Is Video Gaming Maturing?
This article was featured on LevelFortyTwo.
This article primarily addresses concerns about the continuation of 18+/M rated games and debates if we, the players, are mature enough to accept and behold excessive violence, nudity and genuinely degenerate morale standards in video gaming today.
With the release of Grand Theft Auto 4: The Ballad of Gay Tony and the leak of Heavy Rain’s topless scene, I ask if we can welcome such dramatic scenes in video games, whether they are done tastefully or not? It seems that you have to ask yourself, just what is acceptable, and what isn’t? Feature films have wiped the floor with most arguments surrounding this conflict, so why has it taken video games this long to even step up and present a challenge? I think a lot of it is due to the way this topic was handled in the early days of video gaming.
Quite a few video games today are more focused on the dominance of the male sex over its counterpart, really setting the gaming universe in stone. This is the kind of stuff that always gets pounced on by greedy andalmost, obsessive journalists fascinated with taking a potshot at the video games industry when they get the chance. I assume that said journalists think, ‘Oh it’s all right because they won’t do anything, they won’t fight back at all.’ The public has been stuck in this mindless since video games first came on the scene. GTA received a lot of bad press due to its mindless violence and petty crime dealings. The media pounced, and proclaimed that video games were to graphic and affecting the minds of children. Many people were quick to jump on the bandwagon but the argument makes no sense when you realize that movies have been doing it for nearly half a century. There is also music to take into account, which I’m sure, is the single most influential media that any person of any age can come across, particularly the younger generation.
Some countries, for example Australia, are even further behind than the U.S and European audiences. It is almost universally known that the Australian classification board keeps a tight grip over what gets released, usually prohibiting mildly mature content that has been approved in other regions. They tackled Manhunt 2 for what seemed like an eon, and when it was eventually released, nobody was interested – purely because the game had had such negative press; not to mention the more important fact that the next-generation of consoles had just come on to the scene. Did I mention Rockstar developed the controversial Manhunt series? If you’re wondering, you’ve probably heard of them before with the aforementioned Grand Theft Auto games.
Now retreating back to Quantic Dreams’ newest game, Heavy Rain, which, by the way, isn’t their first title featuring nudity. Indigo Prophecy or Farenheit as it was also known, featured near-full nudity and a controversial sex scene in which you had to actually take part in it yourself – I am not making this up. I know it was a very bold attempt from the French director David Cage to try and actively involve the player in the emotional impact of the relationship between the protagonist and his former partner, but this was a different experience altogether. It was even deeper than your average movie. It literally forced you to participate in this act; it didn’t just let you watch. As you can imagine, this was received with a multitude of different conclusions by various personalities. Yet it still didn’t hit the ever-watchful eye of global media nowhere near as much as Mass Effect did (which in my opinion and many others, did absolutely nothing wrong whatsoever).
Gaming highlights featured by mass media around the globe are never delightful ones. They focus on supposed game orientated murders, negative impacts on social behaviour and seemingly evil morality. There are truly fascinating stories about killings that are obviously caused by video games. For instance, in South East Asia a player of an isometric sprite-based MMO lent his in-game sword (worth a hell of a lot, based on rarity) to a ‘friend.’ The ‘friend’ then went off and sold the in-game sword for real money. Attempts were made legally to retrieve the originators sword, but to no avail, it was his fault entirely. He then hunted his former in game ’friend’ down and murdered him. This is un-deniably caused by the game, as are others, such as an infamous guild-based gang war that erupted in Eastern Europe – because the guild fought a lot in-game, they did so in the real world too, eventually ending in many deaths.
It’s arguable that some games are a bad influence, but just as much as other mediums too. I’m sure Scarface has produced a bigger death toll than Grand Theft Auto – yes it’s a grim remark, but it’s true. Looking at the websites that host the nudity featured on Quantic Dreams’ upcoming drama epic, I can’t help but notice the immaturity at a pair of pixelated breasts. Is it because we are all so embarrassed to be a gamer, and have done so for such a long period of time that we just don’t care anymore? Can we call it desensitisation for the masses maybe?
Can video gaming, in all its glory, be the businessman it wants to be without being laughed at for being too serious for its own good? Unfortunately, these are all questions that can only be answered by the best interviewee there is: time. Only with time can we move on and begin to progress into a community where everything is dealt with properly, including adult material. Only then can we, the nerds, begin to utterly and ultimately take over the world.
