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Community => Entertainment and Television => Topic started by: Art Vandelay on June 24, 2016, 08:15:08 am

Title: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Art Vandelay on June 24, 2016, 08:15:08 am
As all you clever sausages no doubt figured out from the title, this thread is for discussing any sort of social and/or political issues in gaming. Being outside of Flame and Burn, I'd like to remind everyone that it is a Gamergate-free zone, and therefore any mention of it outside of this warning will be reported to our illustrious moderators by myself, and I encourage all of you to do the same. After all, being able to discuss this stuff without all that shite getting in the way is exactly why Flame and Burn is the official gamergate quarantine in the first place.

So, let's kick things off. I may be living under a rock at the moment, but things seem a tad quiet on that front right now. So, let's go back a couple of months and look at The Division, Ubisoft's latest open world dystopian shooter. The interesting thing is that you essentially play as a government agent who kills US citizens without any due process, yet you're unironically portrayed as a hero. Hell, and it's not like they're gangsters or terrorists or anyone else who's actively malicious towards the rest of the country, they're almost all just disaster survivors whose only concern is living to see another day. Extra Credits did a far better job than I ever could summing it up and the implications of it, so I'll just post their video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jKsj345Jjw
Anyway, the only thing I really have to add to that is perhaps it's not so unironic after all? Maybe the developers thought the player could figure out just how fucked up what your actions are without the game explicitly spelling it out? Or perhaps it's a warning or merely a demonstration as to just how easy it is for those responsible to not only rationalise but also glorify atrocities? Though yeah, in all honesty, I would agree that the devs likely just didn't consider these issues in the first place.

So yeah, discuss, and feel free to bring up any other gaming related issues you'd like to share in a fuckwitgate-free environment. Enjoy!
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Askold on June 24, 2016, 08:42:01 am
...I haven't played Division. I think I watched 10 minutes of gameplay but that's about it. Is the video really a good summary of what the player does?

I don't mind human enemies in a game but usually there is either a justification as to why they deserve to get shot (enemy soldiers for example) or the game makes it clear that the player is not a good guy (GTA, Carmageddon etc.) I find it hard to believe that a game that tries to be serious making a group of enemies be just some random refugees who are trying to survive seems odd unless they are specifically making a point about it (Spec ops: the line for example.)
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: RavynousHunter on June 24, 2016, 09:34:05 am
So, its like Fallout, except you're expected to gun down settlers?  Not surprising; from what I've heard, a lot of the Tom Clancy games outside the Splinter Cell series are ultra-jingoistic games centered almost entirely around military worship.  Kind of like Call of Duty, but with actual gameplay.

Honestly, I have more issues with that than a hundred iterations of GTA or Saint's Row.  At least they never once claim that you're any kind of hero or good guy.  America, and the rest of the world, needs to stop sucking the dicks of their militaries.  Honestly makes me wonder if games like Spec Ops are there, at least partially, to serve as some sorta anti-recruitment measure.  Like, "this is what military life is actually like; no matter who you are, you end up a killer."  If that's so, we need more of them and they need more exposure.  The fewer people we feed into the military juggernaut, the more people we have to actually do something good for society and humanity as a whole.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: ironbite on June 24, 2016, 09:41:43 am
Spec Ops is THE game for taking the piss out of the military.  Yeah the gameplay isn't actually good what with it being a chest high wall sight seeing tour but the story is top notch.  Which is to be expected when you're adapting Heart of Darkness.

Ironbite-and Marlon Brando's been dead for a few years
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Askold on June 24, 2016, 09:46:08 am
Reminds me of the Zero Punctuation review of Black ops 2. "Nicaraquan freedom fighter and his quest for justice for his murdered family as he is hounded at every turn by the American military..." and then goes off on a tangent wondering why we are supposed to sympathize with USA. "What's that? The terrorist took away your MASSIVE ARMY OF KILLER-ROBOTS and didn't even use it to attack USA?"

Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: RavynousHunter on June 24, 2016, 09:48:22 am
Spec Ops is one of the only games to genuinely shock and horrify me.  And I'm a jaded motherfucker who can remain almost apathetically impassive whilst playing the likes of Amnesia.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Ultimate Paragon on June 24, 2016, 11:30:51 am
I haven't played The Division yet, but from my understanding, society has collapsed and you're shooting violent criminals.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Askold on June 24, 2016, 11:39:45 am
There's a problem with that logic. You see, the player represents the government. The players are agents of the government that are attempting to prevent a total collapse of the society and to return the city to it's rightful rule and thereby protect the citizens.

If they go around shooting everyone who might be a threat rather than doing things by the book that kinda gives the message that the government is now suddenly sliding towards tyranny and abandoning the laws they were supposed to uphold.

Which is something that many people in USA really fear (hence 2nd amendment fanatics and militias) but at the same time a large proportion of US citizens also actively supports it (Patriot act and Enhanced interrogation supporters and other Jack Bauer fanboys.) so this kinda makes it look like the game is pushing a rather questionable ideal.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Art Vandelay on June 24, 2016, 05:01:42 pm
There's a problem with that logic. You see, the player represents the government. The players are agents of the government that are attempting to prevent a total collapse of the society and to return the city to it's rightful rule and thereby protect the citizens.

If they go around shooting everyone who might be a threat rather than doing things by the book that kinda gives the message that the government is now suddenly sliding towards tyranny and abandoning the laws they were supposed to uphold.
Not to mention, you're part of a sleeper cell that answers only to the president and has total freedom and do and kill anything you want to achieve your objective. There's no transparency, no oversight and no due process whatsoever. Even if what you're doing is genuinely necessary in the short term, the fact that you even exist in the first place is rather concerning.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Søren on June 24, 2016, 08:32:39 pm
I couldnt stand Spec Ops, you can have a good story all you want but if you dont make it fun to play then Im not interested.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Cloud3514 on June 24, 2016, 10:50:15 pm
I haven't played The Division yet, but from my understanding, society has collapsed and you're shooting violent criminals.

Yeah, I HAVE played The Division. I traded it in three days later and I'm usually the last person to actually trade in games. Hell, I still have the copy of Final Fantasy XIII I bought on day 1 in 2010 despite it being one of my most hated games of all time, but my collecting philosophy is irrelevant here.

What is relevant is that the "violent criminals" you're shooting are, the vast majority of the time, minding their own business. Yes, they've got guns and, yes, you can see them looking for things to scavenge, but you're just as armed and you scavenge for supplies yourself. The reality is that the game, despite telling you that these are violent thugs that you need to shoot on sight (and you're expected to just shoot on sight), it looks and feels more like you're just shooting them because you personally have deemed them as criminals, ignoring due process.

Add in the fact that every single one of these enemies are denoted by the fact that they're all wearing hoodies, are portrayed as desperate disaster survivors and are flat out called "Rioters." Think about that in terms of current events. You're a government appointed authority with essentially no accountability or overhead that is expected to shoot hoodie clad "rioters" on sight without due process or even probable cause. Personally speaking, I find this kinda disconcerting.

Now, I don't have a problem with this in theory. In theory, the setting and the player's actions could have been used to explore military worship, authoritarianism and police accountability. It could have been a very relevant story with serious and interesting social commentary, but the story doesn't stop to reflect on the implications it's putting forth, which suggests two possibilities; either the developers are suggesting that the player's actions are truly noble and the game is pro-authoritarianism or that the developers were simply completely tone-deaf about the story they were putting forward. Personally, my vote is on tone-deafness for a few reasons, not the least because the story actually makes a point to show that the titular Division is a diverse group that is motivated by helping survivors.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Even Then on June 25, 2016, 02:30:38 pm
I've encountered the claim "SJWs* don't play video games" more than once. And every time, the same argument is used to support it: the commercial failure of one particular game, Sunset. But assuming that the commercial failure of this one game proves that those of the social left don't play video games makes one fatal logical flaw: it assumes that people in the social left are only capable of enjoying Sunset, or games like Sunset. By that same token, one could make the argument: "Christians don't play video games, because Bayonetta sold well."

It's a fallacy, is what it is.

