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Is it wrong to be a bad person in a video game?
14 Plays11 days ago
Join Dave and Jake as they talk about whether it is bad to be bad in this week's episode!
SPOILERS: UNDERTALE, Spec Ops: The Line, The Last of US (Part 1-2), Shadow of the Colossus
Intro:
- George Thorogood & The Destroyers - Bad To The Bone
Outro:
- FURI - The Toxic Avenger - My Only Chance
Thoughts? Comments? Requests for new episodes? Feel free to email them in!
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
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Transcript
Introduction and Episode Overview
00:00:01
Speaker
How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake, and I'm joined by my co-host, as always, Dave.
Is it wrong to be a bad person in video games?
00:00:08
Speaker
Dave, is it wrong to be a bad person in a video game?
00:00:13
Speaker
ah I want to say no as like a knee-jerk response. sure um But I'm sure there are some situations where id be like, yeah, that's actually pretty bad. Don't don't do that.
00:00:27
Speaker
There you go. ah So that's the episode. We can go ahead and pack
Ethics in Gaming: Beyond Clickbait
00:00:31
Speaker
it in. Now, I think we could probably go a little bit more in depth here. um We have obviously the clickbaity title, um but the ethics of what you're allowed to do in games and the the moral implications of that has come up as a cultural touchstone, touchstone, I would say, like multiple times throughout society. There are plenty of examples of parents clutching in pearls about things they saw on the screen, like when their kids were playing a game.
00:00:57
Speaker
And obviously, it goes so far beyond that as far as what's actually out there and available. So we're here to provide moral guidance from our pedestal above everyone else.
00:01:09
Speaker
We know what's right and wrong, so we will tell you. Yeah, we're we're giving yes, no answers here. No no no moral gray. Yeah.
Video Games, Violence, and Society
00:01:18
Speaker
and yeah There's a a big part of the discussion started so long ago with, um was it Jack Smith or somebody? Yeah, you're talking about the rock star lawyer. um Crap. I can't remember it. You're right. It's Jack something.
00:01:35
Speaker
ah basically going over to like violence in video games and like sexual content and anything that was deemed, I guess, to be like too mature. Jack Thompson. Jack Thompson. That sounds much more right.
00:01:50
Speaker
But yeah, like people i have had quote unquote studies were like violent games make you violent. I know we've talked about violence video games in the past. Yeah. um The TLDR for that is it can.
00:02:03
Speaker
It can. But it doesn't for most people. Yeah, because I think if you have a good balance of touching grass in video games, you can easily differentiate between this is real life. And so I interact with people versus this is just in a video game. This is a simulation type thing.
00:02:21
Speaker
um and It's usually to progress some part of the story. Exactly. Yeah, and i think it's worth noting up front that, you know, just like that, that when we were talking about violence in games, a lot of it comes down to the person. Does the person have other things going on mentally? What state are they in? Are they in a good spot? Like,
00:02:43
Speaker
I'm sure there are plenty of times um in life where if I was in a particularly low space, I would not want to play a game that's outright depressing and has really depressing content in it, self-harm, stuff like that.
00:02:58
Speaker
It's just not the best idea, right? You don't want something that's going to be a negative reinforcement loop for bad times that you you yourself are experiencing. It's difficult to quantify that, right? That's a harder thing to talk about and cover on on the full spectrum. We don't have time for all of that, to be honest.
00:03:19
Speaker
So i I guess I would focus more on like the higher level things that games allow you to do or maybe encourage you to do um or give you the option to do, you know. um but not necessarily ah controlling for where the player is at in that particular moment because yeah everybody's in a different spot.
Safe Spaces and Artistic Expression in Gaming
00:03:43
Speaker
And I think similar to horror movies or any other type of alternative media outside of like what you consider to be pearl clutching media. i'm Sure. Is it's an outlet.
00:04:00
Speaker
Because like one, I'm not going to ever murder somebody. It's not something I could do. It's not something I want to do. Great cover. Yeah. but Please check the episode on ah February 14th, 2026 for my alibi.
00:04:17
Speaker
but
00:04:20
Speaker
i't know. It's nice to have options to do other things in video games that you can't do in real life. Yeah. GTA being like a super obvious example of like, oh, what if I like stole a cop car? but but but And it's it's all fun within the context of the game because you're messing around in the game world. Right. Exactly.
00:04:37
Speaker
um And I think it is a very good outlet to. Do other any type of other stuff that you would not do in standard day-to-day life.
00:04:48
Speaker
And again, it doesn't have to be violent. It doesn't have to be sexual. It's just having some of those options, I think, is a beneficial thing for people.
00:05:02
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I agree. And I know there's going to be some cultural sensibility bias in this. You know, like I know in the US, we're very much like free speech and air quotes. Well, yes. But in general, like ah art falls under free speech. So you can you can get away with some stuff and under the auspices of art that you might not be able to do just, you know, on the street if there was no artistic value to it whatsoever.
00:05:30
Speaker
And, you know, that applies to games. um Like, you know, I would argue that video games ah either are art or they can be art, depending on where they land. I really want to say can be. Yeah.
00:05:47
Speaker
And that does provide like a lot of protection as far as, you know, the content that can, that can happen in those games, but we'll have to get into some concrete examples here. And we basically dove into the deep end already. So some of the whimsical examples might not land as well, but like, um,
00:06:04
Speaker
I do think that context also matters for how personally acceptable something is for me. meg We could talk about how absolute ah how absolutely acceptable something is, where you're like, I would defend its right to exist. That's true of most games, I would say. Do you agree with that or or disagree? Yeah, I would say pretty much everything. Yeah, because it's like even the stuff that I really, really disagree with,
00:06:32
Speaker
I'm concerned what censorship in that area will do if it were to expand out and impact other games. Like there are some games where some terrible stuff can happen. And maybe the point of the game, right? Like something, I guess what I'm trying to say is like going back to the rock star, Jack Thompson example, is it kind of like,
00:06:53
Speaker
was built up in this zeitgeist of like the X simulator, ah like clickbait thing, right? It's like GTA is actually just a murder simulator or it's a sex simulator for like the hot coffee mod or whatever.
00:07:09
Speaker
um And so what they're trying to do in that is psychologically you're saying it's not a video game anymore. The whole point of it is that you're getting this experience for this deviant act.
00:07:21
Speaker
And legitimately, there are some games that are like that. Yeah, I think that there can be some things that are very over the top and gruesome. Yeah, that something like Outlast.
