Excuses for inconsiderate things in video games

[BrotherRool]

You'd like to think the world works that way, but I really doubt it would. Just like every other media driven by views, the gaming media wants controversies. If someone said 'we didn't do it because we didn't think including windowed mode was important in our game when we had other time constraints' or 'we wasted too much time mismanaging our fish AI to include those features we talked about at E3' then that becomes 'Game devs say PC waste of time' and 'Incompetent manufactures think fish is more important than games.'

And the audience is no different, we much prefer the simple stories that are interesting than dropping it as unimportant. Sure we all like to say that we prefer straight talking, but it's not how we react.

Think about Bobby Kotick when he said he wanted to take the 'fun out of games'. What he was saying was that he wanted to professionalise game development so that people took creating a game seriously as part of their job in order to create a safe stable and reliable environment that would satisfy investors bringing their money into creating games. Sure we like to believe that art should exist on air, but someone has to make sure the wages get paid and Kotick had a point. You can't make the same decisions when 200 families are relying on your for food that you can when it's you and a guy in a bedroom somewhere.

But no-one even thought about talking about that idea. Instead we drew pictures of Bobby Kotick with devil horns and brought up the quote whenever Activision did something we disliked.

In certain environments, say a Kickstartered game, honesty makes the best policy and informing the public is important. But the world wants to simple a narrative for that to work with big AAA games. The best thing a PR company can do is come up with some completely bland and uninteresting statement so that we all forget about the whole business within a week.

 

[Riotguards]

here's how gaming should work,

"oh they don't have *insert gender/race/religion/weight/colour/political view/etc here* in this game, i don't feel comfortable about that so i'll not buy the game and suggest some positive information to the developers so that they can consider it"


how it really works

"oh they don't have *insert gender/race/religion/weight/colour/political view/etc here* AMFG THEY *insert anti-whatever here* wah wah wah they should cater to ME ME ME ME ME because i'm important and the world has to revolve around me"


we can't possibly cater to every part of humanity, sure Satanist have been hugely misrepresented in video games but you don't see them complaining about that

 

[Ihateregistering1]

So, I was watching the Loading, Ready, Run video for the first time, satirizing any sort of awkward and unbelievable excuse that game developers might have for not implementing some sort of politically correct or equal opportunity feature into their game, and it got me thinking: what would happen if the companies just flat out said why they didn't implement certain things into their games? Would people be upset at their reasons? Would people acknowledge that they at least told the truth about their reasons as to why? Would people not believe them because it's so ridiculous or unexpected that it can't possibly be the truth? I want to know what people would do in this case.

It doesn't matter what you do, you're going to piss off or offend someone, so you basically just have to give the prepared PR department answer to anything to try and offend the fewest amount of people possible. Could you imagine if someone asked a game company why it didn't have ____________ playable characters in it, and the developers responded "because we don't care"? People would lose their shit.

The fake excuse responses they give are nothing more than damage control, because these companies know that they're going to offend someone, but they also know that when the smoke clears and the offended party has moved on to the next big thing to be offended about, their game will still sell like hotcakes anyway, even if the protagonist is just another Nathan Drake or Marcus Fenix.

 

[gargantual]

Isn't that Rockstar's entire developmental strategy for their games? They specifically create their games for adults to enjoy, or so I remember reading somewhere. Everybody remembers the

Spoiler

torture

scene from GTAV, right? Rockstar didn't come around later and patch that portion of the game away. They left it there.

I don't know if what I'm talking about here applies in the same way to the topic in the OP, but it follows similar lines I suppose. I wish more companies had the balls to stick to their guns like Rockstar does.

WelI I'd imagine after they've been called to a senate committee and chastised over a sex mod, by grandstanders in a nation that's hypocritical about controversy and dignity, it'd only feed the cynicism, and spiteful resolve for the next game."

 

[lnin0]

What about the elephant in the room that nobody is talking about. The one group of people who appear in all sorts of games and are always stereotypically portrayed as the 'bad' guy. Everyone wants to stand up for the player character but what about the villains. It is time these NPCs got fair and balanced treatment. Why do they always have to be 'evil' or 'bad'...couldn't some of them help us plant a garden or co-sign on a car loan?

Villains are people too and they have feelings!