Jimquisition: Dragon's Frown
- Thread starter Jimothy Sterling
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That's something I never understood! I mean, I'm no professional anything, and I can dig up info that's made believers out of skeptics. Stuff that people can't argue, can't give evidence against, or at least generally concede to me that there is bloody sexism in the gaming industry.Lugun said:
We all know the news -hates- videogames.
I guess all they want to do is link it to violence?
I don't understand. Uncovering sexism in the industry could litterally gore the game industry because, by definition it exists. It'd create a massive storm of chaos, ratings, and viewings, IMO.
It can't be a matter of taking games seriously enough to do that. They don't really take games serious now, and love linking it to violence.
I'm not saying the news should, or shouldn't do this, but still.
If there's a single review that should be commented on, it's Kotaku's review. You know how Kotaku was criticizing the game for the art style before the game came out, turning it into a multi-article click-fest and creating a controversy?
Well, in their review, the reviewer is like: "Well, the art style is weird at first, but it quickly fades from your mind and you get to enjoy the game for what it is."
Gee, thanks Kotaku. Good to know you made a mountain out of a molehill.
Well, in their review, the reviewer is like: "Well, the art style is weird at first, but it quickly fades from your mind and you get to enjoy the game for what it is."
Gee, thanks Kotaku. Good to know you made a mountain out of a molehill.
I would hope by now someone would have touched on this. While there is some merit to this issue for its other applications (albeit rarely enough one must wonder why it is even brought up as an issue) the reason for this and the outrage is because of the dragons crown review issue, which brings it to the actual point. It is not so much that the community is unable to cope with conflicting opinions. It is not that the community demands homogenized scoring, and that there cannot be opinions expressing dissent or diverting from the norm. The problem and much of the backlash here has so little if anything to do with score equilibrium, even if it cannot be directly and outwardly expressed that this IS the reason it has everything to do with being resentful and tired of seeing this sort of outrage not against the game, but because of gender biased resentment at the artistic depictions in the game and not failing to call bullshit when a review is trying to pass off personal prejudice and bias as legitimate and thoughtful critique.
Despite this whole sexism issue related to DC long before its actual release amounting to uncut deceased equine pummeling, you have a review by Danielle Riendeau (blurry video, not sure if spelling correct) that focuses on the issue of sexism and using this review to not so much to actually review the game but as yet another soapbox to express ones personal offense. The failing of it is if you read the entire review you encounter a review that is virtually all praise and expresses its one negative take as "alienating and gross". Then to be bestowed a rating that guts 1/3rd of its potential score, with essentially no other reason justifying such an incredible reduction of its score, the only thing one can attribute the poor score to is the single negative focus being the artistic depictions the reviewer cites as negative. So it becomes clear that because no other evidence is supplied by the reviewer, the reviewer chose to gut the score of this game for personal offense at the artistic depictions.
Now for all the clamor of gamers being unreasonable, histories of Meta-bombing reviews and reviewers, Generally bad and unkempt behavior that has helped earn the loathsome rep gamers have often generated, this is in fact an instance where the community is actually being reasonable and logical. Its not wrong to take off points because of things you do not like or express dissent and unpopular opinions. But it is in fact very much wrong to take such action too far and grossly critique something due to not only a personal opinion, but one of an opinion that is rooted in subjective tastes, of which while many may in fact be put off by, others will have no problem with at all.
To put it in other words, this is like one reviewer writes a glowing review for Halo 4, but kills the score of the review because they are personally offended by both green and blue which the game makes entirely too much use of.
So the review itself smacks of cramming more PC anti sexism down the throats of an already emasculated "male guilt" public. Defending it is even worse because it smacks of pandering PC "tolerance" just for the sake of projecting a view of being "tolerant" Bad form.
