Children in video games (Death taboo)

[Elim Garak]

Come to think of it.. I don't get it in REAL LIFE either. It's way more easier to replace a kid than to replace an adult (who is someone's child too, btw)
I don't understand what is the big deal with dead kids IRL. "Oh, poor baby died..." So what? No different from a dead adult. And in 9 month you can have another one, may be this time your baby will be more lucky or you will be more responsible and caring.

I don't even understand it in emotional sense. An adult is someone's child too. And it is more terrible for parents to lose an adult child than to lose a 5 y/o. So much invested (both emotionally and financially) into an adult - it's much greater loss.

No one respects veterans...

[Deleted]

i hate to see pre-pubescent children and animals (yeah even monster like ones) being killed. i don't like the killing of ("innocent", random) adults either, but it's not as bad.
it's probably related to the perception of them being "innocent" creatures who only follow their instincts and are unable to purposely inflict harm to others.

[Lazy Gecko]

You could kill children in Fallout 1 and 2. It was censored out of the European versions though. But they didn't actually remove the child NPCs, they just made them invisible. This was funny because in The Den there would be child pickpockets near every door, so you'd often find that random items from your inventory are missing and there's not a damn thing you can do about it.

[Soulwind]

In Dead Island there is actually a zombie kid (or teenager at least). Only one, in a side mission, inside a house.

But, even if it breaks the realism of some games, I don't think it's a good idea to include children deaths in videogames. Not only it would get a lot of negative criticism from the media, but it also doesn't really add anything to the game. And it's instinctive to protect our children, something inside of you doesn't feel right killing them. Even if it's only a videogame and even if they are human beings, just like adults are, our brain puts them in a different category.

That's why some soldiers have a bad time when they face a kid in RL wars, your brain finds it difficult to accept a child as an enemy or a danger.

[Jackdemenzes]

When it's part of the story it can be a good thing. It can get you more emotionally involved, just like your ME3 example. On the other hand, we have a lot of people that advocate being able to kill children in games like Skyrim. In fact, there is a Skyrim mod that allows you to do just that. That is where I draw the line. What good reason would your character in Skyrim ever have for killing a child? That's just sick. It is a that point that raising a fuss makes sense (in my opinion).

The reason that it is taboo is because our society has the set idea of protecting and nurturing children. For no reason other than that they are children. It is the same reason that is is taboo to sleep with your sibling, for no reason other than that he/she is your sibling. It's societal. To go against that is to go against our pre-determined "rules". This makes it morally wrong. This structure has existed for years.

Well, there's sort of a chicken and the egg thing there. Incest isn't frowned upon because it's morally wrong, it's been set up to be "morally wrong" because it carries all sorts of genetic implications. I'd say all of our morals are really just an expression of characteristics that, through social evolution, have allowed our society to thrive. Discouraging killing children I suppose means that no matter what sort of dramas people have with each other, from feuds between two people to wars between states, humanity still continues. A society that didn't discourage that could manage to murder itself into oblivion (and possibly already has, which is why the ones that discourage it are still around). Just wanted to throw that out there.

re: allowing it in games...I think this is just another iteration of "should art represent the world the way it is or the way we want it to be?" question. It's a hard one, I mean on one extreme art simply becomes a tool of mass delusion that pretends the things we don't like aren't there, at the other end you risk not just examining the negatives but wallowing in them and refusing to aspire to anything else, a sort of "this is the way things are and they can never be better" cynical/realist attitude. In fact I think almost every disagreement ever about gaming, film, television etc falls into this category!

It's especially tough for gaming (I'm thinking of Skyrim in particular). In a film if a kid is in a car that gets hit by a rocket launcher, suspension of disbelief pretty much requires him to die. The writer gets criticised for writing the situation itself, but no one argues that the kid should live though it. With gaming though there's the idea that if the developer made it possible, they're "encouraging" it. Now that's ten times harder because a film writer only has to craft one agreeable premise, but the coders that make up a game world have to guard against every outcome imaginable (in a sandbox type game anyway). Then they run up against suspension of disbelief hard, because if you've got kids in the game they either have to be killable (since kids, you know, can die) or remove them entirely, which is what they usually do.

My take, I think they should be killable because it's a bit false to pretend they're immortal, and if society has issues with it they should be criticising the gamers who do it rather than developers for creating an accurate world where people are (gasp) mortal. Just because you can kill them doesn't mean you should.

I just realised how long this post got. Now no one'll read it

[Management]

I normally would'nt want to kill a child in a game since it just feels wrong. But in a game like fallout 3 when the children you meet are cocky little pricks you just feel the need to put them down, yet you cannot.

[Liara]

Come to think of it.. I don't get it in REAL LIFE either. It's way more easier to replace a kid than to replace an adult (who is someone's child too, btw)
I don't understand what is the big deal with dead kids IRL. "Oh, poor baby died..." So what? No different from a dead adult. And in 9 month you can have another one, may be this time your baby will be more lucky or you will be more responsible and caring.

I don't even understand it in emotional sense. An adult is someone's child too. And it is more terrible for parents to lose an adult child than to lose a 5 y/o. So much invested (both emotionally and financially) into an adult - it's much greater loss.

No one respects veterans...

