in favor of gore and violence

I have mixed feelings about graphic violence in war games.

On the one hand, if you intend for a war game to be educational and didactic, then your depiction of war should be as realistically graphic as possible. There's a limit to how much reality most game consumers will take, of course. The full horrors of our world are not shown even in schools or on TV because relatively few people are willing to face absolutely everything. But the more education that can be sneaked in, the better.

On the other hand, it's easy and wrong to relish the gore too much. Some enjoyment is benign, I think. Young boys cross-culturally play war games (not speaking of video games), and enjoyment of violence goes hand-in-hand with that instinct. A thrill from battle is natural, including gory signs of victory. But that, like any instinctual desire, has a proper place and manner. The appetite for violence can and should be directed, moderated, and bloodlust (gore) with it.

Enjoyment of gore is founded in a taste for victory, I believe. When you see the head of your sniper's victim explode like a watermelon, it can be more satisfying feedback than simply seeing the victim fall down. When your battleaxe hits home and you hear a pained cry mixed with the sound of flesh tearing and bone shattering, that's a taste of competitive success.

I have great respect for films in which bullet wounds are intentionally invisible or merely red stains (like John Wayne films, or The Hunt for Red October). Gore can be good feedback or good education, even integral to storytelling, but subtlety can also be good. The absence of gore can better focus the audience's attention on other elements. Game designers should always ask which way better suits their particular game.

Anyway! As usual, I'm getting off track.

That article made me think of the irony that the game restrictions intended to honor social concerns are very often in the way of serving those values.

For example, children cannot be killed in games. Children in games like Neverwinter Nights, Fable 2, and Fallout 3 are invulnerable (yes, it's sad that I know this). Bioshock allows the player to kill the child-like "Little Sisters", but the screen fades out when this happens. Truth-conscious war games have yet to represent the reality that combatants are commonly children (often teenagers, sometimes younger) or even include them as bystanders. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is getting a sequel, but what are the chances it will have kids with assault rifles, militants residing with their families, or terrorists stationing supplies and soldiers in schools and churches?

Yet what would push home the nature of urban combat to gamers better than having to face women and children with guns?

Rather than forbid gore and uncomfortable scenarios, those interested in socially productive gaming should encourage developers to include such things and provide intuitive commentary.

Intuitive commentary means unspoken commentary; gameworld consequences and reactions beyond dialogue. Soldiers visibly shaken by the deaths of their comrades. Non-player combatants being crippled, rather than slain. The dead abandoned, their corpses stripped by poor locals and nibbled on by crows and dogs. Wailing mothers and grandmothers. Lost, crying children.

Intuitive commentary means reward and punishment. Save an ally and he might watch your back a little more closely. Spare what enemies you can and you might receive valuable information, face softer resistance from noncombatants, or even make a friend. Kill too many noncombatants and your allies will turn against you (the game ends... restart). Kill some kid who's aiming a gun at you and expect the family to seek revenge. Place a landmine, and don't expect to be able to control who dies by it.

As I said earlier, I acknowledge that there is a limit to what consumers of entertainment are willing to endure. Films like Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, and Black Hawk Down have demonstrated that the average consumer will endure a great deal if the presentation of that uncomfortable content is artful and meaningful. Games, being interactive, can probably not push quite as far, but are still capable of much more than the industry has generally been willing to explore as of yet.

I'm not saying all war games should be seriously toned and educational. I'm just saying that if you're making a serious game, gore and other nasty elements can be used toward noble ends. They don't have to be about feeding immoderate impulses. The industry is currently bound by certain social restrictions, but designers will have more and more room to explore mature content if they can demonstrate to society how it might be done tastefully and productively.

Dante's Inferno: tread carefully

So the guys at EA Redwood Shores have announced their next project, and it's Dante's Inferno.



And that's great, but I hope they realize the importance of getting this one right.

Dead Space is a stellar game. I finally finished it a couple days ago -- great sci-fi, great horror, great gameplay. We can probably expect similar quality in the team's next project. And their recent experience with creating horror will undoubtedly aid them in recreating Hell.

But, still, I worry. At this point, you can't base a mainstream game on such a pivotal work of classic literature as Dante Alighieri's and not expect that to grab the attention of non-gamers. Mainstream news worldwide will take notice. How respectfully or carelessly the original work is adapted into gameplay will be widely reported on.

Those reviews, previews, and interviews could have a profound effect on how games and the industry is perceived for many years. If EA Redwood Shores impresses the greater public, it would be a big step forward. Otherwise, reasonable doubters and willful naysayers alike will have more fuel for their arguments.

I also worry because Dante's Divine Comedy is a faithful religious work, and game designers are not known for being pious or reverent. The only religion in Dead Space is wild and deadly fanaticism. Such fanaticism does exist and is scary, so I can only hopefully assume the lead designers don't perceive all religion to be so irrational.

