First, to all of you that have responded thus far, thanks for actually responding.
I'm going to address the issues in one mail to try and save time and space. As to Charles' comments that criminals are by definition anti-social and the name of the game basically implies what to expect, agreed on both counts. However, choosing to make a psychopathic killer the hero or main character of a game is a game developer decision. My choice as a consumer is to vote for the game or not by either buying it or not. Gangsters don't interest me as a gamer, so I doubt that this particular concept would have intrigued me even if the handling had been different. In response to some of Dark's points: RE: minors and their definition Besides, what is exactly a miner seems pretty debatable, hay I was watching the alien filmes and nightmare on elm street when i was 10 years old, not to mention playing games like mortal combat and moonstone, and I was quite fine with the idea that these were games and the difference between playing a game where I slice someone up with a big nasty blade and doing the same in reality, likewise violence in and of itself never did, or indeed never does bother me for just being bloody or graphic. Back to Jeremy: I was six when I saw the first Alien film. I don't think it psychologically scarred me for life; that said, I don't think it was responsible of my older brother who had charge of me at the time to allow it. One does not negate the other. Just because minor is somewhat fluid, saying well people see this all the time does not relieve the social responsibility of the producer. RE: warning message In the game's description on the Vgstorm website there is the message: Back to Jeremy: Agreed, and I applaud the developers for including this warning. Further, I agree that there's no good system for keeping minors from buying such a game, however, there are a couple of systems that would be more effective than the current one. Making the game only purchasable with a credit card for instance will exclude many many minors. Itm ight exclude legitimate customers with bad credit as well, but this is the sort of decision one must make. Many games in the past have used a dual system of printed material that is mailed to a consumer in addition to the game disk or download. Such a mailing might get the attention of parents. Neither of these options is a perfect solution, and I don't expect VGStorm to use either. I'm merely pointing out that ignoring the problem completely and going with a warning label and good intentions is not the only way to handle such problems. RE: Violence and motivation (This one responds to Dark and Desree) Jeremy's comments here: I frankly have to just disagree with you on this one Dark. I just can't see a psychopathic criminal who kills people at a party to start their career as a person who would form a gang. First off, for that person to be at that party they have to have been invited. This implies a certain amount of familiarity or intimacy with at least one party goer. Further, as we both agreed, avoiding criminal entanglement with authorities is the best way to be a successful criminal. As to the way the violence is presented, I did not get any bafoon comedy violence vibe. Further, it doesn't strike me as a screw you to society politically correct or not. It strikes me as an excuse to glorify anti-social behavior in the name of providing the blind community with this style of game. Now, first off, I am not opposed to graphic violence as such. However, I think that the underlying story and motivations for this game needed a severe rethink. It doesn't work for me on a hey, this gives me an excuse level, nor on the I have to do this to accomplish this goal level. That said, I'm glad to see developers trying games that are not mere board games nor polite society games. However, this game could have involved the criminal element without being anywhere as graphic nor conflicted in a story sense. Finally, these observations are, my own opinion. I am fairly obviously in the minority here. But, as a reasonably sensitive human being, and a parent, I find the approach to releasing the game in terms of just releasing it without any brakes and the chosen content objectionable. However, I wish VGStorm the greatest of luck with its other titles, and I hope to see other examples of their games using these mechanics but with a more well-thought out character motivator and a less offensive way of tracking character success. I downloaded both Psycho Strike and Paladin of the Sky when I decided to test the former, and I intend to give it a few more plays to see if my initial response was merely a kneejerk reaction. I also intend on fooling with POS and seeing if it lives up to the traffic I've seen on list. However, I suspect that my initial observations as recorded here will probably stand for me. Take care, Jeremy -- In the fight between you and the world--back the world! Frank Zapa --- 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.