*here used as the most common definition: "anyone to the left of me who's too uppity about it"
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: suri on June 25, 2016, 03:09:19 pm
"Christians don't play video games because Bayonetta sold well" seems like a structurally different argument: "Xs don't play video games because game-that-would-be-expected-to-appeal-less-to-Xs sold well" versus "Xs don't play video games because game-that-would-be-expected-to-appeal-more-to-Xs sold poorly". They're both not very good arguments, though the latter isn't quite as bad about an observation that should provide some evidence about the video game playing tendencies of Xs (though not necessarily about whether they play at all; it could also indicate that the assumption that the game would appeal to Xs was incorrect or that Xs don't spend money on games or that Xs predominantly play old games). To be clear, I do think it's still a bad argument; the other is just pretty hard to match.

I recall seeing people make a different sort of "SJWs don't play video games" argument after Undertale's release, which can be paraphrased as: the people raving about Undertale's pacifistic options and talking about it as a critique of RPGs clearly don't play video games because most RPGs aren't nearly as murdery as they seem to think and they don't seem to be aware of previous games exploring the same themes. This paraphrase did not refer to that subset of Undertale fans as "SJWs", but I think some instances of the argument that I saw did. This argument seems much better than the ones you're talking about (although it seems to me like it overcorrects too far, but, then again, I have not played a huge number of RPGs myself and IIRC hadn't played whatever specific games they brought up), but it's also much more precisely targeted. Those two things are probably related.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: ironbite on June 25, 2016, 03:37:48 pm
The Gaming Right(for lack of a better term) can't understand that video games as an industry are meant to appeal to either very broad sections of the population or very niche sections of the population.  And there is overlap between the two.  The argument that because "X game" did poorly reflects very badly on people making said argument.

Ironbite-because they haven't considered the possibility that it might've just been a bad game people didn't care for.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Askold on June 25, 2016, 03:46:08 pm
It's mainly entitlement syndrome and elitism. "WE" are the true gamers and games should have the stuff that we like, "THEY" are the evil usurpers who "don't even really like games" and if there is even one less game of the type that WE like then that's bad.

Or that's at least what it looks to me.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Cloud3514 on June 25, 2016, 11:23:00 pm
I recall seeing people make a different sort of "SJWs don't play video games" argument after Undertale's release, which can be paraphrased as: the people raving about Undertale's pacifistic options and talking about it as a critique of RPGs clearly don't play video games because most RPGs aren't nearly as murdery as they seem to think and they don't seem to be aware of previous games exploring the same themes. This paraphrase did not refer to that subset of Undertale fans as "SJWs", but I think some instances of the argument that I saw did. This argument seems much better than the ones you're talking about (although it seems to me like it overcorrects too far, but, then again, I have not played a huge number of RPGs myself and IIRC hadn't played whatever specific games they brought up), but it's also much more precisely targeted. Those two things are probably related.

At the same time, it's also ignoring that Undertale is a take on SNES and PS1 era JRPGs, not RPGs as a whole. Last I checked, in the vast majority of the JRPGs that inspired Undertale, the means to solve conflict always boils down to kill the enemy. I didn't befriend Lavos into surrendering, I stabbed him over and over again without stopping to think that there might be a peaceful resolution. Speaking as someone who has played a hell of a lot of classic JRPGs, you generally aren't given the option to NOT stab the thing standing in front of you.

Now, I'm not so stupid to think that every JRPG protagonist is a murderer that should have tried to talk things out with the bad guys instead of fighting as that would be like saying that an action movie should show the characters solving everything by just talking, which is missing the point. Undertale got the praise it got because it really IS unusual for a game in that style to give you an option to get through the story without stabbing first, asking questions later.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Askold on June 26, 2016, 12:02:01 am
Yeah, in JRPGs if there is a peaceful solution then it happens automatically whether or not the player actually wanted to murder the shit out of those people/things anyway. And if there is a violent solution then the player never gets an option of handling it non-violently.

Western CRPGs more commonly offer both options to the player and let them choose. Fallout games for example have often a diplomatic solution, stealth solution and violent solution to several quests.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Cloud3514 on June 26, 2016, 12:24:27 am
Ironically, the game I used as an example does give you a chance to choose between killing and recruiting the final party member, plus you have the option to save the silent protagonist's life by kicking the space-time continuum in the balls.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Tolpuddle Martyr on June 26, 2016, 01:23:33 am
I haven't played The Division yet, but from my understanding, society has collapsed and you're shooting violent criminals.
"Rioting" doesn't justify the original British Riot Act which was read out before the readcoats went all Viking on the angry commoners.

I know the Pentagon has endorsed computer games in the past. I wonder if the gun industry has any sweetheart deals with game companies.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Askold on June 26, 2016, 01:56:22 am
Seeing as the sales of certain guns goes up the moment the gun is seen in the latest FPS shooter it is possible.

There was a Youtube video about "game guns" that really got popular that way. I can't seem to find it now but one of the things mentioned was a gun store owner who suddenly had a lot of young people asking about an assault rifle that just came to the market. Even the hard core gun enthusiasts hadn't heard about that gun yet but for some reason it got a lot of first gun buyers really wanted it. Turns out that it was used in Modern warfare 2 so a lot of nerds wanted it. SCAR was the rifle in question I believe.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Tolpuddle Martyr on June 26, 2016, 02:01:26 am
Yeah, in JRPGs if there is a peaceful solution then it happens automatically whether or not the player actually wanted to murder the shit out of those people/things anyway. And if there is a violent solution then the player never gets an option of handling it non-violently.

Western CRPGs more commonly offer both options to the player and let them choose. Fallout games for example have often a diplomatic solution, stealth solution and violent solution to several quests.
I recall in DAI  an Inquisition scout telling you that the bandits don't take prisoners, then you go and stab all the bandits. Actually you don't get the option to take many prisoners save one smuggler in the Western Approach and an agent of Corypheus at the Empresses ball, and then only because they have tactical value to your side.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: RavynousHunter on June 26, 2016, 08:04:23 am
That's one of the reasons I've wanted to make an RPG for a very, very long time.  Always had, in my head, an in-depth reputation system where you get different reputations depending on what you do a la Fallout 1/2, but every NPC reacts differently depending on their own personal views.  If you get a reputation for simply killing bandits, some NPCs would treat you like a dispenser of quick justice, whereas others would see you as a murderous vigilante little better than the bandits you kill without mercy.  Intelligent opponents would even try to surrender to the PC, and you can either tie them up and send them to the guards or just kill them.  If you do the latter in front of people, a lot of them would be horrified, and you'd gain a reputation for being vicious and merciless.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Tolpuddle Martyr on June 26, 2016, 08:25:23 am
It does raise an interesting moral conundrum in medieval and post apocalypse settings, what do you do with non monsterous enemies if they surrender? Enslave them and get them to work off their misdeeds, give 'em to the local authorities who might be less than merciful, put them in the stocks-what? None of the options in those settings are exactly clean or clean cut.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Askold on June 26, 2016, 08:29:11 am
I once played in a RPG campaign where the PCs did give bandits to the local authorities once some of them went unconscious in a fight rather than dying.

They got hanged from a tree as was customary thereabouts. Frontier justice!

And speaking of defeated enemies, letting them flee is always an option. It comes from DnD (although other RPGS also have this kind of entality) mindset that you have to kill all your enemies. "If they run that means less exp/loot" is a pretty gamey way to handle it. For me (and my characters) defeating the enemies and completing the objective is usually enough. Sometimes simply surviving is enough and there is no need to hunt down every single enemy.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: RavynousHunter on June 26, 2016, 08:39:41 am
It does raise an interesting moral conundrum in medieval and post apocalypse settings, what do you do with non monsterous enemies if they surrender? Enslave them and get them to work off their misdeeds, give 'em to the local authorities who might be less than merciful, put them in the stocks-what? None of the options in those settings are exactly clean or clean cut.

Precisely, which is why NPCs would view it differently on an individual basis.  Some would view taking bandits to trial (which would be a thing in my setting) as a complete waste of money and time, that imprisoning them doesn't change them, and they're not completely wrong.  But, where do you draw the line?  Some people view due process as an unnecessary piece of red tape, holding justice back.  On the other hand, who makes the PCs judge, jury, and executioner?  Are they an official arm of the law?  Most times, they're just freelancers with money, resources, and special abilities.  Someone who hands bandits over to the law could just as easily be considered a coward by some, either unwilling or unable to solve the problem on their own.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: SCarpelan on June 26, 2016, 09:07:40 am
It does raise an interesting moral conundrum in medieval and post apocalypse settings, what do you do with non monsterous enemies if they surrender? Enslave them and get them to work off their misdeeds, give 'em to the local authorities who might be less than merciful, put them in the stocks-what? None of the options in those settings are exactly clean or clean cut.

