There is a guy publishing videos under the name "Innuendo Studios". Here is the starting piece of a series explaining his idea why angry people hate Anita Sarkeesian and jumped on Gamergate. Watch it, it's good and thought-provoking!
However I believe it's wrong. I still cite it for asking a very-very important question: "Why do so many people want to stop unknown women from being wrong on the internet?" I mean one is free to believe that Anita Sarkeesian is just making things up or that Zoë Quinn got herself a good review by offering sex, but why does anyone care? I'm sure that the internet is full of people making things up for visitors and people offering various kind of bribes for favors but these don't turn into mass campaigns!
He believes that Anita Sarkeesian questions the normality of sexism in gaming and therefore gamers feel judged for gaming. He believes that gamergate served not-totally-horrible sexists by helping them feel "moderate" when they wanted to keep gaming a "boys club".
But he also asks another important question: "Why now?" There were feminists (and other SJWs) in the nineties and in the first decade of XXI century talking about media and they were simply ignored instead of getting death threats. Buffy the Vampire Slayer didn't get hate for having a female protagonist while Ghostbusters got awful lot.Mad heretics People who didn't like Buffy simply didn't watch it instead of trying to destroy it. His answer to "why are they angry" don't answer "why now". I believe the easiest way to know the reasons of people is asking them. He does that in his video and then dismisses the answer as nonsense:
I believe that Anita-haters and gamergaters are honest about their belief that internet feminists and unethical gaming journalists are a mortal threat to gaming and see themselves as last heroes standing before the army of "feminazis" and crooked media. Of course this is wrong, but their beliefs are not a covers for sexism.
Why now? Because our gaming is dying. The games we loved are gone and probably stay gone. The new age of gaming is about cash shop and "everyone's grandmother invited", an age where we won't be gamers. This is a genuine concern and we are all upset about it.
If you are intelligent, you look for reasons. If you are not, you look for scapegoats. And what can be a better scapegoat than a feminist?! "We don't get good games anymore because feminists force studios to remove fun and turn everything into liberalism simulator". Choosing to believe that internet feminists (and other SJWs) are ruining gaming is self-assuring: they don't seem undefeatable. Bully them into silence or abuse the report button enough to ban them from youtube and we'll have good games again!
The harassed feminists and developers were simply at the wrong place at the wrong time. We "old gamers" are standing at the deathbed of our favorite hobby that is part of our identity: "I'm a gamer" and the feminists tell us that something is wrong with our dying loved one. Of course some of us are outraged. These ones are completely wrong since the criticism about sexism is legitimate, just like it was a decade ago. But a decade ago no one cared what the feminists told because we were too busy playing. Now we can't play because the good games are gone. They aren't simply not made anymore, but forcibly destroyed, like old WoW with the expansions and rejection of creating Vanilla or BC servers.
Similarly, "gaming journalism" was never more than glorified advertisement for studios. A good rating never meant anything more than the studio paid a nice sum. But "back then" the developers of "good" games were also paying from the marketing budget, so "our" games got good reviews too. Now, when we open a gaming magazine, we see nothing but highly scored crappy games and it's easy to cry conspiracy, while the magazines would gladly give high scores for well-paying "good" studios, just there aren't any.
Facing the truth is too painful for most gamers. Good and well-made games are dead because most customers want to buy power and don't want to learn to play. Publishers want to cater to the ones with the money and not to the ones with enthusiasm. "Good games" simply don't make enough money to be developed properly. We'll have well-made facerolling games with cash shop and we'll have good game ideas with horrible implementation due to being the work of love of a few people. We don't want to play either one, so we won't play. The intelligent ones of us will accept the death of challenging and engaging gaming. The idiots will blame and bark at feminists, journalists or anyone else they can hurt, believing that the process can be reversed by defeating these people.
However I believe it's wrong. I still cite it for asking a very-very important question: "Why do so many people want to stop unknown women from being wrong on the internet?" I mean one is free to believe that Anita Sarkeesian is just making things up or that Zoë Quinn got herself a good review by offering sex, but why does anyone care? I'm sure that the internet is full of people making things up for visitors and people offering various kind of bribes for favors but these don't turn into mass campaigns!
He believes that Anita Sarkeesian questions the normality of sexism in gaming and therefore gamers feel judged for gaming. He believes that gamergate served not-totally-horrible sexists by helping them feel "moderate" when they wanted to keep gaming a "boys club".
