A friend of mine recently suggested I watch a video of "The Last of Us". I agreed to watch the first 15 minutes. I got through 10 before I said "no more". I was frankly quite disturbed by the language coming out of the characters' mouths. I also was disturbed by the violence, but it didn't seem inappropriate to me at the time (it raised important questions, although I think the portrayal was too strong). I saw great potential in this game, but I felt that the devs wasted it by using "filler" language and heavy violence, among other things. Why can't we just have a silly, clean game with zombies? (Plants vs. Zombies, anyone?) It is concerning, at least, to me how much language and violence is placed in video games these days for its own sake or to hook the consumers. I have heard that violence is easier to implement than other mechanics in video games. I do not believe this is always true. For example, look at a game like Pushmo or Crashmo. Think of how simple it must have been to make the mechanics of that game! Yet it is among the most critically-acclaimed puzzle series of all time. Also, filling something with bad language for its own sake is usually lazy and deplorable, in my opinion. If one takes great effort and care with a product, they may make something that may inspire and uplift someone to great degrees! Think of a song or a movie that inspired you to go make a difference, made you happy, and gave real, clear examples that you could easily apply in your own life. Can you remember many video games that have done the same? Compare how many that have done such with those that have not. I believe you will find the results to be surprising.

I am not necessarily stating that all violence and language in video games is bad. I certainly don’t think so, especially when portrayed in a silly, appropriate context. What I think is most important is how the gamer feels while playing the game. I think that is perhaps the ultimate question anyone should ask: "How do I feel?". It all comes down to the true, warm feelings one has. But while I do believe that whether or not a video game is good for one is completely dependent on those feelings, I do separate that from belief, or what one may claim to be belief. One may believe or claim something is good for them, while in fact, it is poisoning them by degrees, causing them to seek out more crass or inappropriate things. One may know that the Sun exists (one's true feelings), but deny that it is there (one's "belief").

I challenge everyone to be careful what they select. Play more games with family and friends (but don't worry too much about whether or not you play them alone. Do it when you need to! I KNOW how it feels when you're home, stressed, and need something to rejuvenate you and get you back on your feet). Discuss what is going on in the game. Joke around. Have fun! Make memories that will last forever, and not just an instant. Is it difficult? Yup. Is it worth it? Double yup.

NOTE: To avoid potential heated debate/flame wars, I'm going to leave this post up, but will avoid commenting on it directly too much/at all, unless necessary. Please be careful with any criticisms you have, since I want any debate here to be friendly and open. I welcome your comments, and would like to hear your opinions!

Have you ever played GTA V? Lots of swearing there too, but most kids (well, boys) love 'em. 

Anyway, I also find it disturbing if somebody curses a lot, whether it is in a videogame or in real life, but some games are just that way. If all games would be like that it would be horrible, but luckily not all games are. Sure, videogames don't need cursing, but sometimes that's part of the atmosphere in a game.

Whether it's GTA, The Last of Us, Bayonetta 2 (and 1) or any other game that features violence and language, whether you like it or not, they're here to stay. The violence and cursing honestly doesn't bother me much, though I would never talk or act like that in real life or on the internet. Now as far as some kids go, I can't say the same about them. My main problem is when people under 18 are playing M rated games. When I have kids I'll never let them play any of those kinds of games. If someone is 18 or older though, who are we to judge what they play as long as they aren't going to go out and hurt someone in real life?

In some cases, If the language goes away, so do the gamers. A lot of kids shows actually have "Dirty" References, so almost anywhere you go these days, you will not find 1 game with clean language or no references, unless if you count the learning games 2-4 year olds play.

supernerd117 :

Video games and morals, Ah yes, that topic. . .


I've thought about this time and time again, and ultimately, I had to look at a number of things going on in a game.


But in the end, it can pretty much be summed up as not the content of a game, but 2 things about the content in question.

1.- How is the content portrayed?

2.- How does this affect you and the minds of others?



Stealing is wrong!

Does this game allow stealing?

