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Popular Thug Drink posted:There's something magical about a bunch of people getting upset about nepotism in hobbyist journalism and describing a private mailing list as "cronyist groupthink". It's almost like they are extremely unfamiliar with how humans interact in society or something. Why, it's even as if advancement in some insular industries rely on recommendations and personal relationships instead of ability to score on a standardized test! People not allowed in the country club want to join them. punakone posted:Taking a step sideways, Im interested in the demographics of this, what proportion of people on both side are American? Everyone except Milo and Total Biscuit
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Jul 2, 2015 09:10
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Really? Feels weird, though I guess general internet user demographics might have more to do with it at the root.
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Jul 2, 2015 09:13
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punakone posted:Really? Feels weird, though I guess general internet user demographics might have more to do with it at the root. To be fair I don't actually know that for sure I just can't really think of anybody on either side other than those two who aren't American. I have seen feminist articles about nerd poo poo during GG but they weren't about GG, like the one where the Swedish artist was "cleaning up" sexualized characters to be more modest which elicited a grumbling thread on 8chan but no action as far as I noticed. Japan doesn't give a poo poo and Scandinavia is already on board with anything GG would call SJW. Edit: oh wait theres that Varva guy whos making that game about Poland who lives in Poland Uncle Wemus fucked around with this message at 09:23 on Jul 2, 2015 |
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Jul 2, 2015 09:17
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I think this video sums up the entire situation pretty well, regardless of perspective. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHgW2z61_9k
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Jul 2, 2015 09:22
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Uncle Wemus posted:To be fair I don't actually know that for sure I just can't really think of anybody on either side other than those two who aren't American. I have seen feminist articles about nerd poo poo during GG but they weren't about GG, like the one where the Swedish artist was "cleaning up" sexualized characters to be more modest which elicited a grumbling thread on 8chan but no action as far as I noticed. Oh yeah, I remember that swedish artist, they were cool but some seemed pretty weird if I remember right. As a scandinavian I do have to disagree, I feel we are just as split on the issue somewhat, its just that the more vocal people are, I think.
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Jul 2, 2015 09:25
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The Droid posted:I think this video sums up the entire situation pretty well, regardless of perspective. For the love of God, Montresor!
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Jul 2, 2015 09:26
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punakone posted:Taking a step sideways, Im interested in the demographics of this, what proportion of people on both side are American? Aside from those already mentioned, you have the Vanishing of Ethan Carter guy(Adrian Chmielarz) who's Polish. Sargon of loving Akkad is British. That's all the non Americans I can think of in this mess. They're on the pro side. Archer666 fucked around with this message at 09:53 on Jul 2, 2015 |
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Jul 2, 2015 09:29
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punakone posted:Taking a step sideways, Im interested in the demographics of this, what proportion of people on both side are American? America is the largest anglophone country. American's (and Canadians) also have the problem of not understanding that their country's experience with social issues and view of social issues doesn't neatly apply to the rest of the world.
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Jul 2, 2015 09:43
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Scandygoon here, though I hesitate to call myself on a 'side' in this. But if I were forced to at gunpoint I would probably say a-gg, probably due to the total and smothering domination of cultural marxism in my homeland, the horror. You should see comment fields on websites over here, full to the brim with rainbow-haired demiplatonic gynosexuals discussing the best use of organs harvested from males. In fact, I am posting this from a feminist re-education camp. One thing that frustrates me and that repeatedly comes up here is the total unwillingness to accept that nuance exists and that you can, in fact, express the desire to see more diversity in games without wanting to censor games, take away games, hate gamers, kill gamers, ban developers, kill developers, don't thank mr. skeltal, hail satan, or any combination thereof. I play games that some agg dinguses would probably call me a hateful misogynist freak for playing, but who cares about them, you have idiots on either fringe anyway. But when you do mention that more diversity would be nice, there's usually a chorus of "But that's censorship!" It doesn't do the pro-gg people in this thread (if that is what they indeed are instead of just being sympathetic) any favors to complete ignore the repeated assertions that no one except idiots want "problematic" games to be destroyed. And no, I don't think that urging developers to include more diversity in their games is the same as censoring them; it is like insisting that petitioning MacDonald's to include a new food item on their menu is an attempt to censor Big Mac. I can see how you would think so if you were very defensive about vidya and chose to take the least charitable view of games criticism possible, picking out the most egregiously stupid voices from agg and held them as the standard. It's as ridiculous as claiming that GG is purely motivated by a reactionary dislike of progressivism, which is obviously and immediately dispelled the second you view the relevant organizing boards on Reddit, 4chan, and 8chan. murphyslaw fucked around with this message at 10:06 on Jul 2, 2015 |
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Jul 2, 2015 10:03
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Finngoon: AGG at least admit there are problems outside of SJWs. Of course they're liberals, so they are The Problem.
