The big Phil Fish, Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian discussion thread

kunst nugget

anonyanony wrote: »

But we have plenty of context for his twitter posts and his Anita video's. This guy hates games

Okay, I've read through his twitter and from that I can see I hadn't taken his view out of context. The guy seems really annoying but c'est la vie. He's entitled to his opinion…

anonyanony

kunst nugget wrote: »

Okay, I've read through his twitter and from that I can see I hadn't taken his view out of context. The guy seems really annoying but c'est la vie. He's entitled to his opinion…

You have to remember he is the one behind Anita he co created tropes vs women he just uses Anita as a shield cause he saw a man could not bring these issues up cause they would rightly be laughed at ala Jack Thompson so he uses a woman to say everything he wants and you cannot be critical of a woman in today's society it seems.

If you follow his twitter he will post something horrible and then Anita will post something nearly the exact same. This was evident around that last school shooting in America

Nollog

anonyanony wrote: »

You have to remember he is the one behind Anita he co created tropes vs women he just uses Anita as a shield cause he saw a man could not bring these issues up cause they would rightly be laughed at ala Jack Thompson so he uses a woman to say everything he wants and you cannot be critical of a woman in today's society it seems.

If you follow his twitter he will post something horrible and then Anita will post something nearly the exact same. This was evident around that last school shooting in America

So he's controlling his woman?

COYVB wrote: »

Started a new publication recently and that's exactly what we decided to do. Sick to death of stupid numbers. Anyone dumb enough not to be able to figure it out from the text can shag off and read something else

You need to know your audience to make money, or is that not a goal?

johnny_ultimate

kunst nugget wrote: »

The thing for me, and most others, playing games where I shoot the shít out of thousands of people are purely a flights of fantasy. Giving out that the protagonist would most likely be suffering from debilitating PTSD from their experiences is a bit daft imo - these games aren't being built to address those issues. I'm all for games being developed that explore something like that but I'll be honest, if I'm playing the likes of Bulletstorm I'm not worrying about the long term effects all the shooting is going to have on my character. I've never felt it was a distraction playing games, such as Bulletstorm or the Uncharted series, where the moral implications of the character's killing of others wasn't addressed because, for a lot of games like that, they're essentially fulfilling simple hero fantasies.

Yes, absolutely, almost everybody who plays games has plenty of violent games I'm sure they thoroughly enjoy. I for one don't believe there's any harm in that, and it would be crazy to suggest every violent game should suddenly have a protagonist riddled by PTSD. But again taking the three comments in the above quote mine I singled out and not weighting them as positive or negative, there's nothing untrue about them. They're fair and accurate, pretty much statements of fact. I'd certainly love to see more people - critics and gamers - calling for and promoting more games that don't rely on violence as a shorthand, but I also think there's plenty of room for hero fantasies (and we should also be free to criticise games that we feel as individuals step over a line - Hatred, for example).

Funny thing is, as you mention above a quick glance at the McIntosh's Twitter highlights far more extreme comments, several of which I find pretty preposterous and simplistic. Yet bizarrely the quote mine picks out ones that are perfectly fair comment - that these are the ones being mocked and met with horror sadly partially proves the second last comment correct.

Just on the subject of Uncharted, that's one I'm unwilling to give a free pass to because I feel it has greater narrative ambitions, whereas I have no issues with the likes of Bulletstorm being far more lighthearted. Uncharted, pulpy though it fundamentally is, has characters and a script that elevates it far above the norm. That it fails to address to disconnect between play and story is IMO distractingly obvious, and thankfully a problem the Last of Us does not suffer from.

Links234

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

I remember the Jack Thompson sh*te.

This is feeling a bit like him alright.

In the way that he's brought lawsuits against developers? Or actively tried to get violent games banned? No? Then he's just another asshole with an opinion. Even then, none of that is comparible to what Thompson has said, calling games "murder simulators" and saying that "We have a nation of Manchurian Candidate video gamers out there who are ready, willing, and able to massacre, and some of them will."