00:07:34
Speaker
Sure. I'm not sure if that happens exactly to you as a player. um But within that, it seems like, again, I'm not a horror fan. I don't like violence or gore, ah but it seemed very much like Violence for the sake of violence. Yeah, it's ultra violence. It's the glorification of it.
00:07:52
Speaker
Yeah. And I don't think that I would argue that murder is bad. I'll take you. Sure. I
00:08:02
Speaker
literally lost my train of thought. Sorry. You're arguing that murder was bad. Glorification of violence. Yeah, um I think it's fine to have adult themes in video games. ah You just don't want it to be portrayed as a good thing.
00:08:20
Speaker
That's fine. If you were playing as a character it's like, hey, your job is to kill all of these people who look different than you and you're being specifically rewarded for that. Yeah, that very much seems like it's trying to push a narrative of.
00:08:33
Speaker
Hey, only your race and nothing else. Right. Yeah. And that's
Moral Choices in Games: Impact and Examples
00:08:37
Speaker
really fucked up. And I would be obviously against that. Right. ah Versus something like fable where you can be a good guy air quotes or you can be a bad guy air quotes. Yeah.
00:08:48
Speaker
And. It's so much more minor on the scale of things. Mm hmm. Because you'll either grow horns or you won't. Yeah. You'll get like a halo or something.
00:09:01
Speaker
Yeah, and it's it's not a make or break thing for the game, and it's also not a make break thing for a person. Yes. Like if I played good and you played evil through Fable one, I wouldn't judge you be like you sick fuck. You know what I mean?
00:09:18
Speaker
Yeah, it's like it's cartoon villainy in a way, right? It's not meant to be really severe, but it's like, oh, you ended up with the baddie as your wife. Okay. Well, that meant that you like helped her kill her sister, which is who is the better character. so yeah, I guess you're on the evil path, but it's like none of that is stuff that's going to stick with you.
00:09:41
Speaker
I think. True. Right. None of it's stuff where you're like, you're going wake up in a cold sweat and be like, man, I really shouldn't have like kicked that chicken in Fable. Probably. Probably not. Right. um Well, going back to kicking chickens, like Zelda figured this out so early. They're like, hey, if you kick a chicken, you'll be attacked by chickens. Plural. Yes. And that's like a very simple way to immediately tell a player like there will be consequences for actions like that. Right. Yeah. At least against chickens. That's true.
00:10:13
Speaker
feel like can do that in other games as well. Where again, you're just you're not glorifying the thing, but you're kind of showing it and the consequences of it. Like how many video games talk about war and stuff and like how it's not good. Yeah. And it's really easy to convey that in certain ways where like you don't have to be going out and actively murdering people.
00:10:39
Speaker
But that could be a way to kind of portray that of like, hey, you're down in the trenches. Somebody comes and attacks you and you need to like violently do something. You're like, that seems kind of fucked up. Why are we doing this? Yes. Now it's another human being.
00:10:53
Speaker
Yeah. And I think another aspect to this is like how visceral the experience is. Right. And you're and you're describing this in... um and like your war shooter or what have you, you know, does it have first person takedowns where you're like stabbing somebody three times, you know, in the chest or whatever? Like the video game developers generally, even if it is a depiction of war or something like that, they'll pick some line where they're just like, we don't really want it to be that violent.
00:11:22
Speaker
Right. You're not going to like disembowel somebody or whatever the crap like it's going to be focused more on the arcadey quick kill like motions and they'll still have their animators do the work. They'll still do mocap. But the goal isn't to like the focus isn't supposed to just be on the violence.
00:11:42
Speaker
Right. And if it is, then that's kind of like a one off thing. Um, and I think that's fair. um And that's... These are all things that kind of, like, move you away from the X simulator space, right? It's like... um And the the best games for... that That are, like, actually games on the list of things that we could talk about are ones where it's, like...
00:12:06
Speaker
The moral choice is kind of supplementary to the game, or it could be core to the plot, but it's not like the point of it. Bioshock. Yeah, I was thinking Bioshock, right?
00:12:20
Speaker
Because it's all the stuff, with the little sisters accents it. Yes. Where if you want to harvest the little sister or I think just get a fixed amount of Adam initially.
00:12:30
Speaker
hmm. I took the Adam because I like big daddies. i like little sisters. like the whole design of the the game. And I didn't want to like. Kill kids. I'll bet them stole and suck their soul out. yeah I'm not a huge fan of kids, but i don't hate kids that much. Yes. yeah So i I technically played as a good character.
00:12:52
Speaker
Yes. The first time through. I think almost everyone did. um So the the specific justification for this, I think, is the little sisters have like ah slugs that can gather the atom.
00:13:05
Speaker
They have to like eat it or whatever, but the slugs allow them to metabolize it. Um, and the evil option is to, like, basically extract the slug and kill the little sister.
00:13:17
Speaker
Otherwise, the good option is just to, like, uh, convert the little sister, I guess. Like, rescue her. Unbind her. Unbind her. From the slug and program. Um...
00:13:28
Speaker
And it's just like, it's so like the example I'm going to use for this is like red versus blue mass effect, like in the choice. It's like, do you want to twirl your mustache or do you want to like become a volunteer firefighter? um You know, like rescue this person or kill a child. um It's almost it's almost back to the second.
00:13:54
Speaker
No, I think those examples are are very extreme. Yeah, but that's exactly it. For Bioshock, it is, right? It's like, oh, do you rescue the child or murder the child, right? There's nothing in the middle.
00:14:06
Speaker
um The funny, so I think myself and most other people I know just also picked, you know, rescue the little sisters.
00:14:17
Speaker
I think the game actually does, speaking on Bioshock specifically, they also do a good job of kind of like humanizing the little sisters at times. Like they force you to see a cut scene where they're like extracting Adam and, ah you know, they'll be talking about like ah the the big daddy and like they'll talk about playing, they'll talk about angels and stuff like that. And if it if they didn't convince you if they convinced you that this was a machine more than a human maybe more people would pick the evil thing but instead they do a pretty good job of convincing you that this was a little girl and could be a little girl and do you really want to kill that yeah um but like video games providing that option i think one is a ah good litmus test of like you look at the games you played and what actions you took in them you're kind of like
00:15:17
Speaker
oh Oh, I'm noticing like a troubling pattern here. ah But it also gives you exposure to some of those questions or scenarios yeah before any of that could possibly even come up.
00:15:31
Speaker
yeah know So maybe I need to make like some dire choice later in my life. um ah Basically a trolley problem, if you will. And it's not like a split moment. Oh, fuck, what do I do? It's Oh, like I've been passively learning ethics through video games, seeing examples on both sides, being able to form my own mind on something and then using that to feed into your actual life.
