I was reading Syl's post on Where all the Hate comes from, and while I agree with most of what is said there, I did stumble upon this question of hers on why some people attack so-called social justice warriors: "If you consider this briefly, it is a pretty horrible state to be in, to fight against social progress or those that speak for more inclusion and equality. How can anyone be against that?". And I would like to answer that question.
I am very much for more inclusion and equality. Having said that, I believe there are wide differences of opinion what exactly constitutes "inclusion" and what exactly constitutes "equality". Take one extreme hypothetical example: In a painting of the last supper, I would expect the twelve apostles to be white males. If I would read somebody loudly accusing Leonardo Da Vinci of being a racist, sexist pig because his twelve apostles aren't 50% female and have no minority representation, I would very much disagree. And even if an image is not strictly historical, I would believe that an artist's freedom of expression to show a group of bloodthirsty warlords as being male beats the feminist demand for equal representation absolutely everywhere.
In other words, I am *for* the large majority of the inclusion and equality that SJWs demand, and *against* the often outrageous demands of the extremist fringe of the movement. For me inclusion and equality for example mean that jobs and promotions go to the person who is most qualified, regardless of that person's gender, race, sexuality, or religion. Which means I am *against* "affirmative action" or "positive discrimination", because even positive discrimination *is* discrimination, and thus against the principle of equality. Two wrongs don't make a right.
There is not one party, movement, religion, or ideology in the world where I agree with 100% of the creed. I think of myself as a moderate, and we moderates are often left alone in this world, while the fringes enjoy very strong representation. Even moderate women have expressed their criticism of radical feminism, it is not a "male chauvinist thing".
Reading gaming blogs and sites, I do come across feminist ideas that I don't agree with. I very much understand women's objection against "booth babes" paid by game companies to attract young, male gamers. But I have seen feminists arguing that women who want to go to conventions dressed in sexy cosplay outfits should be banned, even if those women freely choose their outfit and aren't paid or otherwise encouraged to dress like that. Telling a women what she is allowed to wear to me appears an extremely sexist thing to do, even if the person doing so is a feminist and not a conservative male muslim cleric.
So in answer to Syl, I see how it is possible for people to be against some social justice warriors. A large majority of moderate people is very much for inclusion and equality, without necessarily being for every single demand of the feminist or leftist fringe. That doesn't explain the Hate, which is why I said that this is a very limited answer. The Anita Sarkeesian video certainly wasn't an extremist feminist view, in fact I considered it quite moderate. There certainly are a bunch of misogynist jerks out there in gamer land, and it is right to speak out against them (and I have). But you also can't demand a blank check from everybody for every single viewpoint every single social justice warrior might have.
I am very much for more inclusion and equality. Having said that, I believe there are wide differences of opinion what exactly constitutes "inclusion" and what exactly constitutes "equality". Take one extreme hypothetical example: In a painting of the last supper, I would expect the twelve apostles to be white males. If I would read somebody loudly accusing Leonardo Da Vinci of being a racist, sexist pig because his twelve apostles aren't 50% female and have no minority representation, I would very much disagree. And even if an image is not strictly historical, I would believe that an artist's freedom of expression to show a group of bloodthirsty warlords as being male beats the feminist demand for equal representation absolutely everywhere.
In other words, I am *for* the large majority of the inclusion and equality that SJWs demand, and *against* the often outrageous demands of the extremist fringe of the movement. For me inclusion and equality for example mean that jobs and promotions go to the person who is most qualified, regardless of that person's gender, race, sexuality, or religion. Which means I am *against* "affirmative action" or "positive discrimination", because even positive discrimination *is* discrimination, and thus against the principle of equality. Two wrongs don't make a right.
There is not one party, movement, religion, or ideology in the world where I agree with 100% of the creed. I think of myself as a moderate, and we moderates are often left alone in this world, while the fringes enjoy very strong representation. Even moderate women have expressed their criticism of radical feminism, it is not a "male chauvinist thing".
