Non-violent video games
polycounter lvl 15
A comment by Zwebbie, the current slew of E3 games, and some other assorted things got me thinking. What good nonviolent games are there, and what can be considered a nonviolent game?
I mean there's the obvious stuff like racing games, but in Burnout you crash other cars on purpose. Dishonored allows you to go stealth but there's still some strangulation and of course people trying to kill you. Is Portal violent? What about good old Mario Bros, where you jump on heads? Should a game where you kill one or two persons during the entire game be considered violent? Is a game only violent if you're the one performing the violence?
I think it's interesting to ponder a bit about (non)violence in games, where it is and where it can be avoided, and so forth, for several reasons. For one, I'm kind of tired of all the shooty shooty myself, two, I think there's a lot of missed opportunities in games, three, it would be good to have instant arguments the next time there's another games/guns/mental health debate, and four, we can even use non-violent elements to enhance violent games such as adding Mirror's Edge parkour to CoD and get Brink.
So...
What do you guys consider to be good categories for (non)violence?
Which games do you guys recommend?
What elements should be played up more in videogames?
I mean there's the obvious stuff like racing games, but in Burnout you crash other cars on purpose. Dishonored allows you to go stealth but there's still some strangulation and of course people trying to kill you. Is Portal violent? What about good old Mario Bros, where you jump on heads? Should a game where you kill one or two persons during the entire game be considered violent? Is a game only violent if you're the one performing the violence?
I think it's interesting to ponder a bit about (non)violence in games, where it is and where it can be avoided, and so forth, for several reasons. For one, I'm kind of tired of all the shooty shooty myself, two, I think there's a lot of missed opportunities in games, three, it would be good to have instant arguments the next time there's another games/guns/mental health debate, and four, we can even use non-violent elements to enhance violent games such as adding Mirror's Edge parkour to CoD and get Brink.
So...
What do you guys consider to be good categories for (non)violence?
Which games do you guys recommend?
What elements should be played up more in videogames?
Replies
There seems to be a lot of good games recently that depict violence and war as something disturbing. Such as Last of Us, Metal Gear Solid 5, Spec Ops: The Line, they do not take violence lightly like most other games that glamorize war and killing.
But that being said i think a good distinction is cartoon violence and normal violence. I would consider mario cartoon violence, but team fortress 2 with it's blood, and sunset overdrive with it's zombies to be graphically violent for example.
Violence is not actively encouraged in The Sims. Its doable and its there, but you're not told to horribly torture Sims.
So yeah, Mario could be considered "violent" but I imagine it's the depiction of it that makes it stray away from something like Call of Duty.
For example, when Mario jumps on a Goomba's head, you're not witnessing the slow and gruesome death as his shoes smash through its brain. Instead, it's a quick and painless death where the goomba just disappears.
Cartoon violence is what it's called.
Just kidding!
I would consider city/empire building games non-violent: Civilization, SimCity series, etc. Although Civ has some fighting in it, it's certainly not violent like the current crop of games.
MGS5 and The Last of Us are from the creators of MGS and, of all things, Uncharted, so you'll have to forgive me if I don't exactly believe these people have a pacifist agenda. You can say that violence is bad all over the writing and textures, but if your gameplay is based on interesting ways to commit violence, then you're promoting violence.
There's a piece on Rock Paper Shotgun in which one of the designers of Dishonored gives his opinion; basically, he says that Dishonored is better than a purely non-violent game because it gives the player the choice of being a pacifist. I found that to be a bizarre read, as if it was an accident that the game had tons of fun ways to murder people and it totally wasn't the designer's fault that people played it violently.
It's not that I actually think people will become violent through video games, but I do think that creating a game which links violence to fun is a highly unethical enterprise. I've also been trying not to make 3D models of fighters myself, little as that happens to be these days.
On a better note then, I was really impressed that the developers of Frozen Synapse, an excellent, but rather shooty strategy game, decided to theme their sequel Frozen Endzone around sports instead.
It's very interesting stuff to think about. For instance, TF2 could be classified as "cartoon violence" : the characters ar stylized and cartoony, and the violence is goofy. Yet it's sometimes easy to forget that in TF2 heads and gibs roll all over the place, blood flies everywhere and the characters scream in agony and catch fire.
A little while ago I had the opportunity to show both TF2 and Modern Warfare 3 to a (female) friend who wasn't familiar with either (yet she knew of Counter Strike). She found TF2 to be quite disturbing, yet MW3 look impressive and immersive to her (in a good sense.)
I tend to agree with that. A game like CoD multiplayer that is often considered as "gritty, realistic, and violent" is actually visually quite close to non-lethal BB gun games and lasertag. And just claiming that a game is "cartoony" or non-realistic is not enough to make it non-violent to me.
As for Metal Gear, I am not quite sure to understand what you mean. All the MGS games always offered the player a way to sneak all the way through the game, and hardcore MGS players all try to beat the game that way. Also the first gun being given to the player is always a non-lethal tranquilizer gun, and if I am not mistaken almost all the MGS games can be completed by using this kind of weapon alone. That's actually one of the coolest thing about the series !
