The Theme of Violence

So, does the violence in computer games also bother you guys/gals sometimes? Or, on a small tangent, are games too complex anymore (GalCiv 2, Civ 4, etc...)and really are more "war situation simulators" instead?

No. The more violence the better! Realistic violence (gore, screaming, etc) can be OK in a realistic setting. Like in Half-Life2, for example. Use a falmethrower on an infected person (zombie), and they scream realistically in agony.

Good times.

A starnge view.

Our want for violance is basicly boils down to the fact that we are all in all an agressive species. Our Hyppocampus is actually quite larger than most animals, meaning that we are a lot more vicious when pressured into an aggresive situation. However, we are also very addaptive, and have learned that violance is frowned upon. So, rather than exhibiting real violance, we channel the energy into competitive style sports, tournaments, and lately video games. Not only that is the fact that our body is addicted to adrenelin(sp?) from the day we are born. So once we see violance and we get the rush, its a hard thing to give up. However, the countermeasure for this is society, we are conditioned from birth(most of us), to be more defensive than offensive. And basic human instict makes us frown upon the killing of our race(ussually)

.. I remember when games were 'games' like checkers, chess, Kings on the Corner, etc...

Um, even checkers and chess are abstractions of conflict, or "violence" as you put it. Chess is a wargame. Games are competition. There can be no competition without conflict. A story without conflict of some level is boring. Violence is probably the purest and easily understood form of conflict/competition.


That being said, there are entire worlds of contextual difference between the "violence" in chess or GC2, and a game like Grand Theft Auto, and this topic feels out of place when brought up in the same breath as GC2.


I will stipulate that GC2 does tend to desensitize one to futuristic warfare and starship combat with "doom" rays, but most people can probably play it without then proceeding to beat their kids, spouses and peers. Unless they had it coming. Or theres a Doom Ray involved.

"So, does the violence in computer games also bother you guys/gals sometimes? Or, on a small tangent, are games too complex anymore (GalCiv 2, Civ 4, etc...)and really are more "war situation simulators" instead?"

Oh, if only that were so. Those games you cite are exceptions, and deep ,complex games are rarer and rarer. Id kill for a decent war simulator. Kill you with a Doom Ray.


I can guarentee you the biggest mass murderers and war mongerers in the world right now (not singling anyone out...theres plenty of mass murderers and warmongerers to go around to all the respective factions, nations, or political parties) dont play video games at all, and maybe thats the problem. Although Reagan did ,in fact, try to build a "Doom Ray", god bless 'im.

Hehehe... there is a correlation between playing violent games and violance, but no 'cause' has been proven.

That being said, there are entire worlds of contextual difference between the "violence" in chess or GC2, and a game like Grand Theft Auto, and this topic feels out of place when brought up in the same breath as GC2.

I fully agree, until Bingjack says "and this topic..." Just because first-person violence and organizational violence are fundamentally different doesn't mean they aren't both forms of violence. Subsets can be like that. Some families don't like their cousins from Baltimore, some people don't like their noses, some churches don't like their bishops, etc.

Does it bother me sometimes? Yeah actually it does. I'll glance over the games in my inventory (PC or Console) and I notice that all of them include violence or pure aggression on some level or another. Then I look at my movie collection, and again nearly all of them contain violence as a central theme.

I suppose I could pass it of as being biology or a by-product of my environment. I could say that I have become desensitized to the point that I don't hardly realize it... But I do.

I think that as our knowledge base has grown so has our concept of what violence really is. Back when many of our "classics" like chess or checkers were developed, large scale war was very abstract, most who actively participated in it died... those who didn't were few or in a place of authority and thus saw battle really as a game just with different pieces. With the explosion of information and the development of warfare and medicine int the mid-19th century I believe that people became much more aware of what violence really was. At that point our recreation evolved as well. I am in no place to judge if this has been good, bad, both, or neither.

Perhaps I have just become programed to accept a violent world around me and thus my entertainment mimics my environment... Perhaps I am at my center a beast of pure aggression. Either way, the times of moral self inspection do come, but I have yet to throw out my movies or my games. Does that seem right to you?

