Originally posted by HermitTheToad:

To kids, for example, it's a fun "gun game!" and not a title about the horrors of war and killing other people.
And that to me is truly terrifying.

I guess we'd be simply returning to the baseline before modernity. Back then, kids also were desensitized, and forced to work in horrible conditions from early hours of the morning. Nature is brutal and doesn't care if the animal being eaten is five or thirty years old, unfortunately.

But I do think making kids more willing to inflict violence on purpose (like the increasingly militarized "games" and "shows" (in schools!!) meant to prepare children to work in the military) as rather disturbing, just because it's a sign that our world is really going in a bad direction.

Damn, how did this post get so depressing? Anyway, next time I think I'll make a topic discussing some horror games plotlines and finding similarities and differences between them and the general patterns. Maybe.

Horror games, like horror books and horror films are meant to startle, disturb, and hopefully scare the player/reader/viewer. But it can't be denied that they depend on the medium and how imaginative a person is.

I actually think games may be one of the worst mediums to convey horror, just because the thing that causes horror is usually hidden beneath game mechanics and difficulty levels. The player is afraid of their character dying. They're not disturbed by the fact that the mother has murdered her kid. I think you could take Call of Duty, tone down the colors or make it outright monochrome, and it'd become a horror game.

Experience in first-person the horrors of war as you take on the role of a special forces soldier during a series of missions that will change him forever...

Who cares? Just give me that kill streak and let me call in UAV and AC-130 to kill 20 people and call in the tactical nuke so I can get to the top of the scoreboard.

I believe a true horror game would be achieved only when the player wouldn't be able to ignore the underlying topic. It'd be achieved if they'd pause the game and quit to the desktop and mutter "What the ♥♥♥♥..." as they stared at the wall in their dark room. That would be horror in my eyes. But I guess horror is a metric, and not everything can be perfection.

What is your opinion? What makes a game "scary" in your eyes?

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Decided to make this topic to see if anybody in this group is still alive. Thinking about making a topic ab und zu at least until I get unbanned on Off-Topic and can troll again.

Disclaimer: I'm not a gamer!

Originally posted by Kamiyama:

This is the second year in a row I've been banned over the holidays. They completely fabricated the reason for my ban this time. They said I harassed a user but I never harassed anyone.

I think what happened is I posted something conservative, and a left-wing user reported me for harassment, so the mods just ran with that.

But that's a lie.

I've opened tickets but they don't seem interested in justice. They clearly want me in particular to be banned.

How long is your ban?

Originally posted by leem:

samer

What was the reason?

Originally posted by Q-T_3.14.exe:

What did you even do?

I guess my post was simply too disturbing for minors. Steam is a platform 13+ and theoretically anything mature on Steam Discussions is bannable probably

I've noticed the ban length increased. The first time I've been banned for one day, then three days, and now the ban lasts seven days. I don't know if it's really incremental or if the mods simply pick the duration on a whim. Can anyone confirm?

It happened again. That's my fourth time. What's your ban streak?

I think it would be beneficial if every Off-Topic alternative would have links to similar groups on their main page. In this way, even if one group happened to go down, there would still be several to choose from.

Thoughts? I know of two other such groups if the owner's interested.

Hmm