Hi Dark, The idea that farmers needing to kill predators in order to preserve their livelihoods, is at all comparable to shooters is actually pretty offensive.
The fact is that farmers protect their livestock out of necessity. Gamers have the choice of playing games. Game developers have the choice of what styles of game they will create and what types of actions and scenarios a player will need to experience in order to achieve accomplishments in such games. So I would agree that in many cases, the game absolutely can be a veiled vehicle for channeling violence. -Or adopting a violent stance in order to move through the game. This is quite frankly an orchestrated situation. Games, like films etc, may contain particular elements strictly for the fact that those elements sell. You, yourself consistently bring up the idea of corporate greed. Sometimes games are simply used as vehicles for cash-flow. Those vehicles sometimes contain elements merely to help sales of the game. these elements may be sex, violence or some other element which is merely meant to enhance or spur sales. Obviously this is not always true, but to deny it seems unrealistic to me. -Know what I mean?… So yes, it is absolutely possible that violent games are merely a veiled approach to channeling violence. Thanks for a great post. Cara :) --- iOS design and development - LookTel.com --- View my Online Portfolio at: http://www.onemodelplace.com/CaraQuinn Follow me on Twitter! https://twitter.com/ModelCara On Dec 15, 2013, at 5:41 PM, dark <d...@xgam.org> wrote: I disagree ulysses with your monster deffinition and with your idea that including different in game monsters is just a way for us to dress something up to vent our violent urges. in the past it was necessary to kill wolves and other predators as a matter of survival, heck there are still parts of britain where it is necessary for farmers to kill foxes and badgers in order for their animals to survive. That is part of that situation. A wolf or a lion or a crocadile is not evil in and of themselves, they obey their nature, unfortunately part of that conflicts with humans. The same goes with zombies, malevlolent ghosts like poltergheists, and monstrous beasts such as dinosaurs. When we play a game we are interacting with a new situation and environment and one we would not have in real life, be that controlling a bio dome on the moon, playing poker and betting thousands of dollars, or indeed traveling a zombi infested city. As such we participate in the nature of that environment, and if it includes zombiess mosnters etc, that's part of the world at that point and we're not going to survive in that world without doing what must be done the same way a poker player wouldn't survive without betting money, none are reflections of real world actions or situation, they are just elements of the games reality and only have relevence according to that reality. there is also then the fact that most intelligent fantasy creatures such as goblins, vampires, orcs, intelligent malign aliens like the Daleks, though possessing human intelligence lack the choice to act other than in a malicious way. Doctor who indeed goes into quite a lot of detail with this with the Daleks, they are a race of aliens genetically bred and deliberately created by a psychotic geaneus to hate anything and everything that is not a Dalek. In a simialr sense, Trolls, Orcs and the other dark creatures in lord of the rings are direct adjuncts to the will of Sauron. They have no ability to act independently of his will and Tolkien even states that they went off and died without him, ---- in fact Tolkien is very careful to draw a distinction between the various groups of men such as the Haradrim who were persuaded to fight on Sauron's side, and the creatures such as orcs which were directly motivated by Sauron. So, with various intelligent fantasy races there is a good arguemnet that they are just as much an environmental force as natural predators. Finally, as regards games where you actually kill humans, again as I said before intention is the difference. I wouldn't condone a game which basically had you do mindless slaughter or harming of innocent people for no reason, but games that simulate say a war agaisnt an oppressive enemy or fighting against a criminal gang you are just again participating in that environment, and since it is a simulated and entirely artificial it doesn't have a baring on what you would do in reality. This is a reason why in reality I am very anti war in the majority of circumstances, when to protest against the War in Iraq etc, but am quite content to play Gma tank commander. I don't hate! the enemy tanks in Gma tank commander or considder that they are full of soldiers with lives and desires and friends and families, ---- because frankly speaking they're not! indeed, it'd be easy to imagine that all the tanks in the game were just robots. If however you really! asked me to blow up someone else with a tank, ---- well I would refuse, and I at least like to think unless it was that one in a thousand occasion where there was! a good reason to kill someone, I'd refuse even if my life was in danger though of course having not been in the situation I've yet to find out if I have that kind of courage, --- and I probably don't. BEware the Grue! dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
