Excellent read on more progressive games

[Calax]

 

On one hand we've got the Assassins Creed "Give us a female protagonist" crew who demand that a female protagonist be put in the game because of a stupid comment, but at the same time those same people would say "But you shouldn't put in female enemies because that'd be to much like domestic violence!"

 

I can't tell you how often I see on the news stories about a man leaping from a building onto his wife, assaulting her with his hidden blades, and then escaping from the police by hiding on a park bench. These violent video games are wrecking our society.

 

This made me chuckle. Just sayin

[Valmy]

Are people really demanding no female mooks in AC?

[Calax]

Are people really demanding no female mooks in AC?

No, but at the same time they aren't demanding equal representation within the mook population. And this isn't strictly for AC, but for any game where you're slowly mowing down an army of doods in the course of gameplay... including goombas from mario.

[AwesomeOcelot]

As a victim of this type of violence I can assure you it is a problem. But thanks for dismissing me like everyone else. I guess I should just grow a pair of balls eh?

Yes, you should definitely grow a pair. If the person is not physically threatening to you and the violence is not of a serious nature then it's not a big problem and you can just leave, it's up to you whether to accept their **** or not.

Calm down princess, and stop inflating petty **** to real problems.

 

On one hand we've got the Assassins Creed "Give us a female protagonist" crew who demand that a female protagonist be put in the game because of a stupid comment, but at the same time those same people would say "But you shouldn't put in female enemies because that'd be to much like domestic violence!"

To be fair, I've only seen that insane argument presented that one time.

[Valmy]

I think Mass Effect was the only game where I found myself thinking 'dang I am mowing down lots of ladies'.  Those Merc companies were committed to a diverse office environment.

[Malcador]

 

On the domestic violence topic, the problem with the studies that show more female violence is that it's not that big a problem, doesn't result in serious injury or even injury at all, I couldn't give a **** about that.

 

As a victim of this type of violence I can assure you it is a problem. But thanks for dismissing me like everyone else. I guess I should just grow a pair of balls eh?

 

Well, if she hits you, striking back is a good option, no ? Same as anyone else.

 

Thinking of games were you can rack up kills of women, only Hitman other than ME comes to mind. Mainly hookers or partygoers, though.

[HoonDing]

Dreamfall Chapters will be progressive.

[Prince of Wales]

So one has to ask why, considering that men have been the ones who fought, died and sacrificed for their countries throughout time, that we do not have a "Video Game Tropes against Men?" Where is our Arnold Suckitandsee, complaining of the thousands of dead males in video games, reinforcing the idea that we are all expendable. That we are just wage slaves, who must marry, provide for their female masters every whim and produce offspring, and then as Mr Volourn points out have we fulfilled our function? Reducing us to gunfodder, providers, taxpayers and breeders rather than sapient beings, worthy in their own right.

 

One could make a very strong argument without even much research that we have been the victims of a Matriarchy, and that we are only now breaking free of that environment and the societal roles forced upon us. I wonder why nobody has embraced such a philosophy? Or have they and I am simply ignorant of this movement? After all there's always a great attraction in playing the victim, or championing them, it lends a certain air of moral invulnerability, and of course a surefire belief that one is right.

 

Interesting thought Mr Calax.

 

Edit: Then again I would be mainly interested in seeing such a movement arise for the sheer humourness of it, sure to provoke outrage and many heated debates.

Frankly, I find that quite often in games where female characters lack any semblance of characterization, their male counterparts have the personality of a brick. There's a tendency to disregard context in these situations. Few feminist critics take into account most games are made by straight men who, naturally, will want female eye candy and will default to male for their characters. Even more so if we take into account most game developers care very little for story or characters, so those areas have a tendency to, well, suck.

 

I mean, how many times has progress come from an outside group? Should African Americans have dropped that civil rights nonsense and waited for some big white-as-chalk fish to decide he felt like giving them a hand? Then why should women, or homosexuals expect straight white male (SWM) developers to cater to them? Most straight males have no interest and no investment in making other groups happy. Nor are they obligated to.

