If it were that easy, phobias wouldn't exist. After all they are all just a fiction of mortal danger the subconscious produces, while the consciousness is perfectly aware, that this little spider (snake, dentist, ...) poses no threat.

True, but only the worst cases cannot even be near drawn/digital representations of their phobias.....and for them i'd worry more about solving or mitigating such than trying to play games.

Games could be a way of therapy. Sitting before a screen is a pretty safe space - you can always turn off, if it becomes too much. Various level of abstraction are available (pixel art, cartoonish, varying degrees of realism).
Also "defeating" the subject of the phobia (ie. killing spiders in games) could be a first step to "defeat" the phobia in real life.

The ones in video games are.

Most things in literature, cinema and games are fictional. Usually this doesn't significantly stand in the way of several forms of emotional investment. People are moved to laughter, sadness, empathy and, yes, fear by works of fiction. That is normal.

This thread is really old by now but maybe it can still help somebody:
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/the_spiderless_gaming_thread_for_arachnophobes/page1

Nope. That would warp their perception of spiders and convince them spiders are the most bloodthirsty predators in the universe. Most of Call Of Juarez is a straightforward western shooter. Then you reach a cave where for some kooky, unexplained reason, dozens of tarantulas will spot you from several meters and stalk you tirelessly for tens of meters. You can run but you cannot hide: they just know where you are. Not only will they run, they will jump in order to bite you. 25-cm long spiders do not, in my experience, jump.

Then you have the nimble spiders from Dark Messiah Of Might & Magic, who eat Jack Russell terriers for breakfast, do the usual track-and-field performance, and, charmingly, cling to your face, occupying the whole screen for a couple of seconds (not unlike one the earlier Alien games). An arachnophobic's nightmare. Actually, those are completely harmless and flee from you, so they might be useful for exposure therapy.

I kind of agree and kind of disagree. The false representation of spiders is bad, but thanks to games I have managed to overcome my real life phobia of Mother Brains, Dark Jedi, Robot Hitlers, and hammer throwing turtles.

True, but these are predictable: Robot Hitler with a minigun? Sounds like a good match. Hammer-throwing turtle? I've seen a game where birds will throw their own eggs at you. But a giant, jumping spider? Overkill.

As for your phobia of Mother Brains, I can help you to rekindle it

First of all, the company owes its name to the founder's spider pet.


I remember a mod for System Shock 2 whose description goes like this: "I have now set the spiders to be destroyed as soon as they are created. As a safeguard I've also set them to be invisible, completly silent, slower then your avarge dead slug, have one (1) hitpoint, have weapons that make no damage AND they are on the Good team so any other AI's around will slay them! That enough for ya?"

Funny thing is, I don't remember spidery things in vanilla SS2...

Cough Quote:
You'll be fighting a lot of Arachnids in System Shock 2, whether you like it or not.

The Infant version is the weakest of the three, as it has a rather low amount of Hit Points and only does modest amounts of damage. However, a bite will lightly poison you, doing significantly more damage over time.

The Adult spiders are much tougher, with six times as many Hit Points, do much more Toxic damage, and you will find them roaming the Von Braun in much greater frequency. In addition, they're quite fond of ambushing you, especially on the Operations Deck.

Invisible Arachnids aren't significantly tougher to deal with than the Adult versions, as they have the same number of Hit Points, the same Toxic damage potential, and attack with the same swarming and leaping behavior.
They like to hide in the dark corners of the Rickenbacker where they are first encountered.

https://shodan.fandom.com/wiki/Adult_Arachnid
https://shodan.fandom.com/wiki/Infant_Arachnid
https://shodan.fandom.com/wiki/Invisible_Arachnid

Indeed, and yet I played through the game, and still don't remember them, so they're obviously not that fearsome. ;)

Edit: browsing through the links you provided, there's A LOT that did not make a strong impression on me, so I guess I should go back to SS2 one of these days.

Fearsome? No.
Not for people not suffering from arachnophobia, anyway. ;)

This is all true and makes good points....I was just talking about those who cannot even LOOK at a drawn picture of their phobia without going into "shock" or similar....for those sorts of people it'd be best to tackle their fears through therapy/etc, imo.

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=============== +1 for this funny post.....made me chuckle quite a bit.