That being said, there are entire worlds of contextual difference between the "violence" in chess or GC2, and a game like Grand Theft Auto, and this topic feels out of place when brought up in the same breath as GC2. I fully agree, until Bingjack says "and this topic..." Just because first-person violence and organizational violence are fundamentally different doesn't mean they aren't both forms of violence. Subsets can be like that. Some families don't like their cousins from Baltimore, some people don't like their noses, some churches don't like their bishops, etc.

Pacman was violence against dots and ghosts. Space invaders was wholesale carnage. Dont even get me STARTED on missle Command....that game is horrifying if you think about it at all. Risk, Battleship, Clue. And at least those games were depicting Struggles for your very life...Monopoly was just about opressing your fellow man for imaginary currency...you know, like U.S. Dollars.


When I play GC2, I see dots and icons getting gobbled up across screen not unlike pacman. If youre bringing up this topic in the context of GC2, it means youve made a value judgement and determined that cartoonish imaginary space aliens are somehow more realistic than cartoonish pacman ghosts. When you make this argument you first have to accept that youre attaching some sort of humanity or deeper meaning to colored dots.


Why youre doing that I dont know, but its probably a pretty interesting psychological topic. I personally am not disturbed over imaginary violence against colored dots. Im disturbed by the real violence against real people going on in the world perpetrated by people who pretty certianly DONT play GC2 or games like it, cable news, talk radio, every State of the Union addess, and American Idol. But admittedly, my priorities are odd.


The point is, the level of philosophical "violence" in games has not changed. If you factor in sports, the level of violence has greatly diminished if you go back to mortal gladiator stadium combat , feeding people to lions, and that game where people tried to throw severed heads through hoops.


The only thing thats changed is that games are now getting much better at *ILLUSTRATING* the violence that was just assumed previously. They are finally getting sophisticated enough to tell stories visually in the same way movies have been doing it for years. If you took GTA, or one of the GTA clones,(which admittedly are in poor taste, but unfortunately no ones ever been able to do do anything about peoples congential tendency towards poor taste, especially when theres imaginary currency to be made), and made it back in the age of 8 bit atari 2600 video graphics where you were a colored square, shooting colored squares at other colored squares, there would be no discussion here.



Sex and Violence(Rock on!) has always been implicit in every aspect of our entertainiment, even childrens stories, since the beginning of time. Criminal activity has ALWAYS been glorified in a certain percentage of entertainment(1930's ganster movies, Treasure Island, etc...). This is not your issue. (Some)People just get squeamish when its taken out out the realm of the implied, and illustrated plainly. Why youre fine with implied imaginary violence, and with real world violent atrocities commited in your name, so long as you dont have to see it, is what you should really be pondering.



Every generation has its media pariah that a small but vocal minority makes a great show of publically blaming for the ills of society (the same ills, in pretty much the same proportions, that never change) to further their own agendas. Currently it seems to be "violent" video games and men who kiss other men( again, always been there, we just get squeamish when its illustrated for us). When I was young, it was heavy metal music. I was stupid and impressionable, so I actually believed for a time it was possible to actually modulate your voice somehow while you were singing to make words be spoken backwards as well... until I got a little older and realized that would probably be *really* hard to do. Before then, it was rock and roll and which drinking fountain people of assorted colors should be using. Before then it was, I dont know...women wearing pants or something...subversive, I say!



If I could wave my wand, and make GTA and its opportunistic clones that are throwing off the curve and giving censorship hawks a target to spearhead their cause with, just go away...I would. But if I had that kind of power, they would be in line behind a whole lot of other things I would make go away first.

sorry, double post...wacky stuff going on with the forums.

I am a fully thinking intelligent human being

You sure?

Violence is great. If you don't like it then play the game without violence e.g. Make friends, form alliances, spot the weak and kill them all. There. Thats Peaceful
enough for me.

Bingjack, I wasn't trying to say playing GCII=love of violence. I was just saying that games are a way of thinking about violence, if you care to use them that way, and that for me the "big numbers" involved in things like a GCII planetary invasion can give me as much pause as the goriest scene from Grand Theft Auto.