Precisely, which is why NPCs would view it differently on an individual basis.  Some would view taking bandits to trial (which would be a thing in my setting) as a complete waste of money and time, that imprisoning them doesn't change them, and they're not completely wrong.  But, where do you draw the line?  Some people view due process as an unnecessary piece of red tape, holding justice back.  On the other hand, who makes the PCs judge, jury, and executioner?  Are they an official arm of the law?  Most times, they're just freelancers with money, resources, and special abilities.  Someone who hands bandits over to the law could just as easily be considered a coward by some, either unwilling or unable to solve the problem on their own.

From an adventurer's perspective handing the captives to the law might not always be an option at all. Without modern infrastructure taking them to the law can be a big effort and you often have something important and urgent to do and delay might endanger lives. In a medieval/post-apocalyptic setting the punishment would probably be death anyway and there would be no resources for due process as we see it. Imprisonment is a fairly modern solution that requires a lot of resources, after all, and immediate physical or shame punishments are more practical in such societies. What goes for due process might not be any more reliable or just from our perspective than the characters punishing the bandits themselves.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Tolpuddle Martyr on June 26, 2016, 06:14:58 pm
Which makes for good role playing. Your decisions have reprecussions whatever you do, or don't do. The witcher III has a side quest where you catch the guy who torched a local dwarves forge, if you turn him over to the soldiers they simply kill him telling you that no trial is needed and "a tree is sufficient". To me this stuff adds to the immersion.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: ironbite on June 26, 2016, 06:20:18 pm
There's a few mods for Fallout New Vegas that I absolutely love for how immersive they are.  Shut up Opera it so too is a word.  New Vegas Bounties adds a whole new level of immersion to the game as well as gives you a storyline that actually pays off in the end.  Of course Fallout 3 had the same thing if you joined up with either the Regulators or Littlehorn and Associates which baffles me.  3 is set in the Capital Wasteland while New Vegas is in the wild wild west.  Surely the Regulators and Littlehorn would be out there as well.  Ahh well.  At least we got mods.

Ironbite-sweet sweet mods.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Even Then on June 28, 2016, 03:37:14 am
"Christians don't play video games because Bayonetta sold well" seems like a structurally different argument: "Xs don't play video games because game-that-would-be-expected-to-appeal-less-to-Xs sold well" versus "Xs don't play video games because game-that-would-be-expected-to-appeal-more-to-Xs sold poorly". They're both not very good arguments, though the latter isn't quite as bad about an observation that should provide some evidence about the video game playing tendencies of Xs (though not necessarily about whether they play at all; it could also indicate that the assumption that the game would appeal to Xs was incorrect or that Xs don't spend money on games or that Xs predominantly play old games). To be clear, I do think it's still a bad argument; the other is just pretty hard to match.

Yeah, fair enough.

I was thinking about that whole Baldur's Gate thing, and about how some people have been saying that not being able to be transphobic to Mizhena constitutes being "treated with kid gloves" and "immersion breaking". Should any game with a real-world minority character allow for an option to perpetuate real-world bigotry to that character? Do racists and homophobes and such deserve to be catered to? My personal opinion: no on both counts.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Tolpuddle Martyr on June 28, 2016, 03:57:15 am
Personally, IMHO cries for the inclusion of RW bigotry in the name of "realism" are composed entirely of donkey shite. It's not "immersion" to have bigoted dickbags everywhere in your game, it's pandering to those who want to normalize bigoted dickbaggery.

If you are using it to.tell a story, ok-maybe. If the story is "this stuff aint a big deal", you're talking out your arse.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Art Vandelay on June 28, 2016, 05:13:11 am
Eh, I can kind of see the other side's view on this matter. A lot of games will have you be a thieving, murdering and generally rude to others bag of dicks, but rarely ever a bigot. And if you do, then it's always optional and never towards groups that actually exist. Like Dragon Age: Origins, for example, wherein they give you the odd dialogue option that's racist towards elves or dwarves. It is kind of stupid when you think about it that games like Grand Theft Auto will have you play as a deranged psychopath whose typical day consists of murdering at least 20 people, but only if that deranged psychopath has a sufficiently progressive and tolerant view of race, sexuality, religion and gender. Compare this to film or books wherein stories with bigoted characters, main characters included, or bigotry as a major part of the world can exist without the creators/audience being accused of said bigotry themselves and you can see how people can be both not only okay with but also in favour of racist/sexist/transphobic/whatever else video game characters existing without being racist/sexist/transphobic/whatever else themselves.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Even Then on June 28, 2016, 05:25:21 am
I guess it would be more understandable if it's like "this character is horrible, that's the point" - but when people start crying about how not being able to call someone a t***ny is immersion-breaking in a game set in a fantasy world where Earth prejudices don't by default exist, it comes off as people just wanting their own particular brand of fuckwittery to be accommodated.

Like, if there's a Final Fantasy-style game where one of the party members has misogynistic attitudes, okay, sure, that can be used for something. Final Fantasy X had Wakka, Wakka was racist, he got over that, that's a good little arc. Dragon Age has homophobia in Dorian's backstory, great, dramatic. But when people start clamouring that they themselves, through the vessel of the player character, should be able to make kitchen jokes or else their immersion in this fantasy world is just ruined... yeah, if your immersion is shattered by not being able to gaybash someone as casually as telling them goodbye, after you just killed a dragon with a magic spell you learned from a 1000-year-old cat, then that's honestly a you problem.

*general you used throughout this post.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Art Vandelay on June 28, 2016, 06:06:14 am
Would you apply that same logic to stealing and murdering? Generally, people like to at least have the option in their open world RPGs to kill every NPC who looks at them funny and pilfer everything that's not nailed down, yet no one suggests that they can only be terrible people IRL for daring to request such a feature. Roleplaying as a total shitbreeze is a pretty standard thing is those types of games, if only to liven up that 2nd playthrough. Why is it totally okay and not at all a negative reflection of the player's moral fibre if they decide to break into NPC Joe's house, steal all of his worldly possessions and kill his entire family for shits 'n' giggles, followed by playing with their carcasses after the fact if the physics engine allows for it, but not if they call him a nigger or a tranny?
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Even Then on June 28, 2016, 06:35:17 am
For me, what makes it suspicious it's that bigotry is that extra bit of fuck-you. "Stealing and killing isn't enough for me in this game, no, I need to do it in a way that denigrates a real-life dehumanized minority or I just can't get my rocks off sufficiently. This game lacks transphobia, therefore it's badly designed." But sure, it's likely that some people just want a wide variety of awful reactions for character or whatever while still being decent people. Okay. I can buy that. As long as it's actually treated by the narrative as a bad thing and not just brushed off, sure.

What I can't really give a benefit of a doubt to is when people whine about the lack of bigot options breaking their immersion in a fantasy world, specifically. Where there are dragons and angels and archmages and all sorts of fantasy shit. I start side-eyeing people when they insist that growing fairy wings with a potion made from unicorn hair and a virgin's sigh of sorrow is fine and totally realistic, but not being able to call people real-life slurs in a world that's not Earth and therefore doesn't have the history that spawned those slurs to begin with, now that just breaks all suspension of disbelief.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: SCarpelan on June 28, 2016, 06:47:51 am
Personally, I wouldn't care if a game has an option to be homophobic/misogynistic/whatever or a character is such if it is handled properly. For example, the mute PC in GTA 3 shoots a nagging woman offscreen and I loved the game because that was the kind of dark humor the game had and it was done too over the top to take seriously. I just think demanding that you have to be able to be asshole in a particular way is stupid specially in fantasy games. This is not completely equal to other mayhem people do.