Reading gaming blogs and sites, I do come across feminist ideas that I don't agree with. I very much understand women's objection against "booth babes" paid by game companies to attract young, male gamers. But I have seen feminists arguing that women who want to go to conventions dressed in sexy cosplay outfits should be banned, even if those women freely choose their outfit and aren't paid or otherwise encouraged to dress like that. Telling a women what she is allowed to wear to me appears an extremely sexist thing to do, even if the person doing so is a feminist and not a conservative male muslim cleric.
So in answer to Syl, I see how it is possible for people to be against some social justice warriors. A large majority of moderate people is very much for inclusion and equality, without necessarily being for every single demand of the feminist or leftist fringe. That doesn't explain the Hate, which is why I said that this is a very limited answer. The Anita Sarkeesian video certainly wasn't an extremist feminist view, in fact I considered it quite moderate. There certainly are a bunch of misogynist jerks out there in gamer land, and it is right to speak out against them (and I have). But you also can't demand a blank check from everybody for every single viewpoint every single social justice warrior might have.
"In a painting of the last supper, I would expect the twelve apostles to be white males."
ReplyDeleteThose people are from the Middle East. Why would they be white? :)
Those people are from the Middle East. Why would they be white?
ReplyDeleteThat was obviously a very simplified description of race. Or would you consider people from the Middle East to be "black"? Wikipedia agrees in stating that the Semitic peoples are considered to be of Caucasoid type.
I wouldn't get hung up on SJW efforts to reverse the rhetoric. It works about as well as saying that political correctness is a good thing, which is another one they try on sometimes.
ReplyDeleteMost of these people would be singularly unimpressed if a 'pro-lifer' asked them "why are you anti-life?"
Political correctness is without question a "good thing". It is no more nor less than what my grandmother would have called "good manners". Any well-brought up child would serve as an admirable model of PC behavior.
ReplyDeleteThe last supper example is a complete straw man argument, surely? I clicked through your link expecting to find an example of someone who had suggested a revisionist view but that's not where that went. I know you say its a hypothetical example but I'd need to see some equivalency with something that has actually been suggested somewehere - I've never heard anyone asking for Old Masters to be repainted according to any modern viewpoint as a matter of course, although clearly artists can and do use such contrasts to make a point if that seems appropriate.
As for the idea that anyone likely to be listened to by someone other than a health-care professional calling Leonardo da Vinci " a racist, sexist pig because his twelve apostles aren't 50% female", again that's surely not a possible real-world example? There are well-founded objections to the emphasis in teaching and study on certain periods of art history that are based around gender and race politics but even there I'm not aware that the objections pass to the subjects of the study as seen within their own time period.
As for whether the individuals in Rennaissance paintings of biblical subjects are ethnically appropriate, clearly they aren't. They are normalized to represent the expectations of the artists and patrons of the European high culture of the day. They look like the people who painted and commissioned them in other words.
The biological definition of their race is irrelevant. Clearly the apostles would not have looked like 15th century Italians.
Which means I am *against* "affirmative action" or "positive discrimination", because even positive discrimination *is* discrimination, and thus against the principle of equality. Two wrongs don't make a right.
ReplyDeleteHmm. So you would be fine under this system even when it turns out that white males continue to be "the best for the job" on into perpetuity?
I'm not a SJW by any stretch of the imagination, but it seems to me that the calls for meritocracy are not so much noble as they are for the permanent establishment of status quo. For every rags to riches story, there are a hundred others in which hard work is a function of stable housing, two parent households, good education, etc, etc. If you don't have that right now, how would a meritocracy support equality?
I'd need to see some equivalency with something that has actually been suggested somewehere
ReplyDeleteThe actual protest was against the Warlords of Draenor (described as being a murderous horde of orcs) being male.
So you would be fine under this system even when it turns out that white males continue to be "the best for the job" on into perpetuity?
Why would that be the only option? If up to now less suited men got jobs over more suited women, why would it be a good idea if in the future less suited women got a job over more suited men? If we always take the most suited person, wouldn't we automatically achieve equality?
