I love violence in games. Perhaps my favorite recent purchase is Nation Red and the entire point of that game is massacring thousands of zombies in the most gory ways imaginable. It is impossible to finish a session without the ground looking as though it had been clusterbombed with hundreds of cans of red paint. Most of my favorite games, going back to Doom and Mortal Kombat, have been showcases of the most extreme violence of their day.

On the other hand, the violence that I relish is over-the-top, excessive, absurdist to the extreme. Fragged characters in Quake explode into red gibs, characters in Chivalry spurt blood like something out of a Shaw Bros. film, killing certain enemies with a pistol in Doom results in someone exploding like a water balloon filled with Red Dye #6. There is no way to take this seriously, it's like thinking that Alice Cooper would lead kids down a path of satanism. It is the exact opposite of realism, it's pure absurdism.

On the other hand, take a look at Tomb Raider. Part of the hype of that game was the numerous realistic ways Lara Croft could be killed. I remember the quantity of videos that were released on Youtube after launch, slideshows of death. I'm not a sensitive man, but the concept left me a bit queasy. It was... pormographic, is probably the best way I can put it, awkward, like walking in on your favorite uncle pleasuring himself to a snuff film. This feeling was further enhanced by the fact that Lara Croft is arguably the most prominent female character in gaming, and has been the target of gamers' baser impulses, producing, for one, gaming's most legendary nvde patch.

From Tomb Raider to Call of Duty to Manhunt, there seems to be this movement towards creating "disturbing" violence, shocking violence, realistic violence, as opposed to the cartoonish, Kung-Fu-Movie violence of days past. Rather than the goofiness of Duke Nukem and Nation Red, here we see realism and grit, and I can't say it sits too well with me. It's violence without a sense of humor.

What are your thoughts on the matter?

I tend to agree. I enjoy fighting and the violence that entails. But, like you, I find it all quite unrealistic.

I do not think I could play a game that had realistic graphics and realistic death. That would be "too close to home" for my tastes

i don't think so, although violence itself is not an appeal to me. im more interested in games that allow me to shape the outcome of the story or how the world appears.

I'd say it's really no worse now then it's ever been. The only real difference is we have better graphics now so it looks more realistic.

Still, I dont think kids and general populace are being subjected to more realistic violence than any other generation.
Back in the day families used to take their kids out to see criminals get beheaded or hung in the town square as entertainment - and those were real people being killed right in front of your face.

Personally I don't mind excessive violence in video games. I mean I don't really care one way or the other when it comes to that, all that matters is if I'm having fun. I enjoy going on massacres in grand theft auto and taking out as many people as I can for no particular reason, as well as I enjoy getting the best yield out of my crops in harvest moon and creating a kickass farm.

If people want to have excessive violence in their games, I say let them. If it's really that big of an issue then the market will reflect that and those types of things won't sustain themselves and go away naturally.

Well, my first thought is, does a video game have to have violence in it to be any good? That's another question for another thread really.

My second thought is, gratuitous is gratuitous. Whether it is violence or six or snarky comments, something put into a game, or any entertainment medium for that matter, just for it's own sake comes off as cheap and contrived. Even if initially cool. The Bloody Mess Perk from the Fallout Games for example, it's cool the first couple of times, then it just gets old after a while. If I attack and the NPC goes down in a heap, it's enough for me, I don't need the gore and guts flying all over the place to punctuate the experience.

My third thought is, it's not so much the violence, but the morality of the violence that is the big question. Who are we killing and why? Is it just for lolz then it's kind of pointless, if it's zombies or some other evil entity/organism, then it's OK. Watch Dogs for instance has innocents killed just because they get in the way of the fights the protagonist gets into, but there is no repurcussion or moral dilemma from those actions. Cops are certainly not going to do anything about it in the game. But, bystanders are going to get killed when playing this game and is that something a hero is really going to do?

You know, I want to say yes, but it's more complex.

I feel that most teen-advlt games (Since these ratings have the most violence) have become so reliant on violence to sell these games that they need to keep pushing to a new standard of violence to keep the market fresh. So for those of us growing up to more benign cartoony violence, this shift into ultra-realism or just absurd grindhouse style violence is a new boundary games have been pushed to because we as a society have come to demand more violence from video games. This isn't saying anything NEGATIVE about violent games, but more that our culture of media has become so ingrained with gun violence, sword slashing violence or fist fights that it's almost inextricably bound up in every form of media today so it's always shifting to appeal to that audience who indulges exclusively in violence.

But reliance on violence in video games is like movies that rely on CGI to tell a story. It gets cheap after a while and it no longer draws people in.

Excessive violence is usually just comical, like in the movie Braindead by Peter Jackson. For most games the violence is just there like it's nothing special, and you as a player doesn't really react on it either.