Stealing, murdering etc are things that almost anyone agrees are bad, mmkay? People do it in the game for shits and giggles, not because they would like to do it in real life. Homophobia, racism and other such phenomena on the other hand are silently accepted and supported by a large group of people for whom it would have a different meaning. Choosing not to include an option for a player to express these attitudes by acting along with them in the game is an understandable decision. It's also understandable to leave it out without even considering the issue seriously.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Even Then on June 28, 2016, 06:56:12 am
Basically, what SCarpe said.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Art Vandelay on June 28, 2016, 07:54:58 am
For me, what makes it suspicious it's that bigotry is that extra bit of fuck-you. "Stealing and killing isn't enough for me in this game, no, I need to do it in a way that denigrates a real-life dehumanized minority or I just can't get my rocks off sufficiently. This game lacks transphobia, therefore it's badly designed." But sure, it's likely that some people just want a wide variety of awful reactions for character or whatever while still being decent people. Okay. I can buy that. As long as it's actually treated by the narrative as a bad thing and not just brushed off, sure.
That doesn't really answer my question. Why exactly does bigotry cross the line in the first place, whereas stealing and murder is all just fun and games? Why is it the thing that raises your suspicions and not stealing and murder?

On a similar note, are you okay with, say, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City's story wherein the player character is a deranged psychopath who, far from learning the error of his ways, actually becomes rich and powerful essentially by killing anyone and everyone who even slightly gets in his way? What if, besides being a vehicular kleptomaniac who rarely bothers to differentiate between the road and the footpath, he also hated blacks and gays? Would that offend you in ways the original Tommy Vercetti does not? Would you call for the game to be re-written or outright banned because of it?
What I can't really give a benefit of a doubt to is when people whine about the lack of bigot options breaking their immersion in a fantasy world, specifically. Where there are dragons and angels and archmages and all sorts of fantasy shit. I start side-eyeing people when they insist that growing fairy wings with a potion made from unicorn hair and a virgin's sigh of sorrow is fine and totally realistic, but not being able to call people real-life slurs in a world that's not Earth and therefore doesn't have the history that spawned those slurs to begin with, now that just breaks all suspension of disbelief.
Interesting. So, why draw the line at slurs for not having the necessary real world history? If you want to take that logic to its conclusion, then any world that does not have the exact same geography, cultures and history, then it should break your suspension of disbelief for the modern English language to exist and be spoken with real life accents, much less the slurs. Really, each world would need its own unique set of languages and linguistic history that spawned them in their contemporary state, or immersion goes right out the window.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's required for all fantasy worlds. That would just be stupid. Just that there shouldn't be this big taboo against bigotry in games stories. That does nothing but limit creative freedom for the sake of not offending a few people. And yeah, especially with all the gritty and edgy "dark fantasy" we have nowadays, it does tend to be a bit jarring everyone is all enlightened and progressive when it comes to race or sexuality or gender, yet are otherwise absolute bastards. Hell, it's even more jarring when fantasy bigotry exists yet anything resembling real world bigotry is absent. All the humans will happily be complete dicks to the elves or dwarves, or the humans from different fantasy kingdoms, yet strangely enough there's not even a smidgeon on tension between humans with light skin and humans with dark skin. Like the inhabitants of this world where racism runs rampant don't even notice a difference that's so visible you can see it at a glance. It's not a case of wanting a make-believe race war because it makes my little Aryan pee-pee hard or anything like, but simply a case of knowing full well that these people do not behave like that. It's a behaviour that is very out of character with the rest of the world and sticks out like a sore thumb. That's really the main concern here.

Yeah, obviously there are going to be people who do just want to feel as though their favourite game justifies their own real world bigotry. I wouldn't deny for a second that those idiots are a thing. All I'm saying is don't assume everyone who's against this taboo is one of them.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Askold on June 28, 2016, 09:45:00 am
The thing is that people are demanding that the game should have the kind of bigotry that does not exist in the setting as far as I know.

This is like some yankee watching a British TV show and demanding to know why the main character isn't complaining that the universal healthcare in the country is "pure communism" or why he hasn't shot the stranger that snuck into his home already. Or a Briton reading Spiderman and complaining that "OY what mate?! How come tingly-tangly-eight-legged-nope-man wants to shag the MJ gal? She's ginger and nobody likes gingers."

Show me where is it said that Forgotten Realms has transphobia because as far as I know it does not. They have people who are bigoted against certain species or religious groups and so on but no transphobia as far as I know. Demanding that the game should have normalized transphobia is fundamentally wrong if it is not in the setting.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Even Then on June 28, 2016, 10:21:55 am
For me, what makes it suspicious it's that bigotry is that extra bit of fuck-you. "Stealing and killing isn't enough for me in this game, no, I need to do it in a way that denigrates a real-life dehumanized minority or I just can't get my rocks off sufficiently. This game lacks transphobia, therefore it's badly designed." But sure, it's likely that some people just want a wide variety of awful reactions for character or whatever while still being decent people. Okay. I can buy that. As long as it's actually treated by the narrative as a bad thing and not just brushed off, sure.
That doesn't really answer my question. Why exactly does bigotry cross the line in the first place, whereas stealing and murder is all just fun and games? Why is it the thing that raises your suspicions and not stealing and murder?

On a similar note, are you okay with, say, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City's story wherein the player character is a deranged psychopath who, far from learning the error of his ways, actually becomes rich and powerful essentially by killing anyone and everyone who even slightly gets in his way? What if, besides being a vehicular kleptomaniac who rarely bothers to differentiate between the road and the footpath, he also hated blacks and gays? Would that offend you in ways the original Tommy Vercetti does not? Would you call for the game to be re-written or outright banned because of it?

Bigotry targets specific groups and makes and has made their lives shit specifically for being what they are on a widespread level, so it has baggage mere stealing and murdering doesn't. Stealing and killing can happen to anyone so it doesn't feel like you specifically are targeted, but getting slurs hurled at you and all that other fun stuff pretty often happens specifically because you're not white/not straight/not cis/not a man. And having to face that same shit treatment you get for being a certain kind of person in a game you play to escape reality for a while and unwind ruins that pleasure. That's why I don't really think twice about people adding mods wanting to kill plot-critical NPCs or whatever, but when someone insists on wanting to put transphobia in a game specifically, that makes me cringe. It's like the difference between wanting an action film to have a kick-ass martial arts scene where the hero beats down ninjas in troves, and wanting the hero to stop the movie in its tracks to tell one specific real-world guy named Craig Larson that he's a subhuman.

I admit that it might also be because stealing and killing has been so common in games that I haven't really thought about it that much. You just think "okay, it's part of the game, I'll kill these fifty dudes to progress I guess". But for me at least, real-world discriminations stick out because... well, in addition to all the shit I've said, that's just how I feel.

And about your GTA example,

1) If it was presented as something that's A-OK?  Yeah, that would bother me more, actually. If the narrative insinuated or made it clear that you're not supposed to like or want to be like Tommy Vercetti? Then that would fall under the whole "they're a horrible person, that's the point", and I personally wouldn't mind it.
2) I'm a lazy motherfucker with zero confidence in my ability to organize shit, so I wouldn't exactly be making petitions. I've also never called for the rewriting or banning of games that have racism in them in this thread, just questioned the necessity of games to cater to people who wanna chop off trans people's dicks in Baldur's Gate.

Interesting. So, why draw the line at slurs for not having the necessary real world history? If you want to take that logic to its conclusion, then any world that does not have the exact same geography, cultures and history, then it should break your suspension of disbelief for the modern English language to exist and be spoken with real life accents, much less the slurs. Really, each world would need its own unique set of languages and linguistic history that spawned them in their contemporary state, or immersion goes right out the window.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's required for all fantasy worlds. That would just be stupid. Just that there shouldn't be this big taboo against bigotry in games stories. That does nothing but limit creative freedom for the sake of not offending a few people. And yeah, especially with all the gritty and edgy "dark fantasy" we have nowadays, it does tend to be a bit jarring everyone is all enlightened and progressive when it comes to race or sexuality or gender, yet are otherwise absolute bastards. Hell, it's even more jarring when fantasy bigotry exists yet anything resembling real world bigotry is absent. All the humans will happily be complete dicks to the elves or dwarves, or the humans from different fantasy kingdoms, yet strangely enough there's not even a smidgeon on tension between humans with light skin and humans with dark skin. Like the inhabitants of this world where racism runs rampant don't even notice a difference that's so visible you can see it at a glance. It's not a case of wanting a make-believe race war because it makes my little Aryan pee-pee hard or anything like, but simply a case of knowing full well that these people do not behave like that. It's a behaviour that is very out of character with the rest of the world and sticks out like a sore thumb. That's really the main concern here.

