I have to say your article really is dog poo. While I agree that limiting the murder of children is not "real" I also think Bethesda did the right thing here. You offer no real argument as to why you want to murder children and offer no alternative for "negative repercussions for in-game atrocities". All you've done is written a big bitch piece for shock value, I feel dumber for having read it, and I think less of gamasutra for posting it. I see a future for you at FOX news.

However, after reading it I thought of 2 ways they could have added negative repercussions to affect gameplay. 1) extremely negative actions could affect sleep ( nightmares )to the point that you can almost never use sleep to recover health 2) Ghosts of the children you murdered could appear during combat to either lure in more enemies or interfere with your actions. I'm sure there other better ideas but in the end this is just adding a whole lot of work, the quick and easy answer was to have children take no damage.

In closing, your a douche.

For starters you can technically kill at least a few children in the game when you nuke an entire city, which brings about the question of "At what point do atrocities become so impersonal that they are acceptable?". "Karma" may be a meaningless measure of your alignment toward good or evil, but it could be an effective way to dissuade unethical or immoral actions if it had one sided repercussions to having an evil "Karma". At this point there are bad repercussions (consisting of mercenaries attempting to kill you) to having a "Karma" leaning strongly toward good or evil, and the only way to avoid these is to maintain a neutral karma. By making the game equal toward good and evil, Bethesda thinks it is avoiding making any moral decisions for the player, which is fine until they start doing things like removing the ability to kill children. It is a thin line to walk, but I also must admit that I have played the game for at least 20hrs and had not noticed that you couldn't kill children and I was not playing a particularly good character. I would have enjoyed a more distinct NPC reaction to your "Karma", and as in Fallout2 a region specific "Karma", but that said I still find myself torn between the good and evil choices on many of the decisions I have faced in the game.

"However, after reading it I thought of 2 ways they could have added negative repercussions to affect gameplay"

Sounds like the article served its purpose! Drop the namecalling please, it's ok to politely disagree with someone's opinion.

As a Dad I don't want to work in an industry where we are making it possible for someone to even fantasize about killing children. Is this censorship. Yes. I feel like some censorship is good for us all. Is this a dangerous road to go down? Letting some people decide what is right for us? Yes if you buy into it fully. No if you just do a gut check and think about the obvious forms of censorship that benefit society. If you polled 10 people on the street and asked them if they wanted the developers of a video game to sink resources into making it possible to kill children, rather than making some other thing in the game, I bet at least 8 or 9 of them would say make something else.

Jason, this isn't a Yahoo chatroom, it's a close-knit community of game developers. And now we all know who you are and that you're well versed in "dog poo" and "douche".

In no way did Simon imply that killing children in Fallout 3 would be a good thing or that it was even necessary. His commentary regards the need for selectively restricted realism and the associated challenges for developers. An article like this is meant to promote discussion and progress on the issue and I'm pleased to see that it's working despite a few childish comments.

"If you polled 10 people on the street and asked them if they wanted the developers of a video game to sink resources into making it possible to kill children, rather than making some other thing in the game, I bet at least 8 or 9 of them would say make something else."

Steve:

The thing is that being able to kill other human beings in Fallout 3, be they zombies or sheriffs, is one of the defining foundations of the game.

It's not that Bethesda would have had to do sink additional resources into adding the feature to kill children. Quite the opposite: in restricting the game mechanic to only certain targets they added to their workload.

I'm not saying that the developers don't have a right (or even perhaps even an imperative) to forbid players from being able to kill children. But it's awfully difficult to take a stance like that when you're spending your days building a lawless, anything goes, post-apocalyptic America in which you can kill anyone you want who's above a certain height.

It's a mixed and unsatisfactory message.

Douche was a bit much, so I'll concede to that. But if this was meant to be a general discussion on selectively restricted realism he should had other examples, like why no jumping in mass effect, or glass walls in racing games. I stand by my dog poo rating.

I agree with the point that censoring the killing of children makes the other atrocities in the game less appear less evil. Killing men is ok, killing women is ok, but killing children is a no go. This may be a widely accepted in games, movies, comics and books, but I decided a while ago to stop supporting all those "headshot games", cause I think they are morally bankrupt. In my opinion to many games show violence as a solution and war as the normal state of the human mind.
I found it intresting to read that killing children wouldn't have passed ESRB checks anyway. What does this mean? That the game had got the rating AO? This only shows "Indigo Prophecy" got an AO for showing a low polycount after-sex-scene, "Fallout 3" gets an M cause you can kill other people, but you can't have sex with them.

Why go there? Anyone who has been in a developer's shoes knows: is it worth the heat, the bad publicity etc... to allow players to kill children in the game? Considering what such an activity adds to the game (zero gameplay benefit here) and the price of keeping it in there (the burning hellfires of the game and mainstream press) I think the choice was pretty clear cut. I would have done the same, and I loved Carmaggedon 2....

Greetings:
Whatever you think about the importance of killing children in video games, the article has a very poor argument. Deciding to leave something out of a game is not self-censorship, except in the most general, uninformative sense. Was it self-censorship that you couldn't kill human enemies in Super Mario Bros? Was that somehow a failure of games to deal with the morality of people killing other people?

Creative teams make decisions; that's what makes the work interesting rather than being mechanically reproduced. That the team chose to go one way does speak volumes, about the team and the game, not about the industry or any higher truth of game design, technology, or culture.

This is silly grandstanding, pseudo-intellectual nonsense. The facile logic of equating one exception to a general invalidation is a classical rhetorical slide that doesn't actually illuminate the problem at all.

The fact that Mr. Parkin personally finds the creative choices of the team at Bethesda "mixed and unsatisfactory" is hardly worth notice at all, and clothing it in some sort of grandiose facade of cultural significance is just a way of slipping it over the transom. I'm with Mr. Wylie in that I would hope the editorial staff at Gamasutra would be a bit more discerning in what they choose to publish.

Best,
Michael.

I recommend everyone interested in this topic google "George Carlin" and watch one of his HBO specials, particularly "Life Is Worth Losing".

I think Bethesda should have not rigged causality around artificial morality, but being a large corporation they had no choice, being so bound by the laws of money. I think a 1-3 person team could have made a better game and let the natural recombinance of nouns and verbs exist unfettered. I think killing children is not something I would personally want to do, but I'm not about to say it "is" "right" or "wrong" or anything close to "censorship is a good thing" which is like three swear words in one sentence. I think a really wonderful thing about games can be the effect of allowing us to play outside of preconceived linguistics, after playing many games which each have their own definitions of what "is" "right" and "wrong" you start to see how the world works as an arbitrary game design reinforced by collective hallucination.

To reify this point more specifically, let's analyze a few possible mechanics to punish people for combining a verb with one particular set of nouns - ghosts, nightmares and social repercussions. Why do only children's ghosts haunt you? Why not the ghosts of all the other seemingly innocent people you kill? Why do you have nightmares about killing children and not about being a butcher in general, or about merely surviving in a wasteland filled with horror? The social repercussions are the only mechanic that both makes casual sense and enriches the gameplay, because then you're including the observers (the NPCs) in the model, instead of laying down some platonic, ontological arbitration by designer fiat. That's the design approach Bethesda would have taken if their top priority was artistic excellence instead of safe sales, but their implied priority comes with the territory in our insane, upside down, corporate-fascist culture.

"Deciding to leave something out of a game is not self-censorship, except in the most general, uninformative sense."

The team did not decide to "leave something out of the game". They decided to restrict a system in the game on moral grounds. That is self-censorship. I tried to make the distinction very clear in the column.

To me it seems that despite the supposed moral reasoning here the main reason for the change was to get an M rating instead of an AO rating. If there is a social repercussion for cannibalism (which it seems there is) then extending it to killing children makes more sense than not. What I think we will see now is a hack that comes along that removes the restriction but doesn't implement a repercussion.. and that could be far worse for the industry.

