Reply To: Disabilities and mental health (problems)

[tachycardiaParticipant 862xp 5]

I’m mentally ill. Suffer from depression, generalised anxiety disorder and primarily obsessional ocd.

I don’t have a problem with games using mental illness as source material, either for their setting, or for actual game mechanics.

I do believe though, as with any other form of entertainment, games developers have an obligation to deal with the subject matter sensitively and with intelligence. They should not lazily perpetuate negative stereotypes which stigmatize mental illness. Unless they do so ironically and this context is clear.

I also don’t have a problem with historical understandings and attitudes to mental illness being described in historical settings, as in the works of HP Lovecraft. Again, context is key.

As with any sensitive topic, my attitude is that creative’s should feel free to take it on, but there really is a lot of onus to execute really well if you choose to do so. If you lazily or cynically exploit your source material, and do potential damage to the people in real life who the issue affects, I will judge you harshly, and so will many others.