Despite this whole sexism issue related to DC long before its actual release amounting to uncut deceased equine pummeling, you have a review by Danielle Riendeau (blurry video, not sure if spelling correct) that focuses on the issue of sexism and using this review to not so much to actually review the game but as yet another soapbox to express ones personal offense. The failing of it is if you read the entire review you encounter a review that is virtually all praise and expresses its one negative take as "alienating and gross". Then to be bestowed a rating that guts 1/3rd of its potential score, with essentially no other reason justifying such an incredible reduction of its score, the only thing one can attribute the poor score to is the single negative focus being the artistic depictions the reviewer cites as negative. So it becomes clear that because no other evidence is supplied by the reviewer, the reviewer chose to gut the score of this game for personal offense at the artistic depictions.
Now for all the clamor of gamers being unreasonable, histories of Meta-bombing reviews and reviewers, Generally bad and unkempt behavior that has helped earn the loathsome rep gamers have often generated, this is in fact an instance where the community is actually being reasonable and logical. Its not wrong to take off points because of things you do not like or express dissent and unpopular opinions. But it is in fact very much wrong to take such action too far and grossly critique something due to not only a personal opinion, but one of an opinion that is rooted in subjective tastes, of which while many may in fact be put off by, others will have no problem with at all.
To put it in other words, this is like one reviewer writes a glowing review for Halo 4, but kills the score of the review because they are personally offended by both green and blue which the game makes entirely too much use of.
So the review itself smacks of cramming more PC anti sexism down the throats of an already emasculated "male guilt" public. Defending it is even worse because it smacks of pandering PC "tolerance" just for the sake of projecting a view of being "tolerant" Bad form.
@viranimus: The problem with that line of thinking is you are expecting game critics to be fair and unbiased. That simply is not the case. A review is meant to be a subjective, personal response to the technical, emotional, and underlying aspects of whatever is being reviewed. It sums up how the critic feels about something and whether they would recommend it or not. Several small problems or one significant factor can weigh the whole experience down. As long as the critic stays on topic with the subject itself, it's fair game.
I did not see anything in Riendeau's review that was not relevant to Dragon's Crown. She praised the game's art style, and while she did find the Amazon and Sorceress explicitly sexualized, she praised them as powerful characters. Her problem was with the majority of female NPCs encountered in the game, how most of them were portrayed as barely clothed damsels in distress the likes of which you would find in Conan. I bet she would not consider that a factor if there just happened to be three or four, but the high number of imprisoned women in the game and the lack of females in supporting roles dragged the experience down for her.
That wasn't her only problem. Repetitive game-play, combat, and backtracking through the same environments also got on her nerves. I don't have an opinion on the game itself, but considering her complaints, I can see why she would give a 6.5/10. Heck, I expected lower from her.
The problem I have with the current format is that no one reads reviews. Viewers only see the number and call it pandering or close minded. Many of these negative responders are in denial. They want most games to be great. They want to see new IPs succeed. But they don't want to see some franchises repackaging the same game-play mechanics again and again. The same happens with every game, Dragon's Crown happens to be this week's topic.
I did not see anything in Riendeau's review that was not relevant to Dragon's Crown. She praised the game's art style, and while she did find the Amazon and Sorceress explicitly sexualized, she praised them as powerful characters. Her problem was with the majority of female NPCs encountered in the game, how most of them were portrayed as barely clothed damsels in distress the likes of which you would find in Conan. I bet she would not consider that a factor if there just happened to be three or four, but the high number of imprisoned women in the game and the lack of females in supporting roles dragged the experience down for her.
That wasn't her only problem. Repetitive game-play, combat, and backtracking through the same environments also got on her nerves. I don't have an opinion on the game itself, but considering her complaints, I can see why she would give a 6.5/10. Heck, I expected lower from her.
The problem I have with the current format is that no one reads reviews. Viewers only see the number and call it pandering or close minded. Many of these negative responders are in denial. They want most games to be great. They want to see new IPs succeed. But they don't want to see some franchises repackaging the same game-play mechanics again and again. The same happens with every game, Dragon's Crown happens to be this week's topic.