And don't mistake my incredulity at gamergate as support for McIntosh, I think that anyone who calls themselves a pop culture hacker is quite a doofus, but he's still just an asshole with an opinion, which he's absolutely entitled to however wrong he might be. If you genuinely remember the days of Jack Thompson, then you'll know they're nothing alike.

anonyanony

/\/ollog wrote: »

So he's controlling his woman?

He is the idea's and she is the mouth and shield, they go together it can be seen anita did not care about games and is in it for the money from her college videos.

Gamergate has brought McIntosh's hate and ideas into the open and how much he is the idea's and scripter for Anita to say

Here are some youtubes change [dot] to .

www[dot]youtube[dot]com/watch?v=Afgtd8ZsXzI
www[dot]youtube[dot]com/watch?v=J2h4vITidvo
www[dot]youtube[dot]com/watch?v=gPWUwnXqJ_Y

Grumpypants

I always wonder why people say they don't want these "objective reviews" as they are little more than a list of you fly a spaceship, you press x to shoot, you shoot the enemy...... What is stopping the reviewer from talking passionately about how the controls work with the game mechanic, how they both work within the narrative of the story. You know, things that are relevant to the game and what the reader will encounter when playing the game for themselves and leave all the nonsense about their emotions getting hurt to opinion pieces.

People mistake keeping ideology out of your work as removing passion.

I have seen way to many reviews give bad scores to games, not because the game is bad but because they are either tired of the genre or prefer the competition. That to me is what people want when they say "be objective and review that game on its own merits" not to remove passion.

DeVore

Every Western would leave the cowboys wracked with guilt and the Indians with PSTD. WWII films? Where is the shellshock? Why don't paintball places have medical tents???!!

Most forms of entertainment have us doing/seeing things that are far from the mundane. We don't want to buy Tax Accountant Simulator 4!! Or watch a film about a person with kids a suburban house and a job they hate.


As far as objective vs subjective reviews go, I prefer subjective passionate reviews. I will admit that I DONT like to find out that a reviewer has an undisclosed bias especially a financially bribed one. But yeah, if someone wants to put their opinion in front of me and makes a case for it, I'm capable of listening and accepting/rejecting it as I see fit. Mesh 10 such reviews from 10 difference sources and you get a pretty decent picture of what the game is like. Wisdom of masses etc

My only concern is that frequently movements like feminism critique something... and then the next step is to pressure it to be changed. My preference for games tends towards the strategic and/or more story-based but I am currently playing Shadows of Mordor which is essentially an Orc Murder Simulator
The whole Rad Fem thing feels like creeping censorship and I don't want to have quotas in my games (or anywhere else for that matter).
http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2012/08/01

kunst nugget

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Just on the subject of Uncharted, that's one I'm unwilling to give a free pass to because I feel it has greater narrative ambitions, whereas I have no issues with the likes of Bulletstorm being far more lighthearted. Uncharted, pulpy though it fundamentally is, has characters and a script that elevates it far above the norm. That it fails to address to disconnect between play and story is IMO distractingly obvious, and thankfully a problem the Last of Us does not suffer from.

Ah, Uncharted is a romp in the style of Indiana Jones. I can't say I ever worried about Indy's mental state as he killed the baddies and it was never something they bothered to address in the movies. Uncharted operated in the same hemisphere for me. Although I think I developed PTSD myself after watching the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Links234

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

I'd certainly love to see more people - critics and gamers - calling for and promoting more games that don't rely on violence as a shorthand, but I also think there's plenty of room for hero fantasies (and we should also be free to criticise games that we feel as individuals step over a line - Hatred, for example).

You know, I think a lot of it is down to shortcomings in design. Games can and sometimes will make people care about characters, there's quite a few examples of this, Final Fantasy VII being the obvious one, but just look at Portal for an extreme. The game made you care for an inanimate object more than most other games made you care for their entire cast of characters, and that's down to some brilliant writing and a cleverly designed game.



