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Most gamers were anticipating the media firestorm that would follow Bioshock’s release once the mainstream found out the player could kill the “Little Sisters” in the game. It is possible that the mainstream media is about to descend upon Rapture, as a newspaper has already decried the game’s violence.
The Boston Patriot-Ledger stated that Bioshock is “testing the limits of the ultraviolent gaming genre with a strategy that enables players to kill characters resembling young girls.” The newpaper describes the game by stating that “[a] strategy enables players to attack ‘‘Little Sisters,’’ characters who resemble young girls. The Little Sisters contain vast quantities of a life-enhancing serum that players can drain to make themselves stronger.”
2K Boston President Kenneth Levine defended the game and its vision. ‘‘As a piece of art, we want to deal with challenging moral issues and if you want to do that, you have to go to some dark places,’’ Levine said. ‘‘And ‘BioShock’ certainly does go to some dark places.’’
The article goes on to debate the effect of game violence in the real world, with a psychology professor claiming that various studies of youths under 12 “who played violent video games had lower feelings of empathy and stronger ‘‘pro-violence attitudes.’’
More on this as it develops.