Fabricant451

Underrated and Overrated Video Games

I should probably clarify just in case it's been lost in the discussion, as is the situation with most improvised argument. I think that it's short sighted to come to a conclusion that the perspective against diversity is all-encompassing, or even remotely large when contrasted with those who simply don't care/enjoy the changes.

@tex

It's not all encompassing. But to act like it's not a common talking point is ridiculous. If I came to the conclusion that "there are frequent conversations where people are actively opposed to the diversity shown in games" it's because those conversations were happening even before things like Ellie kissing someone in front of an audience of thousands. There's always going to be people that don't know what an E3 is but who play games and those who play games based solely on word of mouth - but those people aren't being discussed here because they aren't involved in conversations or criticisms.

Sorry if I sound excessively doubtful or presumptuous here, but from the sound of it, you're coming to an incomplete conclusion based on biased and inconclusive sources. I don't mean to bash your opinion, but it sounds as nothing more than just that: An opinion. There's nothing wrong with that, but I'm not sure if we're addressing the topic in the same fashion. Though to be fair, the burden of proof lays with you. If we were to treat this as an argument, and not just an exchange of opinion, I'm fairly certain that any evidence that you could provide would be hearsay. All of your conclusions are in fact, conjecture.

My opinion that there exists conversations and people in the umbrella of gamer are, in fact, actually upset over diversity? Even if it's a small percent it's still happening widely enough to be noticed and remarked upon in articles. Just because it's a minority doesn't make it invalid.

1. Is it? If so, isn't that cherry picking? I don't associate the minority on social media with any more than a fraction of the gaming market, regardless of genre/producer. Even if it wasn't, why is this group important?

If it's cherry picking to specifically talk about the group in question. The group is important because it's the group of consumer who stays informed and interacts with the developer or other similarly interested parties. It's because it's the same group that watches Twitch streamers that the publisher of a game has given early copies to in order to advertise. Gaming is a very broad hobby and gamers are a broad demographic. It's not the person who plays Clash of Clans every day or the person who only plays Madden or even the person that walks into a store and browses that companies are putting the majority of their marketing towards.

2. It's not hard to find reactions and comments from people stating a variety of inane nonsense, that's why we call it propaganda though. Whether it be ''''news'''' on Hilary Clinton, Gaming, or political activism. The bottom line is, any evidence pulled from Social media on a scale that is less than absolute amounts to conjecture at best, hearsay at worst.

Oh, so it's just 'propaganda' and not worth commenting or discussing about. That makes it easier to ignore and pretend like it's not happening. Does it absolutely dominate all conversation about games? No, of course not. But we don't get to pick and choose what does and doesn't happen. The bad sorts of the hobby still reflect on the hobby and it's one of the reasons why video games still struggle to be taken seriously as an artform.

Social media is a collection of resources, covering everything from Twitter to you tube. It is not completely dominated by the aforementioned nonsense, and that percentage (Regardless of whether it falls between 70-90% or not) is unlikely to go ignored by the professional teams running social media for the companies in question.

Games are absolutely influenced by social media. It's why the consoles let people share stuff to social media with a few quick presses of a button. It's why games are using Twitch drops. It's why companies use Twitter to advertise directly to people with buzzwords and hastags. Individual team members of a development studio have social media accounts and use it to interact with and inform people. Some, sure, do ignore them but when a video game developer deletes their Twitter account because of harassment from angry gamers or when a developer gets fired because gamers brought attention to some awful comments that didn't represent the company in a positive light it means that on some level the developer and studios are listening.

Outside of freakishly uncommon occurrences, likened to the Battlefront 2 disaster, I don't think the musings of individuals have had any major effects on gaming. Rather, the direction of western society as a whole has likely been a far larger influence on the direction that companies have chosen to take with their games. If a handful of whining idiots had such a significant effect on the direction of the games that they seem to hate, or anything at all really, modern pseudo-activists would have turned the country on its ass by now.

