Twitter outrage over the "[spoiler]" quest

[Azradesh]

Hey guys,

 

just saw that picture on reddit. Apparently the easily offended moved to the next target.

 

While i agree with the statement that children should have special protection in video games and shouldnt be allowed to be slaughtered or sacrificed, i dont think that we should change major story elements after a game got released, especially since this is a videogame for 16+ year old people

 

Tl;dr: In my opinion the devs should NOT change it.

 

 

No, just no. It's not bloody real! It's just a game and no one should have special protection. That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

[evensong]

 

 Josh is a Feminist Frequency sponsor

 

 

Got a source on this?

 

He's on the list of backers as "J.E. Sawyer. http://www.feministfrequency.com/donate/kickstarter-backers/

[Syraxis]

 

 

Yeah it's ghastly when people express an opinion, isn't it?

 

The issue is not the expression of an opinion. The issue is catering to nutjobs and caving to what amounts to nothing short of soft terrorism.

 

They didn't 'cave,' and they won't change this quest.

 

 

If anything thanks to the mod you get both epitaphs, so in reality twitter warriors lost. 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

 

^{don't you know its ok to kill children and people and hang them on tress as long as you are straight. Its when you make them gay, transgender or anything else is when its a tragedy.}

 

I take more issue with this than either the original problem, or the original poster. If people were being picked on, hit, bullied, teased, killed, because they were straight, then you might have a point. But since that's NOT the case, your statement just comes off as bigoted and belittling. Change your second sentence to refer to a discriminated race, and see how quickly you get spanked for being racist.

You've just made his point.

[KingNee]

I just want the little **** to gtfo my backpack. 

[Starwars]

As everyone has said, it's just hilarious that there's some kind of moral line between killing grown-ups and children.

[Divinehammer]

I asked in the previous thread but it got locked and I never got an answer.

 

What is the "progressive" crowd's endgame? I am genuinely curious as I don't think I've ever seen a coherent answer to this question.

 

I've seen half answers ranging from everyone has to be represented in every single game (this seems highly unrealistic to me), to every game has to be accessible to every player no game can be too difficult or too complex.

 

I honestly mean no trolling with this question.

[SpecH82T]

 

 

While i agree with the statement that children should have special protection in video games and shouldnt be allowed to be slaughtered or sacrificed

Why?

 

 

Actually when i think about it theres no real reason for it, except maybe ethical  / moral reasons, because children are innocent etc. and they cant defend themself against grown up persons

 

Yeah there really is not, I mean you kill men and women, is that in way better morally? Besides it’s a game, I’m sure no children came to harm under production.

[Luckmann]

 

 

Mods, lock and then delete this thread pls.  The OP is only actually help spin the wheels for these idiots.

 

Can't well all just be grown up and ignore this crap....by debating it pointlessly, you're just as bad.

 

We wish we could ignore this, but if this wasn't an ongoing problem, it would just be ignored. The OP isn't actually helping to spin the wheels for these idiots - Obsidian is. Obsidian insists on responding to non-issues through some kind of pavlonian reflex and let "the offended" dictate what is acceptable and what isn't; that's the whole problem.

 

Except they explicitly stated they wouldn't have wanted this in the game in the first place, it slipped past them. That makes it a correction, not caving.

 

Removing the quest like where you kill a kid would be caving. But that's not gonna happen, because that would be preposterous.

 

 

Caving the first time was preposterous. Not caving this time will be just as preposterous as caving the first time. If you really believe the engineered excuse in the Announcment, I have a bridge to sell you, just North of Defiance Bay. Mint condition.

[PrimeJunta]

 

 Josh is a Feminist Frequency sponsor

 

 

Got a source on this?

 

 

http://www.feministfrequency.com/donate/kickstarter-backers/

 

Search for J.E. Sawyer.

[Longknife]

 

 

 Josh is a Feminist Frequency sponsor

 

 

Got a source on this?

 

He's on the list of backers as "J.E. Sawyer. http://www.feministfrequency.com/donate/kickstarter-backers/

 

 

 

This is actually what pisses me off, unless there's a damned good explanation for it. I don't care about the limerick, but wtf is this?

 

Is he not aware that she blatantly misrepresented Fallout New Vegas in her "Women as Backround Decoration" videos? And blatantly lied about game mechanics in it? Why on earth would he sponsor that? What motivation could he possibly have for doing so? Does he like people unfairly trashing his work?

