Domestic Abuse "game"; hit a girl for points.

[Coyote]

I'm posting this under the "Morality" part of "Science, Logic and Morality". In this case, I am filing it under questionable Morality.

Ohhh...kay, in the "I feel like I need a shower now" department, we have a 'game' from, I believe, Denmark, called "Hit the Bitch". Yes, that's right, Hit the Bitch, where you can control a hand with your mouse or webcam motion-capture to simulate smacking some girl who comes up and says something to you (in Danish; any Danes here willing to help with what is being said?) that may or may not be "back-talkin'" in the American vernacular.

So the object is to hit the girl who's face becomes more and more bruised and bloody with each *whack* until she falls to the ground sobbing as another (Danish) voiceover tells you what an asshole you are, and goes into some statistics about domestic violence in, I'm not sure, Denmark specifically or the EU in general.

Problematic is that it is presented as a "game", and you (the one doing the smacking around) are rated on whether you are hitting like a "Pussy" or a "Gangsta".

Is this really an effective way to get the message about domestic violence out? It seems too much of a "game" to be truly effective, as in "Oh, hell yeah, I really smacked her that time, lookit dat, I'm 75% Gangsta, man!" Does this make domestic abuse seem like a "fun challenge"?

I console myself with the knowledge that even a virtual abuse scenario with an actress was extremely difficult for me to do, psychologically speaking. I still feel scummy for participating.

[Knobbyboy88]

Uhhhhh....Yea....

I half expected that this might be some kind of cartoony "so bad its good" flash game from your description. It turns out that I was wrong...

I've got to say, however; this thing might actually be somewhat effective. Smacking a...real person...and seeing them react....

Yea...The less said about that the better. lol

[Mayabird]

It sounds like they're trying to have it both ways, being a "yeah, be an asshole!" game while still trying to claim that they're not assholes by tacking some stuff at the end. But then, that's just based on your description. I don't know Danish, and I'm not exactly inclined to 'play' the game either.

[Oskuro]

I couldn't stand it after the first slap and closed the game in disgust. I really hope their intentions were to bring attention towards the issue of dosmetic violence rather than tag that along to justify such a horrible game.

I mean, there was a flash game where you could slap or punch the face of your (cartoon) boss, and it was funny, or a flash fighting game where (anime) women fought by slapping each other senseless. Those were funny, this is horrible.

[Coyote]

Yeah-- for those not inclined to see it through, it's realistic. Your victim is a real actress, with increasing amounts of realistic makeup on her face after each virtual slap. It's not a cartoon character at all; it looks like you're really beating some poor woman.

[Ar-Adunakhor]

Terrible.

To begin with the entire underlying game is flawed, as there is no way to lose (or rather, win?) and your score can only increase. Secondly, motivation. I felt a little bad about abusing a girl for no real reason other than points to be honest. That and writing this review. I suppose if I could understand what she was saying it might have given more impetus to it, but in truth I saw no motivation to actually "Hit the Bitch" beyond going into it knowing that it's an anti-violence ad. And one of the most crippling failings was the load times. They were broken up into several sections so that you had to sit through multiple loading screens to get to the next part of slapping the girl. In a huge 3D blockbuster game that works your computer this is partially acceptable, but this is just some shitty flash with audio and video. Work on it, devs. If we ignore all that though and just look at the gameplay then we start getting into the real failings of the game itself.

There is only one move, a standard right-to-left slap. I suppose using a real actress is what brought this about, but if they were going to make a game out of it then you should really put in at least a backhand or punch. Maybe throw in some common beating implements like a beer bottle or belt or something for variety. I appreciate the fact that a real actress was used so you got the "feel" of abusing another human being however, and just think that the creators should have waited until they could have paid for more animations rather than sacrifice and make another shitty flash game. Next we move to scoring... there is no way to move your score downwards, so you will always be "100% Gangsta" at the end, no matter what you do. At least some show of making you be more "pussy" for waiting longer between slaps should have been put in. This is in addition to the fact that variable strength movements of the mouse have no effect on the results, so a soft tap equals a hard blow and a hard blow gets you the same number of points as a tap. If you are going to build a game around the concept then you should at least make it a game for crying out loud.

