Controversial Themes : How much is too much?

When the original "Grand Theft Auto" computer game appeared, there was a certain amount of controversy, but not that much because, let's face it, it was a top-down rather pixellated affair - the idea of driving over people and stealing cars was hardly going to incite people to copy-cat incidents. (Plus I was really lousy at it :))
But... when the third-generation version appeared, with full-on 3d graphics and features like sniper-rifles and so on, then the "game" stopped being a "game" and started being something else. And it was very unclear as to what it was trying to be.

Now we haven't really had to face those issues in a board-game yet (with the possible exception of "Ghetto-opoly" late last year - see below) although the arguments have certainly bubbled away beneath the surface - there was a long thread on rec.games.board about whether the choice of brown counters in Puerto Rico was somehow racist, for instance.

FWIW I subscribe to the view that (as with pretty much everything else!) there are only two sorts of games: good ones and bad ones. If the designer has done their job properly, then the subject matter of the game should be irrelevant: drug gangs, theological arguments, bounty hunting, whatever.

Having said that, I also think that a game dealing with certain sorts of subjects has a much higher bar to pass before it will be considered "good". Functionally, "Ghetto-opoly" may have some amusing ideas but when the underlying game isn't great then it doesn't deserve consideration. If you're going to make a game about a controversial subject, then my feeling is that the game experience needs to be considered too: will the players come out of the game feeling that they have learned something different about it?

An interesting example here might be Jeff Warrender's game about Jesus and the Disciples, discussed in the GDW. Here the subject is very unusual, and Jeff has adopted an interesting balance between a purely simulationist point of view and an more impressionistic one - the events that occur in the game are certainly reflections of the Biblical narrative, but structured for the game, not for strict accuracy. The result is that a player ought to come away from the game with a better understanding of the Gospels (most especially about how they came to be written) without feeling preached at in any way, and without compromising the intent of a "game".

My problem with a game such as the one you described about gangs is that it risks falling into Grand Theft Auto territory - controversial just for the sake of it, rather than controversial because you want to illustrate something about the situation.

Indeed, an interesting subject.

First, to restate the obvious -- there is most certainly a line for each of us that we will not cross in our gaming, and as proof, let me go all the way to the extreme -- none of us, no matter how good the game was, would play a game called "Serial Rapist", for example.

That said, where the line is drawn is probably individual and subjective. As Scurra mentioned, I'm working on a religiously themed game, and this is no doubt going to be a controversial subject. I've tried to handle the game in such a way that non-believers won't feel like they're being preached at, but ironically, the game will nevertheless receive complaints from Christians (of which I am one), and in fact, already has.

Because of this, I've been trying to analyze this very issue, and what I think I've come up with, at least for myself, is to identify first what it is that I'm looking for in a game. First and foremost, I see a game as a bundled set of decisions, and so my first question is, are the decisions presented to me by the game system interesting? In most "shock value" games, I expect the answer is, no, for the simple reason that game elements are presented more for "yuk yuk" value than for creating interesting and tense decisions. (Although, someone who's played "Pimps and Hos" could of course prove me wrong...) Second, I look at thematic consonance. When I play a game, I find it especially satisfying when the game's mechanics do a good job of evoking the game's theme at some level. When I'm playing, do I feel like I'm being confronted with the kinds of decisions that someone in that situation may have faced?

Commonly, with an "offensive" game, the answer to the latter is, "I don't care". If the game puts me in a thematic setting that I couldn't care less about (being a "pimp", eg), then I really couldn't care less whether the game system itself makes me feel like I'm making the kinds of decisions a pimp would make.

And that, I think, is where the rubber meets the road. I don't play "Munchkin" or "A Dog's Life", not because I find them offensive, but because I just don't give a flying fig about either subject. So in that sense, I doubt I'd play your game, not because I'm offended by the idea of being a gangsta, but because I simply don't find the subject interesting, regardless of whether it's a great game or not.

In that sense, I fully acknowledge that I shoot myself in the foot by refusing to be interested in some games (eg, "Spank the Monkey"), which might be great but just don't appeal to me. Yet, in my defense, my gaming time is limited, and I have access to enough games that I really enjoy that if I *never* played another new game, I'd probably still have quite a few years' worth of fun gaming ahead of me.