[PrimeJunta]

I asked in the previous thread but it got locked and I never got an answer.

 

What is the "progressive" crowd's endgame? I am genuinely curious as I don't think I've ever seen a coherent answer to this question.

 

I've seen half answers ranging from everyone has to be represented in every single game (this seems highly unrealistic to me), to every game has to be accessible to every player no game can be too difficult or too complex.

 

I honestly mean no trolling with this question.

 

I wrote a reply but the thread got locked before I had time to post it. Fortunately I saved it:

 

Those are pretty good questions actually. 

 

I'm not all that interested in endgames. I see culture as more of a process and find it more interesting and productive to identify things wrong with it and then attempt to change them, and also make constant course corrections in case of unintended consequences or more pressing concerns coming up. I would like to live in a kinder world: one where it matters less where you were born and who your parents were, which provides more second chances when you screw up, and where generosity and cooperation are valued more than possession and competition.

 

I don't think games "need" to represent anyone in particular at all. However: I observe that in actual point of fact, until very recently games have overwhelmingly represented and catered to a pretty small and IMO not all that interesting subset of the population. If the protagonist isn't a macho square-jawed space marine type, she's a big-boobed scantily-clad package of fapping material, the occasional exception or half-accidental Fem-Shep aside. Men by and large are presented as characters you want to be, women as objects you want to possess. It's formulaic, tired, and clichéd, and it's unappealing to a very large number of people. 

 

I would like to see that change. Not that there won't be any games with white straight male lantern-jawed space-marine type protagonists, but that that will no longer be the default expectation for the protagonist. So yeah, if a new game is being made, I count it as a point in its favor if it features an Inuit mother-of-five and a Polynesian scholar as companions, and if the dominant technological and cultural power happens to consist of people with dark skin.  

 

I also feel very strongly that games should not shy away from difficult themes and materials. I don't, generally speaking, like "safe" or bowdlerized stuff. Again, P:E does this rather well. It references rape, child murder, genocide, and all kinds of heavy stuff, but does it intelligently and coherently.

 

I don't want every game to be suitable for everybody. However, I would like to see more games suitable for and representing more people. Partly it's for altruistic reasons -- I think it'd be cool if we saw more non-white non-males here -- and partly because I myself find it interesting to vicariously see the world through other eyes. 

 

In summary: I observe a problem, namely that gaming culture in general and places like this forum in particular are not comfortable places to be if you're not white, straight, male, and argumentative, and I would like that to change. 

 

Finally, I don't think there is a "formula" for this. It's all about intent and self-understanding. I detest transparent attempts at being "politically correct." DA:I for example. It's ghastly. Randomizing everybody's race and making half the characters gay without any examination of what that would mean, while leaving in things like the transparent and hideously racist "Qunari = Arabs" is worse than naively oblivious racism and sexism. It's not about what's in the game; it's about approaching it thoughtfully and intelligently.

 

And finally finally, I do agree that a bunch of people on the "social justice" side of the fence go to ridiculous extremes with this. I do not want trigger warnings on everything, jazz hands instead of applause, or the removal of spiders. Nor am I in favor of censorship -- i.e., an outside authority determining what should or shouldn't be in a game. I am, however, strongly in favor of critique and criticism, and I'm thrilled if the critique and criticism changes things for the better, as the backlash to GG has by and large done, DA:I idiocy notwithstanding.

 

Did this help at all?

[Luckmann]

I asked in the previous thread but it got locked and I never got an answer.

 

What is the "progressive" crowd's endgame? I am genuinely curious as I don't think I've ever seen a coherent answer to this question.

 

I've seen half answers ranging from everyone has to be represented in every single game (this seems highly unrealistic to me), to every game has to be accessible to every player no game can be too difficult or too complex.

 

I honestly mean no trolling with this question.

 

Eh, we're leaving the topic of the thread and getting deep into political and metacultural territory. Sufficient to say, there is no endgame in itself, but is about the disolution of norms, whether cultural, social or biological. Cultural Marxism is a form of concious subversion of structures formed by anyone that isn't a nutcase.

 

There's much better places for being enlightened on this, really.

[Luckmann]

This is actually what pisses me off, unless there's a damned good explanation for it. I don't care about the limerick, but wtf is this?