Quote : I've never heard anyone asking for Old Masters to be repainted according to any modern viewpoint as a matter of course, although clearly artists can and do use such contrasts to make a point if that seems appropriate.
ReplyDeleteThe second Tintin "Tintin in the Congo" has often been criticized to be racist - Tintin in the Congo. Some extremist even tried to censure this Comic. In the some english edition, a text has been recently added at the begining to explain that Hergé (the author) used cliché that were classic at this date (1932).
Tintin is a art classic, that is now classified as "Adult" in some Library in England.
Ladies and gentleman, I present you, Tobold, writing in the style of John Oliver. :)
ReplyDeleteA joke, but seriously, go watch one of his videos on Youtube and then read this post again.. I swear it has the same sort of cadence to it..
On topic, good post and I totally agree with you. You are applying what we call at work the "common sense sniff test".
The last supper example is a complete straw man argument, surely?A strawman is when you replace someone's argument with something completely different.
ReplyDeleteIn this instance, he's just taking the example to extremes to illustrate that there is a point where that logic falls down.
The problem he's pointing out is -- people see that point where it falls down in different places which makes it subjective and the reason people can argue about it.
The radicalists would argue there is no point where it breaks down, it either is or it isn't and as he illustrates, that's simply not true.
Why would that be the only option? If up to now less suited men got jobs over more suited women, why would it be a good idea if in the future less suited women got a job over more suited men? If we always take the most suited person, wouldn't we automatically achieve equality?
ReplyDeleteThe purpose of affirmative action is to counteract the effect of systemic racism. For example, in school, you are discriminated against and such get worse grades on less objective things such as art and are put into worse schools because you are in a black neighborhood. As such, to counteract such discrimination, lower requirements and/or quotas are added in college admissions. As such, your claim on meritocracy rests upon a base of implied advantage everywhere else.
As to the effectiveness of affirmative action in actually addressing that problem is up to other people who actually research that topic. I'm of the opinion that it's better than nothing and I don't know if anything better can be thought up to replace it.
That was obviously a very simplified description of race. Or would you consider people from the Middle East to be "black"? Wikipedia agrees in stating that the Semitic peoples are considered to be of Caucasoid type.
ReplyDeleteWell considering that no one I know would consider middle eastern people as white, I don't know if lumping them into one group actually works. Also, Leonardo da Vinci was a product of his time so he was probably sexist and/or racist based on modern standards (as would literally almost all people throughout history) but I doubt anyone would "blast" him for that. The racist part is probably more ambiguous though because there is evidence that back then he would probably considered be more jingoist or religion-ist based on modern standards than racist as people of the time regard people with stereotypes of nations and countries more often than race.
I can agree with being critical of everything - that includes people fighting for social justice, I'm not for handing out carte blanches to everyone that uses the term to describe himself. I am also interested in motives and 'hows'.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I will also say that personally, I can see why we also need extremist and fringe movements; they have their place in history as catalysts and trailblazers. It's moderates that eventually need to establish and maintain change step by step and it's a long process, but extreme situations also demand extreme thinkers at times. If we assume that we usually only achieve a fraction of what we aim for in such difficult matters as social norms (which is realistic>, I can see why you need to aim for more in order to achieve anything at all. PETA are a very extremist bunch and I certainly don't always agree with them - but they are an extreme answer to an extremely screwed up situation.
Pretty much agreed with your post right up to the last paragraph when you seem to turn it into a defence of Anita Sarkesian. She is not a moderate expressing a feminist view on gaming. She is a con-artist extracting money from the SJWs by falsely promoting herself as a victim of misogynistic gamers.
ReplyDeleteHats off to you Tobold, please enjoy your can of worms :)
ReplyDeleteAt least this post will draw some extra traffic to the blog!
Pretty much agreed with your post right up to the last paragraph when you seem to turn it into a defence of Anita Sarkesian. She is not a moderate expressing a feminist view on gaming. She is a con-artist extracting money from the SJWs by falsely promoting herself as a victim of misogynistic gamers.
