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Games Entertainment

Devs Weigh In On Playing The Bad Guy 39

Posted by Zonk from the it's-good-to-be-bad dept.
Gamecloud has an article that goes into detail about the good, bad, and fun of playing a villain in a game. The article refers to several psychological studies, and has developer commentary from across the game design board. From CliffyB's comments: "Video games are a playable fantasy and there are few things more alluring than living out the fantasy of being evil and doing bad or illegal actions without any real world repercussions. As a designer, the best thing I can do when I allow the user to indulge in that fantasy is to show that there are ramifications for those actions. In GTA the more police you attack the harder the game gets, ultimately resulting in capture or death."
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Devs Weigh In On Playing The Bad Guy More

Devs Weigh In On Playing The Bad Guy

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  • I can't think of many older (NES, SNES, GB, GEN) games that allowed for you to play as the bad guy.
  • Hardly... First of all, you could commit a ton of murders before you ever got a star. And when you finally did, oh no, you get taken to the jail, and you lose your guns. That was most of the fun of GTA. I honestly never felt like I had lost anything when the police busted me, in fact it was most of the fun, to see how long you could last before they took you down. Hell, if you really cared about the guns, you could just put a cheat in to ensure you had them back instantaneously. Look, I don't believe
    • Heheh, now ya just need to "Hot Coffee" Barbara once or twice to keep your guns. ^_^

    • Re:Ramifications?! (Score:2, Interesting)

      by KDR_11k ( 778916 )
      Try Elite or any of its offspring. Try attacking civilian vessels. See how long it takes until you're permanently flagged as a pirate and attacked by everyone.
    • What i was thinking is that they should include real repercussions for your crimes.
      Perhaps the Trial mini-game where you can chose to plead insanity with a few Wario-ware style mini-games. after that you either go to a mental institution for 20 years of game time , go to the prison (involving some fun mini-games of soap balancing) for 100 years of game time no hope of parole or get executed .
      If you get hit by a car you run the chance of being rendered paraplegic ,suffering brain damage or even death .. wher
      • I'm not saying that there should be huge ramifications. I'm just saying that developers shouldn't pretend there are serious consequences to violent actions in these sorts of games. It's a cop out to those in the world that blame games for everything. Don't even bother with them. It's just a game!
    • Clearly written by someone that has never had Lance Vance killed by rampaging police for the FUCKING HUNDRED MILLIONTH TIME while trying to get back home after blowing up the shopping mall.

      The ramifications for violent actions in games are there, it's just that they are about as serious as the violence itself in the game.

      i.e. not very.

  • Not very realistic ramifications ... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dougmc ( 70836 ) <dougmc+slashdot@frenzied.us> on Saturday August 27, 2005 @12:41PM (#13416390) Homepage
    As a designer, the best thing I can do when I allow the user to indulge in that fantasy is to show that there are ramifications for those actions. In GTA the more police you attack the harder the game gets, ultimately resulting in capture or death."
    To be fair, you may show that there are ramifications, but your ramifications are not very realistic.

    In the real world, attacking even one police officer, even in a minor way, is going to do far more than making life more difficult. You're likely to end up captured or dead very shortly -- and in either case, you can't just hit reload.

    Granted, GTA is a game and you play by game rules, but by adding ramifications to `bad' actions, you're not really teaching morality or anything else like that. You're just making the game more fun. (Which is a good thing, don't get me wrong.)

  • Ther always have been, and always will be two schools of thought on this:

    1)Bad is always bad and Jesus saves!

    2)Bad is only bad for you if there's "something wrong with you".

    Stupid people will always be stupid. Crazy people will always be crazy. And when either one of these groups of people have children, they all spend the same amount of time with them, fostering healthy relationships and teaching them how to "get along" with everyone else in the world.

    How much time is that, you ask? None.

    This is no differe
  • In GTA the more police you attack the harder the game gets, ultimately resulting in capture or death."

    Yes. It's amazing that more people can't see the simple moral should message in this: if you decide to be scum, you prey upon the weak, the disorganized and unarmed.

    In other words, live and let live, after a fashion, as it were.
  • Video games are a playable fantasy and there are few things more alluring than living out the fantasy of being evil and doing bad or illegal actions without any real world repercussions.

    Without any real world repercussions [slashdot.org]?
  • I realize I didn't RTFA, but the summary made a disturbing trend clear enough. It is indeed a fantasy. Thus, why does it have to be that the "villain" loses? That the "good guys" are stronger? Why can there not be an equally balanced game, where at the very least both "sides" of a storyline are playable, let alone a game where the entire goal is to play as the villain until you actually succeed? The same game elements are there, tactically work your way through scenarios, beating your opponents, gather
    • You mean like Command & Conquer? You could play as either the good guys or the bad guys, with a mirrored mission or two, unique units for both sides, etc...

      Also, I preferred the car.
    • >>Why can there not be an equally balanced game, where at the very least both "sides" of a storyline are playable

      Sonic Adventure 2

      >>let alone a game where the entire goal is to play as the villain until you actually succeed?

      Blood Omen
    • "Why can there not be an equally balanced game, where at the very least both "sides" of a storyline are playable"

      I believe "25 to life" will let you do this.
  • If GTA had realistic repercussions you'd spend 90% of the game inside a jail cell. Games are meant to be fantasy. If you're relying on videogames to teach your kids morals you probably shouldn't have any. I was playing doom when i was 5 and i managed not to shoot all my classmates. Blaming the media for an individuals crimes is just lazy. It makes it easier for us to accept what they did if we believe computer games made them do it rather than the fact they could be mentally ill, immoral or just plain reta

    • Re:Who wants repercussions in video games? (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      There is a strong difference between Doom and Grand Theft Auto. Doom had you mindlessly shooting large numbers of pixelated cartoony non-humans, where Grand Theft Auto has you opening fire on semi-realistic people.

      I'd argue that a more realistic game has a proportionally larger negative effect on those people who have difficulty with the barriers of reality and fantasy.
      • Personally, I don't care about the realism. I'm perfectly happy shooting at totally realistic folks.

        What I object to is undirected carnage. I.e. I would have less of an issue playing a game as an Al-Queda member than I have with playing as GTA:SA's for-his-own-purpose protagonist. The difference is, carnage in the pursuit of a perceived greater good vs an individual desire for more ho's, etc.

        On the other hand, if the opposing forces are aliens, zombies, mafia, an opposing government/planet, etc - cool, l
    • The mainstream media only attacks video games since they fear losing people's attention (their viewers, their captives, their profits) to video games.
  • One of my favorite games was DK2 (why no sequel guys??). In dungeon keeper you play as the "keeper" basically an evil overlord who controls a warren of imps and other nasty little creatures. You have to tunnel through to the "heroes" base and then capture various items or remove key players.

    The heroes themselves seem like the pompous or inept types (like Farquad from Shrek), and overall the experience is that it's very good to be evil....
  • Being able to play the "bad guys" is one of the most interesting aspects of games as a medium. The article only touched on the part that makes it so interesting, though: the empathy that arises from playing the other side.

    Most games these days don't really emphasize it that much, of course, but I think it's really great that players will see a conflict from, say, the side of the terrorists. Currently games don't give you a background into the reasons why these particular people turned to terrorism, but it

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