Torture is Still Taboo in Gaming
i’ve been watching a discussion over at Raph Koster’s blog (subject: I am Speechless) on the subject of torture in games. Now the author has broken it out into its very own post. In typical Koster style, amidst plugging his book, he waxes pedagogical, throwing out game theory terms to dismiss torture as bad design. “The utilitarian feedback is a mess!” he cries, sounding more and more like Comic Book Guy.
But Aquaman, you cannot marry a woman without gills. You’re from two different worlds!
Raph pulls it out of the nerd fire in the final few paragraphs by admitting his actual moral outrage over the inclusion of torture in gaming.
Honk if You Hate Murdering Hookers
i’ve written a heap of posts lately about morality in gaming, and to see the topic cropping up all over the place, i begin to wonder whether it’s finally an issue on the industry’s radar. (Or is it just that news media tend to criticize games more harshly around the holidays?) The more i read, the more i learn that i’m actually not the only person who abhors a lot of the M-rated content in today’s best-sellers, but that there’s a moral minority of insiders growing slowly more vocal on the topic.
Coming out of a tradition of wonderful story- and character-based graphic adventure games from LucasArts and Sierra Online, to training in the industry while the walls crashed down around me and games like DOOM began to take hold, i look forward to a future where the games are less about soulless criminal joyrides, and are a shade more uplifting.
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