If You Are Going to Hate on a Game Company, Do It For the Right Reasons

[Sticky]

I wonder if you see the irony of accusing me of this:

You mean those two sentences you took out of context? Great.

My point was that "forgiving Japan for being bigots" on the grounds that it's Japan is, itself, bigoted. It would be like saying we should forgive the US for hating black people because Americans are too dense to rise above our cultural prejudices. That's bullshit. Every nation has its prejudices, its racial and sexual biases and we should all strive for better. Including the US. Including Japan.

So that your point is that you didn't actually have a point to anything you were talking about, and instead wanted to feel-good rant about how oppressive countries were way back when.

Which, again, has nothing to add or has any relation to this conversation about video games. In fact I'm still confused why you brought it up at all or what place it has in this discussion about video games.

And so should those people who make shovelware. Even Ed Fucking Wood took immense pride in the films he made. I'm pretty sure the devs of shovelware are looking to make something in the hopes that it isn't called shovelware on release. Even the folks who made Dungeon Keeper did it thinking they were making a playable, enjoyable game that wasn't designed to entrap whales. Most of the devs at least.

Just because we expect a particular behavior from a particular sector doesn't make that behavior right or tolerable. We see a lot of inexcusable behavior in the name of tradition or common practice or cultural bias. In the game industry, it's due to best practices, franchise conventions or expected features. It's all bullshit, no matter what kind of polish you apply.

You've gone from "They should feel bad about this" to "They should have strived for better". This is on the topic of a game made in a few months released in a limited market that would have come and gone if it weren't for this controversy (which has made it sell quite well, so complaining about it clearly hasn't worked). A game released in a sea of games that don't even have relationship options at all but I don't see you complaining about those either. Maybe you can at least understand the irony in that.

And also, do you genuinely believe that shovelware devs are not aware that they are making shovelware? That Imagine Party Babiez and Barbie Dreamhouse devs were not aware that they were making a hollow collection of minigames meant to capitalize on a trend? Maybe next time you can write them a memo informing them of that, since they seem to be so blissfully unaware.

Now, yes, gay relationships in Tomodachi Life came about by accident (or through an exploit) but I'll address that in a later post so that you can fling poo at me about it separately, as is evidently your joy in life.

This sentence alone pretty much explains why we're having this argument in the first place: I don't think you're being fair to the conversation at hand or even particularly well-informed about it. You seem definitely well-informed about everything not related in the least to this conversation and are more than willing to tell us about it.

But we're not discussing those things, so why bring them up?

tickyS

Also, I culled your footnotes. I find those really annoying as opposed to just using parentheses pairs to denote matters that are your own personal opinion.

 

[Olas]

I think in these two cases, the companies' statements are what garnered the controversy. Tomodachi Life had relationships between two men but Nintendo patched them out because they weren't "whimsical" enough. And Ubisoft made that stupid statement about how animating female characters was too much work. The moral of the story is that if you're not going to be inclusive, then you should keep your mouth shut.

Not true at all. Nintendo never "patched" it out - it was a bug in the first place that allowed it. It was never coded in. It was never in a released version of the game.

This misinformation still persists.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/9198-Tomopology-Life

I don't see how this contradicts anything I said. There was male-male marriage, then Nintendo got rid of it. I am aware it was a bug, but that doesn't make their first statement about gay marriage any better.

For goodness sake, thy didn't patch it out because it wasn't "whimsical" the bug BROKE THE GAME. It made it so that you couldn't save your game, and also allowed males to get pregnant. If they had left the bug in it would have constituted a broken unplayable product which I think is worse than a less inclusive product.

The comments that you're falsely attributing to the patch were about the game as it was originally designed, which is fair to criticize, but stop bringing the damn bug into it. It's not indicative of anything except Nintendo's desire to not sell broken products.

 

[Signa]

Finally, a level-headed assessment of the issue at hand, and no knee-jerking.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

I loathe feminism, I believe firmly in equality...

It's odd seeing those statements together non-ironically. Most feminism is about equality, but like any other major social equality movement it features a wide range of sub-divisions in which opinions differ regarding either approach or intended outcome, or the rate at which change is instigated.

Well I disagree about the movement being about equality. I firmly believe that the entire movement is fundamentally *not* about equality at all but about promoting the rights, views and opinions of 50% of our population over and above those of the other 50%. It's very name screams inequality and discrimination. It is a poisonous dogma that's irrelevant and outdated in modern society and today does nothing but harm. I'm glad to note that its fading slowly and losing popularity as more and more people are alienated by its nonsense completely at odds with real life.

