Why is the lack of force against children such a trope?

Law and Order: SVU has some pretty brutal violence against children. I think it has to do a lot with the medium and how it's portrayed. In the grand scheme of things, Video Games are new, and I think people (players and creators) may just not be ready for that yet,

I'm speaking in terms of depictions of violence in literature, video games, or film.

Growing too tangential.

This is edging closer and closer into just a question of "What is morality?" and "Does good or evil exist?"

Which frankly is a pretty expansive topic for a videogame forum. I've tried to explain as best I can why developers tend toward carrying some level of human morality into games, but if you want to figure out why human beings have concepts of morality at all, that's a more basic, core discussion that you may have more luck talking about with friends or family instead.

Because people like being pussies and not doing anything new. Or just don't want to deal with the possibility of people getting all over their case.

@syz: I'm still not seeing your argument for why context can't logically matter in considering content in art or videogames. Or, well, anything. Context is important in how we are impacted by what we see and experience. If a character you care about is hurt in a game, you will naturally respond differently from a character you don't care about being hurt in a game. To remove context would be to remove the entire idea of impact or distinction in games.

I think it makes sense for us to consider the difference between an exploding pixel and an exploding skull. We naturally have different reactions to these things, and we interpret them as distinct occurrences. It's the same mechanism by which we distinguish things in real life, only with the additional consideration that something we are experiencing is fictional. Still, fictional or otherwise, we have different responses to different things, and that is the influence of context.

Many people respond to a child character being killed in a game differently from an adult character being killed in a game in the same way we connect with any character or situation in fiction based on our own perspective. A game set in your neighborhood might feel different from a game set on the other side of the world. These are just factors which impact how you personally respond to a game.

never heard the term "force against". I had to look it up in case I miss read that.

Or maybe a lot of developers just don't have a desire to have it in their games?

I think there can be problems with things being absent in games, but something like child murder seems pretty low on my list of things that I care about seeing in more games. I'm not really going to relate more to a game or enjoy it more if they added such a feature, and I can understand why most developers probably feel similarly.

I don't begrudge them deciding to not put child abuse or murder into their games. If you want it in more games, I guess you can ask for it, but I've honestly not seen many people clamoring for more child murder in games. At most, I've seen some people hope developers might handle the avoidance of abusing children a bit better. I think that's a rather reasonable request that might help people with some dissonance they may feel.

Empathy is why it isn't used more in games and movies. Movies and games depicting violence against children, animals, women (in form of rape or other demeaning fucked up things) are instantly 90% less appealing to most people with a certain level of empathy. If you alienate a lot of the playerbase just so you can depict incest or whatever.. That seems like a sketchy business decision at best.

Studios have reputations to maintain. No one wants to be "that studio that did the game with all the kid stuff...."

This shit should be obvious.

Killing a kid sounds like the least fun activity that could ever happen in a video game

"YO MAN YOU PLAY REKT: 2? THE FIRST REKT WAS MEH BUT IN THE NEW ONE YOU CAN FUCKING BASH A TODDLERS HEAD IN WITH A BROKEN BEER BOTTLE AND CHUCK KIDS OFF BUILDINGS"

the argument of it being bad and thats why they don't want it in their game and people who are asking for it are "terrible" is old as hell at this point and has no validity. So many games feature tons of extreme mindless violence already, so you would be claiming people loving that isn't terrible but entirely fine.

Its a video game, its not real. That argument is dumb. it just comes down to breaking immersion in a ton of games where they either entirely don't include children even as an existence in their games, or make them an exception. There's older games that had it in it, and unfortunately people have stopped including such things as we've moved forward.

One thing I find kinda interesting from the "they are helpless" perspective is how violence against elderly people is still fairly common in both games and movies, often used to humorous effect. The "I've fallen and can't get up", "I was in the war", "I broke my hip" stuff. Letting that guy die of old age in Metal Gear Solid, or running over elderly people in wheelchairs in Carmageddon. Aren't they generally as helpless as the kids we're discussing here?

Of course it's consensus.

It's at least part basic biology, Survival of the species etc. Most mammals are hyper protective of their young and get upset when they see them harmed. Mammals invest a lot of time and energy in raising their young, unlike reptiles, amphibians, fish, insects etc which use the quantity over quality strategy. For most mammals there's a clear benefit to protecting said investment. We don't have many kids comparatively, you lose one it's really traumatic.