But in contrast, a game like Payday 2 (which I absolutely love!) cannot get you to stop shooting civilians in the face no matter how much the developers try, and that's down to civs existing merely as an obstacle, it's a problem with design. There are all sorts of incentives in the game to get you to NOT kill random bystanders, be it cash penalties for civilian casualties, or time delays in getting a player back who's in police custody, or that you might need hostages to trade, or crippling the amount of body bags you can carry, no matter what consequences there are, players almost can't help gunning down innocent people. Why? Because if you're trying to play stealthy, there's one thing that'll **** your game up completely, and that's a civilian alerting the police or bank staff hitting the alarm, etc.

Because no matter what the devs do, it's often the easiest and safest if you're spotted just to shoot the guy who spotted you in the face and throw the body in a dumpster. It's safer to shoot the bank tellers who are right by the alarms than to attempt to control and intimidate them, tell them to lie down on the ground and then cable tie them individually. And previously there was a problem that once you cable tied a civilian, they were stationary for the entire game and anyone who spots it would be alerted, but if you killed them you could bag their corpse and throw the body in a dumpster or somewhere else out of sight so that nobody gets alerted by it. They tried to fix this by limiting the number of body bags each player had, that didn't help. They tried to fix it by making it possible to move your hostages once they were cable tied, but thei AI pathing is horrid and sometimes they can get in the way, because if you're trying to cable tie a bunch of people you can end up commanding one of them to stand up by accident... The game makes you want to gun down a bank full of people because **** it, you really come to hate those annoying bastards and they're just going to get in your way, robbing this bank would go so much smoother if everyone is dead.

Game design. One game made me care about an inanimate object, another made me want to kill every innocent on the map.

johnny_ultimate

Grumpypants wrote: »

People mistake keeping ideology out of your work as removing passion.

Who said anything about ideology? Absolutely a critique can be ideological in nature (and so what if it is?), but not every subjective review is an ideological one - I reckon a tiny minority are. There can be small ideological and moral aspects, sure, but what's the harm in that, especially if it's clearly an important part of the player's response to a game? If a few lines about the portrayal of female characters in GTA is considered dangerously subjective and toxically ideological, one can see why much gaming writing remains in the proverbial ****ter.

When I wax lyrical about the poetry of Bayonetta's combat mechanics, I am being subjective and passionate. As soon as I start making a personal judgement on something it is subjective. You can be generally objective - the sort of typically dull consumer guide reviews you see everywhere (story, gameplay, UI, music, yawn, graphics, conclusion, score) - but as soon as you start offering an opinion, you're being subjective even if you're trying to be fair and balanced. The soundtrack you love could be a piece of **** to me - really, the only objective comment there is 'there is a soundtrack' and some facts about its creation and what it is.

DeVore

I think Links and Shiminay have made good points that the quality of writing and design in most of the games out there today is absolutely dire.

Prince of Persia: Sands of Time had two terrific protagonists, one of whom was female but avoided many of the stereotypes (and wore appropriate clothing!! ). You came to really like both of them over the course of the game. (unfortunately someone later decided to turn the prince into a brooding "badass" in the sequel and lo and behold, it was crap).
Or more recently take Brothers: A tale of two sons. Despite having the most unnecessary subtitle *ever*... it really let you get to know the two characters and grow to like them for their personalities...all without the use of voice acting (the characters speak only in cartoonish non-language). It made me more emotional than any game I've played to date.

Unforunately there are then the Call Of Duties and while it might seem lazy to pick on CoD, I watched my nephew play through it and the story was absolute tosh. It was horrendously basic and almost a parody of games writing.

So why is CoD the number 1 franchise in the world and Brothers is an indie "hit". Same reason that One Direction are huge. Why Friends out-ratings Black Mirror and why a Jennifer Anderson rom-com will smash box office records.

This isn't a fault of games... this is a fault in our basic education systems, nay our culture.

Links234

DeVore wrote: »

Every Western would leave the cowboys wracked with guilt and the Indians with PSTD. WWII films? Where is the shellshock? Why don't paintball places have medical tents???!!

Most forms of entertainment have us doing/seeing things that are far from the mundane. We don't want to buy Tax Accountant Simulator 4!! Or watch a film about a person with kids a suburban house and a job they hate.

