Excessive swearing in Videogames

Excessive swearing in Videogames

Let’s just start this blog post by informing you all that I consider my self an avid swearer, and that I have no problem with swearing in normal day to day conversations. This blog post will most likely also contains some swears.

The reason why I’m writing this is because during my recent play through of the campaign for MOH I was really struck by the amount of swearing in it. Because holy ball there is a lot of ‘Fuck’ and ‘Shit’ in that game. And considering that the campaign is only about a long afternoon to play through, the writers over at Danger Close deserve a smack on the mouth!

And I have to mention this is not the first game I have played where this has bothered me. Mafia 2 comes to mind (though I never finished it, due to the fact that I hated driving from mission to mission in what is a completely linear game) and Kane and Lynch. And I wonder to my self why in fucking hell the developers behind these games are doing this.  

First theory: It makes sense for the characters; NO! That argument is bullshit! Let’s stick to MOH for this one. There is a well known fact that members of the armed forces aren’t the cleanest of tongue, but god-fucking-damn-it MOH contains just to fucking much! I myself served for one year in the Norwegian Army. And yes the language of me and my fellow soldiers was horrible, but never close to the level of the characters in MOH.

I also asked my brother in law about this, who served in the special forces and was stationed in Kabul for six months, and he also was blown away by the amount of ‘Fuck’ and ‘Shit’ in this game. So please EA and Danger Close stop making the smack talk between soldiers into the dialogue you use to carry the story, soldiers smack talk to pass the time and to establish dominance, not for actual discussions or to share important information between each other.

Second Theory: Shock value; Well stop it! Do it through themes and actual content not by using language your grandmother finds inappropriate! Modern Warfare 2 comes to mind, even though it was handed a bit ham-fisted! (Airport Level)  

Third Theory: It’s to make the character seem more mature; well that is just dumb, excessive swearing is more juvenile than mature. Mass Effect 2 is one of most mature games I’ve played and you can count all the games ‘Fucks’ one your hands, all placed beautifully within the dialogue. To summarize the juvenile thing, the soldiers and airmen in MOH sound more like me when I was in school and was 15, not when I was in the army!    

At the end I have one final gripe, and that one is with the English language itself. Why only ‘Fuck’ and ‘Shit’? Why not use others swears? Is there too much to ask that a character scream out ‘Cunt’ at the top of his lungs when he gets pissed or whatever? That’s what I do, though I scream ‘Fitte’ since my first language is Norwegian.

So hey next time EA, make the Bioware guys go over Danger Closes script for their next game, those guys know how to place F-bombs the right way.        

Excessive swearing in Videogames

Let’s just start this blog post by informing you all that I consider my self an avid swearer, and that I have no problem with swearing in normal day to day conversations. This blog post will most likely also contains some swears.

The reason why I’m writing this is because during my recent play through of the campaign for MOH I was really struck by the amount of swearing in it. Because holy ball there is a lot of ‘Fuck’ and ‘Shit’ in that game. And considering that the campaign is only about a long afternoon to play through, the writers over at Danger Close deserve a smack on the mouth!

And I have to mention this is not the first game I have played where this has bothered me. Mafia 2 comes to mind (though I never finished it, due to the fact that I hated driving from mission to mission in what is a completely linear game) and Kane and Lynch. And I wonder to my self why in fucking hell the developers behind these games are doing this.  

First theory: It makes sense for the characters; NO! That argument is bullshit! Let’s stick to MOH for this one. There is a well known fact that members of the armed forces aren’t the cleanest of tongue, but god-fucking-damn-it MOH contains just to fucking much! I myself served for one year in the Norwegian Army. And yes the language of me and my fellow soldiers was horrible, but never close to the level of the characters in MOH.

I also asked my brother in law about this, who served in the special forces and was stationed in Kabul for six months, and he also was blown away by the amount of ‘Fuck’ and ‘Shit’ in this game. So please EA and Danger Close stop making the smack talk between soldiers into the dialogue you use to carry the story, soldiers smack talk to pass the time and to establish dominance, not for actual discussions or to share important information between each other.

Second Theory: Shock value; Well stop it! Do it through themes and actual content not by using language your grandmother finds inappropriate! Modern Warfare 2 comes to mind, even though it was handed a bit ham-fisted! (Airport Level)  

Third Theory: It’s to make the character seem more mature; well that is just dumb, excessive swearing is more juvenile than mature. Mass Effect 2 is one of most mature games I’ve played and you can count all the games ‘Fucks’ one your hands, all placed beautifully within the dialogue. To summarize the juvenile thing, the soldiers and airmen in MOH sound more like me when I was in school and was 15, not when I was in the army!    

