JudgeGame said:
I found this piece on how the business and culture interact and perpetuate the really ugly side of videogames. I think it's worth a read and worth discussing.
[link]http://howtonotsuckatgamedesign.com/?p=8393[/link]
Meh, just an article full of liberal ranting that doesn't get it at all.
The bottom line to all of this contreversy is that it's a bunch of left wingers trying to get a platform to create contreversy where there is none. They take something like say the "Hitman: Absolution" trailer, and then claim people have a right to feel upset and marginalized by this portrayal of sexism, and demand a platform and to have this taken seriously when it's a giant joke. This coming from the SAME people who have spent years for pushing for women to be treated more fairly in games, and to get away from tropes like how men and women can't fight, and that inevitably for things to be "fair" you need to have a cat fight between the good girl and the bad girl. We saw plenty of girls kicking butt in games, but now when it comes to a situation where you have girls being treated just like anyone else and trashed by a dude, that's a problem. The basic arguement being that if some girl beats up a dozen guys brutally (like say some of the Catwoman scenes and trailers from Arkham City) but if a guy does it to a bunch of girls in a very similar situation it's a problem.... if you don't see why this is stupid, and why nobody takes people making complaints about things like the "Hitman: Absolution" trailer seriously, then you really have a problem.
In most cases these issues are incredibly straightforward like the above, as demonstrated by a simple case of role reversal and asking "would this be okay now?", noticing from media that was accepted or praised that it would be. Combine with with all the arguements about equality we got "yesterday" and you can see how it's all a bunch of platform trolling, it doesn't matter if your legitimate or not, pick a liberal issue, QQ, and you get attention and chaos to thrive on.
The gaming community for the most part has caught on, and 2012 was a year of great intolerance for lib-tard trolls. A point doubled down on this year so far, but actually doing things exactly in defiance of the trolls, to prove that they aren't fooling anyone, and will hopefully just shut up and go away.
I'll go so far as to say that the people defending these rants on sexistm, homophobia, etc... in games have gotten their fair share of flak because for the most part they seen to be after vicarious attention themselves, or so disconnected from reality that they just do not actually get what's going on.
Even attempted "rational" arguements like "well, look at this, can you see how someone could possibly be offended by it?" a Jim Sterling classic, fall on deaf ears to those with half a brain, because if you look back at the entire cosm of gaming, this is exactly what yesterday's liberal crusaders demanded that they wanted in many cases. Girls being treated just like everyone else for example. They get to throw, and take punches with the boys, and they don't always get to be coddled and rescued, being disabled with a light touch on the arm and dragged off, when a girl is defeated it's being presented more realistically, complete with the brutality that would have been reserved at one point soley for a male protaganist. Nobody cared when they electro-tortured Solid Snake, so why is it a big deal when a female protaganist finds herself in a similar situation. The answer is it's not. Those who think so are trolls, or morons
who are basically crying about getting EXACTLY what they asked for. Especially when you consider that for every portrayal being called "sexist" or "demeaning" your looking at plenty of other scenes in comparison of women doing all of the action stuff along with the bad stuff that comes with it, including scenes of women inflicting bone shattering violence on men. Hitman Absolution Vs. Catwoman in Arkham City, a gang of sexy nuns getting clobbered, vs. a bunch of beefcakes with unrealistically overdeveloped hunk-muscles (in many cases) getting clobbered. Same basic thing, exactly what was asked for, now shut up.
We're supposed to not put women on a pedestel and treat them like something special, yet not really since we should actually be putting them on a pedestel but pretending we're not? It's either sexism or patronizing, whichever way you go to a lib-troll your wrong, so it's a non-issue?
