Are gamers getting stupider?

[darkrage6]

"Our game will take place in a world where modern feminism won instead of ~egalitarianism~"

"I find it interesting to show the dangers of EXTREME PROGRESSIVISM"

"I've seen feminist want artifical wombs so they can grow babies and continue drinking and smoking"

He also wanted to put Vivian James in it, because obviously (she has to be the one good female character in the game)

Who knows, maybe he's become less of a twat in 3 years

A game with "progressive, feminist villains" could be perfectly cool. Claire Underwood is an important and groundbreaking female character, every bit as much so as Wonder Woman.

The language being employed here suggests the individual in question was less concerned with writing interesting, offbeat villains and storylines than being 3 edgy 5 me, sadly.

I mean, he's not wrong in that artificial reproduction and Gene therapy are bad. It's just that the rich (both genders) and going to be benefiting more than just a femnazi government.

And given the ability to choose the gender of a baby in the womb, most cultures would choose one over the other....it would just be male instead of female (China isn't rushing to kill their male babies after all)

I doubt he's being edgy, it just sounds like Baby's first red pill epiphany than anything. The time in a young man's life when he starts to think feminism is bad because he (supposedly) has to hold open the door for women, the phrase "women and children first" exists but isn't used and doesn't affect anything, and he realizes that some women don't want to have children and can still feel fulfilled.

Feminazi is an incredibly stupid term that no sane person should ever use unironically.

 

[Dalsyne]

"Our game will take place in a world where modern feminism won instead of ~egalitarianism~"

"I find it interesting to show the dangers of EXTREME PROGRESSIVISM"

"I've seen feminist want artifical wombs so they can grow babies and continue drinking and smoking"

He also wanted to put Vivian James in it, because obviously (she has to be the one good female character in the game)

Who knows, maybe he's become less of a twat in 3 years

So let me get this straight. He:

- doesn't like feminism and wants to make a game wherein its bad aspects are highlighted

- wants to create a world where progressivism has gone wrong

- condemns behavior he finds distasteful

- wants to put a character you don't like in a videogame

- has engaged with people disagreeing with him in a very civil manner


This makes him a twat?

Well then. I hold the same views, undeadsuitor. Maybe even stronger ones than that. Am I a twat for having these opinions?

No, I'll tell you what he is. In any world beyond Bizarro, he is a very decent human being with individual preferences and opinions that has done nothing to draw ire from anyone not ideologically driven. Let me repeat this for you: very. decent. human. being. And I find it reprehensible that I even have to defend him in front of anyone. Such exclusionary, inherently intolerant judgements are wrong, repulsive and abhorrent.

The language being employed here suggests the individual in question was less concerned with writing interesting, offbeat villains and storylines than being 3 edgy 5 me, sadly.

You're wrong in your assessment, Guppy. The game is not a shallow affair that never goes anywhere beyond being edgy.

Here's an article about the game's world. [https://medium.com/the-last-night-devblog/beyond-cyberpunk-71eacb8e8159] Regardless of how it ends up, you can't say there wasn't a considerable amount of thought put into this.

 

[darkrage6]

I encountered one moron today on Reddit, he said he was boycotting any game that did not have female enemies, I said that was one of the dumbest fucking things i've ever heard and he the gall to call me a sexist LOL. Wow that guy was brain-dead.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

You're wrong in your assessment, Guppy. The game is not a shallow affair that never goes anywhere beyond being edgy.

Here's an article about the game's world. [https://medium.com/the-last-night-devblog/beyond-cyberpunk-71eacb8e8159] Regardless of how it ends up, you can't say there wasn't a considerable amount of thought put into this.

I wasn't assessing the game. I was assessing quotes being attributed to the author of said game. If those quotes are accurate, they are very silly. This doesn't prohibit good writing or game design, but it makes it moderately less likely.

I don't really have an iron in the fire either way, as I haven't followed the game's development and have no stake in either its success or failure. It's just a hypothetical discussion about whether or not a "feminist villain" is in and of itself an outrageous concept (it's not).

EDIT: Skimmed the article. Anyone who liked "Her" can't be ALL bad. Best movie of the last few years!

 

[gigastar]

Feminazi is an incredibly stupid term that no sane person should ever use unironically.

http://www.dailywire.com/news/8386/feminist-journalist-all-men-are-rapists-and-should-amanda-prestigiacomo

Replace 'men' with 'jews' and you get the idea.

Ill admit its a rather low standard of proof, but those kinds of feminist do, in fact, exist.

 

[gigastar]

To deny "progressive" politics in games, and then support this politically charged game makes a whole lot of hypocrites

I agree, but then we get devs who go and shoehorn in progressive politics into games regardless of how spectacularly it could backfire [https://techraptor.net/content/bioware-montreal-mass-effect-shelved].