Regarding violence and fun. It being unethical is only an opinion ; depicted violence can be very fun indeed, it is a matter of taste. However I do agree that it would be great if more games made the distinction between the fun of *pointing, aiming and shooting* and the so-called fun of *killing something or someone*. These are two different things, and I do have a big problem with all the games blending these two concepts together way too often.
That's another reason why I like CoD more than TF2 : I do not need exploding heads and burning corpses to enjoy the satisfaction of feeling like a decent virtual shot.
I REALLY hope they bring out a third one for Wii U.
Anyways, for the best non-violent ones I think you'd have to go back to the old games. My favorites have been stuff like Simon the Sorcerer, Full Throttle, Sam&Max, Goblins series (including Woodruff), basically all those point and click adventures. And also Lost Vikings (maybe?), Lemmings, those types of games.
Seems to me like the adventure genre died miserably with the PS1-era games. At best you get now Action-Adventure, extra emphasis on the action.
Best shit ever.
(yeah I know, its from DW, but still
Really good errant signal vid (but i love all his vids).
But i'm not sure what your (zwebbie's) concern with "violent" video games is specifically. It's not real life violence and as far as i can tell doesn't promote real life violence, Its video games. And violence does exist in real life, are you saying noone should comment on that at all, in any context?
Also (as pior said) the mgs series has had a massive anti-war/anti-violence message from the beginning (the ultimate goal of every game being to do a no alerts and no kills playthrough).
As for non-violent stuff (looks around apartment):
Journey, proteus, catherine, kentucky route zero, dustforce (depending on your view of cleaning forest animals and scientists), anti-chamber, portal (might be a gray area again), kerbal space program (they can die tho), super hexagon, too many to list but you get the idea.
^_^
I've straight up worked with designers that have said 'It's impossible to make a game without violence', when given complete Carte Blanche.
I love Braid
Rhythm games: Notably Elite Beat Agents, and Parappa the Rappa
Sports games: Skate / Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3/ NHL/FIFA/Wii Sports
A few story games, like Longest Journey, or Hotel Dusk weren't bad.
Great video, makes a lot of sense.
You are very limited what you can do with a 3d place if you are limited to a controller or mouse/keyboard. As a character interacting with the world in real time you can jump, climb, duck, run, roll, point, attack, pick up, examine, or hide. There's a few other minor things you can add, but you still cannot interact with characters more than a text box with different conversation options. So the potential depth in interaction is very shallow, and really hasn't changed since text based games. Multiplayer games is where the options for deeper levels of interaction comes into play, which is why we are seeing MMO's.
But we are no where near getting that level of interaction with AI characters. But again, a lot of games are simulated violence. Most sports are, at some level, chasing a ball is like hunting, obviously boxing and wrestling, chess is simulated war, almost like an RTS. D&D involves combat, in checkers you destroy other people's units, competition is fighting, and part of violence and our nature.
I've yet to play a game without violence of any kind that didn't either come off as pretentious, really boring and artificially lengthened or incredibly easy.
Keep in mind that I define violence in videogames as the use of force to defeat "sentient" or "non-sentient" adversary (killing a robot or person is still violent, destroying cars and buildings is violent, etc).
So to me, sports games that have tackles and car games with crashing are violent games.
there are majority non violent games out there if we dont count action games ...
there are non-violent ways to die though?
Categories for non-violence: easy answer is puzzle games. You may have an opponent (the system itself, or a nefarious villain), but you usually aren't trying to kill/harm them.
Games I recommend: Some may be a bit dated, but
-- Lemmings
-- Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine
-- World of Goo
-- Tetris
-- Robot Unicorn Attack (technically, if you die there's an explosion, but there's no intent of killing anything).
Elements I'd like to see explored in games:
More interesting platformer experiences, where you can shape your path based how you place/move/interact with your environment around you.
A lot of games deal with binary choices and violent conflict fits well into that. Kill or be killed. Tank or kite. Evil vs Good. Hero or villain. Game design gets murky when you start getting into morally ambiguous territory. It doesn't know what you believe or if you believe something; it just is or it isn't. It's hard to account for all the possible outcomes that the players may pursue if allowed use their own imagination or stray from the path the designer has set before them; it's difficult to design a game that allows for infinite choice and could result in confusion for the player. Violent games set out simple expectations for the player: shoot the enemy and watch the score go up. It rarely asks if the player wants to shoot people or if they want to try another approach. That's too unpredictable and imposes too many variables.
I don't think we should focus so much on how much violence is possible in a game, rather we should ask if, and by how much, the game allows the player to take a non-violent option to resolve conflict. Games that can account for a range of moral choices (lawful good to chaotic evil) should be commended rather than vilified for having the option to decapitate babies when you also have the option to ignore or even protect and possibly rescue them in dereliction of the primary conflict. That gets into action and consequence, which can get complicated fast. What can the player do? What will happen with the player does it? How many ways can the conflict be resolved?
