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Gerhabio

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1996 29 28 28
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Real life suffering and video games: Where's the line?

By Gerhabio 54 Comments

The Japanese Tragedy and MotorStorm: Apocalypse

As some of you may know, Sony decided to delay the launch of the third PlayStation 3 iteration of its MotorStorm racing series, MotorStorm: Apocalypse (Motorstorm 3 in Japan), because it features a level called 'Waves Of Mutilation' that takes place during a relentless tsunami. Appearing in the Pro stage of the main Festival Campaign, 'Waves Of Mutilation' is an insane four-lap race that unleashes aquatic devastation on your surroundings as you speed around the track. In the level, you compete against other drivers through destruction as powerful waves cause ships, cars, and buildings to topple under impact. MotorStorm: Apocalypse has been in development for a long time, so neither developer Evolution Studios nor publisher Sony Computer Entertainment could ever have imagined in their wildest nightmares that one of their levels would parallel this real world disaster so closely, but its timing is indeed both incredible and unfortunate. Here's some gameplay of the aforementioned level:
       
  This is, of course, not the first time any of us has played a video game that displays a tragedy where human life was lost. Most of the time, however, massive loss of life is shown in the form of future, sci-fi crazyness like the atomic destruction of Megaton in Fallout 3 or in the form of wars which take place in the distant past (e.g. all them WWII FPS) or are based on fake  conflict (e.g. Modern Warfare) significantly softening their impact. With MotorStorm: Apocalypse, however, these events are still very raw. With the Japan disaster coming tragically unannounced, and the fact that Sony’s new racing title features such potent imagery that we’ve all seen on the news in the last few days, its impact is particularly poignant. The race, which was intended to be fictional, became all too real. Because of this I applaud Sony's decision to delay the game as the most sensitive course of action. Now, for the other side... 
 

The Mexican Drug War and Call of Juarez: The Cartel

First, we must admit that like Motorstorm 3, Call of Juarez: The Cartel has not been released and we have very few details about it so we can't make any final judgements.  We do know a couple of key facts, however: 1) Part of its story will be set in Ciudad Juarez, in Mexico. 2) It will deal with drug trafficking. 3) Violence will ensue. 
From these snippets alone one can already see how many would consider this title problematic. Cd. Juárez  is a hotspot of violence, just last year (2010) the city saw its homicide count reach 3075 people. The city's inhabitants live day to day in fear (they are struggling right now as you read this), scared of a system of violence that the authorities have continuously failed to control. In the middle of this comes Call of Juarez: 
  
  While I am cautious of the whole "Video games incite violence in children" debate, I am painfully aware of the contemporary suffering of these people. The colloquial expression "Too soon" does not even get close to fully describe the level of insensitivity I feel this release carries. Regardless of whether Call of Juarez glorifies cartel violence or not (we will see when it hits the shelves) or whether it functions as a bloody gateway for youth who are already predisposed to a a life of violence by their tragic environment, it is not difficult to understand why a parent would frown upon the idea of their child filling in their playtime with images of the same oppressive aggression that riddles their day to day existence. Nor is it difficult to visualize a victim of the drug war clenching her teeth at the notion that in the living rooms of her city and other parts of the world (particularly the developed world) people are treating her suffering --her present suffering-- as mere entertainment.  
 

The Question

In my opinion then, the video game industry as a whole should take up the social responsibility of respecting people's contemporary suffering; they should avoid present tragic subjects as material for mere amusement. Sony took the right decision when in delayed MotorStorm 3. Sony recognized that its title utilized images that were reminiscent of present, real suffering and that this images were there only for the sake of entertainment. It is too early to tell whether Call of Juarez: The Cartel will utilize its own tragic imagery simply as a tool for amusement or as medium of constructive social critique. But if it is the former (as years of video game history would have us suspect), I believe it insensible --almost insulting!-- for this game to be released at the same time the people of Cd. Juárez are suffering. Ubisoft: The sensible decision is rarely the necessary decision but always the most ethical. 
 
