[POLITICS] Extra Credits seems to have driven off a cliff

[CaitSeith]

I think the thing that bothers me is the tacit implication that a "Play as a Nazi permission slip" would be used to fuel Xteenillion articles and videos that Gamers are Nazis! because the people who bought the new WW2 shooter game consented to be on either side of the multiplayer.

If there aren't Xteenillion articles and videos that Gamers are Nazis! because they play WWII shooters where they can play as Nazi right now; it's foolish to think there will be later.

Can you imagine what Twitter could do with a list of Gamertags/account names of players who clicked I Agree to the Play as a Nazi question?

Have bots bombard them with white nationalist propaganda, anti-SJW videos and Trump posts? Twitter isn't the far-left's 4chan.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

I would argue though that you aren't actually playing as a nazi/terrorist, sure you are marked as such by the uniform your avatar is wearing. But you aren't doing anything different gameplay wise from the other side of the coin, you aren't given any of the values or characterization of motives behind the uniform, it's merely window dressing to mark teams.

This is the big one. It's not like there are special missions or scenarios for the Axis teams in these games to... gas X number of Jews in 10 minutes or to "acquire" X number of Pleasure Companions in a certain Chinese city.

It's just dudes in uniforms shooting other dudes in different uniforms in a WWII setting. Everyone could be in tellytubby outfits and, while absurd, the context of what is going on - running over each other in tanks - would remain constant.

I know this isn't the argument EC makes, though I think it is the one they should have made: That distancing the Wehrmacht in games from the atrocities of the Nazi regime and the Wehrmacht itself is a sort of mild, unintended, whitewashing. By repeatedly showing the Wehrmacht as "not so different" or functionally identical to their Allied/Soviet counterparts, an uninformed person (such as a kid or a teen, say) can get the idea that maybe the Wehrmacht wasn't so bad. As I said in a previous post, that's the start of the Wehraboo slippery slope, where it is easy to end up reading SS memoirs (disguised as wartime accounts) because you think the Wehrmacht was cool and come away with the impression that history might have been too hard on the Nazis.

Arguably, this is hard to get around. Games like vintage-CoD and Battlefield are only interested in borrowing the trappings of WW2 to provide high octane firefight action and having an interlude in a CTF match so that the Axis team can have a cutscene of them murdering Belgian civilians would be incredibly stupid on many levels. Still, we should be mindful of it and storydriven games in WW2 could probably do better to show why the Wehrmacht was an organization with much less moral and ethical capital then the Western Allies or even the Red Army.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

I think the thing that bothers me is the tacit implication that a "Play as a Nazi permission slip" would be used to fuel Xteenillion articles and videos that Gamers are Nazis! because the people who bought the new WW2 shooter game consented to be on either side of the multiplayer.

If there aren't Xteenillion articles and videos that Gamers are Nazis! because they play WWII shooters where they can play as Nazi right now; it's foolish to think there will be later.

Can you imagine what Twitter could do with a list of Gamertags/account names of players who clicked I Agree to the Play as a Nazi question?

Have bots bombard them with white nationalist propaganda, anti-SJW videos and Trump posts? Twitter isn't the far-left's 4chan.

I mean not really if we're looking for permission slips, for players to opt-into playing as a Nazi. Currently a player can say they quit every time they get assigned to the Nazi side, because they don't believe in fighting for that side, even in a simulation, and there is no way to disprove it.
But if players have to opt into/out of playing a Nazi we know everyone who is on that side at best chose not to opt out, and worse actively opted into playing for them.
There is a lot of content to be made with that information.

and no Twitter isn't a far-left 4chan. But 4chan is nothing compared to Twitter when it comes to reach. 4chan can harass you, sure, Twitter can get you fired and black-listed in your field over night.

 

[CritialGaming]

I think that's pretty much their point but in reverse: going around in a Nazi/terrorist team not doing anything specific to Nazism/terrorism makes their symbols lose their intrinsic impact for the player as more and more time is spend in the game. I think they argue that doing Nazi/terrorist actions makes Nazi uniforms/terrorist attires and symbols look less wrong among the gaming community than doing glorified Nazist/terrorist (because the later is either propaganda or subversion, and people spot those intentions).