So yeah it is emotionally worse than killing a bunch of adults. It's the way we're wired. Not something most enjoy writing about and certainly not something most consumers want to see in their entertainment. I know I wouldn't buy a game where that happens, I don't want to see that kind of garbage.

Yes, if someone doesn't *want* to include such things, that again is their artistic freedom. That wasn't what I gathered from your statements though. Your statements of "there's already enough of it...for us to not need more of it in video games" and "I'm still not sure why you want to see children hurt more in games" were from the angle that people *shouldn't* include it in their fiction, and others shouldn't want it in their fiction. If that's not the case, then I misinterpreted your statement.

My angle is simply that of artistic freedom, and with your statement of "I would not be in favor of banning it" that we are in agreeance on that and I simply read too much into your other statements. :D

Yeah, I think we are in agreement. heh. When I say we don't need more of it in games, I mean I don't see why anyone would clamor for more of it in games. By contrast, I can see why many desire better controls or more quality female characters in games. We need more of that. I may not share the desire or see the need for games to include more child abuse and murder, but as an artist, I also wouldn't desire seeing creators legally prevented from exploring it in their games.

Also, and this is just semantics, but I don't think that an absence of something makes it a trope. Not killing children isn't anymore of a trope than not having a talking dog protagonist.

But it is something that doesn't appear very often, so you're certainly right about that. I think developers and publishers just feel that it would be more of a hassle than it's worth. From a gameplay perspective, it wouldn't make much of a difference.

It's a lot easier to get everyone on your side when fox screams about alien sex in video games then it is too get people on your side when they scream about child killing is a large reason.

Sometimes it is less the morals a developer may have that keeps killing kids in their game from occurring and more being afraid of the backlash of nanny 'news' and ravenous "SEE, VIDEO GAMES ARE BAD WE TOLD YOU SO" media and politicians.

But as time goes on, kids experiencing harm or death in video games has really equaled that of movies. If a movie came out where a bunch of kids died for no reason besides the director fucking with everyone. You would hear about it, just as you would if it happened in games.
But if it is used properly as an emotional story telling device you don't hear people complaining about it.

I want more child murder in my games, too.

"See, the reason I got into making games is because there just wasn't enough Child Murder. Now I feel good about myself, knowing that I spent more than 30 hours making each individual level of Kid Killers, to really perfect my vision. And I know following this course of action will of course, keep me financially well off and respected"

I'm not necessarily against it. I just don't trust most developers to handle it in a way that doesn't feel completely shitty and forced. Same thing goes for other brutalities like depictions of rape too. If you wanna put it in a game, then be my guest. Don't expect me to suddenly just label your game "mature/deep/meaningful" or whatever other bullshit buzzwords you want people want to attach to it.

There's a fine line between handling a serious subject with tact and just being edgy for the sake of being edgy.

You're demonstrating distinct signs of sociopathy. Nearly any human being who causes harm or death to another human being must rationalize it in their own eyes, at the very least. The what/who/how/where/why is, in most cases, EVERYTHING that matters when understanding human violence against each other. Humans are social animals which evolved to co-exist in communities. We rely on communities to survive. It takes something drastic to break that community instinct and to convince one human that it's justifiable to hurt/kill other members of that community -- anyone in any modern military will tell you that the most difficult thing about training raw recruits is instilling the so-called "killer instinct" into the troops

It's disturbing that you seem to be "disappointed" that most people would hesitate to kill someone who is unable to defend themselves and who is, in the vast majority of societies, undeserving of violent death.

It's also disturbing that you think that devolving into bloodthirsty, soulless murders who have no qualms about taking life is "evolution".

Reading this thread I think there are some people on here with a genuine need to get some mental health help, think about it.

Could be used in a good way for plot etc. Your kid gets murdered and this motivates you to find/stop the killer.

You can kill that little kid in Deus Ex.

paging george r r martin a/o cormac mccarthy...

I think you might have that the other way around. To me, it read like white was upset that humans justify any killing, because no murder should be more or less justifiable than another.

Bloody hell this website has a seething undercurrent that's a hotbed of sociopathy doesn't it? I sometimes worry at how vividly the 'detatched from society gamer' stereotype is proven to be accurate by some people here. I'd chip in but Truthtellah and Dasakamov pretty much said everything I would.