A game about gangsters, being realistic, is probably going to be a bit of a niche market, and yes, you're going to offend a lot of people just for having made a game about the subject, and regardless of whether you handle it in a tasteful way or not. That said, perhaps that's not a bad thing -- perhaps your game will be well received by "gangstas" and will expose some new people to gaming. I'm sure many of us would approve of that, whether or not we'd play your game.

And while I think it's an interesting subject, I think it's an incorrect posture to treat people who find your game offensive in an accusatory manner. Because, we all have a fine line, and you need to accept and respect that. If you want to argue that your game is in such good taste that it doesn't/shouldn't cross someone's fine line, well and good, but don't attack someone for having that line. You have one too, whether you've found it yet or not...

-Jeff

I don't know about that. Naming a game Serial Rapist, or even theming a game that way (players compete for notoriety as the most infamous Serial Rapist... gain Noteriety by accumulating Victims, etc) could be kind of entertaining. Probably for the same reason people like GTA3 and laugh about picking up a prostitute (to gain health back), then running her down and taking your money back. I have never played the game, but the fact that you can do that I find pretty funny.

I have a copy of The Sinking of the titanic Game ("It's the game you play while the ship goes down!"), and some of my friends won't play it with me. "That's morbid!" they say. Admittedly it's a pretty poor game as far as design and stratedgy is concerned, but it's kind of fun to try and gather food, water, and passengers and get to the rescue boat without losing too many of them (eaten by cannibals, lost at sea, etc). Is that a controversial subject?

I think the line you're talking about exists, and obviously it's different for every person. It's the person's line though that brings up arguements, not the game or subject of the arguements. The game doesn't change from one person to the next. The guy who hates GTA because he thinks it's responsible for misbehaved children, the guy who hates GTA because it's morally wrong, and the guy who LOVES GTA because it's a fun escape are all standing on different points on the continuum, but GTA itself is stationary.

If you have a game and you're afraid it'll be controvercial... just make it for the people who are likely to play it and forget the people that aren't. They aren't going to play it anyway, so what's the big deal to them?

- Seth

Yikes! I stand corrected, and to be honest, I'm a bit disturbed that I do! I won't, not even for the sake of argument, try to come up with an even more unpalatable theme than the appalling one I already came up with. Thanks for proving that for every rule, there's an exception.

Yes and no. I would agree that people do all seem to have different opinions about what is and is not ok, but I definitely do not agree that the games themselves are in all cases "neutral." As nicely as I can say this, if you think that "Serial Rapist" would be a fun game, then YOU, my friend, are the one with the problem. I don't buy the notion that morality is so subjective that it's completely up to the individual to decide for himself what is and is not ok. A game about raping women, or harming kids, or being a "pimp", is not made "ok" just because someone says it is. There are most certainly game themes that really are in "poor taste."

Unfortunately, I'm already starting into a morality debate, and I'd better stop there. My point is simply to say that if you (hypothetically) want to make a game called "Serial Rapist", or play such a game, go ahead, but pretending that there's nothing wrong with it, or pointing the finger accusingly at "us" and saying "well, if you don't like it, YOU'RE the one with the problem" is wrong, wrong, wrong.

I will restrain myself...or at least try my best to do so!

-J

Yet today the subject matter is regarded as amusing and entertaining.
It's a matter of dissociation. People are ok with things if they feel it doesn't apply to them, or isn't a threat. Pirates aren't a threat. Gang violence is.

Furthermore, some people have an easier time dissociating with these things than others.

I'd better put this hot potato down...

-J

I'll take that hot potato for a second... because I have some personal experience with this subject.

I studied creative writing in college. My personal goal was to have my stories stick out by slanting the subject matter as strangely as possible, while still having a strong dramatic narrative. I wrote about janitors talking to corpses, lonely men deep-kissing popcorn poppers, long-lost Disney movies that hid deep disillusionment beneath their Technicolor sheen...

The quality of the writing, if I may say so, actually wasn't bad, though I don't think any of them were capable of being published. What I craved in a story was a very structured, dramatic conflict. The more extreme the subject matter, the crazier the juxtaposition, the more eager I was to write the story.

Eventually I started to get ideas by inverting ideas that I thought were trite and relatively unchallenging. It wasn't a bad idea in theory, but it led to a story that was simultaneously my best and worst.