I don't play enough of these game to know any better. But last time I played a CoD, I don't remember the German side of the MP modes seeing constant Nazi symbols, or being bombarded with sympathetic messages. I know you see the symbol in the lobby or whatever, but both sides of the game see that. In fact, don't the Alied players see the Nazi symbol more than the nazi players, since they can't see themselves at all?

This argument that it numbs the player to the nazi message is just projecting. Grand Theft Auto doesn't make murdering scumbags, hitman games don't make you an assassin, and CoD doesn't make you a Nazi.

 

[Worgen]

So about two weeks ago Extra Credits posted a video that has been, I believe, their most downvoted video they've ever had on Youtube and one that has caused their biggest loss of subscribers ever as well.



Now at first I didn't want to say anything about this because I can see the trajectory of how this conversation is likely to go. But ya know what? Let's just do it, let's just dig into this. Everything else is crazy and dumb lately with the world so let's just dive into this both old and new debate again.

Do you agree with this video's message? Do you agree with what its intent is? Do you agree with HOW it went about this? Or do you disagree? Go ahead Escapist's let's hit this one hard.

I stopped caring about EC since 2012/13. They started getting overly preachy, and getting so much of their research wrong. When they started defending Micros-transactions and loot-boxes, I knew they sold out and lost all hope. The nazi video....they became another Sarkeesian and Jack Thompson. Preaching how playing x turns gamers in to y with no facts, and only fantasies and assumptions backing them. The kind of crap you would see in the 90s/2000s. My respect dropped even further. As the old saying goes, "He/She who fights monsters, shall become one."

The Act Man put them in their place:

Ugh, the Extra Credits vid was stupid but that guy is a moron. Every thing is political if someone makes it political, him saying I don't want politics in games is just him saying I don't want other peoples politics in my games. Most games are political in some way even if its pretty subtle at times because of how equality is in our world.

 

[BrawlMan]

So about two weeks ago Extra Credits posted a video that has been, I believe, their most downvoted video they've ever had on Youtube and one that has caused their biggest loss of subscribers ever as well.



Now at first I didn't want to say anything about this because I can see the trajectory of how this conversation is likely to go. But ya know what? Let's just do it, let's just dig into this. Everything else is crazy and dumb lately with the world so let's just dive into this both old and new debate again.

Do you agree with this video's message? Do you agree with what its intent is? Do you agree with HOW it went about this? Or do you disagree? Go ahead Escapist's let's hit this one hard.

I stopped caring about EC since 2012/13. They started getting overly preachy, and getting so much of their research wrong. When they started defending Micros-transactions and loot-boxes, I knew they sold out and lost all hope. The nazi video....they became another Sarkeesian and Jack Thompson. Preaching how playing x turns gamers in to y with no facts, and only fantasies and assumptions backing them. The kind of crap you would see in the 90s/2000s. My respect dropped even further. As the old saying goes, "He/She who fights monsters, shall become one."

The Act Man put them in their place:

Ugh, the Extra Credits vid was stupid but that guy is a moron. Every thing is political if someone makes it political, him saying I don't want politics in games is just him saying I don't want other peoples politics in my games. Most games are political in some way even if its pretty subtle at times because of how equality is in our world.

You are correct. The Act Man, I don't hate, but do no necessarily care for either. Especially the whole "politics should stay out of games", even though politics have been in games since the late 70s and early 80s. This is just a case of me giving him some credit. Only some.

 

[CaitSeith]

snip

To normalize =/= to become.

Normalize means to see it more and more as normal, not to do more and more of their actions.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

snip

To normalize =/= to become.

Normalize means to see it more and more as normal, not to do more and more of their actions.

What does it mean to normalize? If its a WW2 game, isn't it normal for Nazis to be in it? And if its a team based vs FPS, then its normal for one side to have to be the Nazis.

 

[CaitSeith]

I think the thing that bothers me is the tacit implication that a "Play as a Nazi permission slip" would be used to fuel Xteenillion articles and videos that Gamers are Nazis! because the people who bought the new WW2 shooter game consented to be on either side of the multiplayer.

If there aren't Xteenillion articles and videos that Gamers are Nazis! because they play WWII shooters where they can play as Nazi right now; it's foolish to think there will be later.

Can you imagine what Twitter could do with a list of Gamertags/account names of players who clicked I Agree to the Play as a Nazi question?

Have bots bombard them with white nationalist propaganda, anti-SJW videos and Trump posts? Twitter isn't the far-left's 4chan.

