The Apparent Anti-Intellectualism of Gamer Culture

[DudeistBelieve]

I just want to throw in, The Division has some pretty progressive elements in places... The leader of the cleaners is an enemy you fight who's anti-big government. Theres also the lady doctor at HQ that seemingly goes out of her way to make sure you know that not only is she not a people person, and career driven woman, she's also gay. Just as random examples. The game even started me at the character screen defaulted to Lady-Gender. I only mentioned it because while playing it I noticed it and it felt like pandering, and I contemplated making a topic about it but figured, ya know. Fuck it. Maybe they'll be able to pander with a bit more subtleness next time.

Is there a string of anti-intellectualism or whatever you want to call it? Of course. Does no one read plato's cave? The guy escapes the cave, and goes back in to lead everyone out of it and the people inside the cave KILL THAT FUCKER. paraphrase Bill Hicks, "We can't leave this cave! We've got a lot invested in this Cave being everything."

 

[Elijin]

snip

What would be interesting to know is how the author of the article managed to miss this entirely. If he genuinely missed it I would find that amusing. If he's lying to himself and us so that he can go on the tangent he desired to go on, well... That's shitty.

I do believe I learned a lot more about the author than I did about the game from reading that. What do you think, Elijin/Nexus?

Given how complete the omission is (he refers to the game having 3 factions, completely ignoring the Last Man Battalion, a PMC who has taken over significant portions of the island and declared themselves the martial rulers), I wouldnt find it hard to believe he played it for 2-3 hours, decided he knew it all and stormed on ahead.
In the early game, you do come swooping as the super agent, here to set the city straight. Its only as the game progresses (or if you are super into collecting various audio diaries) that you start to see the ideas really expand, and the darker notions rear their head. In fact having replayed the missions because, ugh repetition on hard mode rpg/mmo, Im actually finding more and more of the early dialogue hints that people have no faith in your agency. Because you're the second wave, the remains of the first wave having already fallen to corruption and being at the head of the current obstacles.

But essentially this guy is either intentionally manipulating the narrative for his own gains, or a lazy lazy critic who browsed the first chapters and wrote a scathing expose, only to look a bit silly when the completed story provides the context to tell a very different tale.

Either way I feel the reviewer put the concept of them having a tasty little political dissection in their portfolio well ahead of accuracy in reviewing on this one.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

The game even started me at the character screen defaulted to Lady-Gender. I only mentioned it because while playing it I noticed it and it felt like pandering, and I contemplated making a topic about it but figured, ya know. Fuck it. Maybe they'll be able to pander with a bit more subtleness next time.

My first character started the character generator as a black man, my second as an Asian man. My take is that the Char Gen simply randomizes a character for you and that it can be either man or woman.

 

[jklinders]

Based on a quick skim of the site, this does not look like the kind of place you would go to get actual gameplay reviews. In other words, why go to this site if that is what you are looking for? I never heard of this guy before and will not take the time to look into his back issues right now. The entire purpose of the article was to analyze the "morality" of the game. That's your first problem right there. Not because not everyone is going to agree with your sense of morals but because he is doing this in a vacuum of his own particular lens.

Now what do I mean by that? Sure I better spell myself out. The full name of the game is Tom Clancy's The Division. Anybody anywhere in any time that looks for any kind of progressive bent in any work based on the works of Tom Clancy is fucking moron regardless of how articulate they may be at writing. He is a fucking Cold War era suspense writer who is so pro establishment that even as he takes the piss at US intelligence agencies he is still glorifying their goals. I would have a better chance of finding progressive views from his works than say those of Sarah Palin, but that is a really low bar to clear.

So with the above in mind, we now know that Killscreen was going for some pretty low hanging fruit. Congratulations, you have just attracted the lowest common denominator of your own free will. I'm not going to criticize his looking for progressive morality from the source of an inherently regressive writer. But I will criticize the time and effort he wastes in doing so. The Division does nothing to hide it's purpose. This means the article is not only irrelevant as a gameplay review but utterly worthless as it is utterly uninformative. The shitposting he attracted was probably actually desired. he got some additional attention; I mean fuck, I know who he is now which I did not previously. Weirdly I am interested in what he has to say but at the end of the day I don't think it has more than the very most basic of entertainment value. it won't change my buying habits and he tells me nothing useful about the game.

