Btw, I'm a little more tolerant considering the "bias" the other users accuse you of (maybe because my journalistic background has taught me that "manipulation" is always present, even in media such as "no comment" montages which supposedly do not even have the means to provide a biased view) also because you clearly stated that you are discussing the mainstream culture and it's a fact that the mainstream avoids deeper thoughts like social and political criticism. However, the guys do have a point - dedicating more paragraphs to examples of games which do it right (or at least try to) would ultimately not only make the reader take you more seriously, they should actually provide more substance to your message.

An interesting thing is, though, that all positive examples I could think of, even the ones from big publishers, were in comparison unsuccessful and unpopular. This may support your theory, however, there's also some examples that may undermine your premise.

Freedom Fighters, for example, was published by a huge company (Electronic Arts) and garnered critical acclaim but was not very successful. The game basically depicted combat between armed civilians and military invaders and rewarded ethical acts (such as freeing POWs, providing first aid to civilians and wounded Soviet soldiers would even join you if you provided them with first aid). Now why did the game fail commercially, despite being published by one of the biggest publishers? This example requires some analysis and explanation.

This book would be a very bad actual book because it relies way to much on the links in it. Somethimes your information seems to be deliberately wrong if you ignore the links like with "But sometimes they go further and decide they have to be as explicit as possible on what their games are about sometimes bordering on illegality. Examples of this are both Capcom's and Sega's occurrence of scattering severed body parts through London in order to attract attention to their Resident Evil 5 and Madworld games, respectively." You completely left out that these where fake body parts (they could have been real animal parts for example).

A Mistake found in the book:
You said that the character in Bioshock 2 is supposed to be a normal person. He is not a normal Person, he is a Big Daddy

About Physics in games: If the game uses Physix the physic effects can pretty much only be used for eye candy because it is a Nvidea thing and PCs without a Nvidea card have to use the CPU to compute them which causes heavy CPU load and eye candy can be disabled while gameplay effects can't without giving you a different game. Also Physics for gameplay still have the problem that it often results in pretty clunky puzzles.


While you said you don't want to give solutions I think this is pretty bad. Criticising something is relatively easy but finding solutions is not. You named stealth games as one form of a way to avoid violence. Others would be puzzle or sport games. The problem is that stealth is a fairly niche thing at least if you take it to the maximum with don't kill stealth and these games only work because of deliberately dumb enemies and security design in the games levels.
Puzzle and Sport games are both for a different audience and are not a proper substitute to violent games.

I will comment on the other chapters after reading.

Edit: You have missed the latest changes to the Last of Us where the girl isn't the daughter anymore and they act more like the average action movie duo with a lot of cursing and telling each other how awesome they where while they shot stuff.

The CPU load is heavy for complex effects but proper behaviour of simple bodies such as boxes and barrels is something that will work on pretty much any CPU (not to mention that even somewhat more complex ragdoll effects are pretty much always present on either hardware). Therefore even games using PhysX can depend on physics based puzzles.

And still there's a decent amount of games that use physics based puzzles, some of them even focus on this stuff. Therefore technological issues of physics in games are irrelevant to the text.

Ok, I'm reading carefully your opinions and trying to see what can I do about them.

1. Accompany the readers with more explanations. It messes with my structure, but I guess it is necessary. I'll work on it.

2. Reduce the bias in some way. Now this is something in which I need more specific feedback.

You say that there is two sides to a story and that I'm biased because I only focus on one. Fair enough, but I need something to work with. Maybe I explain my analysis process very poorly and it sounds like I'm just bitching, but I promise you that the intention is to write a narrative in which 1. Factual data is gathered, 2. Gathered data is analyzed and 3. Conclusions are obtained using reason and suppositions. If you think there is information missing (the "other side" I'm not considering) or that the suppositions are wrong, point me to it with examples and counterarguments.

F4LLOUT, yes, that's what the mail is for, send all the corrections and criticisms you want. This gog thread is for the presentation, but some discussions here are unavoidable.