I saw a play in college by the great French playwright Moliere. It was called School for Wives. It was about a wealthy, arrogant noble who was so obnoxious, he repulsed women. So he had an idea: he would find a young girl, and raise her to believe that the sole purpose of her life was to love him.

The plan backfired for the noble; she wised up, broke her education, and ditched him. The play is about equality, and independence of thought. It is actually quite funny.

However, I felt that its goals were a little "easy" in this day and age. I wanted to write a story that was difficult. I wanted to come up with the play's polar opposite.

So I flipped the storyline on its head. I wrote about an intelligent, caring dad, who decided to raise a child prodigy. He immersed her in knowledge from an early age, and attempted to influence every stage of her life. He wanted to saturate her with intellect. He buys her a Bosendorfer piano, and she turns out to play beautiful music.

But, just as the "wife" in Moliere's play, she "breaks" her education, and turns out to be a super-intelligent, but unmotivated, obnoxious, and rebellious teenager. She repulses him, and he sees her as a failure.

Still, he tries to influence her. He pleads with her to stop smoking. He is spurned by her refusal to read. He spies on her, and watches her lose her virginity to another teenager.

When he realizes that she has destroyed the piano by hiding cases of beer inside it, he snaps, and performs an act of retribution so graphic, misogynistic, and revolting, when I finished the 5th or 6th draft of the story, I was shocked by what I'd come up with.

It's an interesting subject for a story, but I felt that I'd gone too far. No one would want to read what he did to her. Perhaps I had seen too many Peter Greenaway movies.

This also happened with a second story of mine, and then the ideas I had for all my stories started to get too extreme. I tried to tone them down, but I couldn't. I wasn't interested in them; my muse, if you will, had no patience for "ordinary" stories.

There were several other things that happened in my life around that time. I got married, and became happy. I also lost the free time and personal space I used to have to write. And oh yeah, I discovered games.

So I stopped writing. I boycotted my muse. And I started designing games instead.

You might remember my "Games are not art" post. That was a big one for me; after I wrote it, I realized that what I loved about writing stories was structuring extreme conflicts.

But when I wrote, I wanted to "push the boundaries." I wanted to go where no writer had gone before. I had tried metafictional devices, extreme violence, bizarre narratives. I wanted to change the way stories were written.

Now that I design games, I don't feel that need anymore. Designing a game is all about structuring conflict. I don't feel the need to come up with a shocking theme or device to get a person's attention. I just need to come up with a beautiful conflict.

I haven't done it yet, but I'm working on it. :)

I still occasionally come up with a shocking and horrible theme for a game. (For the sake of humanity, I will not list a "for instance!") When I was writing stories, I'd feel the need to get it out. But now, I know that it wouldn't work as a game. I toss the idea in the garbage can, and keep playtesting my realistic ideas.

Now, I don't want to say that the reason Nazhuret came up with this theme was because he needs to find a better form for his ideas; my experience was completely personal, and I don't think it will literally translate for everyone.

But I do think we, as creative people, have an obligation to make things that people will want to play. We are not in the business of challenging our audience, as a maverick director may be. We don't have to push buttons. We can make great games without having to resort to shock value.

Hey, maybe the next great board game will be shocking, revelatory, and cathartic. But I doubt it - the medium just doesn't carry it as well as others. More likely, after the first play, the shocking veneer will fade, and we'll be left with... Ghetto-opoly.

This isn't to say that we shouldn't be whitebread and boring in our games. As I said above, I don't have a problem with sex and violence; but they need to be warranted, and they can't overstay their welcome. Know your audience, and know what they want. As game designers, we're asking our audience to do much more than sit in a dark room and watch a moving image. It is much easier for a board game player to see through a shocking image, than in any other form.

Nazhuret, maybe the above sounds critical of your game. I actually don't mean it to be; in your case, it all depends on the execution. If it comes up as light and silly, i.e. detatched enough from the problems it refers to that it doesn't strike any nerves, then I think it will be fine. Cheapass has a few "gang warfare" games, but they're not terribly serious, so no one's raised a stink.

But the more detailed you make your game, and the more of a "statement" you try to make with it, the more buttons you'll push. You may think it's not a big deal, but the reaction you'll get may surprise you.

