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We Need More Torture in Gaming

December 15, 2008 in Blog comments 16

A very well written article by Wired's Clive Thompson about torture; not just from a political perspective, but also in the gaming world, and how we need more of it.

This was all in response to a quest in the new World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King entitled 'The Art of Persuasion', where players need to stab a sorcerer with a needle until he gives up the information. Seems harmless enough right? Well the game-o-sphere and the blog-o-sphere erupted to the ideologist extremes, leading to an all out debate between gamers about the morals and ethics of torture, and what is going on in the world today.

In the recent expansion pack Wrath of the Lich King, there's a quest called "The Art of Persuasion" that requires you to extract information from a tied-up sorcerer. You do this by stinging him repeatedly with a creepy instrument called the "Neural Needler," a device that "inflicts incredible pain to target, but does no lasting damage." After a few minutes, the sorcerer coughs up the info.

As you'd imagine, this little slice of Abu Ghraib set the gameosphere alight with blistering, ideologically freighted debate. Some gamers were straightforwardly creeped out. Others were blasé; games already contain bucketsful of senseless slaughter, they figured, so is torture really worse?

Pioneering game designer Richard Bartle argued that the quest violated in-game canon, since the quest is forced upon people playing with narratively "good" Alliance characters (as opposed to WoW's evil Horde characters). In the end, the Art of Persuasion quest poses a big cultural, aesthetic and political question: Should games include torture?

To which the answer is simple: Sure they should.

In fact, I'll go further. I think we need more torture in videogames.

And better torture.
Deathsythe via wired.com »
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  • 0
    JacqueseVonRIP Dec 15, 08
    There IS actually a huge difference between "slaughtering" groups of enemies and torturing them.
    If you kill an enemy in battle, they are well aware there is a chance they will be killed and you are also defending yourself.
    Torture is a cowardly way of inflicting pain upon someone and if games are going to start making people torture others in the future then they're going to have to add torture as a rating like language and sexual content.
    As sad as it may seem, I would most likely not by a game that makes you torture in it. They may not be real people, but I have morals against doing something as cowardly and heartless as torturing people. Real or NOT!
    • 1
      ShadowJ Dec 15, 08
      that is your view and opinion but funnily enough IMO, killing is cowardly (although ironically you need to be mentally messed up or have guts to kill)

      However I have always seen torture as clever, why? It is simple, killing someone means they aren't going to talk or give information, it also means that those that have information are going to fear you to the point of fleeing and avoiding you.

      Torture however comes in many forms and methods, from torturing the actual person with many tools to using their family and friends to make an example to the person with information.

      Torture dates back to ancient times, this is proven by the many torture devices documented and still exist.

      The rack is the most commonly known device that stretches the victim's limbs until they literally dislocate and rip the tendons. A session can be stretched out for hours or even days due to the precision of the device, one turn, more torque and more strain on the body. It is used for three reasons, to gain information, to set an example or to have the victim to beg for their sins to be forgiven before they die.

      My point in all this? Torture is known throughout the world, it is in our history, it is in books and more importantly in movies. So why are games treated so differently?

      Now upon saying that, I have always said, I would love this type of stuff in a game...as long as there is an alternative to choose from to keep everyone else happy. Such as maybe I could torture the hell out of a victim whereas someone could help them escape while someone else may choose to talk them around and gain the information they need without using torture.

      I understand that torture and such is a touchy subject but to shun it out of a game that is released worldwide and not just to you is completely outrageous, although Blizzard used the idiotic route and didn't place an alternative method around quests for the sensitive people
  • 1
    chautemoc Dec 15, 08
    I dont even know if I agree, but I rated this for the headline.
    • 0
      Final Blade Dec 16, 08
      I did the same, iffy of the whole article, but the title sounds cool.
  • 2
    huntyr Dec 15, 08
    yes, we do need more. And ppl need to lighten up... its a game.

    I don't like torturing random people if I'm playing a good character, because good people don't do that sort of thing as a general rule but evil factions always torture =)
  • 1
    The Primagen Dec 15, 08
    Only in games that would suck without it.

    No! NO! STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE, WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH THAT KNIFE?!? NO!! AGH!!!!
  • 0
    Galacticdramon Dec 15, 08
    I'll tell you why it's treated differently in games. A game can be a vehicle to act out one's fantasies. Torture fantasy is among the sickest the mind can concoct. If someone plays a game specifically to act out torture fantasies, they're sick. I'm not saying it should be a complete taboo in games. If a torture scene is brief, (MGS, for example), fair enough. But lengthy torture scenes would be revolting.
    • 0
      ShadowJ Dec 15, 08
      I play fallout 3 purely to watch Tenpenny fly off his balcony after he runs into a wall of over 60 frag mines while he tries to kill me...yes that's all I do in the game now until the DLC come out or until I decided to download user made mods.

