said that he LOVES torture and won't be buying the game. I wasn't getting at the people with legitimate arguments (I agree with most of them) I was aiming my statement at the few people who think the highlight of the game is getting to torture someone.

I'm pretty sure his "I love torture" thing was a comic response aimed at the developers who said something along the lines of "nobody ever said they loved the torture scene, so we cut it out".

 

[RedDeadFred]

massive snip

All of this I agree with. However, the very first guy to post a response said that he LOVES torture and won't be buying the game. I wasn't getting at the people with legitimate arguments (I agree with most of them) I was aiming my statement at the few people who think the highlight of the game is getting to torture someone.

I'm pretty sure his "I love torture" thing was a comic response aimed at the developers who said something along the lines of "nobody ever said they loved the torture scene, so we cut it out".

See I'd believe that if it weren't for the fact that he follows that remark by saying that because of this, he will not buy the game.

 

[mateushac]

See I'd believe that if it weren't for the fact that he follows that remark by saying that because of this, he will not buy the game.

Well, I like to believe that people I deal with have a minimum amount of sanity.

 

[RedDeadFred]

See I'd believe that if it weren't for the fact that he follows that remark by saying that because of this, he will not buy the game.

Well, I like to believe that people I deal with have a minimum amount of sanity.

Haha, fair enough. You're probably right.