If you go by statistics of this thread alone, and apply it to any studio that isn't a small indie sized studio with a creative lead that holds the final say, you'll soon realize why most games don't harm or kill kids in any way. It's not as common in games since most people don't find it appealing. And most people are also used to disposable adult men, so them dying in hoards are completely natural to larger sets of people.

Also, I think if we look at games overall and games in which a kids are in some way harmed, there are more of them than people seem to make a case for. Sure, there are games with immortal kids, or games in which there are no kids were there logically would be kids. But kids to get hurt in games. Maybe not by the player's hand, but by the world in which they inhabit.

I think I'm mainly bothered by this topic when they are, as previously mentioned, immortal or contextually absent. Because it breaks the illusion of the world and I find myself thinking about video game logic instead of immersing myself into the world. The game becomes mechanical instead of an experience.

This just begs the old question: Why is killing virtual adult men "fun" in the first place? Also, this thread is really ugly you guys.

So the counter-argument is that it's a difficult topic, so it shouldn't be covered in games period. Gotcha.

Even if it's something grounded in reality, something that (sadly) occurs regularly and - presented appropriately - has every right to help define an experience.

Here's some theoretical situations: If your life was endangered by a child, coerced or otherwise, would you respond with deadly force? What if an objective in a war situation was important enough to warrant that kind of collateral damage? If you were a child soldier, would you be willing to fight others like yourself?

Why should we continually avoid these questions when, in all honesty, conflict in the 21st century increasingly asks them of combatants and civilians alike. It's just prudish, predictably so, but still. As a position it seems to avoid nuance in favor of the classic, ham-fisted, black-and-white morality which ignores the potential complexity of the question.

I can admit this thread is a little scary in parts, but I suppose the topic of poor implementation of protecting children(like them appearing immune in some open world games) is problematic for some people. I can see why there may be some dissonance there.

As for why the killing of virtual adults is more fun, I think that speaks to why the killing of adults in general is more acceptable in real life and fiction. Once again, power dynamics which inform our power fantasies. For many of us, our feelings toward desiring the protection of children extends even into games, causing their killing to be less fun.

As someone who takes care of a child who I care deeply about, I can certainly say that I am more bothered by the killing of children in reality and games. I can more easily understand killing adults than children in virtual environments, and the act of exerting such power can be fun in games. I feel an adult character has decided to be an enemy, but a child character is usually less cut and dry than that. Even a character being virtual doesn't separate them from that kind of mental distinction. Many people respond differently to that and draw the line elsewhere, but we all consider the context of such actions.

For me, the idea of abusing or killing a child just isn't fun or pleasant, fictional or not. The idea of abusing or killing -anyone- doesn't sound like fun to me, but for an adult enemy in a game, it's easier for me to separate that consideration and take part in the fiction. When the killing of adults doesn't feel justified, though, I can feel dissonance then, as well; when the last Ninja Gaiden game forced you to kill an unarmed man, that bothered me. It really depends on the game and how they handle it.

I find it interesting that some people find violence to be acceptable to portray against adults in games but not children. There are some vile things expressed in games that if were to happen in real life we would recoil from, the point is that it's not real and we are all aware of that.

If you think about playing a game in which you kill hundreds of people singlehandedly, the value of their innocence or lack therof is somewhat diluted. The classic case being: Are you as the player character, worse than your opponent if to do something noble you had to murder several people who may or may not have been 'bad'?

Maybe faceless grunt #888 was 1 day from retirement after winning a bravery award from saving a litter of kittens and was thinking of his dear grand-ma-ma whilst slumped irreverently behind a chest-high wall, until he was brutally detonated by some wandering misanthrope on the hunt for Nazi gold. Was his imaginary life more or less valuable than an imaginary small child's? Who cares!!! Neither of them were real!!

The "counter-argument" is that it's an unappealing thing which many people aren't exactly clamoring to have in more games.

This isn't about whether it -should- or should not be covered in games. Plenty of games do cover the harm and death of children. Because it's a real thing that happens. What many are saying here is that we don't have a desire to see it, and we imagine many developers don't either. I mean, if I was an animator, I wouldn't be asking to get to animated a kid's head exploding, but that's just me.

If some people think it's a topic worth covering in more games, I say more power to them, but if people are somehow bothered by the lacking of abusing and killing kids in games, I don't quite get that. I don't see why there would be some desire for more of such actions in games. If it serves the story, then great. If in some way it is somehow fun, then I get it. But this is killing kids we're talking about, not adding in more graphical options or diversifying your party members. It certainly seems like a bit of an odd thing for some people to desire more of in games.