Wow, that's bad! Don't play it!

Oh, wait, this is Link's Awakening. Hmmm, seems the game teaches AGAINST stealing, (if not in an uncartoony fashion, but hey, Mario Sunshine taught kids that gang grafitti ain't cool either. )



Villains do many evil things in games, but if the game shows us these thing as Negative, then that's good. It's portraying truth instead of Lawlessness.


Now, to address the two issues you brought up.



Cursing.

And Uneccesary Violence.



Cursing I don't always find myself in line with Christians on, I do my best to heed the Torah as Yeshua taught, however, I have no problems with an occasional Hyperbole.

When I look at cursing. (outside of sexual words) All I see is a hyperbole really, and that can be used to make a point.

Now, using it as a common adjective is just gross and makes it lose effect.

But if you really need to make a point, (like I need to tell some of the people who I work with I don't want them talking about damn pornography when I'm around them.) I'll use it.

And it works!

Not only did I call porn exactly what it is. (Damned alright!) They took me seriously. . . . . for about 4 hours- theeeennnn they started up again. (But one of the people involved warned to others when I started walking up to them!)


The "Curse" Words I don't mind, are "Damn" and "Hell" If used sparingly, and appropriately. Just don't use them a lot and you'll be fine.

Now, I would say, "It depends on why they put the curse words in the game." Before I judge them, however, I would also like to remind people that video games also tend to avoid the more enjoyable things in life, such as using the restroom.

I'm glad using the toilet in first person is not a common feature in "Realistic" games.

Curse words may be realistic, but, like using the toilet, it's not always necessary to use to make it a better game.




And, for violence.

Violence should be portrayed for self defense, and for judgement on those who do evil. (like selling drugs).


Well, I'm out of time, but I'd love to cover this further later.

I mean, I don't like GTA, and I mostly play cartoony platformers, since that is my favourite genre. But I really don't mind that much, I never play FPS'. But if you do, I have no problem with it.

I feel the games of today nowadays have a lot of swearing in it. I mean I used to play gta 3 and sandres. They didn't have much of that in there so I was ok to play it. But of today...I am not so comfortable. Which is why I only stick to playing games I am happy with.

Okay. . . now to cover the violence side of things.


I don't have a problem with violence, or even very large amounts of it. However, I dislike it, when it's like the game is trying to get you to enjoy watching the suffering of enemies.

An example?

Yes.

The Force Unleashed.

I'm sorry people but I did NOT like the violence in this game. The stormtroopers, rebels, and others all act more like babies then men at times. Even begging you with the phrase. "please, no" if you catch them in a force grip.

You shock them with electricity, and they let out these horrible screams, and in the first game, if killed using electricity, they gitter around like dead chickens.

This is horrible!

I don't like making my enemies suffer. Killing troops who may not have even had a choice to join the empire, I don't think have deserved such a painful death.

Yes, I know war is war. And it's ugly.

But in this game, I think that they went over the top with it.

Star Wars Battlefront II was funny.

Funny to play, funny to watch.

It was still serious, and still Star Wars, but it didn't have the "Suffering" aspect involved in the death of enemies. When you kill a rebel, or stormtrooper, they just drop. Or go flying if you use an explosive, but they do so many cartwheels in the air that it's just funny. Plus the yells. Those yells don't sound like a person suffering, they sound like the Indiana Jones, Star Wars "AAAuuUUUUHHH" Yells that were used to from George Lucas's awesome plots.


I don't play war, or battle games because I like death, but rather for the strategy. Star Wars Battlefront II was one way I could emulate that, and have tons of fun with the family.

Force Unleashed, though a good game from what I could tell watching my little brother play it, missed the spirit of Star Wars in that manner.

Though everything else in the game seems good.

In case no one was paying attention, humans are a violent bunch of animals.  We're bred to eat protein and hunt animals and kill them.  If you're one who believes science over religious texts, early humans took on Cro-Magnon man and outperformed him because humans figured out how to swing clubs more efficiently.

"Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor." - Robert Heinlein.

He's right.  War and violence get our attention, they are necessary in survival situations and the game you watched is a fair representation of that sort of event.

I watched the video.  I went on youtube and checked it out.  To me, it was realistic.  People are in high stress situations and research shows profanity helps deal with stress.  Of course they're cursing.  If all that was happening, I may let the f word fly myself.

This game was designed for 30 something year old males who want violence and who want to shoot zombies and other people.  If you want a gentle zombie game, it's called Plants vs. Zombies as you pointed out.

There's nothing pleasant or nice about zombies.  They eat humans.  Why would anyone want a game around that which is nice and pleasant is beyond me.  

Luckily you, Supernerd, can hit the "I'm done" button and be done with it.  I'll play the game.  And we'll all be happy with our decisions.

Sword legion :

I can't clock in entirely on The Force Unleashed, nor can I say that all people would feel the same about Plants vs. Zombies. But I do agree that there are general principles that can help guide people to good entertainment. I prefer games that don't have graphic violence, and I'm more often finding that I'm choosing to forego violence entirely, and have deleted a lot of games that made me feel uncomfortable in the past. I will never play GTA, or anything like unto it, because I have set guidelines about what I will play, and GTA does not fit those guidelines. Neither does Saints Row. Or Payday. But I won't put down anyone who chooses to play those games. They might have their reasons. I also have considered playing these games in the past. I certainly don't have the right to judge them, although I definitely do not want to be around when they're playing those games.

Going into my beliefs a bit (but hopefully, I'm not being overbearing): A certain commandment in our church is to not participate in anything "immoral, vulgar, violent or pornographic in any way" (For the Strength of Youth, "Entertainment and the Media"). Is it a high standard? Yep. Do I always need to meet it? I believe so...in a sense. But what may be called these things? Would I call The Lord of The Rings violent? The movies, certainly; contain a large (imo) amount of violence. But what of the core message running throughout them? Is it presented adequately?

But yeah, despite all this hubbub I've just mentioned (Yup, I ramble on), I do believe it just comes down to how you feel. Everything is centered around that. And if, at the end of the day, you can stand before God Himself and say, "I did a good job. I'm thankful that Thou let me do it.", then I'd say you did pretty good.

One final note: I REALLY enjoyed "Big Hero 6". There is a movie I want to see again. There was violence in the movie, but the message was highly anti-violent. That is perhaps the very poster boy of how to include violence in movies. Although it was very predictable, I didn't mind it. Perhaps it was even better because of it.

supernerd117 :

All I care about is the truth.

From there, I try and look at each person and see how they've been raised, ect in deciding how much I would respect their ideas.

As for games, strict standards are not always bad. I pretty much won't watch anime because almost all of it has soft porn somewhere down the lines. Blast it.


As for violence. I'm really fine with it. In media, it can be a means to educate rather than just entertain.

Watching what happened to the bad guys in those Biblical cartoons growing up really did it for me. I didn't want to end up on the wrong side. And if we really want to keep immoral acts outside of video games, ect, that means you can't even have bad guys appear in them. Taken these two things is how I came to the conclusion. "It is not the acts within the game, but rather HOW the acts are portrayed, and how the content effects me" that I went by.

BTW, I won't play GTA either, or Payday.

Oh man, you have brought up a topic that both enrages me and sparks a great urge to speak out like no other game related topic.

I couldn't agree with you more on probably 90% of your opening post. In fact I feel so strongly about it that I actually started a game development team with some friends in order to see to it that more games would be made that lack said content! And while there were a few reasons behind the formation of the game dev team, that was one of the biggest motivations.


Swearing: why? Who has ever, EVER walked away from a game and said "That was a good game, but it would have been so much better if there had been some swearing in it"? Likely no one, and if there ever has been someone who said so it was probably a kid trying to get away with something while mom and dad weren't watching. Now compare those numbers (likely 0) to the number of people who have walked away from a game or even refused to buy it because it had so much swearing in it. I'll guarantee that a game like the last of us loses thousands of sales simply because a lot of parents don't want their children to hear that language, or people like us are just too conservative to ignore it.

