The Color of Corruption - How Purple Is Used in Video Games

colors are massively important how video games communicate information to players there used as signals that let people know what to expect from something by just glancing at it and as games have grown as medium they have developed a sort of color language that almost anyone who plays them regularly is familiar with like green in red are typically used to show a character's health commonly with green bean for when a character hasn't taken much damage in red for when they're close to death yellow and white are often tied to navigation whether that be through waypoints or directional markings in a level itself and blue is almost always used for magic these colors weren't just chosen at random they're based off of cultural associations and how colors occur in the natural world so with health bars green is the color of grass plants and leaves when they're in season and red is the color of blood both are physical representations of various states of health for navigation white and yellow are the colors of stars in the night sky and lights in the distance both things that have guided travellers for thousands of years and for magic blue is the color of the ocean and sky it's the color of focus and tranquility so while I personally don't know what real magic looks like it makes sense that its color would be tied to nature and control whether it be for things on a menu or environments themselves specific color palettes are used to get us to think a certain way based on our prior experiences and understanding of colors in the connection between how colors exist in the real world and videogames is generally easy to see and then there's purple purple isn't all that common in nature it's a color that for a long time was reserved only for those wealthy and royal enough to afford it and that has become its most common Association but in games it's different in games is the color of tainted water and air it's the color of forbidden and real magic it's the color of being taken over by a malevolent force it's the color of something spreading that must who stopped in games it's the color of corruption [Music] until recently I never really thought about this connection but once I did I couldn't stop seeing examples of it from the pools of malice trying to spread across the countryside of Hyrule and breadth of the wild to the poisoned ponds that have overtaken me when an Ori in the will of the wisp to the fully sprouted weeds littered throughout my island in animal crossing new horizons purple in its various shades often are used to represent that which threatens to take over the natural world it's a creeping danger that the hero can't ignore it's used to depict poison and things related to it which can be seen in the colour palettes of poison-type pokémon in the metre that quickly fills up as you trudge through blight town in Dark Souls it signifies danger it's something not to be trifled with a lot of villains especially those who were once good but have shifted due to some power outside of their control have some element of purple in their appearance this also goes for characters who while not explicitly evil are versions of the heroes like Wario and Waluigi as well as Hilda and Ravi Oh from a link between worlds it is an unnatural force challenging every aspect of the world we know it's magic that is mysterious and dark like shadow magic and World of Warcraft and even the nether portals in Minecraft and the question I keep coming back to is why purple massive purple blobs don't cover dying forests poisons aren't easily identifiable by their purple hue and almost none of my enemies were purple on a regular basis so again why purple and like most complicated questions the answer is a lot of stuff probably most of the things that purple ends up representing in games don't exist in the real world so when adding these elements developers are faced with the tough task of figuring out how these things should look well sometimes it may be as simple as them just liking the color purple generally I think there's far more to it than that the easiest connection to make between the color itself and the idea of corruption comes from its ties with royalty purple became associated with the ruling class because they were the only ones who were really able to afford it the process of making purple dye involves harvesting a certain type of sea snail and in order to produce even just a tiny bit of it it took extracting liquid from thousands and thousands of them this led to it becoming a luxury of great expense that those wealthy enough to purchase would use to flaunt their status it isn't exactly a secret that monarchs throughout the ages have used their positions to further benefit themselves often at the expense of their subjects so using purple to symbolize villains especially those who have been corrupted by power makes a lot of sense it's a way to show that their humanity has faded in their pursuit of self-interest on a similar note - given that one of the most common villain tropes is wanting to take over the world it's no surprise that villains seeking to insert themselves into a position of power would incorporate purple into their wardrobe they want to show their status they want to be respected as a leader taking it one step further using purple to show the negative effects on the world brought on by those seeking power helps highlight the danger they pose another potential reason for Purple's common use in this way could be the fact that we aren't used to seeing it all that often in nature our associations with lush forests rolling hills vast deserts and most other typical videogame terrains aren't purple centric so it stands out when it shows up and has the distinct sense of not belonging this goes hand-in-hand with how many poisonous animals in nature have bright and vivid coloring as a way to warn off potential predators while purple is not the only color found in poisonous critters given that many other colors already have set associations and games is possible that a lot of developers especially back in the early days when there were more limitations on color palettes went with purple in order to not mix up too many signals furthermore well most actual poisons are colorless a few of the more historically famous ones like aconite and Mandrake come from plants with purple leaves so the use of purple as a way to signal to players that there is danger makes a lot of sense beyond all of that there are also a handful of reasons tied to color theory in real life most of us would associate black with things like rot darkness and evil but black is a difficult color to work with it's hard to shade in contour and this can lead to it appearing pretty flat when used in animation however a purple is far easier to shade and can still have a pretty dark look so it is often used as a stand-in for black as well as an accent color for it this trend became pretty popular in early animation some of the most notable examples coming from Disney with the Evil Queen and Snow White and malefic in Sleeping Beauty as animation is a massive part of videogames they have obviously taken cues from animated films and shows and these sorts of color choices are no exception from a more symbolic standpoint purple is the combination of red and blue to the most commonly used opposing colors with blue typically taking the role of the hero and red being the danger they face so purple is almost a sort of middle ground it has the feeling of transition and when considering the use of purple for characters who are once good but have slipped in some way to the side of Darkness purple as a transformational color feels fitting it's a state of uncertainty similarly while purple is used to represent darkness it isn't sheer black there is still light in there somewhere which means there is still hope of restoration whether it be for a plague countryside or a hero who lost their way purple works so well as the colour of corruption because it gives off a feeling of being able to be fixed the association's we make with colours are weird and fascinating and it's incredible to think that video games have influenced so many people's personal associations with them I think both video games and animation deserve a lot of credit for how they play with our understanding of colors purple has been defined for centuries by its rarity but animators and game developers have taken that influence and shifted it in a major way they took a color that has been coveted for so long and made it abundant even more importantly they made that abundance threatening and now I can't see purple without thinking of the spreading threats of corruption and speaking of things that threaten our way of life don't you just hate cords for me they OHS get tangled and I've honestly lost track of the amount of times I've stood up while wearing wired headphones only to have them ripped off my head when I walk away from my computer luckily this video sponsor Raycom has a solution to that problem ray Khan makes high-quality wireless earbuds that sound is great as other premium brands but start at about half the price I am the type of person who likes to listen to stuff all the time so I've been using them constantly and aside from them sounding good they're also really comfortable to the point where I often forget that I'm even wearing them I've also never had them fall out of my ear which makes them great for exercising and whatnot if you do that sort of thing their latest model the everyday e25 earbuds are awesome they have six hours of playtime seamless bluetooth pairing tons of bass a more compact design that gives a nice noise isolating fit and they also come in new fun colors and if you click the link in the description you can get 15% off your order ultimately break on mix great earbuds and I've used mine literally every day since I've gotten them so if you're in the market for an awesome pair of earbuds you should check them out anyway thanks again to recon for sponsoring this video with that I just wanted to say thank you for watching as always I appreciate you all so much and I hope you have a great day and or night and I'll see you in the next one [Music]

Channel: Razbuten

Views: 1,020,367

Rating: 4.9599457 out of 5

Keywords: purple, The Color of Corruption, corruption, raz, razbuten, breath of the wild, ori and the will of the wisps, ori and the blind forest, celeste, mario, pokemon, animal crossing, video game language, video game literacy, color, color theory, game design, poison, evil, minecraft, disney, arcane, magic, redemption, what the color purple means in games, a link between worlds, zelda, color of corruption, how purple is used in video games, the history of purple

Id: L51xc6iqeaU

Length: 9min 58sec (598 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 29 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/wrackk]

This video's author is probably overthinking it. Purple is the complementary (opposite) color of very common greenish-yellow color. It just looks striking against generic grassy/natural backdrops.

You can easily communicate "corruption" using other colors, but they probably won't result in the same attention grabbing contrast. I think this is just artists latching onto any opportunity to make color palette more fancy.

[u/[deleted]]

[removed]

[u/RIP2UALL]

And not a single mention of terraria. Sad.