Simon, I'm with you. I think the larger issue is that it is still consider unacceptable for games to do something like that. I don't begrudge Bethesda their decision to shy away, but that decision was made much easier by the realities of the ratings system. If you can't do it because you'll get an AO rating, you won't do it. Would a game that didn't allow you to kill anyone but one child at a pivotal moment get an AO? Maybe, although I imagine the gore level would have to be high. Nevertheless, Bethesda wasn't operating in a completely free environment and if we really want to have an adult focused industry we should do something about that.

Everyone says "ah, in Fallout 2 you could kill children". Yes, that is true. And then, what happened? You were marked as a child-killer and people would attack you on sight or refuse to speak to you. It's not like you got an award for doing it.

You cannot block things that belong to a scenario and pretend you are not hurting the scenario. Evil is a part of our world and it is central to many movies, books and yes, games. So what? If you're wandering a virtual wasteland where there is no government, blowing virtual heads off with a virtual shotgun while taking virtual drugs, does it even matter *what* you're shooting? No mentally sane person would even associate that to taking taking drugs or shooting people in real life.

I miss the times when you could just play a game and not have to hear so much hipocrisy about violent games. Just walk out your door and there is a good chance you'll see worse things - from people that weren't even touched by the "evil games that make you crazy". Bah.

I am a bit amazed that people reading this article think killing virtual children is different from killing virtual adults. You can kill anyone in cold blood in Fallout 3, you can sleep with a prostitute, you can mug a man who's dying of thirst and then blow off his skull. You could kill children in the last two Fallout games. The moral line is a fine one, and I don't think removing child killing does anything to raise this to a higher level of morality. If you consider children to be people, then all should be equal.

I would expect this sort of "douche" reaction from knee-jerk politicians, certainly, but not from game developers. People have seemed to miss the point - the crux of it is - is a virtual child's life worth more than that of a virtual adult? If so, why? I think it's really just for the ESRB.

"As a Dad I don't want to work in an industry where we are making it possible for someone to even fantasize about killing children."

Fair enough. Do you have a wife? A girlfriend? How do you feel about making it possible for someone to even fantasize about killing women? Men? That argument doesn't hold up. All this does is support the idea that games can compel someone to kill, and if you believe that, I don't want to see what sort of games you're making!

I'm imagining a world where it's impossible to kill children, and it's really frightening.

...Hi, Joe, your 18th birthday is in three days! This is my friend Guido. He wants to buy your body parts and sell them to super mutants for genetic material. Have fun in your last three days of life!

...Hi, Gwen; hi, Stacey; hi, Peter. As immortal children, we've decided to take away your childhood and make you into soldiers. You can't have any fun, because we're going to force you to learn to kill, and if you resist, we'll torture with unceasing pain because, yes, you won't die. We don't mind if you go insane from the horrible experiences we'll put you through, because it'll just make you all better killing machines. Have a nice life.

Hmmm, it seems that a game with immortal children would teach me terrible moral lessons. Interesting.

Did people start kidnapping girls after playing Bioshock and exploiting little sisters? No.

Did prostitution rates and murder rates rise rapidly as GTA sales went into the millions of copies? No.

Did homosexuality and physical abuse of clowns and rabbits rise rapidly as The Sims series went into the millions of copies? No.

Did children start jumping over every rock and boulder they saw while running up hills after playing Jungle King? No. (Well, yes for me... except I sprained my ankle doing so and learned an important life lesson.)

As a society, we have to teach others the rules of civility, and then hope that they'll follow those rules. How many of us walk the streets in fear of the random Halo fan that may try to run us over in their Warthog... er, SUV? Do we worry that the millions of gun owners in the United States are ever going to have a deathmatch? No, because we hope that most people are smart enough to know the difference between fantasy and reality. I like to think that the people who kill adults in video games and know that killing is wrong in real life are able to make the small leap in cognizance to know that killing of children in real life is also wrong.

Whoa now - just becuase BETHESDA fails doesnt mean video games have failed. What about the original fallout? CHILDKILLER status was pretty harsh.

I will assume morality to be the cause of their choice, even though I think economics is more likely.

Bethesda says they asked themselves, "what benefit would there be in killing the kids?", but this is not accurate. The first question in their mind must have been, "what benefit would there be in NOT allowing players to kill the kids?" because as someone has already cited, the studio went out of its way to take the ability to kill children out, whereas it would not have had to go out of its way leave the ability to kill children in. If Bethesda had answered the first question honestly they would have said that the benefit in allowing people to kill kids is that it enhances their vision of a post-apocalyptic world of anarchy and death.

If the game wants to integrate a morale subjectivity that rewards good and punishes bad behavior, I don’t take issue, but I believe it is unnecessary. There is no “karma” in the real world and we don’t kill kids because A. tangible disincentives like jail, ruining ones own life, etc. and B. emotive disincentives like pity, compassion, etc. Introducing punishments into the game for bad behavior is akin to A., the tangible disincentives, even though the game tries to guise it as a morale decision made by the player. If a game is done well, and I advance Bioshock as an example, it will invoke B, the emotive disincentive. True, Bioshock game did reward you with excess Atom for saving the little sisters, but I found the artistic representation of saving them to be sufficient reward.

If a child is killed in a movie it’s not cause for an outcry, because it was the producer that made the choice to represent the child being killed. In a videogame it is seen as worse because it is the player that reveals a morale bankruptcy. I guess I don’t understand why a player would be mad at a developer for presenting the choice when it is the player that chose to act immorally.

I’m sure someone will cite the argument about video games warping children’s minds. There is a lack of evidence to support that argument, but assuming it is true, children shouldn’t be playing this game anyway. If they are playing it, someone else failed, weather it be their parents or the store that sold them the game.

My problem with the article is not with morality in games, its the way its presented and how narrow the focus is. I doubt we would be reading this article if it was titled "Opinion : The Sims 2 'I have sex with children'" and focused solely on how the inability to have sex with children limits the game.

Brandon,

You said:
"Fair enough. Do you have a wife? A girlfriend? How do you feel about making it possible for someone to even fantasize about killing women? Men? That argument doesn't hold up. All this does is support the idea that games can compel someone to kill, and if you believe that, I don't want to see what sort of games you're making!"
------

I'm not saying violent games cause people to commit murder. Probably that choice is more to do with the full social upbringing of a person, and video games would be just a minor fraction of all of the information that would drive someone to make that choice.

What I am saying is purely emotional. Not everything in the world needs to be backed up by logic and proof. My statement probably sounds stupid to someone without children. Some parents though probably understand where I'm coming from. Aren't there already enough different flavors of violence to fantasize about? Do we really have to go out of our way to make a new experience where we consider how to animate the death of a young girl, or boy.

@"Do we really have to go out of our way to make a new experience where we consider how to animate the death of a young girl, or boy."

games can help us explore things we couldn't otherwise. i would not rule it out. i wouldn't rule it out for books or movies, either. the question is: how is the event used?

The gist of Mr. Parkin's argument is that because the game is set in harsh, morally-ambiguous future, where such actions might actually happen, the decision to prevent the killing of children represents self-censorship and compromises the game’s artistic integrity because it implies that the developers were unable to design appropriate consequences that would have disincentivized and “punished” this kind of behavior. Ironically, there would likely have been little, if any, actual consequences for this type of behavior in the bleak future that the game envisions.

