Evolution of video games and - Why are almost all video games about battling and killing?

reply to post by nOraKat


Those games were as addictive as anything we have today. Friggin' Donkey Kong!! I still remember getting so mad at that game Ever played Shadow gate?
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Shadow Gate on NES

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My buddy and I had stayed up for 4 days playing through that game. Mind you , we were around 12 when that came out. We'd probably breeze through it today. Then again...

There are a couple of things that do really well when it comes to sales.

1. Sex
2. Violence

Majority of videos games these days have a mixture of both elements. These things sell, developers know this and exploit it.

That being said, I am a gamer and I play almost every kind of video game and I enjoy them with or without violence. However some of my favorite games are very violent. Just how it is.

-SAP-

While I am guilty of getting into Call of Duty since the second or third title, I do miss the sheer fun of mastering the methods of the games of yesteryear. I am only getting to age 30 now, and never got to experience the Atari, Commodore or pinball craze days.

Though, I remember my start in gaming was having an old PC (which was primarily a word processor) in my room during my formative years. Back when the screens were black background with orange text - no color, no high def. My dad was a programmer and taught me DOS and Visual Basic. The first games I created were text based like Oregon trail, but I remember playing games like Tapper and Beowulf and loving the heck out of them. Ever since I've loved gaming.

While I do tend to go with the crowd in the popular games now that multiplayer is more commonplace than ever, I do try to find games that feed my raving for the epic journey more than just constant killing. I saw the shadow of colossus mentioned above as well as Ico. I've been meaning to pick those two up as they seem to scratch the same itch that Final Fantasy 7 did for me when I was in High school.

To me the hero journey games are the best.

People here are saying that shooters desensitize children to killing. I disagree. FPS games are NOTHING like holding a real gun and ending someone's life with it. I've been playing FPS games for quite a bit of time. I still will not kill any living creature, unless I must. In fact, I even have a conscience in video games. Pretty weird, right?

Your premise is a little flawed here. Games tend to follow a formula of battling and killing, because they are a further extension of classical storytelling. The young good hero vs. the big bad monster. The only real difference is it is presented in a graphical and participatory way that a spoken or read story can never do. When you look at the list of best selling games of all time, they tend to fall into that format. So much so that they just dwarf sales of FPS titles on the consoles. And it becomes even larger when you include the PC where The Sims is the best selling franchise, a game that doesn't feature mindless slaughter at all.

List of best-selling video games

Originally posted by nOraKat
Games were so creative back then, and even into the Commodore 64 years.

What do you mean "even"? Many C64 games are the best examples of creative video game innovations, but not only technically or genre-wise, but also depicting an almost 'cosmic' atmosphere that could really be felt strong, like a powerful odor or maybe a delicious piece of food. You could have a craving for a certain 'feel' or 'atmosphere', and a C64 game would uplift you, give you a small 'high', and radiate that atmosphere straight into your soul - ah, how euphoric!

The games themselves were as a whole, really like nutritious, spiritual-emotional-mental meals that would bring you excitement, not only from the robotic 'achievement' that is the norm these days (grinding), but from all levels simultaneously. Every game was a personality, that had a soul. The games were usually programmed by a very tiny group of men, many times even only one individual, so they could afford to be quirky while still giving the player a marvellous experience with the good kind of JOYful (and even wholesome) excitement.

There were also ingenious and fresh game concepts (Archon, Wizball, Maniac Mansion) - something that you don't really see these days. It's either a sports game, a 'girl's game' (like Barbie), or then a FPS-shooter, TPS-shooter, RTS or platformer. Oh, there are the logical 'expansions' of the genres, like GTA-type stuff and maybe even things like Crysis and such (I don't know much about the very modern games though, so my info might be slightly obsolete). There are also games like "Kameo" (with the fashionable gimmick of replacing a "c" with a "k" or adding a "k" into where it wouldn't normally be), but even that is pretty much 'been there, done that'.

