My GDD

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33 comments, last by GeneralQuery 11 years, 2 months ago

its not that. the gaming industry needs to wake up.

Unless you enjoy playing CoD every year.

I'll have demo soon for game dev

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Get back to us when you have a playable demo. <3

I will personally save the genre

Well that escalated quickly.

"I AM ZE EMPRAH OPENGL 3.3 THE CORE, I DEMAND FROM THEE ZE SHADERZ AND MATRIXEZ"

My journals: dustArtemis ECS framework and Making a Terrain Generator

its not that. the gaming industry needs to wake up.

You may have a point there. But there's a few things I have to say about this.

Edit: After writing the below, I just wanted to say: This is my opinion. I am human, and thus not without flaws. I'm not trying to pass my views as universal truths, but I hope you see the reason behind them.

The game industry is rather new, compared to the majority of other popular media. Literature, films and even comic books have dealt with topics and situations that are currently not acceptable in the video game industry. This is largely due to the fact that games are still considered to be more child-oriented and thus require different standards. This isn't entirely true, some things are starting to change and we, as gamers, are making headway in getting the general public to accept games in equal terms as other media such as film.

That being said, every game made is still being put under a lot of scrutiny, and being critiqued to its fullest. The only way to show the general public that games are an equal medium to films and the like, the only way that other mediums have demonstrated that before - is by carefully and maturely handling the topics they release to the public. Sure, there's always some critics who will oppose everything, but if you can handle a controversial topic, such as sexual assault, in a mature manner that shows the true reality of the situation, people will start to realize that perhaps there's more to games than just the superficial criticisms of those few always-opposing critics.

To fully achieve this effect, controversial issues need to be handled carefully, researched even more than you would normally research any other topic you put in a game, and all criticism should be taken to heart to make sure no angle is left unexplored, and that critics have as little as possible to grab onto and critique. Only then can you being to convince your audience that games have matured enough to take on these controversial issues the same way that, say, films do.

On the other hand, if you make a game that handles these situations poorly, the general public will tend to agree with the critics, and it will only drive the idea that games are immaturely written medium that should not touch 'big boy' issues deeper into the minds of those people. In other words, a gaming studio that doesn't do its homework on a controversial topic is just going to hurt the gaming industry as a whole, and not help in the slightest.

It's not enough to throw controversial topics into a story to make the gaming industry "wake up". These things need to be handled with extreme delicacy in order to help society accept games handling these issues. This kind of change can only be done by someone who has the experience in writing controversial topics and understand that while equal, games are a different medium that needs to follow its own rules.

I'm going to be flat out honest with you - I don't think your story handles these issues maturely, or even tries to handle them well. A number of us have given you feedback on this, I really think you should follow it. If you progress to write a game in the current state and release it, it will likely end up hurting people's views, and only drive developers in general to stay away from issues like this in games.

No great author strikes with their first book. Don't try to reach too far with your first game. As thade suggested, perhaps delay the game longer until you have put significantly more research into this subject. Talking to five women is not good enough research. Coming on here and posting this was a good, though small, step. If you really want to help the industry you'll make sure that your story is bulletproof against all reasonable criticism, and take your time to research into this.

Meanwhile, make a zombie/monster survival game - build a little reputation as someone who can handle the life or death situations, as well as flushing out full characters with a developed personality. You don't need to include such a controversial topic at first to gain reputation. And at the end, if you do your research, publishing a game that truly handles the topic maturely will mean even more coming from someone with a bit of reputation build up for this sort of thing.

As usual, that's my two cents, I hope it doesn't fall on deaf ears.

"Edgy" topics such as rape can work as a device when handled competently and "appropriately" but there is far, FAR more to lose if it is badly executed (i.e. it will sink you far more than the bad execution of a less "edgy" device). Can this device be interchanged with anything else for the same effect? Almost certainly. Therefore, is it worth the risk of badly handling such a sensitive issue? Probably not. Does that mean that such issues are never appropriate for games? Certainly not, but like I say, it needs to be handled with skill and competency.

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