00:15:59
Speaker
Yeah. This might be me giving video games way too much credit. I still think that video games are the best medium for getting somebody involved.
00:16:09
Speaker
Who is correct because like a book or a movie, obviously. um You have what's going on, but you are not in the story. You're not part of it. You have no agency. You're a spectator.
00:16:24
Speaker
Yeah, you're spectating ah the world and characters that somebody has created. ah versus you actually being the one who needs to pull the trigger or stab somebody or lock people in a thing and be like, i guess they're dead. Yeah.
00:16:45
Speaker
Any type of stuff like that, I think is way better to have that explained in a first person where not actually first person game, but like first person experience. Yes. Where you have to make those choices.
00:16:57
Speaker
Yeah. I think that's an important distinction, actually. That's something we haven't really covered, but like some of the games on this list, they have things you you need to do. Maybe you could you could make an argument that you have to make a bad choice or choose between two bad choices or something like that.
00:17:16
Speaker
And like those can be interesting in their own right. Um, but there are also a lot of games where it's like something bad just happens and maybe you feel bad because of that. Um, I'm going to spoil spec ops, the line again, which I've talked about in the past. I'll put it here. It's not even on the list.
00:17:34
Speaker
Um, but it is the most classical example of this.
Ethical Dilemmas in Gaming Narratives
00:17:38
Speaker
Um, where the game has really heavy narratives about your character basically like losing his mind killing a bunch of American soldiers having his own squad get killed using white phosphorus against like Americans and civilians to like burn them alive um and all of this is a hallucination fugue state or whatever by
00:18:06
Speaker
while it is a good anti-war kind of message and it's a, it's a great experience. Um, sorry. I just bought spoiled it for, but you should have checked the disclaimer at the front.
00:18:16
Speaker
Um, But it's also mandatory. There's no option to avoid doing that, right? Yes. Because they wanted to tell that message. And so if players had the option not to use white phosphorus and instead to, like, fight their way through, you know, with conventional arms or whatever, it would have taken away that massive impact, and impactful, like, story beat that's been covered so much.
00:18:44
Speaker
And that's, like... I think it's still worth covering some of those games and maybe talking about them in this space, but it's never going to be as impactful to me is when the game put me in the position and it was like, here's the button. You can hit it or not.
00:18:58
Speaker
Right. What's the example in the Stanley parable where it's like, hey, this baby is going to go into the fire and unless you press this button every 15 seconds.
00:19:11
Speaker
Yes, and I think technically if you let it go if you do it for an hour I think you can actually beat that quote-unquote minigame It's also just like a cardboard cutout of kid. It's just to symbolize yeah um but You can also just let it end right um and the baby Burns and you are judged by the game narrator for that.
00:19:33
Speaker
Yeah, right and again, that's something where that literally has no stakes and but it is kind of alluding to a possible situation
00:19:47
Speaker
Not sure where I'm going with this as much, but. Yeah, no, no. I mean, like you have a choice, right? And it's also a really obnoxious choice, right? If you let, if you just don't hit the, if you don't hit the button, you can continue with the game. The interesting stuff. Yes. Hitting one button for an hour, occasionally being dripped fed dialogue, which grows more and more infrequent.
00:20:06
Speaker
That sounds like torture, right? Yes. um Some developers realize that. Is it Peter Molyneux? No, no. That's the Fable guy. Who's the guy who runs on about puzzle games? and Jonathan Blow. Jonathan Blow, yeah.
00:20:23
Speaker
That seems like one of his type of designs. Yeah, just here to hurt you. um The thing that's interesting comparing and contrasting that to um to Bioshock is in Bioshock, the game basically is telling you, hey, if you want more of this resource that can be used to get your plasmids, the best way to do it is to harvest the little sisters.
00:20:46
Speaker
But it also is lying to you, kind of, because if you choose to help the little sisters, eventually them and Dr. Tenenbaum um are like, oh, we want they they want to reward you. So they'll come and they'll give you special plasmids that you can't get any other way, as well as like bonus Adam more than you would have gotten from Killing them.
00:21:09
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I can't remember the exact split, but it's very close, if not more. Yeah. um But exclusive plasmids, including the ability to like control big daddies, like take control of them and have them fight for you and stuff like that.
00:21:21
Speaker
And it's like you just completely miss out on that if you take the evil route of harvesting them. um and then the game's ending is either morally like angled towards red or blue depending on uh whether you harvested little sisters or not and the second game does basically the same thing right as far as the morality plays into it and that's what's really funny to me because it's like
00:21:54
Speaker
There's kind of this idea in my mind that if you're making people choose between being a good guy or a bad guy, they have to make the bad guy path more rewarding or else like what was the point?
00:22:07
Speaker
does that Is that just me? Does that make sense? That resonate? I mean, it does to a degree. um I've always thought for a while that they just existed as like another. Hey, we need you to get to go through our game again. So you can also do this. um And myself included will sometimes go back to games and just try an alternate play style.
00:22:30
Speaker
So if I played good the first time, I might be evil the second time. Or if I did a certain build first time, I do a different build, what have you. um But something like.
00:22:45
Speaker
Undertale, I think does ah one of the best jobs of just telling you up front hey you don't have to fight and kill things right yes you have the option to spare everybody in the game um you obviously don't have to and there's certain people who specifically tried to kill everything and that is accounted for and you will eventually be punished by sans yeah when you have the fight with him and
00:23:16
Speaker
So initially it's not a deterrent, um but you do notice differences in the game. Like if you kill all of the characters in an area, then the area is quiet.
00:23:28
Speaker
It's not playing music anymore. And you really do feel that absence of life. And I think that is another way to kind of convey that message. Yeah, this goes back to what you were saying as far as like um having reactions and consequences to player agency and actions that the player is taking. Because there's also like NPCs in Undertale. You'll like arrive at a town and they'll be like, oh, we're just waiting for our friend to show up. And I'll like, oh, who's your friend? And they'll describe the person that you've killed.
00:23:58
Speaker
And you're like, oh, that's a problem. Because now the game is like making you feel things, right? And this is where maturity actually comes into it. And again, we're getting further away from the X simulator thing. This isn't a murder monster simulator.
00:24:10
Speaker
It's like, oh no, you have the choice to do that, but... The game's well written. And if you have empathy as a person and you you'll find yourself in a position where you probably feel bad for doing it. Right. Like lot of people that chose to go on a full genocide playthrough basically had to force themselves to do it regardless of what the game was telling them.