Sadly, the Amiga games were not as ingenious or innovative, and they felt a lot more 'cold' already. The point of interest started shifting from the game itself, and channeling your finest self into the game, into a cold, calculated project-oriented 'manufacturing' of a game instead of 'creating'. And of course Amiga's great and unseen-before graphics-, and sound capabilitiies seduced the artists to the dark side - wanting to show off their skills instead of trying to simply create a beautiful, functional graphics, and also wanting to see what this new machine could do.

If you take away the ports from other platforms, sports games, and games that were not designed with the Amiga in mind, the license games and other crap like that, and then remove the awful games from the list, you are going to be left with only a handful of games, among which there are good games, but not very unique concepts, and not a lot of this 'creating + pouring your finest self into it'-radiance. Moonstone being a good example of a great game concept and a good game.

So, I do agree with you, but I have a lot to say about this topic.

Not all games are about battling and killing - many games are also about collecting coins or rings, collecting stars, emeralds, jewels, and replenishing energy by eating JUNK FOOD (Kirby's adventure has hamburgers, french fries and chocolate donuts, as to brainwas your kids to think that garbage is somehow edible).

It's somehow odd to compare Mario Galaxy and those Kirby games - both feature similar sound effects, fanfares, 'worlds' (there's always some ice cave in every darn game, I don't understand, why) and the concept of collecting identical stars and almost identical emeralds/jewels/crystals/whatever. It's disturbing.

But with Kirby, it's even more disturbing how you are basically supposed to kill very cute, innocent bystanders that do you no harm (unless you touch them). It also has a "monster flame" ability that grows RED HORNS on your head (two pairs) and then brings a flaming DRAGON on the screen, fills the screen with FLAMES and basically you have to BURN DOWN a small forest! You also have a cannon that you can use to shoot all kinds of cutesy creatures, MERCILESSLY. The game expects you to show NO MERCY WHATSOEVER to beings that are not even armed, and do not even look angry! What kind of brainwashing is this? There are ALWAYS cannons in these games, although we haven't been at war for decades. Why always keep pushing 'cannons' to kids' minds?

I am going a bit off tangent here, but I can show you the exact moment when I stopped playing that disturbing game (right after I had BEATEN UP a tree, that then ended up crying, and the player is not supposed to have any compassion - it's like the game is saying "Yeah, KILL the nature, you must DESTROY NATURE, NATURE IS EVIL! Don't let that TREE give you a hard time, slice it, dice it, and BURRRNNN IT!")..


The evil tree





We all know these symbols


Yeah, the latter picture depicts the moment when I decided to stop playing that game. Anyone in ATS probably can figure out, why.

Parents probably don't even know what goes on with these games - they just buy a game so the kid will shut up and they will go do something more 'adult' while the kid plays it.

Originally posted by nOraKat
Games were so creative back then, and even into the Commodore 64 years. (I know you kids are like, "whats this guy talking about"..)

That would be "What's this guy talking about?"

There is such a thing as punctuation, and you are not talking about many "whats" (plural), but you mean to use the two words "what" and "is" as a shortened version, which needs an apostrophe. You also begin sentences with a capital letter.

There were so many different genres and types of games.

There are still many genres and types of games - it's just that they have all become walking clichés, and almost all of them try to be movies instead of games (especially the RPGs).

But back then, they actually created NEW genres, and even the kind that you don't see nowadays (Moonstone was never really cloned as a game genre, so it deserves to be called an 'unique' game). Has anyone ever improved on "Archon" or "Laser Squad"? How about odd and quirky, fun games, like "Park Patrol"?

Japanese are of course doing a good job in trying to still create 'weird' and 'quirky' games, but it's not quite the same. And sometimes they are a bit too weird for their own good.

Back then there were no 'genre limitations' - there were no rules that a RPG would have to invisible monsters that attack you from nowhere and suck you into a fight, or that no imagination should ever be used for any game, regardless of genre, etc. Something like 'Wizball' will never happen again.

They were intriguing (for the mind set of those days),

Something that was once good, is always good. Something that was once good, but not anymore, never was any good.

So, the mindset (it's one word, not two) of those days had nothing to do with it. The games were -and-are- intriguing, even to the modern generation, if you can get them to play them with real hardware. And even to older people, who never played video games in their lives, if you can get them to play. But they probably could never get excited about the modern stuff.