ReplyDeleteEven if she did use her situation for her own benefit, it is pretty much undeniable that is a victim of misogynistic gamers. Also, regardless of if she actually was a victim of this, saying she is a con-artist is a lie because she produced the videos (quality of them not withstanding, that is never guaranteed). And even her videos, even if she was an extremist, do not advocate any solution or show anything extreme, but just shows examples and things she finds offensive and/or annoying. By calling her a con-artist and false victim, you tipped your hand.
I wasn't even talking about her as a person, neither on the side of her as an internet entrepreneur, nor on the side of her as a victim of abuse. I was talking about her opinion how women are used as decoration in video games. I don't see that opinion as extreme.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't describe her as "extreme" but possibly unethical and fraudulent in the way she grossly misrepresents games and misleads the audience.
ReplyDeleteAs I've said else where, I believe the creators of Hitman would be taking legal action if it weren't for the fact that the false controversy boosts their sales figures.
I firmly believe that if they had advertised their game as she portrayed it, they would face action by the UK's advertising standards authority for misleading consumers.
She does no worse than what the Daily Mail in the UK often does though. It's certainly not quality impartial factual journalism that's for sure.
By that way social justice proponents are not the same as social justice warriors.
I'm the former. The latter are toxic, damage the cause and care little about the people they claim to represent.
By that way social justice proponents are not the same as social justice warriors.
ReplyDeleteI'm the former. The latter are toxic, damage the cause and care little about the people they claim to represent.
Yeah, well the problem then would be people decided to invent a new derogatory name instead of use a well known one such as "extremist". (I am assuming that social justice warriors refer to people like militant feminists who go around shooting people's dogs)
What you feel about the latter category depends on if you feel if Malcolm X benefited civil rights by letting people see the alternative to Martin or set it back by driving people away from the cause.
Interesting that she asserts inclusion and equality are indicators of social progress. Conversely, those same indicators could be measures of totalitarianism. What exactly is social progress anyway? censoring expression in the name of political correctness? Denying one's instincts to appease another's ideals? Tolerating all things but not intolerance?
ReplyDeleteEquality is not sameness and inclusion in a group often means self-identifying by what another group is NOT.
Social progress is a myth, or more carefully stated, impossible to achieve without defining it with very specific and limited attributes.
As I've said else where, I believe the creators of Hitman would be taking legal action if it weren't for the fact that the false controversy boosts their sales figures.
ReplyDeleteThe reason they're not taking legal action is that they don't have an actionable claim.
I firmly believe that if they had advertised their game as she portrayed it, they would face action by the UK's advertising standards authority for misleading consumers.
I don't see it.
If the scene were meant to be a full gameplay review of "Hitman", then you're right that wouldn't have been a good one. But the scene wasn't meant to be a review. It was intended as a single example of the "Women as Background Decoration" trope, and I think it was pretty effective at that.
Obviously the game has other aspects that aren't examples of the trope, so we wouldn't expect to see them in the video.
(And, yes, I know, the game doesn't require you to beat up strippers who are unable to retaliate, or to stuff them into a box for no good reason. But the developers did give players the option of doing that, even though it would have been just as easy to set the "Unattackable NPC" flag on the strippers. The goal of the "Tropes vs. Women" series is of course to encourage people to think about the choices that game developers make and why they make them.)
"And, yes, I know, the game doesn't require you to beat up strippers"
ReplyDeleteSo you admit she lied.
Listen to her wording. She made it quite clear or at the very least strongly implied that the game made you kill the strippers and then manipulate their bodies.
There is absolutely no need to kill them. The only reason you can kill them is because the game follows a CONSISTENT SET OF RULES that allow you to perform the same actions on virtually all the NPC's in the game. That is key to making that world believable. Consistent rules are a fundamental part of good game design.
The majority of civvies are innocent males, the next group being non sexualised females and finally in one tiny part of the game some strippers.
The "unattackable" idea is by far the most ridiculous idea I have ever heard and a perfect example of the type of immersion breaking toxic design influence that people are fighting to stop being inflicted on games. That would competently break the immersion and by removing consistent rules would damage gameplay by forcing players to guess strategies depending on what ever rules they predict that social justice warriors would have inserted.