As far as A/V output goes I have to say I thought the actress was cute and the makeup work quite well done. She didn't overact her part as far as I could tell, but being as I don't speak danish I can't really make a full assessment of that. The slapping hand is misleading, as it seems to be curled for backhand use more than fronthand slapping but as already stated doesn't allow for that. The sound was easily the weakest link in the response and feel of the game, primarily due to the slap sound being a generic "WHACK!" rather than a more realistic slap which I feel would have added to the realistic sense the designers tried to be going for. Lastly, the music was appropriately gangsta for the first minute or two but the loop was far too short for the amount of time you spend there. This is directly applicable to the loading issue discussed previously.

Now, on to the meat of your question. I found it decidedly boring and a waste of bandwidth.

The only people who will be visiting and playing it are those who know what they are in for. I say this because it's not nearly good enough to hold the interest of anyone but a person in it specifically for the morality lesson at the end. Even those little flash ads that show up when your adblocker is off at least have a semblance of challenge (Hit the moving targets to win your PLAYSTATION!) rather than a boring one-way crawl with no visible way to lose. But what about sending a friend the link so they can play it you say? Your friend will close it after the first couple slaps and loading screens. I can't state it enough: shit is boring.

As to the general concept of using a game as a method to convey the evils of domestic abuse, I say it probably fails there too. Before playing that game I just finished disemboweling and consuming the thoughts and memories of a veritable leigon of foes in Prototype, a much better game all around. Doing so did not make me question the morality of slaughtering thousands, much as Hit the Bitch did not make me question the morality of hitting the girl. It instead makes me and pretty much everyone else I have discussed the matter of game-learning with question the mechanics/gameplay of the game itself rather than the underlying message. The only exception to this is when you go in already looking for a story or learning lesson such as in a RPG. The entire concept falls apart here because if you already know domestic abuse is wrong or are looking at this game to see the evils of domestic abuse... well, you have already gone much farther on your own than the message the game itself conveys.

In summary: Bad game, stupid implementation of the message, won't encourage or discourage violence because nobody will take it seriously anyway. Give me back the precious moments of my life.

Also, getting a scummy feeling from smacking around an actress in a game? Really?

[Akkleptos]

I was reading the opinions while I waited for the thing to load on another window and thought... "Mang... these people need to chill... it's just a flash animation with a professional actress..."

After a while, however, it got positively sickening.

But, hey, I got up to 99% percent gangsta! Is this the kind of mixed reaction the developers expect us to have? (Oh, and, by the way, that 99% was me moving the mouse pointer to change tabs... it's not like I really intended to hit the girl then). Is this what's expected? As you move the mouse to hit the Back icon or something, really quick, that's when the worst happens... I decided to just close the bloody tab!

There's a point at which fake violence is fun (FPSs, action movies, etc)... but not when it is this realistic, and especially not when it involves abusing someone in conditions of physical strength superiority. I found it utterly disgusting, and I can tell you, whoever can get derive fun out of this... thing... is seriously screwed up (technical psychological term ). Only a severe personality disorder would make a person enjoy this (or intensive desensitising and conditioning).

Of course, we don't know what the girl is saying, but from her body language and facial expression I can gather (if she's that good an actress) she's not saying anything especially offensive, but rather trying to discuss some issues with the bastard hitting her.

Again... Uhg!

Also, getting a scummy feeling from smacking around an actress in a game? Really?

I know, but it was a tad too realistic for my taste (especially with her being a real human, rather than a CG character), enough to quit the "game" without finishing.

[Ar-Adunakhor]

Also, getting a scummy feeling from smacking around an actress in a game? Really?

I know, but it was a tad too realistic for my taste (especially with her being a real human, rather than a CG character), enough to quit the "game" without finishing.

I will say that having just stopped playing a game that involved wanton slaughter of innocents in order to stay alive and beat the bosses might have desensitized me more than usual. Seems it's an approach issue in general that is giving us the differing views. As I said, I only get 'invested' in games like RPGs for the reasons I stated previously: It is only there that I go in looking for story or thought provoking actions more than solid gameplay. If there were some kind of storyline or motivation to smack her beyond filling your gangsta meter then we might have something that would allow for analysis of the underlying motivations. As it is? Not so much. Work on it devs?

[JLTucker]

I reached 100% gangsta and then "100% Idiot" is shown, followed by dialogue. I do not know if it is referring to those who hit women or the woman being hit in the game.

Edit: It seems Coyote went into this. I missed that in his post.

As others have said, it is too realistic. I wish I knew what exactly was being said.

