Jimquisition: Neutered

Bruce

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JohnHayne said:
What I don't get is why, oh, why, people who complaint about this or that type of game just ignore them and invest more time and money on games they like?

Isn't "Because the industry don't make them" a bad excuse??

If I was a game designer and someone told me that my game is this or that, I would say: "Yeah, it is... This is how I made it... Do I force you play and like my games? So don't try to impose your view into my work".

The solution to the lack of certain content in game is resolved by creating new content, not trying to change other peoples work.
Okay. Then I won't buy your games. Good luck with that whole food thing.
 

ToastiestZombie

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Zachary Amaranth said:
There's little that Marston's appearance impacts in terms of narrative.
No, there's nothing directly in the narrative that references Marston being a moderately-sized person with a gruff, scar-ridden face wearing typical cowboy clothing, why would there? Or did I miss the part where the story shifts because you changed your clothing?

There is, however, elements in the story that reference him being male. The game is set in the end of the wild west in the early 1900's, where women were still seen as properties of their husbands and were mostly kept as housewives, the themes of the game include things like fatherhood and the tone is realistic (the zombie add-on isn't canon). Ever seen the movie True Grit? A lot of that movie is about the female main character having to deal with constant discrimination from males when trying to get anything done, because that's what it was like at that time; now imagine a game that tries to be historically and tonally accurate like RDR having a female protagonist who's gender all the men ignore. It'd be like a WW2 movie where a Jew in Nazi Germany doesn't face any problems because of their religion. You'd either have to add in all of that and dilute the story with things that don't pertain to any of the themes, or make it an incredibly jarring story.
 

kreekgod

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Dear Jim Sterling...

are you from the future?
you are playing games that are not out yet

please send some hyper advanced technology my way

-Kreek

ps (for those not in on the joke)
i know that he probably has review copies
 

Reeve

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Jim let me put this frankly: I don't give a fuck about your idea of what is or is not creative. I don't want all my games to be Saints Row [X] clones and I don't want all my games to be fucking liberal propaganda.

Where's my next good Duke Nukem game? :< Incidentally, what will the reaction to another one of those games be by the goons that have jumped on the SJW bandwagon? (You know, since even irony is a "no-no" to those bitching, drooling, coffee drinking, Percy Jackson lipped, pillow hugging, mongfucks)
 

hermes

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Jim, good on you for jumping in the defense of some opinions, controversial as they might be, of a recent videogame; but isn't this the same with every single nerd culture section? If I count only video games, we are among the most zealot defenders of status quo and reclusive opinions, afraid to look into ourselves and rabious about other people doing it.

Someone wants to talk about sexism? We cry foul. Someone wants to talk about violence? We cry foul. Someone wants to talk about rude language online? We cry foul. Someone wants to talk about immature titillation? We cry foul. We complain about everything that is new: Mass Effect 3 has male gay options? Rampage! Plus required for online multiplayer? Betrayal!

Personally, I am getting tired of all this irrational defense of status quo, and Jim, as a "brilliant game talkie man", I hope you support it by not feeding the flames.
 

synobal

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The boobs in Dragon's crown are dumb, not just the size but they way they move when she attacks is insane. I'd be embarrassed to just play it, much less pay money for it.
 

xPixelatedx

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My problem with the Dragon's crown review has nothing to do with the way it depicts women or any fear it might "change things" to be more inclusive... I honestly wouldn't care if every protagonist in every game was replaced with a completely normal (real human) woman. The problem has to do with the fact that it couldn't have been more obvious the review actually deducted points for critique of the art style. If this game was a painting or even an anime, I could understand. I might just be another random internet user with no notoriety to back up my opinions and reviews, but if I used such a scale to review games, I'd give most games 5's out of 10s and under. I don't like the "style" most games are depicted in now, especially 2.5D. I think 2.5D is lazy as shit, and a testament to how much effort the industry clearly doesn't want to put in. It's just another 3D game with a fixed camera angle... All to save on the workload and effort it would take to actually makes sprites, or make a real 3D game. I also hate gimmicky styles like Kirby's Epic Yarn. I honestly think this is poisoning gaming, that is my real opinion.
However, if I were reviewing games professionally, I would at least have the decency to not deduct points for that. I realize that games aren't there for just me to enjoy, and while I would need to review them, I have to also get past my obvious bias and be a bit more professional, especially if the game is pretty decent or good. Sure, I could judge a game based by art style, the political beliefs of it's creators or any other large controversial thing I could find "under the hood", but I don't think I would be a very good reviewer for doing that, and I don't think many people would trust me after, nor should they.

