Jimquisition: Tomodachi Strife

Deadagent

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Dni0 said:
3. Finally, and most disturbingly, people seem to think it's ok to compare gay relationships to paedophillia.
I'm genuinely worried. Paedophillia is illegal
Nope, Pedophilia in itself is not illegal. However child molestation is, yes, there is a huge difference.
Pedophilia is a state of being, if it was illegal, it would essentially be a thought crime.

As for the comparison itself, it's simply insane to suggest that sex between consenting adults is in
anyway comparable to sex with children who do not even comprehend whats going on.

OT: Well, this episode was some grand scale shit. Not only did Jim apparently lie about how the incident played out. He then proceeds to intentionally misinterpet Nintendos quote to make them look like vile horrible people.

"You can only be making a statement wheter you intend to or not"
So every game should include these options by law or something? What the actual fuck Jim?
You're telling me, that if I make for example a dating sim,
and don't include gay options, I'm automatically a bigot?

I'm sorry but I'm going to have to say no on that. This is the same thing as the racism thing over games, just because a game dosen't include character of every single race and nationality, does not mean that the developers hate everyone who is not included.
And get this, by blowing off steam (and no less lying while doing it) like this,
only gives more ammo to REAL bigots.
So thank you for not only making a fool of yourself, but also for feeding biggotry for your own monetary gain.
 

Cybylt

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I wanted to say some stuff on the issue, but two other people have it covered and in better ways than I could, so...

Well it's always weird, because people have such passionate connections to video games that I think they sometimes let themselves forget that businesses are businesses, and they're playing the numbers game like anyone else. Nintendo will put out whatever socially acceptable or unacceptable content gets them the most sales. They'll change when it feels like putting in gay marriage will be worth more money. It sucks that art gets run by a business, but video games are so large and so expensive that they're probably more vulnerable to this than anything else, even movies.

I can totally understand the reaction to Tomodachi Life, even more than Animal Crossing, because you are playing as literal a representation of you in Tomodachi Life as you can pretty much get in a video game. So it's probably a huge bummer when a game not only doesn't let you get married to someone of your preferred gender, but effectively pairs you off as a straight couple without asking you. It's probably a huge bummer to hear "you're going to get married to a woman" when you're a gay man playing a game that has a cartoon version of yourself in it. That's a little different than even Bioware games not having same-sex relationships. More on that here: http://gamasutra.com/blogs/ChristianNutt/20140508/217351/Understanding_Nintendos_Tomodachi_Life_problem.php

Really they were never going to change this stuff, even if there weren't a bunch of cartridges already printed and sitting on a shelf. Changing code isn't as easy as flipping a switch. People should probably be happy that Nintendo responded to its gaffe as generously as it did, while also keeping their hearts close and recognize that even a company that makes whacky fun-loving games is still a company. You should treat them as a company, not your pal, and the disappointment that you levy at them (which is genuine and reasonable) should be in that context.
 

jaateloauto

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eatenbyagrue said:
Am I the only one who clapped when Jim said "You've heard of Jim Sterling now"?

Because I thought all that was missing was Jim dropping the mic and walking away.
Frankly he should have considering he misunderstood what Nintendo said. They said didn't intend to make social commentary by _not_ including same sex relationships rather than other way around.

The gay movement isn't going to be thrown back by some game, all really needs to happen now time. Only demographic against are old people and those people don't play games and won't change their opinion through persuasion, we'll just have to wait for them to die off. I completely tuned out and went to write this comment after Jim started ranting on about this game.
 

lord.jeff

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This is just one of those issues where no one is gonna come out looking good. On one side you have Nintendo is full of idiots making a complicated situation worse and on the other you have social justice crusaders ignoring facts so they can have another bad guy to go after.
 

Darmani

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themilo504 said:
erbkaiser said:
Oh yes Nintendo is horrible because as a Japanese company, it applies Japanese cultural norms to a game.