 

Why do you think The Sims got same sex relationships back in 2000? Because there was someone high in the chain of command who happened to be homosexual. I think the moral of that story is pretty obvious. Some SWM may feel inclined to cater to minorities, for one reason or the other, but most of them won't. And that doesn't make them terrible people, just human. If said minorities want representation, more of them should get into the gaming industry and try to effect change from there.

 

What I'm trying to say with this rant is, you have a point.

Edited July 3, 2014 by Prince of Wales

[Chilloutman]

1. Why this is in Computer and Console? we got off-topic subforums

2. too much equality for one thread, now I have to beat my GF to flush my frustration

[Barothmuk]

'The Right?' No. Capitalism won the war when Communism collapsed.

It's always strange when people regurgitate this.

 

The Soviet Union's dissolution hardly represented some dramatic triumph of capitalism over communism. From the Khrushchev era onwards there had already been a right-ward shift in party policy with a gradual dismantling of collective ownership in the countryside, the abolition of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" in favour of "the state of the whole people" and so on. The Brezhnev era brought in the kosygin reforms which unashamedly embraced further privatization and Gorbachev's perestroika and glasnost were an attempt to shift from a state capitalist model to a more explicitly market based model.

 

The narrative of "the glorious triumph of capitalism" is entirely rhetoric that requires one to ignore that there still exist plenty of equally "communist" countries (i.e. communist in name alone) waving "the red flag".

 

EDIT: It's certainly revealing that Monte views Bruce and the SJ campaign as part of some kind of communist plot.

Edited July 4, 2014 by Barothmuk

[Monte Carlo]

1. Where do you live?

 

2. What age are you?

 

For the mainstream left in the late 80's Command Economics was a given. The final collapse of the Soviet Union plunged a dagger into it's heart.

 

I also don't believe in conspiracies. I do, OTOH, believe in 'direction of travel.' Gramscian long-marchers aren't exactly conspiracy theories, they are rather clever idealogues who understand politics as memes. That isn't a conspiracy, but it is certainly a movement with a direction and purpose.

[nipsen]

..when you have influence, that's just a fancy name for "self-fulfilling prophecy", Monte.

 

"The inevitability of history". Good one. Always sells papers, in spite of how "Accept your fate and embrace the End which is near!" does't. "Currents in the demographies". That's my favourite. "Really, we don't know how it happened, but somehow everyone's a complete arse to everyone else now, and curiosity is a sign of weakness and lack of respect for God".

 

What the entire "White privileged boys" problem in games - let's just be clear we're only talking about games here - boils down to is this: White privileged boys are privileged, and think they should be, because they have money and are great reliable customers.

 

And there's a real misconception involved here that I feel white privileged boys suffer from. You see, most white privileged boys are equal opportunity people. They don't care where you're from, or how much you earn - as long as you're white and privileged. Some white and privileged even want to embrace brown and sort of less pink people who are privileged as well, which shows great forbearance, in my opinion.

 

Because it is a completely known fact to everyone else, that all other groups of people would like to be white and privileged. Why would they possibly not want to be that?

 

So these aforementioned progressive white and privileged takes that seriously, and wants to include the other groups - out of a sense of survival. Because think of it like this - one day there will be (an inevitable) rebellion, and then the situations will be reversed. Where white privileged people will have their station taken from them, and be lorded over by the blacks and specks. 'tis the law of the universe, clearly.

 

And the trick is to allow the weak groups to aspire to be one of us, and never actually have the opportunity. Hahahahahahahahaha! Oooahahahahhahaah! Eat cake!