It is his failure to acknowledge the out-of-game consequences of what he suggests that I think most undermines Mr. Parkin’s argument. As he AND his “eloquent” detractors have pointed out, there were certainly ways Bethesda could have made the consequences for this atrocity severe enough to disincentivize most players. I seriously doubt, however, that being able to say “afterwards, you are haunted by the child’s ghost and your character has a hard time sleeping,” would have done much to quell the outcry of millions of disgusted and offended parents. Ultimately, the decision to omit child killing in the game is far less of a concession to Bethesda’s abilities as game designers than it is to society’s sensitiblities. So, in other words, we have only ourselves to blame (or thank).

I posted a lengthier critique of this article here: http://www.benjaminhoyt.com/blog/2008/10/31/fallout-3-why-you-cant-kill-children
/

Every time we communicate either verbally or non verbally we institute self-censorship. We pick what would best express our thought and leave the rest out.

I see this as a non-issue. Personally, I would have rather seen a karma or other stat penalty for killing children, but I am not bothered that the developer made a call to leave the option out.

Now, if the developer originally had it in the game, and the publisher forced it out by pressure, this would be an entirely different discussion, but that does not seem to be the case.

Is there no room for artistic choice in game development? Is it not enough for the developer to say, "I won't make a game in which one can kill children"? Fallout 3 is not some post-apocalypse simulator that must conform to our ideas of what is possible in such a world. If so, there are many other 'failings' in the game which make it all the more disturbing that one would focus on this one. The argument that Bethesda is somehow undermining the game because adults can be killed but not children is silly. If you want a game that tackles these issues 'head on' so badly go make it yourself.

As I understand it Simon Parkin don't said they should have allowed the killing of children, because it is a post apocalyptic war simulator or because people should have the ability to kill everything that moves.
As I understand it, the article points out it is a problem, because the whole philosophy of the game is "to embrace violence". While promoting to be a game where you can make the decision to be good or evil, to do things that have real consequences for the world you live in, it stops at this certain point out of lazyness.
Instead of teaching some real moral value, it self censors the game and says this is a moral decision.
It is not about the fact, that it is ok to kill children in videogames for fun.
And I think it teaches us nothing about society itself, it teaches us only something about the gaming industry. Motion Pictures like "In Bruges" can handle themes like childkillings serious in a mainstream Gangster Movie, games can't.

Without choice, there is no moral decision to be made.

If you can't make the choice, you aren't being moral or immoral. More to the point, if someone else is making the choice for you (in this case, the developer), you are being morally neutered. You have no say, no control. Your moral dilemma is no longer an issue, because someone else decided you couldn't handle the responsibility.

This creates problems. You can now safely fire at an enemy standing next to a child, knowing the child will not be killed (something you can't do if the enemy is standing next to a friendly npc, and something you could not do in previous Fallouts).

You can now nuke a town that you know contains children. And there isn't a significant problem doing so - you just get a different (better) house, and the one person you really need in that town (the merchant) survives!

The removal of moral choice is the true moral bankruptcy. And for Bethesda to try to claim the moral high ground here is laughable.

Mr. Pagliarulo's statement regarding the censorship of child-killing in Fallout 3 is a bogus rationalization. The fact is, if graphic killing and dismemberment of children had been included in a high-resolution, surround-sound FPS/RPG, this game would not be sitting on Best Buy and Wal-Mart shelves around the world right now. It would be doomed to sell a few thousand copies as a niche title by the AO rating it would surely have been given.

Bethesda should have told it like it is. As others have pointed out, it obviously involved more work and testing to make children a special case non-killable class of NPC and yet despite this, one can still implicitly murder children in Fallout 3, albeit indirectly and most importantly, off screen.

The real question is how the original Fallouts got past the ESRB. Is it simply a matter of greater scrutiny these days or that killing children was an optional part of the game? And since the original was allowed, why not Fallout 3? More to the point you kill children in Bioshock if you harvest the little sisters, and if anything it's more graphic and disturbing than shooting a kid. In general I think the karma decision was flawed and that handling morality should be a thing designers think about (though I myself don't really believe in a hard morality and certainly would try to abstain from preaching it through my games) more often.

I have to agree with Folsom's argument that the AO rating would have doomed Fallout 3 from getting any sort of sales, which would also have killed all this discussion. To those who would argue that showing this economic care is hampering Bethesda's artistic capacity may not be thinking about the tremendous amount of resources it takes to create a game of this magnitude. A project of this size could cost upwards of $100 million and then only selling a couple thousand copies for the inclusion of child killing, seems to be at the least good business sense. This would allow the company to exist for more years and push more boundaries instead of sinking itself and the lives of its employees.

To Simon Parkin, who has stated, "To play Fallout 3 is to embrace violence," I feel he has missed some of the point. Yes, there is a tremendous amount of violence in this but it is certainly not the only game to have this level of violence. Fallout 3 uses violence and gore to demonstrate the brutality that a post-apocalyptic world breeds. Fallout 3 could have could have been just as successful without the violence but it was an artistic choice of the Fallout 3 team to have it there. For games that truly are in existence to "embrace violence", look towards titles like Postal 2 or Carmaggedon 2, whose vestiges of plot or other devices are rather minimal.

The killing of children is an artist choice of Bethesda's, as Christopher Braithwaite so elegantly put, and it is their artistic choice not to. It is important, in my mind, that every studio be proud of the product that they produce. If Bethesda would not be proud of having a game that allows the explicit murder children then they made the right choice in not releasing that 'feature' in the game.

To Michael Fitch, I highly agree with your statement about the article, though I disagree with the statement made towards the Gamasutra's editorial staff. I feel this article did what they expected, which was to elicit this kind of discussion from the readers of the article.

Thanks to all who survived my rant,
Parker Phend.

I feel the second half of the article veers off its strongest point; I do agree it is quite hypocritical of Bethesda to talk about "morality" and "ethics" when their game clearly celebrates massacring human beings in very gory ways for personal gain.
The rallying cry against censorship in this industry is that there is nothing wrong with players enacting fantasies of extreme violence against human beings, who are defenseless in some cases. I fail to see how the act is suddenly censurable if the apparent age of the virtual subject drops below a certain cutoff. (Are there teens on the game? Can you kill them? Would that be "okay" or not?)

I think the problem that the article is trying to address, with which I agree, is that the game is internally inconsistent by prohibiting the killing certain characters when everyone and everything else can be killed.

Carl Chavez,

I recognize this is off topic, but can we please not say homosexuality is equivalent to kidnapping, murder, prostitution, and physical abuse in regards to things we must teach civilized people to avoid? As a homosexual the comment hit me rather differently than I think you intended.

Thanks,
Meredith Katz

Now, regarding the actual article... I'm honestly on the fence with this one. To give weight to moral decisions, they do actually need to be evenly balanced morally -- I really like having negative feedback for the worst atrocities, so removing child killing (horrifying as it is) seems to remove it from the moral scale and brings the developer's morality in where they've established the player's morality is meant to be. On the lightest level, this is immersion-breaking -- it stops the player from living the game and makes the developer's biases apparent. And on the other side of things, I can also understand why the developers just wouldn't want to touch on that issue, both for the potential public outcry and technical limitations with avoiding the AO rating. Each of the individual moral decisions (which each come with potential problems on a strictly out-of-game level, like rating and public response) are debates the studio has to decide whether or not to engage with, and all the messy business that might entail. I can't fault them for wanting to avoid it.

Rather than highlighting the ineffectiveness of video games in dealing with morality, I feel that it highlights the difficulty video games face in dealing with morality.

obviously no one can fault bethesda for disallow child killing for economic interests. if they stated that to be their incentive this would not be an issue. we are debating because they chose to claim that they did it because they wanted to occupy some moral high ground.