Except like you. I too read the article and watched the video. You take some serious liberties with what I said to draw your conclusion. Quipps likeLifeCharacter said:
shows you did not get the first line of my post
Showing that you are either splitting hairs over an optional comma (or you could replace "an opinion rooted in subjective tastes" with "Something as subjective as taste" or were simply oblivious to the fact that I WAS saying that all opinions are subjective.
Then to even go so far as to suggest a failing in my reasoning by not respecting bias.... by completely ignoring the part where I absolutely DID acknowledge bias and where I illustrated how this specific article does in fact demonstrate a disparity between simple bias and belligerence.
And while you might want to point to numbers likeMe said:
to which I see a completely different summation in that out of the "negatives" expressed. Out of an article with technical descriptions and mostly well received the only negatives that were expressed was the offense taken, and as others have cited the "repetitive game play".
Now when someone uses phrasing and terminology like "dulled my excitement." and " as frustrating as the grind became" at its worst that clearly specifies that the authors issue taken with the repetitiveness is a trivial concern as was further reinforced by continuing on to say "Vanillaware's aesthetic decisions were much more alienating." and reinforced further still by using phrases like "presented as helpless objects" awa "alienating and gross" by virtue of using phrases expressing a greater level of severity. Dull and repetitive convey infinitely less dissatisfaction than phrases turned for condescension and disgust.
So to find the repetitiveness how she portrays it as not pleasant but not so much as to kill the enjoyment, how much would get knocked off for tolerable repetitiveness? On a 10 point scale. half a point? Whole point? Two points? Three? But we see the game loose 3.5 total points summarizing all its negatives. And there is where we see this for what it is. Expressing an opinion and bias is one thing. It is quite another to base the bulk of your opinion on how you are personally biased that will potentially have no impact on the player while the negative that likely will is presented as comparatively insignificant.
So I suggest we might want to hold off on concern for who read what and save the gratuitous and glib attitude for times when we dont have to resort to adding non existent context and ignoring other points to base a position. To make such jumps it does call in question if it is done out of truly believing partial comprehension or just participating in knee jerk reactionary behavior of going along with the crowd.
@ If it is not important enough to call my attention then I cannot be compelled to acknowledge Twit-speak, though by virtue of simply repeating the same mantra, the points have been amply addressed.
And I seeLifeCharacter said:
Is being pushed up the hill again.
You are still cherry picking what I have written, Focusing in on what you are trying to spin and shying away, ignoring or outright falsifying things I did say.
Im not going to go into complete dissection quotes but to simply give a couple quick examples,
"So, it's wrong to critique something on something as subjective as personal taste? "
- And as I said BOTH in my original OP and my response to you there is nothing wrong with expressing an opinion on something based on personal tastes. The disparity enters when ones personal taste IS the focus of their negativity and again when that personal opinion may or may not have any impact on other players at all. What so many seem oblivious to is that this is not or ever has been about simply expressing an opinion. It is expressing an opinion ON an opinion.
"Where does it say that the bulk of her decision is based on the depiction of women?"
- Which I explained. It is said by virtue of under emphasizing the importance of the repetitiveness factor.
"So, what would you like her to say about the repetitiveness other than it dulled her enjoyment and frustrated her?"
- Perhaps if it is enough to warrant this massive reduction in score as you suggest, that people are trying to inflate and spin so as they can behave as if this isnt in fact sexism, then it is enough to warrant terminology that conveys severity appropriate to that level. Such as saying "the repetitiveness takes a game with great potential and leaves it in an almost if not completely intolerable state." Or "with such forced back tracking it effectively ruins the game or any enjoyment that can be had from it" See, it is not difficult to use language to appropriately convey differing levels of response effectively. If the reviewer WAS trying to make the repetitiveness out to be that big of an issue, the phrasing would have been far more severe and not specifically written in such a way that purposely denotes it being at a tolerable level.
