By how much do you suppose society's secular values influence the type of video games published these days?
Thinking back to the 80s, when there was a general emphasis on traditionalism, conservatism, family values, etc. under Reagan and Thatcher, many games were fitted to this model. Family friendly titles were the rule, almost without exception. Even through to the mid-90s, games usually did not push too many envelopes, although certain franchises like Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter began to tilt the violence element like a pinball machine.
From the mid-90s onwards, games began to tack harder to the gaming demographic: the relaxation of moral standards made obscenity, sex, and violence more commonplace in video games to appeal to the teenagers who played them. Being daring was all the rage in a more liberal society, allowing titles like Grand Theft Auto and Resident Evil to be not nearly as egregious as they would have been to society only ten years earlier. "Talkies" were a necessary counterbalance against gaming cynics, who had appeared from the glut of games on the market.
While it would seem the demographic has fractured into various groups by now, there is an overarching pretence to realism and maturity still present. From the inception of this decade, there has been a building focus on protagonists characterised by...something completely different, which ousted "cool" from its coveted position. In the same way Sonic defined "cool", Shadow defined "angst" and Silver (sort of) defined "badass". Today, it's not appropriate to be cool, but to be badass. With anime becoming so popular in the West, video games have lurched to appeal to that base as well. And in a society where spectacle overrules substance, video games now are virtually required by unwritten law to be like interactive cinematic experiences with enough extra fluff to start a pillow-making company. Call me old school, but I preferred the age of the console wars when there weren't a billion and one identical shoot-'em-ups on the loose and corporations didn't have to show enough digital fanservice to give you a copious nosebleed before they could catch your eye. Sure, sex and violence have been around since the existence of man, but only in the last decade was that acceptable in gaming. How many social values are reflected in games these days?
Thinking back to the 80s, when there was a general emphasis on traditionalism, conservatism, family values, etc. under Reagan and Thatcher, many games were fitted to this model. Family friendly titles were the rule, almost without exception. Even through to the mid-90s, games usually did not push too many envelopes, although certain franchises like Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter began to tilt the violence element like a pinball machine.
From the mid-90s onwards, games began to tack harder to the gaming demographic: the relaxation of moral standards made obscenity, sex, and violence more commonplace in video games to appeal to the teenagers who played them. Being daring was all the rage in a more liberal society, allowing titles like Grand Theft Auto and Resident Evil to be not nearly as egregious as they would have been to society only ten years earlier. "Talkies" were a necessary counterbalance against gaming cynics, who had appeared from the glut of games on the market.
While it would seem the demographic has fractured into various groups by now, there is an overarching pretence to realism and maturity still present. From the inception of this decade, there has been a building focus on protagonists characterised by...something completely different, which ousted "cool" from its coveted position. In the same way Sonic defined "cool", Shadow defined "angst" and Silver (sort of) defined "badass". Today, it's not appropriate to be cool, but to be badass. With anime becoming so popular in the West, video games have lurched to appeal to that base as well. And in a society where spectacle overrules substance, video games now are virtually required by unwritten law to be like interactive cinematic experiences with enough extra fluff to start a pillow-making company. Call me old school, but I preferred the age of the console wars when there weren't a billion and one identical shoot-'em-ups on the loose and corporations didn't have to show enough digital fanservice to give you a copious nosebleed before they could catch your eye. Sure, sex and violence have been around since the existence of man, but only in the last decade was that acceptable in gaming. How many social values are reflected in games these days?