I don't see why everyone is so in favor of in game morale repercussions. they don't encourage morality. to the contrary, they encourage players to pursue tangible benefit. if we are trying to create a realistic world, why should there be a cosmic system of karmic retribution? if we are going to go in this direction why not go so far as create a hell or jail levels immoral players must complete before respawning. as someone already pointed out, if the world of Fallout were real there would be little chance of negative repercussion for killing children.

why does this medium feel obligated to appease the audiences desire for justice? films don't. it's because we assume the premise that playing a game effects behaviour. unless you're prepared to admit that as your stance, i do not see how you can defend this type of self-censorship with an argument rooted in morality. i'm very surprised so many of the readers of this site advocate limiting video games in such a meaningful way.

I connot agree more with the author and Enrique Saul Gonzales et al..
This topic isn't about wether it is "right" or "wrong" to put in the option to kill children in a game. The point is, Bethesda is highly hypocritical when trying to defend their choice with "morale" ond "ethics". Truth is, it was a choice for the ESRB rating's sake.
Since Fallout 3 features explicit graphical violence and atrocities against human beings solely for personal gain, the only consequent choice would have been to either have children able to be killed or to feature no children in the game at all.
Bethesda's decision was not optimal from a game designer's view since it brakes immersion and shows - as the author cited - the "video games' ineffectiveness in providing meaningful disincentives and negative repercussions for in-game atrocities". (Although I would not generalize this.)

The thing those people fail to understand is that they're not killing children, they are giving a choice to. If anything, we should scorn the people willing to kill imaginary children, rather than the developers who give you the opportunity NOT to do so.

If the reviewers choose to ban the game based on child-killing, then a question needs to be asked - what kind of sick people they are, to try and kill children, and blame everyone else but themselves for their (imaginary) demise?

We are trying to simulate life, are we not? Why do we have to artificially limit this simulation? You can't be good if you don't have the possibility, the choice to be bad. If some artificial power prevents you from doing the bad thing, it doesn't mean you're good.

I'm sure nobody of you would go out and kill children. But how many of you would go out and kill people? Isn't this basically saying murder of adults is fine, but murder of children isn't? Are you too blind or too stupid to see the obvious implication that at this very moment you're justifying murder?

Off topic: can you steal the invisible, invincible force-shield that the children in Fallout 3 have? If not, who gives them those force shields and where can I get mine?

Most developers wouldn't dare allow the killing of children in games. I believe most of them find it objectionable, because they know people will do it for on reason. And those that don't, know that it will bring down politics on their heads that they probably don't want to deal with. I remember when they asked Lionhead Studios about killing children in Fable and they said they didn't allow it because they knew people would sit around doing it just to do it for fun. And I believe that's true.

As far as his "in real life" arguement about killing a child, that doesn't really apply. If you put some kind of "emotional trauma" stat in the game, that would force people to be one kind of person. What if they were a cold, remorseless killer? They wouldn't have any emotional trauma, or may even enjoy killing children. And imprisonment and execution? Well, that would effectively end that game right there. Sure, it would be a consequence, but what's the point? You'd just load to before you did it and continue with the game.

There's no point to killing children in games other than to do it for kicks, which is why devs don't allow it. What if they did allow it? Ever stop and think that a game that gives reason to or allows the killing of children would probably get an AO rating when the ESRB saw a kid being turned to a bloody pile of chuncks by a rocket launcher?

And, for the record, people should get their facts straight when they criticize something. Saying that there are Lepers in the game and that the Fat Man launches missiles seriously casts doubt upon the knowledge and credibility of the author. They are Ghouls, not Lepers. The Fat Man is launches mini nuclear bombs, not missiles. And Karma has very specific functions in the game, which makes me wonder if the author simply played long enough to confirm that he couldn't blow a kid's head off.

Can anyone answer my question? Would they have gotten an AO rating? Fallout 1/2 both had it and both got M, so why would the ESRB suddenly change tactics?

I guess it's because the Fallout 3 children have more pixels.

It's OK to kill children in books, it's OK to kill children in text-based games, it's even OK to kill children as long as they're low-res sprites. But it's not OK to kill children if they have high-res textures?

They're bloody children.

Also, as I said - Bethesda isn't killing children, they are merely giving the player the choice not to.

Bethesda's self-censoring has nothing to do with "a sense of responsibility" and everything to do with avoiding any negative publicity that would eat into their short-term profits.

And yet I suspect they'll have plenty of negative publicity all the same, as soon as the "shiny graphics" effect wears off and people start to see how basic and repetitive Fallout 3's gameplay actually is.

Overall, I agree with Simon's arguments. Basically, when choice is taken away from the player in an obvious way, particularly in games where the developer is touting the "sandbox" nature of the environment, the result is that the player is being force-fed rather than playing as they wish to play.

That being said, one paragraph caused me to reread the statements offered with incredulity. Specifically, these statements, particularly the second sentence about multiple narrative paths being prohibitively expensive:

"Video games will always struggle to provide deeper, more nuanced consequences. Try to provide multiple narrative routes through your experience, and costs will skyrocket into the implausible. Restrict the player's abilities in order to impede their progress and you have a weak compromise that offers little in the way of persuasive or realistic moral instruction."

My reaction was... huh?!

The Japanese have been making games with many, many narrative paths, events, interactions, consequences, and endings for decades. It's fairly safe to say that they do it at a very low cost because they churn out hundreds, perhaps thousands, of adventures, simulations, and other types of games, including hybrids of two or more genres, every year, and have been doing so since at least the early 1990s (Princess Maker franchise, Graduation franchise, Langrisser franchise, Growlanser franchise, Angelique franchise, Tokimeki Memorial franchise, and many, many adventure games for both male and female consumers, to name just a couple examples).

How do the Japanese do this? Easy... they put the primary effort into writing and character development in order to establish empathy with the audience rather than striving to push hardware, technical boundaries that are far more short-lived as far as their impact on the audience. Of course, there are also plenty of not-so-well written game products made, too, but the same is true for various games that focus on hardware and tech specs with no emotional empathy generated with the player(s).

It isn't really necessary to reinvent the wheel as far as offering a different type of product that can attract a different demographic of gamer. All that's needed is a greater diversity of perspective by developers and a global realization that other approaches have already been done and established in other, non-English speaking markets. Developers and publishers need to drop their centric views and adopt a far broader, more inclusive perspective, that's all. It's certainly financially feasible, though; even the popularity of casual games in the English market with low costs, low tech specs, but enjoyable play in whatever way has proven this to be true.

What's to stop someone from making a mod of the PC version where you can kill children? With the amount of publicity that this topic is getting, and the large group of disgruntled original Fallout fans (for this reason and others), I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to see one soon.

Are we to attack or commend those who make such a mod?

Look, some followers and cities and places require you to have a particular karma score. also depding on your karma score it will also affect how the speech skill works.

Since game mechanics are tied to karma, and killing children would obviouly be a way to lower your karma; children may be killed just to quickly get to access a certain part of the game.

from a policy standpoint it was a good idea to not have children killable. the news story would easily blow the subject out of proportion and it just would only harm the industry.

this game already includes rather graphic violence, if you put children into the mix the United States would soon be germany but without prostitution (and more sensoring of nudity). honestly it was the right move; maybe it kinda killed immersion, but hey, thats better than the alternative.

Ok first off there really is no point in game to kill kids..... So really there's no need to have it in game yea if you blow up the bomb prob a few kids died or whatever. But the thing is in game kids have really nothing to offer it would be pointless to kill them. However its a game its fake if you can't tell reality from virtual world then there's some problems and you need help.

Next your comment in real life if you kill a kid its a crime etc.... well the thing is this you kill an adult its still a crime? you will still be punished it will still be with you for rest your life. Not only that do you know how many soldiers in the armed forces have been faced and had to deal with the fact that they got some 10 year old kild or 13 or 16 year old kid firing at them. My own father was faced with this in somalia he was fired at by a kid and he had to return fire and im sure we all knew what happened. Yes its pretty sick to kill a kid and all but its no different then killing an adult. each one's impact can vary.