The Judeo-Christian concept of good and evil is difficult to translate into gameplay. Evil is merely an absence or twisting of good, as darkness is an absence of light. Evil spirits, including Satan, are utterly powerless except as God allows (for the sake of our maturation and free will). Humans rarely battle demons directly, and even then (usually exorcisms) our power is prayer... appealing to and trusting in God's love for intervention. Angels and demons are far, far more powerful than humans. It is God and His love for us that protects and saves us. Prophecy, spontaneous healing, bilocution, stigmatas -- such powers come from God, not from us.

Dante's tale is more about viewing, hearing, and conversing than about interaction. So seeing Dante hacking and slashing his way through Hell raises concerns about sincere representation, though such gameplay could certainly be fun. Dialogue and prayer are difficult to translate into good gameplay.

Redwood Shores should also consider the meaning of Hell, the beliefs which shaped Dante's work. Hell is chosen by the damned. It is a willful separation from God's grace. We're all familiar with knowing what the right, loving action is and choosing to do differently. Many know God's love and reject it. Pain, sadness and anger occur when things aren't as they should be. When creatures made for love reject love, they embrace darkness and torment. Hell is punishment, but it is also self-punishment.

Part of the purpose of understanding Hell is fear. All parents know that toddlers can't be expected to always obey (to act justly, learn and grow) out of love and understanding. Fear is necessary. When children grow to be teenagers, they are more capable of love and understanding, but fear remains necessary as a fallback. Emotion and will often overpower reason, and in those moments we need fear. Even adults need fear of consequences, a fact which much of our legal system is founded on. God has revealed Hell to humanity because we need that fear to fall back on in those moments when we want to reject -- or merely postpone -- love.

Knowing Hell also illuminates God's grace and goodness. Hell is evil without a mask. In our world, evil usually take the form of corruption -- something good distorted into poison; slow death. If one can understand evil in its essence (Hell), and pure good as well (Heaven), then recognizing good and evil as they are entangled on our world is a more manageable task.

EA Redwood Shores is tackling one of the world's most respected works of literature, as well as a setting which is taken very seriously and believed to be real by billions of people worldwide. I'm very happy they're doing so. I hope they give the subjects adequate study and reflection, as well as respect in the finished product.

shocks vs scares

A number of people have said they don't consider Dead Space and other horror games to be truly scary. These people point to the difference between startling someone with unexpected events and giving that person a lasting chill. It's a valid distinction.

As many have pointed out, the greatest barrier to evoking fear through games is emotional distance from the danger. Like any emotion, fear is rarely, if ever, pure. There are many types of fear, many mixtures. But any type of fear is basically a defensive reaction to perceived danger.

Some people are more sympathetic with story characters than others. A strongly sympathetic person can be affected deeply by fear through story, because there is not a great division between that protagonist(s) and self. But many others have a harder time connecting to characters. They do not feel much fear via games and movies because they themselves are not in any perceived danger.

So, obviously, the way to bridge that gap, to make a game truly terrifying, is to endanger the audience!

I'm only half joking. The best scary stories put the audience on edge long after the story has been told. This is generally, though not always, accomplished by making the imaginary danger seem real. The movie Jaws convinced a whole generation of movie goers that human-hunting sharks are real. Films like Child's Play and Poltergeist instilled fear of dolls in countless kids. And how many grown adults are uncomfortable in front of poorly illuminated mirrors because someone locked them in a dark room with Bloody Mary? The scariest tales live on in reality.

Is it cruel to instill such lasting fears in people? Not necessarily. The great American writer Flannery O'Connor used horror to communicate themes which her readers would normally be resistant to. In other words, she used fear as a form of mild violence to break past emotional barriers in her audience. In O'Connor's own words: "to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the blind you draw large and startling figures." The most impressive lessons in any person's memory are often those cemented by deep emotional experiences. Fear is one emotion which can ensure the questions your story raises are not abandoned the moment the player steps away.

Cheers to the things that go bump in the night!

relative pricing

All pricing is relative.

In other words, all prices will be judged by consumers in their relation to other prices. Your customers will compare the price of your product to the prices of other products. The big question is: what will they compare it to?

With expansion content, I always use the original game's price as my primary measure. Expansion content should not cost nearly half the price of the original game if it offers significantly less than half the amount of content.

But I don't assume that the majority of game consumers think like me in this matter. What do you use as your measure of fairness when considering the price of expansion content or full games?

marketing Alan Wake

There's nothing wrong with a story-focused cinematic that reveals almost nothing of actual gameplay, provided that cinematic excites people and interests them in the game's setting. But Microsoft and Remedy must to do much more than this if they me to take Alan Wake seriously.