But he also asks another important question: "Why now?" There were feminists (and other SJWs) in the nineties and in the first decade of XXI century talking about media and they were simply ignored instead of getting death threats. Buffy the Vampire Slayer didn't get hate for having a female protagonist while Ghostbusters got awful lot.
I believe that Anita-haters and gamergaters are honest about their belief that internet feminists and unethical gaming journalists are a mortal threat to gaming and see themselves as last heroes standing before the army of "feminazis" and crooked media. Of course this is wrong, but their beliefs are not a covers for sexism.
Why now? Because our gaming is dying. The games we loved are gone and probably stay gone. The new age of gaming is about cash shop and "everyone's grandmother invited", an age where we won't be gamers. This is a genuine concern and we are all upset about it.
If you are intelligent, you look for reasons. If you are not, you look for scapegoats. And what can be a better scapegoat than a feminist?! "We don't get good games anymore because feminists force studios to remove fun and turn everything into liberalism simulator". Choosing to believe that internet feminists (and other SJWs) are ruining gaming is self-assuring: they don't seem undefeatable. Bully them into silence or abuse the report button enough to ban them from youtube and we'll have good games again!
The harassed feminists and developers were simply at the wrong place at the wrong time. We "old gamers" are standing at the deathbed of our favorite hobby that is part of our identity: "I'm a gamer" and the feminists tell us that something is wrong with our dying loved one. Of course some of us are outraged. These ones are completely wrong since the criticism about sexism is legitimate, just like it was a decade ago. But a decade ago no one cared what the feminists told because we were too busy playing. Now we can't play because the good games are gone. They aren't simply not made anymore, but forcibly destroyed, like old WoW with the expansions and rejection of creating Vanilla or BC servers.
Similarly, "gaming journalism" was never more than glorified advertisement for studios. A good rating never meant anything more than the studio paid a nice sum. But "back then" the developers of "good" games were also paying from the marketing budget, so "our" games got good reviews too. Now, when we open a gaming magazine, we see nothing but highly scored crappy games and it's easy to cry conspiracy, while the magazines would gladly give high scores for well-paying "good" studios, just there aren't any.
Facing the truth is too painful for most gamers. Good and well-made games are dead because most customers want to buy power and don't want to learn to play. Publishers want to cater to the ones with the money and not to the ones with enthusiasm. "Good games" simply don't make enough money to be developed properly. We'll have well-made facerolling games with cash shop and we'll have good game ideas with horrible implementation due to being the work of love of a few people. We don't want to play either one, so we won't play. The intelligent ones of us will accept the death of challenging and engaging gaming. The idiots will blame and bark at feminists, journalists or anyone else they can hurt, believing that the process can be reversed by defeating these people.
33 comments:
What about those of us who are both intelligent and are not willing to just accept the death of something they love? Especially if they feel like they could actually do something about it? For example, by actually making good and challenging games?
Because there definitely is an audience for that kind of stuff. Which will both get bigger and more wealthy as the time passes.
Also, you are only correct in terms of MMO scene. Single player scene has games like Dark Souls and the like. Competitive games are also doing fine.
The first thing is finding the reasons what happened, because without understanding for example how WoW went down into that abomination now it is, your own work will go down. WoW devs weren't any less enthusiastic or capable as we are. Actually they were the best of their age and still failed.
I will also write what's the problem with single player games. I don't question that competitive games like LoL and Starcraft are doing fine and it's a personal preference that "getting better in lasthitting" or "getting better in APM" is not my idea of "getting better".
"because without understanding for example how WoW went down into that abomination now it is, your own work will go down. "
Why is WoW an abomination?
Other than you do not like it, perhaps gaming has moved on from the hardcore raiding min/maxing era of 10+ years ago, and that is reflected in the styles now.
The hardcore raiders of 2004/05/06 don't have the time today to play like they did, so, they play casually. Console gaming, Mobile gaming, the general gaming mentality has moved on from -50dkp to something requiring a little less intensity.
This might mean gaming is not for you anymore, and thats fine, but, blanket statements about the death of gaming are somewhat premature. People move on from hobbies over time, some people stay with the same one.
For me and my group of friends who were hardcore raiders? Now we move around between 5-6 games we all like, dipping in and out of them for 6 months or so at a time. It suits us, and we enjoy doing it, so, perhaps in your eyes that means gaming is dead, but, for us, it means we do not need to dedicate such long periods of time in one go to a game, we are no longer loyal to one game, but play several at once.
