Escapist News Wrap: Half Life 3 and Borderlands 2's "Girlfriend Mode"

[gardian06]

This is the very definition of a manufactered story. There was no outcry over his use of the term anywhere except in the online gaming "press", if I may be so generous.

not a manufactured story, but what is referred to in the news world as "leading the story", or possibly "digging for context" basically reporting a story in such a way that sheds unique light on the topic, or spotting something that after an amount of time in the wild will cause a response. can it be the actual result of the reaction; yes, but in the same way of walking down the street, and hearing someone say "Look at that person is dangling a baby out a window", or if I was a political representative, and in passing state (the following statement is for example only and does not reflect the views of the poster): "all people who belong to a minority are easier to manipulate then non-minorities" a news group would probably jump in what's commonly referred to as a "media frenzy" (depending on prominence), and start throwing around words like racist, and sexist even if I prefist the statement with something like "it's not like people actually thing that...", or "I have hears some people say...".

what this amounts to is that news is not just "hey this thing happened, and these are the results", or "we waited to see all the possible results of this before bringing you this story" if you want to have news based on days, or weeks of research then you might as well only read newspapers, and printed magazines (even though these have other controversies about their content). yes sometimes news organizations sometimes fish for stories, but this is not a case of the escapist fishing; if you look at the actual article the escapist didn't run this first eurogamer did, or at least eurogamer is given credit for the story.

the outrage might not have been there before the reporting began, or it just might not have been widely enough seen to cause the outrage that it eventually did (that's what news really, and fundamentally does is bring things to peoples attention that they might not normally have exposer to). and your whole statement that it was community created term http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-08-13-borderlands-2-gearbox-reveals-the-mechromancers-girlfriend-mode paragraphs 11, and 12. where the dev said he nicknamed it that himself.

 

[porpoise hork]

I work at a gamestop and honestly it isn't bad at all. In fact I rather like my job. It's made me take a new perspective on gaming and appreciate certain games whilst being astonished at what other games are made. I understand where the polling is coming from; we are very intensive on reserve numbers (mine were 53% today!!!) and Powerup cards, but it doesn't make it unfun to work there. Just one Game Advisor's opinion.

It really depends on what store you work at. I used to work for them and it was horrible. The store manager was an asshole and total speed freak btw constantly told us that the only thing that mattered was your pre-order percentages, powerup sales, and used titles. If any of us actually tried to chat for a minute with a customer even when the store was slow we would get written up. I transferred to two other stores and minus the manager being all hopped up on goof balls it was the same story. it wasn't until I transferred to the 4th store and got a really cool manager that I actually liked working for GameStop. Then we got a new district manager and he came in and fired 3/4 of the managers in his district and then took months to hire replacement managers while flat out refusing to promote any of the assistant managers. So the assistant managers (myself included) had to take on the manager's position at A.M. pay with no overtime. He would regularly come by the stores and rip into us about the tiniest little things. Even if the store was immaculate he would berate us about how bad they always looked. After 5 months of that shit I had had enough and quit.

Fuck GameStop.

 

[Nietz]

I think I've seen every one of these videos released, granted that's not many, but I'd like to say that I enjoy them quite a bit. I do have to wonder what is behind the camera in this videos though, because it seems that Mr. Tito looks kinda scared. Kudos to the Escapist staff on making another good web-series.

As for the "girlfriend mode"-story, I haven't followed it and know very little about it. Can anyone summarize the issue for me? I'm not ready to pass judgement without more information. It seems a bit condescending to me, but that is hardly anything new in the world we live in. So, is it just that it's condescending, or is it more things I don't know about in with this particular story?

 

[CaptDom]

Dick move for wording your title like that. Real dick move.

SECONDED

Featuring HL3 in the title of a NEWS show when the actual item is
"HL3 - NO NEWS"

We all understand you gotta generate page views but seriously, like this?

 

[gardian06]

...snip... As for the "girlfriend mode"-story, I haven't followed it and know very little about it. Can anyone summarize the issue for me? I'm not ready to pass judgement without more information. It seems a bit condescending to me, but that is hardly anything new in the world we live in. So, is it just that it's condescending, or is it more things I don't know about in with this particular story?

basically during a walking tour wit eurogamer one of the games devs said that because the sidekick character was the cutest they ever made, and female that she was like the main character's girlfriend. so the tree focused around buffing her to be potentially better then the player was nicknamed the "girlfriend skill tree". where the name of the tree on release would be "best friends forever". so the issue comes around when this is conjoined with a statement that even less skilled players could play the game, and beat it with this tree. essentially add 2+2, and add in 2 shakes of irrational connections and get out: 'gamers now your girlfriend's can play the game too'. which prompted that same dev to go onto twitter, and state that 'any gendered player could play the mode not just females'

 

[Nietz]

basically during a walking tour wit eurogamer one of the games devs said that because the sidekick character was the cutest they ever made, and female that she was like the main character's girlfriend. so the tree focused around buffing her to be potentially better then the player was nicknamed the "girlfriend skill tree". where the name of the tree on release would be "best friends forever". so the issue comes around when this is conjoined with a statement that even less skilled players could play the game, and beat it with this tree. essentially add 2+2, and add in 2 shakes of irrational connections and get out: 'gamers now your girlfriend's can play the game too'. which prompted that same dev to go onto twitter, and state that 'any gendered player could play the mode not just females'

Oh wow... That seems kinda insane, but not all that surprising. Considering developers sometimes being... 'eccentric' and games-press sometimes acting like tabloids. Thanks for clearing it up in a nice way though.