Father believes death of his son, 15, is linked to Doki Doki Literature Club

[R_thanatos]

Of course , it's the videogames
It's always the videogames.

i read the article linked and the only thing here is that he played a game before his death ( no timeframe indicated ) , Like a million things could have happenned , but hey ..it's so easy to point fingers.

As usual , this article will make rounds and the inevitable conclusion that this linking of events is poor or non conclusive will , at best be a couple of sentences at the bottom of a page somewhere.

As usual..

 

[Deleted member 18347]

Blaming media for real world problems was so in vogue in my youth (Doom! Mortal Kombat! Night Trap! Marilyn Manson!), and I used to scoff and laugh at people scapegoating....

...but now I kind of empathize and it's sad. These poor parents are looking for answers and there just aren't any. Of course they blame what they can, and they're grieving. They're totally wrong, but... it's just sad.

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I understand that. The urge to direct anger at something tangible can overwhelm.

However, the real issue is the media outlets spreading and spinning the story moreso than the parents accusing the game.

 

[Phrozenflame500]

It's an unfortunate situation but the devs did basically everything in their power to warn you ahead of time that the game dealt with disturbing content like depression and suicide.

 

[PtM]

What does this even mean? Do you realize how trivial it is to pay for things while "underage"? Since when has payment ever been a sole source of age gating?

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One: I didn't say that.
Two: Everything has an effect. No cost most certainly contributes to ease of access.

I think setting something like that up on steam would be way harder than doing so on a console

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I'm sure of it, I was just brainstorming.

 

[Aaronrules380]

I am aware. It's why I wondered if maybe the publisher should have provided a more restricted access to it.

I brought this up because Nintendo's setup got the first ever seal of approval by Germany's USK. Imagine getting descriptors like PEGI's on your phone about what your kids are owning/playing, and suicide being one of them. I think people would like that.

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I think setting something like that up on steam would be way harder than doing so on a console

 

[Legacy]

This has been out for about a day or two, but its now being reported on by more mainstream news/tabloid sites like The Sun and the Daily Mail.

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Nothing printed by those papers can be trusted. I think this is a big reach but understandable for the father looking for someone or something to blame

 

[MP!]

I don't think you can rule out that disturbed people, interacting with disturbing media leads to disturbances.

 

[Pimienta]

Uh, the game talks about mental health to not be easily dismissed...

It probably hit him hard on that part...

Monika! She was real all along...

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Refrain from doing joke posts in threads like this.

 

[TheDkmariolink]

Monika! She was real all along...


Edit: Not the place for jokes, but tired of seeing games solely being blamed for tragedies when there are obviously underlying issues that we should be talking about rather than the content in video games. Chalking it up to video games makes people ignore the bigger issues; hell even the article title mentions the game, thus promoting the wrong issue, as usual...

 

[PtM]

games solely being blamed

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I don't see this happening. The article admittedly is vague about what the problem exactly is.

 

[jediyoshi]

One: I didn't say that.
Two: Everything has an effect. No cost most certainly contributes to ease of access.

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One: I'm asking what you meant because unless you were deliberately vague in order to get away with not actually making a point, I don't see any other point you could've been trying to make. Do you realize how trivial it is for children to get a hold of their parents cards? Did you miss the entirety of Apple overhauling their account system multiple times to having multiple safe guards to keep children from purchasing things?
Two: Again, what exactly was in your original post to imply anything else? Can you list out the alternative "age barriers" you were alluding to?

 

[Jessie]

Imagery of suicide can trigger suicidal thoughts. Not sure why everyone in this thread is pretending that this game isn't raw as fuck.

It's an unfortunate situation but the devs did basically everything in their power to warn you ahead of time that the game dealt with disturbing content like depression and suicide.

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No they didn't, the entire point of the game is to shock you with a violent depiction of suicide. Devs using graphic suicide as entertainment, or even worse, comedy, always rubbed me the wrong way.

 

[EVA UNIT 01]

What a scapegoat.

Just monika

 

[aspiegamer]

Maybe try to talk about mental health instead?? Media alone won't make anyone want to end their life.

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Talking about mental health is difficult, inconvenient, and uncomfortable. Blaming video games for things? Now that's easy.

As someone with extensive mental health issues, the whole argument here is as stupid as blaming video game violence for school shootings in the US. People will do literally anything to shift blame around rather than try to tackle problems.

 

[petran79]

I though he'd blame Death Note

 

[The Pharmercy]

His death is tragic but...this is pretty reactionary.

I have Social Anxiety Disorder and Clinical Depression for years now.

DDLC fucked me up, and Sayori's story in particular made me quit the game almost before it really begun because it was SO similar to a situation I was going through IRL at the time.