This has nothing to do with gamergate, which is more tied into Red Pill and alt-right behaviour than it is to do with any dissatisfaction in gaming. After all, men have been decrying games for a long time, and no one has launched campaigns against them.
No, there's still the third option. "Good, well-made, frequent" - choose any two. There will be a lot ("frequent") good games with horrible implementation, a lot well-made facerolling games, but also a tiny bit of well-made good games.
You are right that well-made good games are gone as a popular phenomenon. You are wrong they they are gone completely. From your perspective, there isn't much difference. From mine, there is. I accepted the death of proper games, and play a couple proper games.
Indeed, it's currently hard to make a well-made good game being just an enthusiast without loads of money. But... currently. Like I said in the comment for the previous post, tools and technologies are developing, vanilla WoW is already cheaper to re-develop from scratch than it was 12 years ago - yet still not with a bunch of 10 people, like Maxim suggested there.
I expect to see a technological jump soon, which could make developing good games (and MMOs!) more affordable, therefore frequent. Yet they will never be a cultural phenomenon again, they will never beat chewing gum in popularity, the market will be dominated by the product for "most people", chess will never be more spectacular than wrestling. Oh yeah, these games probably won't be photorealistic in graphics, and won't have voice actors. But one actually doesn't need that to make a competitive game.
As to why shes hated? she IS a genuine threat. Game developers are adapting to concerns raised by the ultra feminists. One example of this was how Blizzard backtracked hurridly away from a depiction of Jaina going psycho after being kidnapped and tortured and having her home and people wiped out. I'd go insane with rage too and no one would blame me. No we can't depict that though, because its sexist to suggest she might be a "crazy". Even it was justified.
Another example? the female goon who spammed up star citizens forums insisting on a female only chat channal in game. When people disagreed she swore at them, got abusive accused them of trolling and opened many tickets insisting they would be banned included one to the moderaters going "ffS why isn't this fucking troll banned yet? do your job!" The moderaters did their job, by banning her for the abusive langauge she had directed at them in her tickets. The response? they flooded star citzens twitter account with publicty about what a sexist game it was and how it was all evil... the result? the goon got her account reinstated and the moderater lost there job. The account of all this was published truimphally on the mitaani.com as another example of goons winning (again).
Your wrong about the video series being good. It was patronising and overly simplistic. This is the best comment I found from its comment section:
Thunderf00t 1 year ago
i just loled all the way thru this. 6 parts of defending anita sarkeesian without actually mentioning a SINGLE point of hers. The whole thing is basically a VERY long winded character assassination on anitas critics. You just claim her critics are angry, then INVENT wholesale out of thin air, what you think their motives are and then smear them with that. Well, can we all play this game? 'why is anita sarkeesian sooooo angry, irrationally angry, angry jack angry at video games? Yknow angrier than the angriest guy I ever met? Why does she feel so threatened by princess peach in mario? Yet anita is proud that she is 'angry jack angry' at video games. This is because she hates the fact that people should be allowed to enjoy media without her permission, and she will blame you for violence on women if you dare to disagree with her' This is really about the level of sophistication your argument has. Sarkeesian is popular because she will say the most functionally retarded shit with a straight face.... and all the feminists will cheer! Take for instance that gem about 'ppl think they are immune to medias influence, but in reality, the more you think you cannot be affected, the more you are affected.' or how she thinks men being stronger than women is just a social myth.
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The real issue I have with All these type of people though is this: they are directly attacking our abilty to speak and think freely. The creation of forbidden subjects and forbidden views, wether its anti muslim rehtoric being criminalised as islamophobic, the wearing of bikinis in video games as sexist or the right to wear a burkini on a beach if thats what you find comfatable being labels as you being a religious extremist and possible terrorist: all these things are wrong. All these things have to be fought as well. Freedom isn't free and IT CAN be lost.
@Anon: "abomination" maybe wasn't a proper term. "Lost losts of customers since the BC peak and losing half of it regularly between patches/expansions" is objective. Don't forget that most WoW players didn't minmax raid. People still minmax raid. It's NOT challenging minmax raiding that's lost. Back then even reaching lvl 60 wasn't trivial. Getting your epic mount wasn't trivial. Completing the top dungeons wasn't trivial. Top raiding is actually more challenging, but that affects only a 1% minority. The 99% content is trivial faceroll.
