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

[ACman]

Oh dear.... Carrying water for Ubisoft's inexplicable and discriminatory laziness are we?


To those claiming that "It would be too much wooooork. Wah wah!" (Yahtzee included) for Ubisoft to animate female models.... There are animated models.... In the competitive multiplayer.

http://youtu.be/Ht2klK2LWkc?t=1m47s

So unless they've ditched those assets and have not included new female competitive multiplayer models (which would be probably worse) - the excuse that it was too much work doen't really hold water.




If the excuse was "But we want to maintain the narrative perspective (of being the designated generic, white, mid 30s, male protagonist) - because....." I don't understand any reasoning after the "because". When my narrative from the perspective of my genergic white male protagonist is being invaded by my friend's mirror-image protagonist the idea of narrative cohesiveness has disintegrated.



Why not just let people select one of the multiplayer models - that I assume are avaliable for the other multiplayer modes - before invading another person's story experience?

 

[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.

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

Oh I know. This all comes back to the systemic issue as a whole. The sad truth is, the majority of buyers probably don't even have this stuff cross their minds when making purchases which is why this will keep happening. I'm sure we'll see a change eventually, but it's definitely not going to happen over night like a lot of people are wanting.

 

[weirdee]

While it is easy to criticize the more visible and messy components of a backlash, it is also easy to overlook the other lesson from this story, which seeks to question what we have to look forward to if the only choices that the supposedly all powerful big money players in the electronic gaming industry have now are the safe ones that don't bother to attempt accomplishing anything beyond treading water. Frankly, yelling back at the roaring tide is even less useful than attempting to find meaning from the ceaseless churning. If you want to promote the constructive conversation, spend an entire article writing about that instead of pointing out that there are loud people on the internet with misguided intentions.

I'm gonna take an indulgent moment here to lament the fact that a lot of people are agreeing with this article on the basis of assuming that you agree with them that everybody should shut about social issues forever because video games, or worse, that people need to be made more aware about how wrong certain people are about the issues they are trying to promote and use them as a reason as to why we should be shutting up.

 

[Fsyco]

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.

Oh I know. This all comes back to the systemic issue as a whole. The sad truth is, the majority of buyers probably don't even have this stuff cross their minds when making purchases which is why this will keep happening. I'm sure we'll see a change eventually, but it's definitely not going to happen over night like a lot of people are wanting.

That kind of reminds me of what MovieBob said last week, where the problem isn't really with the content creator but with the audience, and also what Yahtzee said in his Let's Drown Out about the 'silent audience'. Basically, Yahtzee was talking about how the majority of consumers of anything don't really leave much feedback, and that people who are really vocal are in a minority. So there might be a lot of buzz around something new and innovative and progressive, but a silent majority just doesn't want to try it for whatever reason, and so it sells like crap. His example was internet review shows, where the reviewer makes up characters and has plotlines and skits with them, and hears alot of positive feedback from his fans. But your average joe is turned off by it, and instead of saying so or leaving a dislike, they just stop watching. Viewership declines despite all the positive feedback, and the reviewer is left scratching his head wondering what the hell is going on. This is why you get alot of critical darlings that people rave about (like, say, Psychonauts) that don't sell all that well.

Although when applying that to video games, that gets trickier since marketing gets involved. Figures indicate that games starring women sell less, but they also don't get as much marketing behind them, since people think they sell less, so they spend less money on marketing them. It's kind of a vicious cycle, really.

 

[Casual Shinji]

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!"

That's sorta what I was thinking, too.

I mean, what's the point of this article exactly? To say that the AAA industry lacks diversive protagonists, because studios and publishers are allergic to risks due to the millions upon millions of dollars they stand to miss out on? Uhm... no shit?

When did anyone say Nintendo were homophobic for Tomodachi Life or that Ubisoft were sexist pigs for not incorperating female character options in Unitiy? I think the general consensus among the community here was that this state of affairs fucking sucks, and that gaming needs to get its shit in order if it ever wants to mature past puberty.