 

[ShadyNinja]

I prefer reviews that are as subjective as possible.

 

[inmunitas]

I prefer reviews that are as subjective as possible.

Well you're in luck, apparently knowing anything about a game, or even playing it beforehand, in order to write review of it is subjective.

 

[Maze1125]

I think what really causes this problem is the fact that the article is labeled as a review. There really isn't anything about the game that is reviewed here, instead it is a deep and fairly decent analysis of the setting and motives of the themes within the game and not actually the game itself. Honestly if they had tagged this article "Opinion" instead of review then those people commenting probably wouldn't be bitching.

This should be /thread. You shouldn't discuss the subjective political views or plot to a game and then rate how "good the game is". If you are ranking the plot or subject material in an opinion article, fine. If you are evaluating the game design, no. If you want to discuss political views and such, why not discuss the ones in reality where your voice plays a part instead of whatever McGuffin some game designer came up with this month?

That's total bullshit.
If a game has a story then that story is just as deserving of review as the gameplay.

Games have gone well beyond being just a medium for play and that's a good thing. But, equally, it means the value of a game has to be consider by more than just it's gameplay mechanics.

Some games are just games, but when a game purposely includes more than that it absolutely deserves to be judged on everything the designers have chosen to include. If you don't like reviews that do that then just ignore those reviews, don't claim they shouldn't exist.

 

[inmunitas]

I think what really causes this problem is the fact that the article is labeled as a review. There really isn't anything about the game that is reviewed here, instead it is a deep and fairly decent analysis of the setting and motives of the themes within the game and not actually the game itself. Honestly if they had tagged this article "Opinion" instead of review then those people commenting probably wouldn't be bitching.

This should be /thread. You shouldn't discuss the subjective political views or plot to a game and then rate how "good the game is". If you are ranking the plot or subject material in an opinion article, fine. If you are evaluating the game design, no. If you want to discuss political views and such, why not discuss the ones in reality where your voice plays a part instead of whatever McGuffin some game designer came up with this month?

That's total bullshit.
If a game has a story then that story is just as deserving of review as the gameplay.

Games have gone well beyond being just a medium for play and that's a good thing. But, equally, it means the value of a game has to be consider by more than just it's gameplay mechanics.

Some games are just games, but when a game purposely includes more than that it absolutely deserves to be judged on everything the designers have chosen to include. If you don't like reviews that do that then just ignore those reviews, don't claim they shouldn't exist.

A story is not a game, if all you're doing is focusing on the story then you're not writing a game review. All games are just games, the differences you see between BioShock and BioShock Infinite are the same differences you see between Monopoly and Star Wars Monopoly.

 

[Maze1125]

That's total bullshit.
If a game has a story then that story is just as deserving of review as the gameplay.

Games have gone well beyond being just a medium for play and that's a good thing. But, equally, it means the value of a game has to be consider by more than just it's gameplay mechanics.

Some games are just games, but when a game purposely includes more than that it absolutely deserves to be judged on everything the designers have chosen to include. If you don't like reviews that do that then just ignore those reviews, don't claim they shouldn't exist.

A story is not a game, if all you're doing is focusing on the story then you're not writing a game review. All games are just games, the differences you see between BioShock and BioShock Infinite are the same differences you see between Monopoly and Star Wars Monopoly.

Maybe YOU only use interactive media for the gameplay. That doesn't mean it's true of everyone.
Other people may very well use interactive media only for the story.

If it's valid to only review the gameplay part of interactive media then it's equally valid to only review the story part of it.

An even more valid review would consider every part of the media rather than only focusing on one part. If the developers include something then it is valid to review it. If you don't want to read those reviews then don't read them. That's a far better option than trying to censor them.

 

[inmunitas]

That's total bullshit.
If a game has a story then that story is just as deserving of review as the gameplay.

Games have gone well beyond being just a medium for play and that's a good thing. But, equally, it means the value of a game has to be consider by more than just it's gameplay mechanics.

