Children in Games and Death
Children in video games is something of a grey area. More specifically, the act of death and situations of despair is what I wish to talk about. Children in video games are untouchable as far as us interacting with them and actually taking their life, but we can watch them die or suffer through cruel or usual ways. Now when I say children, I really mean characters under the appearance of 14 all the way down to the real age of kids of about 7 and 8.
What are the boundaries when it comes to how we can interact and see kids in video games? I just find it odd that there seems to be no real line of what we can and cannot do with them. I personally am not for killing children, but I can see how they can bring the biggest emotional situations if presented correctly. Having to choose in a terror situation which one of your kids may live or die would really cause controversy, but yet we can read about it in a book. That would be an indirect way of having a child’s death be presented in a powerful and dark way, without doing the act of killing yourself. Is this appropriate? I think depending on the situation it can be.
Now I can go on and on about the situations that many may say should never be spoken of, but I won’t. I don’t want to defend nor argue every little situation about kids and how we deal with them in gaming. I just find it odd that it sparks such controversy, yet we can have an extremely popular game such as Fallout or Skyrim where in an orphanage of kids celebrate when you kill their housing leader. That is very creepy to think about, and is very savage in concept. It starts as a quest where a young kid calls upon the dark powers of a murderous clan, surrounded with bones and blood, hoping a member from the guild can head his word and slay the adult! Yet no one says a word about this gruesome experience, and all is fine.
I guess my point is, reflect and try to figure out what your own morals are and where our morals should be in gaming. What is the direction we are headed, and how do we handle it? It’s a grey area for a reason, but sometimes for the wrong reasons or not at all.