00:24:36
Speaker
um And it's tough. it's it's It's really tough. The game also forces, smartly, I think, forces neutral ending for like the first playthrough. Pretty much regardless, you can't get paified pacifist or genocide. So...
00:24:51
Speaker
so On top of that, you almost can't just ignorance yourself in to genocide. i had no idea shouldn't be killing every single person. Yeah, it has to be like the second time through when you already know the people that you're going to be killing.
00:25:07
Speaker
That's rough. That's the they make it they they make it a very high commitment. I think um it's pretty far removed from whimsy on the ah whimsy to realism scale, which is really funny, given that's a pixel game with monsters. But they humanize the characters, no pun intended.
00:25:25
Speaker
Yeah. I think humanization is good for anything because whether it is a good character or an evil character, people are people.
Humanizing Characters and Player Engagement
00:25:36
Speaker
Like it's not a red or blue. ah People are always very nuanced and we'll have different aspects of them that are good aspects that are bad.
00:25:47
Speaker
They're all go to be different from each other. um And I think it's good to for a more mature game, at least where that is tied to the story to have those elements versus like your classic arcade thing of like, you're the good guy.
00:26:04
Speaker
Here's the bad guy. Yeah. Kill the the angry guys in between. and it's just a game, right? Yeah. Yeah. And there's a lot of things like on this list that kind of fall under that.
00:26:15
Speaker
I just want to mention some of them like Fallout. has some decisions to be made. um New Vegas is probably the one that actually has you in a position where you can do bad things or not. But a lot of it just comes down to like, who do you side with? And some of the people that you side with are like absolutely reprehensible.
00:26:33
Speaker
They could be reprehensible if you choose to side with them. that's That's fine. It's not necessarily the same type of situation as like harvesting little sisters, right? You're not like committing an atrocity. You're kind of just, yeah you're you're with a bad crowd. You're with the wrong guy. It's less direct. You're more kind of like complicit.
00:26:51
Speaker
Yes. You can also be just ah an a-hole, but it's within the concept of like a game where, People are dying all the time anyways, and it's not visceral, I guess, is maybe the way I would put it. um It's not like telling you the life story of the people that have have have been murdered or whatever a lot of the time.
00:27:12
Speaker
um
00:27:16
Speaker
But yeah, Fallout, other games like that on the list. They might have some interactions where you can be like reprehensible, maybe can cannibalism or something like that. But it's all very gamified. It's all very arcadey.
00:27:28
Speaker
It's not trying to pull on your emotions necessarily. And in fact, the things that those games have that do pull on your emotions tend to be like actual world building, like the vault of people that were murdered by raiders and stuff like that.
00:27:43
Speaker
um It's not necessarily the stuff your character is interacting with because they want to keep that dark comedy layering um for that type of game. And I think that's similar to like Fable, other games you're talking about.
00:27:55
Speaker
they're They're trying to maintain, they're keeping you above water as far as how heavy it should be. They want it to be light. um And just a side of whimsy, like a side of villainous, you know, it's it's diet villain experience.
00:28:11
Speaker
um I think even something like Breaking Bad as a TV show allowed people to see some of the, don't want to say like underbelly of society, but like an alternate life path.
00:28:26
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. That type of thing that I don't think 99% of people are going to go and try and make and sell meth. Yeah. And I don't encourage it. The market's just not good. right Yeah. It was like 60, 70% at most of the viewers went on to make their own meth. It was not considerable.
00:28:43
Speaker
I know it's blue food coloring and... But I was going to say ah one thing that I find interesting and this was...
00:28:54
Speaker
I think in the news around when it came out, but a last of us two. Hmm. Fun game. Not as, I don't think as good as last us one personally. Yeah. Um, but a big thing with that is you are playing as Ellie and you are trying to kill the person who killed Joel, even though Joel is not a morally, a morally great person, right? Yes. Yeah.
00:29:20
Speaker
Uh, but you get to see all of these characters, And what they're like. I think more so in the second part of the game when you're playing as Abby. Yeah. ah But you don't have the choice for whether or not you're going to kill these people to get to Abby.
00:29:35
Speaker
Yeah. You just do. Like Ellie's killing people left and right. Mm-hmm. And now granted, they were trying to... have a different message as far as revenge is bad and if you didn't pick up on that you had you were in complete stasis throughout the entirety of that game because yeah holy fuck was it hammered in ah annoyingly so I feel like the message was already conveyed it was it was to the point of frustration Like we've talked about we talked about this before, and at least for myself, I've acknowledged I will get taken out of the game if a character does something that I really, really don't want to do. If the protagonist, if the playable character does something that I really, really don't want to do and I don't have a choice because I'm like, OK, well, now I'm just watching an interactive piece of fiction.
00:30:25
Speaker
I'm not here making choices about how I would deal with that situation. Yeah, and I think if the game is dead already, by all means, ah let me keep but moving the character around, but they're kind of doing their thing. Yeah. And I don't really have agency over that.
00:30:46
Speaker
Mm-hmm. But it's really weird to I can't think of an example of that where you would have agency throughout most of the game. They're like, oh, hey, but you can't make a choice here. You just do something really shitty.
00:30:58
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, a lot of it comes down to kind of like. I guess it's still like it's it's consequences or non consequences. um I think there should be consequences for stuff in games regardless.
00:31:13
Speaker
Whether they be good or bad, you should see impact on stuff that you do reflect in the game. Yeah. don't think that's a hot take. That's the interactivity of games. Exactly. Like...
00:31:25
Speaker
You want to see stuff change because of your impact. If you defended a town from goblins, I want an NPC saying, hey, thanks. Or specifically, like, I won't see goblins in this area anymore because I've killed them because they were attacking the townspeople. um something yeah or if i didn't defend the townspeople and it was maybe time sensitive i come back and they're dead and i can't use their shops i can't sleep in their inns well actually i can um but maybe the end's not intact anymore yes exactly you don't get the well-rested bonus or whatever um yeah i i think the last of us is like a really good example because it does
00:32:08
Speaker
It is very visceral. It's very emotionally engaging. It's difficult not to be like the game is specifically trying to play on your emotions they're like oh let's let's do the ah let's do the zoo tour as as Abby or whatever. so you get a flashback and you're like oh man that's really similar to how like Ellie and Joel had that interaction with the giraffe and the last of us one and you're like yeah that is similar isn't it? That's a little suspicious. ah The other thing though is because you don't have the agency for what you do as Ellie you're just going through and calling people
00:32:40
Speaker
Uh-huh. Try to get the exact intonation. it was very close. Yeah. But when you do the second half with Abby, you get to learn more about the characters. You see the dog that you killed because it like attacked you and all this stuff to be like, don't you feel bad?
00:32:56
Speaker
No, I had to do all those things because you put it in the game. Yes. It's not like I went out of my way to make that choice. Right? Yeah. Yeah. It's like the game, the game wants it both ways. They want you to feel like the full consequence of your choices without actually giving you choices. Yes.
00:33:15
Speaker
And like even beyond the character interactions, the very gameplay, like something that was big in 2 at least is like people will call out names when yeah you kill somebody. They're like, oh, yeah, he like. Um, and it's like, on one hand, I can kind of appreciate that because it keeps it from being like very arcadey. This is just, you're calling the human opponent opponents instead of zombies. Right.
00:33:41
Speaker
In a game. Like, I understand that, but like, Yeah. At the end of the day, when I reflect on like my takeaways from The Last of Us, I was like, Ellie is a really stupid person.
00:33:53
Speaker
Not like I was a stupid person that made all these decisions. It's like Ellie just could not grow at all. um And the the failure in the second game, Which I think like morally we're talking about the more the ethics of being the bad guy in games and things like that, right?
00:34:10
Speaker
Well, I think was the success of the first game, which I'm also going to spoil. um These are all those will be part of the disclaimer at the beginning. 20 years. Yeah, that's all in the disclaimer. You guys are fine.
00:34:20
Speaker
um But the accomplishment of the first game is when you got to the end as Joel, you were not given a choice whether to kill or not kill all of the fireflies that were going to do the operation on Ellie.
00:34:38
Speaker
That was just you were railroaded for the game. They knew where they wanted to go with to whatever. But the whole game setting up this father daughter relationship. put you in a position where you're like, I will not let you guys kill her. As the player, you are much more likely to be aligned, even if you disagreed.
00:34:58
Speaker
yeah You are much more likely to be aligned with the decision that your character was forced to make. Yeah, because you've been with Ellie for however many months in the game ah going on these ventures, harrowing stuff, trying to like get by by the skin of your teeth.
00:35:18
Speaker
I'll be infested America, et cetera, et cetera. And they do have a good dynamic. They learn to appreciate each other and depend upon each other and other stuff. And I'm a sucker for... I like a little father-daughter bond duo type thing. Heck yeah. Yeah.
00:35:35
Speaker
I don't have a daughter. I'm not a daughter. But i don't know. Something about it is just sweet to me. don't know. Just two people loving and protecting each other. think it's cool. Yeah. No. Yeah. yeah When that happened...
00:35:48
Speaker
um And you're like, oh i I'm handing Ellie over to the operation so that, you know, they can figure out the zombie stuff in her brain and and make everybody not be infected or be immune to the virus, you know, helping all of humanity. And.
00:36:07
Speaker
There is a bit of that knee jerk of like, but that's my daughter. Yeah, that's Ellie. That's my friend. Right. um And you don't want her to die. There was the deception to when he hands her over. He doesn't know that oh that she's going to die. Yeah.
00:36:23
Speaker
Like he comes back and fights through all of them once he realizes that she's not making it out. Yeah. Yeah. ah But it like you said, it doesn't feel super out of place as the character, even though you have to do that as part of the game.
00:36:39
Speaker
Yeah. You understand where Joel's coming from. Exactly. Yeah. Also, I like that they didn't make Joel just a... He's a blatantly good guy.
00:36:50
Speaker
oh yeah. Like, he was always... I wouldn't say always, but, like, he's a human, right? yes He's fallible. And one of my favorite moments is at the very end of that game, like, where they're driving back, and she's like...
00:37:06
Speaker
Because like she wakes up from um sedation amnesia or sedation. Yeah. She's like, oh, what happened? It's it was a bus. Like they weren't able to do it. um It's unfortunate, but like, oh, and she's like, you're telling me the truth, right?
00:37:23
Speaker
And he's like, yeah. Uh-huh. And she knows. Yeah, and that comes up in the second game, but I like that there is that subversion of there's not this happy ending because somebody made a selfish choice. Yes, exactly.
Moral Ambiguity and Justified Actions in Games
00:37:42
Speaker
As a father, he made a selfish choice, but it's a like understandable choice.
00:37:47
Speaker
Yeah, it's not like that. That has nothing to do with Joel's character. Why would he do this? Yeah. In the realm of like the scoping of this episode and like whether things are bad or good, this is actually a really good example of a fully justified immoral action being portrayed in a video game. like If someone came up to me and they're like, oh, the ending of The Last of Us one was so reprehensible and I was so morally offended and I was, you know, whatever, whatever, whatever, I'd be like...
00:38:18
Speaker
I can't associate with you. like this is that You and I are too far apart in as far as the space of the media we appreciate. Yeah. like um The reason it's impactful is because he was ah quote unquote bad guy to distill it down to that.
00:38:37
Speaker
um You also get the implication like prior to the game starting that Joel has been through a lot of bad stuff and he's this is the start of him trying to kind of do something better.
00:38:48
Speaker
Yeah. So there's a little bit of a little bit of a bittersweet relapse almost at the end where it's just like, yeah, he's he still kills people. But yeah. What I think is good about that, too, is i think any time we look at media.
00:39:05
Speaker
There's a degree of like. You are expecting things to be a little more black and white and kind of marvely where people do good things because they're good, et cetera, et cetera. But like, what would you do in that exact situation?
00:39:18
Speaker
Right. Mm hmm. And like. I'm sure there are lots of situations where you do kind of have to weigh your own benefit versus somebody else's or multiple other people.
00:39:33
Speaker
And seeing where you land on that, I think, can be telling. Mm hmm. Because I will say I am definitely a selfish person.
00:39:45
Speaker
I would like to say that I would be super magnanimous and would go and save everybody and all this stuff. Yeah. But I do not know if that's the case.
00:39:57
Speaker
I could honestly just be way too scared and run away from the situation too, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think it's that's that's the power of video games, right? Is you put people in the what if.
00:40:11
Speaker
And for all of the justifiable games that we've talked about, in every honestly, spoiler alert, I guess everything that we're talking about, we're like, there is some place for this. um But i it's an opportunity to, do like you said, deal with the trolley problem, even if it's the trolley problem with enough world building and characterization that you're invested in fictional characters that are upon the rails of your trolley problem.
00:40:39
Speaker
Yeah, um because if you go up to someone and it's like, do you think it makes more sense to kill one person or five? Like the fuck? Yeah. Also, here's the button. Here are two buttons and you need to press one of them ah all simultaneously. That'll we haven't debugged that part yet. Yeah. You'll end up just killing six people. Uh-huh.