You might joke, but there's probably someone who's about to greenlight Tax Accountant Simulator 4 one of the days. There's already a Grass Simulator, and even a bread simulator called I Am Bread. And I'm pretty sure the movie you described probably exists as an oscar winner from the Coen Brothers

But there's a lot of games lately that are not your usual violent shooter that are absolutely fantastic, one that's had me unbelievably engrossed lately was Banished. It's sort of like Age of Empires without the war aspect, you have some settlers and you build a town, plant crops, manage resources, etc. There's no enemies, warring factions or anything like that at all, it's you against the elements and it's a hell of a challenge at times because you sometimes have natural disasters or disease or starvation, and when the idea is to get your town to survive, it can be seriously tough. It's one of the most engrossing games I've played in recent years, and it can definitely make you care about the lives of your villagers, when they start dying from something, you start to panic! It's nerve-wracking and tense at times.

But having these kinds of non-violent games doesn't take away from the mainstream or the violent ones. As buggy as it was sometimes, I thoroughly enjoyed decapitating people and hacking their limbs off in Chivalry. Variety and all. And if the whole indie game thing is bringing more things like FTL or Banished, then great.

DeVore wrote: »

Or more recently take Brothers: A tale of two sons. Despite having the most unnecessary subtitle *ever*... it really let you get to know the two characters and grow to like them for their personalities...all without the use of voice acting (the characters speak only in cartoonish non-language). It made me more emotional than any game I've played to date.

Thanks for reminding me of another game on my backlog that I need to play!

johnny_ultimate

Interesting article from Kotaku UK that uses Orange is the New Black as an example of how a GTA game could theoretically incorporate female leads: http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2014/11/20/grand-theft-auto-learn-orange-new-black

Fairly simple comparison, but it's good to see the big error Sarkeesian and others perpetuate addressed by someone: an interesting, well written female character doesn't have to be 'strong' or a goddess. They can be deeply flawed, unlikeable, even psychotic individuals - it's all down to how the writing handles that.

anonyanony

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Interesting article from Kotaku UK that uses Orange is the New Black as an example of how a GTA game could theoretically incorporate female leads:

Fairly simple comparison, but it's good to see the big error Sarkeesian and others perpetuate addressed by someone: an interesting, well written female character doesn't have to be 'strong' or a goddess. They can be deeply flawed, unlikeable, even psychotic individuals - it's all down to how the writing handles that.

Can you post an archive.today link for the article please

Links234

anonyanony wrote: »

Can you post an archive.today link for the article please

Oh for crying out loud... please tell me this is a parody, right?

Potatoeman

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Interesting article from Kotaku UK that uses Orange is the New Black as an example of how a GTA game could theoretically incorporate female leads: http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2014/11/20/grand-theft-auto-learn-orange-new-black

Fairly simple comparison, but it's good to see the big error Sarkeesian and others perpetuate addressed by someone: an interesting, well written female character doesn't have to be 'strong' or a goddess. They can be deeply flawed, unlikeable, even psychotic individuals - it's all down to how the writing handles that.

I generally dont care what sex the player characters in a games is but insisting on them seems a bit much. Isnt it the same as saying one of the woman from sex and the city should be a man to make it more appealing to men because some men watch it too.

anonyanony

Links234 wrote: »

Oh for crying out loud... please tell me this is a parody, right?

Why I am on my mobile and would like to check it out.

johnny_ultimate

Potatoeman wrote: »

I generally dont care what sex the player characters in a games is but insisting on them seems a bit much. Isnt it the same as saying one of the woman from sex and the city should be a man to make it more appealing to men because some men watch it too.

Who's insisting?

The article merely addresses the point that the biggest franchise in gaming has never had a playable female lead (barely mentioning the concerns that have been raised about the way women are portrayed in the game generally - although, let's be honest, almost every character in GTA is a shallow, grotesque or faceless human being ), and argues it would be nice to see Rockstar addressing the fact. Given the series starts with a near blank slate in terms of characters every game, it's not an entirely radical proposition - and here's some straightforward examples of how it could work in theory, given a lot of people seem to believe it wouldn't.