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Jul 2, 2015 10:23
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:Finngoon: AGG at least admit there are problems outside of SJWs. Of course they're liberals, so they are The Problem. And who would say otherwise? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u52Oz-54VYw
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Jul 2, 2015 10:28
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punakone posted:Taking a step sideways, Im interested in the demographics of this, what proportion of people on both side are American? Almost everyone related to video games in any way is a upper-middle class white person living in California.
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Jul 2, 2015 10:32
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The Droid posted:And who would say otherwise? Pro-click. I'm pretty sure some idiot was talking about how bad Malcolm X was in this very thread. Effectronica posted:That is, the ideal woman gamer is one who is not part of "outrage culture", that is, she is emotionally dead inside, unable to feel anger or happiness or sadness. Her face is a mask, unmoving. She's practically a zombie. A consumer. The rest of your post was very creepy though (and sadly probably accurate for some people).
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Jul 2, 2015 10:42
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Just a drive by comment I wanted to make as a friend's sister has started getting death threats for tweeting that fallout shelter made her slightly uncomfortable: GamerGate is scum and everyone who is part of it should be loving ashamed.
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Jul 2, 2015 10:48
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Gamergate did 9/11 (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jul 2, 2015 10:51
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I like how the gamergaters constantly accuse the other side of "identity politics". Never before has it been more clear to me how strongly people react to having their identity threatened than in observing the violent and panicked backlash to the narcissistic slight that was "Gamers are dead".Bug Squash posted:Just a drive by comment I wanted to make as a friend's sister has started getting death threats for tweeting that fallout shelter made her slightly uncomfortable: Cingulate fucked around with this message at 11:00 on Jul 2, 2015 |
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Jul 2, 2015 10:53
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Dapper Dan posted:But that wasn't the reaction? The reaction to the term was instantly negative. Nobody waited for it to shake out. Moviebob even said something along the lines of: 'you don't use apartheid in your robot punching game'. There was a backlash against it and people didn't think it should be used at all. It's completely valid to think that 'apartheid' is too toxic to use in a game, and to not trust that Deus Ex is going to treat it seriously enough--or that any game is. I categorized my reaction, not other people's reactions. quote:EDIT: I'm not 'surprised'. The reaction wasn't 'burn him'. I don't get why you need to relentlessly descend to hyperbole. The contention was that someone would lose their job--did he lose his job? Did he have his life ruined? Adventure Pigeon posted:You're getting pretty insulting at this point when I've been nothing but civil. For someone who claims to be an expert on persuading people, I'd hope you'd at least know the importance of reciprocating courtesy. Further, you'd have to be willfully ignorant not to see that the tendency towards outrage might discourage people from doing anything socially innovative. What I've done is offer an explanation other than "they're racist as hell" for why major developers have not introduced more black main characters, when many of their customers are black. If you're trying to ignore anything that doesn't fit your narrative, then perhaps you'd be happier somewhere else. You haven't, apparently, read my posts about persuading people. And no, I'm perfectly happy here. I'm pointing out your explanation does not actually fit the facts. If you can't handle that criticism, that is really not my fault. My explanation is also not 'they're racist as hell'--again, the hyperbole isn't helpful in the least. I completely agree that one of the problems may be that the studios feel incapable of writing a minority character without accidentally being racist, because they lack experience with it, because they have not enough minority representation on the staff, etc. That would be part of the problem, not something that is caused by those evil SJWs. Again: your contention is that there aren't black protagonists because the studios would really love to make them but they're scared of being raked over the coals by those mean SJWs, with the implication that there's dire consequences for that, that a tiny, trivial problem can be blown up and people can lose their jobs over it. The easy, facile counterargument to this is twofold: First, that when a black protagonist is in the game, that doesn't happen, and second, that the problem of lack of diversity far precedes gamergate. Talmonis posted:
To a lot of game nerds, it's not a lovely outfit, it's a welcome outfit that looks great. These outfits are in games to appeal to an audience, not just because the dev staff likes them. If game nerds even rose to the level of complaining to studios about the 'lovely outfits' in large numbers, they'd go away. But we can treat the group of nerds who do think of it as just a lovely outfit. quote:Then come the loudmouths. The inevitable self-righteous assholes of every movement on the Internet will invariably start poo poo with the latest tribal Other. "You're a misogynist/racist/MRA/Gamergater/Nazi/Republican, if you don't agree with us." Followed or preceded by "feminazi/SJW/puritan/etc." Okay, so what? There are people out there who will yell at me because I sometimes say 'hysterical' and say that it's a misogynistic word, or that I call people a wimp and that that's policing masculinity. There are people who think that me complimenting my wife's femininity is a bad thing. I don't give a poo poo about them. If you're a gamer who just is sitting around thinking "That outfit is a bit poo poo" and you read an article saying "Actually it is incredibly sexist and misogynistic and it should be removed", why on earth would that make you defensive about the outfit? Why would they only pay attention to the strident assholes, and not to the reasonably-written articles about how outfits like that are part of larger sexist culture--especially given that you've posited a nerd that thinks the outfit is poo poo? Why would they suddenly defend something they think is poo poo? quote:Quickly you have an entrenched group, convinced that you want to take every hint of sexuality or violence out of "their" games. Due to the assholes, not much actual conversation can take place between "sides". They're not the only people involved. There's also the much larger group of reasonable critics who aren't saying that anyone who disagrees with them is a nazi. Why not pay attention to those instead? quote:My question is, what do we do to fix this sort of thing? Rather obviously, I disagree that the precise dynamic you laid out is at work, and I think you're ignoring the very large population of nerds that are happy to have the cleavage, rather than thinking it's a poo poo outfit. CaptainFish posted:Because if they really are looking for ethical infractions, they'd have to assume journalists are going to commit them. No, they'd have to assume they might commit them. quote:I don't know how they feel about all journalists. I think they like Erik Kain, I don't know how they treat him. Okay, you seem to be missing the point: they are not attacking journalists due to actual ethical infractions. quote:I don't know why they think what they think. It mostly seems to be a misinterpretation of standard enthusiast press relationships with the people they cover, along with attributing consumer disdain to outlets that state opinions they disagree with (example: Arthur Gies says people not working at Maxis literally don't understand how much effort it would take to implement off-line play, they take this as an attack rather than a factual statement about the realities of game development). Okay, you don't know. that's fine. My main point is that they attack the indie press, the people actually treating games as a serious medium, far more than the 'product' press, the ones who just analyze games for their structure and features. It doesn't appear to be about ethics in journalism, it appears to be that they don't want a certain sort of journalistic criticism about games, and they assume, for some reason, when they see it that it indicates a corruption of ethics. Gianthogweed posted:Not sure if this has been linked yet, obdicut, but since you asked this was gamergate's attempt to address the ethical problems in games journalism. It's all there in all its boring glory if you really want to read through it. Being friends with devs doesn't prevent you from writing good journalism any more than being friends with a baseball player does. Their original assumption is bizarre. The examples are unconvincing. Their aim is to present 'factual' journalism, to avoid talking about larger issues raised by the games, which is, ironically, an intention to destroy journalism. As someone else said, this seems to just be ignorance about the way that human beings exist and are, but their preferred state of games journalism--'factual', 'objective'--isn't good journalism. That's product information sheets. This is treating games as though they're nothing more than a product, just a car to drive around in that has certain features, not something that has any emotional impact, any merit as art.
