About this Dark! Gritty! and Mature! thing...

Prime Junta

RPGCodex' Little BRO
Joined
October 19, 2006
Messages
8,540
Wired had an interesting little piece on gore in games. What they're saying is, essentially, that the only difference it makes is for marketing -- gamers don't actually enjoy games any more, or less, if the gore is in, or out, except for a very small subset of hyper-aggressive gamers who do like to bathe in blood.

Their theory is that games are getting bloodier because of the Hollywood effect -- if a gory game succeeded, the execs say "make the next one just like it, only more so."

Linky: [ http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2009/05/gamesfrontiers0520 ]
 
Joined
Oct 19, 2006
Messages
8,540
... and then claim there is no desensitization effect* ... ;)

To me it is the same as the 'RPG elements' trend several years ago.

* yes I'm kidding - that whole debate brings in real compared to fantasy violence and so on ...
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
14,932
You know - when I first played Oblivion, I did rather find all the ripped apart corpses hanging around slightly disturbing, as since the game had better graphics than most games that went before, the effect was a lot more.. well -graphic.

Time went by, and other games came and went, and then along came Fallout 3.
I looked at the slo-mo trailers and I thought. Hmm - wow - it does seem like a rather gory game. While running through the Fallout 3 universe and making use of the V.A.T.S system, one gets exposed to a lot of the "gore", and like txa1265 mentioned, you soon become desensitised to it.

Actually, as I would run past the hanging corpses similar to those in Oblivion, I would think to myself: "Hum-ho! Old hat. I wonder if my experience of the planes of Oblivion would feel a bit different after all this exposure. I should load it up again sometime and see. :rolleyes:
 
Joined
Nov 23, 2007
Messages
744
Gore, like anything, is great when it fits the setting or the game in general.
 
I'm fine with dark, gritty, and mature games if they actually.... are dark, gritty, and mature. I don't want to see some guy explode when I shoot him just to see him explode. If they mean DGM (Yay for acronyms) in terms of setting, the plot, and so forth then by all means, awesome. But when, as you and the Wire article say, DGM just becomes body explosion and dismemberment theater, then it's boring and stand in the way of actual innovation for the medium.
 
Joined
Mar 5, 2009
Messages
2,299
Location
VA
I wonder when/if someone will do a game that depicts violence in a realistic way -- that's a totally underused, or non-used thing. You know, instead of collapsing cleanly in a heap, with or without gore, or flying apart in a cloud of blood, we'd have people who scream and suffer as they bleed. Some movies have done it; Tim Roth's performance in Reservoir Dogs is a prime example. If done well, that could be an element in a genuinely mature game.
 
Joined
Oct 19, 2006
Messages
8,540
I wonder when/if someone will do a game that depicts violence in a realistic way -- that's a totally underused, or non-used thing. You know, instead of collapsing cleanly in a heap, with or without gore, or flying apart in a cloud of blood, we'd have people who scream and suffer as they bleed. Some movies have done it; Tim Roth's performance in Reservoir Dogs is a prime example. If done well, that could be an element in a genuinely mature game.

Yes! Exactly! I'd love for their to be a game where you actually have to consider the consequences of your actions, and not just in the "will this net me the best item/power/upgrade?" manner. I think if you made a game, say maybe along the lines of 24, where there are plenty of morally ambiguous situations you find yourself in. You should actually have to make a choice between 'the bad and the worse'.

Right now it seems moral choices and consequences in games are like:
A) Pet puppy (Reward: +10 goodness! People like you more!)
B) Torture puppy (Reward: Cool glowy dark aura around your character!)

I think games that actually focused on experiences like "you know, it's not really pleasant to shoot someone" or "your character is ending this person's life" could go a long way to improving the medium - similarly to how movies like Reservoir Dogs improved film (in my view, at least).
 
Joined
Mar 5, 2009
Messages
2,299
Location
VA
I couldn't care less how stuff dies in games, or how much blood there is. To me, that's not even part of "dark/gritty/mature". To me, those terms refer to the setting, artistic style and story - where Gothic 1 is fairly dark/gritty/mature, Fable is the exact opposite. I can enjoy both styles (depending mostly on my mood).

