alanschu

If this thread is to be exclusively to bring to attention news items, and not for discussion about anything that comes up, I'd ask the moderators to clearly state that in the OP, and to actually enforce it by cleaning up this thread of non-news discussion.

I agree that it's not really a big thing. I have my concerns since it brings up a degree of uncertainty. While some may feel this can only be good, for myself it could mean a lot of bad (or a lot of good) and the idea of "Hmmm, I don't really know how this will affect me long term" isn't what I like to feel.

From everything I can tell, the EA Spouse thing was quite the eye opener. (EDIT: Malcador illustrates this) In terms of things like excessive crunch, BioWare (as an independent entity) had quite the reputation as well. Now we see crunch as "consuming employees and reducing job satisfaction leading to talent drain and excessive job turnover." The BG games were made on 18 hour days 7 days a week. ME1 was particularly bad from what I hear. There's also a decent number of people that have come here from other places that talk it up as being an improvement. I don't have much backlog (mostly service industry types of jobs) to compare with, but EA is eaaaaaaaaaasily the best employer I have had in terms of providing employee satisfaction. But gamers don't care about stuff like that (which is fair). They just buy the games, and in the end the quality of games is all they should need to deal with.

Ding ding ding. Hate the games are the direction the company is moving in, fine. Just say that. Don't attempt to add weight to your perspective by examining a perspective you couldn't possibly have much insight into.

You link to a poll that says EA is the Worst Company in America, which is very different than worst employer in America. I'm also of the opinion that, if EA is truly the Worst Company in America for you, life must be pretty good. Surely you can do better than that for assessing whether or not EA is a poor employer. I was hoping for some assessment into various things that employees might care about (compensation, benefits, and the like). Never mind that there may be some level of selection bias when considering an online poll that happened to be online when a large group of disappointed gamers mobilized and organized themselves to express their dismay in whatever means they could. How does Morgoth define "total failure?"

No, I'm not suggesting you're making a different argument. I'm asking you a question in an attempt to illustrate something related. I recognize that you are proposing that there is a claim that "Kidnapping Princess Peach turns people into misogynists." The point in putting forth my question was to try to peel back the level of specificity in your analysis. That is, perhaps it isn't so much "Kidnapping Princess Peach turns people into misogynists" but rather "Kidnapping Princess peach may play an influence, along with other types of media and socialization, in perpetuating some level of negative perception towards women." Stepping back and crying "I don't see any studies that show kidnapping princess peach turns people into misogynists" isn't productive. This is the Straw Man. Anita never said anything of the like. Well I have now responded to the question if that makes you happy. But my interest certainly HAS been piqued and will go back over your posts later tonight, so I'll go over your arguments then. You're hardly exempt of using fallacies yourself, but then chastise other people for using them. You take the entire discussion far too literally and end up making straw men such as the idea that "Kidnapping Princess Peach turns you into a misogynist" as being the argument presented. Never mind such things as "alanschu hates Chaz because Chaz disagrees with him." Some of the extremists that support Anita's perspective may have said that, but Anita has not. I challenge you to present at any point in her video where she says that kidnapping princess peach turns people into misogynists.

Full stop, I just came across this gem: Let me answer your question: Yes. Furthermore, let me state that I am not at all thrilled with this line of questioning to support your position. You're asking for a self-review to be done to determine if people can accurately assess what level of impact the media they have consumed (presumably a media they have enjoyed), and qualitatively determine whether or not consumption of that media has led to a definitive change in perspective that is almost universally considered negative. it's scientific viability is exceptionally suspect and is literally the type of thing that does leave me angry when reading. I consider it dishonest at worst, ignorant at best. Such an inquiry is not useful in debate, nor is it useful for concluding anything in a scientific way at all and as far as I'm concerned, effectively tells us nothing regardless of what the results your inquiry are. Are you actually not aware the numerous flaws with your examination?

Are you suggesting that exposure to ideas in consumed media has no impact on the socialization of human beings?

