Combat and killing - the nature of video games, or just human nature?

Human nature. Some of us use these gadgets and distractions to try to hide what we really are. Wolves in sheep clothing.
 
There are a good number of games which don't center around combat. The racing genre is pretty sizable. Microsoft's Flight Simulator series was also very popular, to the point that the many years old FSX still has 3rd party developers releasing high dollar expansions. But it is true, most games do involve some fighting, even if unrealistic. Take Mario games for instance. I wonder what the actual percentage of combat VS non-combat games are.

I also think it is largely because combat can be fun in a video game, while offering something different from our everyday lives.
 
Games not focused around combat and killings are actually rather prevalent and much more popular than you might be under the impression of.

Your premise is also too singular, narrow, and simple to apply to such a complex system. There is certainly a multitude of factors that contribute to why game design have to evolved to its current state as well why a game would be designed a certain.

Even if you look at games, typically action genre, where combat is the main focus the actual degree of violence being depicted can vary greatly. For example say Battlefield 4, the actual depiction of violence in that game is actually quite muted despite being what is a first person shooter and a war game. It certainly isn't a game you'd play for the thrill of the violence or bloodlust.

Also you touch upon an issue with alternative style of games by asking that developers create alternatives but not naming any yourself. Can you come up with any yourself? This in itself highlights part of the issue (and a large part) about how it difficult it is to creative game play mechanics especially if they are more abstract.
 
Gaming has three majors hooks, imo:
-Killing stuff
-Competition
-Watching numbers go up

Most popular titles these days have all three. Some niche titles have none of these and rely on their own "unique" hook. I'd say the two next most popular "hooks" would be Exploration and Shock value. But they are far less effective than the first three.
 
tzhu07 said:
Developers should really come up with ideas that don't center around the gameplay mechanic of combat and killing.

But maybe it's just human nature, and since we can't do it in real life without severe consequences, we do it in video games. There is a propensity for violence in humans, so the gameplay mechanic that just a fantasy manifestation of it.
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Plenty of games out that do not "kill" anything of have combat. Roller Coaster Tycoon and the sims series are prime examples.

Also, you have to understand that peace is not the absence of violence, its the use of violence that keeps the peace and the ultimate goal for a civilized society. Take WW2 for example. Gruesome violence was needed to defeat the Germans and their allies. Does this mean that humans have the propensity for violence? I think Humans have a propensity to seek a safe environment for their people, tribe, religion, ideology, etc. can live in peace. Any threat to that peace is met with violence.

Now are their certain human beings who have a propensity for violence. These humans are either products of their environment or mentally ill. In a civilized society we deal with these people with our system of laws.

Moving on to video games. I love playing combat and RPG games as I enjoy the content and the "brain stimulation" Does this mean I want to take a sword and start chopping heads off thinking people are orcs? Of course not. I'm not mentally ill or find pleasure in harming people. Harming pixels vs real people are two different things.
 
Carmack and John Romero everyone milked the First Person shooter franchise. It's like Hollywood and guns in Movies is like a staple of Hollywood.
 
fdiaz78 said:
Plenty of games out that do not "kill" anything of have combat. Roller Coaster Tycoon and the sims series are prime examples.

Also, you have to understand that peace is not the absence of violence, its the use of violence that keeps the peace and the ultimate goal for a civilized society. Take WW2 for example. Gruesome violence was needed to defeat the Germans and their allies. Does this mean that humans have the propensity for violence? I think Humans have a propensity to seek a safe environment for their people, tribe, religion, ideology, etc. can live in peace. Any threat to that peace is met with violence.

Now are their certain human beings who have a propensity for violence. These humans are either products of their environment or mentally ill. In a civilized society we deal with these people with our system of laws.

Moving on to video games. I love playing combat and RPG games as I enjoy the content and the "brain stimulation" Does this mean I want to take a sword and start chopping heads off thinking people are orcs? Of course not. I'm not mentally ill or find pleasure in harming people. Harming pixels vs real people are two different things.
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From a biological perspective, I'd have to say humans are inherently violent and, not only that, but war-like as well. Philosophically, you can say that violence is only meant to ensure the peace, but it's a bit disingenuous. Violence has its origins in the most basic forms of life, even the physical universe itself. Nature itself is violence in equilibrium. Fast forwarding a bit, chimpanzees, our closest biological relatives, are incredibly violent on the group level. Humans are not so far removed from this state. The most successful, and one could say most civilized, groups of humans have been those most capable of directing violent impulses toward outgroups in an articulated manner. Peace, among individuals and groups, is not the goal, but the byproduct of the process of directed violence.
 
until we have a 'real' artificial intelligence in games, the sad fact is, combat/killing is a very simple mechanic in game development