But at no point did it feel like the game was encouraging, idolizing or fetishising suicide. It felt...ymmv about nuance etc but the game shocked me because the unpredictability of it felt relatable. The warning signs felt recognizable.

A discussion about mental health would be infinitely more useful than the tired and narrow minded technique of blaming a game. It's like being unable to see the bigger picture.

How's anyone with mental health issues supposed to feel comfortable talking about it if society and media demonize whatever they don't understand at first glance?

 

[Dyle]

While I enjoyed DDLC as a whole, the specific imagery of Sayori's suicide in particular felt unnecessary and excessive. It's exactly the kind of imagery that I couldn't help but look at and seeing myself in it earlier in life when I was dealing with suicide. Ideation through seeing people who had gone through with their self destructive thoughts was, for a brief dangerous period, appealing and content warnings only made me more likely to look at it.

I don't think, even if the poor kid left a note saying "DDLC made me do this," that Salvato, or anyone in particular, is culpable for this, but I still hold that such graphic representations of suicide are highly irresponsible, especially since in DDLC it's played mostly for shock value. DDLC can absolutely have been a factor in this kid's death, and anyone saying that it couldn't possibly have been, without having looked at the evidence as the coroner has, is plain wrong. The coroner is just doing his job, warning people with the power to stop these horrible events of a shocking work that can trigger disastrous reactions for some already troubled individuals. They're not calling for the game to be banned, they're not blaming the game or its creators, they're just trying to protect some of our most vulnerable people by informing social workers of a potential danger to their patients

 

[Deleted member 2779]

That the game included warnings doesn't mean jack when it's free to download for anyone of any age to get their hands on. I feel similarly for 13 Reasons Why where access to it is incredibly easy compared to buying age-restricted games or watching age-restricted movies. Short, polite, warnings at the start aren't enough in my opinion in the legislative context of where I live. It's a challenge that comes with the exclusively digital-nature of these works and I'm not sure what the answer is.

 

[Kitsunelaine]

That the game included warnings doesn't mean jack when it's free to download for anyone of any age to get their hands on. I feel similarly for 13 Reasons Why where access to it is incredibly easy compared to buying age-restricted games or watching age-restricted movies. Short, polite, warnings at the start aren't enough in my opinion in the legislative context of where I live. It's a challenge that comes with the exclusively digital-nature of these works and I'm not sure what the answer is.

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Yup. Warnings don't matter when the content you're showing is likely to trigger ideations. Especially when you force a player to focus on that detailed imagery for extended periods of time. At that point there's no way you don't know what you're doing, and there's no way to include any of that in a responsible manner. The solution is to not do what the game did. But the game did it.

The game's bad, folks. No ammount of trigger warnings skirts responsibility because trigger warnings can only prepare you for so much.

 

[fakeronjan]

I'm going to give an incredible amount of grace to a grieving father.

I'm not sure whether his critique is fair, but I'm not sure if it's not. The mind is complicated. Little triggers can go a long way without warning. Everyone's will be different. It's both a series of systems and individuals and I don't want to discount his entire perspective just because of his loss.

I'll also say that the game disturbed me so much that I couldn't finish it. I'm not sure what that says about me either. I'm glad someone made the game. I'm sad that this situation happened.

 

[Chettlar]

I surely does not, the anguish that her parents go thru and the conclusion that's eventually made about the selfishness of that choice. Thirteen Reasons is more of a story structure assigned to explain the many aspects of teenage depression.

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The creators of the show were literally told what things to avoid in order to not glorify and encourage suicide, and they did basically every single one of them anyway. You do not understand how suicide works.

 

[PtM]

One: I'm asking what you meant because unless you were deliberately vague in order to get away with not actually making a point, I don't see any other point you could've been trying to make. Do you realize how trivial it is for children to get a hold of their parents cards? Did you miss the entirety of Apple overhauling their account system multiple times to having multiple safe guards to keep children from purchasing things?
Two: Again, what exactly was in your original post to imply anything else? Can you list out the alternative "age barriers" you were alluding to?

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Well, the fact that you don't even need an (Steam) account of any sorts (homepage download) is also one barrier removed.
So even if Steam had an effective age control, you could just circumvent Steam.

I could have worded it "simple download" instead or something.

 

[Gradon]

As far as I know, Doki Doki doesn't even have trigger warnings about depression and suicide. It just has a generic "this isn't for kids and the content is disturbing" warning.

The whole story of the first suicide really feels incredibly ingenuine once you get to the creepy pasta part of the game, and I felt like that hurt it because it couldn't have a mature / serious representation on mental health without cranking it up for shock value.

My condolences to the family and RIP. Depression is not something I'd wish on anyone.