Is that really 'a bit much'? Articulating a preference or hope is not the same as a demand. I'd say it's a much more positive way of discussing these issues than campaigns to get the game withdrawn from shelves.

kunst nugget

Potatoeman wrote: »

I generally dont care what sex the player characters in a games is but insisting on them seems a bit much. Isnt it the same as saying one of the woman from sex and the city should be a man to make it more appealing to men because some men watch it too.

I don't the article was insisting but the reality is that female characters might not be considered at all because publishers think they will not appeal to their demographic.

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/publishers-said-you-cant-have-a-female-character-says-remember-me-dev/1100-6405550/

* Apologies if this was linked here in the last couple of days. I read this recently but not sure if it was from here.

Evac101

No idea about numbers being part of the PCMR but do console sales of GTA exceed those of, say, WoW or the various 'freemium' Chinese MMORPGs? Or games like Starcraft? Like I said, I'm a PC gamer myself (I own 4 console games :P) so I honestly don't know what the figures look like.

Addendum
I'm sure that the metrics are ones which could be argued to be invalid for whatever reason but this Business Insider article seems to indicate that WoW is by far the most profitable game franchise in history (even leaving monthly fee's aside). This for a game that will allow you to play male female or space satyr depending on your inclination.

Potatoeman

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Who's insisting?

The article merely addresses the point that the biggest franchise in gaming has never had a playable female lead (barely mentioning the concerns that have been raised about the way women are portrayed in the game generally), and argues it would be nice to see Rockstar addressing the fact. Given the series starts with a near blank slate in terms of characters every game, it's not an entirely radical proposition - and here's some straightforward examples of how it could work in theory, given a lot of people seem to believe it wouldn't.

Is that really 'a bit much'? Articulating a preference or hope is not the same as a demand. I'd say it's a much more positive way of discussing these issues than campaigns to get the game withdrawn from shelves.

There has been a few articles on the topic. Im not trying to say that is what this one is about. It just seems like there is pressure on them to do it so they will shoehorn in something to try and please people. Its like the multi racial casts that are only there for diversity and have no character or depth.

kunst nugget

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

Fairly simple comparison, but it's good to see the big error Sarkeesian and others perpetuate addressed by someone: an interesting, well written female character doesn't have to be 'strong' or a goddess. They can be deeply flawed, unlikeable, even psychotic individuals - it's all down to how the writing handles that.

One example that really stands out in my mind:

Popular perception of the exquisitely written characters of Breaking Bad.

Walt: complex anti-hero constantly conflicted by the morality of his actions
Sklyer: bitch.

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/culture/why-you-hate-skyler-white

kunst nugget

Potatoeman wrote: »

It just seems like there is pressure on them to do it so they will shoehorn in something to try and please people. Its like the multi racial casts that are only there for diversity and have no character or depth.

So do you believe that we should never have multi-racial casts or insist that there should be an exploration of their ethnicity to justify their inclusion instead of there being a normal person on it who just happens to be black or Asian?

Evac101

I think he was making the point regarding casts which have token 'ethnic' cast members with exaggerated traits which are perceived to be associated with that ethnicity for the sake of appearing inclusionary rather then including a character who happens to be x.

<edit>
the best reversal of this of course being Token in South Park.
</edit>

Potatoeman

kunst nugget wrote: »

So do you believe that we should never have multi-racial casts or insist that there should be an exploration of their ethnicity to justify their inclusion instead of there being a normal person on it who just happens to be black or Asian?

Have them but dont go captain planet with it. Dont have it be the full extent of their character.

Evac101

I am proven wrong :P

kunst nugget

Potatoeman wrote: »

Have them but dont go captain planet with it. Dont have it be the full extent of their character.

How many shows or games or whatever go Captain Planet on it?

Potatoeman

kunst nugget wrote: »

How many shows or games or whatever go Captain Planet on it?

Its the lazy box checking approach. You have it more in mid budget titles.

kunst nugget

Potatoeman wrote: »

Its the lazy box checking approach. You have it more in mid budget titles.

Examples, apart from kid's shows, would be great. Should I get annoyed if one of the characters in a game happens to be black or a woman because there only doing it to tick off boxes to appease the lefties?