Also yeah, it would be more original to not have women who are big breasted or otherwise unrealistically depicted. They have been done to death, but if Hollywood has taught as anything, they'll always be around (especially now that the game industry wants to emulate Hollywood as much as possible). Sure, you can still complain about it and it's right to do so, but if you complain about all the 'movies' that use women as eyecandy (like Transformers) and deduct points specifically for that, then you aren't going to have much to see at the end of the day. Everything will upset you.
 

Hagi

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I have to say, I'm getting a bit tired of discussions like this. Not because Jim isn't making good points, he is. But rather because like almost all points being made in this discussion it's countering a point that doesn't really seem to exist outside of a few crazies.

We've got one side making the completely valid and good point that not all games should cater to the same niche audience and that there should be much more variety and difference available than what we're seeing now.

We've got the other side making the completely valid and good point that games that do cater to that niche audience have every right to exist and aren't inherently evil.

And then people start arguing with each other as if these two points are in opposition to each other, throwing strawmen around as if it's some sort of agricultural festival.

I mean seriously, is there anyone who actually believes that gaming shouldn't be more varied, that what we have now is all there should ever be, or that what we have now shouldn't be there at all and shouldn't be made ever again.
 

Shjade

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Monxeroth said:
Then again on the other hand in some cases it does have a fair point to dismiss the criticism when its not relevant in any way to the actual game.
For example: Does the sorceress breasts somehow lower the quality of the game? No, no it does not. Only mechanics and actual faults with the game can lower a games overrall quality in my opinion, not subjective personal nonsense like the artstyle not being appealing or the music not being received well by some. Whether you like something or not, its not a valid reason to critique a game for.

"How dare someone make a game with an artstyle that i dont find personally appealing, this game sucks"
It's a completely fair criticism, actually. If a game is visually unappealing it's less fun to play since, even if the mechanics are great, you have to watch crap to use those mechanics. This is more important to some people than others, but it's important.

For instance, even if I were a fan of platformers (I'm not particulary), I'd pass on all the Bit.Trip games simply because I really don't like the super-retro thing. It's fugly. Not interested. Does this mean I miss out on some otherwise great games? Probably. Do I care? Not really. When the screenshots alone are enough to turn me off to a game, that's the art style being a detriment to a game.
 

Ukomba

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Creativity is fine, but the more you try to jam every possible view point, fetish, race, creed, religion, ext, ext, ext limits the story you can tell with that character. They no longer have a set personality to drive the narrative with so can only be treated like an amorphous blob while the story goes on around them. You can point at bad games all you want, but how about good ones like Walking Dead? If you could select your gender, and race the game would have lost a lot since you can't write for all those possible variations. Look at Dragon Age, once your past the opening story, your race and gender are practically meaningless. Your other choices really only give you a token scene or two as well.

Traits for a character should be chosen based on the story they are trying to tell, not to please marketing or the PC whiners. If you can put some element of choice into the character generation, that's all well and good as long as it isn't to the detriment of the story.

The thing with slider bars is they really are only skin deep. Fiddle with them all you want, but the game is just going to ignore your choices in the end. In SWTOR the game can't tell if I'm a naked, fat, white cyborg covered in scars and sporting a mo-hock, or a slender stylish Asian looking guy, the interactions don't change. You can call that inclusive if you want, I call it meaningless.
 

lord.jeff

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I can't fully agree that forcing inclusion would encourage creativity but even if developers do get forced into making games that go outside of the box, it would be no worse then what we have now, where publishers snare at games that don't have a male dominating it. It's so bad that Dontnod had to fight to get Remember Me pushed forward with it's lead not suffering a gender swap. I don't believe we have to force developers to be more creative we just have to force out those that believe you can't sell anything but middle aged grizzled men or heaving mountains of bosom.
 