The whole point of Hitman is being in an open level with consistent rules and multiple solutions. It challenges and encourages player creativity.
Why is the stripper unattackable and not a male civilian who is just doing an honest days work to pay the mortgage and provide food and clothes for his kids? How about all civilian NPC's be unattackable?
Oops there goes the option of stealing clothes from civilians and masquerading in their role.
OK so let's allow "some" to be attackable. How does the player know which?
Let's steal a mail couriers outfit.
Oh wait that courier is black, sorry unattackable.
The next courier is female, sorry no can do.
Here comes a white male, looks promising.
What about if the white male courier is gay? I mean we don't know he is gay but then we don't know he isn't right? Or he could be a transsexual? We can't encourage violence against the gay and transsexual community right?
What if a stripper is a straight male in drag? Is that fair game to you?
I don't see any lies in the video. The "beat up the stripper and stuff her in a box for no good reason" scene is at the 22:15 mark of the "Women as Background Decoration, Part 2" video.
ReplyDeleteHere's the transcript from that section - I'm sorry for the length, but she anticipated and addressed so many of your arguments that I wanted to post the whole thing.
In particular, she explains quite clearly that beating up the strippers is optional and carries (minor) in-game penalties.
(I think part of the problem is that the "Hitman" clip is so shocking and cringe-inducing that people focus on the video and miss the narration.)
Games ask us to play with them. Now that may seem obvious, but bear with me. Game developers set up a series of rules and then within those rules we are invited to test the mechanics to see what we can do, and what we can’t do. We are encouraged to experiment with how the system will react or respond to our inputs and discover which of our actions are permitted and which are not. The play comes from figuring out the boundaries and possibilities within the gamespace.
So in many of the titles we’ve been discussing, the game makers have set up a series of possible scenarios involving vulnerable, eroticized female characters. Players are then invited to explore and exploit those situations during their play-through.
[...]
In-game consequences for these violations are trivial at best and rarely lead to any sort of “fail state” or “game over”. Sometimes areas may go on high-alert for a few minutes during which players have to lay low or hide before the game and its characters “forget” that you just murdered a sexualized woman in cold blood.
These temporary game states are implemented so that acts of violence against NPCs committed by players do not inconvenience or interfere too much with the core gaming experience.
[...]
Now inevitably whenever these game mechanics are criticized, some gamers try to dismiss and distance themselves from the issue by insisting that they don’t personally partake in the provided options for exploiting virtual women. But whether or not an individual player chooses to use an object for its intended purpose is irrelevant, because that object was still designed and placed in the game environment to fulfill its function.
[...]
Typically all the non-essential characters in sandbox style games are killable, but it’s the sexualized women whose instrumentality and brutalization is gendered and eroticized in ways that men never are. The visual language attached to male NPCs is very different since they are rarely designed to be sexually inviting or arousing, and they are not coded to interact with the player in ways meant to reaffirm a heterosexual fantasy about being a stud
The complete transcript is available at the feminstfrequency.com website.
Have you actually watched the video, or have you just heard about it through the 2chan troll brigade? If you haven't watched it I hope you will; even if you don't agree with everything she says, I think you'll have to admit she makes some good points.
I think Woody's reaction just shows what I said elsewhere about there being no black & white, only shades of grey. Woody clearly feels threatened and strongly reacts against a feminist point of view that I personally find rather moderate.
ReplyDeleteAs I don't think that Woody will persuade anybody of his point of view, nor anybody will change Woody's mind, I would much prefer if you'd stop discussing Anita Sarkeesian here. This thread isn't really about her.
@Chaos Engineer - wrong video (@Tobold - this will circle back to the main question posed in your post).
ReplyDeleteFirst video:
"The players cannot help but treat these female bodies as things to be acted on".
Not true - they can help it. You have no reason to touch them.
"players are meant to derive a perverse pleasure from desecrating the bodies of unsuspecting virtual female characters, its a rush streaming from a carefully concocted mix of sexual arousal connected to the act of punishing and controlling representations of female sexuality."
