Magical Realism & Weird Fiction thread

[Magical Realism & Weird Fiction thread]

Clive Barker's "Books of Blood" (two short story collections, or six depending on how they're broken up) are both horror and weird. (I guess?) Very good, as are his earlier books. (Up to say Coldheart Canyon) I could suggest specific stories from the collection is anyone cares. Also interesting in that he is a gay man writing horror, which seems pretty rare, and doesn't fit neatly into "queer horror." (Which google tells me is a thing I didn't make up)

 

As far as creepy single stories, "Who Goes There?" the novella by John W. Campbell, Jr that The Thing was based on, is the only story I've read since childhood that kept me awake afterwards. The raw concept as presented in the novella is incredibly disturbing.

[New people: Read this, say hi.]

Hello!  I just signed up, and having looked around, have noticed there is already an established member here called Twig.

 

How embarrassing.  I can only apologise.

 

Likewise, I just realized there are other people on this forum. Very poorly chosen user name.

 

i like long walks on the beach and my favorite caster is Jake because he's rad and knows what's up. Except when it comes to A Link Between Worlds! Boomerang, bomb and arrow? Let me guess, you also love missionary and white bread. (Seriously though, I relied heavily on Flame Rod and barely touched any of those) Also his Zord looks the coolest.

[Bioshock Finite: Irrational Games shuts down]

"Very little", but not nothing. Right now we've got nothing from official sources. Worse than nothing, obvious PR spin. So it's not unreasonable to use the little we have to form tentative opinions. But of course people are liable to take tentative opinions and transform them into sure facts and you're right to call some of those specific comments out, but you go too far in insinuating that we can't have an opinion at all unless it's backed up by facts.

Here are some facts:

• That there is a long history of unconfirmed rumors of Levine being an egotist/asshole. (It is a fact that the rumors exist & have existed for a long time, which is salient on its own for reasons that should become obvious)
• Bioshock Infinite took approximately twice the time to make that typical games like it take.
• Levine's studio is now being shut down.
• For the announcement of that shut down & the firing of almost all of its staff, Levine or 2k PR chose to write a letter that emphasized that it was his own choice to leave because he wants to form a new studio and to please now be excited for his next project, in an almost too good to be true parody of his long-rumored egomania.

I know that, knowing nothing for certain, it appears to be bizarre and gross. I don't know that it actually is, but I know that it very much looks like it is. What's wrong with me saying that?

 

This is going to be my last post for a while because I don't want to monopolize the conversation, and because I'm tired, and because I've basically said what I wanted to.

 

What's wrong with what you said? Not a lot. I would take issue with the "where there's smoke there's fire" sentiment about rumors involving egotism, but overall there's not much wrong with your post. (I heard from 3 different girls that Suzy is a slut! Draw your own conclusions!)

 

It does appear bizarre and gross. The idea that he is closing the studio and laying everyone off so that he can refocus is gross. It's also very hard to take at face value. Take Two has determined that the studio is losing money, or will lose money, or that it will make such modest amounts of money at best that it's not worth keeping open. Otherwise it would stay open. Ken would leave and the studio would remain. Rare didn't close when the Stamper brothers left. Lionhead didn't close when Molyneux left. Studios don't close because one guy wants to leave. Executives don't choose to not make money.

 

Maybe Ken wanted to leave and Take Two thought that without his personal brand the studio would struggle. In that case he had a choice I don't envy - stay at a job he no longer wants just to keep people employed, or leave and they lose their jobs. Maybe Take Two just wanted the studio to close. I don't know. I really have no idea. But I'm fairly certain the story isn't "viable, promising studio closes because guys leaves."

 

The letter is very odd. I suspect the intention was to say "Take Two is closing but don't worry, crazy genius Ken Levine is still here and still making great games. The studio is closing so that his games can be even better!" It's highly unlikely that Ken wrote this letter without input from Take Two. Ken is a brand. This looks like an attempt to make the most of bad situation by playing up the strength of that brand.

