Is violence required to make a good game great?
Doom has taught us a lot about video game violence.
(Credit: Id Software)In a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Greg Zeschuk, the creative officer at BioWare, a prominent video game developer, said that the marriage of violence and story in video games isn't necessarily required to make a great game. For the most part, making good nonviolent games just hasn't been tried.
"We talk a certain amount internally about whether you need to have combat as part of the experience," Zeschuk told the site. "Folks that are used to playing games over the last ten years, they want to have those battle moments, and the fighting. But there are different audiences that would maybe just enjoy the story."
Although I can't speak for all gamers, I, for one, would be one of those folks. I love a good video game story. Immediately, Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete and Shenmue come to mind. So do most of the Legend of Zelda games. They each offered an outstanding story that kept me captivated. The battles and the fighting were secondary.
But then again, they were still present. Without them, Zelda wouldn't be Zelda, Shenmue wouldn't be Shenmue, and a role-playing game like Lunar wouldn't be a role-playing game. The industry has made violence an integral component of video games. And it might be difficult to suddenly remove it for the sake of a story.
That said, I'd still love to see it.
Admittedly, there are some titles that can be compelling without the fighting. Katamari Damacy was a hit when it was released. Even Tetris, one of the industry's most popular games, didn't need violence to make it work.
But Tetris didn't have a story. And although Katamari Damacy did, it wasn't all that deep. To find a game with a story and no violence is rare. In fact, this list of "nonviolent" video games reveals several games that most of us have probably never heard of.
But that doesn't mean that it's impossible to make a nonviolent game work--it will just take some more effort.
The Wii seems like the ideal platform for developers to try out unique, nonviolent ideas. Judging by its library of games, Wii owners seem to be more accepting of new concepts. The platform is filled with titles like Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz, Wii Sports, and a variety of other games that covet fun over violence. And for the most part, they sell well.
But once again, those games do not feature a story line that would rival The Legend of Zelda or Metal Gear Solid. They're designed to entertain you, rather than captivate you with a gripping story line.
Developing a game without violence, but with a compelling story line might be difficult. The average gamer has been conditioned to accept video game stories that feature a protagonist, antagonist, and violence. In fact, the titles included in the list of the top 10 selling games of 2008 that actually had some semblance of a story, featured those three elements. The same can be said for the top 10 most-popular titles released in 2006 and 2007. If it had a story, it had violence.
So, while I'm not saying it's impossible to create a top-selling game with a great story line and no violence, I do think it will be difficult. BioWare might be in for a tough time.
Or will it? Would you buy a game that contains no violence, but a great story? Is violence an important part of any game you might consider buying? Let us know in the comments below.
Check out Don's Facebook profile, Twitter stream, and FriendFeed.
Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
Exhibit A: Nintendo's Mario. This franchise is one of the most valuable brands in all of consumer entertainment. It is the number one franchise in videogaming. End of discussion.
I don't really care if there is realistic violence in a game, i just need to know that I can shatter someone's hopes and dreams every time i play a game. Whether i kill them in said game, solve a puzzle faster than them, or score more points, I don't care.
The problem is that the term "video game" is used to broadly. There are independent genre's of video games and they are their own unique art form. The fact that all of them except puzzlers require conflict is simply a function of them all utilizing literature to convey the art of the game.
Even Viva Piņata wouldn't work without violence.
There are other examples. In Portal, the player is not responsible for any violence. What violence occurs is either directed at the player or happened prior to the events of the game, and since it does have a decent story, is a candidate.
There have been any number of well-written adventure games (e.g. King's Quest) that offered both decent story and little or no violence.
The interactive fiction game (I'm dating myself here) Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy featured both a compelling (if re-hashed) story and no violence (unless you count the Vogons destroying Earth to make way for a hyperspace bypass, but again, that's not the player's fault).
Successful story-based entertainment concepts, whether they are games, television programming, film or written narative seem to relate to audiences along one or more of three dimensions: escapism, expression and education - each of these have both internal and external components.
In this particular case, escapism is about the need for temporary cognitive and emotional release from everyday life and pressures - either personal (internal) or societal (external). Expression is about the need to identify with a sense of one?s self (internal) or relate more closely to a community of real or perceived peers (external). Education relates to the pursuit of a deeper understanding of the context one?s self (internal) or one?s family or broader environment (external).
