Profanity in games not cool

[Michael Prymula]

I don't feel embarassed playing games with lots of swearing in front of people, my family swears almost all the time, so they really couldn't care less.  Games with strong sexual scenes on the other hand are a whole different ballgame, that's something I would MUCH rather keep to myself! LOL

[QF]

not an issue for me

[nesfan1]

I mostly don't mind it. Profanity doesn't hurt anything but when the f-word is used in every other word of a sentence it does get annoying. But not because it's a swear. It's annoying in the way that people who say "um" or "like" a lot is annoying.

[bluemonkey1]

Not an issue for me. In games where a person's life is in jeopardy of course they are going to swear, wouldn't you?  The girlfriend swears so no reason to feel embarrassed playing in front of her.  It's the gunfire that bothers people around me, not the swearing.

[James McCloud]

I agree profanity in games is not cool, for a variety of reasons. But the number one reason the Crittic already covered - because the story telling is so poor, the cursing is most often flat and awkward as well. It makes it embarassing to play in front of other adults, it makes you look like a childish fool.

Well, look at these boards - would they be better with profanity? Obviously not. Just something for the 'profanity is cool' crowd to consider.

[Adamant1]

[QUOTE=nesfan]

I mostly don't mind it. Profanity doesn't hurt anything but when the f-word is used in every other word of a sentence it does get annoying. But not because it's a swear. It's annoying in the way that people who say "um" or "like" a lot is annoying.

[/QUOTE]

As others have pointed out too, it's not the fact that there's swearing in the dialogue - people swear, it's natural, and including it can help the realism. The problem is that these games, for the most part, sound nothing like normal dialogue between adults that happens to include a couple swear words, but forced dialogue between kids who think they sound really mature and adult by swearing as much and as often as possible. It is, of course, because the games are largely catering towards that age group, but that doesn't make it less cringe worthy. If a movie tried using this type of dialogue, it'd get absolutely destroyed by critics.

[Luke]

[QUOTE=Michael Prymula]

I honestly couldn't care less about profanity in video games if I tried, I hear it so much in my everyday life that i'm used to it

[/QUOTE]Right. But that's exactly why we don't need to hear it in a video game. 

I sometimes get the impression that game developers like to add in swear words because they think it's going to add that extra touch of realism to the game. I mean, rappers do it, right - they think the more they swear on record the more "real" their music and image becomes? But almost every time I hear a swear word in a game (other than something like Grand Theft Auto) I usually think to myself, "Ok. That wasn't necessary." 

[Michael Prymula]

Yes, swearing is often unnecessary in games and it can sound awfully ridiculous, but I hardly ever notice it most of the time, it's only a minor issue for me at best, as long as a game is fun to play, I don't care if some of the dialogue sounds amateurish and whatnot.

[Hardcore_Sadism1]

It's seriously not a topic to fuss this much about. Rockstar are, lets say, grassroots Freedom-of-Speech advocates or something. Your education in vocabulary is much more important than how unproductive and sharp-tongued any dialog is.

[Michael D]

[QUOTE=The Video Game Critic]JWK and Greisha put it best when they said they were embarrassed to play profanity-laced games in front of the wife.  That's the way I feel when I play a lot of games with excessive profanity.

[/QUOTE]

Then why are you not embarrassed when movies do it?  And why does it seem that you're lumping in every game with strong language in it together, when there are games that are doing it for shock value (like Splatterhouse and Duke Nukem Forever), but then there are games like Bioshock and Heavy Rain that do have justifiable reasons for it (and you didn't mind it in either one of those games)?  

I'm saying it's all about context and in that way, games are no different from movies and to say that you're embarrassed by one medium with lots of swearing and not the other doesn't make sense.  Hold up Splatterhouse and Duke Nukem Forever all you like on this front, but don't try and say they represent the norm or represent what most gamers are willing to accept (the bad sales of both games clearly show we're not OK with them representing our industry as adult, while the success of Heavy Rain and Bioshock show that we want more adult themed games like those).