“I don't want to play a game that makes me cry!”

by kapowaz, Saturday, April 06, 2013, 02:22 (4039 days ago) @ Xenos
edited by kapowaz, Saturday, April 06, 2013, 02:32

Curious. It's almost as if it was in answer to a question about that moment that a lot of gamers of my generation probably would say elicited that type of reaction: Aeris’ death in Final Fantasy VII (coincidental aside: I'm meeting the guy who made this in an hour, potentially to buy it — I'm a bad person).

I think Joe shows a kind of reticence towards certain types of emotion that I think reflects the gender balance in game production today. My girlfriend reads a lot of books, and a number of them have included incredibly poignant, emotional and (dare I say) tear-jerking moments — I have to take her word for it as I've not read them yet myself, but anyone who's read The Book Thief will doubtless be able to corroborate this. As with Aeris’ death, did these moments detract from the experience of the story, or did they help paint a picture with a wider range of emotions? I'm wondering if a male-dominated videogame industry is stopping us from exploring this kind of emotion.

Roger Ebert (in)famously claimed that games weren't capable of being considered art, and whilst naturally I disagree, it's not hard to see what he's driving at so long as we're intentionally restricting the medium from exploring the full gamut of Human sociological experience. The best stories speak to as many people on as many levels as they can. If a videogame can succeed in invoking an emotional response that makes me want to cry then I say bravo — that's a rare thing indeed, and it's not something developers should seek to avoid.