Some games are just games, but when a game purposely includes more than that it absolutely deserves to be judged on everything the designers have chosen to include. If you don't like reviews that do that then just ignore those reviews, don't claim they shouldn't exist.

A story is not a game, if all you're doing is focusing on the story then you're not writing a game review. All games are just games, the differences you see between BioShock and BioShock Infinite are the same differences you see between Monopoly and Star Wars Monopoly.

Maybe YOU only use interactive media for the gameplay. That doesn't mean it's true of everyone.
Other people may very well use interactive media only for the story.

If it's valid to only review the gameplay part of interactive media then it's equally valid to only review the story part of it.

An even more valid review would consider every part of the media rather than only focusing on one part. If the developers include something then it is valid to review it. If you don't want to read those reviews then don't read them. That's a far better option than trying to censor them.

"Interactive media" and "video game" are not the same thing, interactive media is a broad category of which video games only intersect a tiny section of, it also has nothing to do with my point that a story is not a game (which it isn't), and writing a review focusing only on "thematic elements" (the story) is not a game review (which it isn't), nor is it treating games as art for that matter.

You're right that a good review would cover both, and the reviewer would need to understand gameplay, story, and how they intertwine or not. A good reviewer would also review things that the developer has actually included in the game, and not things that are absent but the reviewer wishes to talk about anyway because they're a pretentious imbecile.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

The game even started me at the character screen defaulted to Lady-Gender. I only mentioned it because while playing it I noticed it and it felt like pandering, and I contemplated making a topic about it but figured, ya know. Fuck it. Maybe they'll be able to pander with a bit more subtleness next time.

My first character started the character generator as a black man, my second as an Asian man. My take is that the Char Gen simply randomizes a character for you and that it can be either man or woman.

Interesting... I'd still call that a pretty liberal move vs to white guy first route, but not pandering.

 

[Siege_TF]

This shit again? 'problematic narration'? Of course this shit again. No molehill too small, eh?

The Division isn't a deep game; it's not intended for a deep audience. This is the same shit we went through with GTA5 because it had whores, transvestites, ghetto rats, etc. Many of these were cartoonish, oh but think of the children, minorities, couriers, and everyone else in the whole wide world!

This is the real problem; people put on their ideological lenses, grab their spares, demand strangers put them on, then get bent out of shape when they refuse.

Think you aren't like that? Let me spell this out: The. Division. Isn't. Narratively. Driven. If you have a problem with the narrative of The Division then the problem is yours. Not the games', not the players', yours. Wanting to be left the hell out of your problem doesn't make us anti-intellectual, it makes us normal.

We will probably be willing to discuss the narrative of a narratively driven game, so long as you don't annoy us by banging on about lackluster controls, a lack of a sprint function, dated visuals, or other things that would be considered irrelevant for that particular game.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Yeah, GTA 5, where a reviewer who gave the game a 9/10 got death threats because they mentioned the wrong type of criticism in her review.

This shit's exactly what we're talking about here. How some things are off limits in a game review. The Division is driven by it's story. You have a story, do missions based on the story, have cut scenes about the story, but for some reason if you criticise the story the wrong way, you are reviewing the game wrong.

This is the real problem; people put on their ideological lenses, grab their spares, demand strangers put them on, then get bent out of shape when they refuse.

Look, this review is on a website. Two, if you count Metacritic. How in the heck are they "demanding" anything when you can, quite simply, not read it?

Think you aren't like that? Let me spell this out: The. Division. Isn't. Narratively. Driven. If you have a problem with the narrative of The Division then the problem is yours. Not the games', not the players', yours. Wanting to be left the hell out of your problem doesn't make us anti-intellectual, it makes us normal.

Some people want this sort of article about the story. You do not. Fortunately, there's literally dozens of other reviews you can go for instead.

We will probably be willing to discuss the narrative of a narratively driven game, so long as you don't annoy us by banging on about lackluster controls, a lack of a sprint function, dated visuals, or other things that would be considered irrelevant for that particular game.

Out of curiosity, what defines a "narratively driven game"?