For example: 1. Companies autocensor their games, in particular, for big markets like Germany, Australia or Walmart (I forgot about Walmart...)+Konami shy away from controversy with Six Days of Fallujah+Talibans dropped from MoH multiplayer+SEGA and Rebellion did not shy away from violence in AvsP, 2. Self censorship seems to be quite common and political issues seem to scare them+SEGA stand by what they, surprising, but needs to be acknowledged 3. Conclusion: Most (big) companies seem to put sales before violence and they run from discussions on the real consequences of violence, they may consider violence something irrelevant in their games. Supposition: Big companies have gotten used to violence as a useful tool to develop and market video games, but they do not intend to make anything meaningful with it.

I will also explain the goals and the boundaries of this analysis again, because I definitely don't communicate it well enough.

Goal: Make a socio-economical analysis of the industry and then analyze the effects it has on the medium in general. In the case of violence, the main conclusions are that the productivist/consumerist and profit-driven production and commercial philosophies of the industry has made mindless violence pervasive in the medium because it reduces costs (it's a well known game mechanic and theme) and it is easy to sell (it is very satisfactory at an instinctive level). Also, that culturally, a very important contribution of the medium of video games is to frivolize violence.

Boundaries: The analysis is reduced to recent trends (7th generation period) and the most influential actors of the medium, which are the ones that sell the most and spend the most on marketing, that is, the ones that reach more people and more attention time. These are the big companies, the part of the medium that fits in the definition of "industry" the most. In addition, among the catalog of these companies, I try to factor from time to time the amount of money they spend on each game. If a company spends millions and millions on marketing and development on a game and much less on another the understanding is that the second one is less relevant or even anecdotal to analyze this company.

By the way, Freedom Fighters is from 2003, that's why it is not included.

I'm answering the post from amok individually now.

I'm afraid that the topic of how much responsibility on sales trends fall on the side of consumers or producers would make this thread infinite, I decline it for now. I believe both have a part of course and I also believe consumers are highly manipulable and I guess believe is low. But, once again, I'm not discussing it.

But I understand that your criticism is that what you have read makes it as if I am not giving any solution to the problem, while also forgetting about consumer responsibility. Well, you are actually right, this book is not about the solution (although the chapter with the final conclusions is yet to be written), it's about the problem. The goal is to acknowledge the problems and hopefully make people talk about them.

No, because it is good for the business.

Not sure what you mean with the struggle as a premise. Struggle does not equate violence, if that is what you mean.

I'd love to read your opinions on the rest of the chapters, you are really making me work my ideas here.

Well, I say many things that are already been said, but I also think I bring many ideas that are either not very discussed or are completely new. At least, that I know of, of course, the Internet is huge. For instance, I haven't seen any analyses on the fast degradation of physics to a violence mechanic after Half Life 2.

In addition, I wrap all these ideas in a coherent narrative (apparently not very well looking at the comments) from which I develop wider conclusions about the medium.

I think for these have to be in the game physics Physix is rarely used. And these physics are like you said pretty basic physics. They had a boom when HL2 came out and introduced Havoc but since there haven't been much advances besides Physix it has lost some popularity. I think general physics have to get better and that won't happen with current gen consoles because you would have to make sacrifices in other stuff like graphics which give a better marketable product.

Anyway on to chapter 2:
I agree with most of your points in that chapter and I really like that you didn't jump to the conclusion that games are sexist because they are created by man that want to keep the women down and want to uphold the patriarchal society like Anita something says.

But I disagree that every game should have an equality of gender and race because that creates an incredibly artificial scenario and people with a serious disability would have huge problems at least as characters that take actions because a serious ddisability is extremely hindering

A note to Mass Effect and female Krogans: Including them as enemies or multi player character would be extremely wrong from a lore perspective. They are way to valuable to lose them in combat because of the Genophage.

I think the best way to change how it is is not forcing some gender ratio or stuff like that because that creates artifical scenarios. We need more women in the video game industry and we as the consumers should speak against chainmail bikinis because they are not only sexist but also incredibly insulting to the maturity and intelligence of the consumer.

Ok, solved some of the issues

If I had to explain everything that is on the links this book would be twice or three times as big. But if you believe it relies too much in specific links, I'll give it a look.

