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[miauw62]

But GTA is killing for fun's sake, and nobody begs you for their lives or anything like that. This game is killing for killing's sake.

[pisskop]

You don't need explicit intent from the developers to extract a message, and intentional messages tend to be hamfisted anyway (See: Pilgrim's Progress, Any time a video game has ever tried to send a message.)

I think abstracting it out to make it more "palatable" is worse, actually.  Showing this kind of stuff and letting people do it, I've been playing Mortal Kombat since Kindergarten and it hasn't affected me.

It's not the content of the violence, it's the results.  Every single one of the video games we've talked about and most of what we see on television too, no matter how "palatable" it is, involves characters using violence and getting positive results for it.   The message is that violence is a good thing that gets you what you want.  And that's why I don't buy this thing about how the player's agency is the difference between the low-fi isometric murder of Hatred and the very up close and human violence of movies like Saw and Hostel.  People got up and cheered in the theater in the bathroom scene at the end of hostile (where the protagonist gets revenge in a bathroom) and Jigsaw's reason for doing his shit is generally portrayed as a good thing (And I'll note it's just as high school as Grimdark Darkgrim's thing in Hatred)

Every single case is how the ends justify the means?  hmmm . . .

I wont argue that much, but these games with no purpose other than to kill are about the adrenaline high you get as much as whatever terrible plot device they use.  Doom, for example.  You dont ever actually 'save anything' and you certainly dont feel like you do.  you blow up humanoid monsters and floating balls, and feel the adrenaline.

This game would fall squarely into that category, except it also has an apparent political message tacked on atm.  The devs 'rebellion'.  The outrage may well be about the use of violence with no communicable results, the high you get from them is real enough.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

But GTA is killing for fun's sake. -> This game is killing for killing's sake.

Well. Those are some very rigid moral scruples. You're fine with killing for fun, as long as the victims don't beg? I'll give you a hint, people do flee and beg for their lives in GTA when you start shooting in GTASanAndreas/4/5, I forget about Vice City and 3. Just curious why 'sanitized' murder is fine. It's almost as if this game's theme is over the top grimdark. But hey, I actually like to base my objections on things I object to consistently instead of changing my reaction to the same idea based on the tone of the media presented.

[miauw62]

I don't hold a particularily strong opinion over this, I just feel that GTA is less "bad" than this for no reason I can support with arguments. It's probably the grimdarkness or the fact that the game makes the people as real as possible that makes me uncomfortable. In GTA you're just crunching numbers, this does appear to be a dedicated killing simulator while GTA is a dedicated doing dumb shit simulator. vOv
And IIRC people just run away in most GTAs.

And presentation does matter, saying it doesn't is dumb.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

I don't hold a particularily strong opinion over this, I just feel that GTA is less "bad" than this for no reason I can support with arguments. It's probably the grimdarkness or the fact that the game makes the people as real as possible that makes me uncomfortable. In GTA you're just crunching numbers, this does appear to be a dedicated killing simulator while GTA is a dedicated doing dumb shit simulator. vOv
And IIRC people just run away in most GTAs.

And presentation does matter, saying it doesn't is dumb.

I agree with this. GTA really is just doing-dumb-shit-simulator. You can also kill people.

[Leafsnail]

You don't need explicit intent from the developers to extract a message, and intentional messages tend to be hamfisted anyway (See: Pilgrim's Progress, Any time a video game has ever tried to send a message.)

I think abstracting it out to make it more "palatable" is worse, actually.  Showing this kind of stuff and letting people do it, I've been playing Mortal Kombat since Kindergarten and it hasn't affected me.

It's not the content of the violence, it's the results.  Every single one of the video games we've talked about and most of what we see on television too, no matter how "palatable" it is, involves characters using violence and getting positive results for it.   The message is that violence is a good thing that gets you what you want.  And that's why I don't buy this thing about how the player's agency is the difference between the low-fi isometric murder of Hatred and the very up close and human violence of movies like Saw and Hostel.  People got up and cheered in the theater in the bathroom scene at the end of hostile (where the protagonist gets revenge in a bathroom) and Jigsaw's reason for doing his shit is generally portrayed as a good thing (And I'll note it's just as high school as Grimdark Darkgrim's thing in Hatred)

Have you played The Line?  It seems odd that you're mocking it even though it does basically exactly what you want - it shows that the violence you committed (and indeed the violence previously committed by other people) had huge negative consequences, and it would have been far better if you had never gotten involved.  It also features graphic deaths by white phosphorus, so I don't see how you could be attacking it for having sanitized violence either.

Hatred, on the other hand, will not show negative consequences.  Broody McGenocide will get to kill the people he hates and die the violent death he always wanted to.

e: also the blog accompanying the comic you posted says that The Line is "actually one of the smartest and most important games of its generation."

[miauw62]

Also, I don't think this game is over the top. It is exactly AT the top, since that is the point that causes the most offence and controversy, which is rather obviously what the devs want.

[lijacote]

You don't need explicit intent from the developers to extract a message, and intentional messages tend to be hamfisted anyway

This is an important point in many areas. Intent does not produce effect, effect is the product of what was actually done, and intent does not always match what is done. Just a sidenote, but it is important.

[Cthulhu]

I have played it but I didn't get very far.  If there's some important message in it (which always seems to be cribbed in whole or in part from Heart of Darkpocalypse now when it comes to video games.  I was sick of that already by Far Cry 2.) I wasn't interested in walking to conveniently placed cover objects and shooting people and walking to the next conveniently placed cover object and shooting people to find it.

[Leafsnail]

Fair enough if the gameplay put you off but I think it explores some areas that HoD doesn't (and can't, due to not being in an interactive medium).  Regardless of whether it's derivative or not though I stand by my claim that it's that kind of game that shows you negative consequences for violence, not the kind where you help a psychopath live out his lifelong dream as successfully as possible.

[Bohandas]

But GTA is killing for fun's sake. -> This game is killing for killing's sake.

Well. Those are some very rigid moral scruples. You're fine with killing for fun, as long as the victims don't beg? I'll give you a hint, people do flee and beg for their lives in GTA when you start shooting in GTASanAndreas/4/5, I forget about Vice City and 3. Just curious why 'sanitized' murder is fine. It's almost as if this game's theme is over the top grimdark. But hey, I actually like to base my objections on things I object to consistently instead of changing my reaction to the same idea based on the tone of the media presented.

I'd go as far as to say that sanitized death is worse. An execution simulator or a late term abortion simulator would be far more offensive to me than this game is.

[Cthulhu]

I decided to give Spec Ops another chance.  It's not too bad.  If the gunplay were a little tighter and weightier I'd probably love it.  That's probably what turned me off initially.

It probably doesn't help my case here or my ability to take in whatever message they're going for, but I undercut their boohooing by making a conscious decision when the game began to shoot everything that moves and doesn't give me a game over.  Scorch the fucking earth, all men must die.

[KingofstarrySkies]

I mean, geez, even in games like Fable I can't even bring myself to choose the "evil" options once in a while!

Ah, Fable, the good ol' spousal abuse simulator.
Now I want to get myself one of them old Xboxes to play that game again... I'd miss my save files, but alas.

Fable 2 was, IMO, the best one, although One was great. WE DO NOT SPEAK OF THE OTHER ONE.

[Fniff]

Valve pulled Hatred from Greenlight, due to it being "unpublishable".
Thoughts?

[pisskop]

Standards?  Of quality or conduct?  :/

Thats my honest question.