You're missing the fact that rationale has nothing to do with how people view children vs adults dying. When someone dies, his/her parents don't calculate how much they invested in him/her. And obviously, to the parents, the child's age has absolutely no relevance. It's only relevant to the ones not directly affected by the death.
Fact of the matter is, people view them differently, to the point where a child dying is far more horrible than an adult dying (for example, because some think children have no means to protect themselves).

[Deleted]

This image alone got a considerable backlash and it wasn't even implemented into the game! Yes the image alone is a bit extreme, but the "child killer" perk was cut entirely because of the notion ".. it would be offensive..". Name one kid in any of the Fallout/TES games that is not a jerk and didn't deserve to die?

Pretty much this. I was sooo annoyed when i went to the land of Dave to kill everyone and couldn't gun down the kids as well. Would i do it IRL? No. Does the fact that you can't kill children in games bring more attention on the long run then being able to kill them. Most likely.

[Elim Garak]

You're missing the fact that rationale has nothing to do with how people view children vs adults dying. When someone dies, his/her parents don't calculate how much they invested in him/her. And obviously, to the parents, the child's age has absolutely no relevance. It's only relevant to the ones not directly affected by the death.

No I'm not missing it - I'm just not touching it. We are talking about killing OTHER people's children, not our own. In video games. So I'm only talking about other people's kids and adults dying IRL. Hence the "attached value".

I would kill any number of adults to save my child, and I would also kill any number of other people's kids to safe my adult child.

Fact of the matter is, people view them differently, to the point where a child dying is far more horrible than an adult dying (for example, because some think children have no means to protect themselves).

I don't know, an adult having a gun pointed to his head - has no means of defense too.
What you are talking about is the same thing as when people feel sad for a horse being shot, while completely ignoring the fact that the rider got killed too. That is the thing I do not understand.

[Liara]

No I'm not missing it - I'm just not touching it. We are talking about killing OTHER people's children, not our own. In video games. So I'm only talking about other people's kids and adults dying IRL. Hence the "attached value".

I would kill any number of adults to save my child, and I would also kill any number of other people's kids to safe my adult child.


I don't know, an adult having a gun pointed to his head - has no means of defense too.
What you are talking about is the same thing as when people feel sad for a horse being shot, while completely ignoring the fact that the rider got killed too. That is the thing I do not understand.

Emotions make no sense. That's all I can really say without delving into deep philosophical discussions that have little to do with the subject at hand.
Personally, I think people pay too much heed to what people do in video games, with the claim that it reflects what they might do in real life. I honestly believe that video games provide catharsis, and help keep violence (and other things) to digital forms.

[Uwibami]

I can't remember whether it was BF3, or MW3 where you see a kid and his mom being blown up.
I just recall my reaction being something along the lines oh "Holy.... I did not see that coming"

I felt bad, the game actually made me feel bad.
The thing is though, that one scene caused me to be able to live myself in to the story more.
There is a weird taboo about killing kids in games, I don't know why it exists, but it has caused my brain to feel bad whenever I do kill a kid.
The thing to remember is, it's just a game though, no real kids get killed.

That said though, I really don't want more child actors/voices in games. I cannot stand children in games.
Unless done correctly, like the kid from The Last of Us.

[Elim Garak]

Ilike the kid from The Last of Us.

It was actually a kid? The voice actress was a bit mature, so I thought she's just a really small woman in her 20s.

[Grimbold of Skullcrusher]

I don't want to see children killed in computer games, and it has nothing to do with logic.

How's it different than adults getting killed in masses in computer games?

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

How's it different than adults getting killed in masses in computer games?

Like Reev said, it has nothing to do with logic. Simply because they are kids. If a decision has no logical reasoning behind it, it does not need a reason or a justification.

[Deleted]

Like Reev said, it has nothing to do with logic. Simply because they are kids. If a decision has no logical reasoning behind it, it does not need a reason or a justification.

And decisions that are based on sod all can be ignored and those who propose them as valid rightly dismissed.

You're basically saying that we should, at least in this case, accept a decision for literally no reason.

[NatePsy]

Skyrim, Skyrim, Skyrim.. It's just hilarious to watch pixelized things die. Anything with pixels, not just children.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

And decisions that are based on sod all can be ignored and those who propose them as valid rightly dismissed.

You're basically saying that we should, at least in this case, accept a decision for literally no reason.

Then go ahead and disagree. I couldn't care less. Won't stop people thinking that killing kids in video games isn't right.

[Deleted]

Like Reev said, it has nothing to do with logic. Simply because they are kids. If a decision has no logical reasoning behind it, it does not need a reason or a justification.

Thus we can ignore his statement completely right?

[Deleted]

HAPPY WHEEEELLLLLSSSS!

Really idk what the big deal is, i can understand that the companies don't want that kind of stuff in their games due to all the flaming they will get.

(Imagine some kid gets killed, and the media discovers he played a game where you are able to kill children at some point. Headline: "KID GETS KILLED THANKS TO A VIDEOGAME!") But why do people get so worked up about it? No clue, people need to wake the F up and stop being offended by everything in the world.

[Deleted]

Then go ahead and disagree. I couldn't care less. Won't stop people thinking that killing kids in video games isn't right.

Sure. But you shouldn't insist on legislation or pass decisions that effect other people based on no reason. That's absurd.

Secondly, it is literally impossible to affirm an opinion on something for no reason. Literally impossible. Whether emotional, logical or nonsensical all of our opinions are based on reasons. Otherwise we'd be arbitrary.