Detroit Becoming Human - Why do I like this?

[Casual Shinji]

I feel venting frustration with something that is basically one small step below a human would veer greatly into the standard hatred for people that are different. Not to mention, you can kinda go all out in your hatred because they aren't really humans so no fear of social stigma or anything. And the fact that everywhere you go, androids are sorta in your face and you can't get away from them like the girl's father says an android took his job and no he has one at home so that frustration is always there. I guess I just don't have near the optimism or confidence in humans being good that you do.

That's not really what I'm getting at. It's not that I think humans would be terribly nice in these situations (though they're still depicted as stupidly evil in Detroit:BH), but that the androids are treated as sub humans as opposed to machines. Take the scene from A.I. at the birthday party by the pool. You see Martin's friends (humans) surround David (a robot) and then casually start poking him and even sticking him with a knife, in the same way you would fiddle around with some new device you just bought. They're not even doing this because of any sort of malicious intent, but because they simply see him as nothing more than an inanimate object. And this makes it that much more creepy and disturbing than it would be if purposely bullied him.


Some racism, some dickish behaviour, sure. But that's all the game gives you in regards to the plight of these androids. They don't even question their own existence, consciousness, emotions, or place in the world. The game only ever depicts them as a slave race that wants to be free.

There's a bunch of things in the game show androids as superior. Markus' owner says he doesn't forget anything. Plus, Markus can easily pickup his owner along with the sports android controversy in the game. Not that androids are superheroes or anything, but they're at least probably 25-50% stronger along with much more accurately being able to do the same thing over and over again. Connor is probably cheaper than giving a handheld device to a human cop who could so many issues that humans have like tardiness, drug problems, health problems, standard human error, etc. Androids are just now starting to become irrational and sentient in the game, which is an unexpected development just like any sci-fi AI storyline.

Humans aren't the most efficiently designed but our world is also completely designed with our general size and shape in mind. We are trying to make androids currently as well. Not to mention humans, ourselves, don't make choices with peak efficiently in mind either. So us deciding to make androids instead of say robots with the most efficient size and shape isn't that unbelievable.

Markus isn't presented as any stronger than a regular private caretaker would be. That rich dude's house even has a bunch of robotic arms around to lift him from place to place, so those could just as easily get him out of bed and into the bathroom. And again, a lot of these androids get shot once in the head or stomach and they're completely busted. As for human error, the fact that the player is controlling them means they'll suffer from that regardless. There's few if any moments where we see this android efficiency at play.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

That's not really what I'm getting at. It's not that I think humans would be terribly nice in these situations (though they're still depicted as stupidly evil in Detroit:BH), but that the androids are treated as sub humans as opposed to machines. Take the scene from A.I. at the birthday party by the pool. You see Martin's friends (humans) surround David (a robot) and then casually start poking him and even sticking him with a knife, in the same way you would fiddle around with some new device you just bought. They're not even doing this because of any sort of malicious intent, but because they simply see him as nothing more than an inanimate object. And this makes it that much more creepy and disturbing than it would be if purposely bullied him.

Some racism, some dickish behaviour, sure. But that's all the game gives you in regards to the plight of these androids. They don't even question their own existence, consciousness, emotions, or place in the world. The game only ever depicts them as a slave race that wants to be free.

Markus isn't presented as any stronger than a regular private caretaker would be. That rich dude's house even has a bunch of robotic arms around to lift him from place to place, so those could just as easily get him out of bed and into the bathroom. And again, a lot of these androids get shot once in the head or stomach and they're completely busted. As for human error, the fact that the player is controlling them means they'll suffer from that regardless. There's few if any moments where we see this android efficiency at play.

Though weren't slaves basically thought as inanimate objects themselves? Using black people as slaves was thought as "ok" because they were seen as at best sub-humans to basically animals (with janky science even) so they were treated like a horse would be. That's so far (I gotten as far as Jericho) how I've seen androids being treated in the game. The hatred has come from upsetting the status quo.

The first real "want" of an AI would probably be to be free.

Sure, the robotic arms could probably get him around. But Markus can do all the little things around the house from cleaning to cooking that you'd basically need a robot with said arms that can navigate the whole house. Plus, Markus can obviously go out and get stuff and you can converse with the androids to a near human degree and Markus' owner enjoyed that as well, and also why people would verbally attack them too. Just the fact that androids would have basically perfect reliability and accuracy with their work makes them so much more desirable to employers along with obviously being cheaper while even eliminating jobs like quality assurance. The android sports articles show androids are better physically. Even something like a quarterback throwing a football would be done so much better by an android because of how fast and accurately it could calculate the physics along with an android being able to throw a ball exactly where it wants. Getting shot isn't a regular workday occurrence, I don't see how an android being weak to bullets would matter much.

