Do video games need extreme content?

[Artwark]

Majority amount of companies have proved that extreme content( realistic blood, nudity etc) is not the way to sell games. Examples are Nintendo, Rovio and other companies that you know are very friendly with consumers and pretty much end up getting huge sales.

I can understand trying to defend this statement like "Yeah they need it pretty much" or "Game designers are trying to make the virtual world more of reality" thing but the fact is games whether you like it or not are always virtual and should give you experiences that you couldn't feel in life. I always love trying to jump high to reach the tall tree but I can't and that's where Mario can do it and give me that jumping experience. I can't run really fast but I want to feel like running fast and that's what Sonic gives me that speed experience.

Games like Grand Theft Auto V or Battlefield give you the reality experience that you could easily do in reality. Stealing cars is something you can do and get caught for it. Being a soldier is something you can do to serve your country.

My point is, if at all we should have games that should look real just for the sake of saying next gen thing, why must games come to numerous amount of controversies? You can say anything you want about how Nintendo sometimes allows mature games to be in their console because I know quite a few of them(Eternal Darkness, Resident evil etc) but some of these games are made so they aren't real even though it looks real (Metroid Prime for example).

[CosmykTheDolfyn]

Geez dude, you just like to ask controversial questions, don't you? I really don't know the answer. I'm not sure there is one. So, have a monkey instead.

[RepentantSky]

It sounds to me like you aren't okay with the direction a lot of games take these days. I personally have no problem with it. If I want to play something unrealistic, that's all too easy to do, most of the major titles this year have some realistic aspects, but are mostly based on the impossible. Dead Space 3, Tomb Raider and the Last of Us are three examples of doing a good job mixing the real and the fake very well together to create an overall god and interesting gaming experience. I guess I don't really have an answer for the question either, because the game I'm looking forward to the most is pokemon which is about as unrealistic as it's going to get.

[Psychospacecow]

Let it be. If it don't work it won't. End o' story.

[Mass Distraction]

I personally don't mind. If you ask me, we should have more controversial topics discussed through gaming, like that rape "scandal" of Hotline Miami for example. We shouldn't just brush everything terrible under the rug.

Games like Grand Theft Auto V or Battlefield give you the reality experience that you could easily do in reality. Stealing cars is something you can do and get caught for it.

Btw. Can you yourself point out the exact point of these games in this sentence of yours? You do that stuff in a game because you'll get in trouble for it in real life.

As for games with realistic blood etc. not selling, just look at the new Mortal Kombat and GTAV. Money is being made in ridiculous amounts. It's just the way you present something that sells.

[MexicanAnime]

Variety all around is fun. One day I want to be a pink fluff ball going all around Dream Land while eating candy, another day I want something grounded a bit in reality and could go for a thrilling action series that has a mature and serious story, and on the last day, I want something so over the top like No More Heroes where I just have fun slicing and dicing people and seeing all the pretty video game spurt out like a fountain while perverted jokes are being thrown around.

[BumblebeeCody*]

Games like Grand Theft Auto V or Battlefield give you the reality experience that you could easily do in reality. Stealing cars is something you can do and get caught for it. Being a soldier is something you can do to serve your country.

In the same what they playing Phoenix Wright makes gives you good experience in becoming a lawyer?

My point is, if at all we should have games that should look real just for the sake of saying next gen thing, why must games come to numerous amount of controversies? You can say anything you want about how Nintendo sometimes allows mature games to be in their console because I know quite a few of them(Eternal Darkness, Resident evil etc) but some of these games are made so they aren't real even though it looks real (Metroid Prime for example).

1) You're using the world real which is never a valid point. It's surreal if anything, and studies show that there is no correlation between games and real life violence(the controversy). Also, you do realise that ZombiU was a launch title for the Wii U right?

2) This idea that Nintendo is exempt invalidates this entire post. Nintendo have had more shares of controversy that the GTA games have combined. Mario, Pokemon, Zelda, Metroid etc etc (you don't even have to go very far).
Graphics have never stopped games from being controversial. We've had this since gaming started on systems like the Atari 2600. (See Custers Revenge)

3) Metroid Prime looks real?

4) The irony of graphics point and violence is null when you consider Dead Space: Extraction, No More Heroes, House of the Dead: Overkill, Resident Evil series and Mad World 'were' on the Wii.

5) In all seriousness, yeah GTA has made a living environment, but saying I can do that stuff in the game in reality...

... is a bit of a stretch.
You comparing an over exaggeration of real life(GTA) with a game about fighting space pirates and having super blood (Metroid). It's not how comparisons work.

I personally don't mind. If you ask me, we should have more controversial topics discussed through gaming, like that rape "scandal" of Hotline Miami for example. We shouldn't just brush everything terrible under the rug.

Well put. Same with your second point. You can be as much or as little much of an arsehole in GTA as you want. Mario may not be real but you're killing a form of life. It just doesn't resemble a human.

[Sohakmet]

Yes and no. If the focus of the game is simulation or the feeling of being real, then yes, it should have those things. Take Call of duty or Battlefield. They need the realistic graphics to attract players because they basically rely on those. There are very few shooters that don't look realistic that have made a huge sucess (at least in today's standards, so don't come up with Doom and stuff to this topic.). But games that are set in either a fantasy world or are not really worrying about simulating anything, then no, they don't need that. An exception would be The sims, but that just derailed from all the "simulation" thing a while ago.

It all also depends on the mood. You need to make graphics that will help set the mood of the game. You're not gonna do a cartoony horror game because it will probably not work, but that doesn't mean that other types of games should do the same.

There are many types of games out there and each needs their own setting, their own graphical choices, sound choices, gameplay choices... everything.

Nintendo games sell well because they're fun to play and people like them. It doesn't really have anything to do with extreme graphics, at least that's my opinion on it. We clear?