Critics Ruin Video Games? ?Good!

[Nieroshai]

Not really feeling it I got to say.

The devotion to Sarkeesian's drivel as well fighting up imaginary enemies is making it hard for me to take this as serious as the author intended. I am sorry when you start critiquing the Cyberpunk 2077 without any sort of understanding of what the trailer is portraying and then start using it as springboard for another Sexism argument I am going to stop listening.

What was cyberpunk 2077 portraying? I'm sorry, I don't get the damn trailer at all. The premise seems to be "people are getting a lot of implants, people with implants want to kill the meatbags, men in combat gear shooting half naked lady with impractical looking blades coming out of her arms and massive honking tits. Oh and her skin is bulletproof apparently." I'm sorry but what the flying fuck was going on in that trailer? Why did she have to be half naked? Why did she need the F cup? I don't get why that trailer got everyone so hyped for the game, it couldn't turn me off faster.

It's made for fans of the P&P Cyberpunk RPG. The game whose entire purpose was to kit your toon in cybernetics and be a postapocalyptic badass. As for the naked, it's a game made by CD Projekt Red about a campy-as-hell cyberpunk RPG /shrugs

 

[Erttheking]

Not really feeling it I got to say.

The devotion to Sarkeesian's drivel as well fighting up imaginary enemies is making it hard for me to take this as serious as the author intended. I am sorry when you start critiquing the Cyberpunk 2077 without any sort of understanding of what the trailer is portraying and then start using it as springboard for another Sexism argument I am going to stop listening.

What was cyberpunk 2077 portraying? I'm sorry, I don't get the damn trailer at all. The premise seems to be "people are getting a lot of implants, people with implants want to kill the meatbags, men in combat gear shooting half naked lady with impractical looking blades coming out of her arms and massive honking tits. Oh and her skin is bulletproof apparently." I'm sorry but what the flying fuck was going on in that trailer? Why did she have to be half naked? Why did she need the F cup? I don't get why that trailer got everyone so hyped for the game, it couldn't turn me off faster.

It's made for fans of the P&P Cyberpunk RPG. The game whose entire purpose was to kit your toon in cybernetics and be a postapocalyptic badass. As for the naked, /shrugs

Ah, then I'm not the target audience. Well, can't really argue with that.

 

[Erttheking]

Yeah, but blood soaked blade arms and massive (pretty fake looking) tits clash pretty horribly IMHO

Yup, they do. That is the point! As i said before as with most settings like this (think 2000AD, judge dredd type stuff) DO go over the top with things. But if its not your cup of tea, thats cool

To be honest i never thought about anything to do with the ladies boobs, too busy looking at all the other cool stuff going on. Theres more going on in the background than you first think.

Huh...you know I took another look at the trailer and it's really not that bad now that I think about it. I guess it's the kind of trailer you need to watch more than once. I still think they could've been a LITTLE more classy though, but I'm ok with it. I just hope that the combat with this game isn't a bore, I heard that was a problem with the Witcher... you know what, a sci-fi RPG that has heavy emphasis on story? Fuck it, I need something to fill the hole that Bioware left. I'll get it when it comes out. Wait it'll probably be a PC game...crap. Aw well, the Witcher got a 360 port.

 

[Vault101]

Dude, that only makes it more disturbing. Executing a prostitute for her depraved ways is very touchy. It isn't cool. This isn't the kind of thing a normal person is supposed to be "hyped" over. It's a bunch of dudes killing a hooker because she's a slut. You seriously don't see why some people have a problem with that?

And yeah all the no soul and conformity. There's a thing called tone in fiction. The tone reflects the emotions and thoughts the creator wants the audience to experience. The tone is telling me "Look at how awesome this is!". Sorry. That isn't awesome. Some fascist cops killing a woman for her sins isn't awesome. It's sad and scary.