@Antze: maybe. But I don't think that anyone will give $100M for a good game idea just because 5 years ago no one made one.
@Nightgerbil: she isn't a threat because she isn't targeting what matters: game mechanics. WoW PLAYING wouldn't be different if Jaina would be a naked psycho rapist in the lore. You would still be running around to collect 10 fozzles for her.
Same for the female Goon. It doesn't matter who was right. Chat channels and forum drama always was and always will be. They have nothing do do with Star Citizen being good or not. Or that it's being made or vaporware.
I never did claim that Anita is a saint or even that she is right. We can argue over her points, but it's irrelevant today. My point is that if Anita is dumb, people should ignore her instead of catapulting her into celebrity status by a massive hate campaign. People are wrong on the internet all the time. Why did Anita got hate for it?
Besides single player heavily lore-driven RPGs, the lore of the games is secondary after mechanics and feminists only criticize lore. I haven't heard a single feminist claiming that "death penalty is sexist" or "lasthitting is sexist" or "damage meters are sexist".
Someone might give $10M or $500k, that was my point. It is totally possible that developing a decent MMO without AAA graphics will soon cost far less than $100M (I don't believe in $100k though, that's payroll for 10 man team for five months... seriously?)
> I don't question that competitive games like LoL and Starcraft are doing fine and it's a personal preference that "getting better in lasthitting" or "getting better in APM" is not my idea of "getting better".
I just would like to add that there is a huge difference in solo-queue and 5v5 in lol. or already in starcraft.
apm and lasthitting = execution. it is important, sure. but it is only the tool that you need to really play the macro = economics = timing attacks etc. in 5v5/starcraft, it's all about 'what is the best place to be for player x in the next y minutes based on '
(note, this has almost nothing to do with the 'meta').
i would have imagined that you would like the concept of winning though economics / strategy :)
for examples, you can look up some vod reviews of lastshadow9 on youtube (for lol).
regarding lore vs mechanics:
so you agree that immersion breaking sexism (stripper armor in bdo) is bad.
but sexist story elements / tropes are not important because game mechanics are not touched?
i don't follow the logic here.
as far as i got with the whole discussion back then, it's the same as with bad movies:
'oh, these are bad guys and we should show that ... let's have them rape some girl'.
-> it's 'always' the male hero that goes on a rescue / avenging mission and it's 'always' the girl that gets 'stuffed into the fridge' (or reward the hero with sex).
yes, it's lazy writing. yes, critique is good against it. do i prefer gender-neutral games (rpgs with gender selection is at least something)? yes. do i really care? no.
I am not sure, if there is a real connection, but it sure feels like that.
My theory goes like this:
-games became mainstream
-the mainstream in the western society for the last decade was leftist ideology (inclusion/integration of everyone and the rejection of competition)
Two years ago I made my license as a sports trainer. I was really surprised that the lessons were not about sports and competition but about making everyone feel good.
The same happened to games...at least kind of.
And I think you are wrong about the "why now?". It is easy to see that the people are fed up. They feel like every other part of their lives is infiltrated with this ideology and they don't want to lose this last resort.
10 years ago no one took the feminists and leftist so serious, but now they brought us some of the biggest problems of this century. The people start to resist. There is a reason so many national parties had so big success in European countries.
I imagine that it is not that bad in Hungary, but I can assure you, it is near a catastrophe in Germany.
I think you are missing one of the biggest, if not THE biggest reason competitive online games are being made the way they are right now: e-sports. Every developer of competitive games wants their game to turn into the next big e-league. That means fast-paced highly mechanical games which will create impressive highlight reels that people will want to watch. Slower, more strategic games are not fun to watch. So you get stuff like LoL or Overwatch (which actually shows the "play of the game" highlight at the end of the match).
You should know that while your are currently correct that MMORPGs are too expensive for indie studios to make, soon that won't be the case. Eventually, someone will release an MMORPG game engine, similar to the Unreal FPS engine, which will make mostly bug-free MMORPGs easy to make even for smaller studios. Cloud servers are now quite cheap and incredibly easy to scale (so if you planned for 20k players and get 500k, it won't crash the game). Someone will make the game you want, or at least close.
@Riful: I agree. But I refuse to learn and spend half of the game lasthitting just to be able to participate in the endgame.
