Question How to move from destructive games to educational games?

I dont have that game, but what you describe sounds awesome:speakcool:.
 
I think GTA is less about the violence than it is to do something novel and competitive. See how many laps around an area you can do in a car with five stars. How long you can hold an intersection using only Molotov cocktails, etc. Its less about playing the game then testing the limits of the game.

After playing Battlefield 1942 for a while I tried as many weird things as I could. Jump off the hood of a jeep while you detonate dynamite underneath to fly 50 ft in the air and parachute back down. Repair an airplane in mid flight. Get kills by running over badguys flying 4 ft above the ground in a B-17. Ram ships into things, park them alongside each other so you can jump from one deck to annother. Snipe people from the wing of a B-17 way up in the sky. Jump out of your airplane onto a Stuka, damage it with a pistol until the computer ejects, repair it midair and fly away.

That is a good point. GTA offers a lot to keep the player interested such as BASE jumping from a building or mountain top!

Hmm, I must dig out battlefield again..... sounds like I'm missing out on some fun! :lol:
 
That is a good point. GTA offers a lot to keep the player interested such as BASE jumping from a building or mountain top!

For BASE jumping I must recommend Just Cause. My best score is 990m from a mountain.
 
GTA without so much violence would be fantastic! If it wasn't driven towards prostitutes and gangs and stuff but instead took a more open ended outlook I think it would still be a fine game.
 
GTA without so much violence would be fantastic! If it wasn't driven towards prostitutes and gangs and stuff but instead took a more open ended outlook I think it would still be a fine game.

Uh, are you serious? I think you miss the point of GTA. It's "do what you can't do in real life" fantasy.
 
GTA without so much violence would be second life without the interaction with others over the 'net. It would be very dull.
 
It's "do what you can't do in real life" fantasy.
Some people don't have the shoot people up, steal cars and pick up prostutes fantasy. So some people don't care.
 
Some people don't have the shoot people up, steal cars and pick up prostutes fantasy. So some people don't care.

No, but what other kind of things are there that can easily be simulated in a game?

Without violence, you'll quickly have something like Orbiter. Also something you can't do in real life. But somehow violence is just a major part of the (male) human instincts. Otherwise, FPS games would be quite dull.

In fact, I'm not really interested in FPS games. Maybe that's true for more people on this forum. People in a space sim forum may just be interested in different things than the average person.
 
Some people don't have the shoot people up, steal cars and pick up prostutes fantasy. So some people don't care.

I've not encountered any young men who don't enjoy pretending to do at least two of those things.
 
I've not encountered any young men who don't enjoy pretending to do at least two of those things.

Hmm, maybe I need to see a doctor. :P

Maybe the idea of shooting guys up, but only if there's a very, very good reason.
 
I've not encountered any young men who don't enjoy pretending to do at least two of those things.

Or actually doing........... Gang culture and knife crime is becoming rife in London unfortunately.
 
I've not encountered any young men who don't enjoy pretending to do at least two of those things.

I know some who do. These people are the worst villains you can imagine...
 
Young males in almost every species of mammal participate in play fighting. That's what young puppies do with each other and with you if you give them a chance. That's what sports are and what video games are. Competition and play fighting. Nobody gets hurt except accidentally, yet the action may look violent.

Why do we play fight? Because its fun and social (or pseudo social in single player games). It helps display aggression and dominance without any lasting effects.
 
Young males in almost every species of mammal participate in play fighting. That's what young puppies do with each other and with you if you give them a chance. That's what sports are and what video games are. Competition and play fighting. Nobody gets hurt except accidentally, yet the action may look violent.

Why do we play fight? Because its fun and social (or pseudo social in single player games). It helps display aggression and dominance without any lasting effects.

Yeah, you said it. Play fighting in animals may look violent, but, (at least most of the time) no one gets hurt, at least not seriously.

People like those who caused the Columbine massacre weren't inspired or affected by video games, they were just attracted to those genres possibly because they had a dark outlook, due to social rejection, etc.
 
This is all about nature. Not just human nature, but nature itself, of which we are a part.

Urwumpe, it's one thing to want to improve yourself, but that means accomplishing more, not trying to overcome nature. What I mean by that is - changing your diet, improving your physical form, learning something new, being less lazy/working harder, getting a better routine going (could be anything, work related, exercise, morning/sleep, etc), caring more about those who are important to you/care about you, etc.