I'm not against the idea of a exploring that scenario, but telling me this is an awesome scenario is fucked up.

was she a hooker?

they were killing her because she OD'd on augmentations and went nutty.....thats it really

 

[Vault101]

What was cyberpunk 2077 portraying? I'm sorry, I don't get the damn trailer at all. The premise seems to be "people are getting a lot of implants, people with implants want to kill the meatbags, men in combat gear shooting half naked lady with impractical looking blades coming out of her arms and massive honking tits. Oh and her skin is bulletproof apparently." I'm sorry but what the flying fuck was going on in that trailer? Why did she have to be half naked? Why did she need the F cup? I don't get why that trailer got everyone so hyped for the game, it couldn't turn me off faster.

I cant remember be half naked or her bit tits....

she was going crazy, so the specalist squad took her down..seemed pretty straight forward

 

[Erttheking]

What was cyberpunk 2077 portraying? I'm sorry, I don't get the damn trailer at all. The premise seems to be "people are getting a lot of implants, people with implants want to kill the meatbags, men in combat gear shooting half naked lady with impractical looking blades coming out of her arms and massive honking tits. Oh and her skin is bulletproof apparently." I'm sorry but what the flying fuck was going on in that trailer? Why did she have to be half naked? Why did she need the F cup? I don't get why that trailer got everyone so hyped for the game, it couldn't turn me off faster.

I cant remember be half naked or her bit tits....

she was going crazy, so the specalist squad took her down..seemed pretty straight forward

Yeah it'd been awhile since I watched the trailer, I needed a refresher.

 

[Vault101]

Me too. I just cannot, for the life of me, understand the hype around it. Oh, it's a trailer that shows absolutely zero gameplay and almost no relevant or understandable story. I'm just flooded with confidence. Hang on, I'm wrong to by cynical because it uses the word "cyberpunk". Well then, guess that proves me wrong! Srsly, wtf?

its jsut a teaser...its only suposed to convey tone and setting and mood, being a fan of cyberpunk (the genre, not the thing this game is based on) I'm excited at the possabilities

They don't look like blades to me. I work in a kitchen. I know what a blade looks like. Also, the scene lasts less than one second. I'm only human, you know.

you can't make the trailer what you think it is even if you try reeeally reeeally hard


fact is: you are wrong, you watched, heard, interpreted the trailer wrong...its you, not the trailer

even if some were confused most understood basically this lady was being killed because she went psycho

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

The article is a piece of shit.

The lady in the Cyberpunk 2077 trailer wasn't a hooker. Why do hookers need arm scythes?

Gay NPCs in SWTOR aren't being segregated onto a single planet. They're just being introduced in the Makeb expansion. They have to put new content somewhere, and it makes no sense to put it on planets people won't be playing on.

Grievous misrepresentation of supply and demand mechanics.

Really egregious use of straw men.

I deleted a longer rant here because it occurred to me that I can't really respond to this in a productive way. I can't respond to this article's argument without wasting time pointing out all factual inaccuracies and misrepresentations. This is exactly why it's so freaking hard to have a productive discussion about sexism in gaming; all the bullshit peddled by both sides that has to be shot down before you can get to something worthwhile. This article isn't interested in talking about sexism. It just wants to condemn something.

 

[Dr. Cakey]

snip

Hi, I'm a full-time liberal and part-time troll, which I believe linguistically makes me a lib-troll, and I think you're both misrepresenting my views and dramatically overestimating my intelligence.

Unless a lib-troll is someone who trolls Mad Libs, in which case your posts do not apply to me.

This is officially my favorite thread ever. I can't count how many times I've bursted out laughing at some of this crap.

We have misguided anger, political manifestos, and humor all in 120 posts. It's fucking brilliant.

We need to get this thread stickied so years from now people can go back and read it.

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

Great article.

Criticism is an important thing that at least should be heard out. Especially nowadays or when it refers to misogyny. While there are those that are too quick to accuse something of something that isn't there, it's important not to dismiss all criticism, because just as often there's a genuine problem that needs addressing.

The article equates criticism of criticism with suppression of criticism. This is mistaken.

All criticism should be heard out. That also means no critic should be immune from criticism. If the author criticises Cyberpunk 2077 for being sexist, and I criticise his criticism - for being unfounded, inaccurate, or biased - that is not suppression or marginalisation. I'm exercising the exact same right he is. And you, or anyone else, can criticise my views as well.