This article primarily addresses concerns about the continuation of 18+/M rated games and debates if we, the players, are mature enough to accept and behold excessive violence, nudity and genuinely degenerate morale standards in video gaming today.
With the release of Grand Theft Auto 4: The Ballad of Gay Tony and the leak of Heavy Rain’s topless scene, I ask if we can welcome such dramatic scenes in video games, whether they are done tastefully or not? It seems that you have to ask yourself, just what is acceptable, and what isn’t? Feature films have wiped the floor with most arguments surrounding this conflict, so why has it taken video games this long to even step up and present a challenge? I think a lot of it is due to the way this topic was handled in the early days of video gaming.
Quite a few video games today are more focused on the dominance of the male sex over its counterpart, really setting the gaming universe in stone. This is the kind of stuff that always gets pounced on by greedy andalmost, obsessive journalists fascinated with taking a potshot at the video games industry when they get the chance. I assume that said journalists think, ‘Oh it’s all right because they won’t do anything, they won’t fight back at all.’ The public has been stuck in this mindless since video games first came on the scene. GTA received a lot of bad press due to its mindless violence and petty crime dealings. The media pounced, and proclaimed that video games were to graphic and affecting the minds of children. Many people were quick to jump on the bandwagon but the argument makes no sense when you realize that movies have been doing it for nearly half a century. There is also music to take into account, which I’m sure, is the single most influential media that any person of any age can come across, particularly the younger generation.
Some countries, for example Australia, are even further behind than the U.S and European audiences. It is almost universally known that the Australian classification board keeps a tight grip over what gets released, usually prohibiting mildly mature content that has been approved in other regions. They tackled Manhunt 2 for what seemed like an eon, and when it was eventually released, nobody was interested – purely because the game had had such negative press; not to mention the more important fact that the next-generation of consoles had just come on to the scene. Did I mention Rockstar developed the controversial Manhunt series? If you’re wondering, you’ve probably heard of them before with the aforementioned Grand Theft Auto games.
Now retreating back to Quantic Dreams’ newest game, Heavy Rain, which, by the way, isn’t their first title featuring nudity. Indigo Prophecy or Farenheit as it was also known, featured near-full nudity and a controversial sex scene in which you had to actually take part in it yourself – I am not making this up. I know it was a very bold attempt from the French director David Cage to try and actively involve the player in the emotional impact of the relationship between the protagonist and his former partner, but this was a different experience altogether. It was even deeper than your average movie. It literally forced you to participate in this act; it didn’t just let you watch. As you can imagine, this was received with a multitude of different conclusions by various personalities. Yet it still didn’t hit the ever-watchful eye of global media nowhere near as much as Mass Effect did (which in my opinion and many others, did absolutely nothing wrong whatsoever).
Gaming highlights featured by mass media around the globe are never delightful ones. They focus on supposed game orientated murders, negative impacts on social behaviour and seemingly evil morality. There are truly fascinating stories about killings that are obviously caused by video games. For instance, in South East Asia a player of an isometric sprite-based MMO lent his in-game sword (worth a hell of a lot, based on rarity) to a ‘friend.’ The ‘friend’ then went off and sold the in-game sword for real money. Attempts were made legally to retrieve the originators sword, but to no avail, it was his fault entirely. He then hunted his former in game ’friend’ down and murdered him. This is un-deniably caused by the game, as are others, such as an infamous guild-based gang war that erupted in Eastern Europe – because the guild fought a lot in-game, they did so in the real world too, eventually ending in many deaths.
It’s arguable that some games are a bad influence, but just as much as other mediums too. I’m sure Scarface has produced a bigger death toll than Grand Theft Auto – yes it’s a grim remark, but it’s true. Looking at the websites that host the nudity featured on Quantic Dreams’ upcoming drama epic, I can’t help but notice the immaturity at a pair of pixelated breasts. Is it because we are all so embarrassed to be a gamer, and have done so for such a long period of time that we just don’t care anymore? Can we call it desensitisation for the masses maybe?
Can video gaming, in all its glory, be the businessman it wants to be without being laughed at for being too serious for its own good? Unfortunately, these are all questions that can only be answered by the best interviewee there is: time. Only with time can we move on and begin to progress into a community where everything is dealt with properly, including adult material. Only then can we, the nerds, begin to utterly and ultimately take over the world.