Game World Realism

Besides environmental effects, textures and smooth rendering of objects and characters, I am talking about the realism in social dynamics, story, believable experiences. More specifically, in games like Grand Theft Auto, you can drive over people, but you will never see children walking around on the streets you can run over. In some first person shooters, you can kill almost anyone and animals, except children.

Some more mature games rated M are violent and gory, with vulgar language. However, there are games out there that have tried to take the realism beyond potential censorship, like adding sex scenes, socially questionable situations and so on.

In your opinion, how far do you think developers should take their games? Do you think games should be censored if the content is over the top realistic?

 

No I don't think they should be censored. They should have proper age limits though, like most do nowadays.
It's the same with movies, some are way too gory for my liking but that's what the creators wanted to do and they have the right to do as they please.

 

^This. From my point of view, anything goes as far as age limits are applied. And it is up to the individual not to get too engaged with the games they play. Gaming can be considered a dream that takes us away from reality, and reality and dream is separated only by a fine line and some people could unknowingly slip into dreamland while thinking they are in reality and vice-versa. That is why it's good to play a variety of games, like after finishing a gory game try to play a casual game, to not be engrossed in a single one to prevent intense addiction/immersion/absorption or whatever.

 

Yeah they should not censor anything. It should just be strictly filtered by age.

 

They shouldn't be censored unless it's the kind of TRULY questionable material which would fall into something that would be illegal to distribute.

It's especially ridiculous in America. You can have all the violence and gore you want, that's awesome. But the moment you show uncovered tits everybody loses their mind...

 

First of all, I believe video games are an art form and art should never being censored. With that being said, I believe developers should not push the edginess for the sake of being edgy and should only do this for some artistic merit, social commentary, or otherwise story enhancing experience.

Going back in time to a game called Man Hunt released by Rockstar Games. In terms of storyline it really pushed the limits, but by today's standards it's gore level was rather tame- but the edginess of the game wasn't arbitrarily put there. It was there for a purpose.

 

Since this is in the General RPG category,I'll answer it while taking into consideration RPGs only and I haven't seen an RPG with overly violent content. I prefer that my RPGs are more anime-like, more unrealistic. RPGs should be in a world full of fantasy, a world where you could experience both calm and relaxation and excitement and wonder.

GTA, God of War, and other games of this kind are not the same as RPGs, thus they have a higher level of realism. How far should they go? As far as the regulating bodies allow them to.

 

I don't think games should be censored but I also don't think that they should be sold to children if they do feature over the top violence or sex scenes. Right now in the United States the ratings are not law and thus any game can legally be sold to anyone. This means games that feature sex scenes can legally be sold to children. The only thing stopping this from occurring is that most stores have policies in place to NOT sell Rated M games to children and most wont even stock AO games.

 

RPGs especially should try to push boundaries in their own way, and realism is never a bad thing. Such things shouldn't be censored for any video games as long as ratings are applied. The ratings don't do anything other than give fearful parents peace of mind anyways.

 

I don't think we should have exact world realism in our RPGs. There's a certain appeal to pretending to exist in a world that's governed by different rules.

 

I'd have to agree. I'm so tired of how ugly the real world is. I play games to escape that.

Do know how much of a downer it is to live in an area where people are killed/kidnapped in droves every day? Rape is an every 3-4 hour occurrence? That I have to have a gun in order to make sure that my life isn't taken on a constant basis? Where kids often end up in ERs all the time from ODing on drugs because of bullying and because they hate living here? I hate my real life situation so I escape into games to block it out. I don't want that to follow into games. Life is depressing enough as it is.

 

I don't think they should be censored, but any game where you can cap a little kid will likely be banned in a whole lot of places. There is a line of social acceptability.

 

I think there should be as much realism as possible with as little censorship is as possible, to express their form of art in the proper medium. People may call games games, but like Alexis above, I agree it's Art. So let them do it their way.

 

Ok think they should take it as far as they want to. If someone doesn't like it they don't have to buy it. I do think it should be rated appropriately and it should have very visible warnings so that no one gets a terrible surprise in the middle of a game.

 

I reckon that, they should make the game as real as possible and some of the games do deal with problems in real life like betrayal or depression and gives a reason why the person you are playing as is affected by things happening around him or her. I have seen more games nowadays, that have a good story and as to rating it should be written on the game label as to who should be playing and which age group does this game belong to as well. I reckon, video games are a way to get away from the problems we all face in our day to day life and relax in a different world which is good to do sometimes.

 

The goal of games has always been to provide an interactive experience worthy of the medium it plays on. I'd see no worthier medium then to basically emulate real life like Vegito said - negative decisions impact your play - all while seeming in Virtual Reality.

 

Censoring a game can easily take out realistic aspects of our world. Why take out certain features when it can only enhance the game more? Just make sure that they placed specific age restrictions on the games and you should be good to go.

 

I agree with you. Censorship is unnecessary as long as there are age restrictions. A realistic RPG shouldn't shy away from social, racial, sex issues etc, but at the same time it should present them in a way that is mature. What I mean is that they shouldn't exploit any of those issues in order to "shock" but present them in a way that encourages critical thinking.

 

Well, it will definitely be something if a game goes extremely into "detail" of certain scenes. If you ask me though, I do wish they'd go for the means to do so in order to portray what they really like. The issues of course, always lie in the morals, or humanitarian views of most people, unless of course if one is willing to be open-minded.

Still, as far as it goes, it will not be that much common, as several of these types of games have received a lot of criticism due to their content. An example of which is Rapelay. Games that depict absolutely dysfunctional concepts, just as said above, should be given an appropriate rating. The only real issue would be the ones that are getting past these ratings; exposure to the ones without education nor morals resulting in grievous consequences; or simply knowledge, for some, that a game like this exists.

Personally, I would love it even if they go too far if it means to enrich the story (as I love RPGs, or story-telling games for that matter), but with the current view of the world, even daredevil companies will surely get a lot of bashing.

 

I mean, we will witness these specific aspects of our society in life anyway, so why not give us an advantage by preparing ourselves for said event? I mean, it just doesn't make sense to cut out the best part of the game: the reality without experiencing it first hand. Age restrictions will only just allow suggestions in order to improve our gaming or improve our ability to handle the situation.