"And that's ignoring the big issue of repetitiveness"
- No, that is defending sexism by trying to make only negative not focused on sexism into being the "big" issue when the authors words and language specifically conveyed it as NOT being the big issue.
- "Vanillaware's aesthetic decisions were much more alienating."
Literally that is trying take the words out of the reviewers mouth, reassemble them to inflate the severity of another issue to rationalize one form of sexism and denounce another.
"Having your enjoyment dulled and becoming frustrated are both pretty damning statements"
- Do you even understand what dulled, becoming, or damning for that matter even mean? Dulled: diminished, NOT completely removed or destroyed. Becoming: In the process of, Not yet accomplished. Damning: to condemn, doom or leave without hope of recourse or improvement. NEITHER of those phrases represent ANYTHING that is forever beyond hope. This is clearly hitting a language barrier.
See here is the problem. This is why this got started. What we got here is failure to communicate. This is the product of the failure to grasp figurative and literal. This is what happens when generations are not properly taught their native language and how to effectively use it. Words are tools of great power. With a simple alteration of a single word you can change its context and meaning completely. While many words can be used interchangeably, they also represent their own structure and connotation with some conveying a far more serious tone than others. Failure in its use leads to misinterpretations, misunderstandings, confusion and animosity which is what this has been reduced down to.
- And as I said BOTH in my original OP and my response to you there is nothing wrong with expressing an opinion on something based on personal tastes. The disparity enters when ones personal taste IS the focus of their negativity and again when that personal opinion may or may not have any impact on other players at all. What so many seem oblivious to is that this is not or ever has been about simply expressing an opinion. It is expressing an opinion ON an opinion.
"Where does it say that the bulk of her decision is based on the depiction of women?"
- Which I explained. It is said by virtue of under emphasizing the importance of the repetitiveness factor.
"So, what would you like her to say about the repetitiveness other than it dulled her enjoyment and frustrated her?"
- Perhaps if it is enough to warrant this massive reduction in score as you suggest, that people are trying to inflate and spin so as they can behave as if this isnt in fact sexism, then it is enough to warrant terminology that conveys severity appropriate to that level. Such as saying "the repetitiveness takes a game with great potential and leaves it in an almost if not completely intolerable state." Or "with such forced back tracking it effectively ruins the game or any enjoyment that can be had from it" See, it is not difficult to use language to appropriately convey differing levels of response effectively. If the reviewer WAS trying to make the repetitiveness out to be that big of an issue, the phrasing would have been far more severe and not specifically written in such a way that purposely denotes it being at a tolerable level.
"And that's ignoring the big issue of repetitiveness"
- No, that is defending sexism by trying to make only negative not focused on sexism into being the "big" issue when the authors words and language specifically conveyed it as NOT being the big issue.
- "Vanillaware's aesthetic decisions were much more alienating."
Literally that is trying take the words out of the reviewers mouth, reassemble them to inflate the severity of another issue to rationalize one form of sexism and denounce another.
"Having your enjoyment dulled and becoming frustrated are both pretty damning statements"
- Do you even understand what dulled, becoming, or damning for that matter even mean? Dulled: diminished, NOT completely removed or destroyed. Becoming: In the process of, Not yet accomplished. Damning: to condemn, doom or leave without hope of recourse or improvement. NEITHER of those phrases represent ANYTHING that is forever beyond hope. This is clearly hitting a language barrier.
See here is the problem. This is why this got started. What we got here is failure to communicate. This is the product of the failure to grasp figurative and literal. This is what happens when generations are not properly taught their native language and how to effectively use it. Words are tools of great power. With a simple alteration of a single word you can change its context and meaning completely. While many words can be used interchangeably, they also represent their own structure and connotation with some conveying a far more serious tone than others. Failure in its use leads to misinterpretations, misunderstandings, confusion and animosity which is what this has been reduced down to.
