http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2013/11/tomb-raider-torture-porn-and-looking.html
From the creator of the classic CRPG series' Exile, Geneforge, and Avernum, and fresh off the newest installment in the Avadon series: One of the best things I've ever read about how absolutely fucked in the head gamers are.
I think he's looking at it wrong. This installment of Tomb Raider wasn't about "sex sells." It was about facing brutal challenges, and seeing how far the character is willing to go to survive. I fundamentally disagree with his assertion that it's supposed to be an Indiana Jones style game. It has much more in common with the survival horror genre than the kind of action pulp genre he's trying to squeeze it in to.
Unfortunately I think a lot of his criticisms are based on that fundamental misunderstanding of what the game is supposed to be. The older Tomb Raider games
are in that Indiana Jones problem-solving pulp-action-platformer-puzzler style. Nothing bad happens to Lara, because she's the hero. But in this game, she does get hurt. The people she cares about get hurt, and even die. She has to do horrible things just to survive. And it scars her for life (at least in theory).
That "squick" factor he's talking about - the way people are drawn to watching gruesome things happen to someone - is entirely normal. It's fun for the same reasons that riding roller coasters or watching scary movies is fun. It plays with your brain's fight or flight response in a controlled way. It causes an empathetic response, while simultaneously making you say "I'm glad that's not me." In a video game, it's even more interesting because you sympathize with the character a lot more than you do in, say, a movie. On a certain level, the terrible things happening to Lara
are happening to you, except there aren't any real consequences.
But yeah, he's at least kind of right about the game's target audience. It's certainly not for everyone (though I find his assessment of the kind of people who like the Saw movies rather insulting), and that's why the game wasn't considered a financial success.
