So you’re saying the medium itself is at fault? Interesting!
I’d argue that even if a board-game theme is something super-euro along the lines of border collies hearding sheep the mechanics of the game itself are still a form of ‘combat’. It’s still your doodad’s attributes vs my doodad’s attributes ( or vs the game system’s attributes). A theme can camouflage things but it’s still a form of ‘combat’.
At least that’s my initial reaction to that question.
That’s kind of it. Video games, rely on ‘action verb’ inputs. Swing sword, roll, throw, open door. And those are easy to represent in the form of a button.
Other things take a more complex touch. Conversations need to be branching and prepopulated with a range of choices. Very often they fail at providing the range of nuance between ‘hug puppy’ and ‘kick puppy’. And how does a player deal with the options not being inclusive of their preferred course, or by taking a poignant moment and making it ‘press X to pay respects’.
How do you deal with the flow of a conversation, the non deterministic way they move, the fact that words are often secondary to non verbal (something I was greatly aware of during my travels in India! I noticed how much more I paid attention to peoples mouths and eyes than I do at home for this reason).
Other verbs exist, and we’ve seen non combat become more popular. Often this is as a means of expressing creativity, like Minecraft, but also to simulate mundane things like farming or truck driving. But those are still things that boil down to verbs. And as long as that is the means of input, there we will be stuck.
Which is why games that break from this, or use their verbs to express a deeper feeling, tend not to be AAA. One example I could give is Brothers. On the surface it is a typical third person action game, but it uses that trope to express feelings. But it is also why ‘walking simulators’ are a thing, they are one of the better means of expressing non combat in an interactive environment that has been developed, but that’s because those thematic elements are largely divorced from the game verbs. Firewatch? The game verbs have no relevance to the themes, which is why the level of action and interactivity is more limited than your traditional AAA game. Adding more player input would actively detract from those themes, as the player verbs aren’t really connected. It’s why the big games that have pretensions of seriousness often feel at conflict with themselves, the example of Last of Us certainly fits this. The reliance on action verbs often undermines some of the themes the game tries to say, making Joel a mass murderer in the process. But you remove those actions, and now the game faces accusations of ‘walking simulator’.
All this comes to, I think, cost. In movies the cost to make a period drama, or a small scale interpersonal relationship movie is magnitudes lower than a sci fi epic, or superhero film. In AAA game space, this isn’t really true. In many ways the more quiet experience costs more, because conversation, nuance, and indirect actions cost more to program and create than a simple shooter would at the same fidelity. Because you take something that can be used to generate cheap content, create a bunch of rooms and throw some enemies to kill, and it fills time more cost effective than trying to create the same scope of time with hand crafted conversations and natural feeling responsiveness to player actions. But they won’t sell more to justify that investment.
So those types of games get pared down in scope and fidelity. It’s why the 2-4 hour experience you get from the Gone Home’s and Edith Finch’s of the world are the way they are. Trying to make a 30 hour game with the same interesting content? Gonna be restrictively expensive. Because you don’t have the kind of cheap spammable action verb interactions. Everything is bespoke.
I mean, isn’t it? It’s the medium, and the audience, and the costs. I mean you mention books and movies. Books are relatively cheap to produce, so the cost of making one for any niche is low. Big budget films fall into the same trap you describe, but there are plenty of arthouse and niche films made, they just don’t have the CGI action scenes and cover different types of stories. There those more ‘mature’ stories often cost less to produce, so they get made. Games, I don’t think more mature games cost less to make, and possibly more, while nessecarially having less sales potential. Hence, they don’t get made in the AAA sphere.
Try Expeditions: Conquistador (and Expeditions: Viking if you like the former). Very mature writing, historical setting, nothing’s really black or white and the game offers plenty of really good roleplaying opportunities.
You focus on a one juvenile thing in the first game and ignore the rest. And do not consider game dealing with issues like domestic abuse to be dealing with adult themes. Not sure what you need then.
I’m going to echo others and say it’s mostly a matter of costs. Games are really expensive on the AAA end and, like it or not, the huge majority of the audience for AAA productions is still juvenile. Do you get $50 and sometimes even $100 million films for an adult audience, but that’s because there’s an audience there (and in most cases because either the theme or the cast “guarantee” box office performance)
There are several games with adult Themes out there. Some of them are “walking simulators”, others are visual Novels or graphic adventures, other can be more mechanical sound (This War of Mine, Papers Please somewhat, although these two fudge it of by not basing themselves on a real context), but most of them cost under a couple million $. There’s just not a proven market to justify a $100+ million investment on a game geared to fully mature audiences. Stuff like The Witcher 3, as much as I like it, it’s not fully adult, but it engages with more interesting themes, although it’s outlook is still a bad as power fantasy. It’s the best compromise we’ve had so far in the AAA space. Maybe L. A. Noire tried harder, although the quality of the product (a different matter) wasn’t so sky high.
