Brutality In Gaming

Even games that feature very graphic content can still be impressively successful.  For instance, God of War III is notorious for its extreme violence that stands out even in a series marked by brutality from the beginning.  To progress through the story, players have to viciously dismember foes--in one instance by forcefully pulling off a deity's head, and in another by pummeling a character's face until that face is unrecognizable.  Kratos, the playable character, transitions from being an antihero to being the most dangerous villain of the entire series--and yet the game was still a critical and financial success.

Would you kill a person in a video game, even if you would not kill one in real life?  For many people, the answer is an easy "yes."  Start shifting the act in question, though, and the answer might change rapidly.  What about raping a person in a video game, something notably absent from many titles?  Torturing them for a prolonged period of time?  That a person would not commit a certain act in actuality does not necessarily deter them from committing that act in the virtual world of a video game.  However, people might still draw curious lines for themselves. 

Despite the popularity of the violent spectacles within God of War III, I would not expect the same degree of acclaim if rape--sexual violence--was incorporated into the gameplay.  If the God of War games featured rape quick time events, as opposed to quick time events that involve only nonsexual violence, would the gameplay be as well-received?  I doubt that this would be the case, especially given the current political climate.

It is intriguing that people who will brutally dispatch enemies in-game might hesitate when the type of violence is changed to a sexual variety.  People who tolerate or enjoy violence in a video game (or movie) might lose their willingness to play (or watch) when the nature of the violence changes, despite the fact that intense brutality is present in both cases.  Their tolerance thresholds are not always consistent, another manifestation of the subjectivity of human feelings.

The people who would condemn entertainment with one of these elements but not the other are hypocrites at best.  Even further, the people who think that either could make someone commit acts of savagery outside of a video game rely on imbecilic argumentation devoid of soundness.  The point is not that there is anything wrong with playing violent video games, but that people, as they do in other areas of life, often create arbitrary lines that they hesitate to cross.

The paradoxes of individual behaviors are more pervasive than some might think.