In all its a game. If they feel its 100% wrong to kill a kid in game ok make it so you cant kill the kids thats fine im there to play and enjoy the game and i have 100% enjoyed it.

I don't think the developer's choice of censoring child killing implies that adult killing is morally acceptable. It's merely an upper limit on how immoral the player should be allowed to be. The absence of one sort of crime doesn't legitimize any other crime.

Steve Austin said:

"What I am saying is purely emotional. Not everything in the world needs to be backed up by logic and proof. My statement probably sounds stupid to someone without children. Some parents though probably understand where I'm coming from. Aren't there already enough different flavors of violence to fantasize about? Do we really have to go out of our way to make a new experience where we consider how to animate the death of a young girl, or boy."
------------------

With all due respect, Mr. Austin, I fail to see the connection you are making - emotional or otherwise. Gamete-based reproduction doesn't suddenly make someone a more perfect moral creature. Even those who do not choose to create more human beings can appreciate the moral challenges involved in killing (virtual) children.

To suggest otherwise is to engage in a particularly saccharine form of moral solipsism. Yes, we get it that you love your kids. And we get it that now you suddenly realize that perhaps other parents love their own children as well. However, some of us had already made this moral leap - without needing to impregnate a female of our species to do so. It may seem astonishing to you, but indeed there is a moral universe outside of lived experience.

Your assertion that industry-wide self censorship is appropriate because "as a parent" you have unique insight into why the rest of us must abide by your own arbitrary moral diktat strikes me as the high point as sanctimony. If the mere thought of harm coming to imaginary two-legger children is enough to send you into fits of moral turmoil, I suggest that you will find life all but intolerable. You may have noticed that real children suffer real harm, all around the world, every day. That hard reality carries enormously more emotive power than facile hand-wringing about harm coming to virtualized constructs in a video game.

If, instead, you have included your small speech in order to impress the rest of us with your reproduction-catalyzed moral superiority, spare me. You made a kid. Hooray for you. Note that you are neither the first to do so, nor quite likely will you be the last. One could almost say that it is as natural a behavior as can be found on our planet. It confers no special moral legitimacy, and if anything burdens the rest of us with extraordinary social cost.

If you want to impress with your sudden concern for the young of our species, do something meaningful to help them in a general sense. I hear that homeless shelters in many places have real-world children lacking in many essential support services - perhaps some time spent volunteering would sit better than moralizing about videogames?

I'm sorry, but this article is poorly written. The whole thing feels like it was written by a high school senior with a thesaurus close at hand, struggling to fulfill a minimum word count.

The game does not exist in a vacuum. Tens of millions were spent on making this game, and measures had to be taken to make sure the game would do well commercially. If they had allowed children to be killed with the same graphic detail as other living things in the game, it would be guaranteed an AO rating, and not see wide distribution, and would flop mercilessly.

For arguments sake, let's say it wouldn't have given them an AO rating, and the game could have shipped as M, including killing children as graphically as other things. Guess what the first result on YouTube for 'Fallout 3' is going to be? That's right, a montage of different ways to pulpify the game's children characters. It's a backlash waiting to happen. They could have added all the morale consequence in the world, take it all out of context and just show scenes from the game of children being decapitated (which is what they would have to show the ESRB) to a non-gaming crowd and you have instant outrage.

There was no (huge) backlash against Fallout 1/2 for killing children for an obvious reason: if you showed it to some random middle aged person off the street he wouldn't be disgusted by it. He probably wouldn't even recognize the that sprite was that of a child. This isn't the case for Fallout 3.

The decision is so plainly a common-sense one from a financial perspective that it is disingenuous to go out with a paragraph saying this:

"These are difficult questions with few satisfying answers. But no matter what, in removing the opportunity to kill children in their anarchic game, Bethesda has admitted video games' ineffectiveness in providing meaningful disincentives and negative repercussions for in-game atrocities. That the team chose to carve the issue out of their game rather than attempt to engage it head on, speaks volumes. "

It speaks volumes on the importance of having a financially viable product when millions are invested, yes. It's asinine to call it a statement on the lack of in-game moral repercussions. This article just feels like a lot of filter built up around a few quotes from Emil Pagliarulo. The fact is there is was no decision to be made, because an AO game is not financially viable.

Really interesting point. I take issue with Steve Austin's comment, in which he says that "as a Dad" he doesn't want to work in an industry that makes this possible. Sorry, Steve, but you already work in an industry where it's possible to go on a prostitute-focussed killing spree. I fail to see the difference.

The financial viability of the game is surely the key point, though. You talk about the challenges to developers of creating a true sandbox environment. There's your answer. What's the point in creating a perfectly-nuanced, lovingly designed environment that won't pass the censors and can't sell?

My personal guess is that they initially did not rule out killing children in the game but changed their mind because they feared the game would not pass ESRB checks.

"Problematically, in singling out and self-censoring one particular type of 'crime' in his game, Pagliarulo by implication justifies all the others as being non-gratuitous and necessary."

As already said, logically this is a not a valid conclusion. The only thing this implies is that the developers deemed one action too drastic and cruel. Apart from that there is a lot of room in the game to be cruel or not, so how should the game state the possible violence is necessary?

I am full in for freedom of speech. If the developers feel killing children in their game is not ok it is their choice. Although I would find it more interesting to explore other ways of conveying ethical messages. Killing children could have very interesting censequences. Or if one really doesn't want to see kids killed there is always the easy route to just not have children in the world. Which feels in my oppinion more consistent and "real" than the way Fallout 3 does it.

perhaps they could have added something to the storyline to explain why the children can't die.

Maybe the genetic receptors that control growth in the children were altered in some way as to make them not grow to adulthood, but are regenerating at a super-fast rate.

the sweet thing about videogame worlds is that you can always take something toally off the wall & explain it away.

I happen to totally agree with Simon here, it's a case of self-censorship, which unfortunately results from societal constrictions and market priorities, and there wouldn't be much to add to what has already been said if it were not for some notable arguments which, in my opinion, don't work very well once you weigh them with a different mindset.


AJ Beyer

"It is a thin line to walk, but I also must admit that I have played the game for at least 20hrs and had not noticed that you couldn't kill children and I was not playing a particularly good character."

Probably because you were not challenged to ponder the necessity to do so, or even perhaps because there were not enough kids around?


Steve Austin

"As a Dad I don't want to work in an industry where we are making it possible for someone to even fantasize about killing children."

As a human I don't want to work in an industry where we are making it possible for someone to even fantasize about killing people.


Phil O'Connor

"Why go there? Anyone who has been in a developer's shoes knows: is it worth the heat, the bad publicity etc... to allow players to kill children in the game? Considering what such an activity adds to the game (zero gameplay benefit here) and the price of keeping it in there (the burning hellfires of the game and mainstream press) I think the choice was pretty clear cut. I would have done the same, and I loved Carmaggedon 2...."

The problem is tackled from the wrong side.
It's not about was it worth to be able to kill children, but more why they are left out in such a way that the grim reality of the Fallout universe is actually incomplete.
The question should have been what having children in the game would have added to the overall gameplay, and only then, why would you have to kill them in certain situations.

And frankly, if we cannot do that in video games, where can we?

Globally, it also raises the question as to how classify a game that would use an age verification and parental lock to skip certain cutscenes and block certain actions in a game.

A lot of people seem to be more schocked about Janet Jackson's boob than the idea that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nuked, with all the effects it had on the survivors (and don't get me started on the effect of depleted ammo on populations in war zones).
I'm afraid this problem reaches FAR BEYOND the mere question of video games, but has more to do with old guys holding canes, cherry picking from books and eagles.


Carl Chavez

"Hmmm, it seems that a game with immortal children would teach me terrible moral lessons. Interesting."

I'm afraid that you'd barely be allowed to even aim at the children. They'd conveniently be AI driven to dodge automatically or plainly ignore any bullet hitting them in the head.


Jason Wylie

"I doubt we would be reading this article if it was titled "Opinion : The Sims 2 'I have sex with children'" and focused solely on how the inability to have sex with children limits the game."

Violence has many forms, but it's unfair to sidestep the debate towards pedophilia when we can't even find a solution about murders in game within a society that's far more at east with the idea of shooting and spreading weapons than making love.

All in all, we could also talk about the merits of _evocation_ vs _blood n' guts in your face_.

It's a fine line though.

Freedom of speech does not equal freedom from consequence. Bethesda made a conscious decision to not upset "X" lobby or group by killing children...but, at the expense of the "Hardcore" gamer who wants a certain amount of freedom an versatility in their game playy.

Self censorship does not = suppression of free speech...and being able to say whatever you want in a game, doesn't mean people have to pay attention. Personally, I think going with killing kids would have been a good marketing choice...bad press = good press in games.

As a personal opinion, i dont see the difference between killing.
If you kill a Dog, if you kill a Kid, if you kill a Woman, if you kill a Man.
Its all the same, your ending a life.

Ive never understood why its always ok to murder Men in games, but every other subject was taboo. Women finally entered the light too, so now were murdering both Men and Women, of all ages (above 18) and races.
Theres been games where you can kill animals that arent directly attacking you.

All an adult is, is a person who once was a kid, but has matured a little to understand the world around him and develop some skills. So in the same token, kill an adult or a kid or an animal, your still stopping a beating heart. Something that was born, breathing, has made msitakes, has done good things, and mattered to someone.

Dont get me wrong i dont endorse killing kids, in fact during my tenure throughout Fallout 3 the thought never even crossed my mind to try, but to force that limitation while giving you the ability to kill everything else regardless of situation? Thats called being a wuss and letting yourself be the ESRBs bitch.

Remember people, these are video games, entertainment pieces, doesn't matter if its a tree or a super mutant, its all polygons and textures. Its better to happen within a virtual environment for the sickos to get their fix, than in real life.

In this very case,a couple situations are actually there.
I dont want to spoil anything for anyone who hasn't played it yet so reader beware.

If you setoff the Megaton nuke, your killing all residents in that area, in an extremely uncouth fashion.
In Tranquility Lane, theres kids a few places, so when you launch the failsafe Chinese Invasion program, they come in and wipe EVERYONE out.


Im not trying to be an asshole, but i find, if its already in the product, and it DID exist in previous versions, why the crap impose that limitation on you and ONLY you?!


Sorry to all fathers, btw, that don't "want to work in an industry where we impose killing kids" but deal. Theres a reason its called a "moral choice". Ive been a dog owner all my life, and even i can still stomach blowing the muzzle off some mutt in a video game should i choose.

Of course, it all boils down to that one little thing "Violence in video games stems violence in real life" a position while im still on the fence about, i lean more towards the "People are naturally evil anyways". I dunno but im quite sure Ghangis Khan never played Warcraft before planning his methods of attack, im sure Jack the Ripper never played GTA.
Theres been incidents which can be stemmed granted, however i still feel its just pointing the blame as a scapegoat.


Bottom line is, its a video game. And if its a sandbox with the creed "Do what you want how you want" you better not impose restrictions as silly as "Why would you WANT to?" and leave it at that. It sounds reeeaaaaaly silly when you think about it.

Of course, now we just wait for mods that remove said restriction. Then its a moral choice whether to install it or not.


i know i know, TLDR.

as a small follow up to my previous statement now that ive had some time to settle down and mull over what i wrote

i do try to be understanding of the subject matter. Of course i understand why some people would be uneasy about being able to do such vicious acts towards such innocence, im not heartless, in fact i found myself being very sympathetic to virtual characters around me

Im personally more angry that we have to go through the developers personal feelings on what a games limits should and shouldn't be.

Know what would have made me happy? If Bethesda DIDNT have that limitation in the game, showed the ESRB, the ESRB gets angry and threatens an AO rating, then it gets removed. Because it then shows the developer at least had the balls to try, especially when living up to the completely free choice system of the original Fallouts.
Killing kids and other things is one thing, but being faithful to the source material is another.

thats all.

This really is about game play as art. Does killing children add meaning to game play? Bioshock as far as I know was able to add this in without any significant repercussions (from news media) because it added to the story and game play.

I believe Simon is simply making the case that Fallout could have had a similar plan.

The difference is that Simon is really an art critic at this point and he is challenging the artist. This doesn't mean that he's correct (or warped) just that he's challenging the game designers. And like all forms of art, the artist can simply ignore his/her critics, because more often than not the critics are off base or do not have the same opinion as the masses.

Imagine a artist depicting on canvas a medieval end-of-the-world scene with all forms of graphic imagery and debauchery. An art critic could easily say that the piece would have had a more emotional impact had children been included in the piece. This would not make the critic immoral - though critics can have critics. It would however be very unusual for the art community as a whole to split up and declare sides that children should or should never be used in catastrophic imagery.

I agree with Jason King that Simon Parkin is being an art critic and definitely is able to express his opinions in this way. But something that he and others seem to miss is that, though video games are art pieces they are very expensive art pieces, which take years to create and a multitude of people to create; at least on the same level as a game like Fallout 3. So, while attempting to shove it in ESRB's face, like Kyle Harrison suggested (no offense to you Kyle, I did think you had a valid argument but this helps my point), would cause a lot of trouble for the company, more so than adding that feature would be worth.

To those would say it much akin to other forms of art, like books, movies, and what I guess could be called 'traditional art,' I have to say it is not the same medium.

Games like books can take up to same amount of time to produce. This is a huge time commitment for those involved, but what separates games from books, is the amount of people and money necessary to create them. Not greatly selling a book does greatly hurt an author, I would never disagree with that, but in terms of scale a failed game does more damage.

Games minimal traits in common with 'traditional art'. Most 'traditional art' is passive and tends to show a single point in time. Both have a very emotional element and in both the creator[s] are trying to getting certain themes or emotions across to the participant of the art. So again for 'traditional art' it is a problem of scale when it comes to failure.

Movies are the most closely related to video games with the single exception of the interactivity. They both take comparable amount of time to make, both require many people to make them happen, and both require tremendous amounts of money to produce. So, what makes it ok to show children being killed in movies and not so in video games; it is the age of the medium. Movies have been around for quite some time, and even they had their day of overprotective rating systems that would allow men and women to be reclining in the same bed, or when you could not show blood, etc. To me it is all a matter of time before something like child killing will still retain a M rating. The industry is still very young, and I do feel that games like Fallout 3 and Bioshock are pushing the boundaries on morality in games. This is is new to industry and to ensure future success in the industry for games of these types it requires a sense of knowing when to push certain boundaries and when to stand back.

And as a final note (I know I have been ranting, again). Those who argue that child killing was done on earlier Fallout games, some things to take into consideration.
1) The Fallout 1 and 2 were developed by Interplay and Fallout 3 was developed by Bethesda Softworks. Each of these studios has a different takes on how far to take morality.
2) The ESRB was not as strict back when Fallout 1/2 where created because the public had not been riled against video games as they are now. So at that point, video games were not the scapegoat for many problems with people.

Well, I am done ranting. I hope I said something useful and insightful there.

Sincerely,
Parker Phend

I think it's a nice testament to the fact that Bethesda has made a good game when this is the best nitpicking you can come up with.

@Dan Olson

I think it only shows that people have stayed in topic and have discussed what the article proposed. I am pretty sure everyone would be able to find problems in Fallout 3 even if it *was* perfect (and it obviously isn't).