Yeah, obviously there are going to be people who do just want to feel as though their favourite game justifies their own real world bigotry. I wouldn't deny for a second that those idiots are a thing. All I'm saying is don't assume everyone who's against this taboo is one of them.

Hoo boy there's a lot to deal with here.

1) I personally have never given my own opinion on what breaks immersion or not in this thread. I've got a pretty high suspension-of-disbelief height personally, it's easy for me to get immersed in a world. (Case in point; Final Fantasy VII has BBQ and references to real-world locations. I'm able to not give a shit.) I've just called bullshit on the standards of people who insist that time travel with an hourglass doesn't break suspension of disbelief, but black people not getting treated like shit for being black does.

2) I have said that bigotry in stories can be done well. I even gave examples, like Dorian's dad being homophobic in Dragon Age. I've also said that I do believe there's people who want to be able to misgender Mizhena for a Richer Story Expeience instead of wanting games to tell them that it's okay for them to be Trump supporters. Although I doubt that their number's that big,I can admit they exist. Here's some quotes, even.

Quote from: me, just a few posts ago
But sure, it's likely that some people just want a wide variety of awful reactions for character or whatever while still being decent people. Okay. I can buy that. As long as it's actually treated by the narrative as a bad thing and not just brushed off, sure.

Quote from: me, just a few posts ago
Like, if there's a Final Fantasy-style game where one of the party members has misogynistic attitudes, okay, sure, that can be used for something. Final Fantasy X had Wakka, Wakka was racist, he got over that, that's a good little arc. Dragon Age has homophobia in Dorian's backstory, great, dramatic.

If you wanna use me as a springboard to go on a wider tangent, sure, I'm glad I managed to help you express your thoughts or whatever. But at least tell me you've stopped actually responding to me so I don't get the same feeling of not actually being talked to that I get from strawmanning prats on deviantArt.

Bottom line: can bigotry be used well in a game narrative? Yeah, of course. There's lots of good games and other works of fiction that use bigotry, real-world or fantastic, as story elements.

Quote from: me, when I started this
Should any game with a real-world minority character allow for an option to perpetuate real-world bigotry to that character?

Still leaning towards "no", still don't think it's necessary. (I'm not saying you think it's necessary, I'm just saying I don't think it is.) Do I think that real-world bigotry needs to exist in every setting that has humans in it or it's "out of character"? Again, no, I think a fictional setting can still be immersive without it. Maybe the bigotry happens offscreen. Maybe that particular place is just really cool about equality, it can happen. Maybe it's a fictional world so ethnic and social dynamics are different, because fictional worlds are anything the creator makes them to be.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Tolpuddle Martyr on June 28, 2016, 12:20:45 pm
If a work of fiction has one kind of socially unacceptable behavior going on then it should let them all in? Sorry, does not follow. Would the people arguing that it's ok to allow various types of bigotry because the characters can get away with in-game murder be ok with rape and pederasty being thrown in as player options? There are two options here "fuck no" or back away from that person very slowly.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Askold on June 28, 2016, 12:53:16 pm
Playing the devil's advocate:

I wouldn't actually oppose the option to play a horribly racist transphobe if the game was set in the real world for example, I just think it is really dishonest to demand such behaviour to be possible in a setting that does not have transphobia.

Though I am not sure if I would play that kind of game or at least not that way.

In some ways I am annoyed that you can make a shooter where people kill hundreds of "politically acceptable targets" but making a game where you play a Wermacht soldier is unacceptable. Then there is the strange hypocrisy that if you make a strategy game then the "evil" campaign is perfectly acceptable. Probably because strategy games that stem from board games had to have someone play the Axis if the other person had an Allied army etc.

And then there is the fact that how you portray such behaviour really makes the difference. Captain Sam Vimes starts out as a racist but the Discworld novels never try to make it look like him being a racist is a good thing. Art also had a few examples of games where some characters having bad characteristics were used to make a nice story.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Even Then on June 28, 2016, 03:17:04 pm
Quote
And then there is the fact that how you portray such behaviour really makes the difference. Captain Sam Vimes starts out as a racist but the Discworld novels never try to make it look like him being a racist is a good thing. Art also had a few examples of games where some characters having bad characteristics were used to make a nice story.

Yeah, that's basically the gist of it. If someone made Wehrmacht Simulator 2016 but made it a point that you're not supposed to think the protagonist is Cool and Awesome, then I would think that's a good use of the concept. Like I said, bigotry can be used well as a story element.

But I'm not convinced that, say, a detective game set in modern-day California would be that enriched by a singular dialogue option where you get to have the main character call someone a f*g. It would be perfectly possible to have an adequately engrossing and realistic character and setting otherwise, too. (If they actually did something with it and addressed it, like have the character examine their ingrained preconceptions and habits and whatnot, then it would feel like its presence within the game is actually justified beyond "I want to get my Aryan pee-pee hard" or "I want to be a prick in this one very specialized fashion for The Experience".) A GTA-style game that's supposed to go over the top? That would make more sense, but ultimately I think that resorting to """ironic""" bigotry for Shock Value is lazy as nobs.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Art Vandelay on June 28, 2016, 07:15:28 pm
Bigotry targets specific groups and makes and has made their lives shit specifically for being what they are on a widespread level, so it has baggage mere stealing and murdering doesn't. Stealing and killing can happen to anyone so it doesn't feel like you specifically are targeted, but getting slurs hurled at you and all that other fun stuff pretty often happens specifically because you're not white/not straight/not cis/not a man. And having to face that same shit treatment you get for being a certain kind of person in a game you play to escape reality for a while and unwind ruins that pleasure. That's why I don't really think twice about people adding mods wanting to kill plot-critical NPCs or whatever, but when someone insists on wanting to put transphobia in a game specifically, that makes me cringe. It's like the difference between wanting an action film to have a kick-ass martial arts scene where the hero beats down ninjas in troves, and wanting the hero to stop the movie in its tracks to tell one specific real-world guy named Craig Larson that he's a subhuman.

I admit that it might also be because stealing and killing has been so common in games that I haven't really thought about it that much. You just think "okay, it's part of the game, I'll kill these fifty dudes to progress I guess". But for me at least, real-world discriminations stick out because... well, in addition to all the shit I've said, that's just how I feel.
Alright, I see where you're coming from.
Hoo boy there's a lot to deal with here.

1) I personally have never given my own opinion on what breaks immersion or not in this thread. I've got a pretty high suspension-of-disbelief height personally, it's easy for me to get immersed in a world. (Case in point; Final Fantasy VII has BBQ and references to real-world locations. I'm able to not give a shit.) I've just called bullshit on the standards of people who insist that time travel with an hourglass doesn't break suspension of disbelief, but black people not getting treated like shit for being black does.
I wasn't saying it had to be immersion breaking for you personally, just that it can be immersion breaking for others, especially when it comes to all the dark fantasy we have nowadays.
If you wanna use me as a springboard to go on a wider tangent, sure, I'm glad I managed to help you express your thoughts or whatever. But at least tell me you've stopped actually responding to me so I don't get the same feeling of not actually being talked to that I get from strawmanning prats on deviantArt.
Yeah, I did get off on a bit of tangent there, didn't I? I suppose if you want to refocus on the original issue, I was basically responding to this specific thing you said.
Yeah, fair enough.

I was thinking about that whole Baldur's Gate thing, and about how some people have been saying that not being able to be transphobic to Mizhena constitutes being "treated with kid gloves" and "immersion breaking". Should any game with a real-world minority character allow for an option to perpetuate real-world bigotry to that character? Do racists and homophobes and such deserve to be catered to? My personal opinion: no on both counts.
You essentially said the only possible reason for in-game bigotry to exist is to cater to actual bigots. Although seeing as you said this.
I've also said that I do believe there's people who want to be able to misgender Mizhena for a Richer Story Expeience instead of wanting games to tell them that it's okay for them to be Trump supporters. Although I doubt that their number's that big,I can admit they exist. Here's some quotes, even.
That point is no longer relevant. So yeah, might as well just discuss the wider issue. That's what this thread is for, after all.
If a work of fiction has one kind of socially unacceptable behavior going on then it should let them all in? Sorry, does not follow. Would the people arguing that it's ok to allow various types of bigotry because the characters can get away with in-game murder be ok with rape and pederasty being thrown in as player options? There are two options here "fuck no" or back away from that person very slowly.
Yeah, why not? I'd just like to remind you that video games are not real life, and as such, a player's actions in-game do not represent some sort of moral failing on their part. This applies not just to theft and murder, but also bigotry and since you brought it up, rape and kiddy fiddling as well. Again, it's just a game. It's fantasy, not reality. No need to go full Jack Thompson over it.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Tolpuddle Martyr on June 28, 2016, 07:55:04 pm
Art, did you see me calling for a ban-ever, even in the Topic That Shall Not Be Named?