There are not many successful games that have delivered their story and experience with an absense of violence. This is likely because it is a mirror of real life, the power of violence as a device to convey specific themes and what has historically sold well. I think if a developer committed to it, a successful title could be developed without violent imagery or interactions.
Your declaration that Mario is the number one franchise plus the "End of discussion" tag line shows that you don't care for anyone's differing point of view and you rather close out any argument by "taking your ball and going home" Sorry but you don't get to declare the final say in this matter.
It's like saying "the Chicago Cubs play their home games at Wrigley Field." It is not a matter of opinion.
Revenue is not the only way to measure number one, and your statement is a decent point but is hardly the end of the discussion. What do you call stoping on poor mushroom men, turtles throwing hatchets, and dropping fire breathing dragons into the lava to save the priinces? Sounds violent to me.
Breakout? OMG, that's violent! You're destroying bricks! Think about the poor dead polygons!
And I've seen a helluva lot more merchandising for WoW than Mario, and I'm old school. Ok, I'm just old.
Going back well before video games, all the great classic games are about war. Chess, Checkers, Go, all "strategy" games. Translation, war games. They just didn't have a couple dozen pixel shaders to make it gorey. This is an issue of human nature, non violent video games are always going to be a niche market, and it has nothing to do with them being "video" games.
It does seem to be an issue of human nature the more I think about it. Power, conquest, and superiority are just so appealing. Violence is just an easy medium to use to prove your superiority over others, whether it's other players or enemies in the game.
Mario
Zelda
Doom
Wolfenstein
GTA Series
Metal Gear Series
Killzone
People play any game for fun, which typically means being successful at the game, i.e. "winning."
There has to be some sort of competition in the game. The player vs other players, or game characters, or a puzzle, etc. There needs to be something to conquer or reward the player.
Now the issue; is the competition in the game "violent"? Maybe. Is that a bad thing? I mean, look at any sport. NCAA Wrestlers are competing, and it's violent, but it's still friendly competition. Other people cited chess, etc, which at it?s nature is ?violent.?
There's a difference between levels of "violence" be it realistic human violence (i.e. some rated M fps'ers) vs other types of violence (like shooting a red shell at my friend in mario kart).
So, most games have some sort of competitive element. This generally means there may be some level of "violence" - it's just to what degree.
If they made a "Super Pillow Snuggle Off" which had amazing gameplay and was fun, sure, it could be successful. It's just that generally the competitive elements game designers make has something people could list on the "violent" spectrum
Contemporary story-based games are more immersive and multi-sensory, with visuals, sound and emotion. This is where violence can be a useful mechanic to ampify audience engagement or promote drama.
So, I don't think there is any real confusion in the differences between competition and violence.
While these games are typically not made today by many commercial game companies, there certainly is a following for them and they are still produced. Check out www.justadventure.com for an active community of adventure game afficiandos.
For those who want an easier adventure game (as these games tend to have a reputation of being very hard) that is also freeware check out Out of Order: http://www.hungrysoftware.com/#/games/outoforder
Oh, and if you haven't played Longest Journey 1 yet, you're really missing out!
This being said many great games use violence to setup conflict... My problem isn't with a great game using violence, it is with people thinking that Violence == great game. I can't count how many crappy games have been released that believe that the more violence in the game makes their game more fun. If game developers would concentrate on the great gameplay first and then add the violent graphics they would sell more games! Violence for Violence sake is lame... no matter what the media.
No. That's probably one of the easiest questions I have come across. All you need is for the game to be fun and challenging, nothing else is really required.
The same is largely true of any media, not just games. Movies and books do not require violence to be good and sometimes it is rather sad to see some thrown in for no apparent reason.
- by MattAnton July 15, 2009 12:06 PM PDT
- Sex and violence sell, whether in a movie or video game media format. There are some exceptions of course but we are most interested with those 2 main categories. Great writeup. Submitted here http://gamefriends.com/cvs_view_submission.php?sid=294
- Reply to this comment
-
(27 Comments)