I would much prefer a 'neutralizing' mechanic but that takes real AI to pull off

and btw, the violence in human beings is at an all time low now...we've actually gotten less violent as a species over the course of thousands of years...it has to do making the world a 'smaller' place and thus, having empathy and compassion and realizing people are still just people no matter where they come from/color of their skin/religious beliefs etc....the real war is being waged against nature...and here's the bad news...NATURE WILL WIN...she always does...the world is overpopulated..the carrying capacity of the earth has been breached...mother nature CORRECTS imbalances in her very own special way..and yes, you read it here first

had you lived 1000 years ago, you'd be in CONSTANT fear of your life from warfare...and you probably would be dead by the time you were 30 years old too
 
For me the basics behind a shooter are testing my reaction times, movement skills and accuracy.

I dont care for killing people or war at all.
I appreciate that sometimes war is necessary to keep the long term peace and good ideals.
But building it into a game/decent challenge is fine by me as long as it doesnt get too gruesome.
 
lilbabycat said:
Gaming has three majors hooks, imo:
-Killing stuff
-Competition
-Watching numbers go up

Most popular titles these days have all three. Some niche titles have none of these and rely on their own "unique" hook. I'd say the two next most popular "hooks" would be Exploration and Shock value. But they are far less effective than the first three.
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There's also puzzle solving, which is in plenty of games and the main hook in plenty as well. Integration of puzzles in games can be tricky though where that isn't the main focus, and lately there are a lot of puzzles that get shoved into games in the form of sad QTE's. :C Many games still do it well though.
 
Killing gets old.

There are days when I notice how many times someone in the household says "Kill"... It happens nearly every day.

Either from TV, bugs on the wall, movies, video games, and so on. I hear the word at least once per day from someone in the house. Then I focus on things like "hate" and other words.

Then I sigh. Because it takes weeks if not months to hear the words "like" or "love." But "kill" and "hate" is nearly daily.
 
I've been playing shooters since I was a kid, I think doom was my first when I was 12? I'm 32 now. I played Counter-strike semi pro Cal-O and Cal- IM and TWL for 7 years or so. I've never in my life killed an animal outside of a fly. I don't squish spiders. I don't own a gun and never plan to. My friends make me go to the gun range to keep me safe and though I'm not really into it I can hit center mass 75% at 25-50 yards with a 1911. I'm told thats good but I'm not bragging just explaining. I know I could kill a person but the hardest moment in my life was holding a stray kitten while it died of plant poisoning.

When I play stuff like Battlefield and Counter-strike its about competition. It's a sport. I think the only exception in my life was when I played through Far Cry 2. I was post surgery and on a lot of drugs. I remember burning down a field and just watching it burn for no particular reason. Was most likely the morphine. If everyone in game was suited up for lasertag it wouldn't affect me in anyway. It doesn't actually affect anyone imo.

The only game I can think of that centers around and rewards killing for the sake of is Assassins Creed and even then it's kind of plot driven watered down and desensitized.(game actually bores me to tears.)

The kids that play COD and then go out and kill someone were going to get there anyway. In fact games like COD and Counter-strike have been proven, in every murderer's scenario without exception, their only human outlet. Kids don't play the multiplayer combat games you're talking about as an outlet for their violent nature, they play them as a way to socialize and interact with other people.
 
tzhu07 said:
Developers should really come up with ideas that don't center around the gameplay mechanic of combat and killing.

But maybe it's just human nature, and since we can't do it in real life without severe consequences, we do it in video games. There is a propensity for violence in humans, so the gameplay mechanic that just a fantasy manifestation of it.
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Riveting. Tell us more, Dr. Freud. By the way you should probably stop watching TV and Movies too.
 
didnt know that sim city (or city builders) was about killing people, or spintires/racing games. or simulators (planes,farming,driving,etc)

portal (puzzle games), littlebigplanet, quantum conundrum, banished. you can go on and on naming games that don't involve combat/killing.
 
Without going deeply into micro-level arguments like "look at Mario squish the life out of those Goombas" and such... There are metric eff-tons of platform, puzzle, simulation, casual, and sports games that contain very little, or very mild levels of violence. Many have none at all, unless you're really worried about how badly the Tetris pieces on the bottom feel. :D

There are lots of games out there that give you a choice whether or not to include violence. Minecraft is a bit one. You can decide if you just want to leisurely build things, or whether you want an element of danger to it. There are games like Mirror's Edge where you can decide to take down people in a non-lethal way, and spend most of the game just running from your enemies, or Dishonored where you get penalized the more you kill in the end.