Be careful.

Drat, I forgot to include something in one of my previous posts which was pretty much the whole reason I posted- here it is real quick:

"A game about raping women, or harming kids, or being a "pimp", is not NOT "ok" just because someone says it isn't."

I feel like I need another disclaimer, lest I get showered with flames or something. The aforementioned games may well be bad for other reasons, I'm not saying they are "ok." The point is, and has always been, that there isn't/shouldn't be some entity handing down edicts of what's right and what's wrong.

- Seth

That's what I would do. Now, if you're looking to publish a game, rather than simply think about an idea, then it might be the case that you have to start looking at other peoples' opinions and how many of them are contradictory to yours...

- Seth

Don't get me wrong, but couldn't even "tasteless" themes be done well? I admit I've never seen Schindler's List, but what limited knowledge I do have is that there were efforts made to save Jews in the movie? So even if your game was set during WWII, couldn't there be a good game in saving as many people as possible, even if in the end game people do die?

Or if the subject matter of Serial Rapist is in the game as a series of crimes, couldn't catching the rapist in the game be a goal?

It's a good question. Theoretically, it can be done. But it's VERY difficult.

For example... you're sitting on a streetcorner cafe, watching people bustle across a city sidewalk. You're watching one particular happy couple amble by, when a brick falls from the sky onto his head.

His companion shakes his still body and wails. Passerby crowd around to see if they can help, and pretty soon there's an ambulance wailing around the corner.

If we stop now, this could be pretty traumatic stuff. However...

A brick falls from the sky, and lands on the companion's head. Passerby now crowd around her. Another ambulance wails around the corner, and rear-ends the first ambulance.

An EMT is working on one of them, when a brick falls on his head. Passerby crowd around him. Another ambulance wails around the corner, and rear-ends the second ambulance, which rear-ends the first one.

One of the passerby shouts, "This is ridiculous!" A brick falls on his head. Passerby crowd around him. Yet another ambulance wails around the corner, and rear-ends the third ambulance, which rear-ends the second ambulance, which rear-ends the first one.

Got the idea? The more iterations we do, the less tragic the event gets. In fact, the repetition de-humanizes the sequence of events, and can potentially make them comic!

Now look at a game. It's nothing more than a sequence of mathematical iterations. A carefully-applied theme can make the game intellectually engaging, but its repetitious nature will usually prevent people from becoming emotionally attached (though there can be exceptions).

If your theme is shipping goods out of a tropical American colony, or building an ancient city, then the repetition doesn't work against the game. But if your theme involves rape or genocide, then you're working with some very combustible chemicals.

Can a game be made that involves such touchy themes, and still work as a game? Maybe, but I doubt it. The repetition inherent in playing the game would most likely trivialze the subject matter. To do any justice to its subject matter, the designer would need a very careful attention to detail and an emotional grace that I've never seen any board game pull off.

You know the '70s wave of disaster movies, right? The Poseidon Adventure, The Towering Inferno, Airport '77, and so on. For a few years, people loved seeing movies about horrible disasters. To some, it probably seemed tasteless at first (I was too busy being toilet-trained to notice), but the spectacle of seeing ordinary people stuck into extrodinary situations and becoming heroes, corpses, or both appealed to many. Titanic wasn't original in that regard, but it had a lot of lines it had to be careful to not step over. The last thing a director wants to hear from an audience watching his tragic movie is mad laughter from a scene he expected to be heartrending.

For me, the movie I never expected to pull this off was "Life is Beautiful." A comedy about the Holocaust? How could it work? And yet it does... it's simultaneously funny and horrifying. It's smart enough to not trivialize the historical events, yet its humor isn't ever watered down.

One last note... another way to trivialize tragedy is to make it go much faster than it should... say, from a two hour feature to a 30-second Flash animation.

I'm in a very early design state for a controversial type game. I must say that I think about people being not happy about my game, but that didn't stop me from thinking about it.

The game is a two player game inspired by Scotland Yard. Satan and his minions are in town, the other player have Archangels and try to stop him. Only this topic is enough to get me burned up. (Specially in the southern-west states of the USA). (Good thing I live in Canada:)

I don't think I will push Satan's evil doing that much, but I think that no matter what, somebody will complain about my theme.