Morality when designing?

#1 Jason kills teenagers; people don't want to do that in a game. If the setting was a Nazi command building, and his goal was to kill Hitler, people might be interested.

#2 Make whatever game you want to make...

#3 Its up to you. I recently changed my design, after researching the turn my game was taking i didnt feel comfortable with it anymore.

#4 "Jason kills teenagers; people don't want to do that in a game. If the setting was a Nazi command building, and his goal was to kill Hitler, people might be interested."

Personally I think what you kill in a game becomes irrevelent real quick. I come from many years as a mmorpg player. It does not take long till you no longer identify at all to what your killing to "level up," except maybe in the thought of X creature has chance to drop Y item. Further evidence of that is shown by how many FPS out there use either zombies or nazis as the antagonist. Dont you think by now gamers (who constantly want something new, bigger, and badder) would of become bored with killing zombies and nazis?

Personally, I wouldnt find killing innocents (teenagers or 20 y/os) appealing. Then again I find idea of smoking crack as horrific; obviously theres a market for crack.

As gamming starts to take over cinema both as entertainment and as a favored pastime, I think it wont be long till issues like this start creeping up more often. Its not like back when a kid saved up his allowance so could go down to theatre on Saturday and catch the latest western flick. Now he expects mom to take him to see Batman while he saves his allowance to buy the newest GTS.

How long till taste in cinemas cross over to gamming? Is there a certain line that designers should not cross when theres a audience for it (even a niche audience.) We cant use real life legalities to know the line. Yes the above would be against the law. Im also sure if zombies was running around, some "zombie loving" special intrest group would lobby for a law against killing them. I can hear the slogan now

Truthfully, I guess there is no definative answer to this question. The whole issue came up when a friend saw me reading a book on level designing and said "wouldnt a game about XYXY be cool.." My first thought was he was a sick bastard. Afterwards it did dawn on me that there is gammers with every kind of taste just like movie goers with different taste. Should we feed them taste or make a line that is taboo? Just thought Id raise the question here among blooming game designers of the future.

Started to try and edit for grammar then figured who am I kidding and gave up.

#5 Just don't get into a goverment scandal

#6 I agree with randy. one of the benefits of being an indie developer is not being restricted by any limitations. there's no law against making any kind of game, although for graphic violence you should probably put a disclaimer at the beginning of your game to relinquish any legal liabilities. someone correct me if i'm wrong.

#7 You should be able to make whatever, killing innocents or not, hence why games such as grand theft auto, postal, carmageddon exist. These games sell regardless of wether or not you are rewarded for killing innocent people/children/hookers/animals or whatever. People will play your game, but I think your demographic may get smaller the more controversial a game is (I doubt many christians would play a game where you would kill jesus... ect...). But if you don't really care about who plays or doesn't play you game, then, by all means give er'

#8 I think blind violence in games is more immoral than nudity or sexual insinuations.

#9 I think when people are killing grannys with chainsaws in grand theft auto they don't care who they kill

#10 GTA and Postal are tame in comparison to exploitation films, though. They're are closer to the slick Hollywood view rather than the gritty film underbelly. Even Manhunt, with its gritty presentation, isn't even a tenth as graphic as Guinea Pig or I Spit on Your Grave or the original Nine Inch Nails video for Gave Up.

Sociolotron allows virtual rape, and a number of interactive story titles have allowed for rape and mutilation of children. Ethnic Cleansing was Postal with a racist attitude.

In short, yes, you can do anything. But do I think you should? No. But I'd rather leave that up to individuals that I would legislators.

#11 Personally I would love to have a Friday 13th game where you're cast as Jason. I love the movies, I love the slasher horror genre, but so far no game in that area has satisfied. It would be fun to be the "sole survivor" and watch events unfolding around you that eventually bring you into a one-on-one confrontation, and that's the hero side. But playing as Jason and committing the monstrosities? I'd pay good money for that too. Matter of fact, the game I've been working on to learn Torque is actually that very game, and I have a working Jason with machete, spear, and other items running around a forest camp area. I plan to learn AI by having the campers doing their own thing, then depending on who you off and when, they react differently. Were I to ever try and market the game, the Jason skin would have to go and some generic slasher-villain skin would replace it. However, that would be less fun, and so I doubt I'd ever try to market it.

I don't feel there's enough games made for mature adults (ie those who don't actually go out and try to emulate game behaviour in real life) who enjoy a twisted sense of humor and gameplay. I just recently found Postal 2 and have been playing it for a few weeks, delighted. I found the K&W mode where I've added superspeed, superjump, keypress activated/deactivated bullet-time and one-kick-kill abilities to my character, and I've had an even bigger ball for the last 2 weeks not even firing a weapon. If I'm having a bad day, 30 minutes of whomping mobs of civilians and cops, utilizing bullet-time on demand, really cheers me up. But in real life, I don't want to kick people's limp corpses around or go on a cop-killing spree - that's only fun in the ragdoll gaming universe. A person that's going to go nuts is going to do it with OR without the aid of Grand Theft Auto 3 or Postal 2. So why are normal, mentally healthy gamers deprived of more adult and twisted games? (Yes, I used 'mentally healthy' and 'twisted' in the same sentence!)

Glez

#12 People don't care who they kill in a video-game because thats all it is a game, basically it's not who you kill its how you do it, they're only computer generated, personally I think it's alot of fun to see how many different ways you can kill the same person eg: do I shoot him with my Uzi, run him down in a humvee, or beat him to death with its own arms, when you make a violent game you want to give the people some variety.

