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What was a profound moment that a video game caused you to experience, and why? (reddthat.com)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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The moment that inspired this question:

A long time ago I was playing an MMO called Voyage of the Century Online. A major part of the game was sailing around on a galleon ship and having naval battles in the 1600s.

The game basically allowed you to sail around all of the oceans of the 1600s world and explore. The game was populated with a lot of NPC ships that you could raid and pick up its cargo for loot.

One time, I was sailing around the western coast of Africa and I came across some slavers. This was shocking to me at the time, and I was like “oh, I’m gonna fuck these racist slavers up!”

I proceed to engage the slave ship in battle and win. As I approach the wreckage, I’m bummed out because there wasn’t any loot. Like every ship up until this point had at least some spare cannon balls or treasure, but this one had nothing.

… then it hit me. A slave ship’s cargo would be… people. I sunk this ship and the reason there wasn’t any loot was because I killed the cargo. I felt so bad.

I just sat there for a little while and felt guilty, but I always appreciated that the developers included that detail so I could be humbled in my own self-righteousness. Not all issues can be solved with force.

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[–] [email protected] 52 points 10 months ago (3 children)

This will date me, Missile Commander. When you lose the game doesn't reset, you had to reset it. So if you don't you just see dead cities on a screen, with silence. This was right about the same time I saw War Game. The only wining more is not to play.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

The creator of Missile Command allegedly had this very same revelation while creating it, and suffered nightmares about nuclear annihilation. I like how the game just gets harder and harder, meaning that no matter how good you are at it, once the bombs start dropping then eventually every city will be destroyed anyway.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Doesn't it say "THE END" instead of "GAME OVER?" desolate

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Oh man I forgot about that! Yeah it does! It's been an age since I've played it.

[–] mindbleach 1 points 10 months ago

Video game firsts fascinate me. You wind up asking, what defines a sidescroller, an adventure game, a first-person shooter? What is strictly necessary, to say a game involves sexuality, or contains gore?

I'm not sure what the first "political" game is. There's games about conflict and combat basically from the advent of video games as a concept. Most were digitized carnival games. Ducks move left to right, airplanes move right to left. It's just decoration that provides context for trivial mechanics. I'm not sure what degree of artifice separates the visual trappings of state power from glorification and endorsement. So I don't know when exactly video games first developed a political message.

But you can be damn sure it wasn't any later than Missile Command.