You mix "bad" with "killing the game". Is stripper armor bad? Yes. Is lazy writing bad? Yes. Is the opposite: annoyingly PC lore bad? Yes. Do any of them kill games? No.
@Anon: I understand your frustration. The whole Western World has it, that's why we see protest and anti-establishment parties everywhere. But games were NOT be made worse by PC, maybe more annoying. Item shop and accessible gaming is NOT what feminists ever asked for.
@Samus: e-sports are still challenging and competitive and do NOT have power item shop. No one would watch a game where Adam smashes Betty with his sword of uberness.
I'm intrigued to hear your opinions with single player games. 2016 has been a good year in some ways, Dark Souls 3 and Monster Hunter Generations are offer awesome single and multiplayer mechanics. Alternatively, the racing simulator world has been nothing but utter failures, with a lot of the problem coming from 'a lot of people have no idea how to race' and shills, fanboys and crazy developers. You can check out the ongoing demise of a number of failures of the genre here (https://pretendracecars.net/). Just don't ever, ever, ever read the comments.
The problem is that not enough people want MMO games where learning the mechanics of the game and playing enough to get to point where you can use/exploit those mechanics is the whole game. And it turns out even fewer people (almost zero) like it when a side part of the game, like trading, offers big advantages to those who can be bothered. Which is why gold in WoW is now just a token.
People started to understand that all the Diku type MMOs released so far are just single player games with a social element. Recast Shattered Halls as a single player experience and what do you lose? Everything could be exactly the same if you were powerful enough and had pets etc. You lose the need to co-ordinate players together to get good enough together, which is just a grind of annoyance and frustration over time which hurts the hardcore as they have to cope with "keeping people happy" and the casual as it means they don't get to see the whole game with their friends while having a good time. Or let people turn it into a job and make money out of running groups - see how that worked out in EVE.
You tried to avoid this with the PUG raids etc. but that is trying to work against the grain of the game. If you got what you wanted and got actually hard raids again then PUGs would stop working and you would be back to fluffy sociality and trying to keep the "awesome at their job but an asshole" main tank or other of 35 people plus happy so your raid can progress. Or trying to be one of the 35 and suck up to the control freak types that enjoy all this and end up running hardcore raids.
If you don't enjoy the actual social aspect outside of the hard stuff, why bother? Just play Dark Souls on "Catastrophic" difficulty or whatever it's called now. So Blizzard and others started to cater to people who did enjoy the thing that makes a MMOs different - the other people - and made the games easier.
At the core are game mechanics which were always dull and tedious and are now exposed as such. They had a veneer of respectability when the whole "loads of people" thing was new and exciting and they are still decent mechanics for telling a story (Legion) with player participation. Full-PvP-MMORPGs play out differently, but they are niche games for well known reasons. Planetside style is another option but it lacks the world and story and so is just a dodgy FPS really. I think you covered EVE at some point!
So games have gone back to their roots in a way, single player and competitive games. Blizzard games after WoW: 1 ARPG single/co-op, 1 competitive RTS, 1 casual-ish MOBA, 1 competitive but very shiny and friendly FPS. I hope a new multiplayer paradigm (or just a new amazing game maybe!) will appear from them or others, but it will need the same inspiration and long term effort that gave us MMORPGs for a time.
@Gevlon
Just to be correct: WoW had peak at the end of WotLK, not during BC. http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ibJJaNnI4T0/UyLWBayUk3I/AAAAAAAAFmk/oAvYUpHCQmw/s1600/WoW+Subscriber+numbers+001+jim+younkin_b.png
"Accessible gaming: games became trivial. Most of them are literally "press any key to continue". Failure to perform even the most basic task has no consequence. Death penalty disappeared. Rewards are showered for even the most mundane task or simply for logging in."
That is the game equivalent of real life gender studies. Getting rewarded for doing near to nothing or just for existing/participating.
Maybe feminists did not asked for it, but it is as always in business: it goes where the money is. Game development catered towards the mainstream.
You are right thought, that this theory can not explain item shops.
"@Samus: e-sports are still challenging and competitive and do NOT have power item shop. No one would watch a game where Adam smashes Betty with his sword of uberness.
That is what I am saying. The developers who make those kinds of competitive games, where skill wins over money, are making e-sports games.
@Samus: but you also noticed that only spectacular games can be e-sports and many games are not. The question is why there are no challenging non-spectacular games?