Should the abuse and death of children be in games? If a developer feels it should, then they can do that. I won't personally encourage it, as I don't think it sounds fun or pleasant, but developers can decide to do what they like. If there really is an audience for it, I'm sure many will add it in. Personally, I think the bigger issue is how developers who decide to prevent the killing of children can make it fit better within the game world, and that's a rather reasonable request for developers to eventually figure out. If you're not going to allow kids to be killed, at least handle it well.

I think that's a topic worth exploring in games. The free nature by which we kill so many, and I'm glad that various games have at least poked at that. Because as games resemble reality more and more and developers pursue narratives which facilitate caring about the world and characters in a game, these issues will continue to come up.

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, narrative-based games have played on this distinction quite a bit. The impact of a character you've invested time into and care about dying is significantly more than that of a random NPC dying. That's not because either is more physically real, but because one may be more mentally and emotionally real. It's why people have emotional responses to books or movies. These things tie into how we feel about real things and real situations to craft compelling characters and tell interesting stories.

To me, it's less fun to just wave off any action in games as meaningless. It's more fun to allow yourself to be invested in games and enjoy the ride within them. The story and gameplay together providing an experience you can't get anywhere else. That's a fantastic part of video games.

I think it's an American thing. Like with sex. It's okay to cut off the heads of innocent men and women, but as soon as we see a penis entering a vagina Americans will roar.

Children get hurt in real life. If there were to be a game that depicts that stuff in the favor of setting the story, then I think that should totally be possible. It could also be funny if it were a non-serious game where you'd murder babies. Like Dr. Fetus in Super Meat Boy. That kind of vibe would totally work and be funny. I do get that you can't go half-way on it though.

I think that's because we know that those decapitations are movie magic, whereas graphic sexual scenes on film tend to be "real."

Because it's mission accomplished, in most games. If you stripped it down to the bare mechanics, the virtual adult men are just the opposing force that is stopping you from winning the game. By killing them you are succeeding at the task you are given. If you look at Call of Duty or Battlefield, you are given points for killing people. It's like someone is patting you on the back every time you successfully shoot someone. It's empowering. I think if you removed the objective, just placed the character in a room filled with a bunch of people who aren't attacking you, you would not feel the satisfaction of killing them that you would when you are doing it for a reason.

If we're asking the question of why killing virtual humans is particularly "fun", I think it speaks more about our culture as a whole. We like violent things, and we like being powerful. I'd almost compare it to the horror genre. Why do we like being scared from horror? Because it's exciting, but it's also safe. We get the adrenaline rush of emulating something dangerous and violent, but in the safety of our own homes.

Why would we feel different if a child was the enemy? Because the violent culture we are fascinated by doesn't often depict children as dangerous villains. For centuries we have known men to be "evil", so it's easier to imagine them as the enemy. And in games where adult males are the enemy, that's usually all that they are. They are not capable of human emotion or show any signs of sympathy. They are relatable enough to make us feel powerful by defeating them, but not enough to make us feel bad about it. And I think as we move towards humanizing our villains in video-games, the harder it will be to mindlessly kill them. Games like The Last of Us and Spec Ops: The Line are already experimenting with the idea that killing humans can be an uncomfortable experience, to varying success. Which I think is good. There are films out there that I don't enjoy or won't watch, because they're graphic nature makes the experience dreadful for me, but I think it's good for the medium to test these boundaries every once and a while. So, sure, I wouldn't be opposed to someone making a game where you can kill children. But I probably wouldn't play it.

Compliance with every ratings organization in the world, and for the most part, their standards are in line with what developers want to make, as well as what consumers want to play, and more importantly, buy.

Call of Duty has been ripping stories from the headlines for years, putting their military dramas in any number of third world warzones, but they draw the line at shooting child soldiers and showing rape gangs, because they know their audience would react negatively.

If anyone is going to cross this line in video games, it will most certainly be an indie developer, because anyone bigger is unlikely to risk the PR backlash that could happen as a result.

There's plenty of media in which children are on the receiving end of violence, especially in Japanese media where protagonists are almost always early teens. In western TV we have Game of Thrones which isn't shy about harming and killing kids, True Detective which was all about child victimisation and not long ago The Wire in which a lot of kids on the street were mid to late teens and unwitting bullet magnets. That's just three right off the top of my head and there's plenty more.

