The Humble Be the Bad Guy Bundle has Dungeons 3, Postal and more

Quoting: areamanplaysgame

Quoting: CFWhitman

Quoting: areamanplaysgame

Quoting: CFWhitmanI just don't see the appeal of playing as someone who is obviously a bad guy. For example, the whole GTA series is completely lost on me. Never played them; never wanted to.

I play a lot of different games, not all of them free of violence.

I guess you are suggesting that a protagonist in the GTA series is "obviously a bad guy." That seems to be "highly dependent on your point of view" as well. Certainly, they do bad things, but so do a lot of "heroes." A lot of games have protagonists who run around killing people but aren't coded as "criminals."

Nonsense. The people who do things like those portrayed in GTA don't think they are the good guys. They just don't care about being the good guys. They might sometimes rationalize it that they have excuses, but that's not the same thing as thinking they are doing good.

That's not what I said, but let me put it to you this way. I have worked in the criminal justice system for the last 12 years. I've encountered many people who take responsibility for criminal acts, and many who recognize that they did a bad thing. I have never met a person who considers himself a "bad guy" because of his criminal record. Further, I have rarely met a person I didn't think had the capacity for good, even if they had an extensive history of doing bad things.

Really you're going off on a tangent here. You just said that these people recognize that they did a bad thing. That means that they know that while they were doing it they were 'being the bad guy.' That's not the same thing as a judgment of their life's worth, i.e. saying that they are 'bad guys' altogether. I didn't pick out that terminology; that's just the name of the bundle. This isn't a philosophical discussion on whether people can find redemption for their crimes. I just don't enjoy playing games where my motive in the game is completely selfish/criminal/evil.

Quoting: CFWhitman

Quoting: areamanplaysgame

Quoting: CFWhitman

Quoting: areamanplaysgame

Quoting: CFWhitmanI just don't see the appeal of playing as someone who is obviously a bad guy. For example, the whole GTA series is completely lost on me. Never played them; never wanted to.

I play a lot of different games, not all of them free of violence.

I guess you are suggesting that a protagonist in the GTA series is "obviously a bad guy." That seems to be "highly dependent on your point of view" as well. Certainly, they do bad things, but so do a lot of "heroes." A lot of games have protagonists who run around killing people but aren't coded as "criminals."

Nonsense. The people who do things like those portrayed in GTA don't think they are the good guys. They just don't care about being the good guys. They might sometimes rationalize it that they have excuses, but that's not the same thing as thinking they are doing good.

That's not what I said, but let me put it to you this way. I have worked in the criminal justice system for the last 12 years. I've encountered many people who take responsibility for criminal acts, and many who recognize that they did a bad thing. I have never met a person who considers himself a "bad guy" because of his criminal record. Further, I have rarely met a person I didn't think had the capacity for good, even if they had an extensive history of doing bad things.

Really you're going off on a tangent here. You just said that these people recognize that they did a bad thing. That means that they know that while they were doing it they were 'being the bad guy.' That's not the same thing as a judgment of their life's worth, i.e. saying that they are 'bad guys' altogether. I didn't pick out that terminology; that's just the name of the bundle. This isn't a philosophical discussion on whether people can find redemption for their crimes. I just don't enjoy playing games where my motive in the game is completely selfish/criminal/evil.

It's a philosophical discussion on the nature of good and evil, and you started it. Your claim was that there are some situations where the morality of your actions is subjective. The fact is, that's most situations. Very few people do things with the intention of being evil. You then equated breaking laws with being "bad," which is a whole other can of worms. But I'll leave it at that.

Quoting: areamanplaysgame

Quoting: CFWhitman

Quoting: areamanplaysgame

Quoting: CFWhitman

Quoting: areamanplaysgame

Quoting: CFWhitmanI just don't see the appeal of playing as someone who is obviously a bad guy. For example, the whole GTA series is completely lost on me. Never played them; never wanted to.

I play a lot of different games, not all of them free of violence.

I guess you are suggesting that a protagonist in the GTA series is "obviously a bad guy." That seems to be "highly dependent on your point of view" as well. Certainly, they do bad things, but so do a lot of "heroes." A lot of games have protagonists who run around killing people but aren't coded as "criminals."

Nonsense. The people who do things like those portrayed in GTA don't think they are the good guys. They just don't care about being the good guys. They might sometimes rationalize it that they have excuses, but that's not the same thing as thinking they are doing good.

That's not what I said, but let me put it to you this way. I have worked in the criminal justice system for the last 12 years. I've encountered many people who take responsibility for criminal acts, and many who recognize that they did a bad thing. I have never met a person who considers himself a "bad guy" because of his criminal record. Further, I have rarely met a person I didn't think had the capacity for good, even if they had an extensive history of doing bad things.

Really you're going off on a tangent here. You just said that these people recognize that they did a bad thing. That means that they know that while they were doing it they were 'being the bad guy.' That's not the same thing as a judgment of their life's worth, i.e. saying that they are 'bad guys' altogether. I didn't pick out that terminology; that's just the name of the bundle. This isn't a philosophical discussion on whether people can find redemption for their crimes. I just don't enjoy playing games where my motive in the game is completely selfish/criminal/evil.

It's a philosophical discussion on the nature of good and evil, and you started it. Your claim was that there are some situations where the morality of your actions is subjective. The fact is, that's most situations. Very few people do things with the intention of being evil. You then equated breaking laws with being "bad," which is a whole other can of worms. But I'll leave it at that.

While I said that there have been many conflicts over the years where both sides thought they were right, I disagree about the morality of your actions being subjective most of the time. Most of the time it's not very subjective. The only reason I brought up the subjectivity of it is to make it clear I'm talking about games where it's not subjective, such as GTA and games where you are clearly taking on the role of "the bad guy" for the duration of the game, even according to the game's developers. I did not intend to explore the tangent of moral subjectivity or the tangent of judging real-life criminals.


Last edited by CFWhitman on 18 September 2021 at 8:16 pm UTC