I mean not really if we're looking for permission slips, for players to opt-into playing as a Nazi. Currently a player can say they quit every time they get assigned to the Nazi side, because they don't believe in fighting for that side, even in a simulation, and there is no way to disprove it.
But if players have to opt into/out of playing a Nazi we know everyone who is on that side at best chose not to opt out, and worse actively opted into playing for them.
There is a lot of content to be made with that information.

and no Twitter isn't a far-left 4chan. But 4chan is nothing compared to Twitter when it comes to reach. 4chan can harass you, sure, Twitter can get you fired and black-listed in your field over night.

Unless you are popular, that doesn't happen even if you appear in a recording at the middle of a pro-Nazi rally.

I'm still waiting to hear about all the participants in Charlottesville getting their lives ruined.

*looks at his watch*

Still, the alt-right is more interested when the average Joe shows curiosity about Nazis than the left.

 

[Worgen]

So about two weeks ago Extra Credits posted a video that has been, I believe, their most downvoted video they've ever had on Youtube and one that has caused their biggest loss of subscribers ever as well.



Now at first I didn't want to say anything about this because I can see the trajectory of how this conversation is likely to go. But ya know what? Let's just do it, let's just dig into this. Everything else is crazy and dumb lately with the world so let's just dive into this both old and new debate again.

Do you agree with this video's message? Do you agree with what its intent is? Do you agree with HOW it went about this? Or do you disagree? Go ahead Escapist's let's hit this one hard.

I stopped caring about EC since 2012/13. They started getting overly preachy, and getting so much of their research wrong. When they started defending Micros-transactions and loot-boxes, I knew they sold out and lost all hope. The nazi video....they became another Sarkeesian and Jack Thompson. Preaching how playing x turns gamers in to y with no facts, and only fantasies and assumptions backing them. The kind of crap you would see in the 90s/2000s. My respect dropped even further. As the old saying goes, "He/She who fights monsters, shall become one."

The Act Man put them in their place:

Ugh, the Extra Credits vid was stupid but that guy is a moron. Every thing is political if someone makes it political, him saying I don't want politics in games is just him saying I don't want other peoples politics in my games. Most games are political in some way even if its pretty subtle at times because of how equality is in our world.

You are correct. The Act Man, I don't hate, but do no necessarily care for either. Especially the whole "politics should stay out of games", even though politics have been in games since the late 70s and early 80s. This is just a case of me giving him some credit. Only some.

Ehh, I wouldn't give him any credit. Hes an idiot who is just saying the standard take on things, pretty much everyone thinks that extra credits video is stupid. If he wanted to have any nuance at all then he would have addressed the real weakness of their argument which is more that the aesthetics of being a nazi in a ww2 multiplayer game isn't the same as being a nazi. Its really just a change in uniform and accent or language if the game is feeling feisty. So its not really normalizing anything. For a game to normalize being a nazi, it would have to make being a nazi mean something in that game and generally even the single player portion of ww2 games is hesitant to really show what the nazi's did beyond them just being bad. Also the terrorist thing tends to be solved by just calling them 'opfor' which is what cod tends to do.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

I think the thing that bothers me is the tacit implication that a "Play as a Nazi permission slip" would be used to fuel Xteenillion articles and videos that Gamers are Nazis! because the people who bought the new WW2 shooter game consented to be on either side of the multiplayer.

If there aren't Xteenillion articles and videos that Gamers are Nazis! because they play WWII shooters where they can play as Nazi right now; it's foolish to think there will be later.

Can you imagine what Twitter could do with a list of Gamertags/account names of players who clicked I Agree to the Play as a Nazi question?

Have bots bombard them with white nationalist propaganda, anti-SJW videos and Trump posts? Twitter isn't the far-left's 4chan.

I mean not really if we're looking for permission slips, for players to opt-into playing as a Nazi. Currently a player can say they quit every time they get assigned to the Nazi side, because they don't believe in fighting for that side, even in a simulation, and there is no way to disprove it.
But if players have to opt into/out of playing a Nazi we know everyone who is on that side at best chose not to opt out, and worse actively opted into playing for them.
There is a lot of content to be made with that information.

and no Twitter isn't a far-left 4chan. But 4chan is nothing compared to Twitter when it comes to reach. 4chan can harass you, sure, Twitter can get you fired and black-listed in your field over night.