You'll probably cover this later, but do you enjoy games with ai rather than other players? There'll always be limits to how an ai can be replayable, but often it's better than playing against/with an idiot. I think tobold made a post about the ai in Magic:origins better than playing a forfeiting scrub.
@nightgerbil: indeed, freedom isn't free, and one's freedom ends where another's begins.
So yes, peoples are fighting for the freedom to use one of the most popular media of the centurie without feeling objectified or forced in a specific role.
It isn't just about the fact Jaina could go psycho, it's also about all the relevant female characters going psycho.
( And really, I would love a game where my female warrior would have to save a desesperate lightly clad muscular barbarian from a sexually compromising situation. )
@Gevlon: For me PC lore bad and stripper armor are some quit strong contributing factors to the end of my MMO days as they kill immersion.
Sure, I like my game challenging and with solid mechanisms, and most of the time, that's once define as game as great or not, but I'm a stupid human
and for me, immersion is important, it the actual barrier between a MMORPG and just a multiplayers game.
If you remove immersion, the feeling of word, you end up with a game format trying to compete with more efficient format.
Team PVP ? Go MOBA !
Loot fest ? GO ARPG !
Single handly wiping the whole enemy team ? Go FPS !
Dueling someone by smashing button and chaining improbable skills ? go fighting games.
So, as far as I'm concernened, MMORPG are all about immersion, that's part of their magic, that's a vital ingredient.
And modern MMO break it constantly, all the time.
* When you remove control from the player to force their character to act a way they never would, you break immersion.
* When you offer a choice to the player's character, then force the player to give the answer you choose for them, you break immersion.
* When you force players to be part of something they don't want or don't have any reason to be part of, you break immersion.
Last week-end, I tryed Legion and it felt like playing with the worst DM ever.
* You get railroaded
* The whole story turn around the DM's mighty NPCs.
* You're force to accepts things you wouldn't in any situations just to be able to play the game.
How I miss the days when our characters were adventurers ( and not militaries ), free to do what ever we wanted, without any cinematics.
And that's actually a good part of what made Dark Soul so special for me, it's storytelling was just perfect.
If someone ask me when it started to go sour, I would say by the end of Wrath of the Lich King, when very officialy, a NPC snatched victory from the jaws of players.
Here is an interesting consideration.
Is the e-sport focus killing competitive games the same way in which the focus on "massive" in MMO's is killing MMOs?
@Gevlon
Figuring out why it happened is fine, but also remember to...
"Think of the solution, not the problem. If your mind was filled only with thoughts of why you were going to lose, then you couldn't think of how to win."
What makes a game E-sport worthy? I give my small list.
1. You cant buy power with money, both in game wealth and real life wealth.
2. You cant amass power with time, characters with total playtime wont give any benefits.
3. Game is played trough 15-60 minutes long sessions, and after that, you get a winner.
4. On session start, all players are equal in power and only way to gain power is playing this session.
EVE and WoW both fail on all on those points. And they never have e-sport of competition. Chess on other hand is fine tuned on those points. And it is suprisingly competive. So as Starcraft and LoL. Civ type of games have randomness, what makes games start and progress uneqal. Not competive. Single player games can be competive, speedrun is a example. Question is, can and why should a MMORPG be a competive game?
"WoW devs weren't any less enthusiastic or capable as we are. Actually they were the best of their age and still failed."
Actually I disagree. My current theory, that I have arrived at after reading countless articles and a lot of soul searching about the game is that Blizzard is George Lucas: They stumbled onto something great unintentionally without knowing what they were doing, most of the success was due to the things they didn't do or couldn't do and despite the things they did do, and everything they did following that initial spark of greatness has served to ruin it and push it in the wrong direction, while milking it for ever bigger profits.
RE: Theodora Dunkelmauer THIS. Look at this. This is an example of a fantastic argument that I agree with. Immersion is a large part of the point of MMOs. If only we had a venue we could debate further. That said feminist campaigners are directly targeting creative writers and developers. Suits are insisting creative writers "get with the program" and produce politically correct content that won't attract controversy. This is a direct attack on freedom of expression. Sadly gevlon THEY are impacting games.
