77
Grand Theft Auto VI Trailer 1
(www.youtube.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 04 Dec 2023
77 points (100.0% liked)
games
20523 readers
125 users here now
Tabletop, DnD, board games, and minecraft. Also Animal Crossing.
-
3rd International Volunteer Brigade (Hexbear gaming discord)
Rules
- No racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, or transphobia. Don't care if it's ironic don't post comments or content like that here.
- Mark spoilers
- No bad mouthing sonic games here :no-copyright:
- No gamers allowed :soviet-huff:
- No squabbling or petty arguments here. Remember to disengage and respect others choice to do so when an argument gets too much
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
It's one of the most valuable ways these world simulation style games can go to completely change the feel of them. One thing however that I think it will also do is highlight the absence of children. Not that I'm advocating for children in these games because they'll only be murder fantasies for people but when walking a city and seeing things like skateparks or children's equipment you also expect to see the occupants that would typically be at them. The closer we get to simulating cities and places the more certain things being absent will feel very uncanny.
Open ended question to anyone - in terms of problematics, how much difference does being able to kill a child in a game make?
If the argument is that it'll make people more likely to do it in real life, couldn't that be extrapolated to the game in general, and the murders of countless virtual civilians? If people want to make that happen, couldn't they pretty easily mod it in anyway?
Thinking about it, in my head I think shooting/knifing a GTA child would feel make me feel uneasy.
More comically evil options like a monster truck or a rocket launcher wouldn't bother me though.
Skyrim had those killable children mods, complete with killmoves for decimating a child with a giant hammer, but I think Skyrim's children are so weird and obviously video game looking that it wasn't really big news. I'll clarify I never owned the mod, so I don't know how it would make me feel in practice.
I think the concern is less that people will be more likely to do it and more about how people might become desensitised to it. I think it's honestly healthy that we talk about this as a taboo thing, it shows we have a healthy concern for the protection of children. Little things that cut into that concern could cut into our sensitivity to it, I don't particularly want people to view crime against children as the same as crime against adults. It used to be ok for random people to clout a kid, mistreatment of kids was normalised and that is still in living memory of some of our Gen X and Boomers. I wouldn't want to go back on that so I sort of think we should try to be conservative with where we're currently at. We'd gain very little from it, but stand to risk a lot.
My biggest concern is that if we took away the pedestal of protection we put kids on we could make it easier for capitalists to re-exploit them. People finding mistreatment of children abhorrent plays into our hands when it comes to preventing their labour exploitation from returning.
I dont want to moralize over it or anything, but i really don't think it adds anything to the gameplay, or the thematic or narrative elements. It doesn't bring anything to the table, and the number of people who want it is entirely too low for anyone to bother with the time, effort, or controversy.
Apart from the uncanny feel of the empty swingsets... But yeah, up to this day I'd never even thought about it. I hadn't even really noticed they weren't there.
I think making a game where you can shoot children would not benefit anyone in any way (except school shooters)