Unless you are popular, that doesn't happen even if you appear in a recording at the middle of a pro-Nazi rally.

I'm still waiting to hear about all the participants in Charlottesville getting their lives ruined.

*looks at his watch*

Still, the alt-right is more interested when the average Joe shows curiosity about Nazis than the left.

Most of the Charlosttesville white supremacists that has been identified were either already known to be a Nazi or has been fired.

And video game journalists are chomping at the bit for more content, whereas regular news journalists have Trump and he's 5 stories a day

 

[CaitSeith]

If its a WW2 game, isn't it normal for Nazis to be in it?

It isn't normal for Nazis in a WW2 premise to be depicted as morally equal to the allies (well, maybe in bizarro World where sides don't exist).

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

I don't know who Foucault is, but he sounds important...I am glad the same applies to this EC video too.

Understanding Foucault is absolutely, positively, sine qua non critical to the topic at hand. No if's, and's, or but's; period, the end. Which is why people who perennially fail to understand Foucault, intentionally or not, and appropriate his work to push their own agenda get me seeing red.

This is what "normalization" actually is: the systemic use of disciplinary mechanisms by institutions to control ideation and behavior, into a form idealized by the institution. Notes: disciplinary mechanisms are both reward and punishment. Foucault's original analysis only extended to formal institutions, although informal institutions also apply.

In other words, the phenomenon to be normalized has to be idealized, and engagement with that phenomenon has to be rewarded and punished accordingly. All those mechanisms have to be in play.

So, let's say I'm an executive at Baskin-Robbins. I have an idea to make and market tuna-flavored ice cream, but because tuna-flavored ice cream sounds disgusting, I'd have to normalize it. So, I have to idealize tuna-flavored ice cream by running ads talking about how delicious it is, how only Baskin-Robbins carries the tuna-flavored ice cream, how cool tuna-flavored ice cream is and how cool people eat it, get celebrity sponsorships, typical advertisement bullshit. But, that's not enough; I have to reward consumption of tuna-flavored ice cream (buy one get one free coupons, price reductions, promo offers, etc.) and punish non-consumers of tuna-flavored ice cream (price increases to flavors that aren't tuna, smaller ice cream cones and sundaes, fewer available toppings, etc.).

People might think tuna-flavored ice cream is disgusting at first and won't buy or eat it. But, stack the market in favor of tuna-flavored ice cream, and people will start buying and eating it for the other benefits even if they don't like it. They'll start accepting it, and as the advertising works its magic, people will eventually start thinking tuna-flavored ice cream is good, and buy it for its own sake. Then, you can say you've normalized tuna-flavored ice cream.

This is where all these social justice-y arguments fall flat on their ass, and why they want to misrepresent normalization. No game designer worth their salt idealizes Nazis, there's no reward-punishment mechanism for playing Nazis in video games. Normalization does not, and cannot, occur in that media landscape.

What they're actually talking about is cultivation. Cultivation is the theory that sustained exposure to fictitious or fictionalized settings through media consumption, causes people to believe the real world aligns to, and operates in accordance with, that setting. In other words, watch enough police procedural television, and you start to believe detective work and forensic analysis are a fast-paced career paths dominated by personal drama, and crimes are solved quickly and with decisive outcomes.

The issue is, cultivation theory has been predominantly studied with regards to television and radio, and studies involving cultivation in interactive entertainment are spotty, mired in problematic methodology, and rarely conclusive. And, cultivation only influences ideation and behavior insofar as audiences react to shifting beliefs about the world around them. If I only consume media that depicts German people as Nazis, which cultivates the idea all Germans are Nazis, I'm more likely than not to treat all Germans as if they're Nazis (rather than, say, become a Nazi myself). Which brings us full circle back to EC's galaxy-brain take on the issue.

A really good read on this topic in particular is the book Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky, in terms of how the media weaponizes cultivation to sway public opinion.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

If its a WW2 game, isn't it normal for Nazis to be in it?

It isn't normal for Nazis in a WW2 premise to be depicted as morally equal to the allies (well, maybe in bizarro World where sides don't exist).

But thats not what the EC video was about, it was about forcing players to play as Nazis in online matches without their approval, ie play as the bad guys.
Its not Halo where we have two identical teams colored coded Red and Blue, its the Allies and/or the Soviets vs the Nazis. The person you're playing doesn't have to be the hero, its okay to be the villain so long as you know you're the villain.