Look I think charlie hebo is a disgusting little rag, its not funny, its incredibly offensive and what little journalistic merit it MIGHT have is debatable. I would still support a 10% tithe on the entire tax payers of europe with the money going to putting a copy of it in every single hospital ward, doctors surgery, train station waiting room, staff room, works canteen and public libary across the western world, if thats what it took to show the extremists that you can't use bullets and ak-47s to silence the people. The line on the sand for me is the freedom to express my opinions. Incidentally I also feel just as passionately that hate against Anna is just as reprehensable. I'll defend to the death her right to continue to make stupid wrong headed videos. I'll just be right there pointing out why she wrong. The guys with the hate speech? they are out of order.
@Theodora: and how is poor Anita guilty in Legion being railroaded?!
@Nightgerbil: I understand that feminists limit writers. But simply "don't write sexism" doesn't limit them so much. I don't think I ever written sexism despite I often argue with feminists (since they are leftists and want "the government" fix their problems instead of like having some "feminist gaming award" to orient their followers to buy games that have feminist narratives). I think WoW lost more with the end of death penalty than it lost with all the feminist lore changes combined.
@Gevlon: You got a point here, she isn't, and I actually agree with you that she is a scapegoats.
I may be off the subject, but I was just reacting to you saying :
>> You mix "bad" with "killing the game". Is stripper armor bad? Yes. Is lazy writing bad? Yes. Is the opposite: annoyingly PC lore bad? Yes. Do any of them kill games? No.
I clearly disagree with the "Do any of them kill games? No." part, as at least for me, it's breaking what make a MMO a good game, the feeling of belonging and acting on a world,
to be writing your own story with your friends ( if you have any, your accomplises in the other case ), not just suffering a story written by someone else.
(And single players game are far superior for that.)
A good game is a single good or bad point, it's a whole. Dark Soul isn't great just because of it's game system, it's a world, a whole world with a reason strong the ambiance.
And nothing in that game undermine that feeling of "world". Even death / new life is explained in game. Dark Soul don't break his rules for you, your avatar is part of it,
like every others characters.
On a side note, WoW never had a real death penalty, nothing stress worth. The only real death penalty that ever occurred to me in a MMO was EQ's. Actually, it wasn't the XP penalty,
but the fact you respawn naked in town, while your gear stay in your now dead corpse, deep in a dungeon. So you got no other choices but to ask another group to help
you clear a way to get it back. The only game where I ever saw player groups try to break combat by any mean necessary, including an instant teleport spell
( the kind those annoying NPCs like so much ), and that's how my best MMO session of those last 2 years ended.
PS : EQ's dungeons aren't instancied, so mobs respawn all the time.
@nightgerbil: Actually, I have no fear that there will always be damsel in distress in video games, and such use of female characters. And I don't think for one second Anita
really want absolutely 100% of all video games to be "Nazi feminist" approved. BUT I can understand she would voice her own opinion again and again at least until there is
at a few games on the market that match her tastes and feeling. We aren't really different ourself, as we are currently debating here about how most moderns games are crap,
and what would make a good game. So until there is a few feminist friendly AAA games, I think she is fighting the good fight. If they then try to take over the world,
it would be another matter entirely.
You have to remember the economics of game making. A game which is accessible, yet simple will not attract hardcore gamers, intelligent people, or minmaxers. But if they can attract everyone else, and keep them engaged long enough to get a few microtransactions under their belt, they are profitable.
And building something that's inclusive is easier than building something so complex that understanding how to win is the most challenging.
It's ultimately all about money. Game makers and investors want their cash quickly. So they want as many players as possible as soon as possible and that means being as inclusive as possible.
Unfortunately this is a trend that wont stop. The days of good, challenging, winnable games are behind us.
I oppose them for the same reason I opposed Jack Thompson during the 90s: They try to tarnish the reputation of millions of people in the public eye simply for enjoying a hobby they dislike.
Playing video games didn't make me a murdering psychopath in the 90s and it doesn't make me a rapist today.
I don't get people going on about Dark Souls. Although I only played the first one, my problem was that, it was hard, and thats it. Thats the only "good" thing you can say about that game, that it's hard.
If you want a difficult thing, people could learn calculus, it is also hard for most of them (and less irritating than Dark Souls).
Difficulty in and of it self is not enough I think.
@Anon : Dark Souls isn't hard, it's complicated. The difference is that you have all the tools you need to defeat the game, you just got to figure how to use them. The die and retry mechanic let you gain insight on what you did wrong so you can do it right next time. That makes for a very challenging game which is satisfying as hell when you finally beat it, and which also has a good backstory that the player has to understand (instead of being told everything), a gorgeous art direction and epic music. I really, really enjoy the game even though I'm very bad at it.
But most gamers don't think games are dead or dying. They play and enjoy modern releases just fine. Videogame market is worth billions, someone pays all this money for them. This includes a lot(if not most) of people who bash Anita and Zoe.
Anita and Zoe come under attack simply because they're typical third wave feminists. First of all, they find a problem where there isn't one: videogames are "sexist", yeah, because most gamers are male. Complaining about videogames being "sexist" is like complaining about Hustler being "sexist". Second of all, as usual with third wave feminists, instead of actually doing something about the problem, they just whine. If Anita or Zoe find the male-centric nature of videogame market so oppressive, no one is stopping them from creating their own videogame company and creating videogames "for women" or whatever else they want. Honestly, at this point they got so much exposure and there are so many biased pro-feminist media(For example when gamers lashed out at Anita Kotaku plainly announced that "Games are dead") that their game would be a commercial success no matter the actual quality.
But they won't, because... well, because they're typical third wave feminists.
they find a problem where there isn’t one: videogames are “sexist”, yeah, because most gamers are male.
The fact that most gamers are male (a debatable point) is the problem, the same way that most influential politicians and business folks are old white men. It's exclusionary to people who aren't like them.
instead of actually doing something about the problem, they just whine.
They're not whining, they're offering reasonable critiques. It's not whining to say "this thing is kinda sexist and here's why". They're getting people to think, to consider that maybe the status quo isn't really fair to a large number of people.
no one is stopping them from creating their own videogame company and creating videogames “for women” or whatever else they want.
Apart from the enormous already-established industry and its huge barrier to entry if you want to make anything approaching a AAA game. Anita isn't a videogame developer, same as Gevlon isn't a, and yet it's fine for him to write this blog about how things could be improved. Also, Zoe Quinn literally does make videogames?
Really, defending scammers now, goblin?
Anita and Zoe deserve to be shit on all day long, not because they "destroy gaming", but because they are scamming their followers out of their hard earned money and then delivering half-assed projects.
Anita promised so many videos for all the money she got, and yet delivered only a fraction of them. That alone would be okay, if at least she did a decent job of researching (and actively playing) the games she complains about (or deems as good), but she didnt.
Zoe practically tries to live off her victimhood in the same manner that other feminists try to. I dont even give a fuck how many dudes she fucked with, or if she did it for press coverage, fun, or whatever, i just care about people pretending to be victims,and then gathering fat $$$ from this.
I also do care about people trying to undermine free speech at, say, the united nations.
You want to combat sexism in gaming? Fine with me, some games are (or were, dunno, didnt play league since some time) really sexist in their female armor or champion choices etc.
However, if you want to combat it, dont try to be a dick to everyone that enjoys gaming and happens to be white, male, and maybe even *gasp* cisgender.
And if you opt for a way of pissing off a large portion of people, then dont complain if the people piss back.
As soon as you decide to be a public figure for some cause or something, you should be clear that people will disagree with you, criticise you etc, while a small fraction of people will be total assholes that threaten or harass you. Cant take the heat? Dont be a public figure, simple as that.
Best way to deal with criticism is to address it, discuss with the people, maybe try to find a consensus, not scream harassment.
Best way to deal with death or rape threats is to report them a: to the site they happened (if online) and b: the authorities of your country, so these individuals can get punished.
If you cry and bitch about everything, you basically invite more of these trolls while also shooing away these people that could have contributed to a healthy debate.
The problem is, anita, zoe and friends DO NOT WANT a discussion, they want to grab money as much as they can while living in their own little echo-chamber.
Ever wondered why anita and co disable comments on their videos? No, its not due to "muh harassment", its because they are not able to discuss with anyone that has more than 3 braincells.
Theres "gamergate" affiliated people on yt that get harassed all the same by fanatic followers of anita and friends, yet they tend to not disable commenting, and instead just go through the work of actually moderating the comments, removing the bad ones.
Feminists are responsible for getting people like Tim Hunt kicked out of their job, for a simple fucking joke, and another scientist for wearing a silly shirt with scantily clad women on it or 2 other dudes that made a harmless "dongle" joke with each other on a python conference.
Its in general feminists and SJW that are offended by everything and anything, and then going in for blood trying to get people fired, sometimes even succeeding.
Gamers can be a whiny and complaining crowd too, yes, i know, but i have personally not seen gamers calling out for blood like feminists do.
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