Morals

When I was quite young my dad took me to a game shop to get a new game for my Nintendo 64 (you can guess it was ages ago) and from all the covers that where familiar from all the mainstream series available, a particular one caught my attention:

Yes. Harvest Moon. I think I picked it because the box was pretty. Started playing it, and doing my best to keep up with my limited english at the time as there was a lot of dialogue. The game was completely charming and different from all the other games I had. It was peaceful, fun and challenging in its own way. I was happy growing my own farm until a friend came over and started judging the game of being boring because you didn't get to kill anyone. 

I guess he was right; the most dramatic part of the game was when one of your cows died of age. The level of violence wasn't enough for him and many other kids. 

I have played and loved all kind of games, and understanding that it's a matter of taste to choose a genre of game in specific, but I personally thing there's a limit for everything. 

Having the game industry evolving quickly in every sense, the responsibility of a game maker becomes stronger. I didnt noticed this as an issue before, as I know I go for the kind of games that usually touch more the fantasy side of stories, but looking backwards, I have played some pretty sick games before and some of those probably wouldnt have been appropriate for my age. I took it well, just as a game, but thinking of the many possibles scenarios in which kids from all over the world could digest the experience in a different way due to cultural aspects, life style and other personal experiences makes me think that probably a there was no need for the amount of violence to enjoy the game. 

Certainly I've heard more than once my parents' generation saying to me "your generation is twisted!" or "how can you like that?". Why was murder and body parts was so normal for me and not for older generations? Did games like Doom, Mortal Kombat or Killer Instinct thought me that? 

Perhaps.

I think most people agree that when you start growing up you see younger generations and think how messed up they are. And probably they are, but it's certainly not their fault, and so far is not so bad, but until when is this going to stop. There is an obvious increment of violence and along with the semi realistic graphics this will definitely not lead to something good. Specially as next generation consoles are approaching to new and more complex game experiences that can cause some sort of damage to the wrong audience. 

I've always found this overly done violence a little bit unattractive for my ideas of games or animations, but watching the documentary of Moral Kombat did made me more conscience about the general picture and the big influence a game can be to younger minds and how much responsibility the new generation of game makers have.