00:41:03
Speaker
But going back to something like a modest proposal, again, is approaching something in a very extremist out of left field way. Yeah. But it perfectly conveys what it needs to, you know? Right. hmm.
00:41:21
Speaker
It's just grabbing you with that kind of initial shock value, but then you can actually learn something from it. Right. Exactly. and I think learning things should be shown like that or picked up on and not ah It's the end of the game. You've saved everybody. or you You didn't do these bad things because of these reasons. Yeah.
00:41:43
Speaker
And it's just a rubber stamp on it. Exactly. Yeah. And I think like where we've covered some of the better examples here. There's there's a couple more I wanted to to kind of mention. And then the stuff that are from the games I wouldn't really generally play for various reasons. I at least wanted to touch on those two.
00:42:02
Speaker
But like um I want to mention Dishonored. Dishonored is a good example of a game that i kind of puts you in this. Do you want to reload or continue in the doomed world you have created ah opportunity, which is um they treat the violence video very video gamey.
00:42:21
Speaker
As you're going level by level, you can choose to fight and kill people. But if you kill people, it raises your chaos meter. It doesn't say that you're evil. There's just more rats in the world on the later levels. There might be different patrols, things like that. The level might be a little bit more dystopic as like chaos is rising as you're assassinating more and more of the guard.
00:42:43
Speaker
But like, it's not saying that like Corvo is evil. until you get to the very last mission. And there's this um sympathetic character, Samuel the Boatman, who is literally delivering you to all of your missions. He's he ah you always are like arriving by boat.
00:43:04
Speaker
And he'll have some words for you. And he's part of the conspiracy that you're a part of. He's basically one of your compatriots working against the... I can't remember if he's like an overseer or whoever, but like the current government, the ah ah regent.
00:43:19
Speaker
um And he's part of your group for the entire game. But if you've just been murdering people the whole game, not just your assassin targets, but you're going out of your way to just kill a bunch of people, his voice lines change for this last interaction.
00:43:36
Speaker
And if you were basically full on pacifist, um He's like ah basically in awe of what you've accomplished. And it feels really good. He's like, like Corvo, like to be honest, like when this all started, i didn't think you were going to be able to pull this off, but you've exceeded even my expectations.
00:43:55
Speaker
ah the And then there's there's gradients here. But on the tail end of it, if you were just killing people just because you could, because the game made it fun, right? And it does.
00:44:07
Speaker
At the tail end of it, he's like, honestly, i can't trust you anymore. And you are as bad as the traitors that were in our group.
00:44:18
Speaker
And I wish I could say good luck, but like instead I hope you fail. And when he lets you off, he'll shoot a pistol in the air to immediately alert all of the guards. Oh, damn. Yeah.
00:44:36
Speaker
And here's the here's the thing. Here's where the game actually has... the this is the This is what you talking about, or where Cash is in. You can kill him before he fires the pistol.
00:44:48
Speaker
And you could even like choose to reload the start of the level and kill him before he fires the pistol. But now what have you done? right you you this You're in stealth, but you killed this sympathetic character that was you know ostensibly close to your friend through the rest of the game just to continue your psychopath. will remove all obstacles in my way regardless of their affiliation.
00:45:15
Speaker
Yeah. And man, like that's that's one of the choices in gaming that really like stuck with me because like I did my pacifist playthrough. I did my high chaos playthrough, but I wasn't ready for Samuel to turn on me.
00:45:28
Speaker
And even then, he doesn't attack you. He's just making it harder for you. Right. Like, does that justify killing him? I don't know, but you can do it.
00:45:41
Speaker
You're definitely a bad person.
Violence and Reality: Player Perception
00:45:45
Speaker
You know, that's tough. I think that's another great way to put it through the lens of another character, especially one that you like and you want to be on good terms with.
00:45:57
Speaker
But then when you feel their judgment, you have that sense of shame and you're like, fuck. Yeah. How do you react to that? It's tough. You kill him. Yeah, yeah there you go No witnesses. Continue the bad playthrough.
00:46:13
Speaker
And for the record, that doesn't, if you've, if you've resolved to do your genocide playthrough of Undertale or you resolve to your high chaos playthrough of Dishonored, it is a video game. It doesn't necessarily say anything about you as a person.
00:46:26
Speaker
um Unless you also just are a bad person, in which case it's not doing you any favors. but you consistently pick every evil option every game. Uh-huh.
00:46:37
Speaker
Probably not a great person. Ask some questions. but yeah I'm not going to judge anybody for doing evil things in a game because I have as well. Yeah. yeah And it also is a game. It's just why you're making those decisions and they're like what you take home with you. Yeah. Yeah.
00:46:54
Speaker
I did actually have a conversation not that long ago within the last couple months with somebody who's like a content creator um outside of our friend group. um But she ah her her angle on content creation is that she does the bad playthrough in games like she'll be the villain or whatever.
00:47:14
Speaker
But here's this part where like I blew my mind. She does that as her first playthrough. And I was just like, how do you do that, though? Like, how can you how can you do that? Because I almost need this synthetic layer of I'm just being a bad guy. And the second playthrough with my existing knowledge of the world, basically, they're kind of like separate me from my own actions in the game a little bit. Give me a little bit more.
00:47:39
Speaker
Oh, no, I've already beaten the game is good guy. Like, that's the locked in one. Like, that's my canon into canon playthrough. Don't worry about it. But like being a bad guy the first time. I don't know. That's spicy to me.
00:47:53
Speaker
That's a little spicy. I think that is a little hard because there's always that part of you where it's like, I don't want to kill this NPC because what if they have a quest line? What if I'm missing out on other stuff? Yeah.
00:48:06
Speaker
Why would I go through and kill the NPCs? My first run of Elden Ring. That would be insane. Yes. The game will take care of that for you, by the way. You don't have to worry about that. You just wait long enough. Oh, I guess they're dead. Don't collect their stuff. Uh huh. They'll be on the way.
00:48:21
Speaker
Yeah, that's a really interesting approach. Mm hmm. Yeah, I think I would honestly struggle to do that as like a first time. Yeah, then I'd have to go back in second, and be like, um I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Uh huh. Yeah.
00:48:39
Speaker
And I know I'm in the exact same position you're in because, again, talking about Undertale, while you were watching me play the game for the first time, I named my character Murder. And the game said, that's a little on the nose, isn't it? As soon as I locked in the name and I was like, oh, and i long story short, I completely failed at the murder part of my initial goal.
00:49:03
Speaker
And even though I kind of wanted at some point to do the whole like difficult genocide thing, once I was done with pacifist, I was like, I can't put these people through that. I feel too much. i got too much empathy for him.