That's the marketplace of ideas. If we do it properly, the soundest criticisms are given the most weight because they are the most able to withstand other people's criticisms. If we do it improperly, like the asshat who wrote this article wants us to, it becomes a pointless flame war. Just a whole bunch of people contradicting each other and repeating bad arguments and bad facts over and over.

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

What was cyberpunk 2077 portraying? I'm sorry, I don't get the damn trailer at all. The premise seems to be "people are getting a lot of implants, people with implants want to kill the meatbags, men in combat gear shooting half naked lady with impractical looking blades coming out of her arms and massive honking tits. Oh and her skin is bulletproof apparently." I'm sorry but what the flying fuck was going on in that trailer? Why did she have to be half naked? Why did she need the F cup? I don't get why that trailer got everyone so hyped for the game, it couldn't turn me off faster.

I think your question's already been answered, but I read the trailer as establishing the setting and tone of the game. The city is grim and noirish. The police are Stormtroopers. The buildings reach up farther than you can see and make you feel as if you're being buried alive when you look up. Artificial beauty is contrasted with a scene of gruesome violence. The news is reporting it like it's normal to have a woman go berserk in the street and kill a dozen people. At the end, the murderer is recruited into the same task force that is supposed to stop murderers like her. Criminals and police are the same people in different clothes.

It's less "This is the story of our game" and more "This is what we want our game to feel like." Considering that the project is still in the conceptual stage this is exactly the kind of marketing they need to do.

 

[Therumancer]

snip

Hi, I'm a full-time liberal and part-time troll, which I believe linguistically makes me a lib-troll, and I think you're both misrepresenting my views and dramatically overestimating my intelligence.

Unless a lib-troll is someone who trolls Mad Libs, in which case your posts do not apply to me.

This is officially my favorite thread ever. I can't count how many times I've bursted out laughing at some of this crap.

We have misguided anger, political manifestos, and humor all in 120 posts. It's fucking brilliant.

We need to get this thread stickied so years from now people can go back and read it.

A lib-troll is someone who uses liberal philsophies to troll, targeting liberals with the attempt to get them rallied as much as anyone else.

I used the term to state a differance between what I'm talking about and someone who is genuinely trying to make a point or doing something they believe in, as opposed to trying to stir up trouble and get attention.

I'm pretty middle of the road politically myself (where I swing left rarely comes up on these forums), despite what a lot of people might think, so to pick something in general off the general topics, let's say your expressing a left wing attitude towards unions and workers rights, argueing with someone whose supporting employers rights and the right of businesses to do what they want to employees as a benefit of their position. That makes you a liberal, your actually trying to make a legitimate, constructive, point about an actual issue, regardless of whether anyone agrees with you.

A lib-troll is someone who realizes that simply mentioning sexism, homophobia, and other hot button social issues is enough to get a stampede going, people willing to jump in and start attacking without really thinking things through simply due to the issue. As a result they decide to try and CREATE issues to stir up trouble, so they can watch the chaos unfold, similar to yelling fire in a crowded movie theater. You go to a set of forums or community known to heavily be populated by people who swing to the left, you pick something noticible and say "that's sexist" with a weak justification, and then watch everyone pile on it, and go to elaborate lengths to attack whoever created it based off of whatever vague reasons they concocted.

That's a simple version of it, but the phenomena exists, and people are catching onto it. This is why you actually have things like the "Hitman Absolution" trailer being an issue, or why the "Cyberpunk 2020" trailer is being called contreversial even if a lot of people can't see it. It's because someone looking to cause trouble, came walking up, pretty much said "that's sexist" and then tons of people pig-piled on it to attack the politically incorrect boogie man without the slightest bit of consideration for whether the claims were true or it was put into context.

Of course I'd imagine your jokes (and the troll mentioning "Faux News") here generally come from the reaction of "OMG Therumancer mentioned Liberal in a negative context" without even bothering to read how it was intended, what it was being used for, or what the accusation was. In this case I carefully chose the term I was going to use to differentiate it from liberals in general, rather than saying all liberals were trolls.