My take on this is no, violence in video games does not bother me. Hell, Grand Theft Auto will always be my all time favorite, because of the violence of course. There's nothing better than letting off some steam after a long day at work. I figure if someone is actually weak minded enough to say that a video game or movie or song made them do what they did... then maybe there is something to all of that 'Manchurian Candidate' type talk.
I like a good game period. It doesn't matter if it's nothing but blood and gore or something cute like Sonic... as long as the game is worthy, I could care less.

Violence in games doesn't bother me at all, and it's not going to turn me into a psycho killer, as some organizations would like to have people believe. I play a wide range of games, some violent, some not, some slow, some fast - it depends on my mood, and how stressed I am. At the end of the day, it's just a bit of fun.

What are your thoughts?

Aslong as the violence is simulated and no (real) person is physically hurt by it then I enjoy violence. Imo GC II would be more fun if it focused more on space ship combat and less on other things like espionage etc.

However once people will start to get hurt then Im deadset against any kind of violence. Violence breeds more violence....

Games like GTA bother me slightly, it just seems to me that it doesn't add to the story. But at the same time I believe God of War is one of the best games of its kind in the last 10 years. In that game you tear limbs off of your enemies and beat them to death with the severed limb.

Violence in video games doesn't generally bother me. Violence for violence's sake, just like nudity/sex, in any entertainment media does bother me. GTA and the sex in Underworld: Evolution are examples.

What bothers me far more than that is when people twist the facts. How many gamers are there in America alone? My guess would be no less than 50 million. To illustrate the point, lets reduce that number to 2 million people, less than 1/4 of the total subscribers to World of Warcraft, ONE GAME. How many acts of violence have been committed by teenagers who play violent video games in the last ten years? Ten? Twenty? Even if that number were 100 its still less than one tenth of a percent of our reduced gamer population.

The only kind of person who would be affected thusly by video game violence are those who cannot make the distinction between reality and fantasy. In that case they could have been set off by watching Wiley Coyote try to crush Road Runner with a boulder, or by watching a hack-and-slash horror film. These people need help, video games are not the cause of their psychosis, they are merely one of many possible triggers.

At their core, virtually all games are about survival. It could be running from goofy ghosts, jumping over platforms, battling a cliche alien menace, or protecting your galactic empire. The possibility of loss and the high stakes--survival--is what gives us a thrill and makes the game fun. And that helps us connect with the game in a very basic, primal way, and gives us an excursion for our very cozy lives.

I don't like violence in games when its particularly gratuitous (like God of War or Mortal Kombat) or glorifies real-world violence (like GTA). Not saying its causes people to be psychos, but I do think its tasteless. I also wonder if those games can twist people's perceptions of real-world violence, so we'll get new generation of voters who think we should nuke the arabs or whatever.

Also, I would encourage readers of this thread to play the demo to Defcon: Everyone Dies. It's a simple nuclear war sim, and probably has one of the highest body counts of any game out there. But its presentation is so basic--you just watch blips pop up with the number of casualties. It's a huge contrast with other games on the market, and also says something to say about the nature of modern war. (Interestingly, it only got like a E10+ ESRB rating . . . not sure what to make of that.)

http://www.gamespot.com/pages/gamespace/download.php?pid=934480&sid=6159310&mode=latest

EDIT: One the topics of nukes, real nuclear war is about a thousand times more deadly than its portrayed in Defcon. There is no real anti-missile technology out there, and the US has about 7000 or so nuclear weapons (you "only" get around 100 in the game).

I think the violence in games, movies, and music is so prevalent because of an even more basic human instinct - it sells.

Violence-free entertainment doesn't sell. Sure, videos for infants and toddlers have a place in the market, but they're not blockbusters. Movies for even slightly older kids have some violence. Remember Bambi's mom getting blown away by hunters?

Would you even pick up the box if the title was "Galactic Sharing and Unity?"

Would you go to see "Bambi's Uneventful Happy Day?" (Bambi the animated deer, don't get sidetracked.) For a real example, would you buy the DVD of Andy Warhol's 8-hour movie of the guy sleeping for $39.99? (If it was just that movie, no extras.)

Violence-free entertainment doesn't sell.