Likewise there have been attempts to sort of weaponize gaming as a political statement, that haven't gone the way lib-trolls have intended. People like to go off about the ToR "Gay Planet", but understand that homosexual content was something that Bioware was clear on saying they didn't want in the game. Creative freedom only being acceptable when it's what they want to see, you saw an outcry of entitlement based on previous games, Bioware relented for future consideration, and when it became possible threw the gay community a bone. Quite a nice gesture for what a minority prescence wanted. This was largely considered insufficient because gays had somehow gotten it into their mind that there was going to be some great influx of straight bashing, where all those "pesky homophobic norms" would be forced to endure gay flirting NPCs in their ship or whatever. Obviously that didn't happen, and common sense would dictate that as friendly as Bioware has been, they aren't going to slot off the majority for the sake of a minority. They handled it pretty tastefully and put it in a well known places where you could get it if you want it, but if it's not your cup of tea, nobody was going to force it on you... pretty similar to their other games actually, especially when you consider this was not intended and was being added entirely under duress for a very specific vocal minority of people.
It's less a case of marginalization, so much as a bunch of lib-trolls who were cheering for this (even if they weren't gay) didn't get what they wanted which was a giant trolling of the straight population at the hands of a gaming corperation. Criticisms about it being an *ahem* Gay Ghetto planet, seem to miss the entire point that this planet is exactly where all of the new content for the expansion is located, as new content, the gay stuff was added in with the rest of the new content, very simple, but never waste an oppertunity to troll for a platform is the motto of a good lib-troll.
At any rate, I'm sounding off about the issues and a lot of what was in that article, but the bottom line is that there is a lot more to this than "horrible behavior in the gaming industry". If you didn't notice it until you read the article, it's probably because there really isn't anything to notice. It's a bunch of people trying to make a big deal out of nothing, and then getting upset because the gaming community has generally not given them an unopposed platform to do it, and actually kind of brutally turned on those seeking a platform to cause trouble from, turning them into a joke.
Largely because if you've spent a long time pushing for a more equal representation of women in games for example, now that we're getting it accross the board, someone spitting in your face over it isn't going to go over well.
Likewise even if your support gay rights, there is a point at which people getting what they want but insisting it's not enough (it never is) just makes them a bunch of twits. You don't have to be anti-gay to think the people involved in the entire ToR thing are a bunch of ungrateful morons. What's more anyone with half a brain that DOES support gay rights knows that the kind of antagonistic content that some of these people were apparently pushing for would have had the opposite effect of trying to encourage co-existance. When people get a reasonable compromise in a situation like this (where Bioware didn't originally want it) they should be grateful, not screaming at the top of their lungs.
Personally I'm kind of hoping the lib-trolls put a sock in it. There are perhaps a few legitimate issues for non-trolling liberals to pursue... but not ones we've seen so far.
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Oh and one important addition for those who read this far. Understand that the arguement "Nobody wants to take your games away from you" made by people like Jim Sterling is also not true. The point of complaining about this kind of thing is so this content won't be produced anymore. That is taking your games, and what you find entertaining in them, away from you. This mostly comes up in regards to sexism. The arguements about things like "Hitman: Absolution" is that the "killer nuns" trailer is inherantly offensive, and should be accepted as such, because it glorifies violence against women, and that the industry shouldn't do things like that anymore. That's a slap in the face to those who championed yesterday's liberal causes, so things like this would happen. Overall it's a representation of the industry being non-patronizing, and having things go both ways. Girls kick butt on guys, guys kick butt on girls, everyone gets their time being brutalized and tortured, it's all a happy equal oppertunity circus of masochism. The central arguement amounts to how it's only okay for women to beat up men, and if a storyline requires something bad to happen to a girl she should be put up on a pedestel. Back to the old days of when the bad guys capture the girl, our former kung-fu superspy is suddenly powerless jelly in his hands, because we can't actually see her lose a fight and take a beating the the extent it would take to subdue someone like that (which would be brutal). The bad guy has to treat the girl like a princess and put her in luxur accomodations, no cool stuff like being brutally tortured, getting free after a while, killing the torturer, and then brutally clawing her way out of a dungeon... that's too mean. This all leads back to the whole "only girls can fight other girls" trope at the extreme other end I mentioned before. I'm repeting myself, but understand the end result here is that yes, lib-troll arguements are about taking your games away from you, and ultimatly undoing every bit of progress towards equality the industry has made.
