[CW: violence/gore]. As the title suggests, is there a left case to be made against ultra-violence in video games? I’m thinking mostly about MK11 and MK1 fatalities, as opposed to less gratuitous and less hyper-realistic violence–in Dark Souls or something. Whenever this topic is brought up, other factors usually take up the oxygen in the room: People might immediately think of family-values conservatives, such as the Media Research Center, who act like wet-blankets towards entertainment. Or we think of nerdy Joe Lieberman, who showed the 1993 Sub-Zero spine fatality to Congress (lol). There was Hillary Clinton who decried the Grand Theft Auto franchise, and the host of rightwing politicians who blamed Doom for the Columbine shooting (clearly as a way to absolve gun legislation from any culpability). So this is what I mean when I say that the conversation on video-game violence has been ceded entirely to these dudes, as opposed to something left spaces can discuss without sounding like squares or censors. This came to mind after I was reading about the video game designer who developed PTSD after working on Mortal Kombat 11. His dreams became excruciatingly violent, and his day-to-day was interacting with coworkers studying medical anatomy and watching videos of slaughtered animals. That can’t be good for anyone. I guess what I’m asking is: should leftists see this as harmless fun, or something problematic? And, will photo-realistic Fatalities exist in the communist future?

  • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    12·
    3 months ago

    That sucks about Dead Space. I didn’t know about that until now. yea

    I used to really like the Mortal Kombat games. The KMFDM movie soundtrack still slaps.

    The “authenticity” era and the toxic hogs that insisted that their violence could be produced no other way than causing emotional distress to game developers soured my feelings toward the franchise, though. disgost

    Hell, I’m past the “innate transgression of violence and gore” phase

    Whenever someone says “(product) is for babies” because of a perceived lack of awooga libertarian-alert hypersus , the usual implication is that something edgy, vulgar, and/or sensationalistic is the definition of “mature” that everyone after a certain age should, or even must, performatively gobble up that kind of slop for maturity points.