Well I find this fascinating. How exactly is EA (under Riccietello since 2007 specifically) the #1 worst employer? I mean, worst game publisher is certainly a perspective I could see a gamer having as they have their right to make judgments on the quality of games released. Furthermore, in light of JR resigning because the company's financial performance underachieved, what sort of changes do you anticipate happening?

Why is that?

Well this is concerning :\ http://www.streetinsider.com/Hot+Mgmt+Changes/Electronic+Arts+%28EA%29+CEO+Riccitiello+Resigns/8193332.html

So it's another example of taking an extreme viewpoint (from someone I'd argue that doesn't really understand the tenants of feminism) and applying it to ALL feminists? It's an analogy. I wasn't stating that feminists equate Twilight with being "it's our lot in life." I'm stating that feminists have goals that they like to achieve, and that there are women that don't subscribe to that goal doesn't undermine the goals that feminism may have, and that because a woman would rather something contradictory to what feminists want, a feminist feels it undermines the goals of what they seek. Another analogy is that hardcore RPGers would dislike a move to more cinematic RPGs because they feel it undermines the direction they would like RPGs to go, and they get upset at RPG fans that embrace the cinematic RPGs. Feminists do make their own, and frankly I loathe the "go make your own" argument. It's perfectly valid for someone to slag on DA2 and for me to just say "if you don't like what we're doing, go make your own" isn't particularly useful. By this point the counterpoint to Anita's video would be "If you don't like the message she's saying in her video, go make your own video!"

Ugh. I remember having something similar happen to me with Saints Row: The Third (although with less fatal consequences... the game just exited). Reinstalling didn't work either, but what did work was copying the missing files from someone else (he copied them onto a flash drive for me) and then loading the game. Very frustrating and I'm not sure what causes that. Hopefully a reinstall works for you.

@Raithe You can't kill the process through task manager?

Well you see, Fighter, the original Tomb Raider had combat that basically involved "once you start shooting a target, as long as you hold down shoot Lara will shoot at it if it's in her front 180 degree arc and she has line of sight on it." So if it's not deep and compelling combat mechanic like the originals had, and instead a quicktime event to deal with melee combat, it's not good gameplay.

I think it's bad to presume to decide for other women how they should or should not be perceived. I think it's bad to incorrectly attribute a perception (Feminists want to tell us that women don't find this attractive) to a group when that's not actually accurate too. My point with my statement is that (most) feminists see something like Twilight as a step backwards the same way that they would have felt a woman that goes "But it's our lot in life to serve our men and to not get involved in the things men take part in" before things like Women's suffrage became reality. Much the same as slaves that didn't want to disrupt social order and abolish slavery because it's what they knew and it was comfortable for them. You're looking at the micro level: it's bad to presume how any one woman should or should not be perceived. I'm looking at it on a macro level: it's a bad influence on how all women are perceived. A feminist's concern is not that some twilight fanatic that thinks the life of Bella is awesome his perceived negatively, but rather that some (men and women) will apply this perception to ALL women.

Then most people you know have very bad taste. I'm actually playing TLR (TR 4) now and enjoy it a lot more than any of these bastardized newer versions from CD. Thanks! I see, it's just not "Tomb Raider enough." Tomb Raider in name only! Let me know if I missed anything! After all you've been actively following it via Let's Plays while I haven't bothered wasting my time with it at all...

I found this on Penny Arcade Report Hat Tip to Mike Laidlaw for calling it out (he seems stoked) on Twitter haha. EDIT: After reading it I found it somewhat ironic that it was a fellow BioWare guy that linked this with enthusiasm haha. Still not a fan of all the "Us vs. Them" and would prefer more focus on the positives, but it was pretty cool to see that Saunders and McComb pretty much bet the farm on this opportunity. I wonder if it'd help to know that many at BIoWare love the original and hope they do well with this one too?

