When asked to list movies, TV shows or even songs that deal with the issue of drugs in mature and complex ways, we might be able to list a few just off the top of our heads. So why are video games taking so long to catch up with other mediums? Yes, you can go to any store and find games that contain drugs – they’ll usually even warn you about drug-related content right on the back of the box – but there are very few games that actually bother to deal with drugs in interesting ways.
Take the Grand Theft Auto franchise for example, this is a series that cuts its teeth on causing controversy and going against the grain, but they mainly employ drugs as a sort of set dressing; they aren’t treated with any real thought. Drugs are used as a way of reminding the audience that this is a game about criminals – edgy criminals who engage in edgy criminal-like activities. You often get this same issue with games set in a vaguely old-world period too, where designers place opiates here or there, – complete with quaint little labels or advertisements – but few of these games actually address issues like addiction or dependence.
The bone I want to pick with the games industry is not that their depiction of drugs is consequence-free, but rather that it isn’t well rounded. For example, when drugs appear in the Hitman series they’re usually in the hands of an addict, and that addict is usually your target. Their addiction is seen as something for you to exploit – allowing you to sit back and watch the target stupidly fall for your cunning tricks. This approach to drug users and drug culture is so laughably one dimensional that it really just comes across as bad writing – and there’s no excuse for bad writing in such big budget games. Yet still, we have games like Far Cry 3 where psychedelic drugs are used as a convenient excuse for the writer to crowbar in an indulgent, surreal drug-tripping sequence. In these cases it seems like the choice between psychedelic trip and dream sequence was really just arbitrary, as if one just seemed vaguely and undefinably “cooler” than the other.
There are games where more than a moment of thought appears to have been given to using drugs as a narrative device. Jazzpunk comes to mind; a surreal and comic game set in a world where drugs have advanced alongside other technologies, allowing you to go on entire “missions” by taking various psychedelics. In this game – drugs aren’t just props or gimmicks, they add to the game-world in richer ways. Another honourable mention in the field of “drugs as mechanics” goes to The Binding of Isaac; a simple, almost arcade-like game where you play as a child – fighting monsters and picking up items in a hellish world inside your own imagination. In the game you are able to pick up and take pills, with multiple pills being spawned when you pick up the “mom’s coin purse” item. You do not know what the effects will be before taking them and you have a fairly even chance of getting negative or positive effect. The mechanic is effective at situating the player in the position of a clueless and naive but curious child. The process of finding pills, not knowing their effect, but being compelled by curiosity to try them anyway provides a more interesting commentary on drug culture than Far Cry 3 without saying a single word.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, these are both indie titles. I’m not personally biased towards indie games – I enjoy them alongside bigger releases and appreciate them both on their separate merits – but I do think they have a lot more room to manoeuvre when it comes to depicting adult subjects. “Triple A” titles like Grand Theft Auto, Hitman and Far Cry 3 are very much in the public eye – and the public can’t seem to let go of the idea that games are for children, even when it concerns the “adult” titles mentioned above. As such, mainstream games are to some extent expected to promote certain ideas and messages about drugs; their depictions of drug culture are essentially reduced to an extension of, or supplement to, the “just say no” campaigns we teach in school. However, indie games are not held accountable to the same standards – and they becoming a fascinating platform for new narratives about mature subject like sex, gender, mental health and yes – drugs.
Anna Turner
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