Nintendo is of course also "racist" against Muslims, since this game does not allow marriages with little children (as the Prophet with Aisha), or plural marriages (a basic islamic right).
The western release could have easily included gay marriage as a feature.
Sigh no it couldn't. Its unlikely it could be DLC'ed in.

Gay marriage happened as a glitch. Literally. due to a transfer gender was misassigned and same sex marriages with pregnant men happened. This would eventually lead to system damaging glitches. That's it.

BTW in the current game aside from pregnancy that's like one of the few restrictions your mii's sex entails. You can dress like a man and have a beard and be female.

As to Nintendo's first statement. I can see it being offensive but I'll take them at face value. They weren't weighing in on gay rights or marriage equality with the bug fix. Moreover its fun to lie to ourselves but gay rights still seen serious. Wanna know how to alleviate that

"I'm a Nintendo fan for x years and so is my husband/partner. We'd LOVE to buy your product and be a part of your whimsical world of fun. It doesn't have to be exactly like real life but we feel excluded as faithful customers..."

Some of the better people did do this. But there is STILL a lot of misinformation. TBF Jim is more about the initial response and the frustration that there even IS a struggle. I on the otherhand feel that's a social justice problem. I get exhaustion and frustration. I get being sick of having to prove yourself again and again. But if you want someone else to change their outlook or their actions for you, you can't look down on them and expect positive response unless you acknowledge your position as superior. And if so you can't react like a victim in need.

I am not sure what to send Nintendo now. I appreciate their final statement and promise. But I still want to incentivise the action so they don't forget it so its not a sout note of complaints and badgering but revelation and oppurtunities to the future.
 

Ophenix

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Deadagent said:
"You can only be making a statement wheter you intend to or not"
So every game should include these options by law or something? What the actual fuck Jim?
You're telling me, that if I make for example a dating sim,
and don't include gay options, I'm automatically a bigot?
... Sigh. Again, people taking offense at something anyone with less hysterical thought process would understand.

This is a game in which you are supposed to create an avatar of yourself and let that avatar be an extension of you in a virtual world.
This isn't the same as a dating sim nor is it the same as a plot-based RPG.
No one objects to Final Fantasy games having (mostly, Cloud is a special case) straight protagonists and no one cares that your "Doki-Doki Tentacalu RayPoo 3" is for straight people only.

But in a game where you create an extension of yourself and you are informed that being anything but straight is impossible it is problematic.

Let me try and type is down slowly... If a game like Fire Emblem restricts gay relationships it is disappointing, but not something objectionable, it is possible that a cast of 40 characters will all be canonically straight and no one will protest. (they might ask for more gay representation but you know, people can ask for whatever they want.)

But if you are asked to create an extension of yourself and are then told that that extension cannot be anything but straight you are sending the players a message. You are telling them "Anything but straight is not acceptable."
If Nintendo wants to send that message, they are allowed, it's their game, but they shouldn't be telling us they "never intended to make social commentary" because TELLING ME IT ISN'T OK TO BE GAY IN THEIR WORLD IS SOCIAL COMMENTARY.
 

Darmani

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Dragonbums said:
Imp Emissary said:
Dragonbums said:
The gist of what I removed from Dragonbums post: Jim got the details of the bug wrong and some other stuff. Link below.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/6.849789.20988250


Nature of the full bug at IGN (of all fucking places to get things right.) http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/05/05/nintendo-on-gay-marriage-and-tomodachi-life

The gay coupling players saw in screenshots were not a result of the bug. It was a result of Japanese players dressing up their "female" characters as male character and having them romance each other.
Wait.
Did they have the female Miis romance each other, or did they have the female Miis dressed as guys romance male Miis?

Anyway.

Yeah, I heard about that too. Glad Jim made the rest of it more about what Nintendo said to calm people and about how it's still so "risky" to just include gay people in games.

