Like, if I said I played an edgy game were you play as an edgelord that wants to kill everyone, harmless civillains included of course, would that be an accurate tell of my irl morality? Like everyone's killed someone in a video game, right? Unless you play casual or more puzzle games, if you play AAA or action games you likely have an in-game kill count in the thousands by now.
At least I do. Between GTA, Hatred, Manhaunt, Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas and so on, I probably killed millions of in-game people. And honestly, I don't have any real, moral disagreements with that. Right, like, we all know those pixels aren't real people. Benny from New Vegas doesn't actually have a life. He doesn't go home everyday to a wife and kids and rant about how annoying work was or anything like that.
So, why was it a thing to say that in-game actions can be linked to human morality. Like, I am not talking about obscure hentai games with actual CSAM, I mean edgy games like THe Darkness or Hatred. You see, one is a crime the other is edgelord bullshit that I live of off.
Here's some examples of games labled as morally bad by virture of being a game with violence, sex, or something else. GTA francise, Hatred, Manhunt, Postal, Hotline Maiami, Doki Doki Literture Club, Bioshock Infinate and Fear and Hunger. Now, some of these games have vaild critism, mainly Fear and Hunger being a bit more edger and grimdark than was needed but it was based on Beserk. But most of these have people only criticing the content.
Case in point, DDLC. Some people complained that DDLC promotied, sucide. Which, it didn't. It did the opposite. Showing Sayori as an full fledged person, who has an actual life outside of being depressed. Plus, her death hits really hard.
Or postal. And I'll talk about Postal 2, mostly 'cause that's the one I played. You don't acrually have to kill anyone. And since the combat sucks ass, it kinda doesn't glorify killing. And trust me, I'd know, I've played all manner of games with combat and killing mechanics.
Hotline walks a slightly thinner line. Action is gory and honestly fast-paced fun. Nothing hits like clearing a full room without dying first. But the game also makes it clear that this is a horrible thing you're doing, with it forcing you to walk back through the mess to get to your car. And the PC is clearly not the most morally perfect person, yes he kills bad guys but it's part of the plot whether that's for justice or the sick joy of it.
Manhunt was made as a sort of a dig back at puritains while also having a mild look into the odd curiosity and fasination around gore, with the main bad guy being a smut film producer. I would say this game and Hatred lean less on "it's uh... deep actually" half.
Hatred. I have no defense for Hatred. You start the game hearing a nilistic rant by some sod who calls himself "Not Important" or whatever, he uh... he's a murderer who gets off on torturing people and gains health when you do an exicution of a downed injuried person. This is more along the lines of glorifing brutality.
I haven't played Fear and Hunger, so I won't talk much on it.
But I do find it curious. To an extent I can see certain fictional actions or beliefs been seen as morally wrong. Like if they read Redo of Healer and firmly believe that mc was just misunderstood, I'd have some questions, but if you told me you shot up a place in Postal or played Hatred, I don't think I'd have the same response.
Like, look. Criticing this stuff is understandable, but there's a fine line between that and saying Ready or Not is too violent for depicting a drug overdose or gun violence. It is the games premise to be a cop and that's part of the job. Now, if you were complaining that they handle it poorly, that's a completely different arugement and actually valid.
Sadly, some art is just going to be something someone doesn't like. I don't enjoy reading Yaoi, it's not my cup of tea, but people which do enjoy reading yaoi still like it. And if your story absolutely needs something, handles it well and respectfuly, it should be allowed to use that. If you game, handles something like self harm properly, I think it should be allowed to use that in it.
Video games like Ultrakill don't touch on the morality of violence as bluntly. It is a theme but somewhat through the lense of hell which finds violence, beautiful. Although some settings, violence layer for example, show the sheer distruction humanity brought upon itself with war. But to an extent Ultrakill still makes combat kinda fun, so is it a bad example as it could be aruged that it glorifies violence?
I do think there's a massive difference between irl actions and digitial in-game actions. I've played a literal vampire mass murderer in VTM Bloodlines, but I don't think that means I would do that in real life. I understand that Vanny, the vampire in question, isn't me and I'm not her. And her actions, while in charactor for her, is not morally upstanding. Or like, I've played and elf in Dragon Age Origins and she was an elf supermist because elves where being mistreated by humans, does that mean I'm racist all of a sudden in real life? Am I? If so, why shouldn't other crimes count, like drug use, canniblism or murder. I guess another question is roleplay acceptable to behave in-character for the plot. Like, if your playing a ttrpg or video game as say, a vampiric serial killer, does that mean you in-game or roleplay actions are inhernetly your inter beliefs and self?
The usual argument that I see is that games desenstise you to real world horror, to which I say, games are not unique in that case. News, books and old aunties telling you what they heard a friend heard about a real world crime should also count as desenstisation. Yes, video games require your input, but other mediums offers other, somethings more vivid, feedback. Like if I described gore in text form to you, it would likely be more vivid than most games. So, why are we singling out video games? All media should be mass censored than, including books which give deeper sensory feedback and requires the reader to actively turn the page.