00:49:14
Speaker
um I mean, that's a good feeling to have empathy. Yeah. Yeah. Because I feel like if you can have empathy and...
00:49:28
Speaker
transhumanist stuff in video games. It's so easy to be like, OK, but like, what about real people, though? Right. hmm. Like i know we recently and it always comes up every so often, but.
00:49:43
Speaker
No, it's the the undersea game. It's not Bioshock, not Bioshock. It's not Subnautica. It's like a survival exploration narrative.
00:49:54
Speaker
Oh, so always forget the name of it. Survivor. You hate the main character because he's stupid. Oh, right. Oh, yeah. yeah I know what you're talking about. It's the it is a ah frictional game. Soma.
00:50:08
Speaker
Soma. Yeah. This is why I keep Jake around because there are like three games i will never remember the name of, even though i played and liked them. Yeah. Always blacks out. up But in Soma,
00:50:18
Speaker
um there's a lot of different examples of different quote unquote versions of life versus like how automated something is. Yeah. And it's like, where do you where do you think the line is for like this is a person or this is not a person?
00:50:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:38
Speaker
And I feel like you're like, oh, well, they feel pain. They have thoughts. They have wants and needs. You're like, I would say that they're a person. And I feel like you're like, okay, now what about like real people? What about like trans people, gay people? Like, should these people have rights and like the ability to do all these things?
00:50:57
Speaker
Yeah, they fucking should. Yeah, probably. But yeah, yeah
00:51:04
Speaker
but I think, again, putting somebody in those situations um to make you think about it. Yeah. It's good. Yeah, it gives you like ah it gives you a corollary. It gives you a sounding board, something you can kind of like get the ideas from and question your own beliefs. And ah ah the the best of games that engage in that area, it's okay to be an arcade game that's fun.
00:51:25
Speaker
I play them all the time. That's probably the games I go to more often. But there are some games that stuck with me where I'm like... you know, like Soma, which again is a game where you're not making choices. This is a linear game. Ultimately, um you're forced to do the reprehensible things that Simon ends up doing, but,
00:51:46
Speaker
At the same time, you can still think about those. And yes, Simon is really stupid, but you can still think about like the story that the game is telling you. And the same way like The Last of Us is like, I'm reflecting upon the decisions that Ellie and Joel made.
00:52:01
Speaker
ah You can also reflect upon the decisions that Simon made and be like, what would I have done differently? Right. That's an important question to ask sometimes. um I think it's the same type of thing where you might watch the show Cops or something.
Games as Tools for Self-Reflection
00:52:16
Speaker
You see somebody get arrested for doing a crime, and you're like, how would I get away with that? Yeah, yeah. Is that the position you find yourself in whenever you're watching Cops? You're like, I would definitely be the person running away in this situation, and so what should I do? And I definitely wouldn't be the cop. That's for sure. Yeah.
00:52:35
Speaker
Like when you experience media, I think there's always a part of you that is empathizing with the character of like, if I was the one of the cast in a horror movie, how would I survive if I was in this scenario?
00:52:54
Speaker
Yeah. um What would I do here as this character for something else? It's the exact same thing. It's just... appreciating a scenario or experience and then thinking about it and applying it to real life.
00:53:08
Speaker
um Where do you land on stuff morally? Yeah. And then like, maybe you have a takeaway from one game and then you play three other games and you have a different appreciation for something because you're looking at something in a new light entirely. Yeah.
00:53:26
Speaker
Or you're playing as different character, the perspective or, TLDR exposure is good. The more you learn, ah the more information you can have to form correct decisions.
00:53:40
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's fair to say at the very least, like more mature decisions, right? Like more, you can be more prepared for things like this. If should they ever come up, you know, hopefully you don't have anything quite so heavy as some of the situations we've described, but like, um,
00:53:58
Speaker
I mean, that's that's part of growing as a person, right, is figuring out who you are, figuring out how how you would react even in theoretical scenarios like this. um
00:54:11
Speaker
There was actually i was i'm I'm on the fence as to whether like to to mention them or not. But The Last of Us one made me think of other games where like it might actually be a hot take to say that you play as a villain.
00:54:23
Speaker
um But it's because it basically has like the same plot point as the ending of The Last of Us one, which could have been inspired by this. Right. So villain or not. Shadow of the Colossus.
00:54:38
Speaker
I forget how it ends. i know saved the girl. Yeah, but you have to go around and kill these different quote unquote monsters. Yes. The Colossus. These things that exist exist.
00:54:53
Speaker
And there might have been a replacement or something at the end. Like you lose yourself or you fight yourself. I can't remember exactly. I've never played this game. This was like PS3 or something. I played like the first half of it a long, long time ago.
00:55:04
Speaker
But I do know that the core stipulation here, which again is the reason it's got to be added to the spoilers, is the that ultimately you're releasing this evil just to save the girl.
00:55:15
Speaker
Yeah. Which i think I think is a bad thing. Which would put it in the doing a bad thing in a video game category.
00:55:28
Speaker
But what if she's a baddie? Oh, okay. yeah If she's a baddie, then it's fine. yeah that's fine I'm a baddie. She's a baddie. Everybody's a baddie. yeah Baddies love baddies. that's that's That's the takeaway from this episode.
00:55:41
Speaker
I do like, though, that they kind of throw you in and you don't know anything. You're just like... ah You got to go over here and kill a thing. Yeah. Hold up the sword and do it.
00:55:53
Speaker
Yeah. okay And you're in this like very gray area. And I think you're kind of assumed to just go in of like it is a video game, right? Yeah. Fight bosses.
00:56:05
Speaker
Yeah. They're very much putting it under that lens and then have a reveal later on. Which again, I think is a good way to do something, because if I ask you up front something like that, you might have a canned response.
00:56:23
Speaker
You're like, oh, well, um these things are good. These things are bad. Here's why relatively black and white versus putting in the actual scenario. And then not realizing you're in that quote unquote conundrum.
00:56:37
Speaker
Yes. Then forming something. Yeah. I do kind of like the ah the the the midnight twist towards the end of the game as you're like forced to reconceptualize the things that you've done.
00:56:49
Speaker
um And it's you know probably not upon reflection that you you actually think about, you're like, how many of those Colossus actually attacked me first? Right?
00:57:01
Speaker
But it is it is it is helpful. And a lot of that is also just the situation it was launched into, you know like we were saying. oh You're going to just go out there and fight bosses and there's just not a lot of dialogue. Maybe it's an indie game. i don't know.
