Worgen said:SNIP
My point being that the Suits grasped the wrong end of the stick. They never cared about inclusivity in games, they cared that people were complaining about it. So they just used the simplest tropes they could to appease, but it was all utterly bland and token.Addendum_Forthcoming said:SNIP
And that ruined ME:A? Yeah. No. What ruined ME:A was being a buggy mess. After all, plenty of thoroughly disinteresting NPCs in all other Mass Effects. Tropish white dudes. Tropish sexy aliens. Tropish mentor former CO. Tropish racism allegories... Still played them.Silentpony said:My point being that the Suits grasped the wrong end of the stick. They never cared about inclusivity in games, they cared that people were complaining about it. So they just used the simplest tropes they could to appease, but it was all utterly bland and token.
So instead of Justice League Unlimited, we have characters in ME:A just going "I'm a transgender character!" and you can fucking hear the confetti falling from the sky and a great big banner reading "WE DID IT!" flying.
And? Sorry to point this out, but 99% of videogame characters are bland tropes with a singular trait that defines. That was more than apparent in videogames. A shred of an industry trying to actually include characters that aren't generic, grizzled, cisgender white dude isn't some failing. After all, we got the same reactionary commentary about Crem. Narratives like the one you're spinning, entertaining as it is, is why I'm far more interested in the boardgaming scene. That seems to have no problems attracting men, women, trans or otherwise and none of this fucking stupid drama.Minorities became traits. So instead of a fully developed character who happens to be black or a woman, we got character who's sole identity was Black or Woman.
And then the press release, positive coverage for finally having a playable woman in Assassin's Creed, and then Unity happens, an utterly bland and generic title with a female lead who's sole identity is that she's a woman.
I never said fake gamer. Do not put words in my mouth.Addendum_Forthcoming said:SNIP
No, I'm calling reactionaries like you fake gamers. I do so because people seem to have a problem with developers who at least put in a sincere attempt of populating their worlds with a diversity of characters and call it an 'agenda' or somehow bad on its own. Regardless of how relatively important it is to gameplay.Silentpony said:I never said fake gamer. Do not put words in my mouth.
The point of the game is fun not proving superiority of one agenda over another. The point of variety in game are choices not representation. When you forget about such simple thing you steer away from being a plain gamer - someone who enjoys a hobby and stumble towards identities/politics/social values etc.Addendum_Forthcoming said:(...)
Are you trying to tell me that identity politics is a waste of time? What if these people enjoy fighting useless battles? What if that's their hobby?BreakfastMan said:Are we really trying to fight these battles again? Really people, nobody has literally anything else to do? Can you people just fucking move on with your life already?
Garbage. When people bring out whoppers like Anita somehow being responsible for Ubisoft bringing out a ridiculously shitty product, quite clearly the agenda is simply ignoring how shitty the product is and why.Jamcie Kerbizz said:The point of the game is fun not proving superiority of one agenda over another. The point of variety in game are choices not representation. When you forget about such simple thing you steer away from being a plain gamer - someone who enjoys a hobby and stumble towards identities/politics/social values etc.
Point of this thread was presenting someone moderate, experienced and open to others. Please remain (all) civil and don't engulf yourself in bilateral squabbles over some of the notions touched on by Troy. Point of OP was rehashing times when being called gamer didn't determine anything beside aknowleding that you are someone who (perhaps too much) likes to spend time playing games.
99% of the time, yeah. Especially when it is an identity based solely on what you consume.Ironman126 said:Are you trying to tell me that identity politics is a waste of time?BreakfastMan said:Are we really trying to fight these battles again? Really people, nobody has literally anything else to do? Can you people just fucking move on with your life already?
Because everyone does it. We might like to call our ideological opponents out on it when we think they are being unusually narrow minded, but the truth is that we all engage in identity politics. We do it all the time in our daily lives and it is so hardwired into us humans that we can't escape it. Doesn't matter if our identity is social, cultural, political, religious, medical or whatever, we will end up making decisions and hold beliefs based on our identity.Ironman126 said:Why don't we have a name for people who engage in identity politics? Since they like labels so much, we could give them another label to fight about. It's the gift that keeps on giving! Plus, then you could get all the gamers, punks, and all the other annoying, myopic twats to all fight each other. We'd be expanding their hatred-base by orders of magnitude.
....no, no one cared about Net Runner because it's Net Runner.Addendum_Forthcoming said:SNIP
Totally not my point and you fucking know it.Silentpony said:Diversity doesn't equal fun or a good game, and don't try to pretend it does.