No one. And in fact few people truly are. But in my (imperfect) assessment it's the type of commentary that gets propagated most frequently, due to its extreme nature. Which often ends up polarizing people (It's also why I only delve into article comments for entertainment purposes rather than to get any meaningful sort of discussion). This is true, and why I find it interesting that I tend to be dismissive towards the influence violent gaming has on turning young people into violent people, while for this I find myself drawn to the opposite conclusion. It may have something to do with the pervasiveness of the trope (i.e. gaming is just one part of the problem. As far as I can tell the other alternatives for "violent" expressive actions by children aren't as demonized as video games. In the case of sports they are often championed as positive influences). Or maybe I am just sick of the trope and would like to support any pressures that would help deviate from it. Heck, maybe I just have more female friends that actively game, including one that used to have an eye for seeing a lot of things I never even would have blinked an eye at (which doesn't make her right and me wrong. It's just interesting what a different perspective sees).

Hah! Although I think it's as much those on the defensive that are guilty of this. I'm not a fan of the way that women are depicted in games and in general agree with Anita's concerns regarding women in gaming, I get the impression that many people seem to think she has called out all games and gamers as being misogynistic and the like. Though she actually tried to clear that up in the article. It's a bit like the anecdote I shared about using the term "Jap." Someone pointed out to me that I was using a racial slur, and my immediate reaction in my mind was "So!? I am not being racist with it!" and frankly disliked the internal mental gymnastics that I performed that concluded that since it's used as a racial slur, someone using the term must be a racist. In the end, I realized I was offended about my own mind being stupid, and now no longer use the term "Jap" as a contraction for a Japanese person. Going back to your point (and the discussion Raithe and I had): The problem of course being that both sides jump to conclusions very quickly: 1. You dislike Anita's video? What are you some misogynist? 2. You agree with Anita's video? What are you some sort of misandrist? You can substitute in a plethora of alternative responses than the ones given but it happens an awful lot. Though it's not really prevalent in Anita's video. She does, however, make the disparaging remark about "regressive crap" with Double Dragon. (As an aside, I wonder if she feels the situation has improved, since one can only regress if some level of progression has occurred).

I haven't actually really been reading your longer posts at this point (see the post were I conclude we probably aren't going to have an interesting discussion about this. My most recent response about word usage was more due to AwesomeOcelot pointing it out and I felt a need to actually defend myself since you alleged I was making up my own definitions of words), so in light of curiosity I went back and the most recent one opened with: At which point I concluded that there is some level of misunderstanding. I don't know what you read, but I certainly don't feel you hate me. The words you used were certainly not particularly flattering towards feminists, and have ascribed much of what you dislike about feminists towards Anita because she proclaims to be one. Unless I'm mistaken you even insinuated an attack on free speech (presumably because you're concluding that as a feminist, Anita wants this trope to die for good) which I always find interesting because she's just exercising her own right to free speech by dissecting the trope the way that she does. (Found the quote: As I said before, feminists are against biology, against sex and against free speech which certainly gives the impression you aren't very fond of feminists, nor the feminist movement). I should probably take this time to state that I don't identify as a feminist either. I'm pragmatic, and on this particular issue I agree with Anita. I state this in case there was some sort of assumption that because I was concluding you hated feminists, you must hate me too then. Disagreement is fine, and it happens all the time, and I thought I was being clear that I have no issues with people that feel her analysis is incorrect. I guess I was not as clear as I would have liked. As for the straw man, since I'm unaware of the point you are talking about I will have to conclude it wasn't intentional.

I would actually like to have seen the game done with zero QA time spent on it. Heck, there's a part of me that would love to archive a build from 3-6 months before launch and include it as a bonus feature in the collector's edition or something, but sadly no one ever seems to go for it

I recently replayed the third, but oddly despite playing much the same way, I couldn't bother with the other ones. I had played 3 in the past, so I am guessing nostalgia let me see past it.

Haha, I am both an archivist (although mostly just in that I have a good memory), and also a Tireless Rebutter. As such I've come to terms with the notion that I can come across as a real ass! I stumbled upon most of them (I don't even remember how now. It wasn't actually University). Some of the more common ones come up so much and I just remember them (ad hominem - though sometimes I use it too liberally, straw man, and my favourite "begging the question" and so forth), but if I recognize one and cannot remember the name I am usually able to find it with a quick google search. That said, I'm not immune from accidentally using them myself, I do try to be aware.

I don't. But I don't have lack of faith in a game of one series because a different game of a different series wasn't very good.