LongShot #114: Murderer's Remorse

[GamerDad]

David Long's LongShot #114: Murderer's Remorse article - http://www.gamerdad.com/detail.cfm?itemID=3135

[txa1265]

I love the article Dave ... because those dark deeds that you talk about *should* impact you. In Oblivion I've not seen anything like that because I am playing a mage and my blasts tend to knock my enemies around with a badly overdone ragdoll effect.

But perhaps that is why I almost always play 'lawful good' characters, why it took me so long to play dark side characters in the Star Wars games. I don't like doing what is necessary to play the evil characters. I don't mind taking out the hoardes or Nazis or aliens or terrorists or whatever. But the lone desparate bandit ... that bugs me in every game - I'm playing Avernum 4 as well as Oblivion, and the fact that the poor bandits are feeding off of society and I need to take them out isn't made easier with lousy graphics.

Mike

[MotherGamer]

Columns like this one are important, as it's easy for people who love games to knee-jerk defend games in this political climate by saying "bunk - games don't affect behavior". It can stop those of us who love games from analytically thinking about what we like, why we like it, what *is* going to far, etc. It makes it hard for us to ask the kinds of questions that are asked in this column.

My first "caught-off-guard" moment involving an emotional reaction to a game involved Final Fantasy X.

**POSSIBLE SPOILERS IF YOU HAVEN'T PLAYED OR HAVEN'T FINISHED**




My husband and I had been playing the game seperately, but simultaneously, and were progressing at about the same pace. Then I went and had a baby (the inconvenience), and he got ahead of me in the game. I didn't expect this to spoil the game for me, as I found myself looking forward to doing things myself that I'd already seen him do.

And then I found out that you have to battle and kill your own Aeons towards the end of the game. Maybe it was the post-labor hormones, but the idea of having to kill something that you'd devoted untold hours to creating - and raising, in effect - was heartbreakingly sad to me. In fact, it prevented me from finishing the game myself. I remember being very surprised to realize I had that kind of emotional investment in the game.

[Klonoa]

Kind of, sort of related, but if you beat the bosses in Mega Man Powered Up using your regular cannon instead of your special weapons, you'll only stun the boss instead of destroying it. Then Dr. Light will repair the robot to be good again and you can play as him. The game rewards you for being merciful, and I'm definitely going to emphasis that in my Powered Up Kid Factor. --Cary

[momGamer]

And I want to say Dave that it's great you said this. When I talk about this a lot of people blow me off because I'm a female. Just as many of you tend to poo-poo your wife's reservations about this stuff.

Dave, this happens to me all the time. I cringe playing a lot of games. I feel sorry for the grunts I blow away in Halo. I feel guilty smacking those cute little Shadow Heartless. Half way through the last game you find out what they actually are made of and it caused great consternation at my house. It was a great conversation to have with the kids, but I feel bad about it all the same.

Spoiler: I'm trying to be vague here. One of the things that got me in Oblivion is an item that summons a flock of scamps that follow you around. If you kill them, they'll just get brought back. If you want to you can use it to level. Just stop in a convenient room on your way to finishing that quest and kill them as they spawn over and over. It reminded me of flashlight fishing. It's not fair. They have no choice but to come.

I think this is a great article, but it's something that we're all going to have to think through very carefully. Let me play a bit of devil's advocate here.

We all spend a lot of time talking about how games don't affect us as people. Ask your average board denizen on IGN or elsewhere. This is a cornerstone of the defense of games for most people (especially hormone-soaked half literate trogs). "I've played Manhunt since I was five and it hasn't done anything to me!" is their watchword.

This is a case where your action in a game affected you as a person. You may not like to think about it. I'm not saying we're going to hear about you up on the nearest water tower. But that blithe assertion that in-game actions and situations don't have any effect at all is starting to look a little tattered.

But Dave's a grown up, and he'll be responsible. Well, yeah. But this game is T-rated. That means all those 13-year-olds out there with the scratch for this game are facing the same choices, often unsupported and unsupervised. And honestly, I worry a great deal more about the people who don't feel anything.

As we get to the more realistic end of things it is becoming increasingly clear to me that something happens. Maybe as we're all exposed to more of this media and it's getting closer and closer to real life maybe we're extending our empathy to the digital realm. I don't know. But we definately need to start looking at it.

And I want to say again thank you Dave for starting this conversation.

Mothergamer - I had the same problem. But you're not actually "killing" them. You are just defeating them so you can get to the guy who's posessing them. Just like how if one of them gets beat in a battle with you earlier in the game. They get dismissed and you can't call them back until the battle is done. It was still heartbreaking, though. My second time through I just didn't develop my aeons at all. If you level your characters carefully you don't have to use them during the game except when you're dealing with Belgemine and it's not nearly so tear-jerking.

[txa1265]

Just as many of you tend to poo-poo your wife's reservations about this stuff.

