Yeah, an actual conversation would be much prefered. I think I'll let the conversation stand as is. I'm having trouble figuring out exactly how your post is supposed to be read due to the way it has been spoilered but I'll figure it out while reading. A cursory glance before I continue reading is that you don't so much think there is a moral obligation for D.I.D. to be avoided so much as a claim against the quality of works that rely on it. This is contrary to Anita's stance that it is morally wrong in some way and behind the times. A statement that I believe is unwarranted and even oversteps itself to the point of being sexist in its own way (like claiming that it would be unethical to portray a black guy wearing baggy pants despite it being a valid style. Such a claim would imply that just the depiction of that race in certain scenarios is wrong which would itself be racist).Imp Emissary said:0_0 This may to shock you.Side note: Being overused isn't so much an issue to me, because I've "heard the story told once before". Otherwise we'd to make new words all the time while we talk.I see what you're talking about. I doubt any dev ever said, "Hey, lets be lazy so the game isn't as good as it could be."
That said, I don't believe that such action that could lead to one "doing a bad job" to be positive. Immoral or not, it's still a bad thing, that can lower quality.
Not that everyone has to be working themselves to death to get every bit of possible detail into a game. As you said, there are limits to what can be done. Time, money, technology, or perhaps the narrative of itself.
Almost all games have to leave things out so they can be finished on time/on budget.
However, if the end result is that game doesn't do what it's suppose to do because of laziness, then the fault is on the dev. This isn't an argument of "the slipery slope". Not attempting to write, or design your game to give the experience you set out to give isn't an extrapolation of what could possibly happen later. Not doing your job right directly leads to the job not being done well, with few exceptions.
If I'm suppose to care for a character, but the company doesn't try to give me a chance to care for them, that is their failure. There is a difference between leaving something purposely vague, and just not putting enough effort into it.
I'm glad you brought up "Shadow of the Colossus". Great game, and a great example of how to do this kind of thing vaguely.
I don't think I could say I cared much for the dead girl. How could I? I don't know really why she's dead, what her relation is to my character, or even what her name is. However, I can infer that my character does care for her, or at least wants her to stop being dead.
People always refer to these two in the game as a couple, but I never got much of a hint that that was for sure the story. But like you said, I know enough to make up my own story, and still want to know more about what's going on.
Even if I didn't care about the dead girl at all, there is still much in the game to motivate me to go further into it.
Exploring this world filled with interesting and challenging giant monsters, and wanting even to find out more about what's "really" going on. [sub][sub]:/ Though, even at the end I think we get more questions than answers, but in a good way. [/sub][/sub]
In the end I'm not even sure you should call Shadow of the Colossus a D.I.D.
I mean, she not really in much danger. Dead is dead. Not much more could be done after that. And as I said, I don't think you could say, based on the information given to you in the game, that your character is even doing this out of love for the girl. It could just be a mission, related to something more important than just bringing back one life.
Though, it is defiantly a story that has been told in other forms. <-[sub](Complete a great task, and bring the dead back to life.)[/sub]
SotC's clearly uses it's vagueness in it's storytelling. No, they shouldn't have given us more info, that would have kind of gone against it's point. It even ends in a way that has many asking if our character is the "good guy" or not. [sub](I think he was, but that's a different conversation.)[/sub]
In movies, they tell you to "show something, not tell someone something". Sometimes you can't show them everything, so you have to write in some way to tell the audience the info they need without making it obvious, and making sure they are satisfied with the information.
If the game has to tell me that I/my character cares for someone, and worse yet doesn't convince me to believe it, then that is a terrible mistake.
I shouldn't have to be told how I care about characters, I should be given a chance to become attached to them.
The issue is when people get lazy, don't actually tell a story, and just alert us that we got to go save someone we barley know.
In other words, it's them not telling the story well that's the problem.
It's about bad storytelling due to bad decisions.
Side Note: While archetypes can be useful in certain games, I don't agree that they are used so often because they are "more attractive". They are used because they are simpler, and familiar since they've been done before so often.Use of archetypes can be a weakness in some games, but as I pointed out in the last post, for the "main" Mario games, it's used as a strength.
Like with SotC and vagueness, the archetypes are used to quickly give us the info we need so we can get to the more important things in Mario games. Platforming, exploration, and fun gameplay.
If Mario games were more story oriented, then archetypes would probably not be the best choice. The Paper Mario RPGs are able to focus more on the characters because the gameplay is very different from the Platformer Mario games. As you pointed out, the genre of the game does effect what people look for in them, and what devs have to focus on.
Thus, it changes what they should look for in an audience, and how they should try to attract them.
That said, some games are able to successfully blend genres and appeal to multiple audiences. Games like Mass Effect, Fallout, Dragon Age, and The Elder Scrolls. Not only do they let you customize your characters, but they also add in different types of gameplay and game mechanics.
Though, there are a fair number of games that fail at this too, and not all can appeal to everyone.
There's a game for everyone, but there may not be a single game that can be for everyone.
Your analogy about the good food and shit food is off base. There have been successful games that don't adhere to tried character types, so they aren't bad, they're just different.
A better analogy to use would be that the restaurant chose to add different menu choices. Just because they want to also serve soup, doesn't mean they have to stop making pizza.
This leads me to my next point of contention. Why do you believe it to be so hard to appeal to both men and women.
I'll concede that it is oblivious that some game genres would be more appealing to men in general, and thus have more guy fans/customers. However, even if they may have fewer women fans, that doesn't mean they should act as though there are none, and not cater at all to them.
