Comments on Fullbright: Specific Violence

there is a Game on the market which is PVP, based ...

2010-09-20T02:18:56.135-07:00

there is a Game on the market which is PVP, based on a cops vs robbers game model, with fantastic settings and amazing player generated content which uses as a game device the concept of NON-LETHAL weapon use.... in fact there is greater Kudos ingame for getting ARRESTS rather than KILLS..... and that game is APB.... sadly undersold and underpublicised and as a result now on the verge of bieng

Brer & John: You're misreading the post. T...

2010-08-30T08:15:57.489-07:00

Brer & John: You're misreading the post. Tons of nameless people die in war movies. Are they slaughtered by the protagonist like it's no big deal? Not in a movie of substance. That's the point.

Wars involve many nameless and faceless enemies on...

2010-08-30T05:28:39.717-07:00

Wars involve many nameless and faceless enemies on both sides that lack meaning. To take this out of games is to distract people on the real consequences of war which is people being namelessly and facelessly killed.

I think whenever this happens a reality check should be provided. For example multiple story lines. One could be shooting many nameless and faceless enemies, and there

The problem I have with that metric is that you...

2010-08-27T20:51:50.571-07:00

The problem I have with that metric is that you've essentially relegated every video game (and really every fictional) portrayal of things like war, riots, or other "mass" events to the "cheap and meaningless violence" category, which I don't think is appropriate.

Look at, say, Full Metal Jacket or Saving Private Ryan. The problem with the sorts of

I thought the reason the medium didn't have th...

2010-08-04T07:05:40.036-07:00

I thought the reason the medium didn't have this kind of violence was down to censorship. I read a blog by a writer of the goons in Splinter Cell. He couldn't do anything like what you want because the censors think that having players kill people who are seen to be in pain, fully realized, shouldn't be allowed. They thought that would really be too much for an interactive medium.

Hi, I'm new to your blog and just spent the la...

2010-07-26T12:28:49.249-07:00

Hi, I'm new to your blog and just spent the last 20 minutes or so reading some of your posts. I found out about your blog in GameInformer issue 205 but I only bothered to check it now. I REALLY like what you have to blog about and I thank you for your insights. I'll continue to follow your blog. I also have a blog that is about various geeky stuff and it has a lot of video game stuff on

A really interesting post. The problem of nameless...

2010-07-18T19:53:14.529-07:00

A really interesting post. The problem of nameless, history-less enemies is one that always bothers me. How am I meant to care about Nathan Drake when he slaughters so many people?

In one of your reply comments you call fodder enemies a "crutch" and I think this is exactly what the problem is. Arguments against individualising every single enemy will normally be based on

I was reading an article about the King's Ques...

2010-07-18T17:58:56.692-07:00

I was reading an article about the King's Quest Series with the recent release of the Silver Lining and how those games successfully provided a meaningful backdrop with varying levels of chracterisation and very rarely required killing, instead relying on the player to get past situations which normally result in violence by other means.

I think this influenced me a little growing

Cheers Steve! Some good lines at http://www.guardi...

2010-07-18T13:11:43.768-07:00

Cheers Steve! Some good lines at http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2004/jul/02/davidmamet . There's a bunch of other relevant stuff in Bambi vs Godzilla, his Hollywood essays book.

That's great... I guess. But then I think abou...

2010-07-18T12:13:07.389-07:00

That's great... I guess. But then I think about zombie games, such as Left 4 Dead, which seem to function quite well and carry their "meaning" outside of the violence per se and more on the side of cooperative play.

I know a series like that must be anathema to anyone considering the "art" question, but to me it encapsulates the strange mixture that videogames

A smart man we both know recently said "viole...

2010-07-18T11:31:18.765-07:00

A smart man we both know recently said "violence is the fossil fuels of interactivity". So this is kind of an argument for greater fuel efficiency.

I agree 1000% with what you're asking for, but if you think it through all the way it still implies the de-emphasis on combat-based interactivity I always go on about. Or much shorter games, which would be great for other

Now, I love me some Red Dead Redemption but...

2010-07-18T10:51:49.155-07:00

Now, I love me some Red Dead Redemption but it was a little disappointing that, like nearly all games, Marsten is still an unrelenting murder engine. Over all three seasons of Deadwood how many people did Swearengen directly or indirectly kill? Maybe a dozen? You can triple that bodycount in less than a twelve minutes in RDR.

If we manage to improve upon making

Actually, I can think of one game which arguably s...

2010-07-18T09:43:12.174-07:00

Actually, I can think of one game which arguably solves the fodder problem without straying too far from the traditional shooter paradigm, and that's Metro 2033.

It's a very subjective assessment, obviously, but the early levels of that game seem to be almost a negative version of Half-Life 2; rather than insisting on the importance of the player as a hero, everything there

Alexis: fair point about name & face. I update...

2010-07-18T08:19:11.099-07:00

Alexis: fair point about name & face. I updated the blog post. Though I'm keeping the notes, just because they're additional thoughts surrounding the main point that hopefully will answer some obvious objections, or alternately lead to further discussion. Thanks for the Mamet reference, I'll have to find the exact quote.

Mr. Ak: yeah, that's the question, right? It

A larger point. Mamet said (I paraphrase) that the...

2010-07-18T02:42:39.349-07:00

A larger point. Mamet said (I paraphrase) that the purpose of violence in drama is to illustrate consequence and reponsibility: therefore, drama where violence occurs without consequence is empty gratification. He draws a parallel with feel-good films which allow us to feel saintly by empathising with a dying innocent, and then reassure us in the last act with a magical cure or a heavenly light:

I really like this. I think your solution is a sol...

2010-07-18T02:39:02.026-07:00

I really like this. I think your solution is a solid heuristic, though you could trim it further. You say 'an individual with a name and a face', and then have to add all those caveats about specific examples '...unless the victim is an individual' works fine for me. I'm not sure 'legitimate' is a fair word either. But I'm quibbling.

And I thoroughly

Interesting theme to discuss. I guess in games tha...

2010-07-18T02:27:16.625-07:00

Interesting theme to discuss. I guess in games that aim for narratives this point of view is important. Here we speak about those games that entertain players trough stories, characters etc.

There are other types of games though, like sport... They allow to explore and learn things that have almost nothing to do with such things. Strangely I would say that games like Unreal Tournament

I don't disagree, but if you remove gratuitous...

2010-07-18T01:51:39.279-07:00

I don't disagree, but if you remove gratuitous fodder killing, what becomes the principle method of interaction in the game? With the exception of Mirror's Edge, I can't think of a game where the player's other interactions would be enough to sustain a game on their own. KOTOR, maybe.

And if you don't remove them, aren't you stuck with what games do now - the