why no fighting

[abaris]

Actually I'm the most pacifistic and non violent person you can imagine in real life. But a good shooter can be a splendid way to vent some steam from the real life kettle.

But that reminds me of another example of the no sex, no violence hypocrisy rules being imposed in certain countries. Some years ago there has been a game called mafia. In Germany and certain parts of Europe it sold without the ability to shoot or harm civilians. Of course, you could download the bloodpatch the day it came out and the result was hilarious. Hilarious in the sense, that by eliminating certain civilians it actually got less violent. There had been a level playing at an airport and after it was done, some guy made a call to the police from a phone booth. In the German version you were unable to eliminate that guy. In the uncensored version, you could do him in and got a clean getaway wherelse in the censored and "non violent" version, you had to shoot your way through legions of police men, because of that one call.

[Sam the T-man]

^ I'm the same, and have to agree. Besides, if you decidedly eliminate violence from your games you're left with a very narrow choice. FWIW Pierre, by saying you won't buy violent games, yet you buy The Sims/2 and Final Fantasy, you're contradicting yourself. You mean to tell me there's no violence in either game? Sims get into fights, a lot of times on their own (mainly due to EAxis sims picking fights with each other, got on my nerves ¬_¬). In Final Fantasy you have battles, are they not violent? Not sure about the other two you mentioned, but it's a fair bet there's violence in them too. Like it or not, most games are violent to some degree, that's partly what keeps the player interested. About the only type of game you'll never see violence in are puzzle games, which engage the player in other ways.

@Erica and Yakov: When answering I spoke from experience (yes, I mean being preggers). Oh, and Yakov, believe it or not EA does get some things right - when I mentioned cleaning cat litter and hot tubs, I was also referring to the game. You can't do either with pregnant sims, the actions are disabled. Maybe the reason there's no miscarriage could be explained through being spineless, or it could also be to save people like me, who have already lost a baby IRL, from encountering it again in a game, which we turn to for escapism. You can't blame everything on the lawyers, there is business sense in there somewhere.

[BeosBoxBoy]

Sadie - I meant no disrespect in this.  And had I been aware of your loss, I would certainly have made my reply in a more moderate voice.  You raise a very good point for the reasons they would choose to avoid these matters.  I am well aware the a disproportionately large (at least in computer gaming terms) number of women play these games; but there was only one woman on the entire dev team, and she , from my experience dealing with her, seemed one of the most bloodless, calculating drones of corporate greed I have heretofore met; so it seemed to me unlikely she would have interjected something as imminently reasonable as what you offer.  The rest of the senior dev team, men all, were and are some of the biggest freaks, weirdos, and maladjusted cellar-dwellers I have met... not that all freaks, weirdos, and maladjusted cellar-dwellers are bad, but looking at the obsession with fire, ludicrous means of death, and other aspects of the game, it seems well at odds they would be motivated by good taste, social responsibility and sensibility.

I can't claim to be a non-violent sweetheart like abaris, I am definitely some damaged goods in that department.  Yet, I find that I prefer a non-violent game to the canned fake violence of a combat simulation since it lacks those parts of the combat I find satisfactory.  There is very little satisfaction to be had in a virtual beat down, since the bloody rudder will be back for more; I prefer a more lasting effect from the expenditure of my time and energy :lol:

[Sam the T-man]

I didn't mean to sound bitchy or snappy or anything, just saying... You speak of the dev team though, the way you describe them suggests to me they're the guys dealing with the coding, that sort of thing. The decisions I speak of (what (not) to include, etc.) isn't made by them, but by the designers themselves - the guys who come up with the ideas that are then passed to the guys you mentioned (That's if I haven't got the wrong end of the stick). The designers are the ones who'd get the flack for something in the game that shouldn't be content-wise, and who would have the likes of Jack Thompson breathing down their necks. The developers just take the ideas and make them into a working *cough* product. They don't care what those ideas are.

So yeah, there's business sense and morality in there somewhere - tucked safely away in the designers' den

[BeosBoxBoy]

Sadie - the "senior dev team" are the architects of the game as we have it -- there was a 3rd party design consultation agency yes, but their "ideas" passed through the commitee at EA made up of the management assigned to the TS2 dev, which included the senior dev team.  The "senior developers" are all management - and these guys say yea or nay to all levels of things. The grunt level coders aren't even considered part of the dev team; they are just warm-body labour, treated no better than typewriters, adding machines, and filing cabinets to be used and moved between projects.

The distinction is not something one will readily understand until you actually work for EA. The senior dev team may include a VP of EA or some equally high level muckity-muck.  The only people we see in the spotlight are the upper echelon, and to call them "deigners" is an abuse of real designers.  The internal design team is treated no better than aforementioned typewriters, adding machines, and filing cabinets.

In the real world of computer software development, you have it pretty much by the rights; but in the game industry it is a different beast with upper and mid-level management being the end-all-be-all and being labelled (wrongly or rightly) the senior dev team; when in fact they are nothing more than foremen driving the slaves.  All the grunt-level coder (which by the rights is a sort of developer) does is follow the directives of the senior dev team and hope like hell he has a job next month.

[Sam the T-man]

Nice... and me being on a game design course too :pale: Okay, now I'm confused. I've wondered for a while if I'm doing the right thing working towards a degree in game design, certainly the modules are all pointing towards the design rather than the coding, but with this new info I'm concerned. WTH am I really working towards, and is it time to switch to multimedia tech maybe? :dontknow: I know I'm not enjoying "Graphical Communications" - presentation on Tues. too >_<

Disillusioned? Yep. Fed up? Very. I just dunno what I wanna do anymore, besides write, and that won't keep the food on the table.
[/rant]