 

[NotLiquid]

As far as I know, Doki Doki doesn't even have trigger warnings about depression and suicide. It just has a generic "this isn't for kids and the content is disturbing" warning.

The whole story of the first suicide really feels incredibly ingenuine once you get to the creepy pasta part of the game, and I felt like that hurt it because it couldn't have a mature / serious representation on mental health without cranking it up for shock value.

My condolences to the family and RIP. Depression is not something I'd wish on anyone.

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It does have a trigger warning on depression. Suicide it doesn't, and your mileage may vary on whether it should've featured that.

I can see why people might view the fourth wall fuckery as taking away from the discourse surrounding the character writing, there's definitely a degree in which it tries to be "cute" with it. That said depression is only one of the themes the game actually delves into aside from other offshoot themes such as obsession, manipulation and existentialism. As a storytelling device it's pretty risky to acknowledge the player's role in it all but the concept of Monika works in general as a manipulative character preying on each character's insecurities. The latent reveal of Sayori as genuinely depressed receiving the mood whiplash made me at least put most other characters into a similar perspective and made me appreciate more of their under-the-hood idiosyncrasies. It at least never felt like it judged me personally for whatever motives I had to keep on going with the game. Getting the best ending of it, which the player has to go out of their way themselves to earn without any hints on how to do it, felt surprisingly poignant as a result.

 

[Orioto]

Terrible story.

My problem with all those sort of games is that it's clearly a fad, or at least something of our current era. It's sometimes just the cool thing to do to make your game about depression, suicide etc.. It looks edgy and mature.. Sooooo many indy games play that card.. Maybe that's not the best thing!

 

[LinkStrikesBack]

There isn't anything in the game that warrants any kind of suicide, there are much more underlying causes to this tragedy.

Would kids kill one another because they saw it in Danganronpa? Where do you conclude this game caused some child's death.

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Iirc This actually got danganronpa v3 banned in south Korea because of similarities to an actual murder and in part the worry that it could spur copycat killings.

 

[Prototype Viktor]

Which actually idealizes suicide, I seriously dont understand how anyone can enjoy that piece of shit show.

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they don't listen to the messaging (i hope) and just look at the pretty young white people

 

[Spectone]

Terrible story.

My problem with all those sort of games is that it's clearly a fad, or at least something of our current era. It's sometimes just the cool thing to do to make your game about depression, suicide etc.. It looks edgy and mature.. Sooooo many indy games play that card.. Maybe that's not the best thing!

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Maybe people are making those sorts of games because it has affected them personally? We don't actually know.

 

[Andy Mac]

That the game included warnings doesn't mean jack when it's free to download for anyone of any age to get their hands on. I feel similarly for 13 Reasons Why where access to it is incredibly easy compared to buying age-restricted games or watching age-restricted movies. Short, polite, warnings at the start aren't enough in my opinion in the legislative context of where I live. It's a challenge that comes with the exclusively digital-nature of these works and I'm not sure what the answer is.

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Yes. When i first read the article my first thought was "how did the kid get his hands on the game". Regardless of whether or not the game contributed to this situation I can't help but feel he shouldn't have had such easy access to this content?

Sensationalist media are always going to go with the obvious story here but I'm feeling like the situation could have been made less likely by parents taking stricter control over the content their kids have access to.

 

[danmaku]

Terrible story.

My problem with all those sort of games is that it's clearly a fad, or at least something of our current era. It's sometimes just the cool thing to do to make your game about depression, suicide etc.. It looks edgy and mature.. Sooooo many indy games play that card.. Maybe that's not the best thing!

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Talking about difficult themes is not bad in itself. The results can be good or bad, but stopping at lollipops and rainbows isn't going to do any good to the medium, either. If anything, we need more discussion about good and bad ways to tackle these themes.

 

[Grain Silo]

What makes DDLC dangerous is its seemingly sweet exterior and the fact that it's free. I could see how a depressed teenager could be given the wrong idea regardless of the content warning, especially if the kids at school are gossiping about it and you want to fit in. Since it's free there's no accountability other than the content warning, which is fragile at best.

I love DDLC. It taught me things about depression that I had never understood before. But it's evident to me now that it could spur thoughts of self-harm. At the very least there should be a bigger, more blaring content warning that explicitly mentions suicide.

 

[cosmicblizzard]

Not going to link him because I know people here don't like him very much, but it's making the rounds that the game in question mentioned in the media is actually Mystic Messenger thanks to Pewdiepie pointing it out.

 

[AlexFlame116]

Not going to link him because I know people here don't like him very much, but it's making the rounds that the game in question mentioned in the media is actually Mystic Messenger thanks to Pewdiepie pointing it out.

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So it wasn't even DDLC?! People were blaming the game for nothing?