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Torture in Games
Recent comments from Richard Bartle, one of the developers for the first Multi-User Dungeon (MUD), stirred up discussion about whether virtual torture is acceptable as part of modern games. Bartle was referring to a quest in the latest World of Warcraft expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, in which players are instructed to extract information from an NPC. He drew criticism for his view from a variety of sources, but Wired is now running a piece provocatively titled, "Why We Need More Torture in Games." The author makes the case that the failure of most media to properly portray how horrible torture actually is (for example, on the TV show 24), and the increased focus on real-world topics like Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and waterboarding, could make games the perfect venue for demonstrating the "devastating repercussions" of torture.
Killing someone isn't torture in itself. Nearly every game out there involves killing. That's not the same as torture.
I don't play WoW or the MUD mentioned in the article, but I'm curious if the use of torture in these games does/would invariably produce honest factual information from the person/monster being tortured?
Torture has a somewhat speckled history when it comes to getting at what's actually really going on. Torture someone enough and they'll tell you whatever they think will get you to stop the torture, regardless of if it's true or not.
It'd be a bit more interesting I'd think if the torture sometimes works, and sometimes leads you off in directions that aren't at all productive(and might actually weaken you).
I mean, let's be sensible here. Torture. In other words, making someone feel pain (physical, emotional, pick your poison) to get something from him.
Anyone here that does NOT know that this is something you don't really want to be subjected to? Well? I see no hands, so either people know or people know about it enough that they don't want to hear the logical followup to that question.
If we get desensitized to torture, to people being hurt and mutilated for fun and profit, I think something's wrong with the shows that picture it as something "mildly unpleasant" instead of what it is: Physically and even more so emotionally crippling. When we do the same in games, what does it change?
I mean, besides games having a weaker lobby and getting the thinkofthechildren crowd up in arms about people playing torture.
Is there a difference between watching torture on TV and executing it yourself in a game? In both cases you watch a character do it. In one case, you get to see it because you issue a command. In the other case you do because you don't issue one, i.e. don't change the channel. Where is the huge difference?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
My impression of WoW is that it is a fairly shallow game in terms of narrative with the quests. Most of these quests are simple grinding with very little aspect to rewards or consequences to the players actions. If the idea is to incoporate consequences or rewards to such things as torture, part of the gaming mechanism would've to be changed such that something valuable to a WoW player would be affected. I don't think WoW has ever presented the concept of good or bad in the gameplay, either faction can do pretty much whatever they want regardless. WoW isn't designed to disucss morality in terms of gameplay.
I had that game too (still have the CDs on my shelf) and though I'm sure we'd think it was cheesy now, at the time, compared to the very simple graphics in most games it was pretty engrossing to interact with "real" people. As you described, some sequences were very effective - some were plain silly as well :)
I have the one where you're a submarine captain, too, forgot what it's called... That one was engrossing as well, except it seemed much more scripted and linear than Spycraft did. I still remember clearly what the XO says to you, and the look of despair on his face as he says it, when you make a bad decision and end up sinking the submarine (probably because I sank it dozens of times...)
But anyway... the main thing I was going to say is, can you imagine anyone releasing a game now with live-action torture sequences? What publisher would allow that? It would be a very effective statement against torture, but I can't see it happening, despite the amount of violence and debauchery available to you in other games. Spycraft was an effective statement as well, but not timely.
In the WoW universe, little is permanent. Death is a minor inconvenience, not something that is forever. If a player dies, they spawn as a spirit at a nearby graveyard and walk back to their body and resurrect. NPCs (computer controlled characters) simply respawn in the same spot after a certain amount of time.
If the real world worked like that, well we'd probably have a rather different value system. If killing someone meant they had to walk back for a couple minutes and caused them no permanent harm at all, I imagine it wouldn't be such a big deal.
The rules of a game world are vastly different than our own so even if you want to ignore the fact that this is just entertainment, you can't try and apply the same morals to it.