 

[NiPah]

The game even started me at the character screen defaulted to Lady-Gender. I only mentioned it because while playing it I noticed it and it felt like pandering, and I contemplated making a topic about it but figured, ya know. Fuck it. Maybe they'll be able to pander with a bit more subtleness next time.

My first character started the character generator as a black man, my second as an Asian man. My take is that the Char Gen simply randomizes a character for you and that it can be either man or woman.

I remember in the earlier versions you'd pick out your parents and it'd decide your race that way, I'd never made a new character in the current gen system so that's pretty interesting.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Given the context of the review, the comments you cherry picked are stupid. However, I think in the context of a game review, they are spot on.

If I read a review (something I haven't done in years) I want to know what the shooting feels like, how the combat works, what are the "cool" things, what are the graphics like, any bugs, how the game works blah blah blah. What I don't want is, an in depth analysis of the political direction of the game.

It's perfectly ok to dissect a game that way and can make for an interesting conversation but if you're on the fence about whether to buy it or avoid it, then talking about how right wing the story is, is pointless.

pretty much this. If I were to ask a friend about a certain new restaurant that I was thinking about trying and I know they had just gone to recently, and they go on and on about a couple pieces of art on the wall in the restaurant instead of answering my question, I'd be annoyed and call them out on over analyzing something that doesn't matter in this conversation and really doesn't affect my enjoyment of the food or service of said restaurant.

anti-intellectualism is bad, believe me, I live in a city with lots of ghetto people and went to public school, so I know how fucking retarded some people can be, but this is a terrible example to point out.

 

[Silvanus]

I wouldn't say it's anti-intellectualism, exactly; it's a little more difficult to pin down.

Plainly, a review is an expression of opinion, nothing objective about it (other than giving the specifications). Recently, there seems to be this push for reviews to focus solely on gameplay, and to leave narrative/thematic considerations out of it; this seems frankly bizarre, to me, as it's as valid an avenue of criticism or praise as any other. Narrative is an aspect of the product, and one which is as important to some people as gameplay is to others.

The same would not be requested of film or literature, comics, or anything else, really. There's no reason reviews of this medium, specifically, should ignore narrative content and theme. They're a huge element of games.

Still, this isn't anti-intellectualism per se; it's more a sort of strange assertion that reviews should cater to their concerns and exclusively theirs. It's more to do with self-involvement than it is anti-intellectualism methinks.

 

[Erttheking]

This is a bad example, but let's not pretend that gamers don't go flying off the hook whenever something they like receives any kind of criticism. Like alternatejag pointed out, a woman got death threats for saying GTA V was sexist in a review. And still gave it a 9/10.

I wouldn't call it anti-intellectualism. Just an inability to take any criticism about a work they like and not wanting to look at it at any other way than a thing to enjoy, so "Shut up and stop criticizing what I like!"

Ok, we need to sit down and have a serious discussion. Do we think games are art? Because if we do, we need to accept that they're going to be criticized. They're not just toys, we can't just wave away criticism of them because we don't like it/don't agree with it.

 

[Maze1125]

"Interactive media" and "video game" are not the same thing, interactive media is a broad category of which video games only intersect a tiny section of,

Yes, well done, you noticed my point.
Games are only a small subset of interactive media. By calling something a "game" we juvenilize it, it becomes okay to ignore the setting because "it's only a game". By calling it interactive media we can consider these fantastic works that people put years of their lives into as more than just "games" but, equally, it means we need to recognise that the design choices that are made are worth discussing, not just the gameplay ones.

But, hey, you can keep calling them games if you want and keep ignoring everything except the gameplay. No-one is stopping you from doing that.
Live and let live. If people want to play games on a base level, let them do that; equally if people want to consider interactive media as something more important than "just a game", let them do that too.

 

[Silvanus]

That's a misrepresentation of that position. There's no resistance to better games, what there is is resistance to narrow-band regressive American politics being labelled 'progressive' and thus, best for all. There's no one-size fits all view of pregressive, so OF COURSE people are going to disagree with the leftist 'problematic narrative' take.

Well, aye, but we're not talking about those who merely disagree with the criticism. There've been calls for narrative/ thematic criticism to be removed from reviews entirely.