Should games have bad/antisocial/psychopathic moral codes

Azure9

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Sep 19, 2010
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Everyone says that video games are art, well most people, but the thing is that art does not follow a moral code while video games do.

My question is that should games with bad morals be allowed to be made.

Examples:

A world war 2 game where you play a nazi

A game that's so racist that it won't even deny it

A game that has sick sexually fetish

Some of you may be thinking that games already don't have a moral code.
A good example of a game that seems to have no moral code is the grand theif auto and saints row series. Yea you can have sex with a hooker and then kill her and take her money but if your character had a nazi arm band on or if you could kill kids then people would riot.

I'm not for any of the things i mentioned above, this is a "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" kind of situation
 

Thaluikhain

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There are various laws against hate speech and enciting crimes and so on in various places. Games like that may or may not fall under that category, but they'd likely be accused of it, and that might cost developers more than they'd be willing to risk.

As for "allowed", though...you can always make them in a different jurisdiction, if that's the issue.
 

Aegis A'Sha'Se

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I think that games should adhere to a moral code, if just so that you can still get RPGs where your actions actually matter.

Also, having morals in a game can make the plot and gameplay more interesting and immersive.
 

Chalacachaca

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There's already games like that, for example you have Ethnic Cleansing, a game were you can murder blacks, hispanics, asians (I think) and finally jews. As WWII games were you play the nazis, I think RTS like Company of Heroes come close to that (of course, we get treated with german soldiers trying to defend their country instead of mass murdering nazis). As for sick fetish games, I think RapeLay it's one.

EDIT: I remember another morally poor game, but I'm not too sure about because I haven't figured out how to run it on my pc, it's called Harvester.
 

Pearwood

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You'll never see a mainstream game made like that for the simple reason that it's expensive to make. No one wants to invest that much time and money into something where you play as a Nazi because straightaway virtually all the Axis countries would ban it outright and most people wouldn't be interested in it.
 

lacktheknack

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Jan 19, 2009
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People give less of a crap than you think they do. "I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream" had sections where you played a Nazi scientist, involving such lovely bits as extracting a child's spine because SCIENCE, having a conversation with a man entangled/impaled on barbed wire, removing a man's eyes in a jar as he screams about the wonderful things he sees, and, my personal favorite...

http://lparchive.org/I-Have-No-Mouth-and-I-Must-Scream/Update%2040/img-26.png

Controversy? Next to none outside of Germany.

Of course these games have the right to exist. If they're truly outrageously offensive, then no one will play them.

Also, your title is misleading. You're asking if games should be allowed to have bad/antisocial/psychopathic moral codes. A truly "no-moral game" would simply not deal with the player's actions in a positive or negative light, but simply depict what happens because of them.
 

ckam

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I dislike the "no morals" part of your topic. Having no morals is different from having bad morals or being immoral. Please change the title as soon as you can because I was almost interested in answering the real topic.
 

lacktheknack

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Chalacachaca said:
EDIT: I remember another morally poor game, but I'm not too sure about because I haven't figured out how to run it on my pc, it's called Harvester.
A teacher beats a child's brain in because he asks a question about the non-existent government bombers that are supposedly attacking them, and that's one of the less horrific sequences. There you go.

Aegis A said:
I think that games should adhere to a moral code, if just so that you can still get RPGs where your actions actually matter.

Also, having morals in a game can make the plot and gameplay more interesting and immersive.
Games like Dragon Age and Geneforge didn't have morality systems, they had an influence system. They were just as effective as any morality system, if not better.
 

Setrus

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Oct 17, 2011
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Well...freedom of the press and all, I suppose, but publishers really need to take responsibility for what they offer the masses of course, freedom is a power, and with power comes responsibility.
Erm...though the point might be moot, I doubt games like that would sell very good.
 

Salad Is Murder

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I think games really need them to properly chew their food. Incisors and canines and great at ripping and tearing* but you really need...oh, MORALS. My bad, carry on.

*
You have huge guts.
 

Azure9

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Sep 19, 2010
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There we go i changed the title. The reason why i had the original title is because i thought it would make people think this is another GTA is bad topic.
 

Azure9

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I guess you are all right. These games would sell bad if they were mainstream. I am glad myself they are not. The reason why i thought of this topic was because i was watching an episode of extra credits and during this episode the narrator kept saying how horrible certain games were because they were historical incorrect or immoral. Oddly I wasn't thinking that, I was thinking about when will he get to the part about how bad or good the gameplay was and he never talked about that part.

The game he was talking about was call of juarez the cartel
 

Yopaz

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Jun 3, 2009
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Sticking to a moral code is stupid. However breaking a moral code too far will kill a game. If a game is clearly disgusting and appalling it makes a very small target audience so it's not worth making. There's also the ESRB that has to approve games before release. Manhunt 2 was almost never released at all.
However I don't see anything wrong with a World War 2 game where you're a Nazi, most soldiers were just doing their job. However most gamers want to be on the winning side. After completing ll the missions of a game and doing a good job of getting it right you don't want to lose the war you were fighting. Games based on real wars are usually trying to have a minimum of realism so Germany winning the war is ruled out.

Azure9 said:
I guess you are all right. These games would sell bad if they were mainstream. I am glad myself they are not. The reason why i thought of this topic was because i was watching an episode of extra credits and during this episode the narrator kept saying how horrible certain games were because they were historical incorrect or immoral. Oddly I wasn't thinking that, I was thinking about when will he get to the part about how bad or good the gameplay was and he never talked about that part.

The game he was talking about was call of juarez the cartel
That's because he's not a game reviewer.
 

SinisterGehe

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RaNDM G said:
Tetris has no morals.

Do I win?
But it destroys all the colored bricks that have unified them selfs in to a single line! That has to be symbolic for something!

Do I win now?
 

Vault101

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Sep 26, 2010
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well any game that gives oyu the ability to act like a phsycho could be considered this...kind of
 

Vindictus

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It depends entirely on the game. For example, if a game utilizes racism without it being overly offensive, then it should be fine.

It's only an issue if the game is inappropriate about the issue.

The Nazi thing makes no sense. Why should it be bad to play as a Nazi? I don't see the point in doing such a thing (shouldn't be too hard to come up with a context for it though), but I don't understand how it's offensive.