Why is FPS worse the RTS?

[The Last Conformist]

Inspired by the "Parents ..." thread.

The discussion of "violent videogames" always center on FPS-type games like Doom, Quake, Half-Life. Why would the violence in such games be more baleful than the frequently very graphical violence in RTS games like Starcraft?

That's not a rhetorical question.

One could, of course, throw in TBS games too - Civ, afterall, encourages us to think of nuking millions or not as a question of expediency, not ethics. If FPSs condition players to regard their fellow men as target practice, why should no TBS similarly encourage an instrumental attitude to other people?

 

[Mise]

RPGs too -- they objectify women, and make you want to kill all little people. (No kidding, every time I see a kid walking down the street I want to stab him in the back :S)

In general though, an FPS is FAR more personal than most games (except RPGs) because it's actually YOU in the game, not just you acting through some random windows and icons. It's more immersive, is what I'm trying to say.

 

[Yuri2356]

An interesting point. Even more so in Strategy games in which you are allowed to play as traditionaly 'evil' characters who partake in acts of brutal conquest and genocide.

 

[Dann]

Because these complainers aren't gamers, and FPS are the only things they can view and understand.

To them, an RTS screen like that of Starcraft is only a lot of little toys moving around. A Civ screen will cause their eyes to glaze over.

 

[Sparta]

If I had to guess, it may be due in some part to the detached, third-person perspective of most RTS games. In those games (and Civ) you're ordering masses of units to do the slaughtering, not pulling the virtual trigger youself in the first person (I'm certainly not advocating the viewpoint; just offer a humble suggestion for a possible motivation).

btw TLC, I currently have Starcraft en route from an old friend, and will be reliving the glory of that game shortly I hope. The departure from battling in Civ will be primarily due to your bringing it up in the 'other games' thread a while back, so well done .

 

[Aphex_Twin]

Violence is more detailed in FPS because the perspective is diferent. In Starcraft you look at things from above, in FPS you can actually see blood gushing out and limbs being chopped up (I recommend the old "Chasm" if you're into it), Starcraft presents a very stylized version. Hell, even Christian monitors rate Starcraft as virtually free from violence and blood.

But I would enjoy a Highlander-style strategy game where defeating an opponent means chopping off the heads of his minions

 

[ummmm........]

I think it's a combination of the first person perspective and the gore factor.

I'm curious as to whether others feel FPS games are more imersive. I always feel less engaged in an FPS, even though I enjoy them. Maybe it's because FPSs don't always prioritize story, or maybe it's because of the first person perspective. I know it's not really me, so it takes me out of the story more than it would if it used a third person, over the shoulder perspective.

 

[Harbringer]

If they dont show it it doesnt matter, like in civ, you dont see those millions getting wasted. In an FPS you do.

 

[Yuri2356]

Violence is more detailed in FPS because the perspective is diferent. In Starcraft you look at things from above, in FPS you can actually see blood gushing out and limbs being chopped up (I recommend the old "Chasm" if you're into it), Starcraft presents a very stylized version. Hell, even Christian monitors rate Starcraft as virtually free from violence and blood.

And yet Marines burst in little gooey red fountains of death with a terrified scream, as do the medics. And every Zerg unit and structure pops into its own personal pool of gore.

If they dont show it it doesnt matter, like in civ, you dont see those millions getting wasted. In an FPS you do.

In some ways, that's even worse. You're seeing 'clean' warfare, where people are nothing but numbers on a screen that you can slaughter by the thousands without even thinking about it. In some of the realy good FPSs, you get to feel not only the thrill of the fight but the horror of it, the infinate chaos of watching people charge off in waves to their bloody deaths.

 

[Babbler]

I thought about that same issue -- civ is, in a way, more violent than any other game, in terms of shear simulated death and cruality.

FPS are however, far more personal. In starcraft and civ, you are a detracted field commander or king, leading and continuously producing nameless units into the fields of death. It all detached and impersonal -- plus, unless you are in the military or government, you never be able to do anything close to what you do in strategy games. FPS are more personal -- you see man-to- ... simulated enemy combant -- the people you kill. And acting out the shooter in reality is much easier than RTS or TBS.

However, I would think only the mental ill would attemt to act any game (or any piece of fiction, for that matter) out in the world at large, with the rest of us being able to draw a line between fiction and fact.