I don't wish to enter a debate about it anyway. I don't care about it at all, I hate that it's encroaching into sites I used to enjoy visiting regularly and would be glad to see it gone so we can get back to the real issues of games sucking and why. Unity sucks, not because it's "sexist" (which I don't really believe it is), but because it's generic AAA garbage rehashed year on year. I don't care about Tomadachi Life, not because of any social statement but because it looks boring as heck. I don't care about them, I don't care if they are or aren't making a social statement, I care that they simply suck and hold no interest to me. I still wouldn't have bought Unity if it had playable women, and I wouldn't buy TL if it had same-sex relationships.

Corporate industry creates products to sell and make as much money from as they can. Further, freedom of art and expression mean artists should be free to create whatever they choose. Would it be nice to see more diversity in games? Sure. But if it sold, it would be getting made. If figures showed that games offering a non-generic white dude sold less than those that had one, what would any one of us do, were we given the purse strings and power to greenlight? This is a question, not my opinion. This is devil's advocate portraying a different view.

 

[Callate]

I agree with most of what Yahtzee's said. I think under-representation of female protagonists in games is a broad issue with the industry, and Ubisoft just happens to have become the lightning rod for it, not that they're the only or even the worst offender.

However, it's really never been easier to make an "indie" game and have it reach a large audience. The tools for creating such are widely available and cheap, and I can hardly imagine a better way to show that there really exists a significant audience looking for good games with female heroines that to create one.

That would, however, require more work, exposure, and discomfort than coining a new hashtag and getting the constant affirmation of the like-minded.

 

[Thanatos2k]

I think in these two cases, the companies' statements are what garnered the controversy. Tomodachi Life had relationships between two men but Nintendo patched them out because they weren't "whimsical" enough. And Ubisoft made that stupid statement about how animating female characters was too much work. The moral of the story is that if you're not going to be inclusive, then you should keep your mouth shut.

Not true at all. Nintendo never "patched" it out - it was a bug in the first place that allowed it. It was never coded in. It was never in a released version of the game.

This misinformation still persists.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/9198-Tomopology-Life

I don't see how this contradicts anything I said. There was male-male marriage, then Nintendo got rid of it. I am aware it was a bug, but that doesn't make their first statement about gay marriage any better.

You are intentionally misconstruing their intent, implying that they added it and then took it away. They never added it. It was a bug. This bug caused other problems. From Day One their design was that characters could only marry the opposite gender. They did not fix the bug in order to "get rid of it" - they fixed the bug to fix problems it was causing in their game. The problems it was causing was not "gay marriage."

Dude, my whole point is that Nintendo stirred up controversy because of their dipshit statement that gay marriage wasn't "fun" or "whimsical." The actual order of events doesn't matter.

What statement? This one?

http://operationrainfall.com/2014/05/07/nintendo-stance-same-sex-couples-tomodachi-life/

Nintendo never said anything about gay marriage not being fun or whimsical. If that's the conclusion you drew you need to re-read what they said a couple times.

Yes, their original statement was kind of lame and their excuse was flimsy, but people have misinterpreted it beyond belief, as you yourself have shown us.

Bashing on Tomodachi Life wasn't legitimate to begin with.

Here's an inconvenient truth - gay marriage is not legal in Japan. Do you really think Nintendo was going to depict *illegal* activities in their game that was rated E for Everyone? Your problem isn't with Nintendo - it's with Japanese culture. Get that changed first, then you can rail on Nintendo.

Zelda games (all but two of which have E ratings) fully endorse destruction of property and theft of other people's money.

In a magical fantasy world where grass contains an infinite amount of cash, and destroyed property magically reassembles itself when you leave and reenter the room. It's not the same and you know it.

Ever notice how in video games and anime from Japan that they never EVER allow underage drinking? Often they'll go out of their way to even lampshade hang that they're doing it.

 

[Vault101]

[quote/]Neither did complaints about Lara Croft being in therapy[/quote]

wait....people complained about that?

 

[RTR]

We may not agree on much stuff, but at least for today, Yahtzee has my sword.