@Kyle Harrison

"Remember people, these are video games, entertainment pieces, doesn't matter if its a tree or a super mutant, its all polygons and textures. Its better to happen within a virtual environment for the sickos to get their fix, than in real life."

I agree, it's all polygons and textures, but I don't think virtual environments are a place where "sickos can get their fix". In all their "violent realism", most games are still pretty cartoonish. Going into a Fallout 1/2 city with guns blazing and killing virtual children as a result of direct or indirect fire can hardly be considered psychotic.

Parents should be more concerned about kids poking each other's eyes with plastic swords and in general being mean with each other, or with the images they might see on TV of real bombs being dropped over real houses and real people (as if THAT was normal).

While Bethesda has censored this possibility, they gave the players the most powerful anti game censorship tool of all: mods capabilities. We'll probably see some child killing mod anytime soon (I myself am planning on doing one).

I don't really believe Bethesda's argument, "morals and ethics", yeah right. More like "morals and ethics as stated by the ESRB and those who are easily offended and can't discern reality from game". They know about the power of mods (naked characters on Morrowind!), so they probably didn't care about taking one or another "smaller" feature so it could pass the ratings and don't attract negative publicity.

Of course, blowing an elder's head is just fine, they're old and going to die anytime right? Morals, yeah.

I registered just to reply to this.

There's a few people saying "what possible reasons could you have for killing children?" or that it "adds nothing to game". Kinda makes me shake my head, and I despise the very idea of games like Postal.

What possible reasons could anyone have for trying to show that children are invincible? Why should it get a "better" rating because you can pump clip after clip into a kid while they probably say something along the lines of "Cut it out!" (I'll find out for sure when I get home).

If anything, tossing in some rule like this will only cause more of the activity that the ESRB is hoping to prevent. More than one person here has said they're going to make a child kill mod, which there wouldn't be a need for if they hadn't taken the extra effort to remove the child models' health pools in order to pander to a bunch of sissies who've somehow gotten themselves in a position of power. I also know that people will TRY to do something just because it's a challenge (ie. see how big a cliff they can blast them off, or high they can launch with explosives).

I agree with Derek LeBrun re: modding. We had self censorship for GTA San Andreas - and then we had the coffee sex 'mod' scandal, now we have a mod already out that allows the player to kill children, albeit with a awkward death animation. In both these, and other cases, all that happens is we get the option the publishers didn't want to handle and then get mods that do the same thing, but are not implemented in the game. Better to have even just Karma reduced massively if killing a child than a mod that let's you kill them with no repercussion at all!

Let publisher's put these options in and then only allow the game, thereafter, to be played on 'Very Hard' to show how difficult life would be, or to lower speech and charisma stats to 1 permanently to show how getting agreement from anyone would now be impossible? How are things like this difficult to implement? Why could not Bethesda stand it's ground with the media on these matters explaining how the game changes to take account of this act as I have described above?

I find all this arguments a load of tosh! Fallout 1 and 2 managed it by making the game almost unplayable! In some markets Fallout 1 and 2 had to have this aspect censored, but when unofficial patches came out to put them in they didn't stop them. So today, you can go to G.O.G. com, pay $6 to download Fallout 1 or Fallout 2 and right there in the forum, one of the first posts is where to download the patch!

I would rather have these options included in the original game, where implications can be set. Much better than adding a mod that changes it with no implications in the game (until maybe another modder works out how to do that!

Oh - and another thought - putting the news that you had killed a child cold-bloodily onto the airwaves and telling everyone to avoid you like the plague, as children are rare and are the only future for America, and anyone destroying that future has to pay the price! I can just hear Three-Dog's voice saying the above now!

from my vho

I think the ESRB is to blame entirely for this type of outcome in games. Frankly, weather you like violence or not, as a still aspiring art form, games (developers) need the ability to choose, what the player can do, and what dilemma may become.

It seems violent games are the porn of the industry

I personally didn't think much of it at first (didn't notice 'til someone said something), but the moral juxtaposition here between killing virtual bums and killing virtual kids, sends a shaky shallow message

I'd like to note, that when I played. There was a lady, in her home I pickpocketted, needing ammo, and thinking her harmless. I was caught and she turned on me, with her back to the door of the small shack. She pulled out a gun and I had no where to go, and no way to subdue, so I shot back in VATs with my Rifle (or .44) and when her head popped off and her body dropped, I sank, I felt it, the tug of an accidental/truly innocent killing, not for fun, but because I had to. I was 'jaw dropped', hung in the moment, for a few minutes.

There's a strange infatuation with violence and games, and with graphic advances we are becoming our very own death show directors, hoping the bodies fly this way and that. I'd hate to see an industry producing games that contend with snuff content, but don't some movies attempt this (horror films saw? hostel, etc?) and succeed without notable negative consequence, whereas most people are still sickened by the thought of watching public execution videos???

I would like to see developers capable of marketing games with content like this, but maybe few are capable of doing so responsibly, ie, harsh enough grief/ delusion issues with killing innocents... and then maybe not, maybe you play a character who sees violence as euphoria, but we are so far from stories like that working

Again, this entire problem is due to ESRB and too, the industries lack of approach, or, desire to market sex and child killing games, it is after all a dirty thing to sleep with :)

None of you have played Dead Space.

If sawing, cutting, mutilating, mutated baby fetuses aren't what your into, I advise you not to. And seeing as Fallout 3 is Rated M and so is Dead Space, it is hard to believe ESRB rating is to blame. Its more along the lines of probably someone really high up doesn't like the idea because hes a little guy with a conscience and a weak stomach, yet what baffles me is he/she is working on a game that promote anarchy, chaos, and literally morally and ethically evil actions to survive in an artificial game world.

In the end its a game. No one takes game content seriously, especially when violence is its main ingredient.

However,
Selectively limiting actions like that completely destroy the immersion of the game, regardless of weather its killing children, nudity, or shooting someones head off or dead bodies everywhere in extreme detail. Especially when that is the point of the game. It just seems stupid to create something hypocritical in such an already extreme game. Lets all keep in mind while games are shooting for "realism" they still aren't and never will overcome the fact that they are games and as such are not real.

I also like how you can specifically blow up the city with the children in it, but not directly kill them. They probably think that is okay. It must totally be a moral reason why they did what they did, especially with that in mind. A little is okay, but not too much.

And from what I read it sounds like most of you are disagreeing with this article because you just dislike the idea of killing children when that's not even what the authors point was about, telling him his article is crap while daftly hiding the fact that you just plain don't like killing children idea and agree with bethesda's action.

I wonder if a super-mutant thought, "Oh crap, this child...it just wont die!"

Anybody who has played the original two Fallouts knows that killing children was entirely possible and optional. Are all of the ex-Black Isle developers socially irresponsible? No! They, unlike Bethesda, built their games around providing as much choice as they possibly could (no doors that require keys and cannot be lockpicked, no unkillable characters, an intensely mutable main questline instead of a linear progression of quests...) And yes, they provided the choice for the player do "gratuitous, unnecessary and cruel" things for the cases in which the player wanted to be a gratuitous and cruel character!
Meanwhile, killing only two children (be it by accident or on purpose) would cause a massive drop in karma and brand your character a "Childkiller" meaning that you are more or less universally revilled and often shot on sight, many quests are suddenly unavailable to you, and paltry few, if any, of your followers would stick around.

Personally, I never killed a child in the originals and I never planned on it the third go-around. This isn't about sadism, this is about the flaws in Bethesda's approach to the series and what it stands for at a base level. Not only that, but the moral acrobatics they took. It's okay to enslave a child with an electric shock collar but not to shoot them? It's okay to bleach a child's bones clean with the detonation of a megaton bomb so long as you're fairly far away when it happens?

