Silly Question. Where do you think the children are?

[Dr. Freeman]

Church ladies everywhere are already throwing fights about "violence" in video games, and how it can lead to real-life violence. All they are waiting for is a game where you can put a bullet in a kids head and they will have a field day with it. That to me would be a motivation to exclude npc children in a FPS. Why would you want to kill a child anyway?

exactly.
im just glad Valve steered clear of this issue...its just something HL2 did not need after the stolen code incident, delays, this, that...the way HL2 is now was for the best and it worked out storyline wise as well.

as for Doom3? well i do remember people raising a big fuss over it during the first few weeks of release.. i don't know what ended up with that tho...but still, if game dev's can avoid this issue altogether, they should...if not for moral reasons than just because of the backlash they may recieve for it.

 

[Myxomatosis]

But if you did see children commiting massive genocides etc, then it would be ok?

What about NPCs that are on your own team, wouldn't it be worse to kill one of them than to kill a simple innocent child? I mean, by killing your ally you're actively trying to stop the problem from being solved, whereas the child wasn't helping you anyway.

What point are you trying to make? Have you ever seen a child commit genocides? To answer your question, yes, I would kill a child if he was commiting mass murder.. thanks for the hypothetical... Now I understand your "child wasn't helping" believe me.. the no child npc is not my belief though... I am just explaining why it isn't happening. I could really care less about what or who you kill.. so long as there is killing. Hell.. I would kill all of them.. teammate, child, or enemy. Having restrictions in a first person shooter is against all logic.. but you can take that up with the middle aged mothers.

 

[Lanthanide]

I was trying to point out that the reason killing a child is bad is not because of "innocense", but because people seem to generally think that killing an adult is more acceptible than killing a child, in most cases (perhaps not the most extreme ones though). Exactly why that is, I don't know.

But back to the main point at hand: I believe that you don't see many children in PC games, particularly FPS', is because there's generally no point in them being there.

It's possible that the developers don't want to anger people or are scared about the 'backlash', but I don't believe that developers would go "hey, lets have children in our game!" and then someone else would say "no, we can't, all the grannies would get upset". More likely they'd say "um, what are the children supposed to do?".

 

[Myxomatosis]

I was trying to point out that the reason killing a child is bad is not because of "innocense", but because people seem to generally think that killing an adult is more acceptible than killing a child, in most cases (perhaps not the most extreme ones though). Exactly why that is, I don't know.

You rebuttled your own point.... children don't do anything wrong and so an adult is more acceptable as a target.

It's possible that the developers don't want to anger people or are scared about the 'backlash', but I don't believe that developers would go "hey, lets have children in our game!" and then someone else would say "no, we can't, all the grannies would get upset". More likely they'd say "um, what are the children supposed to do?".

Actually... I think that is exactly what would happen.. think about it. Game developers are supposed to make the game appealing to people so they will go out and by it. If they added children and the possibility of them dying, they wouldlose sales that way... Fear of your game not selling as well as hoped is a big time factor in what makes it in the game or not. I understand your point, but while I think that is the case in some games... I doubt highly that that is what happens in the developement of all FPS games.. surely one of the developers wanted a kid or two in the game. Maybe in one of the GTA games.. you could have seen a kid just walking down the street (just as pointless as that gang member), except for the fact that it would have been a little to much for Tommy Vercetti to walk up and unload an auto shotty on his ass... I just don't think people would except a game that featured child slaying. Maybe as a duck hunt type of scenario it wouldn't be so bad, but with games becoming more realistic in graphics and interaction.. forget about it.

 

[Lanthanide]

You rebuttled your own point.... children don't do anything wrong and so an adult is more acceptable as a target.

I didn't, I just did a very bad job of explaining it.

To put it more succintly: if there are innocent bystanders on a street, some adult and some children, somehow it is more wrong to kill the children than it is to kill the adults. But both are equally innocent and just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Actually... I think that is exactly what would happen.. think about it. [snip]

Depends how you're defining "developer". I think you're looking at it from a much broader perspective than I am; I'm considering the game designers and programmers only, not including higher management and marketing etc.

The people at that level are (or should be) more concerned with what is fun, good gameplay and logically sensible, rather than "if we put this feature in it will sell well". That sort of direction comes from higher management who look at the big picture of whether something will be sale-able or not.

I believe that people at the lower levels would only include children in a game if they had some specific point, and consequently leave them out if they have no specific point (just like they leave the pink elephants in tutus out), rather than say "wouldn't it be good to have children here, but we can't because killing children is wrong". They would put them in, it would be higher management that would remove them for fear of child-killing.

 

[Myxomatosis]

I didn't, I just did a very bad job of explaining it.

To put it more succintly: if there are innocent bystanders on a street, some adult and some children, somehow it is more wrong to kill the children than it is to kill the adults.

Unfortunately, that is how things are happening right now. Lets not use the term innocent anymore... that is a false word. Lets say "less corrupted". Another reason is because "children are the "future", and adults are not. While the adults may be the present, if all the children "12 and below" just snuffed it, we would be ****ed. If all the adults died, the kids may be able to pick things up and start anew. Adults are more expendable than children are, that is the simple version.

I believe that people at the lower levels would only include children in a game if they had some specific point, and consequently leave them out if they have no specific point (just like they leave the pink elephants in tutus out), rather than say "wouldn't it be good to have children here, but we can't because killing children is wrong". They would put them in, it would be higher management that would remove them for fear of child-killing.

True, I doubt developers would care, as long as they were having a good time, and thought other people would have a good time. But regardless of who took them out, they were taken out for that reason. Sadly though, we have screwed this topic in a vice, and I don't think the original question leaves much food for thought.. original question was "where are the children".. not "why are the children gone".. to be honest though.. I don't think we care where the children are. But nice debating anyways. :cheers:

 

[Dog--]

They are probably geneticly grown somewhere and when they grow to adults, the combine ships them to the cities to be citizens.

 

[Myxomatosis]

They are probably geneticly grown somewhere and when they grow to adults, the combine ships them to the cities to be citizens.

That is actually believable.. except I thought that they were turned into combine soldiers after reaching a certain maturity..

 

[JellyWorld]

Look, if Valve put children in the game, some dickhead will fool around with Garry's Mod and depict a 8 year old boy giving head to Mossman while Eli buttf*cks him from behind. And then Nancy Grace goes on CNN and tells the world about this game called Haff Lie 2 created by Vulva Software, following which she shows the Gmod screenie together with 17 other lolita pics completely unrelated to the topic but included for the purpose of demonstrating her point about how Video Games are corrupting the minds of our offspring.

 

[Myxomatosis]

Ok... I think we have already established that kids in an FPS, especially this one, is not a good idea...

 

[Flyingdebris]

fallout 2 had kids in it, wasn't an FPS though.

worst part was that in 1 town they'd pick pocket you and give it to shopkeepers, you'd have to buy your crap back at 2x the original price.

and yes, i did save/load the game a few times just to annihilate those meddling kids

but yeah, we as humans, through either natural instinct or social conditioning, are predisposed to avoid bringing harm to children or watch harm come to children. There are a few sickos, but they are a microscopic minority.

 

[Myxomatosis]

fallout 2 had kids in it, wasn't an FPS though.

worst part was that in 1 town they'd pick pocket you and give it to shopkeepers, you'd have to buy your crap back at 2x the original price.

and yes, i did save/load the game a few times just to annihilate those meddling kids

but yeah, we as humans, through either natural instinct or social conditioning, are predisposed to avoid bringing harm to children or watch harm come to children. There are a few sickos, but they are a microscopic minority.

Very well put. That is a nice finish... now we can lock this topic, no?