Every month, the Destructoid Monthly Musing topic gives community members the ability to have their work posted on the Dtoid front page.
Evil.
It's ubiquitous. It's poorly-defined. It's sexy. And, depending on who you talk to, it's a common ingredient in most video games.
From Shadow of the Colossus to the (admittedly out of context) snippet of Modern Warfare 2 we saw a couple weeks ago, modern games are showing a greater willingness to force the player into compromising situations, and either ask, allow, or encourage them to do that which two decades of heroic plumbers and one-dimensional villains have implicitly taught us never to do: to commit evil acts.
Sometimes, games ask us to do evil out of necessity (Far Cry 2); sometimes, out of love (Shadow of the Colossus); and sometimes, because it's just plain goddamn funny (Dungeon Keeper). This month's musing topic is meant to make you consider how the concept of doing the "wrong" thing has infiltrated modern gameplay, and the subsequent implications.
Hit the jump for a further explanation of the theme.
Go to our cblogs, get an account, and when you write your post make sure to title it "The wrong thing: blah blah blah" and choose the "monthly assignment" post tag.
You can take this month's theme in several directions.
What does "evil" even mean in regards to videogames, where violence is our primary mode of expression? Is Nathan Drake "evil" just because he kills a lot of people? If not, why not? And if so, does this really matter all that much since "it's just a game"?
Which evil-centric games utilize concepts of selfishness or immorality in interesting ways? What do they offer that less morally ambiguous games do not?
The medium being as demonized as it is by the mainstream news outlets and trigger-happy politicians, what is the place of horrifying or evil gameplay in modern design? Much of the community has been talking around this issue in regard to the leaked MW2 video, and you could take it in a direction of your choosing once the game's actually out.
Any questions/comments/whatever?
Contest:
2:40 PM on 11.03.2009
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Ah well. Might work out something.
Sounds like an interesting topic, can’t wait to see what people come up with.
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Actually, that gives me an idea, forget what I just wrote.
What I say right now is without sarcasm and is (no pun intended) the truth. Which I state so if there is someone else out there with similar problems they don't think I'm mocking them.
I have...a medical condition (leave it at that)...where I literally play certain types of games by doctor's orders.
Before you think "Wow, that's the best condition ever!", they had found and encourage my playing of violent videogames to curb violent tendencies.
I've found out many interesting things over the years. Did you know most, nearly all, mental health professionals support violent videogames as excellent therapy and outlet to releasing out of whack hostilities?
That the so-called respected shrinks who go on TV talk shows and write book after book, that most their fellow doctors frown on these people as unprofessional vultures who it's questionable they deserve their degree and respected doctors have rarely if ever went on shows for money to support the talk show hosts views?
Anyway, point of that is it's not one radical doctor, but most who believe games help curb an unstable person, not make them more violent.
And find it comforting to know the dozens of shrinks I've ever seen have the common sense to know that when someone goes off and snaps, like a shooting spree, even if they played videogames around the clock, the real doctors know it wasn't the games, it was that person was ready to snap regardless and it wouldn't have mattered what they were doing.
You can't put rational thought to insanity, when people snap to that extreme a level, the scary truth most don't want to accept is there is no outside reason, they're simply ill. Like having a stroke, it just happens.
You can do little things to better your odds, but nothing to truly diminish the afiliction from going fatal. It's a roll of the dice, really.
So this struck me deeper than the usual topic. Because I do everything I can in life, don't worry about the details there but it's a lot, to ensure I stay healthy because I don't want anyone, including myself, to be hurt.
So I play A LOT of shooting games. But not only shooting games.
I do notice that if you allow me the gameplay to hurt someone, I do it.
I play Soldier Of Fortune, I'm that guy walking across the now empty level and standing over a dead body so I can shoot off every limb I can....and then moving over and doing it again to another. Then another. And so on.
Even in more innocent titles...I've only played Knights Of The Old Republic as evil, because even if I try I just can't do good through it. I revel in hurting the in-game characters. I laugh at it in what more sensitive people might find a scary way.
In Fable 2, I'm one of those people who knows firsthand that you can slaughter an entire village nonstop for over a half hour and it'll only cost you a one thousand dollar fine.
And I wasn't doing it out of curiosity of what the fine is.
I don't say these things with pride. In fact, I can't believe I'm posting this at all. But the truth is that if I'm ever feeling a little...wound up...when I'm done gaming I feel better. (Although to be clear, my "condition" is not as simple as anger management).
Can't imagine my life without these evil choices in games and options I can do outside of the narrative. It truly, literally works like medicine for people like me, even if my case is an extreme minority.
I've often contemplated when I look at certain people and don't feel anything for them, though I wish I did on what so many refer to as some basic level of humanity, am I evil for being so disconnected?
Because I always choose the most pain inflicting choices if there is one in a game or go off and do cruel things in a game, does it show in my soul I'm garbage, a waste of space timebomb towards innocent people one day, eventually, being hurt?
But as I revel in massacres in game, I go out in life knowing what type of situations I can't do or be in and avoid them. And I walk around with the odd combination of not feeling for many...yet struggling against it to be respectful and, especially, non-violent.
I don't want to hurt anyone, yet not from some emotional feeling, such as guilt or compassion. Rather, in a Spock like way, the most logical thing to me is if I were normal, (the one thing I wish for myself more than any other) not hurting others, especially innocent people...is simply right.
So am I evil? Are games forcing me to lean towards bad behaviors or making me more aware of them so I can focus on them and keep myself well?
I'm sure I'll have the longest post here and I'm fairly confident few to no one at Destructoid will have the perspective I have to come at this from, but hey! Here I am, the type of gamer most never think of being out there or how games can help them.
Though I never return to threads so I won't know if you do or not, anyone who actually read all this I would appreciate being spared from insults on this entry.
But it is your right to rip, so I certainly can't stop you. And again, I wouldn't know anyway.
Thanks for the therapy. Again, can't stress enough in case there are people around here with similar problems, this is all true and in no way mocking.
I'm going to go shoot some more people in the head over in Uncharted now.
I know what it is like to struggle with a mental condition that severs your connection with society. You'll eventually learn to deal with the detachment, and better project an image to the general public that lets you show faux emotion. When you said, "I don't want to hurt anyone, yet not from some emotional feeling, such as guilt or compassion. Rather, in a Spock like way, the most logical thing to me is if I were normal, (the one thing I wish for myself more than any other) not hurting others, especially innocent people...is simply right. " I understood on a deeper level than I would like to admit. I take MMA courses at my local gym along with violent videogames to vent my raw feral instincts. Coupled with meditation, I am as benign as H20. I could not imagine having a level of violent tendency that high. I really do wish you the best of luck.(Sounds better, but I do not believe in luck, I mean your hard work in coping.)
As for evil, it is just a representation of what we in society think is wrong. There are extreme cases like serial rapists/killers, but for the most part, it is from ones perspective. A virtual release of these sick tendencies in all of us is fine. When one seeks the ultimate high in life by creating an extreme fight or flight response coupled with emotional extremes with reckless abandon, this is when danger occurs.
Translation: Keep an eye on the stupids. For the rest of us, violent games are ok if so we chose.
In this sense the game itself is an evil, an overlord hypnotizing you into spending more of your life in front of a screen only to have your souls slowly sucked away into 20 inches of 1080p abyss.
But I think I'm missing the point a bit and I'm too lazy.
But I agree somebody needs to say it, have a go and see what happens.
Also props to The Truth for sharing that with us, it was really interesting to get a perspective on violent videogames in such a different and personal way.