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Jul 2, 2015 10:56
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Obdicut posted:It's completely valid to think that 'apartheid' is too toxic to use in a game, and to not trust that Deus Ex is going to treat it seriously enough--or that any game is. I disagree. Personally, I believe everything should be fair game... in games. Games have tackled some pretty horrific stuff before, like wars and living in an Eastern bloc hell during the Cold War. Kojima's even going to tackle child soldiers and other cruel, twisted things. It's pushing boundaries. And if they fall short, then maybe a more talented person will come along and make something better with the subject. We never should shy away from exploring the less pleasant side of the world.
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Jul 2, 2015 11:17
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Eagerly awaiting the tasteful depiction of cyberholocaust in Deus Ex: The Trail of Tears
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Jul 2, 2015 11:20
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Archer666 posted:I disagree. Personally, I believe everything should be fair game... in games. Games have tackled some pretty horrific stuff before, like wars and living in an Eastern bloc hell during the Cold War. Kojima's even going to tackle child soldiers and other cruel, twisted things. It's pushing boundaries. And if they fall short, then maybe a more talented person will come along and make something better with the subject. We never should shy away from exploring the less pleasant side of the world. A sim game where you try to build a profitable child rape ring? A rape simulator? (Okay, I guess there are a bunch of these already.) A game where you try to psychologically bully a boy with the goal of making him commit suicide? And I guess this one's a classic, a concentration camp simulator? And now, the question is not, should these be legal or not. But: should we "shy away" from any of these, as a personal decision?
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Jul 2, 2015 11:22
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Archer666 posted:I disagree. Personally, I believe everything should be fair game... in games. Games have tackled some pretty horrific stuff before, like wars and living in an Eastern bloc hell during the Cold War. Kojima's even going to tackle child soldiers and other cruel, twisted things. It's pushing boundaries. And if they fall short, then maybe a more talented person will come along and make something better with the subject. We never should shy away from exploring the less pleasant side of the world. The people objecting don't think they're actually exploring it, they think they're using it to generate controversy and make money off of it. I think that games can explore serious subjects. Ironically, the GGers in that 'deepfreeze' manifesto don't seem to agree, they want games to be evaluated only 'factually' and 'objectively', which is impossible to do with any medium that's pushing boundaries.
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Jul 2, 2015 11:29
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Obdicut posted:The people objecting don't think they're actually exploring it, they think they're using it to generate controversy and make money off of it vvv whelp vvv Cingulate fucked around with this message at 11:46 on Jul 2, 2015 |
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Jul 2, 2015 11:36
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Obdicut posted:The people objecting don't think they're actually exploring it, they think they're using it to generate controversy and make money off of it. I think that games can explore serious subjects. Ironically, the GGers in that 'deepfreeze' manifesto don't seem to agree, they want games to be evaluated only 'factually' and 'objectively', which is impossible to do with any medium that's pushing boundaries. Here is the creative director himself discussing his inspiration from his own life experience. He also discusses the whitewashing that happens during these conversations where everyone who might be doing something "offensive" is assumed to be white. That's something that's happened in this very thread, particularly in regards to the #notyourshield hashtag. https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/3a2fbv/sjws_are_upset_about_deus_ex_human_revolution/cs9d67r
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Jul 2, 2015 11:44
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Cingulate posted:Okay, let's just see where this takes us. Why not? If you have the mental fortitude to make these things and can actually wrap something meaningful around them (Making it about atrocities of (post)war, extreme poverty, a message against the "Bullying makes you a man" idiots), then yeah. Its possible to explore horrific issues without being in favor of them. Obdicut posted:The people objecting don't think they're actually exploring it, they think they're using it to generate controversy and make money off of it. I think that games can explore serious subjects. Ironically, the GGers in that 'deepfreeze' manifesto don't seem to agree, they want games to be evaluated only 'factually' and 'objectively', which is impossible to do with any medium that's pushing boundaries. Previous Deus Ex games were about the divide between poor and rich, metal and flesh. This one is trying to explore a different kind of divide between people. While I understand the cynicism of "Oh they're using that word just to make waves and get money", I'm personally more optimistic and am hoping they'll handle the subject with care. Also, did those objecting the issue read what one of the people working on the game wrote about this issue? What did they think of it?