 

Yes, the letter is gross. I don't know who to pin that on. Maybe Ken Levine is incredibly tone deaf. Maybe a Take Two person in incredibly tone deaf. Maybe we'll find out that Ken Levine has a medical condition that explains why he's so tone deaf, and then the narrative will be about how a disabled person was bullied. I don't know who to take fault with, so I'm not going straight for "Ken is an asshole.

[Bioshock Finite: Irrational Games shuts down]

Quoting this because I want to make sure people didn't miss it.

Because you agreed or because it was incredibly stupid? Or maybe because I used the wrong form of "you're"?

Without getting into prolonged epistemology debates what I wrote is correct. Stating that something is a fact doesn't make it true. I realize this is itself an assertion of fact, but again, epistemology etc. If you really want to we can have a 10 page debate on whether or not numbers exist. (I'm "for") (Spoiler: the argument ends in draw)

I've never played Bioshock Infinite (I have no interest in that type of game) but I suspect I would agree with the statement that it has problems with race. From what I've read that certainly seems to be the case. But that it has racial problems isn't a fact. "Most people believe B:I has racial problems" may well be fact. (It probably isn't though) "I'm reasonably intelligent and I can make a good case for it having racial problems" is fine, it doesn't need to be a fact. It's just silly to think that you can make an opinion more convincing by claiming that it's a factpinion.

It seems pointless to erase the distinction between "fact" and "opinion" - these are useful words that mean different things. Specific language is a good thing.

[Bioshock Finite: Irrational Games shuts down]

that having negative opinions on what happened is in bad taste

...

that snark on a public forum is as objectionable as hundreds of people losing their jobs

 

I didn't insinuate anything even remotely resembling these statements. These are your fabrications to make me appear callous.

 

 

This is smarm; characteristically, you spend several paragraphs basically saying, 'guys, this is entirely mysterious, so everyone shut up and look sad'. This helps no-one, and we will learn nothing. And in trying to deploy shame to bolster your argument, you make a fatal mistake:

By doing what you're doing you're "basically saying" that I can safely ignore your posts.

[Bioshock Finite: Irrational Games shuts down]

aperson, I understand your complaints about "rudeness" and mostly agree myself, but I don't really get your whole "unfounded criticism" thing. So long as Levine is famous and respected, anyone who goes on record saying that he's a bad boss or that Irrational was mismanaged is sacrificing their livelihood, full stop. 

 

 

On some level it was mismanaged - that's pretty undeniable. The business did fail. But the accusations that he doesn't care about people, that the environment was "toxic", that he ran people into the ground, that he's a moron at running a business - I need *something* more than essentially nothing. I can't condemn someone based on nothing just because every good story needs a villain.

 

People don't want to use their real names, ok. Show me some quotes from anonymous sources then. Show me someone saying "I know three people who work at Irrational and they all thought Ken was a terrible person." I work in the gaming industry, I talk to people. I interview people. A lot of people looking for new jobs are unhappy with their old ones. That in itself means very little.

 

When people get laid off they are going to be pissed. And there are going to be people who quit over personality clashes, people who were pushed out, people who fundamentally disagreed with how the business was run. You're going to have some disgruntled people. Someone is going to say "I worked on something for 3 months then Ken made me redo it from scratch" because someone always says that. That person is going to view Ken as fickle and a bad manager. That doesn't mean Ken is actually fickle and a bad manager.

 

I've managed people. I'm sure a few of them think I was a bad manager. (Hopefully not too many) I know some of them disagreed with decisions I made or how I made them. I may have snapped at someone or been short. I may have been pissed at someone for not working hard enough. I sometimes worked on one thing when I should have been working on something else and missed the forest for the trees.

 

That doesn't make me a terrible person or terrible at business. It makes me a person. If someone is willing to say those things above they wouldn't be wrong. It wouldn't be an accurate representation but it wouldn't be wrong.

 

Maybe there's a guy at Telltale about to get laid off, and when he does he's going to complain about how Nick Breckon took hour-long breaks to play Neptune's Pride while he picked up the slack.

 

I don't need a signed affidavit from every Irrational employee stating that Ken Levine is a piece of shit, but I need more than innuendo. I need more than "well in an interview about Naughty Dog Nate Wells seemed to contrast the ego-free nature of development there with development at Irrational and thus Ken Levine is an egotistical asshole QED."