Pshaw. I'm a fan of some violent things like Battlestar Galactica and the Sopranos, but Hollywood still puts plenty of money into romance flicks where no one gets hurt, and light comedies where none of the jokes are cutting, and you can't tell me that demon-spawn Barney the Dinosaur hasn't been a good earner

For a real example, would you buy the DVD of Andy Warhol's 8-hour movie of the guy sleeping for $39.99? (If it was just that movie, no extras.)

Not without the bonus features

Also, I would encourage readers of this thread to play the demo to Defcon: Everyone Dies. It's a simple nuclear war sim, and probably has one of the highest body counts of any game out there.

What a case of serendipity, I actually have that installed (demo) and thinking of purchasing it because it is such a cool niche game with a wonderful presentation.

I never expressed my true views of "violence" in video games because I want to spark the discussion without making it a blog by me. But... I used to own GTA (vice and Miami) but traded them away because I just felt that the game was only "cool" for one reason! To "wack" people! To be honest after the 15th time I played it I was over the whole premise of the game which is to drive around, shoot people, drive some more, fight Asian mafia, etc...

Now, what I will say in regards to supporting GTA is that I don't like it when some of the wolves dressed in "do-gooder clothing" weight in and try to make a case for all "violence" in video games needs to be regulated in a more pronounced fashion then it currently is. Especially, when you do a little home work on those people and truly find out what their motivations are... granted though, that "violent" video and computer games do affect us in ways that we do not confess to or are even aware... but there is a correlation between the two (BUT, it depends on the individual situation).

Now, I don't believe that video or computer games create armies of teenagers all warped by mania or clinical psychosis instead, it would be more fair to say that some individuals, a small percentage, but because of the nature of statistics ends up becoming a sizable portion of any population, are in some way affected by video/computer game violence. Now the operative word is "affected" but I don't know, and quite honestly, except for a few experts on the subject none of us yet know what the term "affected" means.

I have a small collection of good games but by far my favorites are:

Dawn of War: Warhammer 40K
Winter Assault: Warhammer 40K
Dark Crusade: Warhammer 40K
Age of Empires 3
Galactic Civilization 2 DL & DA Editions

So... you can't get much more violent then warhammer 40K, with that perpetual war humanity is locked into with millions of human colonized worlds, etc... If you don't know warhammer 40K google it and look it up.

And sorry to say, but Galactic Civilization 2 is all about Xenocide on an "Ender Wiggen" scale (a reference to Ender's Game).

I mentioned the above so to illustrate that I am not on any particular side favoring censorship when it comes to violence in video/computer games. Instead, I was just sparking debate on a subject that sometimes "bothers me" (kind of a strong word, but) because of the inundation of media, real life violence all over the planet, etc... I find that sometimes I need to take a step back and wonder about it. I suppose.

But one thing is clear to me that violence is married to all life on Earth like it or not, whether you think life sprang up 1 billion or 7,000 years ago, in some way violence is committed every second of everyday.

Maybe its just a biological imperative that springs from competition...

I like games and movies with violence. Especially when games have cool effects on blood.. lot of blood, destruction and death of creatures and humans. But I think that that's where the violence should stay - in games and movies.

I'm not the kind of person that is influenced by movies and games in a sense that I wish that I could do something that a character in a game could do (I'm reffering to violence here) and go and try it out on someone. But I guess these days kids are exposed to violence from an early age and they might feel that it is normal. On the other this could be a good thing, but only if the kids truly understand that it is a game or a movie and not reality. For example one of my friend's little sister played GTA: San Andreas since she was eight years old, and she really enjoyed it and could not be taken away from the game.      

And sorry to say, but Galactic Civilization 2 is all about Xenocide on an "Ender Wiggen" scale (a reference to Ender's Game).

Pshaw again. Only the military wins are apparently all about xenocide, and even there we have folks interpreting the invasion mechanics as leaving a "wild native" population in the hills after your troops settle in as new colonists. Influence victories are certainly cultural destruction, or at best radical reconstruction, but diplo and tech wins are pretty much the opposite of xenocide.

Well now. In GTA-SAn Andreas there's nothing quite like going to the ol' golf course and practicing a little putting with a Katana.

