Are gamers getting stupider?
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In that sense I don't think gamers are getting any dumber, they were already pretty dumb there too. One of the things I remember noticing when I joined the Escapist was how eager a lot of people were to waive their consumer rights and even defend the companies that were actively screwing them! There's a lot less of that talk around here these days, but it used be shocking just how many people would think that way.Vendor-Lazarus said:
Swooped. And I'd also add that these examples would mean different things to different people. I could imagine Mario being seen as a male power fantasy and SpongeBob as a person who is free and lets all his troubles go (I think. I watched only a couple of episodes)DaCosta said:
NCIS reinforces the trust we should have in law enforcement and, by extension, the government. The Shield is does the opposite. But to others they might to the reverse. The Shield can be seen as reap what you sow. NCIS shows how corrupt the Navy is.
See, that's just you guys projecting your interpretations onto those works. Their creators could have had the complete opposite intentions or even none at all. It's the whole "what did the author mean when he wrote 'The sky was blue'?" argument all over again. And even then, what does someone letting his troubles go have to do with politics?trunkage said:
Sure, you can argue that all media carries the experiences and biases of their creators, but those elements don't always have to relate to politics. I'll say it again:
Not everything has to be political. To believe otherwise is rather totalitarian.
I don't buy that too much. Videogamers in particular seem to easily get their knickers in a twist. Boardgaming circles are fine. Boardgaming continues to grow and it seems far more civil than when I was younger. I absolutely adore my local Netrunner scene for that reason. I get to play with people who want to have fun, not act like an arsehole, then make it a political statement when they're told they're acting like an arsehole.pookie101 said:
I mean if sports was like videogames, gamers would claim 'censorship' or 'SJWs have invaded tennis' when an umpire fines a player for abusive conduct on the court.
That's kind of where it seems to be at by this point. I would alsodefine that as pretty fucking stupid. I would alsoextend that to anyone that compares someone saying; "Can we just play rather than you being a loud shouty-person?" as being a Marxist.
Slightly on topic edit: The Last Night is cyber-punk. If it isn't heavily "political", it's missing the goddamned point. Duder's apologized, so I guess we'll see how much that's sincere.
Hell, a handful of ill-considered choices can end up having a game send messages I'd otherwise vehemently disagree with.
I mean, if my protagonist shines with the white light of purity who's coincidentally fighting a nation of degenerate bad guys who's evil is reflected in the inky darkness of their skin, and recruiting the bad guys to the side of good purifies their noir auras, that sends a goddamned message even if I didn't intend it to.
Weird. See, my experiences and biases relate directly to my politics. As such, anything I create can carry a political message whether I recognize it or not.Gibbagobba said:
Hell, a handful of ill-considered choices can end up having a game send messages I'd otherwise vehemently disagree with.
I mean, if my protagonist shines with the white light of purity who's coincidentally fighting a nation of degenerate bad guys who's evil is reflected in the inky darkness of their skin, and recruiting the bad guys to the side of good purifies their noir auras, that sends a goddamned message even if I didn't intend it to.
You could easily write a 5,000 word essay on the differential attitudes Nintendo makes as to its intellectual property when compared to other benchmark icons of other companies. The 'why' of Mario. Pretending like you can't find reason in how people use the tools at their disposal assumes a far worse idea that humans are mindless. And I'd hope you'd see the hypocrisy in making assumptions that looking for answers in human agency is somehow an 'absolute', science (nor historiography or even some schools of philosophy) makes no such claim and frankly you're the only one to do do at this point. It's incumbent on all humans to seek out answers when given opportunity, to think why they do things, to think how they do things, and what shapes our motives and our will to power.Gibbagobba said:So tell me, what is the political meaning behind Super Mario or Spongebob Squarepants? Not everything has to have some political meaning or statement behind it, even in subtext. The very notion is just insane on the face of it.
You certainly don't blame people for assuming the answers are out there, nor should you ever pretend that they're not. Assuming there couldn't be an answer to Mario is an absolute.
I'll answer this bit by bit.
That's my point, just because you are fine with what a work says and does, that does not make it apolitical.