To me, the difference is rather simple:
In a dark(!) and gritty(!) game, the world is dirty, items covered by dust, looking used and damaged. Buildings often look ready to collapse due to lack of repairs. The story is often shrouded, with few known variables. The character often knows little of what goes on around him. Add in some weather effects (thunder/lightning, rain, etc) and it's certainly dark (!) and gritty (!) to me.

A bright and shiny game on the other hand is much more straight forward: You're a hero, you're going to save the world. Stuff shines. A lot. Bloom effect all over the place. The grass is so green it might actually blind you.

PS:T is the perfect example of a game I'd call dark, gritty and mature (certainly not due to sex or violence). Unfortunately, the term is now being used all over the place for anything involving head shots.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
7,583
Location
Bergen
I couldn't care less how stuff dies in games, or how much blood there is. To me, that's not even part of "dark/gritty/mature". To me, those terms refer to the setting, artistic style and story - where Gothic 1 is fairly dark/gritty/mature, Fable is the exact opposite. I can enjoy both styles (depending mostly on my mood).

To me, the difference is rather simple:
In a dark(!) and gritty(!) game, the world is dirty, items covered by dust, looking used and damaged. Buildings often look ready to collapse due to lack of repairs. The story is often shrouded, with few known variables. The character often knows little of what goes on around him. Add in some weather effects (thunder/lightning, rain, etc) and it's certainly dark (!) and gritty (!) to me.

A bright and shiny game on the other hand is much more straight forward: You're a hero, you're going to save the world. Stuff shines. A lot. Bloom effect all over the place. The grass is so green it might actually blind you.

PS:T is the perfect example of a game I'd call dark, gritty and mature (certainly not due to sex or violence). Unfortunately, the term is now being used all over the place for anything involving head shots.

I don't think it necessarily applies to violence/how things die, but I think if done properly those two things can play a huge role in establishing those themes.
 
Joined
Mar 5, 2009
Messages
2,299
Location
VA
Yes! Exactly! I'd love for their to be a game where you actually have to consider the consequences of your actions, and not just in the "will this net me the best item/power/upgrade?" manner. I think if you made a game, say maybe along the lines of 24, where there are plenty of morally ambiguous situations you find yourself in. You should actually have to make a choice between 'the bad and the worse'.

Yeah, I'd like to see a game that really makes tough choices. Like having to torture an enemy in order to get an important detail or having to steal or murder for something that is critical to the game or perhaps if food is needed and is also scarce, you could go through the tough dilemma of having to kill for it. I'd try to avoid the cinema style dialogue based choices and consequences and instead focus on the actual gameplay so instead of picking dialogue 1 or 2 you have to consider if you really want to do this.

As well, if there are party members it would be a nice touch to have them react to your choices in game, rather then at the end of a cut scene or something. It's sort of like how in a lot of games if you're evil your good party members complain, but then they help you kill innocent people in game. It'd be pretty cool to have your party members, perhaps "turn" on you if you piss them off too much.

Facing tough choices is one thing, but I think the consequences are what is needed to try and break the tendency to "power play" through a lot of these games. Having smarter consequences could prevent players from picking between being good and bad simply to get the best reward and could actually force players to play according to what they think they might do in real life.

Right now it seems moral choices and consequences in games are like:
A) Pet puppy (Reward: +10 goodness! People like you more!)
B) Torture puppy (Reward: Cool glowy dark aura around your character!)

Yes and the evil choice is usually stupid and nonsensical. They tend to break quests or at least limit what you can experience. I'd like a game world that is short on cash, so evil choices tend to net a lot of cash while the good choices don't. Want to buy shit? You'll probably have to be evil...

I think games that actually focused on experiences like "you know, it's not really pleasant to shoot someone" or "your character is ending this person's life" could go a long way to improving the medium - similarly to how movies like Reservoir Dogs improved film (in my view, at least).