Using past tense about something that still exists is like saying 'Mona Lisa was pretty nice a painting'. It's still a nice painting!

and on some, you had to really think or have some real skills to get to the higher levels. It is hard to relay this experience to the newer generations because they may see these games and think its a joke,

Hard games exist in the modern world, and hardness doesn't make a good game, unlike some british game magazine morons would have you believe. I rather play an easy game that has a lot to see than a hard game that is incredibly short.

Samurai Warrior was an easy game, but because its sceneries and atmosphere (and playability and animations) are so mesmerizingly soul-caressing, I still like to complete it from time to time. Hardness doesn't enter into it.

And it's not hard to relay this experience - sure, everyone has their own experience, but just sit some kids in front of a REAL C64, and let them play the best gems for themselves - I can almost guarantee that if you can get them to do that, after 30 minutes, you are going to have some excited kids with stars in their eyes, telling how well they did, or how big a score they got.

but you had to be in the mind set of that time to really appreciate it. Everything is viewed in a different perspective now.

Will you -please- stop talking about the "mindset" (again, one word, not two)! IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING!

You don't need your mind SET in any particular way - all you need is capability of enjoying a good game, and that's all. THAT. IS. ALL.

It's almost as if you have not even given your family and/or friends real Commodore 64s and sit them to play the gems!
Something happened to gaming with the introduction of 3D rendering game engines - In came the first person shooter..

Nothing needs to be viewed 'differently'. Perhaps you mean that because kids have seen so much 3D crap these days, that their eyes have become somehow polluted, and that they can't appreciate honest, lores, hand-pixelled graphics anymore? Otherwise, I have trouble grasping the meaning of your argument about 'perspective'. Video games are still video games, they are still enjoyable - they just look and sound a bit different than modern games, but a good game and good experience is still a good game/experience. It's not going to change. Even after 200 years, you could sit someone to play Archon or International Karate with you, and they would absolutely love it (if they have any capacity to enjoy a good game/experience).

Chess never became obsolete, just because it got old. Why would that happen to video games? It can't. The only obstacle is people thinking that things "progress" when they really don't, and attitudes that only love 'modern' things and 'novelties'. But I'd rather sit in a classic Ford from 1800s than a modern station wagon.(Charlimit)

reply to post by nOraKat


Because they are popular. Games take a lot of money to develop (generally but there are notable exceptions), so developers want to make something that will give them a return - same as any other business.

The important thing is that they are all quite clearly fiction. So while i may love the occasional trip around Liberty City beating random people to death with a stolen dildo, it doesn't mean i have any desire to do this in reality - in actual fact quite the opposite is true. So, to me at least, anyone that plays a violent game and then goes out wanting to commit a violent act is a disturbed individual - they are to blame, not the game.

Thinking a bit about it though, perhaps the pressures of modern life have something to do with their popularity in that after a shi%*! week at the office, it is nice to be able to go home and blow something up!

Originally posted by nOraKat
Something happened to gaming with the introduction of 3D rendering game engines - In came the first person shooter..

It's a little bit confusing to use the word "3D rendering", because that basically means a non-realtime work that the computer does after the the given scene is ready to be rendered - and it can take anything from a quick pre-render to hours, weeks or even months to finish rendering.

It's unfortunate, that the same word is used from 'realtime-rendering', but perhaps if you remove the word altogether, the message becomes more clear.

And yes, something indeed happened around that era - people started being more focused on the latest 3D gimmick, the latest 3D accelerator cards and their features, how many polygons you can draw, and so on, and so forth. It used to be that people focused on the gameplay, and even on the atmosphere and 'feel' of the game.

The 3D-projections (it's not REAL 3D, it's just a three-dimensional -projection- displayed on a flat, two-dimensional screen) started, and 2D art lost its meaning. Something similar happened with higher resolutions as well, when the 320x200 (or lower) stopped being the norm, and 640x400 / 640x480 started becoming the new norm. The game "Worms" is a good example.