I assure you criticizing something is not necessarily easy. I understand what you mean, but I don't think it's my part or that I'm even capable to look for solutions to the problems of the medium. I like to discuss about it and propose ideas here and there, but solving the problems is beyond this project.

That's... just too good to be true. Wait, is that an interpretation you make from the E3 trailer or is it there somewhere where they talk about a change in tone in the game? Do you have a link? At least it still looks like an improvement over Nathan "charming psychopath" Drake.

Not a fan of positive discrimination either.

My opinion is that the best way to get rid of sexism on video game development, as with racism and such, is that developers should consciously give a thought on what their characters can or cannot be. If a white male developer, that has always lived in a white neighborhood, has to think on a protagonist character, the first thing he will think on will be a white male, it's unavoidable. But a responsible developer would challenge his own subconscious and think about all the possibilities. That does not mean he cannot choose the white male, from time to time, of course.

The funny thing with gender and discrimination is that each single game or act might just be incidence or not relevant but all together it becomes statistically relevant. This always puzzled me. Also the occasional traditional role behavior only gets boring when it is the norm and happens all the time. So, each game alone is innocent but all together are guilty. And the audience probably expect it to be like this or at least they think so. Tricky situation.

Who will be the first to break out of this vicious circle and publish female bi-sexual heroines only non-violent Action-RPGs. :)

It gets much better in the second half of the first chapter and even better in chapter 2 and 3.
I know that it is not easy to criticize. At least if you use all the sources like you do. I think it is especially a problem in the first two chapters because they don't bring much new to the table.
http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/10/12/the-last-of-us-getting-tie-in-comic-art-book This makes it pretty clear that she is not his daughter and if you look at news in general you will see that she isn't called his daugther anymore. The interaction part was based on my impression from the E3 trailer. Even if it will only be that way if you play the game very aggressive and she develops in that way they still chose to show that part and not the other.


About Chapter 3:
I think it is a bit confusing because you have 2 aspects in it. First how it is very hero centric and second the skinner box games but this is most likely also because the chapter seems to be pretty unfinished and has quite some placeholders in it.

About the first part. Games that don't have a save the world story are often not that well received because of that. Most people want to save the world and be the hero and a game where the other characters also can do everything is very problematic.

In Stalker it was actually possible in the beta phase for the NPCs to win the game without you doing anything but that wasn't what people want in a game so they toned the AI down a bit.

And then there is the point where if anything in the world can change even without you beeing there it uses A LOT of hardware power. Minecraft with cranked up draw distance is very hard to pull of even for high end PCs.

For the second part I don't think skinner box elements are a problem. They are fun for people to a certain extend but the problem is that many people lack the competence to deal with media in the right way so there has to be education on that in schools and it gets kind of boring that nowadays almost every game focuses so much on these elements.

On Achievements like you said they are also a very important tool for developers to see where there are points where people stop playing the game and while you can't turn them of you CAN turn the notification of and it seems like you don't have enough faith in people to believe that they can ignore achievements if it destroys their immersion.

I'm a little sad that you didn't comment on my previous post where I noted that I wasn't sure whether to post here or send you an email. You will be punished through a wall of text right here and now (only on Chapter 1):

When was Splinter Cell "pro-life"?
You point out that Splinter Cell used to be more ethically conscious in its early installments and link to an article where the author states "remember in the old games you used to be penalized for kills, not rewarded for them...". The problem is that the author himself has a bad memory since the first Splinter Cell to introduce a rating system that rewards non-lethal means was Chaos Theory, the third installment (and that ethical gamedesign of the series already ended right there). The first two Splinter Cells did have missions with a "you killed a civilian/cop/VIP = mission failed" mechanism, however, the games did not endorse a non-lethal approach beyond these boundaries. Therefore I think that the SC series is a rather bad example for "humanitarianism" in stealth games.

Civilians in wargames
You state that Wolfenstein (2009) is notable for featuring civilians and list Brothers in Arms as one of the bad examples with an absurd absence of civilians. That is a very unlucky choice since Hell's Highway, the series' third installment released in 2008 (one year before Wolfenstein), was actually very notable for its depiction of civilian's fates and the interaction between US soldiers and the Dutch resistance. The game actually featured multiple scenes where civilians are murdered by German soldiers (including an in-game sequence where the player would first witness a woman being dragged into a barn and then find her dead body hanging on a rope there).