      However like I said, if the option was there to do torture or to skip it...then both you and I would be happy at the same time
  • 0
    Play ISDF Dec 15, 08
    I think for the most part, games can easily say "X got tortured" or whatever and show the effects of it like in Gears of War 2. For the most part, we don't actually need to see the torture itself unless the game is very very utterly and truly dark. Even then we don't really need to do it. The only exception is really when it's just been made silly such as tickle torture (and they aren't being held down or anything) or stretching a rubber man or something.
  • 0
    RabidChinaGirl Dec 16, 08
    Why do I have the funny feeling no one is actually reading this article? The guy doesn't defend torture, he just suggests that games be used as a means of understanding it.
    quote Clive Thompson
    From my perspective, Americans aren't thinking very seriously about those consequences. The torture at Guantanamo Bay, in overseas CIA prisons and at Abu Ghraib has all gone by with relatively little public outcry.

    Why? Partly because U.S. officials refuse to describe or admit clearly what they're doing. But equally important, I think, is that our mass culture is filled with wildly misleading ideas about how torture works.

    Consider the popular television series 24. The sheer metric tonnage of torture rose to an almost self-parodic level in the last few seasons of the show; barely an episode went by without someone being shocked, injected, waterboarded or just plain ol' beaten senseless. Yet 24 has never seriously shown any repercussions of that torture.

    For example, a CTU agent in a Season 3 episode is mistakenly accused of being a traitor, then tortured with a stun gun. When the mistake is cleared up, what happens? She stands up, straightens her clothes, goes back to her desk ... and demands a raise to ensure her silence. Brassy!

    And a total, cynical fantasy. Psychologists know that torture causes, among other horrid things, lasting mental-health problems. But 24's frantically violent fairy tales are typical of what passes for mass-cultural debate about torture. We're not encouraged to think about what happens next, so we don't. It is a massive failure of the public imagination.

    ...

    Games are excellent vehicles for helping people inhabit complex, difficult situations. They're also extremely good at illustrating consequences: If you do X, then Z and L will happen; if you do Y instead, then C and Q result.

    What's more, gamers love this stuff. Several of the biggest recent games were praised precisely because the moral acts inside them had long-term consequences. In BioShock, you could either save or exploit the Little Sisters, and your actions produced very different endings to the game. In Fable, decisions made in the first 15 minutes of play (will you side with lawkeepers or cause mischief for personal gain?) change the moral tenor of your home town 15 years later. In Sid Meier's Civlization: Revolution, as with most world-conquering strategy games, failing to make an alliance upfront can screw you down the line.

    ...

    If true, that's great. Because personally, I'd like to see games that had more torture -- and better torture -- in them. In this alarming chapter of American history, they might wind up fueling the best public debate yet.
  • 0
    Dark Arcanine Dec 16, 08
    This made me think of Warhammer 40,000. The Dark Eldar capture their enemies and take them back in the arks to work as slaves until they die and torture them in gruesome manners. I just find it interesting like any other gaming details.
  • 0
    Galacticdramon Dec 16, 08
    He's advocating it as a means of understanding torture more. True, that would spark debate. But there's always the problem that it could provide sick people with the wrong kind of fun. If it's done carefully, it could achieve what he says. It all depends.
  • 0
    Gamesta100 Dec 16, 08
    People like murderers rapists etc. I would like to torture in games.But I would draw the line at torturing people in a game like GTA.
  • 0
    JacqueseVonRIP Dec 16, 08
    ShadowJ: How can you say killing is cowardly and something only mentally ill people do, but torturing is clever? That makes no sense.
    BTW - I don't mean torture should be removed from games. If you want to torture somebody in a game, thats fine as long as its optional. But if a game was mainly based on torturing people for the hell of it I would avoid it. Also, I don't mind the WoW mission so much as I heard the torture device is not supposed to leave permanent damage.
  • 0
    Deathsythe Dec 16, 08
    It is a good thing Jack Thompson can't make a big fuss over things like this anymore.

    Although - One does wonder what would happen if he pissed off the WoW community - that could have some serious repercussions.

  • 0
    Bri Dec 16, 08

    Ehhh...well, my reaction to torture in games is if it's M-rated, it's M-rated. Our minds are perfectly adaptable to hijacking a taxi, killing the driver, and running over his body in GTA for absolutely no reason...torture may not be the same exact thing, but it's pretty close.

    If it makes the game more enjoyable, so be it. In the end, that's what matters - a good game.

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