And all of this ignores Little Lamplight. Ugh, my god what a dick move that was, to make children invulnerable and then fill an entire town with THE MOST ANNOYING COUSIN OLIVERS OF ALL TIME

If Bethesda had just said "we disabled killing children because it's an issue we didn't want to touch with a ten foot pole", that would be OK; not particularly courageous, but understandable. But weighing in morally...well, the article more than adequately explains why that was a mistake. What really highlighted the absurdity of it was Little Lamplight, and I don't mean the fact that it's full of unkillable NPCs, I mean the fact that it's apparently perfectly acceptable to kill Sticky because it his 16TH BIRTHDAY! Is this Fallout 3 or Logan's Run?

Patent-pending 2007/2008 Gold 45 Revolver Technology solves the above problems!

A new patent which has been getting some attention as of late solves the above problems!

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3143589

"actually a fallout 3 mod based on this shit would be boss as fuck. you could totally do it, you fight the communist chinese ghouls and use speech trees to save the wasteland from collectivism" --perianwyr http://forums.somethingawful.com/sh...40&pagenumber=9

"All of us who have been struggling to work out how to make meaningful games and interactive narratives can rest easy. The problem has been solved." --http://wordsonplay.wordpress.com/2009/05/28/system-and-method-for-creating-exalt
ed-video-games-and-virtual-realities-wherein-ideas-have-consequences/

@TEAMXBOX
VIDEO GAME IDEA OF THE CENTURY!
forum.teamxbox.com/showthread.php?t=623861
"Video Game Idea of the Century!" --Garp
"This would be the most abstract game ever. I'd play it." --Dutch
"That game would be so different that it would have to be good. I'd definitely play it!" --Z A C K
"I'd play it." --Bleeding Black

"here is my concept art for a communist zombie please hire me to make your video game "
--http://img0841.paintedover.com/uploads/0841/chinese_remnant_sergeant.jpg --perianwyr
http://forums.somethingawful.com/sh...0&pagenumber=10

@NEOGAF
THIS IS THE GREATEST VIDEOGAME PATENT I HAVE EVER READ:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=366448
"This is the greatest videogame patent I've ever read." --EmCeeGramr
"I think this guy has golden humour." --Foxspirit
"Do a Google search on Dr. Elliot McGucken, the dude who filed for the patent. It will blow your mind." --Zealous D.
"That's awesome." --Tentacle
"Is this a patent or the insane ratings of mad man?" --speculawyer
"This thread is so full of win I hardly know what to do with it."
"Each line, I keep thinking, 'This is the funniest shit ever.' And then I read another line, and...HOW DOES IT KEEP GETTING BETTER?" --alistairw
"Can you imagine having the guy as your physics professor?"
"Thread is amazing, though. I can't help but hope that he's somehow trolling the patent system...it must be amazing to be a patent worker trying to review it. "And then the player must choose to not quote Marx, thus exalting his classical soul?!""

Here is how the new technology solves the above problems:

[quote]
Self-censorship was the least effective course of action open to Bethesda if they are looking to morally instruct their players. Why not take the route less traveled and try to implement some meaningful consequence, something beyond an essentially meaningless "karma" stat? (YES!! THE KARMA IS MEANINGLESS! WHY NOT INCORPORATE A GOLD 45 REVOLVER WHICH ONLY SHOOTS ZEUS'S LIGHTNING IN THE END IF YOU HAVE BEEN DOING THE RIGHT, MORAL THING THROUGHOUT?)

Of course it is the route less traveled for a reason: it's a whole lot more work. (NO IT ISN'T! JUST GIVE THE PLAYER A WEAPON WHICH LOSES ITS POWER THE MORE EVIL THEY BEHAVE! THE PATENT SOLVES THIS PROBLEM IN A SIMPLE/EFFICIENT MANNER!) The framework of systems and rules that govern Fallout 3 serve the setting: a place of lawless anarchy. As such it's difficult to introduce a potent enough disincentive to murdering children (NO IT ISN'T! JUST GIVE THE PLAYER A WEAPON WHICH LOSES ITS POWER THE MORE EVIL THEY BEHAVE! THE PATENT SOLVES THIS PROBLEM IN A SIMPLE/EFFICIENT MANNER! IF YOU SHOT CHILDREN, THE 45 WILL NOT GLOW GOLD & SHOOT ZEUS'S LIGTNING, AND THE MBA FEMMINST FANBOY VAMPIRES WILL OVERCOME AND KILL YOU IN THE END!!). And, in more general terms it's hard to make any game talk to a player in true terms of "good" and "bad," when the medium's primary vocabulary is one of "success" and "failure." (HUH? KILLING CHILDREN IS BAD! KILL KIDS = NO GOLD 45 4 U! NO ZEUS LIGHTNING 4 U!)

In real life, if you kill a child, you will be imprisoned and, depending on where you live, killed for the crime. Not only that but, insanity aside, there will also be heavy physical, mental and emotional repercussions to your action, things that will stay with you throughout the rest of your life.

How can these kinds of severe, complex outputs be communicated in a video game? (KILL KIDS AND YOU WILL SUFFER A HORRID DEATH FROM THE SWARMING HORDES OF VAMPIRE/ZOMBIES SCREAMING MBA BUZZWORDS AND THE FIATACORAY'S CLOGANS!) Do you, as in Steel Battalion, kill the player and wipe the save game to teach a lesson? Or do you, as in Fable 2, let the player's evil shape the character's physical appearance, making them more unpleasant and ugly for it? (GIVE THE PLAYER A WEAPON WHICH LOSES ITS POWER THE MORE EVIL THEY BEHAVE ALREADY!)

Video games will always struggle to provide deeper, more nuanced consequences. (YES IDEAS HAVE CONSEQUENCES!) Try to provide multiple narrative routes through your experience, and costs will skyrocket into the implausible. Restrict the player's abilities in order to impede their progress and you have a weak compromise that offers little in the way of persuasive or realistic moral instruction. (THE CURRENT PATENT SOLVE THIS DILEMMA BY CENTERING THE NARRATIVE AROUND MORAL PREMISES AND PLOT POINTS, AS WELL AS A NOVEL WEAPON!)

These are difficult questions with few satisfying answers (UNTIL NOW DUDE! CH-CH-CHECK THE SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR CREATING EXALTED VIDEO GAMES AND VIRTUAL REALITIES WHEREIN IDEAS HAVE CONSEQUENCES PATENT). But no matter what, in removing the opportunity to kill children in their anarchic game, Bethesda has admitted video games' ineffectiveness in providing meaningful disincentives and negative repercussions for in-game atrocities. That the team chose to carve the issue out of their game rather than attempt to engage it head on, speaks volumes. (VOLUMES!!!)
[/quote]

ok--i fixed the caps key--some independence day beer got in there... my gf wants to know why i am working on the 4th--haha. "because i love something awful." "you love what awful?" chicks--you gotta love 'em.

so, as you can see, the patent solves a vast and great problem in a simple, elegant manner.

so strange that bethesda censored/banned me form their forum last night right as soon as i introduced the notion of the invaulable gold 45 revolver/ideas have consequences technology (which they obvisouly need), and then hayt--the bethesda/fallout employee in this thread--walked out on this thread today, just slamming the door: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOWlGhHPE7M&feature=related

fellas--just yesterday i was falling in love with hayt, but now i'm only falling apart:
[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urY1aZCRs7c[/url]
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3143589&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=13

What you are are saying is that you should be able to kill children cause you can kill adult, would it also be ok to have sex with the children, cause you can have sex with adults in Fallout 3. Also since you said it should have boundrys only based on tech, would it be also ok to rape the children cause its of the fallouts "grim authenticity". So if you can really look me in the eyes and say that you don't agree with "a few" boundrys, then you are saying it would be acceptiable to Rape a child in the game universe.