 

Seriously, though. The one thing I dislike the most about the way games are sold nowadays, is that an obviously very small group is allowed to dictate what the game should cater to. At the board-meetings there's a whole bunch of talk about how the game can add features and script reactivity, avoid showing the face of the hero, etc., to better allow the player to identify with the character. And then it turns out that when you actually sell the game, there is one uniform audience that jumps at the same time if poked in the right way. And it is: White privileged boys with small penises who want to buy power-fantasies. They're exactly the same person, they're identical in their preferences, they take their inspiration from the same TV shows, they listen to the same music, they wear the same clothes, they read the same books... at least the same comics. They have the same hair, they have the same eating habits, they have a 99% synergy with the currently promoted goods on major tv shows, etc.

 

These people are easy to sell to. They don't care about anything, and they'll fall for any lie if it's told with enough authority.

 

And I don't see why the PR departments have to be so conceited about it. They sell exclusively to the easiest targets, and wish everyone would be like that.

 

But it's bad form to lie about it. And to insist that you are actually catering to "all gamers". That's the annoying part. See, it's really not just about self-censorship at the studios. It's a marketing necessity. We all know that this band of orcs actually have skirts underneath their masks when they're farming xp. But they still act like they're the target audience for the sales-pitch. Gruff and aggressive, who like bashing people's skulls in. That's the pitch, and they're following that up. Developers do the same thing, looking at that and responding to the easiest sales-pitch.

 

And it's actually a phenomena that isn't actually that old. It used to be that certain products were obviously sold to specific genders, and marketed that way. It's not very clever to sell razor blades "for both him and her", for example. You know, there are probably some progressive marketers out there who would go for that, but it probably won't work.

 

But now, we get the "group identifier", that more people than just the target group identify with. You sell dreams and wishes, see? You don't sell products. You sell what people want to be, what people see in their mind when they think of your product.

 

And it's just weird to see that when you're talking about video-games. That were engineered from the start to have dynamic content, where practically everything can be projected in some way or other based on feedback from the user. Artists and musicians are typically hot on expression, and personal expression. There was typically an aspect of that in video-games as well. Making virtual fantasies to entertain people. And that's.. just not interesting any more. Instead it's all about sitting down and playing the same groundbreaking and personal power-fantasy - together with other people who feel the exact same way, and who think of the game exactly like you do. And then write about it in bad English in the commentary fields on IGN.

 

It's just weird. I really don't know where that came from. You don't see the same effect in any other serious marketing venue. Be it milk-cartons, tv series, movies or tourism, or whatever. You just don't encourage boring people to be boring. It just not good business. 

 

And yet. With white privileged boys and gaming, there's an opportunity for exactly that.

[Monte Carlo]

White liberal self loather's gonna self-loathe.

[Barothmuk]

For the mainstream left in the late 80's Command Economics was a given. The final collapse of the Soviet Union plunged a dagger into it's heart.

By the late 80's the "mainstream left" had already been in disarray for decades.

 

Throughout the Stalin era the Soviet Union represented a successful alternative model that was rapidly rising and showing signs of actually surpassing both the U.S and Britain however in 1956 with Khrushchev's "secret speech" he revealed the 'true horrors' of the so-called 'Stalinist system'. With the opening of the archives it has been more or less proven that most of these claims are outright fabrication but that need not matter, for the rest of the world this 'proved' that what the 'capitalists' had been saying was right all along; Stalin was an evil monster, socialism did rest on arbitrary mass slaughter and a river of blood and most importantly all the gains of socialism are thereby "tainted".

 

From that point on the left fractured and tried all manner of alternative, some sort of successful most not. You had some chasing Mao who quickly fell to Deng Xioping, you had some trying to make "a return to Marxism" without any of the previous Leninist stuff, you had those trying change through reform, post-modernists, liberals, stupid hippies and so on.

 

To make my point more clear I'm not denying that the fall of the Soviet Union was a massive culture shaping event; merely that its fall, in reality, didn't come about through competition with the superior side coming out on top, rather the 'losing side' barely existed in any form by the time it fell and that its 'fall' had been part of a longer gradual crumbling as a result of ****ty policies and petty party politics.