Yeah, gamers have never had an effect on games or the industry.

1. I don't see how gender is relevant to the discussion at hand. If you want to get into the topic of trend differences in gender, that's a whole 'nother situation altogether, and I doubt it will benefit either side of this argument to be perfectly honest. Beyond that, I need to point out the disconnect in logic that follows here.

Because males are still very much the target demographic for a lot of games and they are a majority of the ones buying them regularly. It is also often males that are starting the conversations with which this whole stupid discussion is about.

Does this number - the 1 million~ people that purchased far-cry 5 on console - take into account the portion of people buying online?

Yes.

Does it account for bootleg?

No, that's not a sale.

Does it account for the sale of used games?

No, because those don't go to the developer so it doesn't factor into how much a game sells. It's why there's such a push for digital sales.

Or the people playing games at a friend's?

Not unless they also go on to purchase the game new.

Or the people who haven't even played the game, but feel the need to comment on it?

Units sold, not units observed.

Far Cry is a single title, made by a single company, falling under a few select genres. In what sense does this speak for the social status of gamers as a whole?

It doesn't, I used Far Cry 5 as an example. Despite the fact that there are 150 million gamers in one country alone, a good portion of sales numbers comes from people that have some kind of social media presence. Social media is basically the internet water cooler.

Who's to say that the majority of gamers that play far-cry have commented on the game via social media?

If someone posts a comment on the Far Cry 5 Youtube channel, that's a gamer that has commented on the game via social media. The people that comment on live streams are commenting via social media. Assuming you mean negatively commenting you and I both know that data isn't being tracked. Does every single gamer use social media? No, obviously, but social media has influenced games and the marketing of games.

Even if they made an informed decision by watching whatever streamer or content creator they like that's still using social media.

Even then, how can we assume that the majority, or a massive portion of those people have jumped on to anti-SJW bandwagon?

If all you want is the majority then congrats. You're right. It isn't the majority of gamers as a whole making anti-SJW comments. It never was and it never will be, but the fact that there are more of them bringing it up and getting upset that the boys club that is gaming is even more blatantly not just a boys club is still a talking point. If online discourse about games amounted to people watching a trailer and then not ever talking about it ever then sure. Yes, you can have discourse on games without people talking about how woke or how lefty a game is and in most cases that's how it goes.

Even then how can you insinuate whether their views are truly offensive or not?

Because I have eyes and can read.

Is it just a serious chain of assumption based on your personal perception of social media and how the masses have reacted? Or have you done the research necessary, the type of research that companies like EA and Bethesda are doing on a massive scale across multiple platforms mind you, to insinuate a solid series of statistics, and extrapolate from there?

Actually I work for Bethesda.

when have the idiotic musings of the anti-SJW crowd ever had a significant effect on games? When has it affected marketing? Was there backlash to that? If there was backlash, why didn't it have an equal effect? Where are the facts?

I mean, they contributed to BioWare Montreal no longer being a thing. Or so they like to claim.

Is there any evidence to imply that this vocal minority has somehow... Stopped diversity from becoming more mainstream in gaming? It doesn't seem that way.

No, but diversity still isn't mainstream in gaming.

The people complaining that their precious video games are being ruined by swijuice a vocal set of people not wanting to share their blocks in the sandbox.

To further complicate the topic though, what exactly defines an 'Anti-SJW' or an 'SJW' anyways? To me, if feels like they're both arbitrary buzzwords to refer to some nebulous concept of how a person thinks

Congratulations, you cracked the code.

But, as a bottom line, I do agree that anyone going around and complaining about Ellie being a lesbian, which was established in a very fucking GOOD DLC TO THE LAST OF US 1, or diversity in any game, are complaining about shit that isn't even remotely important, and often make themselves look like idiots. I just prefer to ignore them, rather than complain about them, because I think they're relatively harmless and I'll still get to kill dudes as Ellie when the game comes out, regardless of their whining.