 

[Kozmos]

Want blood and gore try BloodRayne 2

 

[The Last Conformist]

Hell, even Christian monitors rate Starcraft as virtually free from violence and blood.

Clearly, they've never done a double nuke on a Zerg hive cluster.

Seriously, regardless of whether RTSs or FPSs or both are unhealthy, saying that Starcraft is virtually free from violence and blood is simply ********.

Immersion may be a point, altho personally I've never found myself as immersed in any FPS as in Starcraft or even Civ.

I'm more convinced by the 1st-person argument; people, afterall, generally have much higher inhibitions against killing someone personally at close range than against ordering someone slain out of sight.

Slightly OT, but I don't buy the next step; that FPSs lower real-life inhibitions to killing "up, close, and personal". For it to have that effect, the gaming presumably would have to wear down that inhibition the same way that engaging in actual killing does, but nobody seems to have any inhibition at all against in-game killing, suggesting that the relevant neural wiring simply isn't involved at all when one plays an FPS.

 

[Aphex_Twin]

And yet Marines burst in little gooey red fountains of death with a terrified scream, as do the medics. And every Zerg unit and structure pops into its own personal pool of gore.

But they are tiny, pixelized patches of blood. And the Zerg are minions of Satan (well, of Kerrigan, but who can tell the diference) and they MUST die

 

[The Last Conformist]

But they are tiny, pixelized patches of blood. And the Zerg are minions of Satan (well, of Kerrigan, but who can tell the diference) and they MUST die

The demons in Doom aren't?

 

[~Corsair#01~]

Strategy games tend to be devoid of blood (Civ, RTW) and thus aren't seen as violent.

For the same reason that Pacman and an FPS where you went around eating people would be seen differently.

 

[WildFire]

I've been playing FPS shooters for over 10 years and I've turned out to be quite normal

Quake 3 --> Medal of Honor --> Battlefield 1942 --> Counter-Strike

It really just depends on the person who plays the game and how it affects them. And if the media finds them

 

[FriendlyFire]

Slightly OT, but I don't buy the next step; that FPSs lower real-life inhibitions to killing "up, close, and personal". For it to have that effect, the gaming presumably would have to wear down that inhibition the same way that engaging in actual killing does, but nobody seems to have any inhibition at all against in-game killing, suggesting that the relevant neural wiring simply isn't involved at all when one plays an FPS.

They why modern military spend Billions on such warfare simulations. Such blue screen warfare is to reduce reluctance to killing. I think the figures were for green troops entering combat only 18% actually shot to kill. Thus making it nessacry for such "conditioning"

 

[blackheart]

Apparently me razing and murdering millions of people in Civ 3 isn't as violent as me shooting a demon in the head in Doom 3.

 

[RedWolf]

They why modern military spend Billions on such warfare simulations. Such blue screen warfare is to reduce reluctance to killing. I think the figures were for green troops entering combat only 18% actually shot to kill. Thus making it nessacry for such "conditioning"

I saw a documentary about this actually.

The percentage of soldiers that actually ever "shot to kill" during the second world war war startlingly low as you point out. Part of the problem is that people aren't normally conditioned to kill fellow human beings for no reason. They looked at their training activities and realized that recruits were shooting at square targets - didn't resemble people at all. It wasn't enough to overcome that natural instinct to not kill.

They started changing all of that. One example is the use of human shaped targets. By the Vietnam war they estimate that they had significantly increased that "shoot to kill" number... And as you say it has only progressed from there in an attempt to further indoctrinate recruits and breakdown that natural reluctance to take human lives - to make it instinctual - don't think just point shoot, point shoot, point shoot.

I once played that video game "silent scope" in the mall and afterwards was shocked at how much I enjoyed it and how immersed I became in it (because you're eye is right down on the sniper rifle). I was so pumped my hands were literally shaking... I found it a little disturbing (and I've played a lot of FPS on my home PC)

 

[Vietcong]

i play lots of fps and turn based strategy games *as i hate... HATE rts games!* but what about fighter games like mortal kombat???? i love scourpion and his fatality!!! He throws that lil spear thing throw his enamys head, then yanks on it several times and the 3rd time it pulls on it so hard it rips his eanamys head off!!