I will not continue to give further fodder to be misinterpreted and spin doctored into a perception of sexism when the sexism involved here is treating this reviewer as this damsel in distress that needs defending and cannot endure the review being called out on its flaws. Yanno...
"If they ... have a crappy argument supporting their view, then they're a bad reviewer and their criticism could be called bad or something."
So seeings as we are communicating on two different planes anyway, there really is no justification to try continue reasoning that will just end up misinterpreted anyway. If you are determined to beat such misinterpretation and woefully malformed assumptions into the ground, it is not my place to try and stop you. I wish you the best of luck with that.
Have to say after beating the game, I didn't even bother looking at the reviews, knew i was gonna get it, Atlus and Vanillaware damn it. But had to be like "Who says bad about my damn dragon crown! Wargarble." but ya I get it. Sucks the game is getting dragged through the mud for artwork and not the game is pretty crappy but screw'em. The games good, really good and thats all that matters ;p.
I don't mind someone not rating a game highly. I don't mind someone not liking a game I like. But that isn't the issue, Jim. The issue is the reviewer writing a bad review. That's really all. This reviewer chose to view this game through the 'everything is sexist against women" lens, and people did not like it. Not one bit.
I apologize if this has been asked before, because it probably has, but; what's the deal with the shrimp? And other crustaceans? A whole lot of Jimquisition videos seem to have them.
I'll tell you why... its because people have been conditioned by the mainstream media, to be all excited about bad news. Thats all you here from tv, newspapers and media bloggers. People like controversy and bad news because it puts a bit of excitment into their dreary lives. I couldn't give a fuck what the review scores are, just if the reviewer that I personally trust gave their say. The one review site that I know that gives games a fair go and gives their honest opinion. Thats the only review that I care about, so I can't understand why other people get pissed off that some stranger, some reviewer they don't care about, says something bad...
and even if only the people who "trust in" polygon reviews are the ones complaining.. that doesn't make sense either. Because if you trust in your reviewer, you would respect their opinion, even if they disagree with your opinion.
Jim is absolutely right, this is so disrespectful to the creators of Dragons Crown.
and even if only the people who "trust in" polygon reviews are the ones complaining.. that doesn't make sense either. Because if you trust in your reviewer, you would respect their opinion, even if they disagree with your opinion.
Jim is absolutely right, this is so disrespectful to the creators of Dragons Crown.
I can honestly see an "Overal enjoyment" type score in the old magazines too and that technically could be a 2 if the person really disliked it for that reason. Though were that the case, her editor should have instantly kicked the review off until it was turned into a form which the average consumer would actually have some use for.Oban said:
Feminists aren't a big portion of gamers so to aim an entire review from their perspective would be like reviewing from the perspective of world war 2 reenactors or something. Just...wholly irrelevant and a needless taint on the game's record.
So many ways to attack this one.
For starters, there's a chance she might be predisposed (if unknowingly) towards giving the game a bad review because Dragon Crown is a Sony exclusive and she works for a website that is in bed with Microsoft. Wouldn't be the first time Polygon flew well outside the norm with seemingly specific regard to a Sony exclusive.
Secondably: she doesn't like the aesthetic, fine, we get that. So why is she reviewing the game when it's clearly not aimed at her? She's more than welcome to register her disapproval in any number of alternate formats (editorial, blog, review sidebar, "second take", etc.), but the official review of a product from a purportedly unbiased website should have some respect for context. You don't penalize an indie game for having minimalist graphics. You don't penalize a war simulation for having violence. Why would you penalize this game for doing what it sets out to do? You can certainly argue that the art is in bad taste, but it isn't of poor quality.