My dude the only reason we even went on for this long despite us both agreeing on this point right here is because I was making a comment as to why something like Ellie kissing a girl comes off as 'shocking' and 'bold' when it is neither of those things.

Underrated and Overrated Video Games

Until I see some solid sources to back up the 'gamers hate women and gays' stigma/agenda, I won't buy into the notion that it's commonplace. To hold the entirety of society to the standards of a verbal minority seems extremely shortsighted to me.

@tex

It's really not as much of a minority as you want to think. No, not every gamer hates women and gays but you'd have to be putting your head in the sand to not have seen negative outlash towards games with minorities or queer characters at the focal point growing over the years. GamerGate gave a platform and a voice to what used to just be fringe sorts.

It's like battling propaganda with propaganda at that point. Social media is a terrible source to determine the consensus on the gaming community, especially when the vast majority of gamers aren't verbal on the subject at all. It might have something to do with how belligerent the environment is, it might not. The numbers are evidence enough to dismiss most of it as hearsay though.

The gamers that are verbal on the subject are the group being discussed here. There are people who are gamers who only play Madden every year and don't even know what an E3 or a Naughty Dog or whatever is. It's not hard to find reactions and comments from people who honestly believe that the current trend of 'diversity' is killing the industry and creativity and that it's some leftist plot. Just because they post about it in comments or in threads doesn't invalidate that. You can't dismiss people's comments and criticisms just because they hide behind a username and limited characters. Like it or not, social media is an absolutely valid place to gauge reactions from consumers, as are public forums. Game developers don't have social media accounts just to post hot memes.

So, when I hear you say something like "current sociopolitical climate", I imagine you're basing your ideas on evidence stemming from the cavalcade of idiots on social media, all of which are very likely to make up a crippling minority of the overall video game market, let alone Naughty Dog's market alone. Despite this cavalcade of idiots shouting nonsense from left field, the sociopolitical climate is not entirely defined by their objections, nor it it significantly affected by the equally belligerent commentary from objectionable individuals. Social media itself is far too vast and divided to analyze without falling into the trap of confirmation bias. The 'loudest' and more popular opinions often drown out the quieter opinions, even if the quieter opinions make up the majority, and/or do in fact, shape the market.

I'm basing my ideas on more than just social media. It's articles about the disproportionate amount of female leads shown at a press conference and people bending over backwards to discredit the numbers. It's videos where commentators make a point to praise or condemn the diversity and the expected arguments from the peanut gallery. It's the fact that Pete Hines says "Fuck Nazis" on stage and this is seen as controversial - and not because he said 'fuck'. It's entire threads and topics dedicated to criticizing companies for pandering as well as criticizing companies for not doing enough or articles about how games are afraid to say anything.

In a nutshell, the 'Gay is not normal' and 'LOOK AT HOW GAY IT IS<3<3<3' dichotomy, is arguably referring to an infinitesimal minority. That seems to be the case with most of what you're referring to. I would have to go do a fair amount of research to provide evidence that this has not affected game sales significantly in the past decade, but I'm pretty certain it hasn't. My point though, is that I think the verbal minority is a self-fulfilling prophesy that will not change, so there's no point in considering it as anything important, regardless of how annoying it might be. Additionally, they do not play a major role in defining the overall socioeconomic climate.

It's not nearly as small as you're trying to suggest. It's easy to say it's small if you discount a major source of discourse related to the media. This has been a talking point in games for years at this point and it's no coincidence that the conversation flares up around this time. There was literally a patch to change dialog in Mass Effect Andromeda because an actual minority pointed out the awful pandering and poorly handled transgender character. On social media. 1.2 billion people are classified as gamers while 700 million of them are online, males age 15-24 make up the largest demographic. This doesn't get into the people that play a phone game for thirty minutes on the bus - they're gamers too. Limiting that to strictly Americans, as of 2015 more than 150 million Americans fall under the umbrella of gamers. 150 million people aren't buying games. For numbers, on console in the first week of Far Cry 5 (one of the highest selling games of the year thus far) the number of copies sold in America was roughly 981,000.