The problem is we were offered the same vague hints at gameplay, albeit presented through superb graphics, over three years ago with the launch of the Xbox 360. Alan Wake screenshots and videos were a vital selling point for the console's release, yet still today there's nothing beyond Remedy's reputation suggesting that this is an actual game. Judging from its use years ago in 360 marketing, I'm inclined to think it's really a tech demo which is merely being glittered with gameplay.

I could be wrong, and I hope I am. I like the concept of alternating players between safe daylight (investigation) and dangerous night (defense).

But if this really is a game through-and-through, it still seems Microsoft marketed this game too strongly when the developers hadn't solidified anything beyond the most basic premise and graphics. To use something unformed and unproven as a major selling point seems unethical to me. What do you think?

the LBP delay

I have mixed feelings about LittleBigPlanet being recalled by Sony worldwide because of a song that includes a verse or two from the Koran.

The song in question was written by a Muslim musician who supposedly cares himself about being respectful. Even if he considers his action honorable, the other Muslims who disagree should also be listened to. But the key here is who has the most reasonable argument. There will always be people who are offended only because they are being unreasonable, short-sighted, or selfish. Such people should be engaged in conversation, but it is only reasonable objections that should be acted upon.

To some extent, I agree with this guy, also a Muslim. He does not like to see holy verses used in songs not of praise or in frivolous games (as opposed to educational games), but he also does not like to see censorship for the sake of guarding someone from conflicting beliefs. Speaking as a deeply religious person myself (orthodox Catholic), I can see the balance that must be found between open expression and sacrificial respect.

If someone insults a person I love, it's right for me to stand up for that loved one, but (in most cases) that person should be free to insult. We don't want to encourage people to be harmful or callous, but free will should be honored and people should often be allowed to act with even unreasonable disrespect. It's complicated when that loved one is your King, Savior, and Creator, but the same principle basically applies. People should be generally free to insult God. God is the giver of free will, so to undermine free will is to disrespect God.

Free will is not an absolute freedom, of course. Some censorship is justified. But it's right to generally rely on self-censorship. It's right to allow informal interventions to ensure interactions between persons and peoples are respectful. In that article, Jasser calls these informal interventions the "free market", but that seems to me a limited view of our informal interactions.

So what do we have so far? (1) Act only on reasonable objections. (2) Honor free will and allow informal interactions to filter discourse. What else needs to be added?

Well, we also need to recognize Sony's freedom to govern its own operations and determine what works will represent it in the market. Whether or not we believe the Muslims who objected to this song in LBP are reasonably offended does not matter as much as whether or not Sony agrees with their objection. Even if Sony's thinking is flawed, it is still that company's decision to make. As a publisher, it has a duty to honor the free expression of its artists, but those artists reflect on Sony and the publisher has a right to filter them within reason.

Ultimately, I think it's good if Sony decided to delay LBP because they agree the objections are reasonable and LBP is not intended to be a game that challenges ideas, though the disappointment of thousands of anxious fans should certainly have been a factor in the decision (as I'm sure it was). I only think this reflects poorly on Sony if the decision was more political than sincere. Like Tipa, I have to wonder if Sony is just following the popular trend of protecting Muslims while caring nothing for Christians and Jews.

damn the end

What's really interesting about the typical MMO philosophy of "the real fun is at the end" is that people regularly accept it with MMOs but not with anything else.

Would you watch a movie that's pretty boring for nearly two hours but has a great ending? Would you buy a song that's mediocre at best until the last 30 seconds?

Frankly, standard MMO design is based more on manipulation than quality. Even the outstanding games of the genre have failed to abandon what are clearly seedy practices.

wandering IPs

This new Saints Row 2 video is a nice summary of the main point I was making in my (admittedly piss-poor) initial impressions review of GTA IV. My argument was that Rockstar has veered so far from the original flavor of the GTA series that now the Saints Row series is more GTA than GTA. That original flavor was wild, free-form gameplay and downright silly shenanigans. The original tone and over-the-top gameplay of the series seems to have been slowly fading, to be replaced by different values.

I absolutely have no problem with developers changing style. People change. Interests change. And GTA IV is certainly a financially successful game that pleases many gamers. Rockstar did well.

But I do believe any series should remain faithful to the expectations of its audience... faithful to the basic style that defined the first product; for ethical reasons as much as marketing reasons. If you're interested in making a new sort of game, don't realize it by changing an established IP. Start a new IP. If you establish your company as a respectable brand (Blizzard, Bioware, etc), then you can use that to about the same effect as a game brand. Command & Conquer is another series that has wandered quite a bit, though at least they eventually divided it into subcategories (Red Alert series, Tiberium series, etc).

In this case, I think the GTA series has wandered too far from its heart. I sold my copy of GTA IV to a friend.