Ok disclaimer - I am asexual. I cannot speak for most males but are you seriously telling me that those scenes are there because men become aroused at killing a woman and then manipulating her lifeless body?!?! The devs thought "hey I know what will turn the guys on...let them kill a stripper and move her body around".
Nothing to do with the fact that strip clubs are a staple of the gangster genre and shock horror...you find strippers in strip clubs?
I'd say if you find that sexually appealing you should probably hand yourself in at the nearest police station.
Do any of the straight males reading this care to admit to finding that arousing?
My interpretation is that it is a set of consistent rules applying to every NPC in the game. Mostly non-sexualised male and female characters and only a tiny percentage of realistically (given the location) sexualised females in 5% of the game. It is a location that is common in just about every movie, TV show, game or book that has an underworld theme. The characters within that location are presumably (I've not been to one) fully consistent with what you would find in a real world establishment of that nature.
@Tolbold - noted that you want to get back on topic and the question that you answered so I will change the subject but stay on the hitman theme as it works well for it.
When I buy a game called "Hitman" I expect it to be about a contract killer operating in a seedy underworld.Fair?
I expect the game to include classic "trope" locations for that type of subject matter.Fair?
Imagine you haven't played a Hitman game. What would you expect?
A mansion, a penthouse, a drugs factory, an Italian/Chinese restaurant, a casino and a nightclub/strip club.Fair?
I expect those locations to be there given that they are staples of the genre and I expect them to accurately reflect the real world and that includes the nature of those NPC's that I'd expect to find within them.Fair?
I also expect the game to have a consistent set of rules as that is just good game design.Fair?
Quite how that is being threatened by a feminist point of view is beyond me but let's continue..
If I bought a Hitman game and it was based in a shelter for homeless animals (as an SJW on Gevlons blog suggested) and it lacked realism and consistent rules then I wouldn't buy another. I'd probably complain to the dev to make it known why I was abandoning their franchise.
Does that make me opposed to inclusion and social justice?! No of course not! I am against an outrageous demand to inappropriately insert social justice themes where it would damage the product.
I'd gladly buy other games that weren't sold to me as a game about a "Hitman" that didn't involve seedy underworld locations like stripclubs, strippers or violence.
I've consistently said that Gone Home (poster child of the SJW movement) was one of my favourite titles of 2013.
I have no "hate" for social justice issues.
I am for social justice but against the extremes that would attempt to pervert games and genres to the point that the final product is degraded and warped in the eyes of most buyers.
A bit like Gamblers Anonymous attempting to get the staple Casino scene removed from James Bond movies.
If I bought a Hitman game and it was based in a shelter for homeless animals ...
ReplyDeleteI think part of the problem is that the market is full of games like "Hitman" and "GTA", where you play a violent criminal in a seedy environment full of women shown a sex objects and decoration. But I know not a single AAA game about running a shelter for homeless animals. Would it be too much to ask to get that game as well, more games which aren't about violence, criminals, and seedy environments?
You are right. Absolutely right.
ReplyDeleteThe market is dominated by such games.
Believe me they are not my preference!!!
I do consume those titles that involve violence, criminality and sexuality (despite finding the latter repulsive) but I much prefer games like Gone Home, Among the Sleep or even Beyond Two Souls which are heavy on story, emotions, characters and lower on violence and sex. I want to see more of those titles as big AAA games.
But it is a free market.
I have niche tastes. The market for my preference of game is too small for a modern budgeted AAA title to be viable.
I have to accept that the best I can have in that niche are low cost indie titles.
I accept this but the social justice extremists don't.
They are more akin to the hardcore raiders in WoW.
WoW would not be financially viable in its current state with just the hardcore niche subscribing. If they want a game that caters to their tastes they would have to accept a lower budget title.
Unfortunately the hardcore raiders and the social justice extremists won't accept that the market has determined the quantity supplied and budget for their games in relation to the market size. Instead they wish to hijack the large mass market games and attempt to distort them to the point that it would damage the product in the eyes of the majority.
I can't blame developers for ignoring them. It's economics and you can't buck the market.
MAIN POINT:
How do we change the situation and get more of the games that I and the social justice movement want?
Use nepotism and poor ethics to give games more exposure and higher scores than they deserve? Create misleading Youtube videos and pressurise publishers/developers into modifying and perverting existing games such that they would lose more customers than they would gain?
No.
Answer: IF and I repeat IF there is a huge untapped market out there for a different type of game (and I'm doubtful), then those people need to stand up and be counted.
It is no good jabbering on forums all day if you are not putting £50 down on the table when it counts. It is no good buying £2 mobile games either.
Developers love to make money. If they see non violent, non sexual games suddenly selling in large quantities and earning the developers a lot of money I can guarantee there will be a flood of big name developers and publishers diving into the market.
I put my money on the table. I voted when it counted.
E.g. as well as those games I listed and many others, I also bought and finished Murdered: Soul Suspect. A story based game with virtually no violence and strong non-sexualised female characters playing the role of a major protagonist and antagonist.
Who else bought it? Anyone? Where was the rigged 10/10 review on Polygon? Oh yeah I forgot - their mates didn't develop it.
Well the publisher has shut down so that answers the question doesn't it. Where were the social justice extremists and white knights then? I was stood at the till with my wallet out, I didn't see them anywhere.
Who else bought the games that weren't based in a strip club? Just me and a handful of others right?
It's ironic but I've done more for social justice in AAA games than most of these forum and youtube heroes.
Kickstarting or making patron donations to indie devs to produce such titles isn't the solution. Creating an indie game is not enough. It is the sales that count. Selling enough copies to get the executives at major publishers interested.
Until these people join me at the till cash-in-hand we are wasting our time on an endless argument that will achieve nothing but damage the industry.
How do we change the situation and get more of the games that I and the social justice movement want?
ReplyDeleteI think you're conflating two different things.
It sounds like you want games that are thoughtful and original, and aren't just a bunch of overused cliches strung together.
The social justice movement doesn't object to overused cliches as such, they just think developers should stop leaning so heavily on the racist/sexist/homophobic ones.
But the way to solve the problems is the same: People who care about those two issues need to point out lazy writing or offensive stereotypes when they see them, and encourage the people around them to do the same. Eventually some of the developers will realize that there's a market that's being underserved.
I hadn't heard of Soul Suspect, but I see that it got pretty mediocre reviews because of gameplay issues. So you're not going to be able to expect social justice advocates to support it - they don't want to play mediocre games, they want to play good games, provided those games don't rely on offensive stereotypes. The "Portal" series is a good example.
Soul Suspect was very good in my opinion. It was no blockbuster but it was one of the few games I bothered to see through to the conclusion.
ReplyDeleteBeyond Two Souls received similar reviews and that was an incredible game but ironically the SJW dominated press marked it down. "its not a game" etc.
As far as Soul Suspect goes, the dev didn't sleep with the journalist or hand out a free nexus tablet so who knows if that influenced reviews.
I will tell you what was interesting about it. The only bad point were the demon sections. It was clear that the publisher had forced the developer to put those in because they needed some "action" to attract the larger more traditional gaming demographic. Clearly that publisher was worried about the narrow appeal. Those sequences were totally unnecessary and detracted from what was otherwise a decent game.
Look no publisher is going to invest 50 million making a first class 9/10 AAA non violent non sexual game based on some Internet forum theories that are contradicted by market research, current AAA purchasing demographics and poor sales of existing non violent games.
Rome wasn't built in a day and we aren't going to suddenly have devs making large investments in these games overnight.
This has to happen over time and we have to demonstrate this "claimed" pent up demand by showing strong sales of games from the mid-league publishers who take a gamble and produce a lowish budget 8/10 type of game.
If they keep going bust due to poor sales then that sends a far stronger message than any YouTube video.
I'm not understanding your argument.