How many of those 980 thousand people have social media accounts? Let's say twenty percent. That's still right around 196 thousand people. If that seems like a generous percentage remember that the PR fiasco that was Battlefront 2's 'pride and accomplishment' led to 680,000 people voicing their dislike on a public forum. For the record, Battlefront 2 on console globally sold about 870,000 copies week one, about 546,000 of which were U.S. sales. The game also went on to be a bit of a sales disappointment for the company. Granted it's just one example but given that three of the most controversial games of last year (Andromeda, Battlefront 2, Shadow of War) all went on to under perform, well...the minority of gamers that stay informed via social media or the like are still having an influence in sales figures.

Game companies may not advertise to the social media generation (though clearly some portion of their marketing does given the rise of Twitch and companies using it as a vehicle for streamers to show their game) but social media is definitely involved in the industry. Video games don't get the constant television advertising that movies so frequently do and social media and high traffic websites catered around gaming is absolutely used in advertising.

I think that both sides of this crappy dichotomy are a trap. I mean, the discourse itself isn't a dichotomy to begin with. But these two points of view have become something popular and dramatic that people, both ignorant and educated, fall into due to how difficult it is to efficiently analyze something as complex as the gaming market. It's not uncommon to jump to conclusions based on hearsay and the practices of companies that are trying to become more inclusive, and sometimes it's not inaccurate either, but I certainly don't think the current climate is as bad as you frame it.

The climate is more vocal now because video games are mainstream and it's easier for people to engage with developers and creators and each other. Not every game drums up heated topics but there's absolutely more discourse and discussion of the social and political ramifications of games now then in years past. It's not a new thing, it's been getting louder since 2014 and most people have just gotten better at tuning it out for their own sanity.

Underrated and Overrated Video Games

Like, it's 2018, not 2001, relax. Girls kissing in vidja games isn't any more surprising than Bethesda shooting themselves in the foot repeatedly.

@tex

The reason people are 'surprised' by it is because of different factors namely the current sociopolitical climate dominating an increasingly large portion of the internet when it comes to pop culture and the fact that the video game industry, for all its attempts to catch up to the times, is still very much behind the times and concerned more with market trends. This in turn leads to the expectation that games shown at press conferences are bullshots and trailers so when something as blatant as a major company showcasing a trailer wherein two characters of the same gender are kissing it's seen as a shock by many just because it's unexpected and rather than understanding that the character isn't defined by her sexuality (or even that it's out of nowhere given the first game) it becomes "propaganda" and "forced diversity." This is why you have people upset and starting to try and apply realism ("Why would she be lesbian when women should be focused on REPOPULATION?????") to a fictional apocalyptic video game.

This is also why people got upset that Gears of War 5's trailer focused on the female character where before it was about four meat slabs cutting up other meat slabs despite the fact that Gears 3 had female characters playable in the campaign. The game industry and the loudest gamers have gotten used to video games just being about shooty mens or stabby mens (with the sometimes shooty girl or stabby girl in your RPGs if they aren't healy girls) that seeing a game starring a shooty and stabby girl is confusing since those are supposed to be supporting characters.

Same sex relationships or female led games aren't anything new but they are still very much a niche - which is why devs like BioWare feel the need to pat themselves on the back or why some developers make sure people know that you can be gay in their game because it allows them to put a mark in the checkbox and feel good that they're representing people in the most shallow way possible. Gay people aren't buying games just because a character is or can be gay, and if they are chances are they run a microblog. The people that take to their Twitters and Subreddits and comments about how "FORCED DIVERSITY IS RUINING GAMES" are just looking for a boogeyman and people that slam their dashboards with "YAAAAAAAAAAAAS #GAYGIRLS" or whatever are not exactly helping the cause. No game has been good just because a character is gay and no game is good just because the protagonist is female or a person of color or whatever.

