Disturbing

[DaddyHoggy]

ClymAngus-
I will add my thoughts to this topic, and you are welcome to consider or dismiss them as you see fit.

I sincerely hope my perspective is VASTLY different from anyone else here. I am the father of a deceased 14 month old son. April 4th of this year will mark what would have been his 10th birthday.

I am largely ignorant so far about 'Dead Island' and will happily choose to remain so thanks to your post. I believe you are correct in seeing the desensitization possible in this as a bad thing. That said - I think that this is occurring across all media, not just video games. The death of a child is an incredibly hard burden to bear. It is core to our nature as creatures who used social-interaction as a evolutionary advance as children are the closest social relationships we will ever develop. I do not object to a child's death being used in fictional media, but it should not be a regular occurrence. It is poignant. It should remain so.

Wow. You will be in my thoughts tonight sir. Your words are all the more poignant knowing in the context you have delivered them.

[ClymAngus]

I'm sorry for your loss Cmd. C as a father I can't even begin to imagine what the past 10 years of your life have been like. It is by far the worst thing a man can endure in life.

I've been trying to qualify this a little better as the thread appears to be veering onto the "do violent video games beget more violence?" Which is a worthy topic in itself but maybe going slightly off the boil. It has been mentioned (as you say) that the death of minors has been used in fictional media film, TV etc.

As far as I know it has never been used to advertise that program, or that film before. It seems that as games evolve they are sidestepping the rules that have been carefully put in place for other media. It is very easy to come out with a glib comparison here (and I have done to illustrate the point in one or two blogs that annoyed me.) Sure they can pull the "it's not real" card as much as they like but photorealistic CGI (or even something that is 80% there as this is) is slowly dissolving that excuse.

CGI or not, do people REALLY want to watch a slow motion atrocity unfolding before there eyes? Merely to advertise a flash in the pan computer game? I'd like to hope not.

In truth this sort of imagery has been made (by other media) more difficult to access. Sure you see the aftermath of atrocity on the news, but I know for a fact that half the footage shot goes on the cutting room floor, because the broadcaster simply wouldn't be able to broadcast it. One of my friends from university got a job editing the live news feeds, she lasted 6 months.

I do like the idea of liberty, but the fact is our other media outlets are censored. To the point at which we feel more for a CG than we do for real life horror. Now I'm not saying this is a good or bad thing (it's all simply too big for me to get my head around) but this sort of double standard is going to cause something to snap, and sooner rather than later.

[DaddyHoggy]

And if you take Clym's example to the extreme - news articles of death and destruction that are not transmittable "live" could be simply substituted for "Not actual footage" (ala traditional games advertising) of photorealistic CGI instead...

[ClymAngus]

Now that is a skull popper. You have live footage but you mock it up in 3d on the fly so you can show it on the news because your not allowed to show the live footage. We are creating an odd little world. I need an aspirin.

[DaddyHoggy]

A company called Organic Motion already creates digital avatars (not quite photorealistic but getting better all the time) that it can overlay onto actors in real-time, it works really well - face tracking so that surprise, horror, anger, etc can be replicated as well as the more basic "hands up" don't shoot type actions.

[ClymAngus]

Technically it's already happening:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBw_dtvEiYw

(this link illustrates the point as to the use of synthespians in news media. As such it does not contain any imagery that anyone other than Gordon Brown might find disturbing). I feel it is important that those of us who have an interest in this topic should not be excluded or be unnecessarily distressed due to insensitive linking.

[drew]

A very difficult subject and sensitively handled so far, well done all. Cheyd, thanks for sharing.

I recall reading a Michael Moorcock book (One of the Hawkmoon series I believe) when I was quite young and having to stop reading because of an (almost) throwaway line of description of the aftermath of a Granbretan attack on a city where the victors left the crucified corpses of men, women, children and animals behind as a lesson. There was no detail, but even the mental image left me shocked at the time.

I recall thinking "are you allowed to write things like that, even if you can imagine them?"

I've alluded to the mass slaughter of people in 'Elite/Oolite' myself, when Rebecca stabs Zerz and realises this isn't the first time she's killed someone, just the last in a long line... but this time it's face to face... and she's actually committed countless murders.

As for digital avatars, before we're pushing up daisies they'll be digitally realistic on our home PCs. In the same way it's almost impossible to tell a genuine image from a photoshop'd one, the same will apply to video, CGI or other technology.

As a creative mind (sick or otherwise) you'll be technically able to do anything to anyone. I hope society will self regulate in some fashion.

Cheers,

Drew.

[Commander McLane]

Technically it's already happening:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBw_dtvEiYw

(this link illustrates the point as to the use of synthespians in news media. As such it does not contain any imagery that anyone other than Gordon Brown might find disturbing).

If this clip has something to say about CGI-representations, I think it's rather a "not yet". Without your note and the context in the video itself I would never in my life have reached the conclusion that the CGI character is supposed to represent Gordon Brown. Visually it didn't resemble him at all.

[Commander McLane]

As a creative mind (sick or otherwise) you'll be technically able to do anything to anyone. I hope society will self regulate in some fashion.

Well spoken.

It's not about graphical images or violence in computer games. Those are visual stepping stones, debate has sparked (and will continue to spark) from them, but they're not what the debate should be about.

It's also not about censorship, or what should be legally allowed. There are things I don't do, even if the law doesn't say anything about them. And I hope and expect that my fellow human beings don't do them as well.

It's about the self regulation (and capacity for self regulation) of our societies. As I wrote earlier: it's about generally agreeing that there are limits, wherever they may be (which can, may, and must be discussed from case to case). People used to have a word for that: decency.

[Disembodied]

If this clip has something to say about CGI-representations, I think it's rather a "not yet". Without your note and the context in the video itself I would never in my life have reached the conclusion that the CGI character is supposed to represent Gordon Brown. Visually it didn't resemble him at all.

It's not a very fair example, given that Gordon Brown, the Jar-Jar Binks of British politics, was a CGI character to begin with ...

[ClymAngus]

In all honesty, it would appear from what I can see of the clip (because I can't understand the language) about recreating an alleged "something" that was never captured. Baby steps along a dangerous road.

[Commander McLane]

Like the famous back-scratching footage between Barack Obama and Jon Stewart.

But on the other hand, not having CGI has never prevented spin doctors from fabricating news about things which actually never happened. So again it's not the technical implementation as such which is the problem, but the underlying intentions, and motives, and actions.

And the opposite is not rage against CGI, but a sense of decency.