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Do you feel guilty when you hurt bystanders or innocents in games?

Do you feel guilty when you hurt bystanders or innocents in games?

  • Yes

    Votes: 262 31.7%

  • No

    Votes: 565 68.3%
  • Total voters
    827
Lightning Count

Lightning Count

Member
Jan 27, 2019
16,087
Fuck off
Here's something I have been thinking about after watching my cousin play games, whenever he plays GTA or other open world games he always immediately apologises if he hits a pedestrian or other bystander when driving or shooting. It genuinely upsets him.

I find myself doing it sometimes as well, though I don't generally feel too bad. Though games which do put in place consequences for hurting innocents do make,e me play much more carefully as a general rule, I tend to play characters as morally as possible in most games. There have been times where I have reduced to tears in situations where innocents are placed in harm's way, specifically Lifd us Strange and the very first Telltale Wakiing Dead game. Especially as these games have a habit of forcing the pkayer into a situation where someone will get hurt no matter what happens.

How do you feel about this, ERA?
 
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gitrektali

gitrektali

Member
Feb 22, 2018
3,233
I didn't really go out of my way to hurt anyone in RDR 2 (apart from the people you HAVE to kill), but it was more about the role-playing aspect than anything.
 
KillLaCam

KillLaCam

Prophet of Truth
Member
Oct 25, 2017
15,404
Seoul
No if I'm getting bored I'll do a massacre .

The only time that I couldn't do it because believed that a character would never do anything like that was RDR2
 
Wrexis

Wrexis

Member
Nov 4, 2017
21,484
If I accidentally hit someone with a car I'm not going to feel guilty.
But am I going to go around slaughtering innocents? No.
 
Bastos

Bastos

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,341
Don't care, sometimes it's funny when a bystander gets shot and dies in a funny way/pose
 
Rosebud

Rosebud

Two Pieces
Member
Apr 16, 2018
44,220
Yes, I never do it. In fact I still think about one TW3 NPC I did dirty because of a trophy lol
 
Truly Gargantuan

Truly Gargantuan

Still doesn't have a tag :'(
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
8,034
Lightning Count said:
I don't enjoy making others suffer unnecessarily.

But I do enjoy testing the AI to see how it reacts to certain stimuli. But I rarely escalate that to actual violence with provocation first.
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Eh. I don't see it as making anyone suffering. I'm messing with AI in a video game. Some of the best fun in GTA games is going on a random killing spree then running from the cops.
In RDR2 I loved playing an evil bastard because of how reactive NPCs and the world was.
 
delete12345

delete12345

One Winged Slayer
Member
Nov 17, 2017
20,004
Boston, MA
I typically don't kill innocent bystanders unless:
  • The NPCs are part of a gang in the vicinity. I have to kill them to provoke them to cause riots.
  • The NPCs are wedged between me and my actual target. I have to defend myself from other online players who are role-playing as psychopaths (fuck them for doing so!).
  • I just wanted to cause highway mayhem by redirecting traffic off the highest ramp on the Los Perro Highway onto the lower main traffic.
 
tatwo

tatwo

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,762
Finland
Only in Watch dogs. If you kill an NPC that has a dog, the dog will lay down next to them.
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TacoSupreme

Member
Jul 26, 2019
1,759
Rosebud said:
I mean, movie characters aren't real but we still feel for them
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There's a huge difference between feeling sad when a loved character dies in a game/movie/whatever and feeling guilt when you do something bad to a character in a video game. Would Vince Gilligan feel guilt about killing off characters in Breaking Bad? I'd think not. Might he feel sad about killing off a favorite character? Absolutely.
 
hikarutilmitt

hikarutilmitt

"This guy are sick"
Member
Dec 16, 2017
11,545
For the few games I play that allow it I tend not to because I extract no joy from hurting others, virtual or not.
 

Itaremustbedangeres

Member
Oct 31, 2017
493
Lightning Count said:
I don't enjoy making others suffer unnecessarily.

But I do enjoy testing the AI to see how it reacts to certain stimuli. But I rarely escalate that to actual violence with provocation first.
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I'm not actively seeking and killing random NPCs but I don't care if I run them over or they happen to be in the crossfire. Also, please touch some grass. You make it sound like people who don't really care about hurting NPCs get enjoyment or pleasure out of it which is most definitely not the case for the majority of players.
 
Hoggle

Hoggle

Member
Mar 25, 2021
6,140
In my Alien Isolation playthrough I alerted the alien and just started piss bolting down a hallway and into a random room hoping to find a place to hide. In the room was a random civilian that I didn't realise was there, and I pushed past him and hid I the locker behind him. A moment later the alien bursts into the room and starts chowing down on the guy right in front of the locker I was in. I just stood in the locker holding my breath while the poor dude screamed and blood sprayed everywhere.

That was a few years ago now and I still feel bad.
 
Cipher Peon

Cipher Peon

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,917
Depends on the game.

My favorite "messing with the NPCs" game was Rollercoaster Tycoon 2. The GOAT of sadism
 
DanielG123

DanielG123

Member
Jul 14, 2020
2,490
No, they're pixels on a screen; it's far different than empathizing with, and caring for movie/TV/book characters. That said, I don't typically do it, but it also depends on the game. I don't in RDR2, but that's only because I want my Arthur to be the kindest gruff outlaw in the west. If I can just get away with fucking with rando NPCS, then fuck it, I will.
 
AshenOne

AshenOne

Member
Feb 21, 2018
6,281
Pakistan
95% of the time, No.

However if its a Story Heavy game with the MC being forced to kill another character in the story thats innocent, i do feel sympathy for them or even sad at times but not guilty. Its fiction and its a video game so i feel like 'man the devs made me do it so sad'.

Actually i find it fun massacring people in video games where there's no restriction and the player isn't heavily punished. There are no consequences to the digital people being harmed IRL and neither to me consciously cause they're just fictional people. So, as long as you being an adult keep in mind whats real and whats not, it doesn't matter whatever you do in video games for the most part to me.
 
ket

ket

Member
Jul 27, 2018
13,142
A little bit but it depends on the game. In GTA, the pedestrians are so obnoxious that I don't care about them getting hurt but I care in something like WD or Hitman because the NPCs are usually likeable.
 
BeaconofTruth

BeaconofTruth

Member
Dec 30, 2017
3,501
Rosebud said:
I mean, movie characters aren't real but we still feel for them
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The thread isn't about feeling bad about killing characters tho that have like arcs n personalities n shit. It's just nameless nobodies in a hub world.

There is nothing to empathize with, as there is with the movie characters. Bad comparison.
 
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