 

Is he not aware that she blatantly misrepresented Fallout New Vegas in her "Women as Backround Decoration" videos? And blatantly lied about game mechanics in it? Why on earth would he sponsor that? What motivation could he possibly have for doing so? Does he like people unfairly trashing his work?

Because cognitive dissonance.

[PrimeJunta]

Caving the first time was preposterous. Not caving this time will be just as preposterous as caving the first time. If you really believe the engineered excuse in the Announcment, I have a bridge to sell you, just North of Defiance Bay. Mint condition.

 

Again: they did not 'cave.' They fixed something that they would not have allowed in had they noticed it the first time.

 

Evidence: their statement that they did this, and the fact that they are and have continuously been openly but quietly squarely on the social justice side of the GG debate.

[ruzen]

Round 2

 

LET GO!

 

Lets Censor all the game!

 

these guys wont stop once they smelled p**** sorry caving

 

Fallout is still head of Its time. Its... strange I guess

Edited April 4, 2015 by ruzen

[1Leonard]

 

I asked in the previous thread but it got locked and I never got an answer.

 

What is the "progressive" crowd's endgame? I am genuinely curious as I don't think I've ever seen a coherent answer to this question.

 

I've seen half answers ranging from everyone has to be represented in every single game (this seems highly unrealistic to me), to every game has to be accessible to every player no game can be too difficult or too complex.

 

I honestly mean no trolling with this question.

 

I wrote a reply but the thread got locked before I had time to post it. Fortunately I saved it:

 

Those are pretty good questions actually. 

 

I'm not all that interested in endgames. I see culture as more of a process and find it more interesting and productive to identify things wrong with it and then attempt to change them, and also make constant course corrections in case of unintended consequences or more pressing concerns coming up. I would like to live in a kinder world: one where it matters less where you were born and who your parents were, which provides more second chances when you screw up, and where generosity and cooperation are valued more than possession and competition.

 

I don't think games "need" to represent anyone in particular at all. However: I observe that in actual point of fact, until very recently games have overwhelmingly represented and catered to a pretty small and IMO not all that interesting subset of the population. If the protagonist isn't a macho square-jawed space marine type, she's a big-boobed scantily-clad package of fapping material, the occasional exception or half-accidental Fem-Shep aside. Men by and large are presented as characters you want to be, women as objects you want to possess. It's formulaic, tired, and clichéd, and it's unappealing to a very large number of people. 

 

I would like to see that change. Not that there won't be any games with white straight male lantern-jawed space-marine type protagonists, but that that will no longer be the default expectation for the protagonist. So yeah, if a new game is being made, I count it as a point in its favor if it features an Inuit mother-of-five and a Polynesian scholar as companions, and if the dominant technological and cultural power happens to consist of people with dark skin.  

 

I also feel very strongly that games should not shy away from difficult themes and materials. I don't, generally speaking, like "safe" or bowdlerized stuff. Again, P:E does this rather well. It references rape, child murder, genocide, and all kinds of heavy stuff, but does it intelligently and coherently.

 

I don't want every game to be suitable for everybody. However, I would like to see more games suitable for and representing more people. Partly it's for altruistic reasons -- I think it'd be cool if we saw more non-white non-males here -- and partly because I myself find it interesting to vicariously see the world through other eyes. 

 

In summary: I observe a problem, namely that gaming culture in general and places like this forum in particular are not comfortable places to be if you're not white, straight, male, and argumentative, and I would like that to change. 

 

Finally, I don't think there is a "formula" for this. It's all about intent and self-understanding. I detest transparent attempts at being "politically correct." DA:I for example. It's ghastly. Randomizing everybody's race and making half the characters gay without any examination of what that would mean, while leaving in things like the transparent and hideously racist "Qunari = Arabs" is worse than naively oblivious racism and sexism. It's not about what's in the game; it's about approaching it thoughtfully and intelligently.

 

And finally finally, I do agree that a bunch of people on the "social justice" side of the fence go to ridiculous extremes with this. I do not want trigger warnings on everything, jazz hands instead of applause, or the removal of spiders. Nor am I in favor of censorship -- i.e., an outside authority determining what should or shouldn't be in a game. I am, however, strongly in favor of critique and criticism, and I'm thrilled if the critique and criticism changes things for the better, as the backlash to GG has by and large done, DA:I idiocy notwithstanding.