There is also a notable amount of other games that depict the fates of civilians in armed conflicts, including ones from big publishers. I already mentioned Freedom Fighters (2003) before (which even rewarded ethical acts).

Operation Flashpoint (2001, Codemasters) featured a sequence consisting of multiple missions where David Armstrong (the first of four protagonists) would join resistance fighters, learn about the suffering of the civilian population and even take part in a rescue attempt of civilians. Its official addon Resistance (2003) even focused on this aspect of war by telling it from the perspective of resistance fighter Victor Troska who is a tired veteran who only joins the fight when he cannot evade the cruelty anymore - the player even has multiple chances to make ethical decisions (including the option to betray the resistance).

It's pseudo-sequel ARMA 2 (2009) even begins with a small operation with the goal of saving civilians and discovering a mass grave. In Full Spectrum Warrior (2004, THQ) civilians mostly served as rare decoration but the discovery of a mass grave was also present in the campaign.

Another very notable title is Close Combat: First to Fight (2005, 2K Games) which basically mixed the SWAT series' game mechanics with a war scenario. Not only were civilians present in the game but the game mechanics endorsed a non-lethal approach. As a matter of fact the developers even tried to include psychology in the game with a morale system for combatants on both sides - suppressing the enemy, throwing flashbangs and shouting at him would make him give up and IIRC such an approach was rewarded through the rating system. First to Fight is therefore also an example for what you criticized in the chapter: enemies always being inhuman fighting machines.

Including these titles in the article as well as an analysis on how they fared commercially is in my opinion crucial.

The Saboteur the only resistance game set in WW2?
You state that The Saboteur is the only game depicting WWII from the perspective of a resistance fighter, however, that is not true since just recently Uprising 44 was released which depicts the Warsaw Uprising. I am also not completely sure whether The Saboteur was the first game to do so - Medal of Honor: Spearhead at least featured a chapter where the protagonist would join the Dutch resistance for a few missions.

The dilemma of human enemies
You criticized how human enemies are always depicted rather inhuman, never showing any fear or anything like that. It is a very valid point but I think at that point you also have to raise multiple questions concerning the ethical dilemma of having a game where the hostile cannon fodder seems to consist of actual human beings. Gameplay where the enemies resemble real human beings is a highly complicated matter and say "humanizing" the enemies of a Call of Duty game without changing anything else about the gamedesign might actually make the game even more ethically questionable. I think you should at least hint at possible problems developers/publishers would have to face by trying to turn targets into humans.

Your sandbox proposal
At one point in the chapter you provide an example for how developers could solve the dilemma of mixing the freedom with the narrative - by giving the player the option to switch between a "plot mode" and a "sandbox mode". You state yourself that the work is not supposed to provide answers, it is supposed criticize the status quo but do provide a possible solution for this issue - you are aware of the problem of including one possible solution in a work that is not supposed to do so and I agree - it is out of place unless the whole work has the goal of providing solutions.

Additionally by providing an example like this you provide readers, at least critics of your work, with something that they can easily use against you. The solution would have to be something perfect and simple that does not require any further elaboration - your example however raises more questions than it provides answers. It's easy to question it. One can easily claim that a clear separation of story and sandbox mode is contradictory to the idea of the whole genre. Additionally GTA IV, the most influential title of the current generation of sandbox games, does provide a solution similar to your proposal: turning off the cell phone halts all plot developments - this seems to be an unsatisfactory solution though since GTA IV remains the most prominent target for people criticizing the conflict between the freedom and plot. Therefore I think that you should scrap that example for a solution.

Physics
In the paragraph on physics you state that Dead Space's gravity tricks are not physics. I think that is an unlucky expression since undeniably there is a physics engine in place and their comparably simple use does not change that fact. You should instead point out that the physics are of no big relevance to the gamedesign/gameplay.