 

That isn't a conspiracy, but it is certainly a movement with a direction and purpose

I'd say the major problem with the "Social Justice" movement is its complete lack of direction and purpose.

 

At the moment, in the West at least, all we have (at the very most) are well meaning teenagers through college grads with a very basic understanding of privilege theory sitting at their computers pointing out various inequalities in the world. It's still better than nothing but it's really quite petty in comparison to the civil rights groups of the 60's-70's and its barely a historical footnote in comparison to the leftist movements of the 30's-50's.

Edited July 4, 2014 by Barothmuk

[Monte Carlo]

I notice you chose not to offer your age or where you are from. I was about in the late 80's and politically-aware. Were you?

[Barothmuk]

Sorry, just not fond of revealing personal info on the net. I'm in my early twenties.

 

This shouldn't detract from my point.

[Prince of Wales]

 

For the mainstream left in the late 80's Command Economics was a given. The final collapse of the Soviet Union plunged a dagger into it's heart.

By the late 80's the "mainstream left" had already been in disarray for decades.

 

Throughout the Stalin era the Soviet Union represented a successful alternative model that was rapidly rising and showing signs of actually surpassing both the U.S and Britain.

Successful does not equal desirable. After all, success means different things for different people.

[nipsen]

White liberal self loather's gonna self-loathe.

Or fear petty things, while inflating their self-importance.

[nipsen]

 It's still better than nothing but it's really quite petty in comparison to the civil rights groups of the 60's-70's and its barely a historical footnote in comparison to the leftist movements of the 30's-50's.

 

Some of the problem being that we don't really have anything to fight for, I guess.

 

Seriously, though - a lot of the things we read about in history books were small events that are taken into a larger context. And only remembered and presented as important because they were considered to be part of a larger movement. Enemies of such and such as frequently as heroic actions by the ones we like and care about (like white privileged boys).

 

Meanwhile, people who really did important humanitarian work.. wives and nuns running an open clinic teaching women about prevention, family planning and sex, sexually transmitted diseases, etc., in the 20s in certain countries, for example. Against church, against the establishment and against pietism. They had enough enemies that they were never part of the "feminist movement" or the suffragettes around the time. Hell, that kind of thing is still not good enough for common attention now.

 

You know Semmelweiss? Guy who suggested doctors should wash their hands before going into operating, overseeing births, that kind of thing. Specially when they had been performing autopsies of post mortems right before. He saved a bunch of lives by having the doctors indulge his insanity for a while. But eventually he had to leave Vienna. And eventually, he gave up on the entire thing. He died after cutting himself with a scalpel he had cut a corpse with right before. And died, as he knew he would, of blood poisoning later.

 

Neither of these people were part of a huge movement, unless you start to improvise with the history-lesson for "simplicity".

 

Point is that at the moment, we don't have anything we /think/ is important to fight for. While the ones that think they have something to fight for tend to be... completely insane. Megalomaniacs. Believing in great stories and the inevitability of history.

 

Judging by a friend I had, that has happened a lot of times before.. He was a nazi during the war, he's dead now. Basically, he never admitted the entire thing was a bad idea. So when I met him some 40 years later, he really hadn't changed his opinions at all. Frankly, I should have recorded everything he said and published it somehow. You would be surprised how well that material has survived into the next millennium. Different words, different contexts. But it was familiar. Too familiar.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

By the late 80's the "mainstream left" had already been in disarray for decades.

 

I'm not sure what you mean by this? Are you also talking about the "mainstream left" in western countries? And what do you mean by disarray? I would say it was quite the opposite. In fact there was a lot of movements to bring awareness and change in the world during the 80s.

 

I'm in my early twenties.

 

I see.

[tajerio]

To make my point more clear I'm not denying that the fall of the Soviet Union was a massive culture shaping event; merely that its fall, in reality, didn't come about through competition with the superior side coming out on top, rather the 'losing side' barely existed in any form by the time it fell and that its 'fall' had been part of a longer gradual crumbling as a result of ****ty policies and petty party politics.

