A Comparative Research Of Violence Aesthetics In Online Games Developed In China And U.S.

This research on this topic derived from a very contradictory situation facing the development of online games in China. On one hand as an important part of modern culture industry, online games in China has been developing rapidly, and made a very considerable economic benefit. But on the other hand the blame from the community, especially parents and educators, never stop. People hold a strong opinion that the reason of the rising number of teenage violence is right in online games, especially in the violent contents in online games.Dose the aesthetic of violence in old art exist in online games? Especially dose the online games have conditions supporting the so called ‘Violence Aesthetics’ ? If we found the trail of it in online game could it be used to neutralize the harm from violent contents? All those questions is start point of this research.In this study there are two kind of online games operated in the Chinese game market. One is the online game produced by Chinese game company and providing ‘Wu Xia’ as background story. The other is the online game produced out of China and targeting to the global game markets, especially by the company from U.S.. The violence contents in those two kinds have representativeness of game violence appeared in China.This study have two research lines.One is the study of ‘Violence Aesthetics’ and violent culture. First of all on this line, the study review all the researches about ‘Violence Aesthetics’, analyze and induce aesthetic background, the cultural reasons and the aesthetic value. Based on those researches this study dig the cultural history of violence in Chinese and North American. To find the similarities and differences of cultural tradition and violent aesthetics this research make comparisons from six directions: cultural history, opinion to violent aesthetics, opinion of aesthetics, art forms descripting violent, aesthetic tastes, pursuits of art forms. Studies above constitute the foundation of cultural study in this research.The other is about the researches of violent behavior and aesthetic characters in online games. At first, the study review researches about the relationship between art and game as well as their similar and different aesthetic characters. Second, presents the big different aspects between traditional game and digital game and give more attention to aesthetic behavior, characteristics and experience in online games. Then study and classify the violent behaviors in online games, compare the strategies for violence resolution used in Chinese and American online games. All studies above construct the foundation researching violent aesthetics and resolutions in online games.In the first time this research expose the characteristics of ‘violence aesthetics’ out of online games and show the differences in Chinese game and American games after 5 comparative studies. They are the comparison between the characteristic of freedom and the characteristic of competitive nature, the comparison between formalizing and documentary-style, the comparison between team work and single heroism, the comparison between romanticizing and jocosity, the comparison between morality and de-moralization.This study holds a basic opinion of that the violent contents in online games is art creation as well as the violence depicted in film and literature. At the same time the negative impact from violence contents should not be overlooked. The opinion and forms of violent aesthetics could do well to dissolve it.The conclusion of this research is that it is not all of the characteristics of ‘violence aesthetics’ from existing online games are suitable to clear up the harm of violence. When we need to use violence in online game the ‘justice’, ’morality’, ’team work’, ‘formalizing’ and ‘romanticizing’ aspects in violence should be reinforced. If violence show us too much of freedom participating and manipulating it should be controlled carefully. The competition appeared in online game should be kept and the way to depict violence realistically should be restrict. The conclusion show us that the single heroism and de-moralization are hard accepted by Chinese gamer but the jocosity.As the conclusion shows that the ‘violence aesthetics’ are not all-purpose to resolve the violent negative impact in online game. This research suggest that establishing a violence preventing system based on respecting the aesthetic value of violence is necessary.