 

[gameicreate upload]

Game concept is good. But how many characters are available in this game?

 

[Casual Shinji]

Though weren't slaves basically thought as inanimate objects themselves? Using black people as slaves was thought as "ok" because they were seen as at best sub-humans to basically animals (with janky science even) so they were treated like a horse would be. That's so far (I gotten as far as Jericho) how I've seen androids being treated in the game. The hatred has come from upsetting the status quo.

I guess, yes and no. Not an expert on that point in history, and it's a touchy subject. But even with that comparison the game doesn't make sense. I'd assume during that period of slavery black people weren't protested against, and probably not even that hated, since their place in society was one of subjugation; there was no real "need" to hate them. It probably wasn't till slavery was abolished that the hatred toward them by many in the white community really reared its head.

And that's where D:BH is trying to come from, eventhough these androids are owned products with no say in anything. That's the status quo. It'd make sense that people let their fear and hatred get to them once these androids started to form a Union and demand equel rights and independence. It'd be really cliched, but it'd make narrative sense.


At the start of the game you don't see these protestors and android haters actually going after the shops where these androids are sold. And if they're so belligerent toward these androids and beating them up on the street, why aren't they doing the same to the meriad of automated busses driving around? They serve the same function and take jobs away from humans. Why just the humanoid machines? For the sake of easy racism analogies. And it gets even more obnoxious toward the end.

 

[McElroy]

I watched a playthrough. There's a lot of choices and a cool schematic at the end of each chapter. The story takes the androids' personhood as something completely granted but suppressed under programming. Okay, fine, a philosophical approaches to AI sentience have been done before, and so maybe it's not needed here, but it means CyberLife made the androids like that on purpose. It would've been nice to know more about that, but no, the retired genius you get to interview tells you barely anything (he just hints at android deviancy being an intended feature - only its spread being a one-bit error or something).

 

[CritialGaming]

Though weren't slaves basically thought as inanimate objects themselves? Using black people as slaves was thought as "ok" because they were seen as at best sub-humans to basically animals (with janky science even) so they were treated like a horse would be. That's so far (I gotten as far as Jericho) how I've seen androids being treated in the game. The hatred has come from upsetting the status quo.

I guess, yes and no. Not an expert on that point in history, and it's a touchy subject. But even with that comparison the game doesn't make sense. I'd assume during that period of slavery black people weren't protested against, and probably not even that hated, since their place in society was one of subjugation; there was no real "need" to hate them. It probably wasn't till slavery was abolished that the hatred toward them by many in the white community really reared its head.

And that's where D:BH is trying to come from, eventhough these androids are owned products with no say in anything. That's the status quo. It'd make sense that people let their fear and hatred get to them once these androids started to form a Union and demand equel rights and independence. It'd be really cliched, but it'd make narrative sense.


At the start of the game you don't see these protestors and android haters actually going after the shops where these androids are sold. And if they're so belligerent toward these androids and beating them up on the street, why aren't they doing the same to the meriad of automated busses driving around? They serve the same function and take jobs away from humans. Why just the humanoid machines? For the sake of easy racism analogies. And it gets even more obnoxious toward the end.

Over the weekend I finished D:BH and I gotta say it is rather heavy handed in the analogies. But the problem with it, as with most David Cage writing it would seem, is that it is far too forced. People in the world hate androids because the plot has no stake if they don't, when frankly there isn't any real reason to do so.

Sure the game makes a display to show people homeless without jobs because the androids have supposedly taken away those jobs. But the game also then shows that humans do a lot of jobs better, doctors, lawyers, entertainers, etc. This is a world that should be great for people because the androids will do all the shit that they don't want, street sweeping, cleaning, etc. Leaving people left to study and get good jobs. Plus if androids were so abundant, surely computer programmers, and bug fixers, and customer service techs on this androids would be a huge industry. The game even shows that humans do the physical repairs and maintenance on the droids, though it also shows droids fixing themselves because every android part is apparently plug-and-play.