As proof that you really weren't paying attention. The most fleshed out of any of those characters storyline wise is CT ... at a popping 3/4s of an A4 page. Most of her storyline, her character, is fleshed out through the cards...Diversity as an idea is great. Good for it! But token diversity really does bring a game down. Watered down, one note characters are a bad thing and you shouldn't want to defend them simply because of tokenism.
Agreed.BreakfastMan said:99% of the time, yeah. Especially when it is an identity based solely on what you consume.
So, I was writing this big, long "well, actually" dissertation, then it occurred to me that I was playing right into your hands. Wily Scandinavian.Gethsemani said:Because everyone does it. We might like to call our ideological opponents out on it when we think they are being unusually narrow minded, but the truth is that we all engage in identity politics. We do it all the time in our daily lives and it is so hardwired into us humans that we can't escape it. Doesn't matter if our identity is social, cultural, political, religious, medical or whatever, we will end up making decisions and hold beliefs based on our identity.
The stupid part is not identity politics (because why would I not be in favor of decisions that favor Swedes, nurses and geeks, since those are all things I am?), the stupid part is the attempt to make it an insult and to use it as an attack on people you disagree with. The particular irony of the "identity politics battle" in gaming is that those that are ferociously defending their identity as gamers are also the most vocal about how stupid their opponents are because they practice identity politics. There's an amusing dissonance there between the insults they use and what they themselves actually believe, you know?
Then you should be for Anita since we tended to get a lot of token females in games then. We still get them but to a lesser extent. Games have always had the token representation characters, look at Cole Train from gears, at least in the first one, I forget if he was more fleshed out in the second... I kinda don't think so. Diverse characters can easily make a much more interesting story which can make a much better game. Would Shadowrun be better if your only choice was playing a white human male? Would Divinity Original Sins2? Of course not.Silentpony said:....no, no one cared about Net Runner because it's Net Runner.Addendum_Forthcoming said:SNIP
Diversity doesn't equal fun or a good game, and don't try to pretend it does.
Diversity as an idea is great. Good for it! But token diversity really does bring a game down. Watered down, one note characters are a bad thing and you shouldn't want to defend them simply because of tokenism.
I wouldn't deny that Anita is a snowflake. But you're showing your own snowflakeness right now.Ogoid said:You could very well ask that question of her holiness Beata Anita, as Troy pointed out only two minutes into the video. I mean, in her own words,trunkage said:This pretty much sums me up. How much of a snowflake do you have to be cry so much over a criticism? You aren't defined by what others say, you are defined by what you believe.
so there you have it. Criticism is harassment, and no, there's no discussion to be had. Just Listen and Believe, you horrible misogynist, you.Anita Sarkeesian said:They are not critics, they are harassers, so... we'll be very clear on that issue, and no, I have no interest in talking to them.
As for me, chalk it up to a generally prickly and quarrelsome personality if you must, but having my moral character called into question over the make believe clothes on the make believe backs of the make believe people (or similarly meaningless trivialities) in mass media I may or may not consume is something than tends to annoy me; particularly when the slightest breath of anything that might be construed as disagreement is treated by an ever-complying, supposedly professional media, as ironclad proof of not only her holiness's claims, but of their very necessity as well.
The last time [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fredric_Wertham] a con-artist quack rode a wave of moral hysteria into fame and fortune over the evils of mass media entertainment, a medium I really care about was reduced [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comics_Code_Authority] to a sanitized, homogenized, perpetually infantilized shadow of its former self. I'd rather not see it happen again.
The way I view it is analogous to the current 8th Edition on Warhammer 40k. There are now keywords, simple factional terms use to designate what units belong to what faction. A Space Wolf has the Imperium, and Space Marine, and Space Wolf keywords, so that any rules that apply to Imperium, Space Marines, and Space Wolf applies.Worgen said:Then you should be for Anita since we tended to get a lot of token females in games then. We still get them but to a lesser extent. Games have always had the token representation characters, look at Cole Train from gears, at least in the first one, I forget if he was more fleshed out in the second... I kinda don't think so. Diverse characters can easily make a much more interesting story which can make a much better game. Would Shadowrun be better if your only choice was playing a white human male? Would Divinity Original Sins2? Of course not.Silentpony said:....no, no one cared about Net Runner because it's Net Runner.Addendum_Forthcoming said:SNIP
Diversity doesn't equal fun or a good game, and don't try to pretend it does.
Diversity as an idea is great. Good for it! But token diversity really does bring a game down. Watered down, one note characters are a bad thing and you shouldn't want to defend them simply because of tokenism.