Silentpony_v1legacy

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erttheking said:
Silentpony said:
I don't get how you can have it both ways. How you can say include everyone but don't appeal to a wider audience. Jim has always been a fan of niche games, horror being his favorite genre, but when Dead Space 3 came out, a game designed to be an inoffensive and inclusive as possible, he hated it. Didn't he say in a lot of videos that if a game has a small but loyal fanbase, that's awesome? Well how about now?! If you defend a game that has a small fanbase, by implication not appealing to a wider audience, AND rant and rave against the homogenization of games to appeal to a wider audience, how can you do a video saying the exact opposite?
He flat out said that there was a difference between being more inclusive and appealing to a wider audience. And let's face facts when people say "we want to appeal to a wider audience" they mean "We want Call of Duty fans" That is what Jim criticizes.
Right, no, I got that. He DID say there was a difference. My question is what? What is the difference? How are they different? Just saying there is one isn't the same...
 

2xDouble

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Hey Jim... that's not what "neutered" means. Don't get me wrong - I agree with more or less everything you said here - but "neutering" a game, at least in my vernacular, refers to the reduction of gender and gender issues to irrelevance. The Saints Row series (particularly 3 and 4) is a perfect example of neutering a game explicitly for the sake of inclusiveness. You can be/do/love whatever/whoever you want because it doesn't mean anything at all. It's no different than Fable; the characters are interchangeable, semi-randomized dolls that all react the same way, with slightly different voices.

Should gender have meaning or carry weight in a video game? Some would argue that it should, while others (myself included) couldn't care less. I think the real question is: CAN gender have meaning or carry weight in a game without being restrictive to any "side" or playing into stereotypes? or must it always be denigrated to surface fluff in the name of "fairness"?
 

Erttheking

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Silentpony said:
erttheking said:
Silentpony said:
I don't get how you can have it both ways. How you can say include everyone but don't appeal to a wider audience. Jim has always been a fan of niche games, horror being his favorite genre, but when Dead Space 3 came out, a game designed to be an inoffensive and inclusive as possible, he hated it. Didn't he say in a lot of videos that if a game has a small but loyal fanbase, that's awesome? Well how about now?! If you defend a game that has a small fanbase, by implication not appealing to a wider audience, AND rant and rave against the homogenization of games to appeal to a wider audience, how can you do a video saying the exact opposite?
He flat out said that there was a difference between being more inclusive and appealing to a wider audience. And let's face facts when people say "we want to appeal to a wider audience" they mean "We want Call of Duty fans" That is what Jim criticizes.
Right, no, I got that. He DID say there was a difference. My question is what? What is the difference? How are they different? Just saying there is one isn't the same...
Because frankly more games designed to reel in COD gamers are really just more of the same. More first person shooters, more two weapon slot limits, more games with Americans killing foreigners and the same tired formula just getting retreated over and over again. Jim is asking for games to be more inclusive, and by that he means trying new things and stepping out of our comfort zones. In reality, he's asking for the exact opposite.
 

SkulduggeryPelican

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Every call for more variety, ever:

A: New X has Y in it.
B: More X with Z should be created.
C: WRY YOU WANT TO TAKEAWAY MY Y??!!
B: *facepalm*
 

Bruce

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uanime5 said:
The problem with Jim's Saint's Row example is that a game can only be inclusive when it allows the player to chose whether their character is male, female, cis, trans, gay, straight, and gives them a huge variety of skin colours. But as soon as the designer wants to make a game with a predefined character who can't be modded in every conceivable way it becomes almost impossible to make the game "inclusive" because it won't appeal to people who want a particular character (such as an empowered female protagonist) or who don't want a particular character (I've read comments from racists who hated the Witcher because Geralt wasn't black). So trying to make games inclusive will stifle creativity because it only truly be implemented in triple A games as only they have a budget large enough to create games that allow such a wide degree of character creation.

Also the same archetypes have been used for centuries, if not millenniums, because they've been proven time and time again to be the elements of a good story. The fact that Jim doesn't like that women always have the same role will not change this.
Inclusive does not necessarily go down to how you make your protagonist, and in fact a game can end up excluding people if that is all you do.

The trick is to give something for other people to be interested in. Game of Thrones is chock full of tits in some of the least titillating scenes I have ever seen (and I like tits) but it also has great character development and an approach to sexism which actually shows the impact of it on believable characters in a believable way.

That makes it pretty well loved amongst a lot of feminists, for actually showing women as strong characters.