The Bloj

Why are most computer/video games about killing people?

Posted on October 31st, 2007 by Chris.
Categories: Chris, Games, General/Misc..

Video game violence is a popular topic among politicians and the media. Typically, every time there’s a school shooting or a new release of Grand Theft Auto, senators and congressmen will make a fuss about it for as long as it gets attention. And when you look at some video games, it makes sense; video games seem to contain an unusual amount of violence. Why?

First of all, we should be clear: most games aren’t about killing people. The first and third best selling PC games of all time had nothing to do with violence. (Neither do almost all of the top selling console games) From the perspective of a game company, it makes much more sense, sales-wise, not to fall into the pattern of making just another shooter, as the best selling games are typically the ones most accessible to the widest audiences. (Girls, for example, are generally not well served by the game industry)

What is unusual about the game industry, though, is that it does produce a large number of games that are violent. It’s hard to plow through, but if you look at the 2006 list of recent movie releases, you’ll find a few about fighting and violence, but those are the exception. On the other hand, there’s a major subset of video games that are all about fighting. (2003 list) Jedi Knight, GTA, Prince of Persia, Warcraft, Soul Caliber, Battlefield 1942…added all together, they form a majority of the gaming market. And they’re all about shooting, fighting, armies, running around, reloading, and killing. If half of the movies sold in theaters were war movies, we would have probably noticed.

1. Genre conversion (comedy vs. strategy/simulation)

One of the problems with video games is that they’re a participatory art form. If you want to do comedy in a movie or book, it’s simple. But comedy is typically one-way interaction. Even comedians are one way (mostly); they talk and the audience laughs.

The same goes for things that aren’t comedy. When it comes to building interactive worlds, fighting is a standard form of interaction, as are racing, puzzle solving, strategy, and simulation. Movies and books aren’t “limited by interactivity;” that’s why bookstores don’t typically shelve their books as racing/puzzle solving/arcade books.

2. Modus operandi

Does comedy have to be one way? No, watch people in a group; funny things happen all the time. The problem is turning that interaction into an art form.

Traditional art is used to segregating people into two groups: the producers of art and the audiences. (Sometimes producers will be split further into performers and composers, but there’s still a wall between both and the audience.

Since the idea of political activism through art has become more common, and since modern artists are more apt to connect divisions between artists and the audience to political oppression, they are also more likely to actively challenge it. This may sound farfetched, but it is not infeasible; scholars have, for example, critiqued the orchestra as authoritarian and ruled by the conductor. Many modern works also seek to make each performer an active participant in the act of composing. Terry Riley’s In C, for example, gives individual performers freedom to choose when to play what parts. [1]

In general, however, most composers stick to composing pieces where the music is controlled from one center. One reason is obvious; it’s easier to make things sound good if only one person decides how the piece should go!

3. Changes

One way around this problem is to discover new modes of interaction. Your average RPG contains elements of buying and selling. This non violent interaction–commerce–is taken further in most games, where you can act as both a trader and a craftsman–Everquest and The Elder Scrolls series (Morrowind, Oblivion) both have signs of this.

If you talk to someone like Will Wright, creator of the Sims and the Simcity series, you might also think of open ended interactions. While even new modes of game interaction (selling, trading, negotiation with the computer, etc.) focus on achieving some sort of goal (typically finishing some quest or taking over the world), it is also possible to create a world without defined goals. While this may sound unrewarding and aimless, Wright has generally proven that such simulations can be far more interesting than games that restrict the players focus to a specific goal.

Finally, another way to build new interactions is through community. Not many online games are built on the premise of social interactions, but the fact that we can cram thousands of people onto one server, in one game is pointing us in a positive direction. [2]

4. Inconclusions

Violence is still a simple and easily accessible form of interaction; at least for boys, shooting and hunting are relatively adaptable concepts to the human mind, and simple ones for games. But that probably doesn’t mean that most games will end up filling this narrow niche.

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