 

Did this help at all?

 

As long as we can only make jokes about white men and not women, PoC, transpersons etc., games will only mainly feature white men as protagonists.

[Longknife]

I would really love to know how I could get an answer from Sawyer on the matter of him sponsoring Feminist Frequency. That's not even a matter of "I don't like it, so how dare you sponsor it." No, that's more of a case where I think it's an outrage in the same way I'd wanna talk to Obama if I found out he was funding Mitt Romney's mudslinging campaign of him. It's just so illogical that it's borderline insane. I'm curious, I'm confused and I'd love to hear it justified.

[ChipMHazard]

 

Caving the first time was preposterous. Not caving this time will be just as preposterous as caving the first time. If you really believe the engineered excuse in the Announcment, I have a bridge to sell you, just North of Defiance Bay. Mint condition.

 

Again: they did not 'cave.' They fixed something that they would not have allowed in had they noticed it the first time.

 

Evidence: their statement that they did this, and the fact that they are and have continuously been openly but quietly squarely on the social justice side of the GG debate.

 

 

Counter evidence: Their reasoning doesn't completely match that of Firedorn. 

[sparklecat]

I asked in the previous thread but it got locked and I never got an answer.

 

What is the "progressive" crowd's endgame? I am genuinely curious as I don't think I've ever seen a coherent answer to this question.

 

I've seen half answers ranging from everyone has to be represented in every single game (this seems highly unrealistic to me), to every game has to be accessible to every player no game can be too difficult or too complex.

 

I honestly mean no trolling with this question.

We're individuals.  We have different goals and I, at least, don't have any endgame beyond "hey, maybe don't do things that'll hurt people with no good reason?"

 

In regard to this specific issue, I would definitely not be in favour of having the quest - or any of the rest of the "mature" content in the game - be changed.  The only thing I might like is a clearer warning for prospective purchasers that they might want to avoid it if they find certain topics distressing - I would never put anything involving the loss of a child in a PnP game without making sure in advance that I wasn't about to remind one of my players of the time their kid died or whatever - but it's not a hill I plan to die on or anything.

[Syraxis]

A lot of people sponsored FemFreq a few years ago, doesn't mean they agree with her or are satisfied with how the resulting videos have turned out.

Edited April 4, 2015 by Syraxis

[Divinehammer]

 

I asked in the previous thread but it got locked and I never got an answer.

 

What is the "progressive" crowd's endgame? I am genuinely curious as I don't think I've ever seen a coherent answer to this question.

 

I've seen half answers ranging from everyone has to be represented in every single game (this seems highly unrealistic to me), to every game has to be accessible to every player no game can be too difficult or too complex.

 

I honestly mean no trolling with this question.

 

I wrote a reply but the thread got locked before I had time to post it. Fortunately I saved it:

 

Those are pretty good questions actually. 

 

I'm not all that interested in endgames. I see culture as more of a process and find it more interesting and productive to identify things wrong with it and then attempt to change them, and also make constant course corrections in case of unintended consequences or more pressing concerns coming up. I would like to live in a kinder world: one where it matters less where you were born and who your parents were, which provides more second chances when you screw up, and where generosity and cooperation are valued more than possession and competition.

 

I don't think games "need" to represent anyone in particular at all. However: I observe that in actual point of fact, until very recently games have overwhelmingly represented and catered to a pretty small and IMO not all that interesting subset of the population. If the protagonist isn't a macho square-jawed space marine type, she's a big-boobed scantily-clad package of fapping material, the occasional exception or half-accidental Fem-Shep aside. Men by and large are presented as characters you want to be, women as objects you want to possess. It's formulaic, tired, and clichéd, and it's unappealing to a very large number of people. 

 

I would like to see that change. Not that there won't be any games with white straight male lantern-jawed space-marine type protagonists, but that that will no longer be the default expectation for the protagonist. So yeah, if a new game is being made, I count it as a point in its favor if it features an Inuit mother-of-five and a Polynesian scholar as companions, and if the dominant technological and cultural power happens to consist of people with dark skin.  

 

I also feel very strongly that games should not shy away from difficult themes and materials. I don't, generally speaking, like "safe" or bowdlerized stuff. Again, P:E does this rather well. It references rape, child murder, genocide, and all kinds of heavy stuff, but does it intelligently and coherently.

