So if you are a gamer you have played the newest Bioshock game. You might have finished it already.
That is one cool fucking game with a more complex plot then many shooter games attempt. Play it on the PC for the best graphics and control choices if you have that option.
The game got great reviews and sold well. It has however angered many, both left wingers and right wingers, due to it's expressions of violence, some cases of what could be called bigotry and xenophobia, the notion the religion makes one into a zealot and a tyrant plus showing labor organizers/unions and counter culture members as extremists and subversives.
One of the more noted and talked about scene was the 'stoning' segment. There is a raffle and the winning number gets the prize of being able to have the first attack on an interracial couple who was captured and will be punished, by death, for their crime of race mixing.
The player has a choice to attack the couple, do nothing or attack the carnival barker who is instigating this action of abusing the interracial couple. The couple is a black woman and a white man. The stoning to death is to be done by using baseballs, for a good touch of Americana.
Which ever path your take, in the short term will end with the same run in against the law. If you chose to not harm the couple, they will react to you different later and give you some gear when you meet them later on. No matter what your choice, overall it does not effect the main plot progression in the game. The game’s lead creator said moments like that, which call for moral choice, are installed not so much to effect the outcome of the final plot but to make the player uncomfortable and get a reaction or thought to be provoked within the player her/himself.
Most gamers do nothing and many choose to attack the racists carnival barker and not the couple. I cite responses online, from gaming boards and talking to others (online and off) who have played the game and asked they what they did. Again, most won't elect to harm the couple.
A wise ass I know raised one interesting point however... He said that even in 2013 if this game has been the same with the exception of the captured and ready to be punished couple being composed of a BLACK MAN and WHITE WOMAN, and not the reverse found in the game, that he believes many, many more gamers would elect to “stone” the couple as their choice of action. Others who he told that too said he could get fucked and it wouldn't make that much of a different to them which gender the black and white persons where in an interracial paring. That sparks the issue however.
Would that be so? We will never know since the game is not set up that way. It raises an interesting line of thought however...
To see what I mean in all this: Here is a video taken from the Xbox 360 version (lower quality graphics rendered but still watchable). Let me know your reaction and if you think a couple being of a black man with a lady white would cause players to choose differently. I think it is not possible to generalize the reaction across a whole population of video gamers and what each would or would not do. To guess at what others would do it just that, a simple guess...
That is one cool fucking game with a more complex plot then many shooter games attempt. Play it on the PC for the best graphics and control choices if you have that option.
The game got great reviews and sold well. It has however angered many, both left wingers and right wingers, due to it's expressions of violence, some cases of what could be called bigotry and xenophobia, the notion the religion makes one into a zealot and a tyrant plus showing labor organizers/unions and counter culture members as extremists and subversives.
One of the more noted and talked about scene was the 'stoning' segment. There is a raffle and the winning number gets the prize of being able to have the first attack on an interracial couple who was captured and will be punished, by death, for their crime of race mixing.
The player has a choice to attack the couple, do nothing or attack the carnival barker who is instigating this action of abusing the interracial couple. The couple is a black woman and a white man. The stoning to death is to be done by using baseballs, for a good touch of Americana.
Which ever path your take, in the short term will end with the same run in against the law. If you chose to not harm the couple, they will react to you different later and give you some gear when you meet them later on. No matter what your choice, overall it does not effect the main plot progression in the game. The game’s lead creator said moments like that, which call for moral choice, are installed not so much to effect the outcome of the final plot but to make the player uncomfortable and get a reaction or thought to be provoked within the player her/himself.
Most gamers do nothing and many choose to attack the racists carnival barker and not the couple. I cite responses online, from gaming boards and talking to others (online and off) who have played the game and asked they what they did. Again, most won't elect to harm the couple.
A wise ass I know raised one interesting point however... He said that even in 2013 if this game has been the same with the exception of the captured and ready to be punished couple being composed of a BLACK MAN and WHITE WOMAN, and not the reverse found in the game, that he believes many, many more gamers would elect to “stone” the couple as their choice of action. Others who he told that too said he could get fucked and it wouldn't make that much of a different to them which gender the black and white persons where in an interracial paring. That sparks the issue however.
Would that be so? We will never know since the game is not set up that way. It raises an interesting line of thought however...
To see what I mean in all this: Here is a video taken from the Xbox 360 version (lower quality graphics rendered but still watchable). Let me know your reaction and if you think a couple being of a black man with a lady white would cause players to choose differently. I think it is not possible to generalize the reaction across a whole population of video gamers and what each would or would not do. To guess at what others would do it just that, a simple guess...