I don’t think there’s anything inherent about medium or genre that impedes adult themed works. I don’t even think the mechanics get in the way or would make them more expensive than twitch or combat based games. The truth is that you could probably make a mechanically driven adult RPG for the money you would make a Call of Duty. But until there’s a proven audience to sell millions of the mythical AAA adult RPG, nobody is going to bet on it.
I think medium has a role since each one offers various strengths that other mediums have a hard time replicating. Books and the textual format excel at expressing an individual’s inner life, thoughts, internal motivations, and emotions. One recent game that takes a stab at that is Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice that primarily uses an auditory approach to take the place of textual conveyance.
Video games excel at immersion, escapism, and truly inhabiting a character, collective, or world. When I wrote my intro acceptance letter to Tom years back I indicated that I find that books and video games are the mediums that give me the most agency in the experience over all other mediums so I prefer those approaches to narrative over movies, tv, music, theater, radio, museums, performance art, etc.
For videogames I especially treasure the agency, immersion, and escapism. In a way they serve as a crude form of Aristotelian catharsis. For games I enjoy verbs that I cannot and would not act upon in my actual life. That’s why I find avatar boinking of little interest in games since sex is a normal and healthy part of the human experience and interactions…something that I engage in normally. Also games as a medium do a really poor job handling sex, intimacy, and meaningful relationships. On the other hand I do prefer violence in my games since the immersion and escapism works really well with that verb. In my real life I am a pacifist and have zero interest in combat, physical conflict, firing weapons, or inflicting harm of any sort. Though I suppose that interest still lies dormant in my lizard brain since I enjoy the ultra-violence of videogames and the catharsis it delivers in a safe disconnected medium.
So I think that videogames have largely taken the place of Ancient Greek theater for me, and perhaps our society. Through them I can experience the darker recesses of the human mind without harmful consequences or harm towards others. A benefit that other mediums don’t quite reach or equal.
That said it’s not all about violence for me. Some of my favorite game experiences and richest memories are entirely non-violent or de-emphasize violence and are quite mature and adult in other ways:
Dear Esther, Firewatch (sorry), Anno 1404, Settlers 7, Journey, The Last Express, Amnesia: The Dark Descent (possibly cheating), Flame in the Flood, and Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs.
I also realize none of those are RPGs.
I was going to mention that game. I’m nearly finished playing through it and it’s an intense dive into Senua’s psychosis. It’s not a RPG. It has some combat. But the main point of the game is to dive into mind of someone swallowed by the darkness of her own thoughts.
When it comes to dealing with adult themes, I think it’s fantastic and it’s no doubt going to be one of my favourite games this year.
Agree, with the caveat that a work in a medium does not have to limit itself to what the medium excels in, and that actually the truly outstanding works in a medium go over these limitations.
Disagree, videogames don’t excel at escapism more than books of movies, judging by box office and sales of the most popular works in those mediums…
And this is where I disagree most. Videogames pose so, so many issues regarding dissonance of intention and result that there’s very little sense of really inhabiting a fictional character in most of them, and when there is, for me, it’s when the game stops being a game. That is, during dialogues or cutscenes. I would actualy posit that while videogames can excel and narrative, it’s the hardest medium for characters of all the narrative mediums, and where one has most strongly to force himself to suspend his disbelief.
However most videogames tend to be character based, like most movies are, but that’s a consequence of the market and not the medium.
Videogames are built on systems, and thus their inherent strength is to show, reveal and explore systemic interactions. Games as rhetoric if you will. Games as a medium should be extremely able to “make a point” about a certain real world system. In a way, board wargames do that, since they try to convey the dynamics that are understood by academy/military to have shaped the conflicts they represent, and are often judged on how valid a model (how easy to replicate reality) is deemed to be. Systemic narrative is what games as a medium should truly and effortlessly excel at.
An beside war, systemic relationships and consequences can be truly adult themes to explore. a quick example, The Wire tried to explore the systemic interrelation of several aspects of society coalescing to create an impossible to solve issue. And to do that it had to add a lot of characters, narrative, visuals (and also secondary themes that are more suited to the film medium)… Those main systemic themes could be explored in a more consistent way and without moving away from the medium strengths through a videogame. Probaly though a management or simulation sub-genre.
But such a game probably wouldn’t sell.
On the AAA side, mafia III explored systemic aspects of racism (superficially and uneven, though), but it did it within the constraints of a game that had to sell in the current market. And thus the ultraviolence juvenile game framework.
I don’t think I articulated it well but my assertions and claims were my personal beliefs and experiences and not necessarily projections for all people.
For me, books and videogames are the mediums that provide the most agency.
For me, videogames (and books) excel at immersion, escapism, and inhabiting characters/worlds.
Videogames pose so, so many issues regarding dissonance of intention and result that there’s very little sense of really inhabiting a fictional character in most of them
See I don’t really have that reaction or problem. Maybe I have an easier time just adapting to the restrictions of the verb portfolio on offer.