The first game featured nicely hand-pixelled graphics, even beautiful ones, depending on the version (See "Worms Director's Cut for the most beautiful lores-version of Worms"). The worms were all very tiny, but nicely animated and hand-pixelled.

So when they upgraded the resolution, what happened? The 'realistic, though goofy'-pixel-style-worms changed into CARTOON style. Suddenly, all the beauty of hand-pixelled graphics was lost. Suddenly, there were these easily sketched cartoon things that had nothing to do with that older style. I bet the higher resolution graphics were faster and easier to make, too. No more pouring your finest self into lores pixels, but now was the era of making everything 'cartoonish', so it was easy to make and animate, and no one had to painstakingly pixel-paint anything anymore. Photoshop could always be used, and 3D-pre-rendering was also a help. No one put a pixel on top of or around another pixel manually anymore, it was all automated.

And of course with 3D cards, the shaders basically drew the graphics - textures were photographs, modelling was done by scanning real objects or using all kinds of gimmicks for low-poly-modelling, and so on, and so forth. Sure, there were genuine models, probably, but my point is that making the art changed from

a human pouring his finest self into a computer/video game

to

a huge project-group, calculatingly manufacturing things so that computer could make the graphics

so that business could flourish. This change was really drastic, and the contrast between the old games and new games is huge. The new games try to implement all kinds of empty eye-candy, but it's just like real candy; it doesn't nourish you, it just gives you a quick 'fix', a lot of empty calories, and a health risk, and leaves you feeling bad and eventually wanting more - it doesn't fill you, and if you have too much, you will be nauseated.

So yes, something indeed happened - but around that same area, something ELSE was happening as well - something so esoteric, that I have not found anyone who understands what I mean, despite my various attempts at explaining it. But let's just say that the 'evil agenda' of 'darkness and gloom' started taking hold. People started wearing black clothes, people started using the skull+crossbones more and more often (even in their clothing), the uplifting, bright and colorful 'excitement' of the '80s was gone, and the cold and industrial '90s was underway. Everything basically turned DARK, and a lot of things turned to HORROR.

Everything was 'zombies' this, 'death' that, 'military' this or 'patriotism' that. It was pretty horrible. The old, glorious, colorful, pleasant world of computer and video games was now full of blood, violence, ugly 3D crap, industrial, rusty pipes and factories - places that no one would usually voluntarily go, if they didn't have to. Those were now the gameplay areas that people were supposed to enjoy!

The change was a huge shock to me, I couldn't understand what was happening.. and I still wonder about it. What is normal nowadays, would be considered absolutely nightmarish and wrong, especially to give kids these days, in the form of computer and video games. But also in other areas. Suddenly everyone listens to heavy metal and even in ATS, have all kinds of really freaky and disturbing 'avatars'. When they are not masonic.

Yes, something HUGE happened around that era, probably more than we regular people even know.


I think one of the first games was Wolfenstein 3D (a sequel of Castle Wolfenstein, a Commodore 64 game), followed by Doom.

Originally posted by nOraKat
I think one of the first games was Wolfenstein 3D (a sequel of Castle Wolfenstein, a Commodore 64 game), followed by Doom

Yes, though there had been some attempts before. There was also "Ultima Underworld" that was rumoured to be the inspiration for Carmack's Wolfenstein engine (though his engine was more primitive, the game was more easily accessible to newcomers, and didn't require much thinking).

Interesting thing about that game, the supposedly 'evolved' and the more 'progressive' PC version actually had been simplified A LOT.

You couldn't steal a guard's uniform, there were no treasure chests to open and find all kinds of useful stuff from, and so on. What was essentially a 'how to escape this place, using all kinds of neat stealth methods, like using the SS uniforms and such' was turned into 'shoot everything that moves'.

It could really have been pretty much -any- theme, it had so little to do with the stealthy and complex "Castle Wolfenstein" or "Beyond Castle Wolfenstein".

Basically, they just took the name and theme, and simplified everything else. It's like taking a thinking man's philosophical movie (not that such really exist on this planet), and turning it into a formulaic action flick.