People might actually want to read what I say, and the context, before jumping to conclusions. My posts tend to be long but that's because I convey a lot of information and along with it intended context.

Also if you want to get technical I've actually been pretty positive towards liberals as a whole during this, because part of my point is that a lot of the aggressiveness is from people not falling for it to the extent they used to, and that includes liberals. The reason why a certain female blogger generated such an epic amount of hate with her trolling attempt was that a lot of the people she was expecting to support her, rather vehemently turned on her, and truthfully people who realize there has been an attempt to manipulate them like this are oftentimes the worst of all. I wouldn't be surprised if we ever found out who made some of the worst threats and attacks, it turned out to be people who would have supported a real woman's right issue rather vehemently. I also wouldn't be surprised if a lot of them were from girls, because honestly, girls tend to be surprisingly nasty to each other when they get pissed.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

What I mean "serious" is that gamers actually don't respect gaming that much. They're willing to reap BENEFITS of "victories" gaming has gotten (such as the Supreme Court saying gaming is protected by the First Amendment), but they're unwilling to actually start taking RESPONSIBILITY and willing to tell the medium to GROW UP. For all we demand that gaming be taken just as seriously as film or literature, we are unwilling to do so by acting like ADULTS. And until then, gaming is truly the bastion of children pretending to be adults

Here's the funny little thing about the First Amendment:

People seem to think that that means that they can say what they want/get their message across in the way they want to express it, without somebody saying, that's stupid, gross, wrong, immature, etc, etc, and then stopping what the people want to make/say.

And guess what, they are right.

Truthfully, there is no "responsibility" or telling the medium to "grow up".

Look at all the "drivel" that is created through other mediums like literature and film. The stuff that people harp on about games being "sexist" and how things need to "change" still happen in those forms of media. It is just that there are so many more examples of "good" products that people see less of the so called "bad stuff". People haven't given the industry enough time to make more of the so called "good stuff" which it actually has been doing since the beginning of the industry. Really, since the 23 or so years since I became a gamer, with my experience, what those people would call "good stuff" already out numbers the "bad stuff".

But basically, if people would claim that other people don't deserve or aren't earning their First Amendment right because of how they view or work within the games industry, then those people would have to turn around and say the same thing about literature and film or those people would be hypocrites.

very interesting; the article is basically telling gamers to grow some spine and stop thinking that criticizing sexism and juvenile behavior is somehow demanding that gaming be censored. For all the stock gamers put into the medium, they sure as hell don't take it all that seriously

It has been said but it needs said again. For people to attack something so viciously(and horribly done) like in the article the OP brought up, it's obviously means such people want such things in the games industry to changed/be removed. Really those are the same things, because if you add more "good" things that such people would like, there would still be the things they hate, and they would still comment and argue about those things.

Look at the other established mediums, literature, film, and even art in general, you still have people that attack things that they don't like and think should be stopped, it is just that there are many more people that are smart/mature and tell those attackers to "leave/don't look, if they don't like it."

Really the "Adult" thing to do, is to let people have what they want.

The First Amendment is a wonderful thing, because it protects a person's "creative license", and if the amendment is used correctly, that "license" can't be taken away.

What the article talks about, and the whole "problem" in general, is a huge case of, "you don't like it, don't look".

What was cyberpunk 2077 portraying? I'm sorry, I don't get the damn trailer at all. The premise seems to be "people are getting a lot of implants, people with implants want to kill the meatbags, men in combat gear shooting half naked lady with impractical looking blades coming out of her arms and massive honking tits. Oh and her skin is bulletproof apparently." I'm sorry but what the flying fuck was going on in that trailer? Why did she have to be half naked? Why did she need the F cup? I don't get why that trailer got everyone so hyped for the game, it couldn't turn me off faster.

I say, "Why not?" If that is what they wanted to make, let them do it. Is it hurting people? No. If that is the way they want to use their creative license, so be it.

If you don't like it, move on. As I mentioned above, what the article talks about, and the whole "problem" in general, is a huge case of, "you don't like it, don't look".

Ignore it and move along, find something you do like, and do that.