I wish more game violence was like in the Yakuza series by SEGA, it's pretty brutal and cringeworthy, and yet exciting rather than disturbing. They really nailed it.

As someone else alluded to if it does become excessive purchasing patterns will reflect that and the problem will be resolved naturally.

But even in the most obscenely gory games like Mortal Kombat for example I don't think gore is a vital part of the game but it's often considered as a nice additive, I think MK would be just as good a game to play without fatalities but if you took them away it would lose something even though it's not integral to the gameplay.

I think it depends in context as well, there's one part in the walking dead season two that I really squirmed at

it really shook me up for a few minutes but I never felt like it was excessively gory or that games had wet too far,it rather used something gory to punctuate a moment and certain emotions.

For me when violence can be considered excessive is when it almost seems cheesy, one of the few qualms I have with Breaking Bad is when

it felt over the top or cheesy.

This will obviously apply to games but I can't think of a game off the top of my sleep deprived head.

Egh I disagree, violence for better or worse has became habitual in video games.

Almost everything from super mario, wasteland 2, Call of duty (seriously that has too much staying power commercially) or GTA etc has some form of violence.

Violence in a lot of games is core pillar of the experience from the rpg, fps, rts and so on hell even card games like yugioh or might and magic suggest violence.

Unless I'm missing your point?

No, I agree wholeheartedly. I'll take a game with moderate/minimal violence with good storytelling over gratuitous violence with a poorly cut and pasted story.

Violence has always been entertaining. New technologies create new ways to tell violent stories.

Games, especially the violent ones, are more commonly made for advlts now. Pretty much nothing is going to disturb or shock our gaming sensibilities because we understand it as a fantasy, not reality... In other words, a mature audience wants mature and/or outrageous games to thrill us.

So in that case, no I do not think it's too excessive if it fits into a game for advlts. The same way that violent action and horror movies have existed.

That question has been asked since at least the 80's.

My take is that some games do need the extreme violence if it is done right. If the game deals with a violent age of our past than I expect it to be quite violent like storming the beaches of Normandy in WWII that was a blood bath on both sides but more on the Allies storming the beach.

If it is just violence for the sack of violence then I agree. I have not played any of the GTA games since I feel that glorifies violence for the sack of violence. Yes being a gang member can be a violent life but I do not think it is that extreme without being put in jail or being killed

It depends all on the game. When we're dealing with games for which over-the-top violence has always been an important facet, such as the Doom and Fallout games, or games that approach the violence levels realistically (often in settings were excessive violence is the norm), I'm fine with that and even enjoy playing such games. But I do think that there are many games, such as Dragon Age II and Dungeon Siege II, where I think the excessive violence and gore just feels tacked on and unnecessary.

Not really.. I love unrealistic violence that'd you see in something like team fortress 2 and I like the violence with a story and a message behind it that is seen in something like MGSV?

My only experience with graphic violence has been with Fallout 3 and Skyrim. The gore and decapitations in those games are too excessive for my taste. I wouldn't want more. If a developer goes farther than what is shown in those games I want to be able to toggle it off.

This is true. The Iliad is full of lovingly-detailed descriptions of violence and death. Homer excels in finding new ways to describe warriors being hacked and maimed and skewered. Audiences and readers back then must have enjoyed violence as much as audiences and readers today.

I'm not sensitive to such things so I like realistic violence in the right context, the over the top ridiculous kind you prefer or the excessive kind to sell the idea is lame imo. I think the torture mini-game from GTA V was close to my cup of tea, it was brutal without being excessive and had some dark humor mixed in. It's especially lame when they have the violence in games then try to censor it or obscure it as they did with the Punisher game or Manhunt 2 with the special kill moments in both games.

I say if it's rated M for mature then it should have mature, realistic content within the right context of the game...this applies to six and drugs as well which get less play then violence due to a silly sensitivity to the naked female form.

No

The medias scape goat witch hunt of blaming gaming for societies problems is however very excessive

That's about my stance on it also. I think there is a major difference in the form in which violence is conveyed to the audience, something like the Iliad relies upon the readers own imagination about what the violence would be like where as in video games it's moving to wards almost life like realism.

I've seen the results of a woman who had been hit by a dump truck on Pennant Hills Rd. Sydney. You would never want that portrayed realistically in a video game, it took a full day for me to get over the sight and it's nothing you could ever imagine in your mind.

You can thank Hilary Clinton for the obscure scenes in Manhunt 2. The game got like a 6 month delay because she was on a crusade against it and they had to put in those blurred things over the kill scenes to even be able to release the game in the United States.

smh at least she didn't make it into the oval office, she would probably push to ban M rated games completely like Australia (or something like that).