Thread: Social issues in gaming

yes great article
i agree with the fact that game developers dont want to be sued or taken to court
or just get stuck on one side of an issue
paparazza will be flooding them and they dont want that.
they just want to chill have fun and play games
im sure in the coming years ppl will get the idea of using a game as a medium to
discuss an issue or push an idea and how great is that
ppl play games for hours on end. if u can put an issue in an fps with great plot
ppl will easily be able to see a side of an issue
but for now we and the game developers r too lazy to do such things lol

One of the struggles that game developers face is the heavy hand of corporations that provide financing. When corporations provide money to develop a game the contracts generally give the corporation a say in the storyline and/or capabilites of equipment in the game.

When major corporations license models of thier products to game developers the corporations generally demand that their products perform better in the game than any other competitive products. That is the sort of brainwashing that corporations play on kids every day. Politicians do the same with adults.

For a game to truly address social issues they would have to be developed by a well-funded start-up corporation or otherwise independent of big-corporation money. Publicly traded corporations are contantly worried about their stock prices and are leery of their names being a cast in a controversial light. This controversial light could be in the form of taking a position on a controversial issue or even presenting a controversial issue. For example, what if a game presented the issues of bombing abortion clinics and Olympic stadiums? Would a publicly-traded corporation fund that? Probably not.

One more thing worth mentioning would be the half life series. It literally casts the person playing as the main character... Always first person, never says anything... You do become emotionally attached.

The thing is the film industry is largely dominated by large corporations too, yet there are films out there that address relevant problems and issues. So why not games. That's what I got from the article at least.

Originally Posted by JeLi

The thing is the film industry is largely dominated by large corporations too, yet there are films out there that address relevant problems and issues. So why not games. That's what I got from the article at least.

Yeap, pretty much exactly my point in the lengthy car trip discussion that spawned this article. 30 years ago movies were for the most pure fantasy, the characters we less people and more fictional characters that only existed on the screen. But Hollywood has evolved, the protagonists in a lot of modern films are normal people, someone that you or I could relate to. Film has grown up and matured as a media, so why cant video games?

Originally Posted by Glock

I'm willing to bet gaming is behind the curve where movies are concerned because many people still regard gaming as a kid's thing, not something adults do - even though the demographic for many games is actually more like 19-25 than 12-18. I believe WoW's primary age group is around 20-30, and this is a game that has millions of people playing it.

I think that, once gaming is fully accepted into the mainstream, we'll start seeing more movie-like plots and character development. Though, personally, I'd rather have book-like development, since movies often suck

This is a really excellent point. All too often, especially from my parents' generation, I hear that gaming isn't real, is a kid's thing, when are you going to grow up and doing something serious with your life. And it's made worse by this tendency (at least with my generation and younger, and I speak anecdotally here) to push adulthood further and further back. So you've got these 20 and 30-somethings playing games, and it's taken even more as an effort to delay growing up, to escape from getting a job and getting an an apartment and paying bills... which it's not, god knows we've got enough married-with-kids people on here to prove that. But.

Fortunately, I think I've finally convinced my family that that's a load of crap, between getting published here and explaining some of the responsibilities Arreo and I have, and the ideals we try to uphold here at TTP. And frankly, I don't think gaming would be such a huge part of his life - and I certainly wouldn't have started to get into it - without someplace like TTP.

We won't get me started on my opinions of books v. movies. That's a whooooole 'nother topic.