 

[Lono Shrugged]

Yahtzee, knowing when to put down the club and start making some glue out of the dead fucking horse...

Such a refreshing article

 

[srpilha]

It [feminism] 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. (snip)

Let me guess, you're a white cis-gendered heterosexual man with some reasonable (or even very good) education and no glaring financial problems, right? This is not an accusation, mind you, just a description. You're certainly not entirely responsible for most it, so no blaming here.

But notice that you're doing quite exactly what U-238 was criticizing in games and in society at large: you're dismissing serious issues as not being the "real" problem, mainly because they don't affect you directly and you can't see any relation between them and other problems which are closer to you, and/or because those issues haven't become so violent and clear-cut as to warrant immediate condemnation from you.

(In other words, and as it was present in Yahtzee's text, you're position is equivalent to "homophobia/misogyny as active hatred is a real problem, but just not considering gay people/women as equals, "passively" as it were, is not". BTW, the latter is homophobia/misogyny too.)

I get it that you may not at all be touched by sexism against women in all of its forms. Lucky you. It's still a very real problem and yes, minimizing it DOES make it worse.

"Why do feminists often fight more for women's rights than men's rights if they're about equality, then?", you may ask. That's because men *already* have lots of rights and humongous amounts of privileges. Many, many of these privileges oppress women and make our society a worse place for them than for men. So yeah, balancing things out does mean cutting some of those privileges back a bit. Tough luck.

If activism is about equality, you could also ask why there isn't a "straight pride parade", for instance. Except there is. On every other street, every day of the year.

So yeah, let's check our privileges, hm?

 

[Fireaxe]

And while one could certainly find individual cases of misogyny in action, I think the broader explanation is that less women are game designers for the same reason that less men are fashion editors: they are less likely to consider it an option because of societal gender roles. Which are ingrained into us from birth because of instincts we have retained from our evolutionary history that we may no longer require.

People say this about a lot of things, from math and engineering to housekeeping, to the finance market, to e-sports. I've never been comfortable with it as an argument. Sure societal pressures, and even evolutionary ones, exist. That doesn't mean they shouldn't be challenged or changed though. The way you change them is to correct individual instances and hope that eventually it builds up to a critical mass. There are times when "everyone does it" and "its always been this way" are valid excuses, but they don't always work.

Expectations and roles are not challenged by misdirected outrage that vanishes overnight and holier than thou moral parading such as we see in these discussions, they are changed by people disproving them; if women want more games made by women, aimed at women, and with female protagonists, then they could perhaps try their hand at making some and see if they sell -- if talented female game designers show up and make games that sell well then the industry will change, it will not be overnight, but it will change.

 

[FFMaster]

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?

How is that offensive? No seriously you need to tell me, because all i can see is them stating that they were not making a social commentary, which they were not. People started with the "by existing you are making one" argument but by that argument they have been telling Italians to do mushrooms since 1985.

Why is it in gaming that you cannot make a game to be a game? In the movie industry you can make a movie not to make a point or have any sodding bearing on social issues (unless human centipede is trying to tell us something about life, can't really think what it would be saying) but with games all games have to tow the social line? Is this really an example of the industry maturing?

I think they should have added same sex relationships into the game. I also think that level of hate its getting for not having the feature is manufactured a bit by the press bigging up the significance of it and making it seem like the be all and end all of issues.

(In other words, and as it was present in Yahtzee's text, you're position is equivalent to "homophobia/misogyny as active hatred is a real problem, but just not considering gay people/women as equals, "passively" as it were, is not". BTW, the latter is homophobia/misogyny too.)

No its not, sexism and misogyny are not synonyms. Something can be sexist without being misogynist. But it would be hard to be misogynistic without being sexist.

So yeah, let's check our privileges, hm?

The "I'm having my cake and eating it too" ending to any debate, and is ironically very damming to equality as you are saying that unless you are part of this group you aren't allowed to comment.

 

[hermes]

Thank you, Yahtzee. Thank you.