...and by putting I mean beheading other golfers   

"Fooooooore!" Swish! gush gush gush (ooooo! and he dropped some money, too!)

I don't like violence in games when its particularly gratuitous (like God of War or Mortal Kombat) or glorifies real-world violence (like GTA). Not saying its causes people to be psychos, but I do think its tasteless. I also wonder if those games can twist people's perceptions of real-world violence, so we'll get new generation of voters who think we should nuke the arabs or whatever.

Wait what?? We need games to create a generation on nuke glory white slobs? It would seem to me we already have FAR too many people who want to nuke the Arabs and the French and the Russians and the Koreans and whoever the hell it is we wihs to scapegoat our problems to.

As for the subject at hand. I have come to see the world at large as a very violent place and it's hard to argue against the fact that our species as a whole has a very lengthy line of bloodshed. I'm not sure what drives it beyond primal BS but it would seem to me that humanity has never really progressed past whatever animal urges we started this show with.. our technology has advanced and our social structure is still getting ever more complex but at the core of things we are still the same beast.

The games we have are an emulation of this. All things in life are generated by aggression and thusly the need to either survive or be better at stuff than other people has a primal connection to us. I also believe in many cases that violence is almost romantic; It's one thing to be playing GTA and thusly sewing wholescale destruction, but it's quite another to be playing the hopeless hero trying to save his people from a seemingly undefeatable enemy.

Even in oldschool games like Mario and Zelda we come across the "I'm on a never-ending quest to save my girlfriend." Syndrom. Great and powerful evils took away the hero's future ex wife and he goes forth to whoop ass.

The issue with today's games seems to be that they depict violent in ways that directly mimic real life. GTA is a prime example of this.. People seem to get really really upset and offended when things that are closer to real life are shown to us. GTA is unrealistic on a level that's stupid, but because it occurs in a world that is similar our own. We seem to have this issue with admiting that these things happen and that they happen more often than we can actually pay attention to.

So when these games come around we seem to get into a frenzy because obviously humanity can't be an inherently beastial and aggressive creature. Thusly all bad stuff must come from an exterior cause (Music, civil rights, games, TV.. pick anything that had to make room for itself in our society and it was a target). It seems to me that people have a certain ignorance towards their own gluttony for the hurting of others.

Personally I view games as a reprive for these things. I play violent games all of the time, though I do tend to steer away from overly grotesque gore. I personally do this for a few reasons and the more obvious one is that I can simulate battles in settings that don't exist that thusly allow me to crush my foes. This set of events in turn helps me relieve stress and get my mind off of more bothersome things.

I think an often overlooked avenue is Table top and RP gaming. Maybe the electronic and hobby industries are that far removed, but just in case anyone hasn't figured it out yet... most Hobby games are also games that have high levels of violence. Warhammer, Warmachine, Confrontation and so much more are another form of media and entertainment that have nothing but combat going for each other.. the only difference is in execution of that violence. Pewter people instead of pixil people and you have to manually do the math for your forces as opposed to the computer doing it for you.

This is the way things seem to be for now. Violence is always going to be around and the philosphies for/against it will wage on until the end of days.

I don't like violence in games when its particularly gratuitous (like God of War or Mortal Kombat) or glorifies real-world violence (like GTA). Not saying its causes people to be psychos, but I do think its tasteless. I also wonder if those games can twist people's perceptions of real-world violence, so we'll get new generation of voters who think we should nuke the arabs or whatever. Wait what?? We need games to create a generation on nuke glory white slobs? It would seem to me we already have FAR too many people who want to nuke the Arabs and the French and the Russians and the Koreans and whoever the hell it is we wihs to scapegoat our problems to.

Whoah! Sorry if I was vague, but I mean to say that nuke-crazy voters would be a VERY bad thing. The political discourse here (in the US) is bad enough as it is.

humanity has never really progressed past whatever animal urges we started this show with..

Humanity as a whole has not but there has been beacons of hope, such as Jesus, Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Mother Teresa and so on. If it werent for such "people" (I dont consider Jesus people, hence the qoute marks) human kind would have been extinct a long time ago.