How much violence is OK for a video game?

[Kreekakon]

When this would be true, why everyone shouldn't also have the right to consume child porn?

Because this is something that is outright illegal, and not allowed to happen by the law.

If there was a depiction of the "situation" of child porn happening in movies/games (Just the situation, nothing explicit) then it would be pretty much fine. If something explicit is shown then it is illegal, and then is not okay.

I should clarify this about the notion of "free speech" though in this comic below:



Allowing =/= Endorsement

EDIT:

^- Exactly, I have lost family members to many various reasons, one which tends to get made fun of alot is cancer, I don't like it when someone makes a cancer joke, but I don't go crying about it trying to get it banned. I speak my mind on it, and if the person still wants to do what they do, then what the fuck ever, I don't HAVE to talk to them.

This also correlates to the comic I posted above. While they do have the rights to make cancer jokes which are in bad taste, they can ALSO choose to be good sensitive people, and not do something like that.

However if they want to cling on to their legal rights to be an asshole...well they can have those rights...and be an asshole no one likes.

[Traggey]

I feel that comic right there is very fitting here for more reasons than the topic at hand, seeing as you Googol have been banned from here quite a few times by now.

I feel it'd be healthy for you to take what it sais to mind.

[Kurton]

I don't know much about the game other than what's depicted in the trailer but I'd be interested just to try playing it -without- killing anyone and see how far I can get.

[Traggey]

It seems to just be a score-attack game from what I can tell, I was actually pondering about putting out a video where I play the game and just walk about saying pleasant things to people.

[Nice]

the devs tried too hard and unfortunatly it worked, this thing is getting more popularity than it should

[Kurton]

It seems to just be a score-attack game from what I can tell, I was actually pondering about putting out a video where I play the game and just walk about saying pleasant things to people.

Hehe. Looking forward to that one

[Red]

If Modern Warfare 2 - No Russians can exist, why this can't?
Same with GTAV, GTAIV, etc all the GTAs. If you find the game offending, don't buy the game, like you can skip the "No Russian" mission for the very same reason. Since when did people come this over sensitive? First prostitution in GTAV, now violence in Hatred. What next? Should we ban Breaking Bad, because they teach you how to produce "meth" aka blue candy? Come on.

[Mudbill]

The context greatly matters though. It just gives off a completely different vibe when you're going on an insane killing spree of innocent civilians for fun instead of killing them because they are a threat, or because they are in your way (GTA although most killings are just because of the game's goofy sense of reality). Of course we've had movies too that do similar things to this, but even there we haven't had one (that I'm aware of) that features the serial killer as the main character and that the movie follows how great killing helpless people is with no additional story trying to stop this madman.

I stand with the rest. I don't care much that the game exists. If people don't like it, they should stay away, but to ban it and completely censor its existance is silly and a violation in my opinion. This is just the creation of some guys who found this to be their art style. Don't rid the world of its creativity.

[MrBehemoth]

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"

This.

People have a right and responsibility to censor for themselves, to the degree that they feel is necessary to remain healthy and balanced. For people who are not mentally equipped to make that kind of decision (eg. children, or people with very severe mental health problems), it's up to the person responsible for their care to help them make those decisions or to make the decisions for them. Deciding whether a piece of media is offensive is a subjective minefield: wherever you draw the line, there are going to be problems.

Edit - Mudbill beat me to it and said what I wanted to say much more concisely.
Personally, I know that no piece of media, no matter how depraved, is going to turn me into a psychopath. There are two movies that I have turned off because they crossed the line for me. I turned off The Human Centipede ten minutes in - as soon as I realised what the tone was going to be like. The other was Crash (the 1996 accident-porn one) because it squicked me out. BUT, I would never, ever say that these movies should not exist. They are fictitious and no-one got hurt making them.

Since someone brought up the subject of child-porn, let me point out the difference. Firstly, it is not a depiction of fiction made with actors and special effects. It is a record of a real event. (Compare consensual adult BDSM porn with an actual snuff-movie, for example.) Secondly, this is a type of media in which it is unavoidable that someone was hurt, mentally or physically, in the making of it and that is why the medium itself should not exist, regardless of the fact that the act it records is illegal, as it should be.

Anyway, I started writing because I wanted to make a point about games...

For me, all the noise people make about GTA is entirely unwarranted and does not compare with things like Hatred or Postal.

GTA is set in an immoral and relatively-consequence free version of our world. The GTA series often has things to say about morality and choice. For example, what would the world be like if the worst consequence the law can give you is that you need to drive fast and hide under a bridge for a hour or so? It makes sense that, in the world of GTA, if you wanted to use and murder a prostitute then that is an option you could choose, just as in real life. If I wanted to murder a prostitute in real life (I don't) then I may choose to do so and then face the consequences.

This is entirely different from Hatred, for example. In Hatred, slaughtering civilians is not an emergent narrative, it is a delivered one. The player does not have a choice in how this story goes. That's what makes it less interesting to me. I don't need to spend hours directing the protagonist in killing innocents, because the predetermined story is not telling me anything that I don't already know: that the protagonist is deranged and evil and the civilians are innocent and scared. There's enough of that in real life already. I don't need it.

But you know what? I still have a choice. I have the choice not to buy or play the game. That's my choice. And if you want to play it that that's your choice too. And as long as you have the mental capacity to censor yourself and understand the limit to which you can absorb horrific media without becoming disturbed yourself, that's ok.

[Mudbill]

On that note I think it's interesting to mention that if this game had been a choice of good or bad, as in the player could choose to save civilians, help them from other threats, become a good guy sorta thing, BUT also include the option to kill them, then I think it would be received in a completely different manner. It's not the "killing innocent" aspect that horrifies people. I think it's the way the game forces you do it.

Seeing a doggie die is awful, but being forced to kill it is mentally damaging. Can you imagine how messed up someone could get by that? A rough example.