For example, if you wait for a racist to say "I am racist. I wrote a racist book", you'll be waiting a long time. He'll say "There's nothing wrong with my book. The stuff in it is just me telling it like it is." It's the other people reading it that will point out the messed up stuff in it.
Yeah, that's what it means to interpret a work of art.Gibbagobba said:
That's my point, just because you are fine with what a work says and does, that does not make it apolitical.
Death of the author. I don't care about the author's intentions, I care about what can be gleamed from the work.Gibbagobba said:
For example, if you wait for a racist to say "I am racist. I wrote a racist book", you'll be waiting a long time. He'll say "There's nothing wrong with my book. The stuff in it is just me telling it like it is." It's the other people reading it that will point out the messed up stuff in it.
I'd argue that and "politics" is one and the same.Gibbagobba said:
altnameJag said:
Addendum_Forthcoming said:
I don't necessarily disagree with any of these points, but you all seem to be missing mine. My point is that while it is basically impossible for people to remove their biases from the things they create, not all of those biases have to do with politics.DaCosta said:
This seems to be a common trend in recent years to encompass all personal opinions, beliefs, and whatnot under the banner of "politics." Politics refers to government and policy-making. If the former is what you all actually mean, then I just have a problem with the misnomer. Otherwise the notion is still wrong.
A vast majority of people using "everything is political" or "all media is political" are in fact encompassing all personal opinions, biases, beliefs, and potential messages embedded in media under the "political" banner.Gibbagobba said:
Which leads to hilarious discussions where some people try to tell me that video games do not and cannot influence somebody's attitudes or outlooks in any way. And I'm desperately glad that that's not happening here.
Very true.Drathnoxis said:
I remember when steam first came out and everyone jumped on the bandwagon almost without hesitation.
I had already been gaming for at least 10 years before that (and consider those years the golden ones) and I was appalled that such a horrible practice could go on with almost nary a complaint.
I vowed then and there that I would never support any online verification scheme and have held true to my word.
Despite steam still going 12 years later I have never (and will never) download that or any other such platforms.
Oh, Christ, that argument just makes me weep for the state of society, not even with any hyperbole. I get that some people just aren't used to self-reflection or anything of the sort, but, like, how blinkered a life do you have to lead?altnameJag said:Which leads to hilarious discussions where some people try to tell me that video games do not and cannot influence somebody's attitudes or outlooks in any way. And I'm desperately glad that that's not happening here.
Rather amusingly there was a Mozilla add-on that would do just that -- replace men with Jews and women with Aryans on websites that tend to have feminist bents. It was pulled down for promoting Nazism which I find hilarious. Now you just have /r/menkampf and /r/StormfrontOrSJW to go to for that kind of comparison.gigastar said:
You're going to hate me for this, but I was calling the ending of LiS after episode 2. It's not like they were waving Donnie Darko and the Butterfly Effect in your face or anything, or that a certain thing keeps happening to a certain character and you keep undoing it, or that your meddling is seemingly making things...not right (to be fair it's ep three before you can really see a trend going on this one). I literally called everything about the "Save the bay" option other than who took Rachel Amber.The Raw Shark said:
That's basically what I was getting at. I mean yeah, video games can introduce you to new opinions and ideas, sure. But at the end of the day you still have to make the conscious decision to agree or disagree with them. I love Night in the Woods but it didn't convince me to become a socialist. In fact I reached the complete opposite conclusion, but that's because I already had my own biases when entering that story.shrekfan246 said:Oh, Christ, that argument just makes me weep for the state of society, not even with any hyperbole. I get that some people just aren't used to self-reflection or anything of the sort, but, like, how blinkered a life do you have to lead?altnameJag said:Which leads to hilarious discussions where some people try to tell me that video games do not and cannot influence somebody's attitudes or outlooks in any way. And I'm desperately glad that that's not happening here.
Media should be platforms for discussion, not a collection of competing instruction manuals. And sometimes it can just be simple entertainment. What am I going to learn from a game like SSX other than that I could never fall 75 feet from a slope and survive?
Preach brother. I've also never used a digital distribution platform. I'd rather abandon modern games altogether than pay money for a game that I won't own.Vendor-Lazarus said:
