I've been keeping myself quiet and refrained from comenting on the whole controversy of the past month. So now that things are quieting down (well, partially) I though I could try to post my views on the matter and hopefully not get dogpilled or labeled in any way. Because the only label that fits me is that of a guy passionate about video-games. A gamer.
Before anyone asks I won't go into details, or go after specific targets or try to abuse or haras anyone, this is just a guy trying to take in the larger picture, not the mudy specifics. In past posts I may have touched on subjects like feminism, but here I'm throwing all that out the window and I'm just talking about games and their press. So I would ask those that wish to repond to refrain from going into such specifics or starting a flame war. Got it? Ok, here we go.
What have we learned here, at the core of things? That gaming media is corupt? A good conclusion, but not entirely true. First off, not all of the media is corupt. There are still people who try their best to be as impartial as they can (because understand that as human beeings we can never be 100% impartial). Second: media coruption is nothing new. Media and the press have been corupted to serve ideals and political agendas since their inception. I can understand displeasure at blatant displays of coruption, but I can't understand how shocked some people seem to be to have learned this truth.
What I'm noticing in this entire scandal is that lines of battle are beeing drawn. The media is beeing fractured into sides, and these sides are beeing turned into mounthpieces for a number of different political agendas. But what the media and the gamers themselves seem to forget is this: who gives a crap about political agendas when what we should be doing is talking about video games! This is what baffles me. Why are we even here? Perhaps we should look at an industry with more experience. I also hapen to be a movie buff and I'm usually in the seat at every major release that interests me and at any movie festival I can get to. I'm not saying film>games, and I'm not saying the film industry isn't corupt. It is. But let me ask you this: When let's say Megan Fox gets put in role that is nothing but her posing sexy for the camera (like most of her roles sadly), what happens? Critics will say her role was underwritten and detracted from the movie's quality. Now what would happen if we had a similar character in a game? Outrage, war, feminist yelling harassment and opresion, gamers beeing called dicks for objectifying women. See the problem? The issue of wether a game was good or not would get pushed out of the spotlight to make room for political agendas and issues that have nothing to do with this industry. Maybe we should learn from here.
This whole debacle started when some people saw the widespread popularity of games as a platform from which to spread their political views. Today I can barely read about a game without hearing about objectification, sexism, violence, mysoginy, death threats ... and none of those fucking things have anything to do with my precious games and me having fun! I'm fucking sick of it! I can just as easily play and have fun with a game that is balanced and has interesting female charcters as I can play a game with walking cardboard sex dols AS LONG AS THE GAME IS GOOD AND FUN FOR ME! I DON'T GIVE A RAT'S ASS ABOUT YOUR BLOODY POLITICAL MESSAGE, WHAT I WANT IS A FUN GAME AND YOU AS A JOURNALIST SHOULD TRY TO INFORM ME WHY I MIGHT FIND GAME X FUN, NOT WHY GAME X IS SEXISTS!
Now I freely admit this has got out of hand and there are some serious issues with harrasment and an overwhelmingly ... shall we say insulting reaction to articles or posts about games that also bring a political view to their forefront. But let me ask you this, people who think games should adhere to a political message or view or whatever. Who called you here? Who said "games have a problem and we need your help to fix it"? Nobody. You were not needed here. Gaming was a young medium finding it's way and growing. And then what did you think? "well we fucked up trying to slave movies to our ideals and political view, let's try games". And so you invented issues that weren't there and started telling people games are bad NOT BECAUSE THEIR GAMEPLAY WAS BAD, OR GRAPHICS SUFFERED OR THE SOUND WAS BAD, BUT BECAUSE THEY WERE NOT IN LINE WITH SOME PERCEIVED NOTIONS OF RIGHT OR WRONG! I don't bloody care aboutn political views in books or movies or games, what I care about is they are of quality and enjoyable! I don't see this with movies. Or books. You can be as sexist or as equalitarian as you want when making a movie or writing a book and said movie or book will be found wanting or not simply based on whether or not their were good and not on how sexist or whatever they were. And by that token when a movie offends some minority or something, that movie isn't panned or removed or vilified. That minority simply does not view it and may boycot future projects of the director or writer. Can we please do that here? Can we please focus on the games and not on some vague political debate? CAN I PLEASE GO BACK TO HAVING FUN WITH MY HOBY RATHER THAN X GROUP TELLING ME I'M SCUM FOR Y REASON WHEN ALL I WANT IS TO FUCKING PLAY A GAME AND RELAX?! And for those of you with political views that find some games to insult those views: can you please frame your rection as a normal person not a demagogue? Can you please say "well this game offends some of my sensibilities and anyone with the same sensibilities may wish to avoid it" instead of going "This is obviously yet another sign of the industry beeing X or Y and we MUST CHANGE THAT NOW!" Because here is a reality flash: Yes the industry is biased, yes the industry is male centric? You know why? Because MALES STARTED THE DAMN INDUSTRY AND UNTILL TODAY FEMALES INVOLVMENT WAS MINIMAL! Can you please be resonable and understand that the medium is evolving, and as more and more females become gamers and game developers, soo too will the industry change to reflect those things? On it's own. Without you bleeting out political messaged left and right and crying whatever flavour of the day opresion you perceive? Can you be resonable and understand that evolution takes time and it will happen as soon as the right conditions are met, and not try to enforce rapid change at the cost of making good and fun games?
Nobody invited you here. Nobody said "Oh please person with strong political views, please come and share with us gamers your vision". All we wanted since the begining were fun and enjoyable games. So please take your political views, leave them at the door, and lets go back to talking about whether a game was good or not, AND NOT ABOUT WHETHER IT CONFORMED TO SOME MORAL/ETHICAL/RELIGIOUS/POLTICAL STANDARD! BECAUSE NONE OF THOSE FUCKING THINGS HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH VIDEOGAMES!
In sumary: Change will happen on it's own, what matters is the quality of games, not their political or social slant. I've said my piece and once more I ask people who will read this and grace my comment with a response: please don;t turn this into a flame war.
EDIT: So many people jumping up my drain pipe because they see this as just another gamer trying to silence criticism. I'm jsut going to put this in capital letter so you all can read:
I'M ALL FOR INCLUSIVITY AND EXPOSURE AND FAIR TREATMENT. WHAT I'M NOT FOR IS PEOPLE TURNING GAMING INTO A MESSY POLITICAL BATTLEGROUND, SHIT LFINGING, FLAME WARS, INSULTS, HARASSMENT OR ANY OTHER SUCH SHIT. WHAT I AM SIMPLY ASKING FOR IS PERSPECTIVE. WHAT IS MORE LIKELY? THAT PEOPLE CALLING GAMERS AND GAMES SHIT FOR NOT IMEDIATLY CONFORMING TO THEIR VIEWS SUDENLY SWAY THE MINDS OF ANY AND ALL DEVS TO SUNDELY ALTER EVERY PROJECT TO FIT A NEW STANDARD OF INCLUSIVITY? OR THAT THESE DEVS WILL GRADUALLY GET REPLACED WITH TIME BY PEOPLE WITH MORE OPEN MINDS? THINK.
And you know, if this had been going on for a while with no change, I might be on your side. But see, change is happening. Bioshock Infinite, The Last of Us, Telltale's Walking Dead. These are examples of positive things in the industry. See, the industry is changing, you people jsut ignore that because like the good old song "I want it all, I want it now". News flash kids: life NEVER works that way. You have to be patient and civil. That was my whole point. All of you people who want gaming to be taken seriously as art but then go out there and start flinging insults at one another ARE SIMPLY DESTROYING ANY CHANCE THIS MEDIUM HAS OF BEEING TAKEN SERIOUSLY.
Before anyone asks I won't go into details, or go after specific targets or try to abuse or haras anyone, this is just a guy trying to take in the larger picture, not the mudy specifics. In past posts I may have touched on subjects like feminism, but here I'm throwing all that out the window and I'm just talking about games and their press. So I would ask those that wish to repond to refrain from going into such specifics or starting a flame war. Got it? Ok, here we go.
What have we learned here, at the core of things? That gaming media is corupt? A good conclusion, but not entirely true. First off, not all of the media is corupt. There are still people who try their best to be as impartial as they can (because understand that as human beeings we can never be 100% impartial). Second: media coruption is nothing new. Media and the press have been corupted to serve ideals and political agendas since their inception. I can understand displeasure at blatant displays of coruption, but I can't understand how shocked some people seem to be to have learned this truth.
What I'm noticing in this entire scandal is that lines of battle are beeing drawn. The media is beeing fractured into sides, and these sides are beeing turned into mounthpieces for a number of different political agendas. But what the media and the gamers themselves seem to forget is this: who gives a crap about political agendas when what we should be doing is talking about video games! This is what baffles me. Why are we even here? Perhaps we should look at an industry with more experience. I also hapen to be a movie buff and I'm usually in the seat at every major release that interests me and at any movie festival I can get to. I'm not saying film>games, and I'm not saying the film industry isn't corupt. It is. But let me ask you this: When let's say Megan Fox gets put in role that is nothing but her posing sexy for the camera (like most of her roles sadly), what happens? Critics will say her role was underwritten and detracted from the movie's quality. Now what would happen if we had a similar character in a game? Outrage, war, feminist yelling harassment and opresion, gamers beeing called dicks for objectifying women. See the problem? The issue of wether a game was good or not would get pushed out of the spotlight to make room for political agendas and issues that have nothing to do with this industry. Maybe we should learn from here.
This whole debacle started when some people saw the widespread popularity of games as a platform from which to spread their political views. Today I can barely read about a game without hearing about objectification, sexism, violence, mysoginy, death threats ... and none of those fucking things have anything to do with my precious games and me having fun! I'm fucking sick of it! I can just as easily play and have fun with a game that is balanced and has interesting female charcters as I can play a game with walking cardboard sex dols AS LONG AS THE GAME IS GOOD AND FUN FOR ME! I DON'T GIVE A RAT'S ASS ABOUT YOUR BLOODY POLITICAL MESSAGE, WHAT I WANT IS A FUN GAME AND YOU AS A JOURNALIST SHOULD TRY TO INFORM ME WHY I MIGHT FIND GAME X FUN, NOT WHY GAME X IS SEXISTS!
Now I freely admit this has got out of hand and there are some serious issues with harrasment and an overwhelmingly ... shall we say insulting reaction to articles or posts about games that also bring a political view to their forefront. But let me ask you this, people who think games should adhere to a political message or view or whatever. Who called you here? Who said "games have a problem and we need your help to fix it"? Nobody. You were not needed here. Gaming was a young medium finding it's way and growing. And then what did you think? "well we fucked up trying to slave movies to our ideals and political view, let's try games". And so you invented issues that weren't there and started telling people games are bad NOT BECAUSE THEIR GAMEPLAY WAS BAD, OR GRAPHICS SUFFERED OR THE SOUND WAS BAD, BUT BECAUSE THEY WERE NOT IN LINE WITH SOME PERCEIVED NOTIONS OF RIGHT OR WRONG! I don't bloody care aboutn political views in books or movies or games, what I care about is they are of quality and enjoyable! I don't see this with movies. Or books. You can be as sexist or as equalitarian as you want when making a movie or writing a book and said movie or book will be found wanting or not simply based on whether or not their were good and not on how sexist or whatever they were. And by that token when a movie offends some minority or something, that movie isn't panned or removed or vilified. That minority simply does not view it and may boycot future projects of the director or writer. Can we please do that here? Can we please focus on the games and not on some vague political debate? CAN I PLEASE GO BACK TO HAVING FUN WITH MY HOBY RATHER THAN X GROUP TELLING ME I'M SCUM FOR Y REASON WHEN ALL I WANT IS TO FUCKING PLAY A GAME AND RELAX?! And for those of you with political views that find some games to insult those views: can you please frame your rection as a normal person not a demagogue? Can you please say "well this game offends some of my sensibilities and anyone with the same sensibilities may wish to avoid it" instead of going "This is obviously yet another sign of the industry beeing X or Y and we MUST CHANGE THAT NOW!" Because here is a reality flash: Yes the industry is biased, yes the industry is male centric? You know why? Because MALES STARTED THE DAMN INDUSTRY AND UNTILL TODAY FEMALES INVOLVMENT WAS MINIMAL! Can you please be resonable and understand that the medium is evolving, and as more and more females become gamers and game developers, soo too will the industry change to reflect those things? On it's own. Without you bleeting out political messaged left and right and crying whatever flavour of the day opresion you perceive? Can you be resonable and understand that evolution takes time and it will happen as soon as the right conditions are met, and not try to enforce rapid change at the cost of making good and fun games?
Nobody invited you here. Nobody said "Oh please person with strong political views, please come and share with us gamers your vision". All we wanted since the begining were fun and enjoyable games. So please take your political views, leave them at the door, and lets go back to talking about whether a game was good or not, AND NOT ABOUT WHETHER IT CONFORMED TO SOME MORAL/ETHICAL/RELIGIOUS/POLTICAL STANDARD! BECAUSE NONE OF THOSE FUCKING THINGS HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH VIDEOGAMES!
In sumary: Change will happen on it's own, what matters is the quality of games, not their political or social slant. I've said my piece and once more I ask people who will read this and grace my comment with a response: please don;t turn this into a flame war.
EDIT: So many people jumping up my drain pipe because they see this as just another gamer trying to silence criticism. I'm jsut going to put this in capital letter so you all can read:
I'M ALL FOR INCLUSIVITY AND EXPOSURE AND FAIR TREATMENT. WHAT I'M NOT FOR IS PEOPLE TURNING GAMING INTO A MESSY POLITICAL BATTLEGROUND, SHIT LFINGING, FLAME WARS, INSULTS, HARASSMENT OR ANY OTHER SUCH SHIT. WHAT I AM SIMPLY ASKING FOR IS PERSPECTIVE. WHAT IS MORE LIKELY? THAT PEOPLE CALLING GAMERS AND GAMES SHIT FOR NOT IMEDIATLY CONFORMING TO THEIR VIEWS SUDENLY SWAY THE MINDS OF ANY AND ALL DEVS TO SUNDELY ALTER EVERY PROJECT TO FIT A NEW STANDARD OF INCLUSIVITY? OR THAT THESE DEVS WILL GRADUALLY GET REPLACED WITH TIME BY PEOPLE WITH MORE OPEN MINDS? THINK.
And you know, if this had been going on for a while with no change, I might be on your side. But see, change is happening. Bioshock Infinite, The Last of Us, Telltale's Walking Dead. These are examples of positive things in the industry. See, the industry is changing, you people jsut ignore that because like the good old song "I want it all, I want it now". News flash kids: life NEVER works that way. You have to be patient and civil. That was my whole point. All of you people who want gaming to be taken seriously as art but then go out there and start flinging insults at one another ARE SIMPLY DESTROYING ANY CHANCE THIS MEDIUM HAS OF BEEING TAKEN SERIOUSLY.
