Developing Meaning: Critical Violence and Eudaimonic Entertainment in the Seventh Console Generation

Abstract

Violence in videogames has been a controversial topic since the medium’s inception, but how videogames depict violence has changed dramatically over time. During the seventh console generation, several development studios implemented similar design mechanisms that allowed players to engage in ethically challenging virtual violence through morally compromised characters, contexts, and systems. Fourteen AAA games released between the years of 2007 and 2013 encouraged critical reflection on the ethical qualities of that violence, resulting in a phenomenon I term “critical violence”. Following an overview of the ethics of videogames and a brief history of changes in the industry, this paper performs a comparative analysis of four games, two that engage in critical violence and two that do not, elucidating the techniques used to generate such criticality: defamiliarization, narrative character studies, systemic design, and aesthetic style. These approaches demonstrate that violence in videogames can be a useful element for communicating meaningful experiences.