Because that's going "Jack Thompson", and not what I've ever proposed. Let me defend the arguments I've made and not those of some guy called Jack willya?
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Art Vandelay on June 28, 2016, 08:10:27 pm
Art, did you see me calling for a ban-ever, even in the Topic That Shall Not Be Named?

Because that's going "Jack Thompson", and not what I've ever proposed. Let me defend the arguments I've made and not those of some guy called Jack willya?
No, but you said those sorts of things should never be allowed in video games because it's immoral. That's very much in the spirit of Jack Thompson's schtick.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Tolpuddle Martyr on June 28, 2016, 08:12:05 pm
Art, did you see me calling for a ban-ever, even in the Topic That Shall Not Be Named?

Because that's going "Jack Thompson", and not what I've ever proposed. Let me defend the arguments I've made and not those of some guy called Jack willya?
No, but you said those sorts of things should never be allowed in video games because it's immoral. That's very much in the spirit of Jack Thompson's schtick.
Whoah, pull up. Where did I say "should never be allowed"? Quote and link.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Art Vandelay on June 28, 2016, 08:24:12 pm
So what exactly are you saying here?
If a work of fiction has one kind of socially unacceptable behavior going on then it should let them all in? Sorry, does not follow. Would the people arguing that it's ok to allow various types of bigotry because the characters can get away with in-game murder be ok with rape and pederasty being thrown in as player options? There are two options here "fuck no" or back away from that person very slowly.
So are you saying you do indeed think games should allow the player to be a bigot, rapist or kiddy fiddler, should the devs see fit to include it? While I may be just a big thicky, but it looks to me that at the very least you're heavily implying the opposite.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Tolpuddle Martyr on June 28, 2016, 10:09:43 pm
What I'm saying is that your freedom to craft and disseminate KittenRaper2000 does not grant you freedom from my condemnation or disgust.

If you do and I show up at your house and smash your games yelling "Kill the pigs, siamese liberation army, my name is Tanya" or even call on the government to ban your stupid game then I'm going Jack Thompson on you.

If I critque your cat raping simulator I'm not. Not even  if I make a series of videos damning your cat raping game and all games like it called "Felinesque Frequency".

It's not "Jack Thompson esque" to be critical, not even if you call something a worthless abomination with no redeeming features. It's not even Jack Thompson behaviour to call on stores not to stock it or to boycott your cat raping productions company. You are following in Jackies footsteps if you want it banned, clear enough?
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Art Vandelay on June 28, 2016, 10:28:00 pm
The Jack Thompson comparison was not about government censorship, but rather the idea that certain things should never be allowed in games. Whether it's through an official ban or sufficiently strong social pressure is irrelevant.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Tolpuddle Martyr on June 28, 2016, 10:40:49 pm
The Jack Thompson comparison was not about government censorship, but rather the idea that certain things should never be allowed in games. Whether it's through an official ban or sufficiently strong social pressure is irrelevant.
If you have a game where the protagonist is a detective investigating a pederast child killer I'm cool with that. Clearly there is rape and kiddie fiddling in that game world but it's not dealt with in a grossly exploitative way. If there's an actual kiddie porn game I'm not personally but that's not the same as calling for a ban.

Surely you have no problem with people expressing their discomfort or disgust a thing? If you see that as a slippery slope to "going Jack Thompson" then I'm afraid you'll have to connect the dots for me here.

Also the difference between social pressure and government action is hugely relevant because they are not the same thing. Not remotely.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Sigmaleph on June 28, 2016, 10:53:48 pm
Ok but you seem to be smoothly transitioning between "expressing disgust and condemnation" and "call on stores not to stock it or to boycott your cat raping productions company". Which, um. At some point you've crossed from 'this is not my thing' to 'I want to stop people from buying this game'.

Social pressure and government action are different things, but they exist on a spectrum of tools that can be used to ban something (and you definitely can try to ban something through social pressure).
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Tolpuddle Martyr on June 28, 2016, 11:07:18 pm
Ok but you seem to be smoothly transitioning between "expressing disgust and condemnation" and "call on stores not to stock it or to boycott your cat raping productions company". Which, um. At some point you've crossed from 'this is not my thing' to 'I want to stop people from buying this game'.

Social pressure and government action are different things, but they exist on a spectrum of tools that can be used to ban something (and you definitely can try to ban something through social pressure).
What I'm saying is that crticism is as protected in a free marketplace of ideas as edgy games are.

Also a call to a particular store not to stock a game is not necessarily a call to cut off everyone's access. Take the Target ban of GTA in Australia. The call was from parents who didn't want the hame in that store because they didn't want their kids to get access to it. There was no similar call for EB games or JB HiFi to do the same despite these chains sharing mallspace with Target Australia. Hence it was those parents exercising their freedom of speech to ask that the game be not available to small children in one specific location.

And I personally have zero problems with that!
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Art Vandelay on June 28, 2016, 11:39:12 pm
Surely you have no problem with people expressing their discomfort or disgust a thing? If you see that as a slippery slope to "going Jack Thompson" then I'm afraid you'll have to connect the dots for me here.
Of course. Expressing disgust is one thing, but saying it should not be allowed is entirely another.
Also the difference between social pressure and government action is hugely relevant because they are not the same thing. Not remotely.
I never said they were. Just that the difference between the two has nothing to do with the point I was making.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Tolpuddle Martyr on June 29, 2016, 01:09:15 am
What I said was that if someone were into rapey/kiddie fiddly games I would back away slowly and advise anyone else in their right mind to do likewise.

K?
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Art Vandelay on June 29, 2016, 01:16:17 am
What I said was that if someone were into rapey/kiddie fiddly games I would back away slowly and advise anyone else in their right mind to do likewise.

K?
No, you didn't. You said if someone said we should allow rapey/kiddie fiddly games.
Quote
Would the people arguing that it's ok to allow various types of bigotry because the characters can get away with in-game murder be ok with rape and pederasty being thrown in as player options? There are two options here "fuck no" or back away from that person very slowly.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Tolpuddle Martyr on June 29, 2016, 01:26:28 am
No, I'm not personally ok with allowing child porn or rape porn in games. I'm not calling on the state to ban them either and yes, there's a difference.

If I say "this thing is fucked, I'm not ok with it" I'm not calling the cops on you.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Art Vandelay on June 29, 2016, 01:33:45 am
There you go, hence the Jack Thompson comparison. You think something should not be allowed in the world of make-believe because it's immoral. Whether or not government bans are involved is entirely besides the point.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Tolpuddle Martyr on June 29, 2016, 01:37:07 am
Except for the point where something is done to actually, you know-prevent anybody from doing anything.

That little thing.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Art Vandelay on June 29, 2016, 01:55:50 am
As Sigma pointed out earlier, a strong enough social taboo can be just as effective. Hell, far more so, considering how impotent bans on media are nowadays.

In any case, no one even brought up bans except for you. I've said many times already I was comparing your views, not your actions to Thompson. You can stop whipping that strawman out any time now.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Tolpuddle Martyr on June 29, 2016, 02:04:07 am
As Sigma pointed out earlier, a strong enough social taboo can be just as effective. Hell, far more so, considering how impotent bans on media are nowadays.

In any case, no one even brought up bans except for you. I've said many times already I was comparing your views, not your actions to Thompson. You can stop whipping that strawman out any time now.
Thompsons views were not what madee him notable, what was notable was the call for action. I am not calling for action.

Yes I think some things are awful and shouldn't be done-there's a huge gulf between my personal opinion and an action to enforce my belief.

I'm allowed to have opinions, if you have a problem with me having said opinions then your stance isn't that different to mine. I'm doing something you disagree with but you aren't going to call the powers that be to make me stop. So my opinions are safe, and so are the rape games.

Just a quick reminder, Thompson didn't even consider games to be speech that people shouldn't be making. He didn't consider them speech but rather "dangerous physical appliances". I've never made an argument that's even remotely similar.