 

[blalien]

What statement? This one?

http://operationrainfall.com/2014/05/07/nintendo-stance-same-sex-couples-tomodachi-life/

Nintendo never said anything about gay marriage not being fun or whimsical. If that's the conclusion you drew you need to re-read what they said a couple times.

Yes, their original statement was kind of lame and their excuse was flimsy, but people have misinterpreted it beyond belief, as you yourself have shown us.

You're really splitting hairs here. These are the exact words of their statement:

"We hope that all of our fans will see that Tomodachi Life was intended to be a whimsical and quirky game, and that we were absolutely not trying to provide social commentary.?

What are we supposed to take away from that? I'm glad they issued a better apology and promised to include gay marriage in the next game, but come on, are you seriously denying that that is pretty offensive?

 

[AntiChrist]

Yahtzee talked about this in more detail in his most recent video on Youtube. I think the gist of it is the same as what I believe: That is, gender roles cannot have come from nowhere, they must be linked to our sexes biologically. However, society has exaggerated these roles, and developed individuals should be able to throw off the restrictions of society and biology to pursue their own interests.

Ah, I see what he's getting at now. Thanks for clarifying that.

 

[sXeth]

We'd love to hate you for your murders, Yahtzee, but they were so imaginative and twisted it's hard not to be in awe of you.

And those prostitutes had it coming anyway.

I think what would be good for gaming now would be for publishers to work more like major movie studios, having separate divisions for mainstream big budget stuff (Transformers, Call of Duty and so on) and smaller, artier projects made by auteurs trying to push boundaries (and hopefully win awards when we get a game version of the Oscars).

Ubisoft seems to be trying to do this. Child of Light and Valiant Hearts being the two main examples (to a lesser extent, some of their standalone DLCs seem to also follow the concept). Not necessarily that they're pushing boundaries, but they seem to be putting some effort into maintaining a mid-tier alongside the AC/Far Cry/Clancy trifectum of money-machines.

Yahtzee is speaking sense, as the topic goes. Blame UBI for cutting out the competition MP, not having the writing chops to make a 4 character story, or being steadfastly boring on the standard blueprint, but I wouldn't really consider them sexist for their oddball MP setup.

 

[roski]

"Hating some companies for the right's reasons"
As opposed to the "left's" reasons... Am I right?

I can't make that joke work though, can anyone help?
Should I use "leftists" or maybe "right-wing"?
I should know this, CAE exam in November.
I bet Yahtzee could make that joke work, though..

 

[RedDeadFred]

What's this? A voice of reason in the hurricane of rage? A lot of these are points I've brought up in posts on this issue.

I don't agree that what they are doing is okay, but it's a societal issue and they make lots of money because of it. If people really want change, they need to vote with their wallets. If enough people do that, companies will change since their first priority is always going to be profit. I'm sure plenty of them would actually like equal representation, but unfortunately (and not surprisingly), they like money more.

 

[Pogilrup]

What's this? A voice of reason in the hurricane of rage? A lot of these are points I've brought up in posts on this issue.

I don't agree that what they are doing is okay, but it's a societal issue and they make lots of money because of it. If people really want change, they need to vote with their wallets. If enough people do that, companies will change since their first priority is always going to be profit. I'm sure plenty of them would actually like equal representation, but unfortunately (and not surprisingly), they like money more.

Voting with wallets is easier said than done when those who still offer their wallets don't care for better representation of social minorities.

 

[Steve the Pocket]

Hang on hang on hang on...

No, the fact is, the lack of diversity may well be a result of big companies not wanting to take risks. And I'm not saying female-driven games would definitely be a risk, but if white-dude-driven games are bringing in the cash, then it is the nature of the soulless corporation to not try to fix what isn't broke. And why SHOULD they? It's not something they can do casually, experimentally; the jobs of hundreds if not thousands may depend on a game's success. Even more so with budgets being so ridiculously high these days. I don't think you can blame a corporation for keeping things safe and bland out of the desire to maximize its chances of continued existence. More to the point, I don't think you should be 'blaming' anyone.

You're saying that being paranoid about potentially losing money is a decent excuse for the bullshit that video game companies pull? Who are you and what have you done with Mr. Croshaw? I mean, you do realize that's the excuse behind the majority of things you've criticized games for doing, right? It sounds like the sort of words you'd put in a strawman's mouth only to respond sarcastically, "Oh right, how silly of me to forget; ten out of ten, then!"

