Hatred.

[spankythehippo]

Neither Skyrim nor GTA go to great lengths to dehumanize all the random people you can kill, none of them make this your actual goal. This trailer on the other hand starts by declaring them unworthy or whatever drivel he speaks in the beginning. He says the world is rotten or something. It's not explained, there i no reason given, this guy just says all humans are not worthy and therefore he will kill as many as he can. In Skyrim it is my duty to complete quests given to me by innocents, the game doesn't release me after the intro and show me a counter of innocents I have killed or anything like that. As such I can use my normal moral compass in the game and killing innocents may just feel wrong for normal human beings. Hatred on the other hand seems to make murdering innocents feel like the right thing to do and the trailer doesn't even explain how that conclusion was reached.

Reasons do matter.

Add to that that the game has an extra-amount of gore added, to make the killing of innocent people look extra-brutal. Yes, nothing new, view it as a multiplier of the other moral problem though. For the target group, the gore is like the reward for the killing, and they added a huge amount of extra reward for killing people who have apparently not done anything to deserve it. To me it does matter whether I see a killcam of a mercenary getting shot or whether it's a killcam of a guy shooting a businesswoman into the mouth while I don't even know what the businesswoman did to deserve that (for the mercenary I can at least imagine a reason much faster).

So I assume the main gripe people have with this game is its purpose. I can understand that. The game has no meaning, and as such, I don't really care for its existence. Its a game that was made for the shock factor. The devs could say that it was meant to highlight the animal in man, which I can totally understand. But that message could be achieved without pandering to a sociopath's wet dream. No matter what the devs say, this game is ultimately about killing innocent people. Even though a lot of people are shocked by this game, I don't really care. To me, it's still a game. There are worse things happening in the world right now. And they're real. The shitstorm that is about to cover the presses just kills time while actual tragedies continue to be ignored.

I dunno, at some point in time, I actually had similar ideals to that character. I wouldn't go to the extent of killing people, but I was certainly misanthropic. Not anymore, but I do look like him. When I saw that trailer, I saw an image of my former self, but with a similar appearance. Made it feel all too familiar.

EDIT: OK, I kinda lied when I say I don't care about the existence of this game. My only concern is if someone who is mentally disturbed uses this game as inspiration. All those media articles which say video games cause violence are semi-true. Raise your kids right, and they can play all the violent games they want and not want to kill someone in the real world.