I use my wife as a good sounding board on this stuff - I learned that I needed to adjust my sense of balance on this stuff early on with my kids ... my 'appropriate violence meter' was broken. I assumed if they could watch Episode I they could watch the opening Jedi Knight cutscene ... I learned, and we work together on all this stuff now. She trusts my judgement but asks insightful questions.

We all spend a lot of time talking about how games don't affect us as people.

But that is rediculous - there is a huge difference between being impacted by something and controlled by it. I am impacted and moved by virtual experiences of music, books, TV and movies - why should games be different?

Mike

[Tater-Dad]

oh look horns are sprouting a la Fable...geez I must be more evil than I thought. I don't get remorseful feelings when blowing away underlings, even the ones that are supposedly under an evil spell or something. I've always been able to pull myself away from that feeling when I play games. I've even been known to make the hero take a long walk off of a short pier to see a funny death sequence.

I have a question tho: Would you feel bad were you an actor playing a stage villian? It's a similar situation to me. I may not have lines that I myself deliver, but I am taking over that role. I will enjoy & relish the evil that I get to play, but I don't have to end up in jail for it With a game instead of reciting lines, I'm mashing a button to deliver my lines. Of course, watch out for those evil chickens...they only look harmless.

[txa1265]

I have a question tho: Would you feel bad were you an actor playing a stage villian?

That is actually a very good analogy, and exactly how I feel. I *can* act the parts, but I *feel* the story. It really bothered me at Anchorhead in KotOR when i had to rake the poor woman over the coals who was trying to sell the last trophy her husband collected so she and her family could move away ... but I did it for the dark side role.

Mike

[jray]

Great and thought provoking article.

I guess for some of the same reasons, I have avoided playing games that cast you in the evil role -- at least the ones where I am more immersed in the gameplay. (Wailuigi doesn't count.)

I felt odd when I played the campaign mode of Battlefront 2. My heart just really wasn't into the Jedi temple level when I had to assist in the slaughter of the Jedi. The graphics certainly aren't that refined, it just felt wrong.

Just one of the reasons that we carefully assess RPGs at my house when it comes to my son.

[SiW]

I mention something in my Metal Gear Solid 3 (Subsistence) review about genuinely feeling bad about killing guards because of a certain scene later in the game. Now, I think the scene is designed to make you think that way, but knowing that doesn't really lessen the impact. After the scene, I did everything I could to avoid killing more people.

[momGamer]

Mike - I am glad you and your wife have worked this issue out, but a lot of people have not. Do I really have to start going through the forums and picking out the threads where people have asked us to help convince their wives of X game or to get X console or whatever? In many houses, it's the wives who fulfill this role, and there's quite a bit of message board and column inches with a "boys will be boys" thing going on. And it's not just here. And every time I even mention that something might be a bit over the top, that's the very same reaction I get. That was behind my thanking Dave for this. I can't get anyone to talk about it. And it looks like he can.

As far as the difference between "affect" and "control", I am not disputing that with you, or with the pundit you're channeling there. You can ditch the slippery slope crap right now. There isn't a single word in my post or in Dave's article that in any way suggests that was going on. I don't believe that you obviate any of your responsibility for control because of the effect of anything. But that doesn't mean the effect is not there. Don't worry, though. You're just the first person who's going to go there in this discussion; you won't be alone. Particularly as it filters off this site and out into the Web.

And in the other corner, let's talk to one of the mainstream game media or a large proportion of gamers. Someone who is totally and completely infuriated by you even bringing up the concept that anything they see on the screen could ever possibly touch them or affect them in any way. You're so STUPID for even thinking it. If you think intangible ideas don't affect people and don't matter, please take a look back at history again. There's a whole lot of influence there from ideas that don't "control" anyone. And they weren't even splatted up there in all their digital glory.

What I read of Dave's article really sort of boils down to this. How many of us shed a tear when Frogger got splatted? Or how about the many civilians I accidentally potted in Hogan's Alley? I know I didn't. But I felt sick to my stomach when I killed the Prophet of Regret and I cried like a Miyazaki heroine when I finished off Big Boss. I know exactly what scene SiW is talking about and I had real problems there myself. Something's changed in between those first examples and the second. What?

Is it just time? I mean, there's easily 10 years between the two sets of examples. Probably not - my daughters are the ones who feel guilty for shooting Grunts. They will go out of their way to kill them with head shots because they don't suffer that way. They won't shake down the terrorists in MGS because it feels like rifling dead bodies. They'll go without ammo for it. On the other hand, you have my younger son who is of the "Kill 'em All and I Don't Care if They Get Sorted or Not" frame of mind for the most part who likes to arrange the dead bodies in interesting patterns. My favorite was the guards he shaped into the word "DUMB" in a dark room in Pandora Tomorrow a la the Alphabet Dance. But even he wouldn't kill his sister at the end of Fable.

