Gore in videogames can't just be called 'violence', well it has violence but in a much higher level. I, for one, love these aspects in games. I even personally like Negan from The Walking Dead, not just the way he brutalizes his victims but how he leads his people and uses their own minds to mess with them. Anyways, brutality in video games is now evolving into becoming very real. Modern technology has allowed us to replicate what actual blood, guts, bones, popping eyes, and sliced brains would look like if we try to beat someone to a pulp.
I bumped into some blog at Gamasutra.com that discusses how gross bodily parts can affect developers at some point. I then reflected, yeah maybe you are what you do, and when you spend lots of hours working the gore aspect of video games, there would be a point that it will grow on you. No, this is not to scare you because it's Halloween season, this is my own way of giving a heads up to people working on violent contents for videogames, not just for developers, but for artists, designers, and writers, we can toss in the testers as well.
Testaments from developers of huge games
Working on Halo 3's environment design, Vic DeLeon studied scientific, biological, and other gross objects to apply it on certain levels of the game. For instance, long tunnels were modelled after colonoscopy video references so he has to watch footages for hours and hours which gave him a gross feeling of being inside of something or someone. He says that he has high tolerance but even with that 'ability' he still gets hit with nausea. He also adds that the gross images keep popping on his head at random points, even when not working, like being haunted. The ultimate takeaway would be this, "...was working on that level for eight months! So for eight months, people had to step real careful around me." Goes to show, working on weird stuff alienates you.
When it comes to violence in video games, Mortal Kombat always comes up top. From the early 90's, these games have been spilling blood into your game screen. Steve Bowler, an animator for the said game, also has his weird experiences, well this is Mortal Kombat weird so should be normal for him by now. He spent hours animating the 'X-Ray' attacks for Mortal Kombat, which is by the way the most awesome feature in MK for me. Fortunately for him, they have this 'naked' guy model to throw punches at which helps him a lot to not really consider what he does as violent but rather just a study of impacts to the body, sort of an abstract rather than enjoying the feeling of beating up someone. For Bowler, when a gore scene on Mortal Kombat pops out, "people would see it and say 'Oh my god, that looks horrible.' But to the animator working on it, it was just an abstraction. Whereas the artist on that, he had to painstakingly model that intestine."
To close this article, let me share to you some testament from Mike Jungbluth who worked on Shadow of Mordor and Black Ops as an animator and artist. I was about to write some details but I think this quote wraps it up, "I pretty much just shut down emotionally, not really talking to coworkers or my wife." Details of all the testaments above can be found here. Here's a video collection of my personal favorite when it comes to game gore:
