Sitrep: Far Cry 3′s Animal Hordes Strike Back

Pinothyj, you are seriously equating the Jaws effect to a game? Really?

First problem. Jaws was a major film watched by a lot of people, and those people, living in the 1970′s, had a rose tinted view when it came to the ocean. Jaws was a phenomenon as it was the first true blockbuster film and it created such a fear effect, because people didn’t know any better or hadn’t had the horror fully illustrated to them. This isn’t the same thing. The fundamental difference here is that in this game, you can fight back against the animals, or you are the active aggressor. Jaws illustrated a position of helplessness against nature, and man’s boorish response was to slaughter what was, at the time, an unprotected species to alleviate that fear, which was a result of a culture of ignorance.

It is blindly, criminally stupid and monumentally insulting to call all your fellow gamers monsters for playing a game about killing animals, because ‘obviously’ they are going to enjoy killing them in real life, and will be now driven to do so. It is the exact same argument that people make when they say killing people in games will turn them into real life murderers. We’ve all torn that argument apart, and this is THE EXACT SAME THING.

People these days don’t fear nature, we’re fascinated by it. Yes, some people hunt in real life, and I don’t condone that action in the slightest. I used to hunt rabbits, but in truth, I don’t think I could even do that any more. It’s a rather horrible pastime. And last time I checked, every single species in this game is a protected one, in one way or another, except perhaps water buffalo, wild swine and dogs. If someone was going to hunt these things, they can expect fines in the tens of thousands of dollars range.

I mean, come on. Be serious. Really? People are REALLY going to play this, fly to india, and hunt a tiger? Are you insane? The people who DO hunt these animals do so because of the black market in their body parts and the fact it makes them money, which in their poverty stricken nations, is hard to come by. They sure as hell can’t afford a damn video game. Most of them probably don’t even know what one is. They sure as hell don’t do it because they played Cabela’s one day.

Moral objection all you want. That’s fair. But don’t be so specious as to claim this game is going to sweep moral consciousness everywhere and make people into bloodthirsty, pelt wearing lunatics. People haven’t wholesale started killing hookers with baseball bats either, and last I checked, Grand Theft Auto had a whole lot of that too.

What I’m doing is disagreeing with your hypothesis of a Jaws Effect, at least nominally.

The difference between real life stimulus triggers and in game ones is huge. Really, really huge. Sensation, adrenaline response, and smell alone create enormous differences.

But enough of that argument. You seem to be saying that killing animals in game, or being hunted by them, creates a response on an instinctual level of a retaliatory nature. But I think your main issue appears to be that the game has created this environment at all – they’ve used what is, in truth, a fairly disgusting habit of humanity according to most, and they’ve encouraged if not outright demanded you make the appropriately bloody response of killing wildlife.

Its a tricky situation. Hunting is humanities oldest profession, older than farming. But that was during a time when it was necessary. Now it isn’t, unless you live in the depths of Africa and holding to traditional existence.

That’s where the tribal part of the game comes into greater play, the return to the wild, as it were. The more primal instincts of man, fighting to survive, to protect the tribe (friends or islanders), and defeating your enemies, regardless of what they are. This game isn’t just a descent into madness, but a descent into primal, tribal humanity, where animal and man had a relationship of conflict and violence which, while less than it was, is still around. Unfortunately.

If predatory animals weren’t in the game, it would only be low level creatures like dogs, or just the soldiers. It wouldn’t be as interesting or as challenging. Its there as a mechanic, and purely that. Could they have chosen a better one? Maybe. Probably. But it probably wouldn’t have gone down that well.

They probably should have had the dinosaurs that the guys on the second island keep talking about though. That would have been awesome, but it would be a totally different game, less about animals and the bad guys than about the dinosaurs. The predators are there as a mechanic, not the focus, so they had to be ordinary ones to prevent distraction. Turns out that failed regardless.

However, as ludicrous as the aggression of the animals are on the island, the only thing that’s worse is their numbers. The amount of range needed for a single adult lion, for example, let alone a pride, is enormous. A single pride would, in fact, need more than both of those islands combined to make a single hunting range. And here we have tigers, bears, wild dogs, crocodiles, cassowary, and leopards. The predator density is so incredibly high that its impossible to sustain a predator to prey ratio with any sort of accuracy.

Honestly, in the end, its completely true that the ‘type’ of skins is irrelevant. The fact it had to be predators is just as ludicrous – as well as the complete lack of curing and tanning, and the magical appearing tattoos. They could have had you just hunting goats instead, they make completely functional leather. But it wouldn’t be very interesting.

What this is, what all of this is, is a mechanic. Nothing more than that, just a mechanic, to be viewed as dispassionately as just that. The depiction might be morally objectional, but its there to create a challenge. Alternatives are possible, but it would seem that Ubisoft either didn’t know of them or couldn’t think of them. Aside from perhaps dinosaurs, but that would clearly make the game something like Farcry 1.

Honestly, I’m a little tired of arguing this as well. I disagree with the Jaws theory, I disagree with the fact that hunting in the game could cause an effect on an individual in the real world. Fundamentally its the same as the argument that games foster violence in individuals, directly or indirectly. Do I find hunting endangered animals disgraceful? Yes. In the real world. Here in the game, I view it with complete and total dispassion. They are a mechanic, they are individuals who don’t have character or emotional connection, and they are mere representations. It is my opinion that in this matter, it is not the game who has the problem in this matter, but the individual who cannot distinguish the mechanic from reality. That may be harsh, and unfair, and I understand it does somewhat belittle those who have a moral objection to a questionable activity, but there is a world of difference between make believe and reality. There are far, far worse things to be morally outraged about which are actually happening than to be raging about a bunch of pixels on a screen which don’t actually exist as anything except as motes of created light.

genephyx:
Cyborg Leopards.A THING.

genephyx,

MOTHER OF GOD.