Do you care that physical confrontation is the primary form of conflict in almost every video game?

Celeste is the name of the mountain, her name is Madeline

And yes, I am absolutely weak to games that feature the less violente gameplays.

Not at all. The alternative is a more boring option to me.

Platy said:

Celeste is the name of the mountain, her name is Madeline

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I'm sorry you're thinking of Madeline's Monster.

A bit.

I wish more games had dialog trees and context based actions like heavy rain.

So, OP, what do you think... about battles...


OF THE MIND?!?!?!?!

ToddBonzalez said:

Oh right lol. It's been a few months since I played it. Will edit.

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I love seeing this because it reminds me of this answer from Matt's curiouscat

I think some of the most creative gameplay ideas come from eschewing the traditional player is met with obstacle->player overcomes obstacle through violence paradigm.

I do think that its important to note that many games feature heavily abstracted forms of violence, and this applies to games that aren't video games as well (sports, board games, etc.) because for humans, conflict and violence go hand in hand, and the abstraction of violence is a way to get the conflict and victory of violent confrontation without the pain, sorrow, and misery that real violence brings.

Planescape Torment comes to mind as an antithesis.

On topic: On paper, it'd be worrying on some level that especially violence and war is so prominent in this medium, but I think that it actually simply shows that humans find more to enjoy in violence than we think we would.

I also don't think that solving physical puzzles counts so much as "physical conflict"... It's more of a logic and grasping-rules thing, a distinct category from both physical activity (combat/platforming/survival) and your examples, which I'd call, dare I say, "literary" conflicts.

There was a certain AAA game that I played this year that left me howling with laughter at the end of the game where it talked up not using violence only to *snap* right back to violence moments later. It's a drag sometimes but if I want to play non violent games now I've got several titles in my backlog I could pick up, it's a shame the AAA space doesn't have better representation.

I like to open faces in my games thank you very much.

I haven't played a non violent game in decades probably

Yeah kinda. To go in a different angle though, I think it's disappointing that there aren't more nonviolent games that have the exact kind of traditional gameplay you see in games that involve physical conflict. Like, I love a lot of nonviolent games (Ace Attorney, Animal Crossing, Her Story to name a few), but none of the ones I've played really demonstrate that violence isn't necessary to have the kind of engaging gameplay that you have in more "traditional" games (well, with the big exception of platformers like Celeste that don't involve defeating any kind of enemy, but I guess let's ignore platformers for a moment since I think it's not really hard to come up with the concept of a platformer without physical conflict, you just need to get rid of enemies). These games are often more about solving puzzles, navigating an environment, or logically progressing through a story than navigating a character around and timing button presses properly. While the former can lead to some really dope gaming experiences, the latter ultimately describes the kind of gameplay that made me fall in love with the medium.

I guess for an example of something that could be more of a "traditional video game" and not involve physical conflict, imagine a dancing game where what you have to do on a base level (stringing together chains of properly timed button presses and spacing the character you control properly) isn't too different from a character action game, except hitboxes aren't really a thing. You lose energy meter if you mistime a button press. I guess what I'm describing is beginning to sound like a rhythm game, but what I have in mind doesn't have a set series of inputs that the player is required to make, you're still controlling a character around and you have freedom that's similar to what you have with combos in a fighting game. I'm probably not really communicating my ideas well but I feel like there's a lot of potential here, and I also think that the dichotomy between violent/non-violent games doesn't really have to mirror the difference between games that involve moving a character around / timing button presses as a test of skill and games that are more about experiencing a narrative or world.

I've seen a bunch of people suggest that gameplay = killing enemies and anything else isn't gameplay, which means many genres have no gameplay and action games with plenty of action having slow moments anger or bore those people in ways I can never understand. I'm glad I never had that mentality and could enjoy a wide variety of games for as long as I could remember.

no I don't care

it's normal to fight stuff

Celestes mental illness metaphor came across as condescendingly simplistic so yeah, games with overt physical conflict are usually fun without being patronizing.

Return of the Obra Dinn? The primary conflict is long, long past, you just have to piece together what the hell happened to the poor crew of the ship.

I find it annoying when internal conflicts are transformed into regular gameplay in games. Both Batman and the recent Spider-Man do this. Never been fond of that, didn't like the dreams in original Max Payne either, for example.

I play a lot of visual novels so no, physical confrontation is not the primary form of conflict for me.

Jintor said:

So, OP, what do you think... about battles...

OF THE MIND?!?!?!?!

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HOLD IT!!

Are you telling me it's possible to have games that's about the battles of the minds? Is this truly what you proposed?

OBJECTION!!

Nah...games can only be about physical conflict!!

TAKE THAT!!!

Best you can usually hope for in the AAA space is ghosting in stealth games or using dialogue trees/stealth/other skills to avoid combat in WRPGs.

These are also usually the most satisfying ways to play such games for me.

I just appreciate that even the OP's avatar is from one of the very few non "physical confrontation" games

The broader issue is that conflict is the principal form of interaction/gameplay in most games.

I prefer physical confrontation in games.

Violence breeds violence, but in the end it has to be this way.

I admit that my current gaming preferences lean heavily on violent conflict at the center of the experience, but I do really, really appreciate gaming experiences that opt out of violence.

It does sometimes bother me just how casually many games will contextualize their violence -- sometimes it's not convincingly justified. I'm not losing my mind or having a moral conflict very often, but I am sometimes thinking to myself, "y'know, my video game character is maybe way too good at this and too willing to participate in this shit and not feel an ounce of weariness despite their righteous disposition."