But because of the current climate which sucks, a game with a female lead that isn't Tomb Raider is feminist SJW propaganda and suddenly everyone on the internet is an expert in ancient Greek history and World War 2. There's no secret SJW conspiracy to make video games gay or whatever the fuck. The fact that like five of the games shown at E3 conferences had female protagonists should be evidence enough that the status quo is the same as it ever was. There's always going to be reeeeeing from both perspectives here, be it from the side that goes "HOW COME THERE WEREN'T ANY FEMALE PRESENTERS AT E3?" or the side that thinks a lesbian character is "FORCED DIVERSITY" and the trick is to just fucking ignore it and play the goddamn games you want to play.

Basically fuck all video games forever.

Most anticipated Games of 2018-2019

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in SR4 can you succ people up, turn into them and throw their entire family so high into the sky they colonise Mars? I think the fuck not. 0/10 not enough furiously popped collars

@Mara

Yes, that's what the Rectifier Probe is for, without the 'turn into them' but you can be whoever you want to be so it's basically the same thing. Or the Abduction Gun for lame people that didn't like ass rocketing people so hard they explode.

Prototype is for people who like their open world fun to be bogged down in edge.

Most anticipated Games of 2018-2019

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@Mara

In Saints Row 4 I can fly around and cause chaos all while this song plays on an endless loop:



Which provides such a pure joy that is only doubled with all the blatant and fun fanservice bits to the past games that really the biggest drawback is that it's Steelport again. But I mean there are two camps when it comes to Saints Row: the camp of "Saints Row 2 was the best/only good one" and the camp of people who are right.

Which is to say SR4 is better than Prototype which is Hulk: Ultimate Destruction for Venom fetishists.

Most anticipated Games of 2018-2019

ahahahahahahano

but you included Prototype on the list so you are forgiven

@Mara

Saints Row 4 > Protoype hth

Underrated and Overrated Video Games

EDIT: It feels odd debating without Prawn jumping in to mindlessly agree with you. Tell Jim Gordon to flash the Fabricant signal or something.

@Dynamo Frokane

You act like I pushed a button and summoned him. Well I guess I hit the 'post reply' button but that doesn't count.

You seem to be be fighting my hologram in the contrarian danger room. I never said I thought HZD was woke, I literally mocked that idea.

@Dynamo Frokane

There is my opinion your precious open world epic.

Don't put words in my mouth I would never use the word precious.

Most anticipated Games of 2018-2019

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2 out of 4 Arkham games....

And crackdown doesnt count.

@Dynamo Frokane

Well if you're going to put a limiter on the list already I guess it cant be helped but here, I'll add to it:

-The Wonderful 101
-Marvel: Ultimate Alliance
-Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2
-Hulk: Ultimate Destruction
-Freedom Force
-Freedom Force vs The Third Reich
-Infamous
-Infamous 2
-Infamous: Second Son
-Comix Zone
-Lego Marvel Supeheroes
-Lego Batman 2: DC Superheroes
-Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions
-Viewtiful Joe
-Chroma Squad
-Injustice: Gods Among Us
-Injustice 2
-City of Heroes
-Champions Online
-Saints Row 4
-Batman: The Telltale Series
-DC Universe Online
-Marvel vs Capcom 2
-Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 2
-South Park: The Fractured But Whole
-Viewtiful Joe 2
-X-Men Legends
-X-Men Legends 2: Rise of Apocalypse
-X-Men Origins: Wolverine
-Prototype
-The Darkness
-Scribblenauts Unmasked
-Lego Marvel Superheroes 2
-Astro Boy: Omega Factor
-X-Men Arcade
-Maximum Carnage
-Marvel Heroes (RIP)

Most anticipated Games of 2018-2019

And spider-man is my favorite super hero btw, but super-heroes and games just don't mix most of the time.

@Dynamo Frokane

Except for all those times it's worked really well, sure.

Most anticipated Games of 2018-2019

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thats quite the unhealthy focus on the sexuality of a minor you have there

@Mara

Ellie's 19 now. It's legal.