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What It's Like to Work on Ultra-Violent Games Like Mortal Kombat

kotaku.com.au

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Re: What It's Like to Work on Ultra-Violent Games Like Mortal Kombat

#31

Post by ben_w »

skocznymroczny wrote: post #13
unicornporn wrote: post #4

Had a really hard time watching that trailer. Makes me question if the developers have researched what level of gore their audience finds acceptable in an age of near photo realistic gaming.

What is photorealistic changes every decade. Doom used to be photorealistic, then Unreal, then Crysis, now modern games are photorealistic. And yet they don't look realistic at all.

I was about to suggest Myst 2 onwards as exceptions, but then I looked at some gameplay videos on YouTube and even those don’t look very realistic any more.

Re: What It's Like to Work on Ultra-Violent Games Like Mortal Kombat

#32

Post by nugator »

ryanmarsh wrote: post #28
stevenwoo wrote: post #23

I have worked on ultra-violent games but never did research on what actual killings looked like as referenced in the article. As the one quote said, context is important as well as how close something gets to realistic looking. That embedded Mortal Kombat trailer was pretty unrealistic looking IMO, the physics was cartoon like and several what would be real life death blows were not death blows until the fight was ov…

I found many movies (war, horror) unwatchable after having been in combat. People do die in some of the worst ways. Their last moments will make you shudder to think about. I don’t find pleasure in, and I look down upon those who enjoy, terrible death/torture scenes. Some scenes in games are too much for sure, but there are far more horror scenes that I think never should have been made and have no place as entertain…

I think those who enjoy that kind of scenes are very distanced to it (not making a connection to reality). I totally understand you since you've been in combat and relates entertainment violence to real violence. I've gotten changed after having kids. Watching kids suffer hurts my heart and seeing adults suffer can cause me to see them as someones grown up kids. There is (most often) a view you can have on violence that causes empathy.

Re: What It's Like to Work on Ultra-Violent Games Like Mortal Kombat

#34

Post by alexashka »

I wish these articles would include a little more beyond anecdotal evidence.

There was an article on here not long ago about a guy who was in charge of one of the Civilization franchise releases and he drove himself nearly nuts doing it. There'll always be people who are at the wrong place, at the wrong time - that's hardly newsworthy.

Some of it is environment, some of it is their own make-up and circumstance.

Thankfully, we live in a free market - if people find violence and gore unattractive, they can work on and/or play many other games with similar budgets poured into them! Let the free market decide what people want - it's very good at it.

This idea of moralizing/categorizing things into right and wrong for society is a dead end. Alcohol prohibition in the USA being the go-to example for anyone who has any doubt. People want to do things that are on some level self destructive. It is not anyone's place to tell them otherwise - simply because it doesn't work. You prohibit one thing, they find a way around it or find a different outlet, resulting in consequences that are difficult to predict.

Re: What It's Like to Work on Ultra-Violent Games Like Mortal Kombat

#35

Post by stevenwoo »

zawerf wrote: post #29
stevenwoo wrote: post #23

I have worked on ultra-violent games but never did research on what actual killings looked like as referenced in the article. As the one quote said, context is important as well as how close something gets to realistic looking. That embedded Mortal Kombat trailer was pretty unrealistic looking IMO, the physics was cartoon like and several what would be real life death blows were not death blows until the fight was ov…

I remember from one of your older comments that you worked on Diablo 2 also. Isn't warcraft 3 almost cartoon-ish in comparison?

That's true, I rationalize Diablo like stuff as total fantasy unless one gets into PvP without magic items/skills tree and I was trying to emphasize context by showing a very low pixel and stylized animation and some vocals can make me feel very bad about the ethics of what actions we were portraying.

Re: What It's Like to Work on Ultra-Violent Games Like Mortal Kombat

#36

Post by jacquesm »

stevenwoo wrote: post #23

I have worked on ultra-violent games but never did research on what actual killings looked like as referenced in the article. As the one quote said, context is important as well as how close something gets to realistic looking. That embedded Mortal Kombat trailer was pretty unrealistic looking IMO, the physics was cartoon like and several what would be real life death blows were not death blows until the fight was ov…

> there was one mission where you have to kill villagers

Nothing like having a bit of Mai-Lai re-enactment thrown in.

Re: What It's Like to Work on Ultra-Violent Games Like Mortal Kombat

#37

Post by klez »

alexashka wrote: post #34

I wish these articles would include a little more beyond anecdotal evidence. There was an article on here not long ago about a guy who was in charge of one of the Civilization franchise releases and he drove himself nearly nuts doing it. There'll always be people who are at the wrong place, at the wrong time - that's hardly newsworthy. Some of it is environment, some of it is their own make-up and circumstance. Thank…

Personally I didn't read this article as "this is outrageous and should be censored". I think it's more on the line of "we never thought about this kind of stuff, but this happens to people who have to watch gore on a day-to-day basis". Much like the articles on Facebook's content reviewers.

Edit: I previously wrote something here that was meant for another comment, sorry.

Re: What It's Like to Work on Ultra-Violent Games Like Mortal Kombat

#38

Post by bgeeek »

some-guy wrote: post #24

I grew up on 90s video game violence. Doom, Mortal Kombat, Duke Nukem, etc. I've found that over time, the type of violence that disturbs me is the one that is the most realistic. I had friends growing up who joined the military because they _loved_ games like Call of Duty and Counter-Strike. Many of those friends came back with severe cases of PTSD. Mortal Kombat 11, Doom (the reboot), are not for everyone. But It's…

I think I was more disturbed by the news on TV when I was a kid, which was long before even remotely realistic games started appearing. There are so many depictions of violence in everyday life be it video games, the news, movies, music, and even art. I wonder if they had the same conversations back in the day, e.g. battle of 1066 etc, etc.

Re: What It's Like to Work on Ultra-Violent Games Like Mortal Kombat

#40

Post by zorked »

unicornporn wrote: post #4

Had a really hard time watching that trailer. Makes me question if the developers have researched what level of gore their audience finds acceptable in an age of near photo realistic gaming.

Meh. I watched the trailer, it seemed desperate for attention.

When the first two or three MK games came out they were indeed a big part of a culture of its time, being both controversial and a kind of (trashy, commercial) statement against the puritanical/hypocritical mores of the time. The limits of videogames as media were being tested. That side of the controversy won.

Nowadays? Meh. They dialed up the stupid gore in an attempt to remain relevant. Nobody cares. I only hear about Mortal Kombat once in a while when someone writes some piece about its violence when a new game comes out. A couple of weeks later they are selling it at some budget price. Nobody cares anymore. Never heard from anyone I know actually playing the new games. Who knows what were the innovations in Mortal Kombat 8? Me neither.

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