[Gil Hamilton]

You guys seem to be missing the point of the exercise. You are supposed to be disgusted by it. The healthy response is to be disgusted by it, as the actress has increasing damage to her face and the game keeps having you hit her as she "backtalks" you. The limited amount of Danish I can read has this as a webpage made by an anti-domestic abuse campaign, with the message that "slappin' bitches" is not "gangsta", it only makes you a horrible person. Didn't you all get to the end? They lay it out there.

This wouldn't be effective if the victim was a cartoon character, because domestic violence happens to real people. Yeah, it turns your stomache, but the message of the game is that it should. You should feel painfully uncomfortable smacking a woman. I'm not sure how you all are missing that.

[Bounty]

I console myself with the knowledge that even a virtual abuse scenario with an actress was extremely difficult for me to do, psychologically speaking. I still feel scummy for participating.

In that case the 'game' worked perfectly. You went through the act of abusing someone for personal gratification (in the sense that you were scored 'positively' for it) and you feel sick and disgusted. I'd be worried if you actually came in here and said it was a good game. Or, good forbid, came in with crap like this:

There is only one move, a standard right-to-left slap. I suppose using a real actress is what brought this about, but if they were going to make a game out of it then you should really put in at least a backhand or punch. Maybe throw in some common beating implements like a beer bottle or belt or something for variety. I appreciate the fact that a real actress was used so you got the "feel" of abusing another human being however, and just think that the creators should have waited until they could have paid for more animations rather than sacrifice and make another shitty flash game. Next we move to scoring... there is no way to move your score downwards, so you will always be "100% Gangsta" at the end, no matter what you do. At least some show of making you be more "pussy" for waiting longer between slaps should have been put in. This is in addition to the fact that variable strength movements of the mouse have no effect on the results, so a soft tap equals a hard blow and a hard blow gets you the same number of points as a tap. If you are going to build a game around the concept then you should at least make it a game for crying out loud.

Which would mark you as a total douche and a failure of the human race.

[Dooey Jo]

Ohhh...kay, in the "I feel like I need a shower now" department, we have a 'game' from, I believe, Denmark, called "Hit the Bitch". Yes, that's right, Hit the Bitch, where you can control a hand with your mouse or webcam motion-capture to simulate smacking some girl who comes up and says something to you (in Danish; any Danes here willing to help with what is being said?) that may or may not be "back-talkin'" in the American vernacular.

While Danish is largely impossible to understand, she says stuff like "The only thing smaller than your dick is your IQ", "I can dance with whomever I want", "Is that all you've got?", "Do you feel strong now?", and "If you really loved me you would let me listen to whatever I want" (I think), so yeah. I can't say what they say at the end because I think I broke it at 97% and I don't really want to play it through again. Oh wait, I can just turn the sound off, silly me. Hold on... Okay. When she comes in at the start she says she's had a really good time with you tonight, that she danced with someone, and that she can dance with whomever she wants. At the end the guy says "You idiot, it's not gangsta to hit women. There is no excuse to use violence, ever! Get help before it's too late", or something to that general effect.

Is this really an effective way to get the message about domestic violence out? It seems too much of a "game" to be truly effective, as in "Oh, hell yeah, I really smacked her that time, lookit dat, I'm 75% Gangsta, man!" Does this make domestic abuse seem like a "fun challenge"?

Well maybe, except there's no fun and no challenge in this game, if you can call it that. It appeared you got higher scores if you moved the mouse faster though, so I tried to do that just to get it over with quickly...

[FSTargetDrone]

Yes, it's distasteful to say the least, but I'm concerned about anyone who actually needs this game to tell him it's wrong to hit a woman like this. If he doesn't already know this, if he has to learn it from a game, well, he may have issues in general.

[Patrick Degan]

I can see this game being very popular with sadists and having precisely the opposite effect of what the nominal purpose is supposed to be.

[Bellator]

I didn't feel bad playing this game. Is there something wrong with me?

[Dooey Jo]

Probably not, if you just saw it as an interactive computer thing, rather than actually beating the crap out of someone you supposedly care about.

[SecondStorm]

Dooey_Jo got it mostly right. The male voice at the start of the game says to the player:
"What is wrong with you ? You cant control the bitch, a beating is sure to help".