The point you made about the online entertainment media being quick to throw out wild accusations of sexism, racism, etc. over nothing is right on the money, though. I've seen this happening over the last year or so in every medium; it's basically a combination of critics stumbling into the social-justice movement, being overcome with white/male/hetero/what-have-you guilt, and joining the fight without knowing where to draw the line; and other critics seeing how much attention those people are getting and jumping on the bandwagon. And maybe a handful of fuck-the-world types discovering a new excuse to vent their irrational hatred towards all of humanity that doesn't make them look like fuck-the-world types. (Incidentally, I realize that professional courtesy forbade you from mentioning your cohort by name, but we all know who you were talking about.)

Your guess that Unity was meant to be four slight variants on the same character is exactly what I figured too (Ever play Magicka? That's what it immediately reminded me of; of course, the hoods made it pretty obvious.) until Ubisoft's prepared statement made it clear that's not what they had in mind at all. And look, either what they said really is their excuse, or they're lying because they're just physically incapable of ever telling the truth. If it's the latter, then I can think of no more fitting punishment than taking them at face value. Let's not try to pretend that Ubisoft or their design decisions were defensible just because we can make up our own theories that they've already refuted, OK?

 

[Rebel_Raven]

I think Ubisoft has a STORY POINT for Ass Creed.
Now I only played 1 and 2, but I seem to remember them saying that only the *men* in that one family line get passed the genetic memories. So... how can you then play as a woman? Maybe women helped out a lot, but the character you play would have been a guy. Cause the really dumb sci-fi nonsense said so.

Assassin's Creed: Liberation's Aveline would like to have a word with you.

OT:
I'm gunna hate companies/games coz they teased me with inclusion, then basically said "screw you" in -2- games from Ubisoft, and a large refusal to acknowledge homosexuals in Tomodachi life (though it's easy enough to do as yahtzee suggested in his review which kinda takes the suck out of being left out.) though they promise to acknowledge them in the sequel (And with that, I doubt there will be a sequel, or nintendo will go back on their word. <.<) which helps.

Look, I'm not calling Ubisoft Misogynistic. Liberation, and Child of Light were nice. not full blown AAA games, but it's a -lot- better than a lot companies are doing. I'm just hating them for saying I was ever so close to letting me feel more invested in the character, then yoinking it away... TWICE.

Yes, I know homosexual relations were part of the game breaking bug in Tomodachi life, and fixing them removed the relationships, but they aren't even offering an optional patch to get it back in somehow. At least it's easy to make Miis look a lot like the opposite gender. They left that, which is nice.

Seriously, if I can't be mad about that, then you can get out of my world. <.<

Edit: Oh, I do have some loathing over the industry for being sexist (Some parts -are-.) and for hating the idea of having a homosexual protagonist (some do.). I don't blame all the industry, but there's too few bright spots for me to pretend the discriminatory behavior doesn't exist. If I can't be mad about that, then, well, you can GTFO out of my world.

 

[RicoADF]

For the record, I think this outrage was founded on misunderstanding. Unity seems to be doing the same thing Watch_Dogs does, that is, integrate the multiplayer seamlessly into the single-player story. So when you join the multiplayer, you're still playing as the story's protagonist, as are all the other human players. They take on slightly different appearances when appearing in someone else's game just so that you don't see four copies of the same dude running around. It's no more sexist than there being no option to play a female Aiden Pearce, or a male Lara Croft.

FINALLY!! I've been saying this the whole time but it seems to have been ignored by the main gaming press and all the players who were happy to jump on the hate train. Good to see someone doing real journalism and getting the facts straight for a change. This is why Yahtzee and Jim are my main sources of gaming commentary, they get the facts straight.

 

[RicoADF]

No, I'm going to hate on Ubisoft for sheer laziness. AC: Brotherhood had a diverse range of characters in multiplayer, and I'm not just talking gender, I mean size and shape. You had big people, skinny people, a range in the middle--you know, like how people are in real life. Unity's four MP protagonists are all the exact same guy. Same height, same build, same stance, same gait. Other than some bits of clothing and small variation in the chin and facial hair, they're identical.

So this is what the steeplechase pursuit of higher graphical fidelity has led to: devs are effectively palette-swapping player characters like they're sprites from the 8-bit era.

You don't seem to understand, you wont see 4 white males that look the same, you will see you playing as the white male and 3 other random looking assasins. There will be the diversity, you just wont pick how you look to others.