Still a shame about the misinformation, though I think you may be letting it get to you a bit too much.
They had female Mii's look and sound like Male Mii's and had them marry each other that way (I also think they were able to eliminate the default dresses as well to make it a lot more real)

I know it's getting to me, but man, look at the most commented section of this site. Most of them are directly related to the misinformation spreading of this entire issue. With people calling Nintendo bigots. I'm getting tired of it.
TBF you're getting a sample of what its like for the gay fans and people having to repeatedly assert or deal with myths, misinformation, or discrimination for a society that doesn't as actively disdain them. [http://www.cracked.com/article_21129_5-shocking-ways-society-still-doesnt-understand-gay-people_p2.html](2nd and 3rd points especially) Which is kind of why this blew up. In something so trivial activism is necessary to express themselves and be acknowledged as normal. and that can make you feel excluded for something private even in your own life or enjoyment.
 

tstorm823

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Ultratwinkie said:
I am saying its hilarious because you are quoting a book I haven't believed in since I was 12. It doesn't take much to completely and utterly disprove religion. There is an entire forum dedicated to it on this very site. That's why any sources tied to fundamentalists don't work.
a) If it takes so little, why would there be an entire forum for it?
b) I'm still here, so that disproving of religion hasn't really worked out all that well.
 

tstorm823

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Ultratwinkie said:
Its the R&P section. All the theists left or turned atheist. So now its a forum of atheists. Since there are no arguments anymore, its now liberals vs conservatives. But now the conservatives are leaving too. So now its a liberal atheist board.

Besides, I am mostly addressing his need to use fundamentalist propaganda when its flawed on a basic level. The issue here is that religion is not provable in any sense of the word, and is full of problems and contradictions. So his claim to knowing the truth is almost impossible in a sea of other religions.

What i was referencing, the nihilistic and materialistic worldview, relies on just the universe being there with no provable god. He didn't want to see a world without god, or specifically, his god.

A god not everyone believes in. That's why its an emotional argument. Everyone thinks their gods are special and how they have the right one.
Yeah, I'm not even disagreeing with your assessment of his comments.

I just wanted to point at myself and say "There are definitely some theists in the R&P section. 3 years of that subforum haven't de-Catholicized me."
 

Silvanus

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Therumancer said:
I trimmed a lot of this down to the basics. Right here your basically trying to claim "well, wait we aren't demanding equal representation" but then trying to turn around and make arguments about "intrusive heterosexual content". That's pretty much contradictory. After all if your acknowledging that your not an equal portion of the population, you can't very well make arguments based around there being content directed at the majority. Your more or less making my point for me, your saying "we represent a tiny percentage of the population, yet we demand equal representation in media to the overwhelming majority".
Uhrm... they're not contradictory. We don't demand to be shown in equal numbers, which was what your claim was. My entire point was that that simply doesn't happen. That's just a baseless smear tactic.

My other point, that you don't see heterosexual content as "intrusive", is entirely separate, and perfectly valid. You haven't explained why you immediately object to the sexuality of the situation when it's gay, but that it doesn't even come into it when it's straight.

My point that gay people do not ask to be shown in equal numbers in no way contradicts my point that you hold a double-standard as to whether to focus on the sexuality of a situation. Why should it be that, simply by nature of being a minority, gay representation should be the focus of a double-standard? How does that follow?


Therumancer said:
You might not like the comparison to Polygamy, and find it "hurtful" but you know, I honestly don't care much if people get upset with me not being politically correct. I generally don't suffer much guilt from pretty much telling people when they are going too far as a group.
I wasn't talking about "political correctness"; I was attempting to appeal to your empathy. Clearly, it failed.

If you feel no guilt about generalising entire groups of people, and assigning blame to them for something they have no control over, then I can only appeal to the intellectual laziness of such an argument. There's no evidence that one thing leads to another, and no moral basis on which to deny equal treatment to people who are completely unconnected with polygamy anyway. It just shows complacency with unequal treatment.