Video games outside of the anime style still gives you quite a lot to work with, The last of Us being a decent example. Ellie goes through a lot of shit in that and at least two other kids die in that.

Why the fuck is it generally taboo though? Why do kids get special treatment over adults when they are basically the same?

Firstly, OP, please say you don't use this same logic when looking for romantic partners. Children are fundamentally different from adults and it's legitimately weird that you don't understand this.

Children are physically weaker and more emotionally vulnerable. From a game design PoV it's not going to make you feel powerful to kill kids so that's why they are rarely enemies in games and from a morality PoV they're kids! You could have villains smack 'em, I guess but a game in which children, innocent or otherwise, are frequently being killed on screen is not going to be fun. The idea that all violence is "Power over the weak, accept it, don't shun it" completely ignores that an adult versus a child is totally one sided with little chance of the kid being able to balance things out. Even if you gave the kid a gun or other weapon it's still pretty one sided since the kid is unlikely to have the skills needed to use it effectively.

You say it's jarring that kids can survive these things but in most fiction they're hidden away from any potential harm.

Children are also symbolic of potential for change/improvement. That's why when an ending is good because the kids are saved it's because those kids have the potential to bring about a future where whatever shit went down won't go down again.

Really, it's kind of insane that this needs any explaining to you. Children are weaker, more vulnerable, easily manipulated and haven't even had a chance to really live and you're asking why they don't get the same treatment as adults?

I feel like, and this is going to sound very odd, it's the same situation with rape in video games. You absolutely CAN use it, but if you do you better make damn sure that it has a point and is absolutely necessary to the entire story.

That being said though, I don't think I'd touch a game were you see violence against kids. And I don't even like children.

@zevvion: "It's an American thing", because the rest of the world absolutely loves violence against children?

Dr.Fetus gets a pass because it's so far removed from reality. It's the same reason Tom and Jerry can show an anvil falling on a cat and not upset lots of children. By moving far enough away from realism and into cartoony surrealness you can beat on kids all you want. It's why in Adventure Time a 14 year old boy can live on his own and go around attacking powerful monsters with a sword and no one watching thinks it's particularly alarming.

However, this thread seems to be more focused on realistic depictions of violence which is entirely different as has been covered.

If you want to cover things like child soldiers in games then by all means, go for it. It's a dark but fascinating subject but just know that most people are going to be hugely uncomfortable with it and you'd best treat it with utmost sensitivity. Any game that treats the death of children or violence towards them as anything less than horribly tragic/severe is going to get a rightful load of shit.

@popogeejo: There are countless movies and novels here were children get murdered, raped or whatever else. Most of them enact true stories, like what you said; child soldiers for instance. Maybe I lack the perspective, but I was under the impression that anything child-violence related is pure taboo in the US.

@spaceinsomniac I fail to see how that makes it worse. A fake decapitation of an innocent man for gore-lust is infinitely worse to witness than two people having sex and enjoying it. I was an 10 year old child 16 years ago. I remember it being far worse. That said, I had good parents who were able to contextualize the sex I saw. Maybe in absence of that it could have harmed me? I seriously doubt it though.

There are some subjects that are so generally offensive and make people so uncomfortable that they will never see widespread depiction in media. Child murder is one of them, regardless of how one attempts to justify it's existence (The children that are being killed are evil, they attacked the player character first, the player is role playing evil himself, they were collateral damage in war, etc.)

A couple of other other moderators and I have been discussing this thread since it started, and all of us are generally uncomfortable with it even being on the forums purely on the subject matter alone. This feeling is enhanced by some of the opinions stated which we found downright disturbing. I slept on it, and what sealed my decision to close the topic was when people started comparing the depiction of child murder in games to the depiction of rape in games. I realized that if someone started a topic asking why there weren't more rape scenes in games, we would have closed it immediately, and I'm beginning to think we should have done the same with this one as well.

In short, threads like this make people feel uncomfortable and this type of subject matter is disturbing and macabre. This isn't the direction we want to take with the forums. At this time I think several aspects of the argument have been presented, some better than others, and we can leave it at that. We are going to discuss the existence of this topic some more in private and it may be reopened at a later time, but for now, I'm closing it down.