I'd say that most racing sims are non violent. They certainly don't encourage violence, but they don't go out of their way to prevent you from being violent. Flight sims too. I think the Myst series was non violent. Sports games are generally non violent.
Animal crossing
Mario
Jet Set Radio
Sonic
Megaman (robot vs robot)
DDR
Rock Band/Guitar Hero
Rocksmith
Kingdom Hearts
Minecraft
Spore
Pokemon (Squirtle Fainted!)
There is a huge difference between "slaughter" and "battle"
"Meat games" always portray combat as slaughter,
Violence for the sake of being violent. while trying to convey that they are only for super "mature" folks. Often wanton bloodshed, decapitation occur without warrant or reason.
(Mortal Combat, almost every shooter, those realistic rpgs that people like to play, and manhunt qualify )
Battle is almost interesting or odd techniques in combat settings that are more then often displayed without consequence and/or minimal physical injury.
(I.e. Mario's attacks, the street fighter moves, rayman's techniques,and most monster battle scenarios apply)
Anyway, thanks for all the feedback guys, I'll give it a thorough read and think some more. Of course, keep throwimg more thoughts and ideas around!
There's a good discussion on the topic.
you could say that fouls are violent, but i wouldnt put them in that category
please dont try to argue with nhl..
there are also the puzzle genre and point and click genre which are mostly not violent
i wouldnt count jump'n runs like mario or, whatever genre that is, mario kart to the violent games
and at last there are simulator like football manager, oil tycoon and all that games
But even if there's no 'empirical' downside, ethics is more than that. Just a thought experiment. Let's say there a game that is really fun. In it, you play a Nazi party member who has decided to work as a doctor in a concentration camp so that he can rape people in secret, without traumatising any good, Arian people. And you have to make sure that whomever you abuse gets her tongue pulled out, mouth stitched shut, shot, gassed, or otherwise executed ASAP so that your escapades won't see the light of day. Did I mention the gameplay is really fun? Ok, now imagine that a study has shown that this game does not turn people either into Nazis, rapists or murderers. No harmful effects! Would you feel completely comfortable with people gushing over how great it is and with advertisements telling you how badly you want to pay the company money to play as a Nazi rapist? Or would you feel, perhaps, a tiny bit queasy? And if the latter, why is this wrong and why is shooting people not?
(Apologies if I'm going off-topic with my theoretic thinking here.)
Will a game like that find an audience? I am sure it would.
EDIT: If the developer was pushing an agenda... no I would not play it.
A good example of a non-violent game in my book is "Papo and Yo." It shows that games can talk about dark themes but still be presented in a "non-violent" way. There's no blood and I'm pretty sure you can't die, but you can still get thrown around by Monster and even though nobody is physically hurt, the player knows what this symbolizes and it is painful to watch every time.
Great game to try if you haven't already played it. The gameplay mechanics could have used some work, it is still one of the most enjoyable games I've played in a long time.
"Being better" in the perspective of "violence is better! and "non-violence is better", giving the player the choice puts him in the morale dilemma, it makes it a more important game.
Mario for example teaches no lesson in that aspect, it distance yourself from the graphical gore and tells you to destroy everything in your path and NO ONE would even think of mario as anything other than non-violent.
I see violence in graphical violent games as acting as a realistic combat-reward method where the enemy exploding in confetti probably wouldn't work thematically, it's the gears of war chainsaw method.
One starts to enter weird reasoning with that kind of thinking, sort of like "we should not masturbate as it might promote our sexual urges to rape", we're a highly violent race, making experiences around conflict such as in sports or games and being able to remain civil in real-life is a fantastic feat, I think we should celebrate it!
Can someone explain what he meant with the Suikoden example? Those dots don't really connect for me. But I've never heard of that game before, so that's probably why. Is it just like any other JRPG?
It's like saying you shouldn't indulge yourself with pornography because it's an adultery simulator and doing so is unethical, which is just ludicrously stupid and purist on a level of right-wing conservative zealotry.
Both are vices in a way, they take off the edge and unless you're already at risk there is no harm in it.
And for the record: Even non violent games lead to violence, ever seen a football riot? Football isn't exactly a violent sport/game...
It's not the violence in the game that's unethical, it's how people choose to treat it afterwards, as intelligent adults.
http://www.gamefront.com/ken-levine-on-bioshock-infinite-violence-is-essential-to-narrative/
I think it was him who was basically explaining that computers are good at physics simulations so most of our games involve that, driving, flying, shooting etc etc. We dont even have games capable of intricate conversation similation yet and AI psychological analysis - so that what you say actually is the gameplay rather than just a narrative tree. As a result in most games conflict is resolved through action rather than other means simply because computers are good at that and people know how to program that kind of stuff.
its an interesting topic and I love how games come out that challenge the norm like the sims and spore and minecraft that add human creativity and ingenuinty and psychology to the mix
Those issues are part of cultures, and not completely natural or universal among all cultures.