The fact is though, that the element of danger adds to the game. The need to survive adds a level of intensity. Forcing the player to decide a life or death situation by his/her next move adds to the immersion factor, and really gets the player involved. Playing on the instinctual level mind really does wonders with involving the player. It's not the only way to do it, but it is a powerful one. Another would be to add an emotional element like the game Brothers. Another way would be to build mind-taxing puzzles that really challenge one almost to the point of frustration, but then reward the player enough to keep them fighting through it.

There are tons of just about every genre of game out there, and many if not most are not heavily violent, though there are plenty of violent ones too.

I will even play games that if they were in movie form I would never watch, just because of the visceral experience I get being dunked into the crazy environment. I'm playing The Evil Within right now, which borders on the ridiculous where violence is concerned. I NEVER watch movies like this game. They make me want to wretch all over the place. Suddenly though when I'm actually the one running from the crazy chainsaw monster, it changes. This could also be a side-effect of the sub-realism in games. Maybe when they get to be photo-real, I won't be able to stomach them anymore. For the time being, I've experienced some great moments of fight or flight instinct playing games that one doesn't necessarily get in most real-life environments.

Other times I like to have a scotch and play Mario, Tetris, or Zelda.

There is no shortage of any type of game that someone wants to play really. Except good single-player, modern, Ultima-style RPGs anyway. Wish there was a metric eff-ton of those. :D

Edit: Also, and I just thought about this: A lot of it could be the timing and era that video games started in, and have evolved from. When video games started, and started becoming wide-spread enough we were still in the times of wanting to grow up to be space combat fighters in a galaxy far far away. Cowboys shooting "Indians" with our six-shooters that fired unlimited rounds, police taking down black and white-striped robbers, or soldiers on the battlefield. A lot of what most gamers grew up playing were these action packed roles, often associated with violence in some way. Games grew to mimic that, and the action movies that did so well while we were all growing up. As movies had to become more over the top to somehow one-up the ones of the past, so did games, toys, TV, and everything else. In some ways that's good, in some ways maybe not 100% necessary. I also don't see a problem with most of it. I occasionally don't like something because it makes me want to vomit, but if it doesn't make the next guy vomit, who am I to say he shouldn't enjoy it. Unless he then proceeds to go out and perform the brutality he just enjoyed on TV, or in a game or something. And then, that's more likely due to existing sickness as others have mentioned.
 
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Combat is the ultimate expression of competition, and success in combat is viscerally rewarding in ways that few other things are, particularly to men. It's also something that translates exceedingly well to multiplayer. That a lot of games are focused around combat is pretty unsurprising.

Comixbooks said:
Carmack and John Romero everyone milked the First Person shooter franchise. It's like Hollywood and guns in Movies is like a staple of Hollywood.
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Carmack and Romero realized that the thing people wanted most to do in the first-person perspective was to shoot things. They went from a studio that started out as a maker of moderately successful Mario clones and later, with Doom, went on to out-distribute companies like Microsoft with little more than an FTP and a paper napkin business plan.

It's not that the genre's been milked: it really hasn't. It's that killing things in games is one of those fundamental things that ticks a lot of the psyche's boxes.
 
Oh great you again. Here comes a bunch of wannabe sjw disguised as wannabe philosophers discussing the human psyche.
 
This discussion is getting old.

Even those poor little lemmings died when you screwed up and they fell.

The people and puppies in the Katamari world probably don't like being picked up and rolled all over the place. Poor little pixels =(


Normal people can play violent video games and watch violent movies without being violent. Sick people do violent things no matter what.
 
I think we're well on our way to that. Remember that scene from Witcher 2 where Triss's clothes disintegrated and she dove in the water in the lagoon thing? Yea, that was nice, real nice.
 
BladeVenom said:
So they need more sex in games instead?
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Why not? Many societies have odd priorities when it comes to depictions of sex vs. violence. One has a victim and one does not (obviously rape goes into the violence category).

The whole "hot coffee" scandal with San Andreas was a hilarious expression of this weird double standard.
 
It's not human nature, it is nature period. Many, many species play by fighting. Their play is practice for combat. Watch some kittens play: They stalk each other, wrestle, bite, etc. The difference between their play and actual hunting and fighting is if the claws are out or not.

So it shouldn't be any real surprise that humans play fight too. Given that our fighting is more advanced, so is the play of such fighting.
 
I prefer outwitting my opponents in games, instead of just "killing". I don't really have a problem with violence in games, but the tedium of slaughter does get a bit too much. I feel like some games should skirt around the idea that each encounter should feel tense and brutal, particularly with human opponents. With the encounters themselves being sparse and paced accordingly. The Last of Us played with this a bit, and was pretty great for doing so. The Arkham games are a triumph as well, where you don't kill anyone, and your time is spent trying to get the drop on goons (literally).
 
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