During the game, the girl does talk back but its made very clear at the end of the game that it is not ok to hit people.
"100% gangsta"
"100% idiot"

When the game ends, there are links to various anti-domestic violence websites and facebook groups.
Also, the target audience is teenagers in high school and apparently 2 girls in each classroom is a victim of domestic violence. Pretty disturbing.

[Eleas]

Update: Site is overloaded. You can still see the video of the game on Youtube, though.

Dear non-danish visitor,

Due to an extremely high amount of traffic "Hit the Bitch" has been limited to only allow users from Denmark.

However, domestic violence is a global problem, so please support the fight against it in your local country.

Thanks for your interest.

Kind regards
Children exposed to Violence at Home

After looking at that, I can't think the game is anything less than a completely justified and calculated statement; I was creeped out just by looking at it, and can't imagine how it would feel to actually "play". That may be a no-brainer, but around the forums I'm picking up a lot of anger (not to mention forced flippancy) that seems to stem from the game crossing the lines of acceptable behaviour.

And of course that's the whole point. It should be a nasty shock. It should make light of a horrible thing, encourage you to act the part of a scum because it's "gangsta", because you earn points, because "she just won't listen", and because it's 'just a game'... and then show you where that mindset takes you.

I can't tell how many people would play that to the finish and not be bothered. I'd submit they might be too far gone even for something like this to reach them.

EDIT: Clarified and expanded my statement.

[Eleas]

Hasty backpedal time: The last part was a visceral reaction, and I did not mean to act as thought police for Bellator. What I should have said is, I can't myself see how a person could play this game for fun, and that most who find no problem with it, well, are themselves the problem.

If you approached it as just a make-believe recording made for purposes of sarcasm or whatever, your reaction should obviously be different from the intended one.

[Dooey Jo]

It's actually still possible to play it, if you go directly to the Flash file, which is called "main.swf". Although I see that the Youtube video has a link there, so that particular loophole might soon be closed...

[Bellator]

Hasty backpedal time: The last part was a visceral reaction, and I did not mean to act as thought police for Bellator. What I should have said is, I can't myself see how a person could play this game for fun, and that most who find no problem with it, well, are themselves the problem.

Don't feel bad.

My reaction towards this game was the same as having sex with a hooker in GTA4 and killing her afterwards to get your money back. I didn't see the girl in the game as a real person. Two decades of playing violent video games, plus a few years of watching MMA, might have desentized me more than I thought.

Disclaimer: I haven't physically hurt a person since I was 12 years old and got in a fight with the boy next door.

[AniThyng]

It's interesting to contrast the reactions in this topic with the reactions in http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 4&t=138895 (games promote war crimes). Why is casual visceral violence against increasingly realistic NPCs still held to a vastly different moral standard than this? Despite using a real actress with makeup, it's still basically a simulation.

[pieman3141]

Don't know about you, but I accidentally moved the mouse when I first saw this game, and the woman "recoiled." There was this huge shock of disgust-"HOLYFUCKWHATTHEHELL???"-horror that went through me. That shit ended quick.

[Knobbyboy88]

Why is casual visceral violence against increasingly realistic NPCs still held to a vastly different moral standard than this? Despite using a real actress with makeup, it's still basically a simulation.

As far as I'm concerned, it is the principle of the thing.

Smacking the living Hell out of a random defenseless woman who is guilty of nothing more than maybe being a bit mouthy vs. AMERICA! FUCK YEA! Let's kill us some Nazis/ Space Aliens/ Terrorists!

Where "war crimes" in games are concerned, however; I still find that to be rather detestable depending on the context. I rarely even play on the "Dark Side" in KOTOR for Christ's sake.

[Knobbyboy88]

GHETTO EDIT:

I've got to honestly admit to being something of a hypocrite here, however. My play style in Rome and Medieval Total War generally tends to fall somewhere between "genocidal African Warlord" and "spawn of Hitler."

When your army rolls into an enemy city with a population of roughly 150,000, and by the time you leave, only about 450 people are left due to your brutal counter-insurgency tactics, you pretty much KNOW that you are pure evil.

Although, I'd have to think that this has more to do with the impersonal nature of simply clicking on the "exterminate city" button when you're trying to juggle the concerns of a whole campaign than it does with anything else.

"OH NO! I just put down like my third rebellion in this city, its rebelling again, and there's a full stack army of Gauls not two turns away! FUCK THIS SHIT, BURN YOU LITTLE MOTHER FUCKERS!"