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Jul 2, 2015 11:45
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Archer666 posted:Why not? If you have the mental fortitude to make these things and can actually wrap something meaningful around them (Making it about atrocities of (post)war, extreme poverty, a message against the "Bullying makes you a man" idiots), then yeah. Its possible to explore horrific issues without being in favor of them.
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Jul 2, 2015 11:48
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Cingulate posted:Do you think we are insufficiently spreading the message that child sex abuse rings are bad? Do you think there is any ambiguity here? Personally, I think we're okay on that front. But apparently, the hypothetical person you invented who made Sim ChildRape disagrees.
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Jul 2, 2015 11:52
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Cingulate posted:Do you think we are insufficiently spreading the message that child sex abuse rings are bad? Do you think there is any ambiguity here? I'm not sure it would work for this particular example, but managing morally bankrupt institutions in games is a great way to make a political statement. There's no ambiguity in how heinous the American prison-industrial complex is but I think Prison Architect has a much better chance of showing undecided or uneducated people while private prisons are awful than more traditional media like Orange is the New Black.
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Jul 2, 2015 11:53
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Archer666 posted:Also, did those objecting the issue read what one of the people working on the game wrote about this issue? What did they think of it? I appreciate what he had to say, but AAA development is very limiting to the personal expression of one person, so you have "mechanical apartheid" trademarked, which seems pretty bizarre and rather comical. Also cyborgs presented as persecuted minority in itself (instead of an additional layer of exploitation over class, like in Human Revolution) is weak.
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Jul 2, 2015 11:54
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Cingulate posted:Is that in any way realistic? Is it not much more likely that this one can be attributed to stupidity rather than malice - (game) engineers being a bit out of touch and tone deaf? Sorry, I should have said that some people think that they're using it to generate controversy, others think they're just in a kind of dev bubble and don't think about how it will be perceived outside it. Archer666 posted:Previous Deus Ex games were about the divide between poor and rich, metal and flesh. This one is trying to explore a different kind of divide between people. While I understand the cynicism of "Oh they're using that word just to make waves and get money", I'm personally more optimistic and am hoping they'll handle the subject with care. Those objecting probably didn't do any one thing, since they're different people. As I said, I had the 'what the gently caress' moment, I read the explanation, I went 'eh', and I'm waiting to see how they deal with it. My main feeling is even if they do deal well with it, there wasn't any reason for them to call it 'mechanical apartheid', it would have, if a true exploration of apartheid, arisen from people playing the game. That they trademarked the phrase is a little weird on top of that. To put it another way, I'd like to be able to judge myself what the system they've created in the game is, if they start out by calling it 'mechanical apartheid' then they're forcing me into a specific way of thinking about the system they've created. That they particularly used 'apartheid' rather than 'segregation' is also weird, since apartheid is a very particular term for a very particular thing that occurred in South Africa. We do not, generally, call the segregation that occurred in the US 'apartheid', because there are salient distinctions between it and apartheid. Edit: The devs said this: quote:“It’s one of the things I’m constantly telling the writers on the team is that you can’t write dialogues that are judging, you can’t come up with choices where you’re slapping people in the face for their moral decisions. The problem is that calling it 'mechanical apartheid' is in no