However, to sit there and claim that "violence is an abberation and must be eradicated", or that competition is bad, or that aggression is bad, etc, THAT is a problem.

The people we here in the states call liberals (not sure what you guys in Europe would call them, but I know you use "liberal" different than we do) are hippies, touchy-feely types who claim to love nature, but in fact only like trees but hate everything else about nature (because it's violent, cold, harsh and unforgiving, and decidedly "unfair"). They think they somehow know better than the very thing that gave them an existance in the first place.

That isn't to say that one should be out of control and hyper-violent. But it IS to say that violence and aggression are NOT the evil thing they are made out to be, and we as a society NEED to be more accepting of it. It's actually no wonder that crime is so bad today, we have no outlet, and video games just don't cut it. We need to bring back "the games" (just no animal sacrifices this time). We've taken away all outlets and ability to respond in appropriate manner, but left (even increased) the stress and pressures. It's a bad situation.

Couple that with an out of control population level (and growth), and you're going to have a larger absolute number of people too weak to take the pressures, and they snap. Columbine is the perfect example.

That was a case of weak individuals, horrible parenting, and a social system gone completely to hell. You can NOT defend your honor anymore. You have to sit and take anything anybody says or even does to you, in many cases, even RETURNING a strike will get you in trouble (meaning, taking the second swing, not the first). But nothing gets done about the pressures applied from peers, responsibilities, parents, the media, etc, etc, etc. And for kids, who haven't acquired all the tools they need yet, and are at the same time dealing with the CRUELEST peer group on the face of the planet (other kids), if they are trapped by society and have no guidance at home, the slightest weakness can make them snap.

I have some experience here. I was an outcast. I know exactly what it's like. But I didn't haul off and gun down my classmates either. Why? 2 reasons, I'm stronger (internally) than those kids, and perhaps most importantly, I had a release - I punched the elemntary school principle in the face, laid out one of the kids harassing me twice, sent another to the hospital to get lead removed from his skull.... lol Yeah, sounds bad, but all I wanted was to be left alone, and they just couldn't do it. Also these events were strung out over several years, so it wasn't like I just fliped out and went on a rampage. It takes me a while to build up a head of steam, but every pressure cooker needs a releif valve. Take that away, and don't be surprised if a few of the containers start exploding here and there.

And it all stems from the same source - all of it. Our love for violent entertainment (games/movies/tv shows/sports/etc), rough play/horsing around, competitive behavior, aggression, etc, it's ALL from an ingrained competitive/aggressive nature. It's part of being a social mammal. We compete against our predators and our prey, and against each other for status and rank. The alpha-male gets the most foot, the most women, and the most offspring, thus we all want to be there. Females are tuned to this too, as the alpha-male will likely be the stronges/smartest/most dynamic/etc so he will be able to provide the most, and most importantly, his genes will have the greatest chance of survival, and of being attractive to successive generations. We are nothing more than vessels for our genes really.

If you remove competitive tendencies from humanity, it will just lay down and die.

This is something that's rather obvious to those who understand, and apparently Joss Whedon is one of those people. Ignore that this is from sci-fi, and ignore the ultra-violent backlash (may or may not happen, but it makes for great story). It's a moral lesson about tampering with nature and being so arrogant as to think that you know better and can actually "improve" it.

 
GTA without so much violence would be second life without the interaction with others over the 'net. It would be very dull.

Umm, are you kidding? Second Life has graphics that make Wii sports look like high definition brilliance. All I'm saying is that if there were a game similar to GTA which wasn't about violence and stuff I'd still play it. I don't think it's anything to do with people playing it because they can't do it in real life.
 
I punched the elemntary school principle in the face
While you were in elementary school?
 
Well, you can also perfect violence and aggression. The question is just if you can permit reducing people to that.

The history is full of examples, where the training into a war machine was most effective, if it came with social and academic training as well. Being a perfect warrior is more than just being able to kill (It also expects you to be able to not fight, which is a much harder task to learn, than just fighting). And that is what good games differ from bad games: In bad games, the reality is shaped into one, where killing is enough. In good games, the reality of the game forces you to perfect more than just the pointer.

I have a firm believer in individuality. The society is then at it's best, when people can decide to become, what they want to be. Nobody should be forced to become a toothless plush toy for mental dictators. If you like to fight, you should be permitted to find a place in the society to do even that. As long as you demand the fighters to stay inside the society and not form their own...

And that is why you don't want to ban and censor games, like burning books. With that, you force people outside the society.
 
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