There were identical arguments when mixed-race marriages were being discussed, you know. People talked about how it was a "slippery slope". Would you say those people should be treated unequally, as well?
 

hazydawn

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Zachary Amaranth said:
Unless morality is objective, and I would have trouble arguing it was, then it's hard to argue it wasn't immoral without bringing ethnocentrism back into the mix. I mean, it does look like you're going the objectivity route, but if you acknowledge that slave owners have leeway because they were told it was correct you're getting into iffy territory.

Morality is largely a social construct we agree upon. That's why it was considered moral to own slaves, to treat women like property, and why it's still considered moral to kill gays in parts of the world.
I admit I still have some research and thinking to do on the matter but If we agree on certain ideals like freedom, equality, justice, the increase of happiness and decrease of pain, etc. there's a number of possible realities for any situation or issue were some of them would be the moral pinnacle. Granted, those ideals can come into conlfict. So there would still be some debate on how highly to regard each of them but in the end I think that there's a level of objectivity in morality that can be archieved.
I'm not saying that this morality would be encompassing everything or that we'd even have access to such an objective morality (which for religious people would be a god they also have no access to) but I think we can come (depending on the issue) close to it with logic and scientific methods, insights of psychology, anthropology etc. There are good reasons and bad reason to do something. You gave nice examples in response to another post where I think we can say with objectivity that they are wrong. Genital mutilation of women to please some deity is imo bad reasoning and I think this can be said with objectivity.
And in this specific case I'd say that Nintendo is contributing to a societal problem by reiterating and thereby reinforcing heteronormativity. Why and how could be the topic of a cultural studies paper. With the implied premise that heteronormativity is bad of course. But I think you already agree on that so I don't need to explain. That was my brief attempt to explain it. I didn't want to write too much. And sorry for the messy structure :p

Leaving aside objective morality, why do you think that it is "hard to argue it wasn't immoral without bringing ethnocentrism back into the mix"? I think we're starting to misuse the term here a bit. Otherwise how can anyone make a moral judgement of another group without somebody making the accusation of being ethnocentric?

Dragonbums said:
But for it to be immoral it would have to of been done with intended malice. In this case it is a lot more than an oversight. I would call it stupidity first than claim that Nintendo acted morally wrong.
So you're saying that the people at Nintendo have the mind of a child or simply didn't think about this at all and therefore aren't immoral? You know what? Fine. People at Nintendo are stupid. So what they did was just wrong in they way that it has a negative impact on society.

Of course it doesn't. When slavery began to happen not a single country that participated in it were under any illusions what so ever that it was a shitty thing to do. Not one. Britain started it, and even they knew it was morally bankrupt. The same however can not be said for homosexuality. Many people genuinely believe it's immoral and deviant behavior.
Maybe you wanted to say "was not a shitty thing to do"? I don't believe that premise but do you want me to dig out some heinous example where peopel genuinely believe some stupid shit that maybe you can agree on? No country? You talk about it like it's a fucking unit that has it's own mind. Many people genuinely believed that black people were subhuman and felt justyfied by their law, religion and community.
Doesn't fucking matter how many people or what authority believes something is moral or immoral though.

I'm fairly certain those ideas have come into play in all of the countries that disallow it. However they have absolutely no groundwork to work on. To assume such isn't fair. Considering that was also the same mindset we had not even 60 years ago. It took a lot of killing and murder on their part before they finally got a leg to stand on and people actually listened to what they had to say. In the case of Japan it's basically a universally adopted don't show don't tell policy. They don't necessarily care that your gay or in a gay relationship. They just don't want you to publicize it. And gay marriage is as public as it gets. Hence it's illegal there.
I'm not sure what your argument here is supposed to be or what you want to express. Because Japan's culture isn't as open minded towards homosexuality as ours it is not fair to judge them or hold them to our standards?

