Mental Illness As The Villian In Games Needs To Stop

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Having run out of all other things to bitch about in video games, this article takes aim at the over use of "mental illness" as the villain in video games. C'mon, it's not all bad. Isaac Clarke was batsh*t crazy and look what he did for the Dead Space franchise. :D

Developers perpetuate the societal disparity that breeds harmful stigma when they resort to generic, undefined, almost pseudo-mystical "insanity." It’s a brush-off and a hand-wave, painting mental illness as a magical black box we can neither see into nor ever hope to understand, rather than as a condition that real human people with brains and feelings and mortgages live with on a daily basis. There are few things that more clearly draw an "us and them" line in the sand.
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Because most video games go so in-depth in their story-line; practically everything is a "black-box".

Hell, I'd welcome a well done game with a complex enough plot and storyline to further delve into the subject.
 
Man, they sure do find a way to bitch, piss, and moan about anything related to video games.


mullet said:
They should make a game called "Nanny State".
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There already is. Is been out for a little while now. I think it was a crowdfunded project that got released in 2008, then rev2 came out in 2012.
 
Why bitch only about video games? At least games are interactive.

Let's point a finger at MOVIES that do the same thing.

You know, awesome writing that provides that "humanity to both sides of a conflict" thing is great. And when it is done right a story can really be something special. But "insanity" can be a highly entertaining concept also when done well.

Who cares if it is highly entertaining?
 
i think it's just a bullshit excuse for someone to get their quota on articles done. people should just take games for what they are... games! noone asks if kicking a ball in real life is a vehicle to deal with some suppressed sexual problem they are afraid to deal with (well, Freud would). it's a freakin game!
 
It is clear that the author hasn't read H P Lovecraft since that is where the insanity in horror games came from ... Although we have to be cautious of games that are totally degrading (a death camp simulator for example) , most of the time a game is just a game ... And I dislike the moving bar on literature that makes Lovecraft and huckleberry Finn unacceptable because they don't fit our new politically correct sensibilities
 
Don't you hate it when a game journalist writes an "opinion" piece, and everything in the article, including the title, is said matter-of-factly.
 
Didn't read alot of Lovecraft, but I read the hell out of everything from Robert E. Howard I could get my hands on. He mentioned Lovercraft a few times he did.

Must have been a little professional hat tipping thing :D
 
Are you as tired of subpar journalism as i am?
Attention grabbing opinion pieces that paint with broad brushs (more women in x, less sex in y are the typical headliners) fail hard when it comes to actually presenting new paths, or examining why things are this way. They just complain that thing are x or y, without truly understandin why its x or y and how to delve deeper into a concept or subject. Gotta love 'ADD'
 
The stigma in society in general surrounding mental illness needs to stop.
 
You know, if there were no mentally ill individuals in games, the industry of journalism would be in an outcry.
But instead, we have mentally ill individuals in games, and the industry of journalism is in an outcry.

Patrick Lindsey: Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one, and apparently, you just happen to be one. :D
 
MavericK96 said:
The stigma in society in general surrounding mental illness needs to stop.
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Careful, it seems all the posters so far are super humans and above people who have problems with mental illness. I've yet to met a larger group of people where privilege seep out of. Though that is a problem I have found to be wide spread among enthusiast sites.
It is a real turn off. I end up visiting less and less because the groupie of straight, well-off, able bodied/minded, white men is a hostile one
 
You are right, we need more straight white male self centered narcissists in games!
99% coverage of the medium is not enough!
 
Advil said:
Why bitch only about video games? At least games are interactive.

Let's point a finger at MOVIES that do the same thing.

You know, awesome writing that provides that "humanity to both sides of a conflict" thing is great. And when it is done right a story can really be something special. But "insanity" can be a highly entertaining concept also when done well.

Who cares if it is highly entertaining?
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There is no medical form of insanity.
Lack of education on mental illness is rampant around these parts it seems
 
Personally I find having a villain that isn't simply bad or good, but the story shows things from both perspectives and doesn't make him simply "evil" for the sake of being "evil" is far more interesting then this, where the villain is just "crazy" and bad for the sake of......being bad, it takes so little thought and is far less interesting.
 
gabhpr said:
There is no medical form of insanity.
Lack of education on mental illness is rampant around these parts it seems
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Yeah, though as you pointed out, not that many around here are interested in educating themselves and would rather just spew nonsense, heh.

My girlfriend works in mental health so I have a lot more exposure to facts than most probably do.
 
What about in (movie/film)s, tel(ly/evision)/TV s(how/erie)s, books, etc.? They have the same problem too! ;)
 
gabhpr said:
There is no medical form of insanity.
Lack of education on mental illness is rampant around these parts it seems
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Maybe that's why he put "insanity" in quotes.