I don't think any reasonable person is asking devs to rework their entire games to appeal to people with completely different tastes. Nor that all games have/need to change.
The biggest change I've heard people ask for (people, not just women) have been options to play as women, or other races in games.
Of course, some games shouldn't comply with such requests all the time. It be odd to be able to play as a female asian american in WW2 in a "realistic" historical setting game. Unless it was a realistic alternate history game, but you get my point. There are many games where just having the option extra options wouldn't hurt the over all story, much less the gameplay.
True, these are not things that can just be done by ANY dev team. If the games are heavy on story, but not set up in the way BioWare, Bethesda, or Saints Row games are where the sex, and gender of the character aren't that related to the plot.
Then more than just different dialogue and character models have to be added.
Games like The Last of Us for example, would likely be a bit different in terms of writing if the genders of the characters were different. While I wouldn't say their genders are the most important part of them, it would be a bit off to have them gender swapped, but change nothing else. Such changes would cost money and work hours in relation to the level of change needed.
Same could be said of many games.
However, to bring up another point used before, other games can just have the pronouns changed, and BOOM! Link in Zelda Wind Waker is a girl.
And as you said, such things are already being done. Even better new IPs are being made with different types of characters as well.
I don't much like to write/type.
We're getting a bit broad with what we're talking about in this, and the size of our posts show it.
I have been having a nice time talking with ya, but it's getting a little taxing.
I will continue our conversation if you want to. Though, I'd prefer to talk about this instead.
I'll put together a brief summary of my responses (as brief as I can be) but don't feel obligated to respond:
Lower quality isn't the question here though. I think anyone can correctly complain against poor quality. But use of D.I.D. is not mutually exclusive regarding good work. There are some damn fine works of art surrounding D.I.D. that entirely sidestep any claim of D.I.D. including huge games in which D.I.D. is but one type of quest in the greater work.I see what you're talking about. I doubt any dev ever said, "Hey, lets be lazy so the game isn't as good as it could be."
That said, I don't believe that such action that could lead to one "doing a bad job" to be positive. Immoral or not, it's still a bad thing, that can lower quality.
Once it is admitted that D.I.D. can be done correctly and ethically then the entire Sarkesian argument against it falls apart. We have examples of very good games whose core plot is regarding the saving of other individuals in some way and so the issue stops being D.I.D. and starts being the quality of the writing. By that logic, D.I.D. isn't an issue at all. It merely becomes a plot mechanic that can be done well or poorly and anything in between.
I am discussing the viability of D.I.D. with you and your response is criticising laziness in writing. In effect, we are discussing two different topics despite having associated them through discourse. Regarding quality of writing, I will add that there is a subjective element to it. It is not unreasonable that some people simply don't like the D.I.D. mechanic in the same way I find using children/old people in the horror genre to be silly while other people crap their pants at it as intended. But you seem to acknowledge good D.I.D. works so that sidesteps this being a simple agree to disagree on subjective tastes. I would also posit that poor work can be the product of bad budgeting (not having enough time to do more work doesn't equate to laziness), lack of creativity, and a lack of skill to pull off more advanced concepts (incompetency), failure to notice the reduction in quality (it's hard to look at your own work objectively and say it's bad). So I wouldn't shoehorn all bad games that use this mechanic into the laziness category.
Shadow of the Colossus is absolutely D.I.D. The distress is the condition of being dead. Apparently, something CAN be done after that which is the entire point of the game. The damsel can be in distress even without her knowledge of the situation. Would you disagree that the point of the game is for the hero to save the girl? How is it different from a damsel that has been poisoned, sleeping beauty, person with X condition that needs remedied?
I didn't say that archetypes are more attractive simply as is. I said that vagueness can be more attractive because it allows the audience to project their own emotions and qualities on the entity. An archetype fills in basic parameters but leaves specifics more or less vague to leave room. For example, a goth girl archetype would express a handful of basic qualities but it's still up to the audience to fill that in based on personal experience. As to vagueness in general, for example, as a married man I can potentially project the qualities and characteristics of my wife on a damsel in distress whose actual qualities/characterstics are left undefined. This ends up being more meaningful to me than character types and qualities I find decidedly undesireable and let's face it, you should desire to save the damsel or the whole thing is shit. This has happened to me, where the damsel is whiney and useless and just comes off as a terrible person. And then, through the course of the game I watch with disdain as the hero foolishly falls in love with this terrible terrible character. These aren't lazily writen games. These are titles where the writers should have stopped before characterizing the individual so strongly but steamrolled through.Side Note: While archetypes can be useful in certain games, I don't agree that they are used so often because they are "more attractive". They are used because they are simpler, and familiar since they've been done before so often.
Women and men have different tastes. Several that are in direct competition with one another. Catering to one set of tastes can directly detract from suiting the other's set of tastes. For example, throwing in traditional romance themes into an action game can have an adverse effect of alienating the male audience. When you're talking about catering to 9% of your target audience at an adverse effect (even a small one) to 91% of your market then that's bad. You could potentially lose far more of the 91% while gaining very little of the 9%.This leads me to my next point of contention. Why do you believe it to be so hard to appeal to both men and women.
Tell me, how would you alter a standard action game to cater more to women without alienating men? I'm not just talking about not offending women but how to actually cater to them in a way that doesn't detract from the other side. I'm saying they're on a sliding scale and that pulling to one side pulls away from the other. Filling a romantic comedy with garish dirty humor usually detracts from the female marketbase while going heavily on the romance part plants the film firmly into chick flick territory which men typically avoid. So please give me an example of a game and specific ways it could have catered to another sex without losing its current target market.