When Will Games Disturb Us?

Game Girl Advance brings up the subject of emotion in games, again, by going to the dark places. Jane talks about movies that are just plain uncomfortable to watch (shades of Donnie Darko), and wonders why when games will have the same effect. From the article: "Yet you could argue that Manhunt used a cheap trick - it set up the situation in order to exploit it for someone's idea of 'fun.' You could say that the developers did not mean to convey any message beyond entertainment. City of God was entertaining, in the broadest sense of the word, but it was also a portrait of hopelessness and a cycle that trapped its inhabitants; it was also in some ways a social history of gang violence in the slums from the seventies to the eighties. Manhunt does not have enough external references to be about anything other than what it is."

Comments

What is disturbing?

[Astarica]

Is disturbing being in a dark place and have zombies jump down? Is Final Fantasy X disturbing where you're fighting in a world that is trapped in an eternal spiral toward doom? Is it disturbing that in Terranimga for the SNES, everything you do that you thought was supposed to help humanity only accelerated their destruction? I, for one, was pretty bothered by the intro where the earth's history is presented like a clock, and then the clock ticks to the 13th hour and falls apart. And yet both games are probably the story-book example of how hope springs eternal even in the darkest of hours.

The mood of a game is a result of its story-telling. If the underlying story isn't disturbing, putting more special effects isn't going to change anything, either. But if we assume there are books that can be disturbing to read, then certainly any game has at least as much access to present information as well as a book, so of course they can be, too.

There's a difference between Creepy and Disturbing

[Drogo007]

And I don't think mass audience interactive entertainment (a.k.a. Video Games) will cross into truly disturbing Territory anytime soon. There's a difference between being a passive observer to something disturbing such as all the many movies already mention and being an active participant. And I think that the mental and emotional consequences of crossing that line are going to be too high for the majority of people to accept.

Granted, there's games out there with downright creepy premise, but they don't tackle such socially disturbing topics as movies because movies don't require that you project yourself as an active participant. The mental and emotional toll required to do that would, I think, force 99%+ of people to abandon such a game only a few minutes in.