 

 

Can we stop pretending that Western liberal democracy isn't objectively superior to the dictatorship of the proletariat or any other political system practiced in the USSR? Not that liberal democracy is by any means perfect, but at least it isn't by its very nature inimical to personal, political, and economic choice.

 

And "early twenties" ain't no excuse. I'm 24 and I know better than this tripe.

[Barothmuk]

Successful does not equal desirable. After all, success means different things for different people.

No kidding.

 

Some of the problem being that we don't really have anything to fight for, I guess.

Massive wealth inequality, poverty, huge incarceration rates (especially for minorities), sexism, racism, slavery, child-labour, exploitation of the third world, imperialist wars...

 

Its all still there.

I'm not sure what you mean by this? Are you also talking about the "mainstream left" in western countries? And what do you mean by disarray? I would say it was quite the opposite. In fact there was a lot of movements to bring awareness and change in the world during the 80s.

Such as? I'm not denying movements existed but these were primarily aiming for tiny concessions and reforms with hardly the level of mass support previous movements had.

 

This is hardly a contentious claim; leftists complaining about the modern state of the left is basically a cliché.

 

EDIT: And props to anyone who can tie this back into the thread topic.

Edited July 5, 2014 by Barothmuk

[Barothmuk]

Can we stop pretending that Western liberal democracy isn't objectively superior to the dictatorship of the proletariat or any other political system practiced in the USSR?

It would be incredibly intellectually dishonest to compare the Soviet Union in its supposed "glory days" to your standard modern Western liberal democracy.

 

At its time of greatest successes it was attempting rapid industrialisation, undergoing and recovering from a famine, prepping for a war with a major fascist state, fighting a world war with a fascist state and then recovering and re-industrialising after said war (in which it bore most of the damage).

 

It'd be tough to live through that no matter what the political system.

Edited July 5, 2014 by Barothmuk

[Hiro Protagonist II]

I'm not sure what you mean by this? Are you also talking about the "mainstream left" in western countries? And what do you mean by disarray? I would say it was quite the opposite. In fact there was a lot of movements to bring awareness and change in the world during the 80s.

 

Such as? I'm not denying movements existed but these were primarily aiming for tiny concessions and reforms with hardly the level of mass support previous movements had.

 

You're actually serious? Aiming for tiny concessions? LOL.

 

Oh boy. Where to begin. I did have quite a few things written out and in the end decided to delete it all. You know, I'm not going to bother. All this is easily found on the internet. Suffice to say, there was a lot of defining moments in the 1980s (especially for the left), movements and far reaching consequences in the national and international scene which is still being felt today.

[Barothmuk]

Well that sure educated me.

 

Again, I'm not denying movements 'existed', movements still exist today, what I'm saying is they were not nearly as big and lacked the level of mass support of previous 'movements'.

 

I'm reminded of a quote from that 90's movie Bulworth:

 

B: Do you know who Huey Newton was? …Why do think there are no more black leaders?

Nina: Some people think it’s because they all got killed - but I think it has more to do with the decimation of the manufacturing base in the urban centers.

 

Senator, an optimistic energized population throws up optimistic energized leaders and when you shift manufacturing to the Sunbelt and the third world you just destroy the blue collar core of the black activist population. Some people would say the problem is purely cultural, but the power of the media that’s continually controlled by fewer and fewer people, add to that the monopoly of the media and a consumer culture that’s based on self-gratification and you’re not likely to have a population that wants leadership that calls for self-sacrifice.

 

But the fact is I’m just a materialist at heart.

 

Look back at the economic base: High-domestic employment means jobs for the African-Americans. World War Two meant lots of jobs for black folks ­ that’s what energized the community for the Civil Rights Movement in the 50’s and the 60’s and energized hopeful community that not only produced leaders but more importantly it will produce leaders that respond too. Now what do you think Senator?

Edited July 5, 2014 by Barothmuk