At the end I have one final gripe, and that one is with the English language itself. Why only ‘Fuck’ and ‘Shit’? Why not use others swears? Is there too much to ask that a character scream out ‘Cunt’ at the top of his lungs when he gets pissed or whatever? That’s what I do, though I scream ‘Fitte’ since my first language is Norwegian.

So hey next time EA, make the Bioware guys go over Danger Closes script for their next game, those guys know how to place F-bombs the right way.        

Good cunting post.

I think it's because all the cool kids uses fuck and shit.

And btw I prefer Fittnylle (pronounce it like fettnölle) myself.

I like your writing style.
The only game where the swearing ever bothered me was Rogue Warrior...
 
Rest, meh, wasn't worse then movies.

Swearing has its time and place (such as while playing Super Meat Boy), but I find swearing during normal conversation jarring and immature.

I can't comment on any military shooters, but I'd wager that the Kane and Lynch games most definitely deserve their long list of in game cursing ;P

"

. Why only ‘Fuck’ and ‘Shit’? Why not use others swears? Is there too much to ask that a character scream out ‘Cunt’ at the top of his lungs when he gets pissed or whatever?        

"

I've never played a game that i thought had too much strong language. Then again i don't play these average "cool" games like MOH and Kane and Lnych...
 
This is a pointless comment, and just i wanted to throw that out there...

Just thought I'd add this
 
    

Mafia 2 holds the record for the word Fuck being used in the video game. With over 200 uses. 

I think they use swearing as an easy way to develop characters. The logic is, "the more they swear, the more they look like real people! Right?" And to a point, it works. It shows how gritty and human a character is, until they overdo it and that character becomes a caricature of what they are representing.
 
Personally, I am more open to swearing in different games but it definitely has to be the right game. Whenever Jack would say "fuck" it felt weirdly out of place for me. Maybe it's because 'fuck' or 'shit' don't seem like good enough words that we'd still be using them in the super future. Watching promos for Nier I had the same kind of "oh, you're just the edgy character huh?" about the girl-inhabited-by-demon/transgendered character.  It makes more sense for more cussing to happen in war games or mafia games, but I can see how they would overdo it really easily.

I think most good writing can do without cussing (not that I am against it, I swear periodically like a normal human being), with one or two cusses thrown in there for effect. BSG uses 'frack' really effectively. One, because it's a different word to match an alternate universe (and to say it a lot on tv lol), and two, because they use it in appropriate situations. When a character is angry, or frustrated or completely hopeless. When Commander Adama says it, you know things are bad.

It kind of seems that as soon something becomes taboo, such as the swearing here, you basically end up with only extremes, games that self sensor themselves for no good reason and games that wanna break the taboo just to look extra edgy and cool and thus way overdo it. Games themselves are rather messed up to begin with, after all its not uncommon to kill some 1000 people in a single play through, so I a bit of swearing isn't really out of place, but when it comes Rogue Warrior extremes, it is just overdone and badly written, same is true for MOH I guess, which doesn't exactly seem to shine with great writing either.
 
There are of course also exceptions, which do it right. In The Longest Journey  there is a lengthy dialog sequence with the character  Flipper, that is full of swearing and fucks, but in that case it is simply a trait of the specific character, not the game as a whole and it fits nicely.

Sometimes it's awkward, sometimes it works and sometimes it's just funny as hell since it's so over-the-top. Rogue Warrior immediately comes to mind for the latter, and even Kane & Lynch 2 to an extent plays that up. 
 
Everytime I explain the game's story to people, it amounts to me saying F-words & S-words to punctuate any event that takes place during those 48 hours in Shanghai.

If I wasn't well educated and stuck in the desert I'd be swearing too.

They don't say 'cunt" because that would offend a lot of women. Some people see the word 'cunt' as a worse word than fuck or shit. Swear words in video games don't bother me. Best believe when the world is burning all around you and comrades are dying you won't be thinking about using clean language. Just my opinion though.

It's rare for characters in video games, movies, or even books, to curse without sounding forced or contrived.  Strangely enough, Kane and Lynch 2 is one of the only games that (occassionally) usesprofanity appropriately, since many of the situations the duo encounter could not be described as anything other than "totally fucked."