October 29th, 2008

Pro Video Game Violence - A View From The Inside

A quick question that arises in your mind when you encounter a violent video game would be "Who is pro video game violence?" and, for most people, asking this seems to be something normal. There are two questions here - "who," and "why," but before we get to them, let me tell you that my title may be a bit wrong, especially for those new to PlayerzBlog. The reason is that we're going to have two views from the inside, if we include mine. These being said, let's move back in time...

...to the day when I got my Sanitarium copy, not far from the happy day when my desk became the host of my brand new AMD K6 running at the impressive speed of 166MHz and having 32 MB of memory. I won't add anything else, since you can imagine how large was my hard drive or the tremendous capabilities of my S3 Virge video card. Let's stick to the video game violence, shall we?

If you ever played Sanitarium, I bet you remember the beginning, when a guy jumps to kill himself right next to you, and another one near is banging his head into the wall repeatedly.

Obviously, these two alone aren't turning Sanitarium into a violent game, but I think this is the first game containing violence I can think of.

No, wait! There's Wolfenstein 3D, and I got to play that one even before I had my own computer! Obviously, there's more to video game violence than just one or two titles, but this is why I am pro video game violence - if it's needed, better add some violence to the story, as much as possible, than ruin it all by trying to get a lower ESRB rating.

Now, here's the most interesting part from what Emil Pagliarulo wrote on Edge about this topic, when talking about violence in Fallout 3: "We’ve gotten so used to (maybe even enamored with) the game’s violence. Actually it sometimes surprised us when we’d show the game to a spouse or someone outside of the studio, and they’d respond, “God! What the hell is that?!” They’re really taken aback by it. We had been working so closely to the game, we would forget about the possibility of that kind of response. But then again, the reaction to it among others has clearly been, “We want this game.” They like it and enjoy it, so a lot of people are sharing the same mindset that we have."

In the end, we all should remember one thing: it's only a game, no matter if its name is Doom, Fallout, or Undying. If you feel offended by it, just avoid it, and that's all. Pro video game violence? It's just about the same as porn - you take it, or leave it, and you don't usually get to see it before turning 18. So...what do you think? Are you "pro," or "against" video game violence?