way, at all, presenting stuff in a neutral way and enabling players to feel and interpret that in their own way. It's the exact opposite. Let us English posted:Here is the creative director himself discussing his inspiration from his own life experience. He also discusses the whitewashing that happens during these conversations where everyone who might be doing something "offensive" is assumed to be white. That's something that's happened in this very thread, particularly in regards to the #notyourshield hashtag. He isn't South African, though, right? Apartheid, again, isn't actually a generic term for any segregation. Reducing it to that isn't a good thing. If people assumed he's white, that's lovely, but you can object to the term without assuming that he's white--objecting to the term isn't equivalent to thinking he's white. This is also super-trivial but the grammar of it bugs me, too. It's not 'mechanical apartheid', that'd mean apartheid enforced by mechanical means. What they mean is 'cyborg apartheid' or 'aug apartheid'. Obdicut fucked around with this message at 11:59 on Jul 2, 2015 |
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Jul 2, 2015 11:55
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fatherboxx posted:I appreciate what he had to say, but AAA development is very limiting to the personal expression of one person, so you have "mechanical apartheid" trademarked, which seems pretty bizarre and rather comical. It makes sense in the wake of Human Revolution and in paves the way for the world as portrayed in the original Deus Ex where mechanically augmented people are reviled. Obdicut posted:Apartheid, again, isn't actually a generic term for any segregation. True, but it's use is far wider than just South Africa. Israel being the most obvious example. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartheid_(disambiguation) Let us English fucked around with this message at 11:58 on Jul 2, 2015 |
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Jul 2, 2015 11:56
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Let us English posted:
It's not 'far wider' .It is used, contentiously, to describe Israel, and very rarely, usually by individuals, to describe other situations. Again, I think that 'apartheid' describes a very particular scenario, and 'segregation' describes the much broader concept, and I look askance at the usage of 'apartheid' as borrowing the particular history of South African blacks to use for its rhetorical and emotional force and power.
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Jul 2, 2015 12:02
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Obdicut posted:Those objecting probably didn't do any one thing, since they're different people. As I said, I had the 'what the gently caress' moment, I read the explanation, I went 'eh', and I'm waiting to see how they deal with it. My main feeling is even if they do deal well with it, there wasn't any reason for them to call it 'mechanical apartheid', it would have, if a true exploration of apartheid, arisen from people playing the game. That they trademarked the phrase is a little weird on top of that. To put it another way, I'd like to be able to judge myself what the system they've created in the game is, if they start out by calling it 'mechanical apartheid' then they're forcing me into a specific way of thinking about the system they've created. That they particularly used 'apartheid' rather than 'segregation' is also weird, since apartheid is a very particular term for a very particular thing that occurred in South Africa. We do not, generally, call the segregation that occurred in the US 'apartheid', because there are salient distinctions between it and apartheid. Trademarking the phrase is weird, I completely agree. Not sure why they did that, though I'll be happy to add giant "MECHANICAL APARTHEID" posters to my collection of weird ads, right next to a poster of the Wehrmacht marching on the steps of the White House that some other game had. I think if that they had used "segregation", it still would have made a stink. Both terms aren't exactly words you throw around carelessly... In the end, there would have been a controversy, regardless of their word choice. But I do get where you're coming from, I would have preferred to explore the world and see it for myself, instead of having this trademarked phrase basically telling me what to expect. That's Marketing for you, I guess...