My main issue just comes from the fact that people are calling Nintendo bigots and anti homosexuality. I can understand why you disagree with their decision. I do. What I DON'T agree with is saying they are against homosexuality because they didn't include them in a game that was only released in a country where gay marriage is illegal. That's my biggest beef with the whole argument.
I wouldn't call them bigots and they're unlikely anti-homosexuality in the way that they actively seek to harm.
Yet they are contributing to a societal problem by reiterating and thereby reinforcing heteronormativity. (Yeah, I just used that again. I'm too lazy to paraphrase.)
Also Ophenix's answer to your comment is pretty good at explaining why in this instance it is bad :p
 

Addendum_Forthcoming

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Transdude1996 said:
http://gbatemp.net/threads/russia-gives-the-sims-4-an-adults-only-rating.365855/

I'd say that when it comes to content like this, people have become more intolerant rather than actually being tolerant about stuff like this.

You pointed out about how there's an issue in a state in the US about turning away customers due to the owner having a religuous belief against homosexuality. Well, that's their own fucking right. Owners should have the right to turn away whoever the hell they want. It may not cause their business to do well, but that's the point. America is supposed to be a place where people can say, do, or believe whatever they want and not get attacked for it. We can't force people to believe something because we disagree with them, all we can do is not support the company or the person. The minute we start telling people how their supposed to think, we become no better than Germany and the Nazis in WW2.

EDIT: The original reason gay marriage was patched was because it was part of a game breaking bug.
When has the US ever been about being completely libertarian? Homosexuality used to be a crime punishable by jail sentences not that long ago. It's a bit hard to turn around and say "hey, we have the freedom to deny you access to our establishment based on nothing more than your sexuality", when homosexuality and the trans* community are still wholly oppressed to begin with.

Freedom depends on people protecting the rights of others MORE than their own. Because, let's face it, there are greedy motherfuckers out there that will take way more than they will ever give back. You cannot correctly argue 'It's my right to deny services to people because of how I feel about their lifestyle' because you are imposing on another and you're abusing what it is to actually have rights to begin with.

Rights AND RESPONSIBILITIES, people ... you have rights AND RESPONSIBILITIES. The responsibilities part is MORE IMPORTANT than the rights part, because society will always have greed, descriminatory beliefs and criminality. Thus necessitating everyone else has to work a little harder to maintain a common standard and duty of care APPLICABLE TO ALL.

If you decide to open a store, you are morally (even if not lawfully) bound to serve everyone equally. So long as the customer responds in kind (has money, doesn't damage or destroy your store in the process of shopping etc). IT is your role to service the specific needs of the community. Your rights attributeable to this service is an expectation of fair treatment of your establishment and that your clientele pay the full due of the use of your materials and services. That's it. That is the extent of moral rights.

There can be no 'freedom', if there is no collective will to provide said 'freedom' to all others within the realm.

This is why anti-descrimination laws are important. This is why they should be fortified, not grow impotent in the face of the many people who would systematically abuse and hinder the social mobility of specific individuals of society.
 

ToastiestZombie

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This video is just factually wrong, I don't care about whether Nintendo is right or wrong, but I do care that a person with thousands of views every week misconstruing "fixing a game-breaking bug that by allowing gay relationships broke the game" as "NINTENDO PATCHED OUT GAY MARRIAGE!"

You guys constantly piss on Fox News (for right reasons, I add), but when you and a lot of other gaming sites stoop to their level it's just sad.
 

KazeAizen

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Matthewmagic said:
As a gay man.

I don't find the failure to include homosexuals in Tomodachi Life that big of deal. If you want to make a fun cute game taking a whimsical approach on life, make that approach take place around the traditional nuclear family makes sense to me. I find just not including it far less condescending than the "oh and the one other gay man in the whole universe" option you find in Mass Effect 3 or dragon age (though Zevran was a pimp). Make the game you want to make, and lets not artificially take offense if it is not "inclusive" enough. I think it would be a much farther step forward for the gay community as a whole if we could just let shit like this slide and realize that not every game is going to have a gay character, or a black character, or a muslim character.
Thank you. Thank you for inserting logic and reason into a place where clearly it has all left.