 

[CaptainChip]

snip

Hi, I'm a full-time liberal and part-time troll, which I believe linguistically makes me a lib-troll, and I think you're both misrepresenting my views and dramatically overestimating my intelligence.

Unless a lib-troll is someone who trolls Mad Libs, in which case your posts do not apply to me.

This is officially my favorite thread ever. I can't count how many times I've bursted out laughing at some of this crap.

We have misguided anger, political manifestos, and humor all in 120 posts. It's fucking brilliant.

We need to get this thread stickied so years from now people can go back and read it.

Snip

How about using something like... Social Justice Warrior or White Knight? Those seems like better, less politically charged terms than lib-troll (in a sense that liberals who don't actually agree with these types of people wouldn't want to be lumped in with them).

 

[Weaver]

In terms of the cyberpunk game, it's probably just like in the game where you start to lose human emotion if you implant too much.

I'm super excited for the new game!

 

[Deathninja19]

very interesting; the article is basically telling gamers to grow some spine and stop thinking that criticizing sexism and juvenile behavior is somehow demanding that gaming be censored. For all the stock gamers put into the medium, they sure as hell don't take it all that seriously

I agree but I also think in these situations writers shouldn't be scared of appearing sexist by blindly supporting claims of sexism ie the Sarkeesian whitewash that went on in which I mean; yes the attacks were disgusting but there were actually some legitimate complaints and questions about her work that got basically ignore in favor of just giving article space to the easy journalistic targets. What we need to consider is that there are many theories about feminism one example is the huge divide between Sex-Positive feminists (which I myself lean toward)and anti-pornography feminism (which I believe Sarkeesian would identify), no theory will be agreed by everyone and so every feminist will have differing opinions on what is sexist.

What I'm trying to say is that journalists need to not be afraid of being labeled sexist and approach every single issue evenhandedly, it is their responsibility to portray an issue without jumping on the sensationalist 'This is sexist and no one can convince us otherwise' bandwagon. Next time something like 'Tropes Vs Women' or #1reasonwhy pops up try to listen to differing opinions rather than the black and white the is/isn't sexist camps, you'd be surprised what some feminists think about these issues.

 

[daveman247]

snip

Yeah the first witcher had average combat. They fixed that in witcher 2 though, so high expectations here for this Guns are different to swords though... hope its better than the combat in fallout 3. Which was ok, i guess.

 

[Woiminkle]

very interesting; the article is basically telling gamers to grow some spine and stop thinking that criticizing sexism and juvenile behavior is somehow demanding that gaming be censored. For all the stock gamers put into the medium, they sure as hell don't take it all that seriously

I agree but I also think in these situations writers shouldn't be scared of appearing sexist by blindly supporting claims of sexism ie the Sarkeesian whitewash that went on in which I mean; yes the attacks were disgusting but there were actually some legitimate complaints and questions about her work that got basically ignore in favor of just giving article space to the easy journalistic targets. What we need to consider is that there are many theories about feminism one example is the huge divide between Sex-Positive feminists (which I myself lean toward)and anti-pornography feminism (which I believe Sarkeesian would identify), no theory will be agreed by everyone and so every feminist will have differing opinions on what is sexist.

What I'm trying to say is that journalists need to not be afraid of being labeled sexist and approach every single issue evenhandedly, it is their responsibility to portray an issue without jumping on the sensationalist 'This is sexist and no one can convince us otherwise' bandwagon. Next time something like 'Tropes Vs Women' or #1reasonwhy pops up try to listen to differing opinions rather than the black and white the is/isn't sexist camps, you'd be surprised what some feminists think about these issues.

Being accused of sexism is one thing and it's not necessarily that scary since one can make a sexist comment out of simple ignorance and be corrected on it. The problem is people deliberately conflating sexism with misogyny, they are not interchangeable words that mean the same thing and being labelled as somebody who hates women is a much more serious charge and very damaging to the writers reputation. If people would stop shouting misogyny instead of sexism then we might be able to have a more reasonable discussion.

 

[Nouw]

snip

That shit is deep. Thanks man, your analysis is great.