One of the things I enjoyed about the HBO show "The Wire" was the realism in the violence. When someone is shot in the chest, there's a puff of smoke and the person collapses. There's no screaming and explosions and blood everywhere. I'd like to see this in game as well as real anatomy. So basically lets say you shoot a bandit in the gut. He keels over and is moaning kind of like in STALKER but perhaps begs you to leave him be or to help him. I wonder if the player will feel kind of shabby looting a dying man of all his possessions? Again, if party members are around, it would be a nice touch to have them react to what you do to him. Maybe some of the good members can't stomach the thought of following a player that can just walk up and execute a dying person and then take their stuff.
 
Joined
Jan 17, 2009
Messages
354
A bright and shiny game on the other hand is much more straight forward: You're a hero, you're going to save the world. Stuff shines. A lot. Bloom effect all over the place. The grass is so green it might actually blind you.

LOL yup! I thought Max Payne had a nice gritty world. Yeah yeah the violence was pretty pornographic but the setting and such I thought was really great. The lonely snowy streets, the run down apartments.

You're right about PST. One of the things that struck me was how downright evil the practical incarnation was. It actually made me feel bad that the player I was playing as had committed such acts, that aren't all splatter-fest-kill-cuz-its-kewl but rather exploiting people, damning people, using people. That's what made it so dark for me. The game didn't need big ol' evil demons to make it gritty, it just used some good ol' fashion human callousness.

Sorry for double post
 
Joined
Jan 17, 2009
Messages
354
... and then claim there is no desensitization effect* ... ;)

I wish there was. I'm... not good with blood (unless there's a real emergency, in which case adrenalin takes over, or if it's a nosebleed, which doesn't count, probably because I've had them pretty frequently ever since I was a kid).

Yet I've played incredibly gory video games as long as they've been making them. If there was a desensitizing effect, I'd have expected it to kick in by now. No luck so far -- if I cut myself chopping carrots, I'm practically out cold.
 
Joined
Oct 19, 2006
Messages
8,540
That was the reason for the * ... all they have really shown is that virtual violence makes you less sensitive to other virtual violence ...

... and that kids are smart enough to know the difference and show a more profound effect watching horrific scenes in TV news than supposedly worse stuff in movies / games.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
14,932
Desensitizing doesn't always work as you would expect - or at least it didn't with me. Let me take you back (willingly or not) to Phantasmagoria. Right near the end of the game, you are supposed to give Don a little snowman thing before a blade swings down so it stabs him in the back. If you don't, Don stays bent down and the blade swings down and splits your head right in two. (Oh, here we go, YouTube has it. Warning: gross out and horrific acting.)

I didn't have the stupid snowman so I had to see that head split scene a dozen times. Cool the first time, not as realistic as I thought the second time, then... it started to hurt. I didn't desensitize at all, I got more sensitive to it! I had to actually start looking away after awhile.

So I'm thinking you desensitize to some things but the more realistic stuff, even if clearly faked, will actually go the other way.
 
Joined
Aug 3, 2008
Messages
8,238
Location
Kansas City
Desensitizing doesn't always work as you would expect - or at least it didn't with me. Let me take you back (willingly or not) to Phantasmagoria. Right near the end of the game, you are supposed to give Don a little snowman thing before a blade swings down so it stabs him in the back. If you don't, Don stays bent down and the blade swings down and splits your head right in two. (Oh, here we go, YouTube has it. Warning: gross out and horrific acting.)

I didn't have the stupid snowman so I had to see that head split scene a dozen times. Cool the first time, not as realistic as I thought the second time, then... it started to hurt. I didn't desensitize at all, I got more sensitive to it! I had to actually start looking away after awhile.

So I'm thinking you desensitize to some things but the more realistic stuff, even if clearly faked, will actually go the other way.