Look Art. I think you shouldn't make a rape porn game or a kiddie porn game for the same reason that I think you shouldn't pick your nose and eat it. It's disgusting, but if you want that sweet, sweet snot I can't stop you.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Even Then on June 29, 2016, 06:08:02 am
I still can't really see from the POV of the people who think riding a dragon to fight an elf god (or, in a more realistic setting, one dude from the slums becoming a successful millionaire or something) doesn't break immersion, but not being able to shit in a dark-skinned man's mailbox because he's dark-skinned doesn't. But fair enough, for some people this might break immersion for some reason.

So I ran across someone whining about Zarya from Overwatch and about how she was "forced because of an SJW agenda", and it got me thinking. Does it really matter if a character's included in a game for the sake of more diverse representation, as long as they're still a good character? Zarya's still a good character in the opinion of a lot of people regardless of being made so there'd be some variance in the body types of the female characters, so what should it matter? Why do these people care?
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Tolpuddle Martyr on June 29, 2016, 06:29:43 am
They care because for some representation is a zero sum game where if someone from a different group wins then they lose. Understanding this is key to unlocking the whole siege mentality thing among the gaming right.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Askold on June 29, 2016, 07:30:02 am
There was also a study revealing that even though women usually talk less than men in most situations men will think that the women talk more than men when men still dominate the amount of talk. I tried to find it and the closest I got is this: http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=2746840 and the extract does say just that but you have to pay to get the entire study and all the implications within.

Anyway, this might be something similar. Just the presence of a few LGBT, female or SJW-like characters makes some people think that "everything" is pushing some sort of agenda and they feel threatened. Even though, even if every single game from now on had a SJW character in a important position in the story it would not still mean that SJWs outnumber the "good ol' white, meat eating, heterosexual men."
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Tolpuddle Martyr on June 29, 2016, 08:07:37 am
Re: The whole Jack Thompson thing. Jack spoke openly about wanting to destroy videogame companies, did not regard games as speech but rather "murder simulators" and compared them to lethal viruses. In short he was arguing that they must be stopped.

There's a difference between "should" and "must" one adverb suggests an imperative or command, the other is a strong appeal. If someone suggests that you shouldn't make rape simulators or you should make games more that's the latter and it's nothing remotely like Thompson's forthright  desire to destroy the producers of the games he despised.

I don't think anybody should be a Nazi, but I'm not Antifa and I'm not going to literally attack you if you have cracker bolts tattooed on you, I still really think you shouldn't and if you think that makes me literally Jack Thompson  then you can fucking bite me.

Rant over.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Sigmaleph on June 29, 2016, 01:38:47 pm
Ok but you seem to be smoothly transitioning between "expressing disgust and condemnation" and "call on stores not to stock it or to boycott your cat raping productions company". Which, um. At some point you've crossed from 'this is not my thing' to 'I want to stop people from buying this game'.

Social pressure and government action are different things, but they exist on a spectrum of tools that can be used to ban something (and you definitely can try to ban something through social pressure).
What I'm saying is that crticism is as protected in a free marketplace of ideas as edgy games are.

Also a call to a particular store not to stock a game is not necessarily a call to cut off everyone's access. Take the Target ban of GTA in Australia. The call was from parents who didn't want the hame in that store because they didn't want their kids to get access to it. There was no similar call for EB games or JB HiFi to do the same despite these chains sharing mallspace with Target Australia. Hence it was those parents exercising their freedom of speech to ask that the game be not available to small children in one specific location.

And I personally have zero problems with that!

I kind of have nonzero problems with that.

If you don't want your children to not own a particular game, don't buy it for them. If you give them an allowance, specify that they are not allowed to spend it on games you don't approve of and keep track of what they buy, or check their viedogame collections, or whatever. Parents have a lot of power over their children which they can exercise to stop them from accessing media, without also involving third parties.

If you try to get a store not to stock it, you're making it harder for other people, who are not your children, to buy the game. And affecting the sales, and making it so the next game the developer makes they have to consider whether they want to sell at Target or not before deciding to include content people find objectionable. So yes, you exert some pressure against the kinds of things you find objectionable. I dislike that as a matter of principle.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Tolpuddle Martyr on June 29, 2016, 05:29:15 pm
Practically it had no effect on anyone's ability to purchase GTAIV. Seriously, in every shopping center with a Target there's also a JBHiFi and an EB games. The only exceptions are country towns with Country Target stores. For those areas, there's the internet. In any case the store is making a decision with its stock in which you do not get a say unless you are a shareholder in Target Australia.

Ampilitwatja in the Northern Territory has only one store and is 500 km from the nearest post office, police station or Target store but you can purchase GTA if you have an internet account and a steam login. GTA is more acessible than law enforcement, potable water or fresh food. What's the problem?
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Sigmaleph on June 29, 2016, 11:37:01 pm
Practically it had no effect on anyone's ability to purchase GTAIV. Seriously, in every shopping center with a Target there's also a JBHiFi and an EB games. The only exceptions are country towns with Country Target stores. For those areas, there's the internet. In any case the store is making a decision with its stock in which you do not get a say unless you are a shareholder in Target Australia.

Ampilitwatja in the Northern Territory has only one store and is 500 km from the nearest post office, police station or Target store but you can purchase GTA if you have an internet account and a steam login. GTA is more acessible than law enforcement, potable water or fresh food. What's the problem?

None at all, if accessibility is not reduced. But reducing accessibility is usually the reason why one asks stores not to stock a product.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Tolpuddle Martyr on June 30, 2016, 12:55:15 am
The store didn't have to heed the parents groups demands and it's also clear that some of their competitors didn't. Are you saying that Target Australia has some sort of moral duty to sell the products of Rockstar Games?

If so does this moral duty extend to other video game manufacturers?
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Cloud3514 on June 30, 2016, 02:19:34 am
Sorry, Tol, I have to disagree with you on this one. From what I understand (and according to Jim Sterling (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15zR-ZmTWE0)), the petition was disingenuous and the decision to pull it is stupidly selective. Why pull GTA, but not Watch Dogs or Assassin's Creed? There are plenty of games that are just as violent on the market, but they aren't as infamous as GTA. Rock Star's only crime here is that they make a controversial game.

Target Australia pulled the game in a purely political move after the game had been out for months and already made them about as much money as it was going to make them. The decision to pull isn't censorship, but I argue it's still stupid to pander to a petition that continues to perpetuate the "murder simulator" rhetoric that made the series infamous in the first place.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Tolpuddle Martyr on June 30, 2016, 02:44:24 am
I don't believe that the type of folks who fly the "save the kids from violent games" brigade are making good arguments and of course it was a political decision to pull the game. It was as heartfelt and sincere as Reddit's decision to ban coontown. That is to say nakedly political and utterly insincere. That said, it'a still a stores right to stock what they want or don't want even if their reasons are dumb and/or cynical. It still didn't affect the games avaliability.

People will make the case to boycott businesses based on reasons that range from noble and enlightened to thunderingly stupid and reactionary. They still have the right to do so and businesses have the right to react. You want to fight things like the GTA ban? Do it with good arguments and good information. As it stands only one store bought into the moral panic to the benefit of their competitors.

It's true that the GTA ban was literally pointless, how pointless? The wee little wattle flowers down under couldn't have bought the game anyway. It's rated MA (15+).  Are we gonna waste time condemning big box stores for making pointless PR gestures now?
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Cloud3514 on June 30, 2016, 03:27:57 am
Criticism is not finite. I level some criticism towards Target Australia for making the decision, but I level far, far more of it towards the people responsible for the petition. They want to save the world from a video game that isn't even targeted towards their kids, while happily ignoring all of the other M (or rather, whatever the Australian equivalent is) rated titles, some of which (namely Call of Duty) are actually targeted at kids. It was a stupid thing to petition, especially when you consider, again, they waited until the game had already made Target all of the money it was going to make anyway.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Tolpuddle Martyr on June 30, 2016, 03:32:47 am
Yep, I concede that. It was a stupid petition that yeilded an utterly vacuous result. But if it didn't actually do anything to stop Australians getting access to games they want to play, why should I care?
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Cloud3514 on June 30, 2016, 05:04:36 am
That question I don't have an answer for if I don't want to go to the slippery slope. And I don't.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Tolpuddle Martyr on June 30, 2016, 06:56:20 am
Ok.