That's why I phrased it the way I did. I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. But I do believe it's real and until we even far enough to admit it we're not going to know much either way.

Tater - that's a great question. I usually end up playing the bad girl on stage because I have a low voice and I don't look like Barbie. And I really don't like it at all. I do feel bad. It yucks me to start pouring all that gross stuff into the cauldron as the head witch in MacBeth and then start shouting out the ingredients like some sort of goth Martha Stuart. And I'm telling this guy to go kill someone! I was blushing so hard playing the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet they had to keep applying the makeup because it kept melting off my cheeks. It's part of the reason I don't do a lot of community theater work anymore.

And I despise chickens.

[Dave Long]

I think there's a some kind of distinction between acting in a stage play or in flim and television and what's happening in a game.

I mean, that guy in the game? He never gets up.

In fact, in Oblivion, he's going to still be there 24 hours after I walk away. The bodies eventually disappear I think (and I'm going to go back to find out), but they certainly don't hop up and take a bow when all is said and done. Maybe a dumb distinction to point out, but it's notable I think.

[txa1265]

Well ... I certainly seem to have ticked you off, momGamer ... not my intent at all.

Mike - I am glad you and your wife have worked this issue out, but a lot of people have not.

I know that I am an exception here, but I am always amazed at how many houses have the guy as the one being the video game 'director' and making some pretty poor choices (M-rated FPS at 7, for instance, with the kids bragging about the bloody headshots). But I think we should all strive for some objectivity as parents and help our kids make good and appropriate choices.

As far as the difference between "affect" and "control", I am not disputing that with you, or with the pundit you're channeling there. You can ditch the slippery slope crap right now. There isn't a single word in my post or in Dave's article that in any way suggests that was going on. I don't believe that you obviate any of your responsibility for control because of the effect of anything. But that doesn't mean the effect is not there. Don't worry, though. You're just the first person who's going to go there in this discussion; you won't be alone. Particularly as it filters off this site and out into the Web.

I thought you knew me a bit better than that - what I reacted to was what you were implying. That all over the web there are people saying that video games have *no impact* on them. And my assertion is that is crap. Does playing a FPS make you a latent killer? No, I certainly don't believe that. But just as a sure as my mood was completely changed listening to Miles Davis Bitches Brew on the way home last night, just as a good book or movie or piece of music has an impact, so do I believe that gaming impacts us. I just finished Jedi Knight II again, and there are parts of that that bring me a total sense of comfort. All I'm saying is that video games are an immersive medium, and as such they *do* impact us. And we don't need to try to deny that in order to maintain that they don't take control - the two are separate issues.

Mike

[Sorcha Ravenlock]

I can't play the bad guy in a PC game, just can't. I know I've missed out on hours of gameplay with the KOTOR series, but I tried playing darker characters before, and it leaves me feeling... dirty.

I have no problems killing bandits in RPGs, because I know it is either me or them. Even when i'm playing a stealth character and snipe them before they see me, I know that if they see me, I'm the one at the disatvantage, and they won't have mercy on me.

However, in OB you can't always be sure the NPC is a bandit, so now I usually sneak up close enough to get the name-tag to appear.

Yesterday, I was clearing out a ruin filled with bandits, and found one that was asleep on a bedroll. I sneaked closer, and he rubbed his nose and turned over and curled up a bit more. The animation was so lifelike, I couldn't kill him, and just sneaked past. In other games, he/she would have just been standing around, it would have been different, but this Khajiit was sleeping like a baby (kitten).

Which brings me to another Oblivion feature: yielding. I haven't experienced it yet, but Bethesda advertised that some NPCs now yield, ask for mercy rather then fight to the death. I already know that if that happens, I won't make the kill. I'm a big softie, I know.

I even give money to the beggars, everytime I see one, especially if they mention their children. Children? What children? There are no children in the game

My playstyle is chaotic good, I'll work with the law, I'll work against the law, I'll steal, loot and lie if I have too, but at the end of the day, I can never get myself to do something really nasty

[Tater-Dad]

I think there's a some kind of distinction between acting in a stage play or in flim and television and what's happening in a game.

I mean, that guy in the game? He never gets up.
In fact, in Oblivion, he's going to still be there 24 hours after I walk away.

Is there?
Doesn't he?

I mean eventually you, or me or someone else will stumble across these guys again, kill them again. No, they don't hop up & bow, and neither would an actor (not till the final curtain anyway-and they don't on TV or movies either ) but you know he's okay. Just like that little bit of pixel & binary numbers is gonna be filed away until the next time someone comes thru to kill the poor guy. I think this may be the way some of the "you're a wussie for feeling bad" camp thinks. I don't think you're a wussie BTW...I hope I'm making my point without being too obnoxious

Hmm I think my devil tail is starting to show now But if it makes anybody feel better I did buy a homeless guy breakfast I may be evil but I'm not a total jerk...