The point is, David Cage doesn't understand how to make conflict believable and thus the conflict and racial overtones are all over this game like a fucking barbell. It's forced. Markus had no reason to start a huge rebellion, the whole deviant thing was an error in programming and most of the androids were forcibly "freed" by Markus. Most androids in normal households, would not have gone deviant and Markus essentially starts a rebellion based on the bad experiences of a few dozen androids in Jerhico.

So really it's just a bunch of bogus contrivity to make a story.

That being said, it was a decent enough game with decent enough characters to make me want to see how it ends.

A few of the "twists" made me feeling like I was watching a M.Night Shamalyan movie. The revelation about the little girl, the "No I'm the real me" at the end with Conner. All of it just seemed put there for no reason.

The choices in the game are also fairly bad. I never felt like any of the choices were hard ones to make. Most boil down to either to the good idea or the very very very very bad idea. I would have liked to see a bit more middle ground when it came to things like that. Do you want to save your partner, or let the fucker die to catch the fleeing robot? Do you want to be safe in a car or sleep with the crazy robot? Should you save all the people or just one of the people? Almost every choice is so jarringly obvious you might as well have put "Do the good thing" or "do the evil thing" on every one of them just so you could at least direct people to whichever ending they are going for.

All in all, I had a decent time playing D:BH despite rolling my eyes constantly. I have no desire to ever play it again, and will probably just watch a let's play on Youtube to see the ending I didn't end up with. Hopefully I can get decent trade in credit for the game and can buy something that has more entertainment value, like Hyrule Warriors on the Switch. I need a reason to turn that fucking thing on anyway.

 

[Casual Shinji]

All in all, I had a decent time playing D:BH despite rolling my eyes constantly. I have no desire to ever play it again, and will probably just watch a let's play on Youtube to see the ending I didn't end up with.

For as bad as the story was, I actually had fun steering the direction of said story. I liked that I had control over two characters (Conner and Markus) who opposed one another, and I could decide moment to moment who would win that particular battle. It made it so the story didn't really become predictable at all, because I was deciding on the fly where it was going. I was sorta going for positive outcomes, till nearing the end I decided to just make everything go to shit for pretty much everyone, and it was strangely satisfying.

And I have to say I actually liked a lot of the choices. They weren't too hard to make, but they did have nice, logical consequences later on. Like shooting or not shooting the dude in the broadcasting room.


And Clancy Brown was an absolute treat, bad dialoge and all. I wish the whole game was just him and Conner.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

I'd assume during that period of slavery black people weren't protested against, and probably not even that hated, since their place in society was one of subjugation; there was no real "need" to hate them. It probably wasn't till slavery was abolished that the hatred toward them by many in the white community really reared its head.

And that's where D:BH is trying to come from, eventhough these androids are owned products with no say in anything. That's the status quo. It'd make sense that people let their fear and hatred get to them once these androids started to form a Union and demand equel rights and independence. It'd be really cliched, but it'd make narrative sense.

At the start of the game you don't see these protestors and android haters actually going after the shops where these androids are sold. And if they're so belligerent toward these androids and beating them up on the street, why aren't they doing the same to the meriad of automated busses driving around? They serve the same function and take jobs away from humans. Why just the humanoid machines? For the sake of easy racism analogies. And it gets even more obnoxious toward the end.

Androids are probably upsetting the status quo even more than abolishing slavery did. I guess I could see people going after the android shops at the beginning when androids were a new thing but androids at the start of the game seemed to have become a thing for a decent amount of time now that there's not really much that people can do now. You probably can't even boycott companies using androids because they probably all are and if you want food or anything, your money is supporting the new android status quo. Androids are far bigger impact than say automated buses because automated buses are only taking bus driver jobs so overall it's not something most people would care about much like how Uber and Lyft are hugely cutting into the taxi driver industry, only people in that industry basically care.

I don't know, maybe David Cage is just so bad that his "back of the bus" android parallel actually makes practical and logistical sense when he was in fact going for a super heavy-handed racial commentary.

Hopefully I can get decent trade in credit for the game and can buy something that has more entertainment value

You should, especially on eBay. I just sold both Monster Hunter and God of War for $35 and $40 this week while only paying $48 for them at Best Buy. Video gaming is so cheap that I really don't care about price but care about time with regards to games. I'd rather take a chance on a David Cage game than an RPG as the RPG will probably feel like more wasted time actually because if the David Cage game sucks, I wasted like 10 hours and $10 so I won't be too upset.

 

[CritialGaming]

Detroit is not a game, it's an interactive movie.

So...it's a game then.