So i say fuck trying to resist it, shovel in any kind of politicking you want and let the free market decide what it likes more.

 

[Dalsyne]

We're in year 4 of a movement about erasing politics from games, so much so that a trans person existing draws vitriol for being "political"

A movement that the developer is even a member of

To deny "progressive" politics in games, and then support this politically charged game makes a whole lot of hypocrites

We are in no such thing, the movement is about nothing like that, and any vitriol was due to shitty, hamfisted writing, something that the existence of OTHER trans characters written BETTER in other games clearly proves.

There is a lot of nuance you're ignoring in order to change the context. Are you interested in a reasonable conversation, or should I not even bother explaining?

Not wanting politics contrary to your views in videogames is a feminist critic's favorite pastime. I denounce it no matter who it comes from. Interestingly though, when feminists get accused of that they explain that "feminism is not a monolith" and you don't have to subscribe to all its details to be part of that movement (when they don't accuse you of misogyny, at least). If you agree with that argument, you agree with the idea that you can be part of Gamergate, be for artistic vision and uncensored speech, and not be a hypocrite. If you do not, then you must denounce all of feminism as hypocrites in order to be logically consistent.

So which is it? No special pleading. It's either, or.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I've not heard of any of this, but that's mostly because I try and ignore E3 as much as I can. Even so the only one of those that surprises me is the Nazi thing and even then only slightly. As others have mentioned this is not so much a "gamers" thing as it is a "people" thing. People in general seem to have gotten a lot more stupid in the last decade or so, which is sad because they were already pretty stupid to begin with.

 

[StatusNil]

People are generally getting stupider, if the ability to reason critically is used as a measure. This is probably largely due to the drastically increased amount of "information" (in quotes to emphasize the irrelevance of the factuality of the information) available, and the social pressure to appear informed. Nobody can make simple actionable sense out of the flux, so we fall back on the magical thinking inherent on being "on the right side" of issues, adopting slogans prepared for the purposes of political expediency as a cover for shameful confusion, no matter how convoluted or contradictory the ideas encapsulated in them are, or how deeply they conflict with the context of use. Just see the dominant "thinking" of the "Feminist" mainstream on the issue of ex-muslim women placed in mortal danger of retributive violence for abandoning an obviously patriarchal cultural system for one egregious example of the willing suspension of consistent reasoning endemic to our times.

I don't see gamers as especially bad in this sense at all. Furthermore, if the OP wants to specifically disparage the response to the shameful display at E3 (aptly described by Liana Kerzner as a "new low in gaming"), wouldn't the "Game Industry Discussion" subforum be a better fit for the thread? I would certainly be interested in sharing further thoughts on the issue there.

 

[Dalsyne]

You can be a part of gamergate and not be a hypocrite in this situation (which is why I said "a lot" of hypocrites instead of "all" ) but I think gaters should have some self reflection for a change when finally getting a political game they agree with.

Okay, I got what I wanted. Since you've shown consistency in your views, I can respect them even if I disagree. Thanks for not arguing in bad faith. I'll let this go since there's not much more that can be said beyond subjective explanations and contradictory opinions.

 

[Vendor-Lazarus]

*Reads OP's title*

Good question. It's been on my mind for some time now.

*Reads OP's post*

Oh, what even..with..huh?

---

I was hoping this would be about the massive problems games and gamers face today with regards to the quality of gaming.
Pre-ordering, Hype, QTE's, DLC, DRM, Bugs, MP, Micro-transactions, 'ports everywhere, skewed OTS cameras, etc.
Not to mention the fact that despite bloated budgets, with focus on graphics and marketing, these games are not only being bought but also make a profit.
Mind-boggling.

Shadilay

 

[Here Comes Tomorrow]

I thought this was going to be a thread about how dumbed down games were becoming and was all ready to trot off the old stories of Dishonored playtesters not going up stairs in a stealth game because a guard told them not to or Valve employees getting lost in a maze for half an hour because they didn't think to turn left.

Instead its just the usual politicized shite.

 

[K12]

Stupid people are just getting louder.

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

I was aware of these "controversies" yesterday on the twitters and I just rolled my eyes and moved on.

Ain't nobody got time for that.

The fact that certain people are angry about the new Wolfenstein game and Far Cry is delightfully delicious to me. Hilarious, even. Other than that, the internet has always given people a platform to say whatever they wish, and it's becoming more and more like a bar where the local drunk is doing very bad karaoke and being sloppy.

So, not really surprised that there are people that claim to know what the hell they're talking about actually don't.

 

[CaitSeith]

We have people complaining about killing nazies in the new wolfenstein.

The only news that I could find on this was on The Verge (With one of the most click-bait titles ever). Yeah, it's stupid but it seems to be fairly contained

Found a second source.
http://www.dorkly.com/post/83711/nazi-pissboys-are-crying-over-a-new-game-where-you-murder-nazis (it's just worth for the quotes, which are too cringy for me)

So yeah. Unless you visit sites dedicated to political topics in games (or follow people in Tweeter interested on that), you'll probably never see it.

 

[Trunkage]

I'd say that no one is getting stupider. We are just getting older and more aware of what is happening in the world. How do I know? Nazi. We still aren't as stupid as we used to be.

Or the idea of Eugenics. Or that people should be sterilised due to "bad genes" which the US government actually did to its people in the early 1900s. Or the idea that women are weak as it would degrade her "birthing waters" (which, btw, is one of the reasons why we made the assumption that women were weak.)

After WW2, the US and a lot of western countries felt unity and harmony after working so hard together. McCarthyism reinforced this "unity" through fear. If you want to see what "PC" is like, go back to that era.

Then university student were coming home in the 60s saying, "blacks are just as good as whites" and "they should have the same rights as us," which really confounded their parents. Not because they were racist - they were wondering why these kids were thinking of someone other than themselves and their family. That didn't make sense to the parents. Liberals had taken hold.

I would add that because we are a "liberal society" and have "freedom of speech", unlike the 50s where you could be lynched or put in prison for speaking out, that means everyone gets a voice. Shitlords are being allowed to speak. When the shitlords were in power, the tried to destroy the liberal voice. So you could say that there are more arguments.

 

[Trunkage]

I see the new mods have no sense of humour or awareness.

If you want someone to take you humorously, write it humorously. To start, think about how those words would sound in someone else head. I immediately thought you being a jerk before moving to this post

 

[Borty The Bort]

I am of the opinion that a large majority of the world population has the brainpower of a devolved chav, and cannot, or will not extend their intelligence past that. This is not a problem, people have always been like this. The problem rising is that more pressure is being applied on the internet, and it is becoming more and more obvious to everyone, including the chavs, that we're ****ing dumb as bricks, with little self-awareness. The older, 40+ year old generation in particular appears to be struggling with this point(from personal observation) as they relay opinions on Facebook as if they are talking to some small band of "lads and/or lasses" in a pub somewhere, clearly with conviction, but the problem here is that they are down to earth, and rather ironically, detached from the internet, or the virtual reality, as it were.

Funnily enough, it appears to me that the younger generation which has grown up in this environment appears to be much smarter than the older population, particularly the 18-25 age range, not because they are smarter, of course, but because they are more in tune with internet etiquette, and therefore more diplomatic and subversive about their posts, being careful to upset anyone in particularly, often going out of their way clarify this, unlike the older generation who seem to make grand, bold statements completely ignoring any information presented in news articles as either fake news, or another successful attempt by "The Man" to control the populace, and these get more upvotes because they are in line with populism. No-one ever says them in real life, but when it's on a computer for all to see, people get REAL ecstatic about it. These people rarely ever say anything like this in their every day life, and while the might believe what they write on social media, they are often far more caring in reality than their younger counter-parts, who in the real world they appear lifeless and vapid, but they don't live in the real world, they live in the virtual world, and that's where their expertise extends to.

That's my opinion. It probably has a bunch of holes in it, since I'm a dumbass in comparison to most in regards to philosophy, but I feel like I'm onto something here, but I cannot/have not fully develop/developed the idea.

 

[Worgen]

I hadn't heard of any of these nontroversies due to me refusing to participate in the "Gaming Hype Olympics 2017?" but to address these dumb issues:

Fucken seriously are they? Cause with e3 it seems like some really dumbass people have wormed their way out of the woodwork.

We have people pledging to buy the last night, not because it looks good, but because it will make Zoe Quinn mad.

People did the same thing for Virginia not so long ago and one could argue that Van Valkenburg's entire career is built on nothing but spite; all the way back to when she started the controversy regarding WizardChan.

We have people complaining about killing nazies in the new wolfenstein.

The only news that I could find on this was on The Verge (With one of the most click-bait titles ever). Yeah, it's stupid but it seems to be fairly contained

We have people bitching about Life is Strange for existing and apparently being the dreaded sjw.

This has been going on since the first game. Believe it or not a lot of find it hard to relate to a bunch of overprivilaged San Francisco hipsters pretending their life is hard for over 8 hours while listening to trashy indie bands and outdated slangs from the 90's.

The nazi thing is from a number of threads about it on the steam forums. If you're not into Life is Strange then don't be into it, you don't have to start ranting about it being an sjw lesbian emo training sim.

 

[The Raw Shark]

Well shit, first thing I noticed was Life is Strange and I was hoping that we were all gonna take turns shitting on it. At least I was going to. 4 pretty damn good episodes only to get Mass Effect 3'd at the end with a vast pile of bullshit. Yeah I'll pass on it.

As for everything else, well this isn't as much a 'Games' problem as much as it is a 'People are dumb' problem.