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Blood, Guts, And Videogames (The Jimquisition)
- Thread starter Empyrean Cocytus
- Start date
Before everyone shits on Jim as usual, please watch the video at least. He shares some interviews with developers that actually were affected by the shit they had to see.
so much this
trying to do a study of violence if fine, but it really doesn´t work in the same game that have explosive arrows and developers want to your guns to be part of your character
Good video. I agree with him that in regards to violence there is a line that represents well enough and that line shouldn't really be crossed. People are fine to not find it a problem at all obviously but with reference to MK this aspect is what has always kept me from engaging with that franchise at all, and it's disappointing TLOU2 in being a sequel to one of my favourite games is just looking at that level of violence and deciding that it wants a piece of that action too (or even more grotesque) and the justification for it is threadbare and callous as Jim quite rightly points out.
As he says, it's unnerving to say the least to be cognisant of the fact that devs can and have gone through trauma to reach this point, heck even just thinking about how there are possibly dozens and dozens of scraped 'dog yelps out in terror shortly before its death' takes on the scrap pile because they just didn't nail it *exactly* what it sounds like when dogs are brutalised is disturbing enough for me in relation to TLOU2, never mind the many other aspects of the game that compromise it.
As he says, it's unnerving to say the least to be cognisant of the fact that devs can and have gone through trauma to reach this point, heck even just thinking about how there are possibly dozens and dozens of scraped 'dog yelps out in terror shortly before its death' takes on the scrap pile because they just didn't nail it *exactly* what it sounds like when dogs are brutalised is disturbing enough for me in relation to TLOU2, never mind the many other aspects of the game that compromise it.
Meanwhile I was mocked on the state of play thread for saying TLOU 2's gore affects me more than Doom
Doesn't help that both of those are made in abusive workplaces.
That thread was a trashfire and not appropriately moderated. I'm kind of surprised ERA mods let so many people get away with their behaviour there, and in the follow up thread somebody made about how we treat people affected by fictional violence (where the OP was bullied into locking it).
I was going to make a thread asking why people think games skew so extreme with content.
Like playing Tomb Raider or Days Gone, or the Last of Us or Call of Duty, Bioshock etc - mainstream AAA games that sell millions, the level of violence, depictions of torture and extremity are so far beyond what you'd find in all but the most extreme horror films.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy all of these games but games are so violent it's crazy compared to the equivalent big selling movies. Why? Predominately young male target market? Predominately young male creatives? Development of gaming as a medium?
Like playing Tomb Raider or Days Gone, or the Last of Us or Call of Duty, Bioshock etc - mainstream AAA games that sell millions, the level of violence, depictions of torture and extremity are so far beyond what you'd find in all but the most extreme horror films.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy all of these games but games are so violent it's crazy compared to the equivalent big selling movies. Why? Predominately young male target market? Predominately young male creatives? Development of gaming as a medium?
The OP of that thread also compared people who bought the game without knowing it's so gory to abuse victims.
Makeno made an incredible post about this issue in the State of Play thread.
EDIT: Of course this doesn't excuse any actual abuse or trauma the developers have suffered due to being exposed to this kind of material, but that's a different conversation.
Right?
I can easily deal with Doom or MK (but 11 started pushing it too far) because they are very cartoonish and over the top.
TLoU 2 is just brutal
Wow, I managed to make it into a Jim thread before the folks that shit all over him for no good reason. Look at me, all timely and shit.
Yeah this is true, and is something that I hadn't thought of at all before watching the video. As the Neteherealm dev said crunch is about culture not just chronologically. It sounds like their studio as well as ND need to improve greatly in this regard.
The big difference is just that. In Doom I'm ripping through one eyed flyind demons. In MK it is extremely over the top (I don't like MK either mind you though).
But in TLOU 2 you're doing this to regular human beings getting by. And you're seeing them struggling on the floor with pain trying to breath after you sticked a knife on their throat. Or you're seeing eyes roll backwards after you put a hammer to someone's head. All of this with what is arguably one of the most realistic graphics in games to date.
Edit: And maybe I'm forgetting how the game was, but I don't remember TLOU 1 showing this much. Apart from zombies exploding of course. Correct me if I'm wrong though.
Holy shit that Neil Druckmann quote, why the fuck would I want to feel like I'm actually stabbing someone, like wtf is wrong with these people.
They were wrong to mock. Of course the violence in TLOU 2 will be more affecting; one is near cartoon violence, the other has a level of realism that hasn't been seen in videogames before now.
I mean, just compare the violence in a film like Braindead (Dead Alive) to Irreversible. The two are so tonally different you're going to naturally find one far more disturbing than the other. If you think those two films are equal I'd be quite concerned!
Personally I'm fine with the violence in TLOU 2 but I can totally understand that some people will find it crosses a line. This is something that videogames will have to deal with going forwards as technology gets better and better.
Bruh
I've been weary of the level of violence we accept when we are so close to photo realism.
In CoD Warzone theres a finishing move where your character struggles to live for half of it, and all I could think was like why wouldn't you want to have an animation where you do a little ocelot revolver trick instead of a finisher mostly focused on my character
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Anyway here's my own personal experience.