Finally: it's really just click-baiting. The "sexism in video games" bit is the latest non-controversy to be spit out by the internet's all powerful echo chamber, so of course a gaming "journalist" is going to capitalize as best she can. Because that's how she fucking eats. I'm not going to begrudge her the harsh reality of the situation, but I'm not going to respect her output either. It's an artistic/entertainment medium. There are going to be things you don't like about it, but you don't get to just shout them down and wipe them out. Games with this level of overt sexism are complete outliers at this point, but we're pretending they're the norm just to push click-through. It's insultingly manipulative.
There are legitimate criticisms to be made regarding Dragon's Crown. If her review had delved into more of those, people would have taken her stance more seriously. Instead, with her mostly harping on the game's very intentional aesthetic, she looks like someone from Florida giving a disparaging review of a snow shovel. Then we've got people mining the comments sections of all these websites as if that's some indicator of ANYTHING. Newsflash: the comments section of anything on the internet is nothing but trolling and/or racism/homophobia/misogyny/cruelty/sociopathy/psychopathy. When you reference a comments section in any serious discussion, you've already lost.
At the same time, maybe this is a good example of how difficult it is to review video games. Can you review it like a movie? Should an action film fan be reviewing The Notebook? Should a game like Silent Hill 2 get a pass on a lot of its wonky gameplay and play mechanics because the story is especially good? What about a game like Dragon's Crown with crap story and solid gameplay? There are so many ways to peel this particular onion, which almost sounds like a good reason to have these sorts of outlier reviews with new and interesting takes on the subject.
But her review didn't talk about any of that. Probably because she (and her boss) are comfortable becoming the story.
For starters, there's a chance she might be predisposed (if unknowingly) towards giving the game a bad review because Dragon Crown is a Sony exclusive and she works for a website that is in bed with Microsoft. Wouldn't be the first time Polygon flew well outside the norm with seemingly specific regard to a Sony exclusive.
Secondably: she doesn't like the aesthetic, fine, we get that. So why is she reviewing the game when it's clearly not aimed at her? She's more than welcome to register her disapproval in any number of alternate formats (editorial, blog, review sidebar, "second take", etc.), but the official review of a product from a purportedly unbiased website should have some respect for context. You don't penalize an indie game for having minimalist graphics. You don't penalize a war simulation for having violence. Why would you penalize this game for doing what it sets out to do? You can certainly argue that the art is in bad taste, but it isn't of poor quality.
Finally: it's really just click-baiting. The "sexism in video games" bit is the latest non-controversy to be spit out by the internet's all powerful echo chamber, so of course a gaming "journalist" is going to capitalize as best she can. Because that's how she fucking eats. I'm not going to begrudge her the harsh reality of the situation, but I'm not going to respect her output either. It's an artistic/entertainment medium. There are going to be things you don't like about it, but you don't get to just shout them down and wipe them out. Games with this level of overt sexism are complete outliers at this point, but we're pretending they're the norm just to push click-through. It's insultingly manipulative.
There are legitimate criticisms to be made regarding Dragon's Crown. If her review had delved into more of those, people would have taken her stance more seriously. Instead, with her mostly harping on the game's very intentional aesthetic, she looks like someone from Florida giving a disparaging review of a snow shovel. Then we've got people mining the comments sections of all these websites as if that's some indicator of ANYTHING. Newsflash: the comments section of anything on the internet is nothing but trolling and/or racism/homophobia/misogyny/cruelty/sociopathy/psychopathy. When you reference a comments section in any serious discussion, you've already lost.
At the same time, maybe this is a good example of how difficult it is to review video games. Can you review it like a movie? Should an action film fan be reviewing The Notebook? Should a game like Silent Hill 2 get a pass on a lot of its wonky gameplay and play mechanics because the story is especially good? What about a game like Dragon's Crown with crap story and solid gameplay? There are so many ways to peel this particular onion, which almost sounds like a good reason to have these sorts of outlier reviews with new and interesting takes on the subject.
But her review didn't talk about any of that. Probably because she (and her boss) are comfortable becoming the story.