So let's see, you can make an extra $120,000 per title by leaving out swearing (assuming 2,000 lost sales at $60), but you choose not to? And you went to college to learn what exactly?? And I wouldn't be surprised if they lose upwards of six thousand sales honestly.

On a more serious note, why do they think we need swearing in a game at all? So the average Joe would blurt out an expletive if he saw a zombie, why do we think the game character HAS TO swear as well? I faced the same issue with The Last of Us. I saw the opening story and fell in love with the game...then the gameplay started rolling...
Twenty "F-bombs" in sixty seconds? And this makes the game better how? It doesn't. In fact it forces countless people to stop playing a game they truly loved. Same with nudity...why? Just...why?

Finally, if we MUST have swearing, include a language filter like WWF Attitude did. If they can do it on the N64, they could easily do it on the PS3/PS4 or XBox 360/XBox One. It just shows us that so many devs don't care about what consumers want or think. Sad, really.


Violence is a different story. Depending on how violence is handled, I think it's okay. For example the violence I saw in what little I saw of TLoU was fine since it was realistic and made sense. Mortal Kombat violence on the other hand is just violence and gore for the sake of violence and gore. Nonsencical violence is a definite turn off with me when it comes to playing any game.

Overall, you have a very valid question here that I sincerely wish game developers could see. It would greatly improve the industry if they followed your advice.

Sword legion :

Perhaps you're onto something. I guess I tend to focus too little on the truth in games, and focus too much on what they are portraying or how it's portrayed. As you've seen, my opinions have been strong. But they may not be perfectly right. Although it was not the original intent of this post, I've gained food for thought.

I'm going to try your suggestion, to focus on the truth and see how I feel. I will see how that works out.

Eirinn :

I think there are a surprising number of people today that would say "This would be better with more language, violence, porn, etc.". I frequent Reddit, and what I have seen has at times shocked me.

In my opinion, a good percent of the population have come to expect worse things from video games. Some embrace it. Some accept it. Others are revolted by it, but feel they cannot do anything about it. Judging from the rating descriptions given, Call of Duty started out without much/any language. But today, it is difficult to find a recent M-rated title with not just no language, but with no strong language. There are few exceptions, such as a recent Ace Attorney game, the first in the series to be rated "M". It did have some language in it. But I felt it was entirely appropriate in context. A good number of reviewers said it did not deserve this rating.

Why is there not only more language, but also more significantly inappropriate language (as judged by the ESRB) if it does not sell games? I think people are more likely to dismiss titles without such language as "immature" and "not for them".

But I can't prove any of this, of course. This is the way I feel.

I personally have never had a game offend me, and I have played Grand Theft Auto, Manhunt, Postal 2, Carmageddon, Soldier of Fortune, and so on. I know it's not real, even as violent as games can get, and as for language. I myself use bad language a lot, not in public out loud, but I have dropped many F bombs, and all of that in my time. So the language has never offended me either. Do some games go overboard with it? Sure, but I don't think censoring should be done.

Personally I don't mind if characters swear like sailors if it suits the characters, but even if the curse words don't fit the characters I wouldn't get offended by it. Mature games go for mature content the same way mature films also display vulgarity, violence and content that some people could see as obscene. Could you imagine The Godfather trilogy to be shown as light-hearted as say Madagascar, a family friendly animated comedy? I doubt it.

I haven't played or watched The Last of Us, but from what I've gathered they've wanted to go for the gritty, mature end of the world. I think it's good that developers make different types of games for different audiences. I think the world would be much poorer if everyone opted for the same type of entertainment and there wouldn't be variety. So it's good to have The Last of Us, Dead Rising, Resident Evil, Plants vs Zombies, and whatever other zombies games you could think of, since now we truly have choice on what kind of a zombie adventure do we choose to embark on.