ReplyDeleteSocial Justice Advocates don't necessarily want "non-violent non-sexual" games. They want games that don't perpetuate negative stereotypes. The people who want non-violent non-sexual games are the Jack Thompson/"What About the Children?" factions.
Now, I can imagine the makers of "Soul Suspect" saying, "A lot of people think pure point-and-click adventure games are boring. Maybe we should try to splice in some combat to get more people to play it." And I think they'd be right, and that means that violent games will never go away completely.
But I can't imagine a developer saying, "This game is too pro-diversity! We should splice in some offensive stereotypes to increase sales!" I think their reasoning is more like, "This game is a bit thin. Quick, let's make up a list of ideas that we can steal from other games/movies." If that's what's happening, then some gentle encouragement might be enough to get the developers to take a second pass through their list of ideas.
Also, does "The Sims" count as a AAA non-violent non-sexual game that doesn't have offensive stereotypes? It seems like it sells pretty well.
"some gentle encouragement might be enough to get the developers to take a second pass through their list of ideas."
ReplyDeleteDo you understand how free markets work?
No "gentle encouragement" is needed. The market will decide what games are produced, what games flop and which developers go out of business.
The free market works. The free market has worked for games. It has met consumer demands and produced the products the audience wants.
Of course if you are in a small niche you have had to accept low budget products, if you are in a very small niche you have not been catered for. That is tough luck. You are not entitled to subsidised entertainment that isn't commercially viable in the free market.
That is how you got The Sims. The market was not misogynistic, where there was a profit to be made a big publisher rushed straight in and catered to an audience that included a lot of females.
That is why you won't get Wildstar 2. They catered to a toxic vocal niche that had tried and failed to hijack and pervert existing mass market products (and which the market violently corrected) and low and behold their product is not financially viable. Developers are not "hardcore-ist" or whatever social justice phrase you have for it, it's just the free market acting of its own volition. You won't see a hardcore focused AAA mmo like that again.
If you remove the tropes the Hitman audience demand then it's sales will go the way WoW subs did in 2011 and that will be the end of it.
That's is why you don't have "Ethnic Minority Transsexual Assassin in a Wheelchair Carrying Out Hits In An Animal Sanctuary Simulator". It wouldn't sell.
It is called "consumer sovereignty". I think that was taught to me in my first ever Economics class along with drawing the demand and supply curves etc.
The video games industry does not need to move from a free market to a command economy with social justice extremists dictating what products can be produced and what content is approved and forbidden from their offices in Pyongyang.
Start spending money on the games you like. Even if they aren't 10/10 buy them. Vote with your wallet. If you have a large demographic behind you as you claim then get them to buy it too.
There is no racist, sexist evil entity out there preventing the Animal Sanctuary Assassin being produced with a 100 million budget to rival Destiny. It's you guys that are stopping it.
It's the Tumbleweeds blowing past the counter in your local game shop when a dev takes a risk and you and your buddies sit at home typing away on forums instead of getting out there and backing up the forum-talk with some serious bread.
I've put my money down on 7/10 games because I liked what they were doing and offering something different from the mass market but you guys didn't back me up.
Sure you did with the Sims and it worked out didn't it? What are they on now? Number 4? So do the same with other games when devs take a chance.
I loved Gone Home and Among the Sleep. I loved Beyond Two Souls and Soul Suspect. But where were the 10 million social justice warriors and White Knights? I didn't see you queuing around the block at midnight for launch. You sure weren't in the non-existent queue behind me at 5pm.
I bought AC Liberation HD because rather than the usual male power fantasy assassin it had a female ethnic minority character and new mechanics like the clothing system.
Unfortunately I was a lonely looking guy as I stood at the counter in the shop. Where were all you guys that were quick to slam Ubisoft over the lack of women in AC Unity but weren't so quick to drop £30 on Liberation? Wait for Unity to be released; I bet the pre-orders alone will beat Liberations total sales.
And there you have it my friend.
Consumer Sovereignty. You are the king, you speak with your wallet. You sent a clear message to the market. Don't blame a fictional bogey man called Misogyny.