Doom, of course, was already full of masonic symbolism and worshipping of demons and such. It did cause a lot of controversy at the time (Mortal Kombat was a child of the same era), but nowadays, no one even thinks twice about purchasing a lot more demonic and a lot more violent game for their toddler. As long as the kid keeps quiet for awhile..

Originally posted by nOraKat
I remember my first impressions of playing Doom - after a while, I got dizzy and it was really annoying to try and aim your gun by tweaking the joystick left and right.

Why were you playing Doom with a JOYSTICK of all things? It was a keyboard game, and I didn't even know it supported joysticks! I mean, PCs mostly had analog joysticks back then, and even so, it would have required quite a lot of configuration and tinkering.

And with Doom, you didn't have to aim much - you couldn't even aim in the up or down-directions, so it was very convenient and easy - just walk and if you see a monstah, just turn to its general direction and let fly. It couldn't have been much simpler and easier than that, so I really don't know what you are talking about.. what was so annoying about Doom's almost non-existent aiming system?

And tweaking? You had to tweak your joystick to play Doom? Why didn't you try the keyboard? Or just simply turning the joystick instead of tweaking it? I don't really get what you are trying to say.

Apart from that, I thought that it was a really mindless game that involved a really limited skill set. I never go into the first person shooter.

As an Amigist, I only had access to Doom rarely, whenever I was visiting friends that happened to have powerful enough PCs that they could run it. And I couldn't spend all that time playing it, so I was usually very interested about that game. Back then, I was as brainwashed as anyone, and all that demonic stuff seemed natural somehow.

Of course I later got "Alien Breed 3D", which was modelled after Doom - it wasn't as good in many ways, there wasn't as many FPS, the resolution was a lot lower, and even the playing window was tiny (though you could stretch it to fill the screen, but it didn't increase the resolution at all, so it looked better when you didn't do that, because at least the pixels were smaller). But in atmosphere and playability, I'd say it was even better than Doom in places, although a lot smaller and shorter, of course.

When I finally got Doom to work on my Amiga, using a Macintosh-emulator, that was a glorious day.. I was more joyful about getting it to work than actually being able to play it, so I never had that much criticism about the game back in the day, it was just so important to get it to work. And I did enjoy the game, I must say - I thought it was amazing! And in many ways, it was.

When one of the first popular MMORPG's made itself known - World of Warcraft, I built myself a top notch PC of that

Funny, I never saw anything interesting about that. Just boring grinding, trying to make your character better, while socializing with nerds who love doing that stuff, and who probably don't have anything interesting to say. And walking in superficially polygon-'pretty' sceneries that I couldn't get any joy out of. Somehow I just didn't see how anyone could play it even for a few minutes, and when I heard that people get -addicted- to it, I knew this was definitely the wrong planet to incarnate onto.

I thought to a certain extent - 'what a waste of a great game world, and game platform'. What happened to the storytelling and adventure,

Um, storytelling is for books, movies, campfires, TV shows, films, plays, musicals, etc.

They are NOT for video games. Games are for _PLAYING_, not for watching scripted events that some wise-ass programmer conjured up for you to experience, or watching endless cutscenes before you get to DO stuff. Games are not for storytelling, get rid of that idea right now!

No rational being plays a game to get a story - they play games to _P_L_A_Y_ ___ G_A_M_E_S_.

Playing. That's what games are about. Not any friggin' TELLING, especially of stories, boring, clichéic, awful, misandristic, formulaic, politically-correct, predictable, moronic, long-winded, inane stories! If you have a good story, you don't make a GAME - you write a BOOK or make a FILM or something like that!

I see that you are part of the problem after all..

intriguing puzzles, challenges, etc.? While in many ways corny.. I thought the Longest Journey and Dreamfall was great in that respect. It was an amusing story with different interactive scenes.

Puzzles don't intrigue. They are just obstacles, an artificial way to lengthen a game, because the makers didn't want to make a longer game - just like time limits. Puzzles are not what make a game great. I see you don't even mention atmosphere!