You mention box office sales, but for me movies are really poor at immersion and escapism and I hardly watch them. I do enjoy them on some level but they never rise to the level I get out of Videogames. Also I think using box office sales is a woefully poor metric for measuring immersion/escapism. The quailty of immersion and escapism is a very personal and private thing that ticket sales don’t quite interrogate or speak to in any meaningful way.
Others may have different preferences. YMMV.
I just wanted to name-drop Age of Decadence as a RPG with adult themes. While it does feature a fantastic setting and plenty of very difficult combat, the thrust of the game is setting factions against each other. At least, that’s what I’m finding. I’ve played an assassin character and got pretty far in the game before getting stymied. Now I am playing a swindler character. While people die at my bidding, if I actually get into combat, I am doing it wrong and will likely die. Adult themes: survival, self-enrichment, control and exploitation.
It looks like those folks making another RPG, set on a generation ship.
I’m sorry, I did not mean to sound dismissive- I thought my example with avatar sex served as a general example and elaboration for all the points, which was that it is not just the presence of an “adult” theme that mattered, but the presence of that theme in the service of a sophisticated narrative or philosophical theme, like in a good novel.
Yeah, I was just saying that that does have to be with a personal preference a certain expressions of a medium, but it’s unrelated by the medium on itself (that is, what the work is made of). I appreciate formalism (trying to keep within the medium core elements) but for personal consumption I do too prefer works that diverge from the medium specifics (except perhaps for painting, where I also strongly enjoy formalist approaches, along with vanguard and baroque art).
That is, on a personal enjoyment level I might agree a lot with you, but on an objective look at the medium things look different.
I really like the game, but I think there’s something to be said when @Brooski brings up a movie about a real world society of outsiders having to create their own place out of nowhere, and we reply with The Witcher 3, Age of Decadence and a game about a generation ship.
I love those as much as you guys, but when I think about adult works, I’m thinking about works that I would not be able to have fully understood as a teenager/young adult. That is, works that require an adult mind to be understood. All the games we have recommended (except for the more subtle walking simulators) are really young adult entertainment works. Tackling important themes but in an unsubtle way that makes it really easy to understand and a detachment from reality that makes it safe to explore. Not that it’s bad or not enjoyable, it’s just that it’s not really meant (exclusively) for adults.
I remember watching In the Mood for Love when I was freaking 19. I liked it a lot because of the visuals and the opaque narrative. I watched it again at 30, and it quickly became on of my favorite movies. I realized I had understood nothing on my first watch and that the movie was not opaque at all. But the story relied on having lived through certain experiences to be able to understand the motivations of the characters, and my 19 years old self was still not there. that’s an adult movie. Ladyhawk, dealing with some of the same themes, is young adult.
That was a great post, @Juan_Raigada! And I think it gets to the heart of what I was trying for but didn’t articulate well in terms of “adult” content. The Witcher series, for all its grimness, is just another power fantasy. When I read that story I linked (which is not a movie, but should be!) I saw all sorts of profoundly adult questions without easy answers. Then I thought about gaming, and couldn’t really think of anything that even constituted a category into which a game about it could be placed.
I really like this formulation:
I had a similar experience to your Mood for Love viewing with Last Year at Marienbad.
Ok, by that standard, you are shit out of luck outside of Planescape: Torment I guess.
A bit off topic I suppose but I still remember how much power the word “adult” had for me as a youngster. Everything interesting to me seemed gated off, and the grownups had the keys to the kingdom. What were these “adult situations” I would see referenced in movie ratings? I still recall the feeling of profound disappointment when someone explained to me what an adult arcade actually was. I’ll leave you with a part of an old Elvis Costello song -
Why don’t you tell me about the mystery dance
I want to know about the mystery dance
Why don’t you show me
'Cause I’ve tried and I’ve tried, and I’m still mystified
I can’t do it anymore and I’m not satisfied
It’s obviously a bit dated, but I’m not sure there has been a more ‘adult’ CRPG than Ultima IV, at least in terms of its core theme. The attainment of a virtuous life is something that has preoccupied great minds for millennia.
Now, that very-adult theme is still grafted onto a high-fantasy murder simulator, of course. But this is hardly a surprise. All CRPGs are ultimately descended from Chainmail, which was a medieval/fantasy tactical combat game.
Until we find noncombat gameplay that’s crunchier than picking from 4 options in a dialogue tree, I don’t know that much is going to change. But what I have always loved about CRPGs is that, because they involve the interlocking of numerous systems (dialogue, plot, exploration, inventory management, combat, etc.), the gameplay experience can seldom be reduced just to that crunchy core, whether it be combat or something else.
I guess there’s no game more adult than Pathologic.
It’s about civil disorder in the wake of deadly, incurable disease and the following breakdown of civilization. It’s about the conflict between the scientific method, local customs and the true supernatural. It’s also about class struggle and generational struggle. It’s about hyperinflation and bartering your gun for a piece of bread. It’s a powerlessness fantasy, really.
And every NPC is a russian philosopher.
So could it be improved somehow if those same NPCs were also 11 year old girls?