Doom Eternal is a gory as fuck game, but it's also about a Lego spaceman killing red and purple robot demons with a chainsaw.
Think of what we see in, say, the fatalities in Mortal Kombat, that one shot meant to be as brutal as possible, and then think about how much work went on and how much detail and modelling the graphic artists put into it.
seriously though I had to laugh when I saw that thread pop up. Appealing for empathy in the most self absorbed way humanly possible
I got to this part of the essay before dropping. This is such a spectacularly shit take and a misreading of what was going on in that thread.
Doom Eternal is a gory as fuck game, but it's also about a Lego spaceman killing red and purple robot demons with a chainsaw.
Think of what we see in, say, the fatalities in Mortal Kombat, that one shot meant to be as brutal as possible, and then think about how much work went on and how much detail and modelling the graphic artists put into it.
seriously though I had to laugh when I saw that thread pop up. Appealing for empathy in the most self absorbed way humanly possible
I got to this part of the essay before dropping. This is such a spectacularly shit take and a misreading of what was going on in that thread.
I actually fired up TLOU just yesterday and was like "oh, they did it in the first one already". At least in first hour there was a "give me an info or I'll break your arm" moment.
I dunno. It's a videogame. If you can't handle brutal shit like this, maybe you should not play it.
I love how brutal TLOU2 is. And yeah, I was enjoying putting packets over people's heads in Manhunt and grew up just fine.
But the OP did compare people buying a game and then realizing it's too violent with real abuse victims. That actually did happen. He even doubled down on it when called out.
It's been a long time since I played the first game, but I'm pretty sure one of the only scenes with extended violence, Ellie with the machete, the camera panned up so you just saw her and the machete coming down again and again. I don't think you ever see the now mutilated corpse. I have no idea why they feel the need to now show this violence.
And that was dumb. And it was edited when they were called out (as in I went back to re-read the OP in case I misremembered something and found out that "abuse" and "victim" and comparisons to them were removed). Does that discount the point of "hey maybe if someone says they're unable to handle violence we can not harangue them over it?"
I should probably drop this now since I don't want to derail the thread when there's already perfect existing opportunities for a Jimquistion thread to be derailed.
I won't shit up this thread with an argument right now but if you want to have a decent chat about this instead of accusing me of stuff then feel free to DM. I'll get back to you later.
Sure, they say it, but do you actually see them pinning the arm of someone and doing it? Like we've seen already in TLOU 2 trailers? I legit don't remember a scene that rivals what we've seen of 2.
But yeah I agree with you at the end of the day, it's a videogame. We have the choice to not buy it if we don't like it.
And in no way am I defending that you will become a murderer by playing this. I'm only defending that is fair for people to think TLOU 2 is too much for them.
A reminder here that the biggest issue here isn't how the violence affects the players, it's how it affects the people making the game who have to be exposed to this stuff way more, don't have the choice to just walk away, and aren't given the resources to work through problems they do have. No matter how you feel about the violence in your own experience, the question here is whether it's actually worth the pain and misery being put into making it, not just whether it's ok in its own right
I already said it in the SoP thread, but I will say it again : It is not about technology. It is not about visual realism, it is mostly about the reaction of the violent action. Most of it there isn't sound in movies and video game. One of the few exception is people burning.
For real. I'm curious whether the usual "it's just pixels bro" brigade turns up.
Also, TLOU 2 devs have gone out of their way to mention how they're trying to humanize the enemy NPC's so you feel kind of bad for killing them. This can be seen with the "Every NPC is named, and they'll scream in sorrow for their fallen friend." and what have you, it has nothing to do with better graphics, but with the design philosophy of the game.
It's why I can kill hundreds of NPC's in uncharted and don't feel like I'm a psycopath. There they are just that, minions in a shooter game, because without them...what would you even be doing?
I would hope they would provide proper resources to developers that have to watch that stuff. The violence in the Last of Us 2 doesn't bother me 1 bit so far, but to be fair I haven't played the game yet. Having said that, even though it doesn't bother me, if it means developers don't have to look at actual people dying over and over then I don't care if violence is toned down.
Another important point Jim is making is that there's nothing wrong with violence in video games, but the fact that studios make developers watch all sorts of weird shit to portray that violence realistically
There's a point where asking your employees to watch snuff films or lynchings may be a bit much. Especially if it's causing fucking trauma.
Yep. We just see the finished product; imagine how much work, research and effort goes into designing all the gore in games like TLOU and Mortal Kombat.
I haven't watched the video yet but the thing that always come to mind for me when devs mention using references to get realistic gore is... how many people in the audience have any idea what real gore looks like in the first place? Why does shocking violence need to be true to real life when the vast majority of humans have not witnessed such things outside of fiction. If there's any psychological cost to using references for this purpose, it's clearly not worth it.
Yeah I remember that people praised the depiction of that woman dying with a hammer to the head. And that they went to the detail of her eyes rolling backwards... I didn't even knew that happens, I imagine what they had to see to get it just right so it looks realistic enough...