00:57:15
Speaker
um But no, I appreciate that. I did want to mention some other stuff. So these were the games that you're like meant to be bad, but a lot of them I don't feel like we have to go into too much detail on. So there are some games where like everyone is bad.
00:57:31
Speaker
Like, Starcraft, like, you could kind of argue that that you're more supposed to empathize with the Terran a little bit more as the humans, but, like, they are also explicitly shown to be, like, straight-up bad through every game. Terran, they're humans, so they're dicks. Aren't Protoss relatively morally good? Yeah, but they're also, like, alien good, right? And that, like, they can get along with the other races, but...
00:58:01
Speaker
they're also just fine doing their own thing they're they're they're a little less relatable i think because of their uh uh what is it avatar ripped them off but they have their their head braids and their psionic link the kala and all that stuff that's like lost in starcraft too but um um Yeah, they're they're the best in quotes, but can also make the argument that the Zergar, because they're just insanctual, they're not really making any decisions to ah be bad.
00:58:29
Speaker
They just need to eat. You know, they're got to eat. What you going to do? And they're also controlled by the hive mind slash a different cerebrate for Sarah Kerrigan, a.k.a. lack of agency. Sarah again. Yeah. um Exactly.
00:58:47
Speaker
um So I kind of like exclude that. there Everything is bad type games. Or everyone is bad type games. then No one's really bad. um We already talked about GTA.
00:58:58
Speaker
That's kind of arcade-y generally. Although they do try to get into some serious stuff. i don't know if that landed or not for me. Prototype. Also arcade-y. Hilarious amount of murder in that game.
00:59:10
Speaker
ah By quantity, not by quality. um Hitman. Literally just playing as the guy that kills people. That's probably bad.
00:59:21
Speaker
But it's not visceral, generally. Carrion is actually... ah Did you ever play Carrion? I did not. i was interested in checking it out, and then I heard it was okay. It's okay, yeah. That's the way I'd put it. But like you play as a monster in Carrion, and... and um It is actually like pretty visceral, even for like it's low, low res type game.
00:59:47
Speaker
But I don't know. I don't know how you apply ethics to a game where like the goal is to be a monster. Right. Like that seems odd. think you do. Because like that whole game to me feels like I'm forgetting the Flash game, the name of the Flash game where you're a fish and you eat smaller fish to get bigger. Okay. That's what that game is. Yeah. It's just it's under a different guise. Yeah.
01:00:12
Speaker
Yeah. um But then the stuff I was going to end on was so these are the types of games that like nobody really plays or very few people play because they like get banned in the US. So this is how I get Dave's attention. Yeah, it looks at the camera. um But like games like Postal or Manhunt or Hatred.
01:00:36
Speaker
Where like hatred came out in 20, 20 2015, 2014, somewhere around there. And ah the whole goal is you play as a myth, misanthropic mass murderer that kills a bunch of people and police and then blows up New York.
01:00:52
Speaker
And it's like it didn't review well. Apparently, it like has OK reviews on Steam. But. This is actually what we spent all this time moving away from the this is an X simulator. to like this is actually just a mass murder simulator. Like this one is actually just what the game is.
01:01:12
Speaker
And this is where my argument kind of falls apart a little bit. I personally think it's OK to exist. I wouldn't get anything out of it. um I don't really think it's very artistic either.
01:01:30
Speaker
Yeah, I would rather just play a fun game. Yeah, but at the same time, like you were saying, I don't think it's inherently bad for it to exist because i could play through that and be completely fine. Mm hmm. Yeah. And i have no takeaway. not like excited to go kill police or people or blow up New York. Yeah. Yeah.
01:01:55
Speaker
I'm sure there are some people who could have a takeaway, but I think the people who would think that way probably already. Yeah, they have a tendency to be more destructive, antisocial. Exactly.
01:02:12
Speaker
Violent. These are your school shooter type people. They've already got something going on. Why are we letting them play video games? Yeah. shouldn't be Shouldn't be playing video games. um At least... ah all last thing Last thing. This is actually the last thing. We can end the episode.
01:02:28
Speaker
um If you're a parent...
Parental Guidance and Gaming Content
01:02:32
Speaker
Be involved in the games your kids play. There you go. It'll be really obvious if they're playing like Walder's Gate 3 and you're like, that's a little bit too much. It's too much sexy times or whatever for for for the kids or Bioshock. like, that's a little bit too much Ayn Rand for the kids.
01:02:51
Speaker
um or heavens forbid, somehow they got access to an adults only game that's banned in the US, but you can get it on Steam like like like hatred. And you're like, are you only murdering civilians? That might be a little bit too much civilian murder for the kids. Like the only way that you're really going to be involved is if you actually, you know, are apprised of what your kids are doing.
01:03:16
Speaker
And so be involved. There you go. That's my advice to parents, which is. Yeah. Don't let media raise your children. Exactly. And don't make media is varied, very, very.
01:03:30
Speaker
And don't make assumptions like my parents did when I was young and then just be like, oh, this is the satanic panic towards D&D or like ah Pokemon or evil because they have mon, which stands for monster in the name or something like that. Like actually be appraised of what's involved in these things. There are so many content advisories. The ESRB is actually a great source of information on like what is actually in games. And if you for any game that they will rate, they give you those summaries like on on their on their website. You can just look at a game and be like, hey, here are some extreme examples of the things you might see in the game.
01:04:06
Speaker
um So it doesn't take a lot of work. And with all of that, then you can slowly teach your kids through the better games that might have them tackle some of these questions, the things that will help them grow, right?
01:04:23
Speaker
um How old do you have to be to play Undertale, do you think, Dave? Last question. I really thought you're going to say Honey Pop, dude. want to say... arms
01:04:34
Speaker
i want to say 13. I was going say 14. And that's solely. was thinking 14. Yeah. Yeah. Like early teens. and that's solely for um the flowery stuff more than anything. Yeah. pretty think that's kind of creepy for a young child.
01:04:54
Speaker
But I think the rest is fine. i think it's mostly fine. and it's probably a good way to you know, learn about some some cool characters. Play a good game. If you are watching your kid play the game and they go on a genocide playthrough, ask questions. You know, evaluate where you're at in your life. Evaluate where they're at in their life.
01:05:12
Speaker
But otherwise, um i think you just got to do the best you can. Care about other people and appreciate art. I love art. So if freaking good.
01:05:24
Speaker
But hopefully you guys appreciate art. What we just did with this podcast, obviously counts as art. um If you have any feedback on our art or you want to request specific art in the future in the form of other episodes, you can do so at the socials down in the description.
01:05:41
Speaker
And as always, we'll see you in the next one. Have a good one.