Charlimit..
Anyway, after playing many of the tops games of today, I am asking myself - Why is every game today about shooting and killing each other? Is everyone so into that? or is it being pushed on us? Is it a type of conditioning? There is such a lack of variety in games today. I don't even like the idea of shooting and killing other people, even if it is not real. I don't get any enjoyment out of it.

intriguing puzzles, challenges, etc.? While in many ways corny.. I thought the Longest Journey and Dreamfall was great in that respect. It was an amusing story with different interactive scenes.

Challenge can sometimes be fun, but most of the time, I have noticed that people, who keep talking about 'challenge' as if it's the only thing they can ever get excited about in a game, are the kind that would never understand what I get out of video games. I actually hate challenges, I feel they are just obstacles in trying to get to the goal - it becomes ACHIEVING, it becomes GRINDING, it becomes WORK!

It becomes like you are working FOR the game (or its makers), instead of the game BRINGING YOU PLEASURE.

Instead of storytelling, puzzles and challenges, you should let the player experience and create his OWN challenge by playing the game any way he wants! In Maniac Mansion, there is a loose 'story', but you create your own adventure and exploration experience any way you want - though it still has puzzles, and some of them are really annoying, requiring running up and down, back and forth, etc. - it really lets you create your OWN adventure, not the adventure/story/etc. that the makers of the game forced upon you. Story shouldn't be something that happens to the character in the game - it should be something that happens to -you- because you do things in the game. You walked up the stairs, you opened the door, you found ...

Instead of someone just -telling- you that your character did those things, or worse yet, telling your character, that someone else did something somewhere.

An example against the 'challenge'-argument:

I bought the game "Need for Speed: High Stakes". A great, fun game, very playable with a good analog joystick - it's even better than with a wheel, because you can do incredibly fast reactions that way that would be too complicated and slow to perform any other way.

But. The game wants me to WORK for it, before I can play any track I want.

What the heck? I already PAID for the game, and yet I can't access the FULL game, before I GRIND and WORK, before I turn the FUN into WORK, before I stop PLAYING and start ACHIEVING?

I have to basically PAY AGAIN, with my work, AFTER I have already paid with money! What is that?? DIABOLIC!

Well, of course there are patches that unlock the other cars and tracks and such, but if it's my game, for crying out loud, why would I have to keep working to get those things that I should already own by having paid money for the game? Just give me all the tracks and cars I paid for, I am not going to pay AGAIN!

That's the mentality and the attitude that a player has to go through these days - either you conform to our capitalistic norms, or you don't get to have/play/see/do whatever you want with something you already paid for, your -own- stuff!

I guess they want people to get used to grinding in games, so they will have the right attitude in the office. Oh, and 'achieving', too, instead of just relaxing and being entertained.

If you think about old board games, they are not about achieving, they are about fun and games, just playing and enjoying the company you are playing with. But modern video games want you to work for them, grind this, and we will give you this shiny star, which will open this doorway to a world, where you can then collect those emeralds, that will then give you a bonus, if .. aaaarrgh! Why can't game be just GAMES?

Anyway, sorry for going off tangent again - I didn't realize how much I had to say about this, and I haven't even gotten halfway through the original poster's message..

So I guess I will skip the rest and just answer to the main point; Yes, I did ponder even after the success of Doom, that how many games actually require you to clobber, punch, destroy, kill or murder someone - or explode their spaceships or whatnot.

It's like games are about mainly two things: killing and collecting. Collect a lot like a good, capitalistic materialist, achieve, grind and then kill and destroy the nature while admiring the masonic symbols peppered throughout.

I actually felt bad about doing that in that Kirby game - I thought, "Why am I clobbering these innocent, cute beings who have not hurt me in any way? A nice nature scenery, and cutesy music, and here I am, shooting these cute things WITH A CANNON!".. it felt somehow wrong.

I don't mind kicking Yamo or Ninja in Bruce Lee(tm) (1984), but I also don't mind exploring the levels without even meeting anyone for a long time. The levels in that game are so interesting, it's like every room is its own little mini-world to explore (and the graphics provoke imagination). It doesn't need the constant conflict to be entertaining.

But just electrocuting innocent blobs in Kirby just felt wrong. I guess they want kids to also think Tazers are a normal thing.. when you open your eyes, it's shocking what you can find in an 'innocent kids' game', I tell ya..