So then, What do you think about the above examples? What do you think about video games that use imagery that is either reminescent or based on contemporary tragedies? Should developers and the industry in general have limits to what subjects they can deal with, particularly those based on real life?
54 Comments

54 Comments

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SpicyRichter

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Edited By SpicyRichter

The motorstorm level seems to be destruction caused by a tornado rather than an earthquake, and juarez is more concerned about their reputation than anything else, so I see 2 non-issues here

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Example1013

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@G3RHRT: I'm not trying to sweep the current social imbalances under the rug. I'm not addressing them in my arguments because I feel that we both have enough knowledge to see them highlighted without a bunch of extraneous background information. 
 
I know that gender inequality still exists, and is deeply ingrained within our culture, and i'm simply bypassing those points to shorten our already lengthy discussion. 
 
On the issue of socializing children to ignore gender bias within language, I agree that "easily" wasn't the right modifier. Realistically, it would be impossible to do over the course of one generation. So you're right there. 
 
And you cannot deny that feminism is a "side" in the debate. I'm not referring to any type of antagonistic or forceful faction actively seeking something unrealistic. I'm simply stating that feminists largely agree to one opinion on many issues, and anti-feminists largely disagree with feminists on the same issue. I'm also saying that I don't fully believe that feminists are completely right in everything, using myself as an exception to a few rules. 
 
Of course, the house I grew up in is likely fairly different from most other houses. On my mother's side, my grandparents both worked full-time up until retirement. And while there are still some gender divides within their lives, it's not quite as clear-cut as one might think it would be for two people born in the 20s (and they still have some...I don't want to say exactly racist, but...sorta...views). 
 
And in my household that I grew up in, there aren't, and never have been, any gender-specific roles for anything. My parents both do laundry, dust and clean, cook, do the dishes, pay the bills, etc. etc. The only job that my dad does exclusively is taking out the trash and recycling. Other than that, they literally share every single job. I also, due to how things worked (and especially being an only child) spent the majority of my time (or close to it) at my house, often playing by myself. So because of this, I didn't spend a lot of time seeing how other households operated. So basically, I have internalized fewer gender divisions than other people simply based on how I was raised. I'll admit that I've lived a largely sheltered life, because I've never really seen much open oppression firsthand, but this also means that I've never been socialized to accept any oppression. 
 
Like, just to give you an example of exactly how little I was exposed to, my mom stopped letting me watch Barney, and never let me watch the Smurfs, because they portrayed women and men as having gender-specific roles. So I literally got zero exposure to the idea of "women's work" until I started going to school.
 
The thing about "yeoman" is just an example. I'll be honest, I've cherrypicked my arguments a bit, because when I think of fireman, I do think of a male role. But that simply furthers my argument that this isn't a core part directly embedded within the language. I'm not saying that the language doesn't have a history, or that it isn't taught that way. Basically, the way my professors taught this in class, they made it seem like the whole issue was completely immutable, and that gendered suffixes intrinsically indicated gendered roles by nature of being gendered suffixes, when the connection is actually more complex than the language would indicate. 
 
Basically, I'm saying that it's not the language itself that's the problem, but how it's learned, which is not what I was being told in the lecture halls. 
 
And the hypersexualization that's becoming more prevalent everywhere in society is becoming a problem. It's already a large problem for women, and it's a growing problem for men as well. That portion of the courses I completely agree with, and I just misunderstood what you were saying. Yeah. No. you hit the nail on the head right there.
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Gerhabio

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Edited By Gerhabio
@example1013: This I understand much better, sorry that I misunderstood you at first. I agree with everything you wrote here and its interesting that your mother took those decisions in your childhood (in a positive way). I come from a background where women have their place and men have their place so I've experienced anti-feminism at its worse first-hand with people outright denying that women are oppressed (sometimes women themselves) or that there is anything wrong with hypersexualization, etc, so I can be a little defensive. Sorry about that.  
Your point about language is intriguing. Of course, language is just a tool and it is the way that is taught that makes it negative or positive I understand what you're saying. I would add though that while how you're taught about it is the most important, the language having gendered parallels within its morphemes probably affects people's views of it at least a little. Like in yeoman, I bet if someone just sees the word written in paper with no other reference they'll think about a man because of the suffix and such. But yeah, you're right.  
 
Nice talking to you :)
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Example1013

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Edited By Example1013
@G3RHRT: I enjoyed our discussion as well. Glad we could see eye to eye, at least somewhat :)