 

I don't want every game to be suitable for everybody. However, I would like to see more games suitable for and representing more people. Partly it's for altruistic reasons -- I think it'd be cool if we saw more non-white non-males here -- and partly because I myself find it interesting to vicariously see the world through other eyes. 

 

In summary: I observe a problem, namely that gaming culture in general and places like this forum in particular are not comfortable places to be if you're not white, straight, male, and argumentative, and I would like that to change. 

 

Finally, I don't think there is a "formula" for this. It's all about intent and self-understanding. I detest transparent attempts at being "politically correct." DA:I for example. It's ghastly. Randomizing everybody's race and making half the characters gay without any examination of what that would mean, while leaving in things like the transparent and hideously racist "Qunari = Arabs" is worse than naively oblivious racism and sexism. It's not about what's in the game; it's about approaching it thoughtfully and intelligently.

 

And finally finally, I do agree that a bunch of people on the "social justice" side of the fence go to ridiculous extremes with this. I do not want trigger warnings on everything, jazz hands instead of applause, or the removal of spiders. Nor am I in favor of censorship -- i.e., an outside authority determining what should or shouldn't be in a game. I am, however, strongly in favor of critique and criticism, and I'm thrilled if the critique and criticism changes things for the better, as the backlash to GG has by and large done, DA:I idiocy notwithstanding.

 

Did this help at all?

 

 

You see that's actually fairly reasonable as a whole. A lot of the issue I have is with people that want to limit artistic freedom, there are extremists on twitter shouting that we shouldn't have straight white male protagonists anymore for example. Also that we shouldn't have certain themes (say rape for example).

 

I honestly have no problem at all with more diverse characters, infact it makes things more interesting if anything, but I really hate the idea that developers can't make what they want to make anymore because it offends certain subsets.

 

Swen Vincke from Larian wrote a blog post recently (sorry I can't find the link to it), about how dragon commander caused a lot of offence by including the rape choices (you have a choice of condemning war rape by your soldiers, or turning a blind eye), people were demanding this was removed but he felt it important to keep it in as felt it was a realistic choice. It irks me that such content might have been cut from the game to avoid offence, even though it is treated in a very serious and non-lighthearted manner.

[PrimeJunta]

I would really love to know how I could get an answer from Sawyer on the matter of him sponsoring Feminist Frequency. That's not even a matter of "I don't like it, so how dare you sponsor it." No, that's more of a case where I think it's an outrage in the same way I'd wanna talk to Obama if I found out he was funding Mitt Romney's mudslinging campaign of him. It's just so illogical that it's borderline insane. I'm curious, I'm confused and I'd love to hear it justified.

 

Why don't you ask him? He's answers lots of questions on Twitter and Tumblr.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I would really love to know how I could get an answer from Sawyer on the matter of him sponsoring Feminist Frequency. That's not even a matter of "I don't like it, so how dare you sponsor it." No, that's more of a case where I think it's an outrage in the same way I'd wanna talk to Obama if I found out he was funding Mitt Romney's mudslinging campaign of him. It's just so illogical that it's borderline insane. I'm curious, I'm confused and I'd love to hear it justified.

He backed it before she had created a single video in the series and two years before she did the one with New Vegas.

[Gallenger]

What Josh does, make games, is different from what Sarkeesian does, that is criticize them.   There's no conflict of interest here, even if she is critical of his work.  Perhaps he wanted to hear her perspective? 

 

There are limitless reasons.

 

it's a bit off topic, but the *goal* of the Fem video series isn't to call out particular games so that we can all go have a game-burning party, it's merely to point out *how* games are approached in regards to their female characters.  It doesn't necessarily mean you can be right or wrong in how you built the game, from what few videos of hers I've seen she rarely makes *concrete* suggestions for improvement beyond trying to go outside of well-used tropes for female characters (something I can find myself somewhat in agreement with in most contexts). 

 

For example, I could point out that the existence of guns in FPS games lends into the guns coming to represent the inflated male libido that those sorts of games often promote.  I could furthermore point out time and again how blatantly phallic guns in video games tend to be, and where they tend to be positioned on the screen vis a vis the character model.  Does that mean I hate the game? No.  It just means I see lots of **** in my video games, and think it may have something to do with reinforcing fragile masculinity. 

Edited April 4, 2015 by Gallenger