After MovieBob and Jim's articles on the issue, I thought every writer on the escapist was going to go for the easy "emotional" approach just to generate controversy and click bait, showing no savviness in development or project management.

 

[Dragonbums]

Tomodachi Life had relationships between two men but Nintendo patched them out because they weren't "whimsical" enough.

And this right here is exactly the kind of misinformation that lead to the shitstorm in the first place.

Tomodachi life never had an option to have two men marry. The screenshots you saw seeing such was simply Japanese players making their female Mii's look and sound male and having them marry other male Miis.

The patch in question was to resolve a bug issue where there was a corruption in Mii transfers that resulted in random assignment in gender of the Miis on top of their original stated gender, prevented saving, crashed the game, and to extreme extents, damaged the 3DS itself. That was what the bug was.

 

[Zombie Badger]

B) gay marriage is illegal in japan and is considered an illegal act, on the same par with drug use in videogames in the west that jump ratings up.

Gay marriage is not illegal there it's just not recognised by the government. They'll just ignore you rather than arrest you. In fact to quote wikipedia:

Since May 15, 2012, the Tokyo Disney Resort has allowed symbolic (not government recognized) same-sex marriage ceremonies in its Cinderella's Castle hotel.[3] On March 3, 2013, its first same-sex marriage was held.[4] Koyuki Higashi married her partner, who was only identified by the name Hiroko.[5]

 

[Something Amyss]

A game like Mass Effect can get away with using the same animations for both sexes, because the character doesn't do much more than run, shoot, and crouch behind walls. It's a far bigger job in Assassin's Creed, which features much more complex interactions with the environment.

Of course, they reused Connor's animations for Aveline in IV. And you can't particularly tell me Unity would be a bigger problem, as they were willing to make Aveline-specific missions for a platform-exclusive. And they've had other animated women in the games.

But no, Ubisoft doesn't hate women specifically because of this, nor is Nintendo specifically homophobic for Tomodachi life (though, ironically, many of Nintendo's biggest apologists were the ones painting them as homophobic and conservative because IT'S JUST THEIR CUltURE!!!!!).

Are people really "hating them" for this, though?

~ In the early 21st century, it is commonly assumed (here in the US) that the people of Japan are incapable of expanding their social comfort zone because they are yellow barbarians (or whatever) and can't help themselves.

You know, I know this is part of a greater demonstration, but I do find it funny the number of people who are just like "oh, Japan is naturally homophobic/misogynistic" when the polls I see out of Japan puts them only slightly behind the US, where most of these comments originate.

And while your example is hyperbolic and I doubt anyone would actually call Japan "yellow barbarians," I can't help but wonder. If they're so bass ackwards and incapable of change, what the hell are we?

 

[Something Amyss]

B) gay marriage is illegal in japan and is considered an illegal act, on the same par with drug use in videogames in the west that jump ratings up.

Except it's not illegal. You can even get married there if you're a foreigner who could legally get married otherwise. Same sex unions are not legally recognised by the state, but that's a far cry from illegality.

 

[Sticky]

A game like Mass Effect can get away with using the same animations for both sexes, because the character doesn't do much more than run, shoot, and crouch behind walls. It's a far bigger job in Assassin's Creed, which features much more complex interactions with the environment.

Of course, they reused Connor's animations for Aveline in IV.

But no, Ubisoft doesn't hate women specifically because of this, nor is Nintendo specifically homophobic for Tomodachi life (though, ironically, many of Nintendo's biggest apologists were the ones painting them as homophobic and conservative because IT'S JUST THEIR CUltURE!!!!!).

Are people really "hating them" for this, though?

Which in itself is VERY LAZY, maybe they realize that they are unable to actually get away with doing that twice in a row without people seriously noticing that it looks terrible to just drop his animations onto a completely different character model.

And, in my opinion, in the context of 'Are people really hating them for this'? I feel the answer is: They should be, but for completely different reasons than the ones we have been discussing surrounding that game. I seriously haven't seen anyone rail on Ubisoft lately for being such animation recycling whores regarding AC outside the realms of internet forums. It genuinely makes me wonder if some of the industry people are not blind.

You know, I know this is part of a greater demonstration, but I do find it funny the number of people who are just like "oh, Japan is naturally homophobic/misogynistic" when the polls I see out of Japan puts them only slightly behind the US, where most of these comments originate.

And while your example is hyperbolic and I doubt anyone would actually call Japan "yellow barbarians," I can't help but wonder. If they're so bass ackwards and incapable of change, what the hell are we?

I take the option that the entire idea that Japan or America in themselves have something inherent to apologize for when someone finds a personal flaw in a game made in those countries is a strawman laced with confirmation bias about a problem that is muddy and when applied in some cases doesn't exist. And that the search for games and companies to dogpile on confuses the issue at hand and is a general disservice to the conversation about the industry. And really, there's no reason to apply extreme hyperbole to a problem where, in itself, is hyperbole in nature.

 

[malnin]

Games may not be released in a vacuum but in some ways they are made in one. since they take multiple years of your life you will want to tell your story without compromises as much as possible, and if you are a white-male-game designer (or should i say cis-male, god help the tumbler kids if i forget to emphasis it's a cis-male) your story if going to be one of a white male. It's human nature to right stories about characters with the same ethnicity and gender as yourself, at least at first.

 

[Something Amyss]

Which in itself is VERY LAZY, maybe they realize that they are unable to actually get away with doing that twice in a row without people seriously noticing that it looks terrible to just drop his animations onto a completely different character model.

Well, one of the issues is that they've been accused of recycling animations quite frequently, though they deny it. I keep reading former devs have confirmed this, though I'm yet to find a primary source.

I doubt that this is the one time they decided to not be lazy, though. I'm betting that some obsessive fan will look at the assets of the game and find they've done it again or some such.

And, in my opinion, in the context of 'Are people really hating them for this'? I feel the answer is: They should be, but for completely different reasons than the ones we have been discussing surrounding that game. I seriously haven't seen anyone rail on Ubisoft lately for being such animation recycling whores regarding AC outside the realms of internet forums. It genuinely makes me wonder if some of the industry people are not blind.

I meant specifically "for being homophobic/misogynistic."

Most of the comments I saw regarding sexism/homophobia were on the defensive end, either saying something to the effect of "how DARE (person X) accuse them of sexism/homophobia(even though they never said such thing)!" or in the case of Nintendo "of course they're homophobic! Japan is a homophobic, xenophobic, sexist, racist country!"

People really should be railing against Ubisoft for being lazy, though. Makes me wonder why they need 300 dev teams per game. They get a longer dev cycle than most games, to boot.

I take the option that the entire idea that Japan or America in themselves have something inherent to apologize for when someone finds a personal flaw in a game made in those countries is a strawman laced with confirmation bias about a problem that is muddy and when applied in some cases doesn't exist. And that the search for games and companies to dogpile on confuses the issue at hand and is a general disservice to the conversation about the industry. And really, there's no reason to apply extreme hyperbole to a problem where, in itself, is hyperbole in nature.

I was more wondering "if you're going to assume that (whole nation is Y), what does that say about (nation which is similar). I don't buy the cultural excuse, but it's more a thought experiment since it's been coming up and specifically from Americans.

 

[Something Amyss]

Games may not be released in a vacuum but in some ways they are made in one. since they take multiple years of your life you will want to tell your story without compromises as much as possible, and if you are a white-male-game designer (or should i say cis-male, god help the tumbler kids if i forget to emphasis it's a cis-male) your story if going to be one of a white male. It's human nature to right stories about characters with the same ethnicity and gender as yourself, at least at first.

And that's why Harry Potter is a girl: human nature.

 

[Lugbzurg]

"When you cry hatred where none exists, you do nothing but weaken your position. You will persuade no-one to a cause by associating it with unfounded hysteria."

This... I like this bit a lot. I'll be keeping this in my quotes file!