{"id":14953,"date":"2011-10-25T07:00:27","date_gmt":"2011-10-25T11:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.christandpopculture.com\/?p=14953"},"modified":"2011-10-25T07:00:27","modified_gmt":"2011-10-25T11:00:27","slug":"when-games-matter-payday-the-heist-and-virtual-crime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/2011\/10\/when-games-matter-payday-the-heist-and-virtual-crime\/","title":{"rendered":"When Games Matter: PayDay: The Heist and Virtual Crime"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

When Games Matter<\/strong>\u00a0is a weekly exploration by Drew Dixon of meaningful moments in games. Operating under the assumption that\u00a0games do in fact matter, Drew seeks to highlight those moments that have much to say to say about who we are and the world we live in.<\/em><\/p>\n

Should mature gamers feel guilty for committing virtual crimes? This question drove me to play PayDay: The Heist<\/a>, a game where the player takes part in virtual bank robberies and other various heists.<\/p>\n

There are two common answers to this question and neither really gets to the heart of the issue. On the one hand its a game\u2014completing PayDay\u2019s various heists does not actually require one to commit crime. The person who is too young or too immature to parse fiction and reality should not be playing videogames about bank robbery. That should be obvious, but common Christian objections to videogames often run along these lines. Christians tend to object to such games by asking, \u201cWhy would you do something in a virtual world that you wouldn\u2019t in the real world?\u201d \u201cAren\u2019t games like this just fantasizing about sin?\u201d These objections fail to realize how foreign videogame \u201cworlds\u201d often are to our own. On the other hand, as videogames become more lifelike they begin to bear more responsibility for\u00a0how they depict lifelike events.<\/p>\n

The environs of PayDay are largely believable\u2014banks are clean, modern, and full of civilians while gang hideouts are dirty, dingy, and full of thugs. The tools you use to conduct your heist\u2014drills, explosives, and guns\u2014are realistic enough. These elements beg the question\u2014is this more a crime-simulation than it is a \u201cgame\u201d? If so, is PayDay teaching us to enjoy criminal activity?<\/p>\n

When I first started playing, I was surprised by how quickly the game turned violent. When one of my accomplices held up his gun and shouted, \u201cEverybody get on the ground now,\u201d the bank security guards immediately started firing their guns at me in the presence of countless civilian bank customers. For me, this act completely ruined the illusion of a real-life heist. \u00a0Though I was in a very lifelike setting with seemingly lifelike people, any illusion of reality was quickly broken. I was very cognizant of the fact that what I was playing was a game\u2014a set of rules and objectives and little more. And PayDay constantly reminds me of this fact\u2014I can take an inordinate amount of bullets without dying and whatever urban city I am in has an enormous police force that constantly acts in obvious disregard for the safety of its citizens. The civilians of PayDay are largely unconcerned about their own safety\u2014they will often not take cover until you command them to despite the deadly war zone that has taken shape around them. And while my accomplices are equipped and trained to use all the latest and fanciest gear for breaking into vaults, they are incredibly dim-witted as they are constantly running out in front of me while I am firing my gun. The game\u2019s nods to reality are broken so often that I can\u2019t imagine anyone viewing PayDay as a crime simulator.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t necessarily a bad thing. At their very core, this is what all games are\u2014sets of rules that we abide in order to accomplish a stated goal, typically for the purpose of enjoyment. If we were to replace PayDay\u2019s security guards and law enforcement officers with mindless zombies or hostile aliens or terrorists, I would not be writing this article, no one would be interested in this discussion, and the game would remain essentially the same. This is not to say that games cannot be meaningful beyond mere entertainment\u2014I merely want to point out that most games are not and PayDay certainly isn\u2019t. Honestly, PayDay isn\u2019t likely to move anyone to contemplate the human condition or reflect on what drives a man to a life of crime. It will, however, provide an entertaining gaming experience that the mature gamer can enjoy with friends. When reality was broken for me in the world of PayDay, I certainly enjoyed it. I was not deeply troubled by my virtual crimes in PayDay, if I were, I would reveal my \u201creality\u201d to be far more broken than that of PayDay.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“If we were to replace PayDay’s security guards and law enforcement officers with mindless zombies or hostile aliens or terrorists, I would not be writing this article, no one would be interested in this discussion, and the game would remain essentially the same.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1220,"featured_media":14965,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,9],"tags":[947,1436],"class_list":["post-14953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asides","category-games","tag-payday-the-heist","tag-when-games-matter"],"yoast_head":"\nWhen Games Matter: PayDay: The Heist and Virtual Crime<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\""If we were to replace PayDay's security guards and law enforcement officers with mindless zombies or hostile aliens or terrorists, I would not be writing this article, no one would be interested in 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