Lack of education about mental illness is rampant everywhere, in every culture across the whole world. That doesn't mean games shouldn't use it as a plot point or story device. Maybe the lead dev is expressing his own experience with the subject through the game.
 
Advil said:
Why bitch only about video games? At least games are interactive.

Let's point a finger at MOVIES that do the same thing.

You know, awesome writing that provides that "humanity to both sides of a conflict" thing is great. And when it is done right a story can really be something special. But "insanity" can be a highly entertaining concept also when done well.

Who cares if it is highly entertaining?
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It's true that pretty much every medium guilty of using this same horror trope, but polygon is a games website and it makes sense for them to focus on that medium.

The with the trope itself is that it re-enforces the negative stigma that is generally associated with many forms of mental illness.

@Red Falcon Are you honestly implying that commonly portraying mental illness as a driving force for violent (and subsequently bad guy) behaviour is a fair representation of the people who suffer from it? The complaint is that it's a commonly used negative trope, it's an under representation in and of itself.

That like proclaiming that people should be fine with every black dude in a video game acting like the crows in Dumbo rather than not having black characters at all.
 
MavericK96 said:
Yeah, though as you pointed out, not that many around here are interested in educating themselves and would rather just spew nonsense, heh.

My girlfriend works in mental health so I have a lot more exposure to facts than most probably do.
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If I want to be educated, I'll go to school, I want to be entertained, that's why I'm playing a game and not going to college.
 
What the author fails to understand is that game writing on average is such shit that the ones focusing on mental illness are often the cream of the crop and have far more substance than typical ones.

I call bullshit on mental illness being "gaming's favorite villain." I'd say its favorite villain is either your "bwa ha ha" Snidley Whiplash evil-doer or else just straight up monsters, aliens, robots, etc.
 
lcpiper said:
Didn't read alot of Lovecraft, but I read the hell out of everything from Robert E. Howard I could get my hands on. He mentioned Lovercraft a few times he did.

Must have been a little professional hat tipping thing :D
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Actually Robert E Howard was friends with Lovecraft and they corresponded for years ... When Howard committed suicide it devastated Lovecraft and Clark Ashton smith ... I am also a big Howard fan and am very happy he is finally getting more critical admiration now
 
SRTie4k said:
You win the logical fallacy awards show tonight!

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/appeal-to-authority
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Maybe you should read the rest of that page before brainlessly posting these links:

t's important to note that this fallacy should not be used to dismiss the claims of experts, or scientific consensus. Appeals to authority are not valid arguments, but nor is it reasonable to disregard the claims of experts who have a demonstrated depth of knowledge unless one has a similar level of understanding and/or access to empirical evidence.
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I think I will trust the opinion of someone who has a degree and several years of actual experience with this sort of thing over some internet armchair psychologist. That's all I'm saying.
 
James Holmes, Adam Lanza, Morgan Geyser, Andrew Goldstein, Ed Gein. All killers, all mentally ill. Definitely a miniscule subset of those who are mentally ill, and not representative of the mentally ill. Just as the majority of world leaders do not foment insurrection in their neighbors, and provide weapons and fighters for the purpose of confiscating territory. Just as it is a very small minority of Muslims that perpetrate terrorist attacks.

Video games need villains, and those villains need a motivation.
 
gabhpr said:
There is no medical form of insanity.
Lack of education on mental illness is rampant around these parts it seems
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Although you're right in a certain respect, it is a rather vague and pedantic argument; "insanity" is a legal term.
 
Games like ReLoaded and Manhunt2 must really drive this guy... crazy.
Heroes, Villains... Ultra Violence... whatever... WoW - whats the difference anymore?

These are video games... Games are Fantasy... not Reality -check.
Video games are Rated for those who should have the Mental capacity to understand the difference between Fantasy and Reality.

I do agree that stigmatizing, marginalizing or dehumanizing any small segment of the challenged segments of our society is wrong.
 
>Click and open link
>Polygon
>Closed it fucking instantly

No fucking way am I even bothering, Polygon SJW's so hard they even make Tumblr look at them and go "Too far man.....too far...."
 
DejaWiz said:
Man, they sure do find a way to bitch, piss, and moan about anything related to video games.




There already is. Is been out for a little while now. I think it was a crowdfunded project that got released in 2008, then rev2 came out in 2012.
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I see what you did there.
 
ShamisOMally said:
>Click and open link
>Polygon
>Closed it fucking instantly

No fucking way am I even bothering, Polygon SJW's so hard they even make Tumblr look at them and go "Too far man.....too far...."
Click to expand...
Let me guess.... You be an angry white male. Privileged people complaining about SJW really piss me off like nothing else.
 
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