German version of Silent Hill: Homecoming
You state that is not clear what happened to the German version of Silent Hill: Homecoming. I think I do not understand what you are trying to say there - Schnittberichte.com (which you referenced in the same chapter) does provide a detailed report on the German versions censorship under this URL:
http://www.schnittberichte.com/schnittbericht.php?ID=5975621
I do not understand what remains unclear.

Greenlighting
You claim that getting another typical violent FPS greenlit is easier than in case of any other game. I am at least skeptical - it's a risky claim and you do not reference a source that supports it. Pitching a project is tough and it's quite a complicated matter. Personally I doubt that it's much easier for a violent FPS than a non-violent one or for a game from a totally other genre. Additionally it's something that may change heavily depending on the publisher. Activision has CoD, EA has Battlefield and Medal of Honor - that's three powerful and fairly similar franchises but do even these two companies focus on violent FPS titles in general? Activision's and EA's other major franchises include Warcraft/Starcraft, Command & Conquer, Mass Effect, not to mention the EA Sports label or movie-based games. In fact I think that with such powerful franchises in these genres the publishers have a fairly small need for more projects of this kind and would perhaps rather appreciate games that would give them a just as strong foothold in other genres.

As I said: without a good source I wouldn't dare claiming that getting a game similar to already established franchises greenlit is easier than in case of something completely different.

Reasons to design a violent game
In the article you question the necessity to focus on violent games, you reference social/psychological reasons that explain their popularity, however, you do not even take a look at rather technical reasons to create games based on violence: the technology and gamedesign necessary to develop other sorts of games.

This video explains it very well (took me half an hour to find it -.-):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSBn77_h_6Q&list=SP44284B7F254B4024&index=13&feature=plpp_video

Simply put: it's easier to develop and design games that are based on geometry than pretty much anything else - and obviously geometry-based challenges are perfectly suited for games involving combat. It's not that publishers and devs just don't want to develop games of a different nature, it's just that it's too challenging and expensive to create them. In fact the technology necessary to create a game that deals as well with say human relationships as shooters deal with combat is not available yet (and even once it will be available developing this kind game will be more difficult than a shooter).

Well, that's all i have to say on chapter 1. I hope you appreciate the effort I put into this. :3

I'm in Ch. 2, and I have a beef with the portion about Metroid: Other M.

In a monologue part of Metroid Fusion for the GBA, Samus says that her former CO, Adam Malcovich died saving her life. Since Other M takes place before Fusion, it's a given he was going to sacrifice himself!

First off, the portion of the space station that Samus needed to put into lockdown was going to separate and self-destruct, but the lockdown had to be forced from the inside of that sector (no computer control).

Secondly, you misqouted and misunderstood Adam! His words, "I'm no galactic savior," showed that he knew that Samus was far stronger than he could ever be. He was already written to die back in 2001. So what if he died to keep the ultimate video game female role model alive? How is that sexist?

EDIT:

The "Baby", by the way, is the infant Metroid that hatched in front of Samus at the end of Metroid II for the Game Boy. It thought she was its mother, naturally. The opening scene to Other M was the final battle from Super Metroid, which took place immediately after Metroid II, so that Metroid would still be considered a hatchling.

And about Anthony calling Samus "princess", it was established that they were good friends. It seemed like it was a friendly nickname.

I don't like sexism, but I fail to see how Other M is sexist in any way.

I see you haven't read post 34 then, :/

Ok, corrections, corrections, this is the contributions I like. I haven't played many of the games I talk about, so I can misinterpret the sources I consult. Thanks a very lot.

Some questions:

1. Have you played SC: Conviction? Does it have killable civilians? Does it bring automatic mission failed?

2. Did BiA 1 and 2 feature civilians? Killable civilians? They released a sequel the same year, o_0

I'll start working and maybe come with more questions later.

Please, remember the boundaries of this work. As a general rule, no indies, no small publishers and no pre-7th generation games. Also, I'm closing the addition of new content at around August or September of this year, or I'll never end. Sometimes I do use indies or pre 7th generation games. It is either as examples of "look, older games or indie games or have done this, so it's not impossible to do" or because certain trends begins before 2005. I'll check if Operation Flashpoint and Freedom Fighters have a place.