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Jul 2, 2015 12:07
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Archer666 posted:Trademarking the phrase is weird, I completely agree. Not sure why they did that, though I'll be happy to add giant "MECHANICAL APARTHEID" posters to my collection of weird ads, right next to a poster of the Wehrmacht marching on the steps of the White House that some other game had. I, personally, wouldn't have had any sort of 'what the gently caress' moment if they'd used 'segregation', it is a much, much, much less loaded term. There's a reason--whether you agree with it or not--that Israel's policy towards Palestinians is being called 'apartheid' and not just 'segregation'--because it is a much more powerful phrase, and because it particularly describes a certain political, economic, and geographic model of oppression of a majority by a minority that hold political power. And yeah, their statement about the term goes exactly against the way they're using it. It's not neutral, they're not letting the gamer explore and make up their own mind. Obdicut fucked around with this message at 12:31 on Jul 2, 2015 |
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Jul 2, 2015 12:13
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"Apartheid" is a precious word. I am furious that a video game would dare to use a term that's been so useful to me as a cudgel against Israel during Internet arguments.
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Jul 2, 2015 12:29
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Archer666 posted:Personally, I think we're okay on that front. But apparently, the hypothetical person you invented who made Sim ChildRape disagrees. Let us English posted:There's no ambiguity in how heinous the American prison-industrial complex is but I think Prison Architect has a much better chance of showing undecided or uneducated people while private prisons are awful than more traditional media like Orange is the New Black. And again, who needs education in child sex slavery being bad? The point is, is there any example, just one, where we'd "shy away"? Because if yes, the simple libertarian argument is insufficient. On the other hand, I remember I used to play a "terrorism sim" when I was like 12 and in no way did I ever consider the psychological trauma that would have resulted in a real bank robbery the way I used to do it in that game all the time.
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Jul 2, 2015 12:35
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http://venturebeat.com/2013/05/11/brenda-romero-train-board-game-holocaust/ Example of a holocaust sim game (non digitally).
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Jul 2, 2015 12:38
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Cingulate posted:http://venturebeat.com/2013/05/11/brenda-romero-train-board-game-holocaust/ The mechanic in many Total War and other games where you can massacre the population comes to mind. It exists just as a mechanic, it is something that really happened in history. It is not an actual 'exploration' of the massacres, but they're far enough removed in history that we don't think of it in bad taste. It is really loving weird if you think about it, though.
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Jul 2, 2015 12:41
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Obdicut posted:The mechanic in many Total War and other games where you can massacre the population comes to mind. It exists just as a mechanic, it is something that really happened in history. It is not an actual 'exploration' of the massacres, but they're far enough removed in history that we don't think of it in bad taste. It is really loving weird if you think about it, though. And then, if he games had that, only sociopaths could play them, or people on the verge of, and fascinated by, sociopathy. E: I'm not trying a reductio ad absurdum here. I'm trying to say, this does not seem like a clear-cut, easy situation where one approach is obviously correct. Cingulate fucked around with this message at 12:53 on Jul 2, 2015 |
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Jul 2, 2015 12:47
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Cingulate posted:But what is the part that makes them "problematic" (hate that term in these contexts, it sounds much too weak) here? Presumably, not showing enough suffering; not showing how much the dying suffered, how afterwards the women were raped and the next winter was hunger and so on. Well yeah, that's what I mean. If it were about modern events, it'd be unacceptable. If you played Isis and took over a town and the option was there to rape a bunch of women or to execute children, people would be (rightly) disgusted by it. By making it simply a game mechanic, something that is a historical truth, it's acceptable to us, but only because we're not thinking about the reality of it, we're treating it as a mechanic or as a dry historical fact. To put it another way, when 'disturbing' topics come up in games they're very often regulated to simple mechanics, the game does not in any way attempt to explore or deal with them. I'm not saying this is a bad thing. I think people playing those games, if they think about it, would think "drat what a hosed up time to be alive, glad I live in the here and now".
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Jul 2, 2015 12:53
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That's how it always begins. At first I was just playing through Fallout as a villain just to see what kind of new quests and dialogue options I would get. Next thing I knew, I was strangling stray animals and convincing working-poor families that sub-prime mortgages were awesome.
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Jul 2, 2015 12:57
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