That's why I play Chaos Space Marines. Its not because I'm a literal Chaos god worshiper, its because I understand the need for villains in a story.

 

[CaitSeith]

its okay to be the villain so long as you know you're the villain.


That's why I play Chaos Space Marines. Its not because I'm a literal Chaos god worshiper, its because I understand the need for villains in a story.

Nazis aren't just fiction villains in a story. Forgetting that fact is what normalization means.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

As for the culpability of the Western Allies: They were forced into a 'Total War', a war which the aggressor intended to end only once everyone bowed to their rule and allowed them to murder hundreds of millions of people and enslave tens of millions more in peace. No one at the time could know how much pressure and destruction it would take for Germany to buckle under the pressure and lose the war, but they knew the consequences of losing to Germany. So they employed tactics that are technically legal under the laws of war but are dubious in terms of morality (strategic bombings), but they did so because they had to strike at Germany in some fashion and the idea of destroying the means of production to hinder the war effort is sound strategically...

Which is precisely why Allied forces targeted Dresden's urban core and left...what was it again, 75%? of the city's manufacturing, communications, and transportation infrastructure and capacity, in addition to almost all of its garrisoned troops, intact, right? The RAF wasn't even trying to knock out strategically-important locations in the city, they were trying to maximize casualties. Military targets weren't even identified nor attempt to identify them made, let alone during its planning; and, to be quite frank if you can't tell the difference between railway stations or factories, and apartment buildings, through a Norden bombsight you're either blind or not trying.

 

[themistermanguy]

I stopped watching after Dan left. They just haven't been the same since.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

its okay to be the villain so long as you know you're the villain.


That's why I play Chaos Space Marines. Its not because I'm a literal Chaos god worshiper, its because I understand the need for villains in a story.

Nazis aren't just fiction villains in a story. Forgetting that fact is what normalization means.

The real Nazis are dead, ie the 1940s global super power Nazis. Current era, or Neo-Nazis are not in control of Germany, do not have sizable armies, have some of the most advanced weapons of war and are not currently besieging London having taken over most of continental Europe.

Forgetting the past is the past is just as dangerous as forgetting Nazis used to be real. A video game is a fictitious telling/retelling of events. Can we get a sense of perspective here? Neo-Nazis and white supremacists are not nearly as dangerous as the actual fucking Third Riech. One is a group of out-of-shape drop outs with bad hats chanting 'Jews will not replace us', the other were some of the most brilliant minds of their generation, aided by millions of in shape soldiers, hell bent on conquering the world and killing 11 million Jews in the process, and until they made the mistake of invading the USSR, they were absolutely going to succeed.
A couple of edgy white dudes with dank Nazi memes is not going to cause Paris to fall to zombie Nazis coming back from the dead now that they've seen kids look at the Iron Cross without bursting into flames.

Why have pirate games? Pirates were real. Why have Crusader games? Crusades were real. Why have Cthulhu games? Lovecraft was real. Why have Metro games? The Soviet Union was real. Why have Kerbal Space Program? The Space Race was real.
We have them because most people are clever enough to know the difference between real vs fake, and the past vs the present.

 

[RaikuFA]

I said this in their MTG video:

You?ll be sitting there playing a black deck when and BAM you?re a Phyrexian. You didn?t ask for it you didn?t choose this but there it is.

 

[Hades]

In Assasins Creed Odyssey there's not a real difference between Athens and Sparta. There's no real difference between the founders of democracy and a city that brutalized its slave population and threw its babies off a cliff if they didn't meet their standards.

To be fair Athens also brutalised it's female and slave populations because it was a democracy where only male citizens who'd completed military training could vote so the franchise was only about 10%-20% of the entire population (and Plato and Aristotle both thought this was far too liberal and should have had a wealth requirement.). On the other hand, it was still much more liberal and cultured than Sparta.

Well yes Athens had slaves too and on some level it should be recognized that slavery was just a factor of life in the ancient Mediterranean world. However you have your regular abusive slave system on one hand while on the other hand you have Sparta's helot system which was much worse as brutalizing the slaves as much as possible was a core feature of the state, since otherwise the 'real'' Spartans wouldn't have so much free time they could spend on training.