I've been thinking about the role of the First Person Shooter game in modern society and I haven't been able to shake the thought that there's absolutely nothing wrong with running around with a toy gun even if it's a virtual toy gun. It made me think about how a player views guns though. I have some limited experience with firearms and I've always felt that people respond one of three ways to them.
1. They fear them. This is common especially if the person has no experience with them.
2. They feel empowered by them. Guns can give you a great sense of power. I believe this is commonly felt by many who have not had proper instruction in the use of them. I think this may include many FPS players.
3. People respect guns as a dangerous, but effective tool.
How does one impress those differences upon the FPS gamer? Well I've dropped some of my recent ideas in a new Critique in my Personal Pitch. Take a moment to read it and let me know what you think. Honestly, don't be afraid to be harsh. I can take criticism, especially constructive criticism.
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Comments
14:00 Thu Apr 24th, 2008
My best experience into respecting firearms comes from Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth. No health bar, just a tally of wounds that, if untreated, quickly makes you bleed to death. Also, should you have an unholstered and loaded weapon out when suffering a massive sanity hit, you just might turn the weapon against yourself. Blam, game over.
15:26 Thu Apr 24th, 2008
I think Water War is a great idea - but the 'easter egg' is an extraordinarily bad idea. The reason for ratings on games is so parents can assess the content of a game - if I got my kids something like that and then discovered they had found this easter egg I would be incensed - and probably talk to a lawyer
15:52 Thu Apr 24th, 2008
I don't disagree with the principle of real-world education in video games, but it should be up to a parent to decide the right time and context. It's hard enough for parents to have any measure of control over the kind of things that enter their childrens' culture.
16:38 Thu Apr 24th, 2008
Frankly, in the state of knee jerk fear over so called "Columbine murder simulators" like Counterstrike or Grand Theft Auto, I think that the last place that we should be turning for an education in the proper care and use of guns is a video game. Unless you hate video games, of course.
22:18 Thu Apr 24th, 2008
I think someone that told people how to use a gun in a way that would minimize the chances of them hurting another person wouldn't be looked upon in a bad light, as long as it didn't start giving tips on handling actually weapons for the purpose of teaching someone to use a firearm in a deadly manner. My rational is that I think it would reduce that amount of deaths that occur when children find a parent's handgun and point it at someone thinking it's not load or they're not actually going to pull the trigger, then bam the person's dead.
01:38 Fri Apr 25th, 2008
Guns don't kill people, people kill people. So why do we keep giving people guns?
02:19 Fri Apr 25th, 2008
Actually, I think the ammo used has more to do with it. .45 Magnum rounds shouldn't be available to the public. Heck, .22 caliber shouldn't either. I'd make every bullet available rubber bullets except for buckshots and rifle rounds for hunting. Period. Simple!
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Asclepius
07:40 Thu Apr 24th, 2008
I think that's a really interesting idea you have there. I think the part about a real gun is great food for thought, but would perform very poorly if actually implemented into the game. Though, the Water War in general sounds like a fun game most probably geared towards Wii users. Which would also be great for the Assassin mode because each player would be seen as other as their Mii, so you could get a little snapshot photo for your target. I enjoy several first person shooter and one of my hobbies is target shooting, and I don't think anything is wrong with toy guns virtual or real. The one thing though I'd like to see in a video game is safety training. I've never seen that, which isn't surprising as you can't actually shoot yourself in Counter Strike, but I'd love to see a virtual shooting range where they take points off your score for shooting while another player or NPC is down range, or where they make you go down range to check your targets but you're only allowed to do so after you've cleared the gun to make sure it's empty. Video games have proved that they can be educational, so I don't see why not teach people how to safely handle an actual weapon while they're playing with a fake one.