I can see people's concerns here with any movement that seeks to paint games as a social evil that must be kept away from children. First there's the spectre of Gaming's own Mary Whitehouse Jack Thompson and his evidence free assertion that games are merely murder simulators that constitute neither art nor speech. Secondly there's the tone-deaf inference that games are primarily for children, you know-like comics or dressing up.

The moral panickers are always going to be there. In the eyes of some on this board I'm among this number because I believe making games where a player can gain entertainment simulating rape or pederasty is morally repugnant and not a thing which is morally acceptable.

The thing is, reacting to every challenge to haming as if it were Jack Thompson reborn loses the lesson of Jack Thompson's crusade. If you try and squash everything that initially looks like a potential threat the way Thompson tried to squash rap music and computer games you'll end up looking as silly as he did.

If I make the argument that the Target ban in Australia was no big deal, I'm not arguing that it was a good thing or similar anti-game campaigns don't necessarily represent a threat to free speech. If I argue that an artistic expression is morally unacceptable to me I'm not on a personal quest to destroy the manufacturers of those games a la Jack Thompson or make the game unavailable to you. If I agree that boycotts based on moral opposition to a thing are not inherently bad I'm not arguing that the campaign to stop Target Australia stocking GTA was innately good either.

TL;DR good people of FQA not every negative opinion towards a game or games represents the spectre of Jack Thompson rising from obscurity to be really scary. Right? Right.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Sigmaleph on July 01, 2016, 11:06:25 pm
The store didn't have to heed the parents groups demands and it's also clear that some of their competitors didn't. Are you saying that Target Australia has some sort of moral duty to sell the products of Rockstar Games?

If so does this moral duty extend to other video game manufacturers?

No. I'm not discussing the morality of the actions of Target Australia. I was arguing about the general practice of demanding that a store not to stock a game because you personally find it disgusting.

If you demand that a store not do a particular thing, there's one of two possible outcomes:

a) nothing happens, because the store ignores you or because people buy their games elsewhere. Or,

b) people have a harder time buying the game.

People don't usually intend a, because a is pointless. So one has to assume they intend b. Which I think is a dick move.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Tolpuddle Martyr on July 02, 2016, 12:22:14 am
The intention is B, and it would indeed be a dick move if you could pull it off in this massively interconnected age. Remember when steam briefly pulled Hatred? There's no evidence that made it harder for anyone to obtain the game indeed, it might have just made it more attractive to the edgelords who bought it straight from the manufacturer-which might have had something to do with them backpedalling on their own internal ban.

I understand condemning the desire to make a game unavailable but if the means to do so that's employed is completely ineffectual, again, why should I care?
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Tolpuddle Martyr on July 02, 2016, 01:14:40 am
Which makes for an interesting point of discussion, how effective are games at propaganda anyway?
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Cloud3514 on July 02, 2016, 03:09:18 am
Well, Barrett Firearms hopes that kids playing shooters will grow up to buy guns (http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-02-01-shooters-how-video-games-fund-arms-manufacturers). Here's a choice quote: "But video games expose our brand to a young audience who are considered possible future owners."

Even if government propaganda in games isn't a problem, this raises an eyebrow. Why the hell are games featuring licensed appearances of real life firearms being targeted at kids? Why the hell is a company that would normal deflect accusations of marketing to children with "responsible ownership" rhetoric openly admitting that they want kids playing these games to buy their guns?
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Tolpuddle Martyr on July 02, 2016, 03:27:36 am
I'd actually be surprised if gun manufacturers didn't want a piece of the advertising action in games. FIFA does, as do the associated sports apparel brands and so do automobile manufacturers but marketing guns at kids is still incredibly creepy and no, that doesn't mean I want to ban shooters b/c "think of the children".
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Askold on July 02, 2016, 03:35:12 am
I think there have been times when manufacturers have refused to have their guns be in a game. There are some games that you do not wish to have your product associated with.

Still, the only problem here is KIDS playing such games but seeing as most shooters are not games that kids are allowed to play then this is already a rules violation if someone gave a kid such a game.

And advertising guns to 18 year olds who like to play CoD or whatever is not as bad as specifically advertising guns to 10 year olds.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Canadian Mojo on July 02, 2016, 03:43:53 am
It's really not that insidious, it's the modern version of a kid wanting a Daisy BB gun because John Wayne used a lever action in his cowboy flick. The gun companies know this and know that when kids grow up they'll be drawn to things they knew and loved as a child. Barrett just wants to make sure it's their .50cal sniper rifle these future adults will be drawn to.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Cloud3514 on July 02, 2016, 03:53:16 am
I don't see any sort of problem of gun manufacturers licensing their products for games. It's like how Fender and Gibson license their products for music games. It even makes sense to advertise to adult gamers who may be interested in purchasing the guns they see in games. What gets me here is that they openly admit that they want kids to grow up to buy their products. It wouldn't be hard at all to give some bullshit excuse about how they believe the games they're licensing their weapons for are targeted at adults, but, no, they flat out state that they want these weapons advertised to kids.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Tolpuddle Martyr on July 02, 2016, 05:14:38 am
There's a political element here. It'a been argued that AR15 style rifles are pretty crap for hunting and home defense which means that the real reason people want them is that they look fucken cool.

If you're advertising a product whose primary function by its target market is as a tribal marker/fashion accessory then are you also training up a voting bloc who'll fight to keep their collectors items on the market?
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Askold on July 02, 2016, 05:29:03 am
Actually AR-15 style weapon can make a very good hunting weapon. Depends on what you are hunting of course but AR series is available in so many calibers and configurations that you can find the right one for almost any game.

...Like the hog hunters in Texas who have started using fully automatic AR-15s with night vision AND infra-red scopes and in calibers like .300Blackout. They are still having problems cutting down the numbers of feral hogs but are barely able to keep them from increasing in numbers and destroying the local ecosystem and farming.


EDIT: Tangentially related, this is a good article about representation of women in games: http://thespectacularspider-girl.tumblr.com/post/102919064149/representation-of-women-in-video-games-the

Just yesterday I tried to watch a walkthrough of Bombshell but was horribly disappointed. The only good thing you can say about the game is that the main character is just a gender flipped "boring generic action hero dude" and despite being a woman she isn't treated differently as a character.

Unfortunately the plot is bad, the characters are bad, the action seems clumsy and even the jokes and one-liners are bad.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Tolpuddle Martyr on July 04, 2016, 05:12:58 am
I think she makes a good point about women in games not being allowed to cross the "moral event horizon". Which is weird for games because in comics the opposite is true. (http://www.cracked.com/blog/why-you-cant-win-in-hollywood-no-matter-your-gender/)
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Tolpuddle Martyr on July 06, 2016, 10:21:57 pm
Interesting piece this one, on Valve profiting from online gambling on its site. (http://www.polygon.com/2016/7/6/12109022/valve-csgo-lawsuit-interview)

Quote
Valve is being accused of deliberately allowing the creation of a market where players and third-parties trade weapon skins like casino chips. The lawsuits accuse Valve and third-party sites like CSGO Diamonds, CSGO Lounge and OPSkins of allowing millions of Americans to link their individual Steam accounts to websites that allow players to gamble with their CS: GO weapon skins.

"In sum, Valve owns the league, sells the casino chips, and receives a piece of the casino’s income stream through foreign websites in order to maintain the charade that Valve is not promoting and profiting from online gambling, like a modern-day Captain Renault from Casablanca,"
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: ironbite on July 06, 2016, 11:26:00 pm
I had heard about this.  Or something similar where a bunch of high level CS players were banned for match fixing.

Ironbite-jesus.
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: niam2023 on July 07, 2016, 12:24:58 am
This is...surprising. Ruthless on Valve's part.

And the fixing and use of skins as gambling chips...ohh, my...
Title: Re: The Social and Political Issues in Gaming Thread
Post by: Askold on July 13, 2016, 01:27:11 am
...Do the people who use CS like that live in a place where gambling is illegal? Because otherwise there are casinos (online and actual physical casinos as well) where you can play in a much easier way and the amount of 12-year olds who have had sex with your mother is much lower.

In fact, I could even say that one of the benefits of playing in a casino is that at the very least, whether you win or lose there won't be 12-year olds telling you how they recently had sex with your mother.