Detroit: Becoming Human or Detroit: Becoming Abusive?
A game trailer was released at the Pairs Game Week however
it picked up quite a following after the accusations of child abuse in the
trailer. This month the UK parliament and child abuse campaigners have criticised
the trailer because it contained representations of domestic abuse in the
Quantic Dream’s upcoming game Detroit: Become Human
‘It is completely wrong for domestic violence to be part of a video game regardless of what the motivation is. Domestic violence is not a game and this simply trivialises it. I worry that people who play this who themselves have suffered abuse will use this game to shape the way in which they deal with abusers” said Damian Collins, the chairperson of Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee to the Daily Mail.
The game is heavily based on decisions that the player make
and just like the movie series Blade Runner it includes human like machines
that are part of the human society. The trailer was based on the robotic house
keeper narrative that shows different results of the narrative, for this reason
different scenes was shown involving an abusive father, and his daughter. A
certain scene points out the abuse especially when the abusive father whose
name is Todd grabs the robotic house keeper Kaya from the neck and try to
strangle her to apologise. Furthermore the abuse is more evident when Todd toss
the table on the floor and starts swearing and the daughter running up stairs.
In the next shot he is shown with a belt in his hand going up the stairs where
the following scene a loud scream could be heard from the family’s household.
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| © Sony Interactive Entertainment |
However this scene could be different because as mentioned earlier,
it is based on player choices and the different outcome could have been that
Kaya runs away with the abusive father’s daughter Alice and change the whole
scene completely. This choice of variety propose different morality on the
player meaning that the gamer could chose if he want to make the right choice
or make a bad choice and suffer the consequences just like in real life.
Moreover Damian Collins explained further that ‘It’s dangerous to plant the seed in people’s minds that the way to deal with abusers is to use violence against them. It’s counter-productive and could put them in even more danger.’
And so this begs the question of who is right whether the
developers is trying to replicate domestic violence into the game so that it
looks like real life? Or maybe that the campaigners are overstressing the fact
that domestic violence is shown in a game, therefore all players will be left
with negative remarks based on their decisions made in the game?
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