Disclaimer: I am not telling you not to enjoy things, (Hell I do enjoy things that are still bad influence) but I do hate the term "It's just a game" as an excuse for everything.
This phrase has been coming a lot these couple of days mostly in the Modern Warfare topics but I feel it deserves a thread focused on it.
So I am making this thread to discuss how gaming does affect the player in various way, some does it in very smallway and some do it in a huge way. No matter what game it is, it will always have something to affect you.
Lets start with games like Call of Duty since it is the most recent thing. You have people who call it "The Michael Bay of gaming" as if it is somehow supposed to be dumb and not serious. But honestly? The game is affecting people and in a big way. I said this example in my other posts in the other threads but I will say it again, back in school when I was a teen and CoD4/MW2/BO etc was all the rage, I have personally seen people who started getting interested in going to the military to and I quote: "Kill terrorists in the middle east". Now here is the thing, CoD4 doesn't even provide an idea of how it is to be in a war, how horrible it is or even how the middle east is. You have people screaming american pig this, american pig that in arabic and this is basically the only thing the player hears you don't understand the language, and even if you do, the enemies in the game have no personality and only one voice actor which make them cartoonishly evil instead of real people.
It is so bad that I had people in class explain to me in detail how they would kill people and different methods. When I heard this I was wondering what the hell is even going on with these people. I come from a war torn country and imigrated to Norway and yet I hear people who never once seen war start wanting to join the military to kill people. Keep in mind these people are still young teenagers (around 15 years old). Now to be fair to the games, they do attempt to criticize war and all that (though it fails pretty horribly), you have the scene with the bomber plane which tasks you at killing people while your comrades are cracking jokes praising you for getting "good kills", You also have the No Russian level with you commiting a terrorist attack. However I am willing to bet that most people went through these levels and didn't even realize what they meant or why they are there, instead they were "fun and unique" (trust me I heard this phrase from many different people). It just flew past their heads.
Now we have the Modern Warfare reboot that is attempting to be serious and mature while still attempting to be badass and fun which to me sounds stupid. War isn't fun, especially wars that are still going on in the world and people are getting affected by it, wether by losing their loved ones or various different ways like living in fear or not being able to have food and water. It is really in poor taste and no matter how much they try I am willing to bet most people who play the game won't get the points they are trying to make, just like No Russian didn't, just like the plane bomber mission didn't. At the end of the day it will be a game about mindlessly killing people for most players, especially in the multiplayer mode.
You want a good anti war game that does show how war is? Check out Spec Ops The Line. The story of that game deconstructs the many war games we have.
With CoD out of the way, I would like to talk about how other games affect the player from my experience.
-Racing games like Gran Turismo are one example of games that make me start having even more interest in cars. The whole career mode make me feel like if I want to try pro racing because it sounds like it could be really fun (even though it is surely not as easy as the games make it out to be). Need for Speed made me have fantasies about outlaw street racing.
-Then you have games like God of War 4 which is about parenthood and raising kids at it's core. Sure the game is also about being a god and killing beasts and gods but underneath that you have a deep story that does start affect your thinking. It made me think of things I never thought about before when it comes to my father and how he might have felt before I was born.
-Skate made me want to try out skateboarding even though I am very sure I would suck at it and would only go back home to play more Skate.
-Sport games make me feel as if I should give the sport a try.
-Castlevania games made me interested in the Dracula story which only lead me to read something that was written based on the rich and the poor. It also made me a fan of many horror classic movies.
I could go on but the point is almost every game does make you feel something, how much it affects you depends on the game itself. How it presents something could influence you, Positively or negatively.
While I am at it I would recommend you people to read the thread: Why women criticise sexualised character designs (at the very least read the threadmarks).
It provides an example similiar to my point and should be a required read for anybody curious why there is complaints about sexualized character designs. (Hint: because it affects the way some people look at women and how women are treated).
This phrase has been coming a lot these couple of days mostly in the Modern Warfare topics but I feel it deserves a thread focused on it.
So I am making this thread to discuss how gaming does affect the player in various way, some does it in very smallway and some do it in a huge way. No matter what game it is, it will always have something to affect you.
Lets start with games like Call of Duty since it is the most recent thing. You have people who call it "The Michael Bay of gaming" as if it is somehow supposed to be dumb and not serious. But honestly? The game is affecting people and in a big way. I said this example in my other posts in the other threads but I will say it again, back in school when I was a teen and CoD4/MW2/BO etc was all the rage, I have personally seen people who started getting interested in going to the military to and I quote: "Kill terrorists in the middle east". Now here is the thing, CoD4 doesn't even provide an idea of how it is to be in a war, how horrible it is or even how the middle east is. You have people screaming american pig this, american pig that in arabic and this is basically the only thing the player hears you don't understand the language, and even if you do, the enemies in the game have no personality and only one voice actor which make them cartoonishly evil instead of real people.
It is so bad that I had people in class explain to me in detail how they would kill people and different methods. When I heard this I was wondering what the hell is even going on with these people. I come from a war torn country and imigrated to Norway and yet I hear people who never once seen war start wanting to join the military to kill people. Keep in mind these people are still young teenagers (around 15 years old). Now to be fair to the games, they do attempt to criticize war and all that (though it fails pretty horribly), you have the scene with the bomber plane which tasks you at killing people while your comrades are cracking jokes praising you for getting "good kills", You also have the No Russian level with you commiting a terrorist attack. However I am willing to bet that most people went through these levels and didn't even realize what they meant or why they are there, instead they were "fun and unique" (trust me I heard this phrase from many different people). It just flew past their heads.
Now we have the Modern Warfare reboot that is attempting to be serious and mature while still attempting to be badass and fun which to me sounds stupid. War isn't fun, especially wars that are still going on in the world and people are getting affected by it, wether by losing their loved ones or various different ways like living in fear or not being able to have food and water. It is really in poor taste and no matter how much they try I am willing to bet most people who play the game won't get the points they are trying to make, just like No Russian didn't, just like the plane bomber mission didn't. At the end of the day it will be a game about mindlessly killing people for most players, especially in the multiplayer mode.
You want a good anti war game that does show how war is? Check out Spec Ops The Line. The story of that game deconstructs the many war games we have.
With CoD out of the way, I would like to talk about how other games affect the player from my experience.
-Racing games like Gran Turismo are one example of games that make me start having even more interest in cars. The whole career mode make me feel like if I want to try pro racing because it sounds like it could be really fun (even though it is surely not as easy as the games make it out to be). Need for Speed made me have fantasies about outlaw street racing.
-Then you have games like God of War 4 which is about parenthood and raising kids at it's core. Sure the game is also about being a god and killing beasts and gods but underneath that you have a deep story that does start affect your thinking. It made me think of things I never thought about before when it comes to my father and how he might have felt before I was born.
-Skate made me want to try out skateboarding even though I am very sure I would suck at it and would only go back home to play more Skate.
-Sport games make me feel as if I should give the sport a try.
-Castlevania games made me interested in the Dracula story which only lead me to read something that was written based on the rich and the poor. It also made me a fan of many horror classic movies.
I could go on but the point is almost every game does make you feel something, how much it affects you depends on the game itself. How it presents something could influence you, Positively or negatively.
While I am at it I would recommend you people to read the thread: Why women criticise sexualised character designs (at the very least read the threadmarks).
It provides an example similiar to my point and should be a required read for anybody curious why there is complaints about sexualized character designs. (Hint: because it affects the way some people look at women and how women are treated).
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