#13 As for killing innocents, y'all should check out Stubbs the Zombie ;)

#14 Fun Thread!
You know, it's not who do you kill, rape, offend or ressurrect, defend and compliment.
It's what you'r game's all about! Yup, we all get a little carried when playing normally in the town and then one guard (who we have the option to kill) comes and try to apply a fine of half your gold because of some bug in the AI! You refuse, he attacks and... next thing you are pissed off, Killing every guard on the town converging on you, innocent people screaming and running... and you status goes from good to bad.
That happenned with me on FABLE, and in Boiling Point bandits started to shoot at me in town and when in shoot back, all the civilians around started to scream at me, and some started to shoot! I was killed by a granny who throwed GRANADES at me!!
Man, it's fantasy. Often we play the hero and act cool, but adults Know the diference between fantasy and reality, most children don't. That's why we have censorship.
So, you will not make a Porn-violence game tittle because it will be a bad influence, you will NOT make this titles because:
-The EDITOR won't release this kind of tittle because they don't like it;
-You family and your commuty will check your work and you'll feel ashamed of it...
-The tittle is a release in a place where people WON'T accep't it, no matter what.
... those would be the only reasons, people. By the way, if anything... just give a good reason for the main character to explain it's actions!
Jason says:
-Yup, i was killing teenagers, but i'm a ressurrected living-dead. I died drowned when i was just a child in the lake i haunt, my mom went crazy because the lifeguards where having sex when i died and she tryed to avenge me, and she was killed by the very sex-loving teenagers that killed me... NOW IS MY TURN!!!

Just be sure that you have the MGM. or 20Century Fox (or whathever owns the rights) approval when releasing the game... stealing copyrighted characters is more trouble than releasing any violence or Porn!

#15 "Make whatever game you want to make..."

I agree with that. There are more books and movies with horrific immoral plots than games. Then again, we [USA that is] are supposed to be free to make our own choices in life as long as we don't infringe upon the rights of others.

Society doesn't need more babysitters. People should be held responsible for their own actions and not point blame to games, movies, etc.

Morality varies from person to person. If a person wants to play a game where he's a psycho killer that eats babies....so what. If he does it in real life, then that's a problem. But...that 's not the game's fault.

#16 When I go to buy a new game, I look for the most horrifically violent and offensive game I can find, they're usually the most fun and have the most thought put into their design and gameplay.

#17 I remember reading a fantasy book, gosh i wish i remembered the name... something of a rip-off of Lord of the rings type mythology, except the bad guys were bad... i mean, really bad. The author took a magical world and thought about what bad guys would really do ....

a good example (that seemed to have been pretty unique when i read it) was: Their armies raid villages, kill the men, and take the women back to their dungeon to turn them into imp factories (have them ..errr... 'impregnated' and have the fetus magically corrupted into an imp). They sometimes corrupt the fetus into an 'orc' (super big/strong imp) too, but that generally ended up being so big that it killed the woman during birth, so they didnt do that too much.

now yes, that is some-what disturbing, but it was a great book, unique evil that fit well into the plot. If you can do something like that with a game, i think most consumers would be able to look past the violence and see a great game (case in point: grand theft auto)

a kind of example that fits a lot more into mainstream: Myth The fallen lords. If you havent played the game, it's another LoTR type mythology. You play as a human army trying to defend against evil undead.

One thing Myth never really show is just where exactly all the undead are comming from, though through various cinimatic sequences and naratives, it's not hard to figure out that every city/village that gets sacked results in a lot of fresh recruits for the undead armies. (there is even one defeat screen which shows your captured army getting 'converted', which was pretty cool)

So in closing, there's all sorts of morally questionable stuff you can put into your game... if you want to be mainstream, dont make it as overt. If you have a kickbutt game with pollish and snazz, then put whatever you want in it.

#18 What about sensetivity to historical events?.. one the one hand we have games like GTA (which I love BTW) where you can freely go on a killing spree, and take your chances with the cops, only to be slammed for some unlockable sexual content, then you get games like Hitman2 (I think) which got slammed (and changed) because of some monestary where a massacre occurred.. people might get upset about particular types of content but historical events can be even worse..

For example, the game I'm writing allows you to blow up skyscrapers, but I'm more than a little worried that people will draw 9/11 comparisons. Something I really don't want.

Which would be worse?... A game where you can murder babies or a terrorist orchestration game where you plot terrorist activity to get the highest body count and attempt to avoid the wave of political and military backlash afterwards? Especially if the missions included real terrorist events where real people died..

I think people have to be quite careful when designing games for the mass market. It's OK to be radical with design and push boundaries, but I believe there's still a moral line to be drawn.

#19 @Jason,

Yes, people are sensitive about historical events. Screw em. We just missed out on a new Family Guy that involved a hurricane because of Katrina. Sensitive to the victims? Sure! Missing a new episode of Family Guy? Unforgivable! As long as you're not blatantly being disrespectful about a particular historical incident, I personally don't see a problem. Even past that, I don't see a problem, but I can see where some people might. It still stands that they can always just skip that game though. Nobody will make anyone play anything!

Blowing up skyscrapers - I would love a game where I could do that. Terrorist orchestration game - if it was well put together, I'd enjoy it too. However, venturing a terrorist game out there with Bush squelching our first amendment rights might be a dangerous move at the moment.

The way I feel about it is make any game you want, and who pays for it will let you know if your work was worthwhile. People have been the heroes in games for so long, I think just about EVERYONE wants to play the villain these days. After all, just how many whiny princesses can one gamer save?

Glez

#20 Your an indie.. you can do whatever you want.. so why not.