Either morality is relevant in a game context or it isn't - if it is, then we should be disapproving of _anything_ in the game which is immoral (and in most cases that's anything that's actually illegal - killing 'bad guys' just because they're there isn't particularly moral). If it isn't, who cares about a spot of torture within the context of World of Warcraft, which lets not forget has a fundamental underlying premise of genocide - exterminating entire races based on their species.
Not exactly the height of morality there.
But that's not why we condemn it:
The effectiveness or not is a moot point - however effective it is, the price is too high.
The failure of most media to properly portray how horrible torture actually is (for example, on the TV show 24), and the increased focus on real-world topics like Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and waterboarding, could make games the perfect venue for demonstrating the "devastating repercussions" of torture.
Unfortunately the authors premise is wrong. There is certainly no evidence that the more graphic news scenes that came out of the Vietnam War influenced anybody to stop going to war or killing, and neither did the images out of Abu Ghraib prison seem to influence people (who think torture is acceptable) to change their minds.
As a person who was in the military before, there were instructors (who illegally) imposed their own (relatively mild) forms of torture on their recruits during war games when they captured people (actually these instructors consisted largely of Special Forces people who had a history of abusing their power). Even in this more controlled and sanctioned scenario the psychological trauma caused in many people will never compare to what anybody can merely see in a video game.
If you want realism then you have to experience it for yourself. I'd rather have something more akin to what police departments do, and that is actually have volunteer officers experience the effects of tasers and pepper spray for themselves, or in the military where they have soldiers take off their gas masks in a small room with tear gas. Other than that it's all fun and games.
As for the nut-jobs, they will always be around no matter what technology they may get their rocks off with. They need more help than just keeping them away from video games.
The author makes the case that the failure of most media to properly portray how horrible torture actually is (for example, on the TV show 24), and the increased focus on real-world topics like Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and waterboarding, could make games the perfect venue for demonstrating the "devastating repercussions" of torture.
Yep, just like everyone who's ever played a FPS knows exactly how terrible the horrors of war are.
And I've played enough Tetris in my life to know exactly what it's like to be a bricklayer.
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
A friend of mine is a religious education teacher at a secondary school. He asked the kids which of them had played video games that graphically depict killing and murder, and whether this was acceptable. Predictably, most had played them, and none thought there was anything wrong with this - "it's just a game".
So he suggested a hypothetical game called Rape The Kid - you play a psycho that has to find children and rape them, for points - would they play this, after all, "it's only a game"? They were all horrified.
How far do you personally want to go and still call this entertainment? At the risk of sounding like some moralising religious nutter myself, where do you want your brain to be at?
The whole 'torture doesn't work' argument is valid, but only if you use the process being described. Relying on a single person's confession is bad practice. It's comparable to performing one test in an experiment and using that as your findings. One would think you would have multiple interrogations and be able sort out the differences and inconsistencies to piece together pretty accurate intel. Like other have said though, the 'accuracy' of torture shouldn't be the deciding factor. If that's where we are as a society, then maybe it's too late.
I agree with you there, Sobrique. Not sure if you're American, but I am, and one of the fundamental issues I take with my culture is how violence, drugs, and language are all taken in stride, but woe be to whoever (whomever?) shows sexuality in a video game. Remember the uproar over Mass Effect's alleged "hardcore" sex scenes? The media jumped all over it just based on these rumors, while in reality there is just a bit of ass shown in the game. Never mind the hundreds of people you have the option of killing. Don't like the people in the Feros colony? Kill them all as soon as you get the chance!
In The Great Gatsby, there's one scene where the woman (I've forgotten her name) gets hit by a car, and the book details one of her naked breasts halfway torn off and flapping in the wind. This is considered an art form. In games, ANY mention of sexuality is immediately torn to shreds by the media.
I play games for the story, and hence I consider my games a form of entertainment [like movies, books, etc], not simply a toy. I guess my point is, moral issues should carry the same weight in any entertainment medium.
I've rambled on for far too long.
80 hours of nonstop anything can be torture for most people, regardless of what you're doing.
Especially since if it's 80 straight hours, you're already causing multiple days of sleep deprivation.