Mental illness occupies a strange place in video games. After centuries of misdiagnosis and misinterpretation, we've begun to comprehend the reasons behind disorders and their prevalence in modern society. Recent research shows that roughly one in five American adults suffers from some form of mental health issue each year. When it comes to the media, though, these conditions are frequently misrepresented and misunderstood, and video games in particular lean on lazy stereotypes and tropes. Mental illness is used as a motivation for villainy, thrown in as an "interesting" game mechanic or mischaracterized as the sum and whole of a character's personality. There's a worryingly pervasive stigma surrounding mental conditions, and as one of our most dominant art forms, video games need to do a better job in portraying them.
Filed under: Gaming
Tags: DarkestDungeon, DepressionQuest, EternalDarkness, farcry3, Hellblade, mentalhealth, mentalillness, NinjaTheory, psychology, redhookstudios, seriousmentalillness, SMI, stigma, ubisoft, va
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