Really? That's interesting because I appear to truly be the opposite. The more I see the more I become accustomed to violence. I'm one of those weirdos who seeks out shock images and videos of real life beheadings, murder, car accidents, etc. I do so because it reminds me of how fragile we really are. I actually feel kind of queasy driving afterward. It actually makes me appreciate people a lot more and I can't help but consider different random people I see and what they're thinking about. For some reason, it takes seeing people dead in order to make me appreciate them alive. I say that I'm desensitized to violence because after seeing the worse, it really is starting to get hard to be shocked, but at least I still sympathize with the dead. I never get the kids that try to be tough and make jokes about the pics or vids. People need to understand that you can't be tough on the internet.
 
Joined
Jan 17, 2009
Messages
354
... and that kids are smart enough to know the difference and show a more profound effect watching horrific scenes in TV news than supposedly worse stuff in movies / games.

Me, I couldn't. As a child, I couldn't distinguish between movies and reality at all. C-3PO was *real* for me. As was ANYTHING ELSE I saw on TV.

It was a learning process to distinguisg between movies and reality. I did not get any hints on how to make it, though. Especially when TV movies were so muich sophisticated to resemble everything that's REAL.

Me, I'm also always surprised on how mich "bright & shiny" games have declined. They have declined as much as the dark ones arose.

No-one seems wo want to have "bright & shiny" games nowadays.


But I've got two additional questions:

If gore and violence are for marketing,

- who is the wanted customer group for that ?
- who defines that it is actualkly good for marketing purposes ? What kind of people are these "deciders".
- and what do they think of/about the public, the customers, if they assume that these marketing decisions will have actual influences on sales ? What kind of image do these marketing people have of the public ?

The second question is : Where will this trend go to ? Kill Bill ? In games ?

And a third question is : Will this trend reverse at one point in the future ? And if, into which direction will it go ?

And most of all : What are the society-backgrounds for these marketing decisions ? If they do have an effect on the customer base, then why ?
 
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
21,908
Location
Old Europe
No-one seems wo want to have "bright & shiny" games nowadays.
I do! I do!
Life is dark and gritty enough for me as it is.
I thought the dark and grity games were a fine novelty when they first came out en masse. But what do I yewrn to play nowadays when game tend t be dark and gritty by default?
Light, clean, Disney-ish and colorful games. The story/plot may be dark, but I'm glad if visuals are candy.
I'm a sucker for Kingdom Hearts :).
 
Joined
Aug 31, 2006
Messages
3,754
How about some kind of middle-ground, you know like something akin to reality?
 
I do! I do!
Life is dark and gritty enough for me as it is.
I thought the dark and grity games were a fine novelty when they first came out en masse. But what do I yewrn to play nowadays when game tend t be dark and gritty by default?
Light, clean, Disney-ish and colorful games. The story/plot may be dark, but I'm glad if visuals are candy.
I'm a sucker for Kingdom Hearts :).

I love Kingdom Hearts. I'm a fan of both types of fantasy, though. I'm down for some classic high fantasy sunshine and rainbows 'cause we're the good guys (yay!), but I also like the darker scenarios as well. I'm hoping this shift into "dark and gritty!!!" will balance out soon, or that people will understand dark, gritty, and mature doesn't mean truckloads of excess violence/gore, nudity, and having everyone curse like a sailor. Not that those things necessarily bother me, but if they are there I want them to add something to what is going on rather than just being there for some reason - which, on a side note, is why I am not the biggest fan of George R. R. Martin.
 
Joined
Mar 5, 2009
Messages
2,299
Location
VA
If gore and violence are for marketing,

- who is the wanted customer group for that ?
- who defines that it is actualkly good for marketing purposes ? What kind of people are these "deciders".
- and what do they think of/about the public, the customers, if they assume that these marketing decisions will have actual influences on sales ? What kind of image do these marketing people have of the public ?
- The target market is the teen to young adult market buying 'mature' games in droves based on T&A, gore, and mindless machismo ... think about the top selling console games ... especially since the advent of the XBOX.

Personally I like a mix of stuff, mix of styles, and so on.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
14,932
Back
Top Bottom