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Friday, June 17, 2011

Gamers are Creepy Sociopaths



My brother was reading the Escapist, dredging through the forums as a base form of entertainment, when he came across a topic called "The Most Immoral Thing You've Done in a Game".


Here's Gralian's post:



"I, uh... I don't know why, but i kidnap people on Red Dead Redemption. I find people riding out in the wilderness alone, or i find a stagecoach, i put on my bandana, i kill any companions the victim might have (and any witnesses), and then i rope up the last one left alive, hogtie them, and put them on my horse. I then ride out into the middle of nowhere, it could be a camp, it could be the top of a cliffside, i point the gun at their face, and pull the trigger. The benefit to a cliffside is that the corpse sometimes dramatically ragdolls off the side and falls down the crevice. Sometimes i ride up to a deep river and throw them in, causing them to drown, while i watch. Sometimes i put them in front of a train and wait until they are run over. (I got the Dastardly achievement purely by accident by doing this). Sometimes, if the train is in the station, i board it - and wait until we're in the middle of nowhere, like somewhere high up in the mountains. I then take out my gun and start shooting everyone, working my way up to the driver, and killing him if the train has stopped. I was sad to see you couldn't drive the train yourself to the next station, which meant a lot of tedious riding back to town. Ah, the town; there are the times where i lose all subtlety and don't bother looking for victims in the wilderness. Sometimes i simply ride into town, roping and dragging someone to the outskirts, letting him or her go while i kill the law enforcement, and laugh as they try to run back to civilisation, only to ride up and abduct them inches before freedom. Sometimes i have my eye on someone in particular. I've hogtied people in bars, killed everybody inside and any law enforcement outside, then make off with the victim on horseback. And then there are the times i drag people through town until death for the sole purpose of luring the law enforcement out, so i can murder them all and abduct one of them, making an example of him, such as laying him in the middle of the street and executing him with a headshot for all to see, or taking him to the middle of a desert, releasing him, only for him to be eaten by wolves, or simply slit his throat with the knife. In fact, the knife, revolver, and tomahawk are my favoured weapons of execution, probably in that order. Though the revolver has the benefit of sometimes making the body jerk a bit, letting it fall down cliffsides as i described earlier. The knife is more of a silent weapon when you don't want to be bothered with witnesses. The sort of thing you use to kill someone when you're at a campsite and they're by the tent.
I have no idea why i do these things. I just get... cravings. It's very satisfying. I've wasted many hours simply hunting and killing people in this fashion, but always making sure to wear my bandanna so i'm always 100% honourable. I'm sort of like the wild west version of Patrick Bateman."

3 comments:

  1. I don't get it. Why did this guy feel the need to write about this? Isn't this kind of behavior the _whole point_ of this game? It's not like the developers didn't mean for you to play this way, or even that it has consequences or renders the game unwinnable. You even get an Achievement for it. "Theoretically" it's an interesting question, but this is the wrong game to produce a relevant answer.

    I guess another way to say this is: I'd be much more interested in hearing about people who _never_ did any of the things the game expects you to do.

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  2. The game doesn't expect you to do anything outside of the missions. I, for one, applaud the creativity of this person. People usually don't take the time to flag a particular desirable, rope and drag them out to a cliff. Or wait for them to run for freedom before snatching them up. That takes patience. It reminds me of the time when I used to arrange corpses in Oblivion into artistic positions after I was done killing and looting them. I finally stopped after I realized just how much time I was spending on this hobby, especially when I considered that the bodies disappear after a few days.

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  3. The fantasy is that some worthless human vermin is worth something. That's the fantasy being acted out. To that kind of vermin self worth comes only in degrading others- they have fully accepted their worthless status. Gaming is an extension of Ritalin. Idiot parents want to acquire a vanity child so they breed, spend more time thinking up a cutesy name than parenting...and have to find something to do with the whelp. Enter gaming, satisfies the needs of both.

    Gaming isn't anti-societal, it's asocietal. It's a social vacuum where you keep the whelp vacuum dried until old enough to ship off somewhere. It's a pitiful response to a pitiful situation. So, yeah, it means something. One could never more accurately use the saw, "Get a life!". You're going to have to create meaning- it's not there in your life! You want to fight overwhelming odds, villains and monsters and have something to show for it? Get out of your bedroom, kick your parents gutless and go out and make a real life.

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