[CW: violence/gore]. As the title suggests, is there a left case to be made against ultra-violence in video games? I'm thinking mostly about MK11 and MK1 fatalities, as opposed to less gratuitous and less hyper-realistic violence--in Dark Souls or something. Whenever this topic is brought up, other factors usually take up the oxygen in the room: People might immediately think of family-values conservatives, such as the Media Research Center, who act like wet-blankets towards entertainment. Or we think of nerdy Joe Lieberman, who showed the 1993 Sub-Zero spine fatality to Congress (lol). There was Hillary Clinton who decried the Grand Theft Auto franchise, and the host of rightwing politicians who blamed Doom for the Columbine shooting (clearly as a way to absolve gun legislation from any culpability). So this is what I mean when I say that the conversation on video-game violence has been ceded entirely to these dudes, as opposed to something left spaces can discuss without sounding like squares or censors. This came to mind after I was reading about the video game designer who developed PTSD after working on Mortal Kombat 11. His dreams became excruciatingly violent, and his day-to-day was interacting with coworkers studying medical anatomy and watching videos of slaughtered animals. That can't be good for anyone. I guess what I'm asking is: should leftists see this as harmless fun, or something problematic? And, will photo-realistic Fatalities exist in the communist future?
The studies we've done on violent media seem to fall along the same lines as other studies. The short and simplified version is: media is really bad at influencing behavior but its really good at influencing viewpoints and perspectives. In this sense: violent media doesn't make you more prone to do violence...but it can change how you perceive violence. That fact is especially problematic and complicated when you consider things like Call of Duty which ultimately serve to glorify and revere military violence. I have mixed feelings on it myself and I'd personally argue to let it be...but I definitely think there's a leftist case to make against violent media when you see it through that lens.
The developer who sounds like they were traumatized from having to stomach horrific imagery seems less to me like an issue with violent media and more like worker exploitation TBH. Plenty of people create horror movies out of passion and love. The issue is this person clearly was uncomfortable with the work but essentially had no alternative if they wanted to maintain employment.
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