This is why I'm excited to see how Red Dead Redemption 2 is gonna tackle this issue with the new dialog and interaction system. I'll try to use dialog instead of combat as much as I can.

The medium is definitely not as well suited to handle the things you're asking about as much as other mediums are, though it's certainly not impossible. Which is why "Walking simulators" are difficult to discuss and digest because they're doing cool things by providing new narratives, but they often do so by making the interactive parts of the medium more subdued or less important, which seems to show the limitations of what interactivity or "gameplay" can provide when it comes to narratives. If a game is going to lean more into the "game" like aspects then it will often result in some sort of physical confrontation (though as you even mentioned in your OP, those don't necessarily need to be violent and could be something like a puzzle or a platformer) because the whole point is that you have a goal you want to achieve and there are obstacles in place to prevent you from getting that goal. These obstacles often need to be external because they need to do something to force the player to make a decision or do something in return. Given that most games have a character and are not abstract like tetris, this is most easily represented as physical actions of some kind (unless you want to have your game heavily stat-based. But even then, those stats are generally just abstractions that represent physical things anyway). All that said, while I think physical interaction is incredibly important to the medium and is the thing is excels at, those physical interactions definitely don't require any kind of violence to be fun, and we could easily have less violent games and still be swimming in great stuff to play.

Also, just based on the examples you give on Celeste, the difference between internal and external conflict isn't very significant if it still amounts to the player doing the same thing they've always done. That's just kind of like a "it was all just a dream" cop out.

I was listening to a podcast where one of the guys was talking about his 5 hour playtime with red dead, and just about every interaction was "and then it went crazy and a shootout happened" or " and then he drew his gun and a killed a guy but there was a witness to Chase and kill too"

Absolutely none of it was appealing in any way. I like when devs actually try, and it's a big reason why I've fallen away from mainstream video games in recent years

I love games that offer alternatives, but I don't mind violence in games.

It's interesting to be able to do things you'll never be able to (or never want to) do in real life.

There's people I seriously want to punch in real life, but it's not worth it, I move on, go home, and play Yakuza, and there punch some punks.

I dislike that a primary action for a super majority of games is killing things. It's just overdone, especially among the AAA games. There's more we can do. General physical interaction doesn't bother me though. Games are usually there to give a sense of place and physical interaction is a common way to express that, like words or music.

rhindle said:

The broader issue is that conflict is the principal form of interaction/gameplay in most games.

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I disagree; conflict is the principle source of drama in any narrative. Internal conflict, interpersonal conflict, conflict with nature, with the elements, with society. None of those things have to include physical violence.

I do enjoy good combat systems in games, but I have recently been wishing for games where killing humans is taken more seriously. The trail of bodies you leave in Assassin's Creed with no real effect on the PC is jarring. And how absolutely brutal Lara Croft is in Shadow of the Tomb Raider was kind of striking, even though I enjoyed the game.

On the other hand, I have been playing Ghost of a Tale, which is extremely light on combat, which is refreshing, even if the characters are mice and rats. I also played Rime recently, which has no combat.

Yeah I know it's like "duh" but I just beat God of War and I was like...damn this is a lot of punching!

I do think it's an issue. But only because there aren't too many games where you don't have a gun/sword. Violence in any medium is fine and par for the course.

Errant Signal did a pretty good video about the subject that's old but still holds up.

No and yes. No because I don't particularly care, and yes because I wish there was a broader variety of high budget games across all genres. Or not even high budget, just mass marketed. Like if Cities: Skylines was able to get the sort of market attention something like Mario or Call of Duty did, or even a modest fraction of it.

Cities is a horrible example, but still.

If anyone ever wants to make UN Ambassador: the Game or Palace Intrigue Simulator I will buy the everloving hell out of it.

I feel like I might be one of only five people to do that, but I will.

The primary conflict of Celeste is moving the protagonist through obstacle courses. How isn't that physical? It's a platformer.

Mostly yes. I still think it's a shame that we're exploring xray headshot mechanics, but haven't even tried to exploring dialogue mechanics.

Definitly, thats why in RPGs I avoid physical confrontation as much as possible. Im playing Kingdom Come and in 40h I dont think i've been involved in combat more than a couple of times.

Yes, I love games with no physical combat and it's a shame they are rare.

Interesting to think of games you own and what would happen if the player's own character was the obstacle to overcome (aka internal conflict). These games register to me as more educationally-oriented titles. Examining the environment ultimately to be examined and held accountable yourself. A focus on problem solving where power is demonstrated in small doses while power drops are felt in larger doses. Less immediate gratification in an on-demand era...

ToddBonzalez said:

As I mentioned, Celeste's "real" conflict is Madeline's mental well-being. the game is using physical conflict (platforming) as a metaphor for internal conflict.

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Those narrative details are intermittent and account for less than 1% of the game. Shes still literally climbing a mountain in the context of the game while simultaneously dealing with her internal conflict.

ToddBonzalez said:

As I mentioned, Celeste's "real" conflict is Madeline's mental well-being. the game is using physical conflict (platforming) as a metaphor for internal conflict.

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If Master Chief woke up at the end of Halo and it was all a metaphorical dream, would that mean that it wasn't a game about physical conflict even though you were shooting people the entire duration?

No, it doesn't bother me. I play a wide variety of games, but a lot do have combat and that's fine.

Once again a reason to bring up one of the greatest games of all time.