 

Dude, you just said a couple posts ago that laying off an entire company and sailing away on a golden parachute is somehow "life", whatever that means. Literally anything in the universe can be defended by calling it "life" with no further comment. There's a good conversation going on in the I Had a Random Thought thread about pots and kettles being black, actually.

 

Didn't you chastise me about mischaracterizing people rather than exactly quoting them? I said businesses failing is life. Most businesses fail eventually. That's life - as in, that is what normally happens on planet earth. Ken Levine's business was more successful than most. If his failure shows he's an idiot then most business owners are much bigger idiots.

 

There's nothing incredibly remarkable about a business failing nor is a business failing any sort of moral failure. That a person failed at business is a pretty flimsy reason to rip into them.

[Bioshock Finite: Irrational Games shuts down]

I almost commented on the racism thing earlier, but didn't want to derail this.  BI has bad problems with how it handles minorities.  I'm stating that as a fact, because it's a fact.  The way the Vox Pop and Daisy are handled, in the context of how narratives involving whites and blacks often play out, it's problematic at best and racist at worst. For a lot of people who pay attention to gaming news, talking about BI being racist isn't a "gotcha" style claim that needs explaining in the context of this thread.  This has been pretty thoroughly discussed around the Internet. It doesn't need to be rehashed here.

 

Saying that something is a fact doesn't make it a fact. I'm stating this as fact: your "fact" isn't a fact. (This is in fact a real fact) This is not up for debate unless you want to argue with the basic principles of reality. Argument by assertion is no argument at all. There's no consensus view on the internet that BI is racist, so at best your talking about the the view of the slice of the internet you frequent. (I'm not sure when "the internet" became the final word on race )

 

Secondly, there is a huge difference between "this thing is problematic" and "this thing is racist." The claim wasn't that it was problematic.

 

Third, by saying that this poster could make the game less racist they are clearly implicating Levine in that racism. That Levine is racist, that he just didn't care about stripping out the racism, that he was oblivious to it. Whereas this guy is a morally superior being who cares about race issues much more than Ken. It wouldn't even be that hard to make the game less racist - just, you know, don't be such a fucking racist!

 

If we're going to just state things as facts can I take a turn? TWD is racist. The show is racist, the game is racist, the comic is racist. Also sexist. Were I working on the TWD I would have made the game less racist and sexist than Jake or Sean did. I feel like I could handle that. It wouldn't be very hard.

 

Does this feel fair? is this a useful criticism? This doesn't feel like posturing or point-scoring? The subtext here isn't "I'm less racist than these fucks"?

 

TWD is "problematic" in many ways. Lee is a fucking convict. You can find a ton of writing on the internet about how TWD is sexist and how Kirkman is sexist. (The internet has spoken!) The game is about a male hero protecting a literally infantilized female.

 

That said, I wouldn't say with conviction "were I working on TWD I'd make it less sexist and racist" because I know very well what the implications of that are and I'm not that shitty a person. I'm not a super nice person. (Can you tell?) But I'm not that shitty.

[Bioshock Finite: Irrational Games shuts down]

So aperson, should all people in a position of power be off limits when it comes to criticism? Who is it okay to criticize? I suppose you also find it sick when people call Obama an idiot or when they get furious at congress because they're all trying so hard and all have our best interests in mind right?

 

Sorry. You don't get to pretend that you're somehow the good guy, fighting the fight for the oppressed masses while I'm some apologist for the 1%.

 

Calling someone an idiot isn't "criticism." Your "criticism" was nonsense..

[Bioshock Finite: Irrational Games shuts down]

I also really don't appreciate the way that you caricature what people you disagree with are saying in every post you've made so far on this forum. It's a cheap way to make you seem more reasonable in comparison, which you shouldn't need if you really are the voice of reason here.

 

You are correct - I definitely don't need to caricature. I will use direct quotes.

 

Let's go through some of rude and ridiculous things said in this thread.

 

There's plenty of evidence that:

 

A ) Levine was a Really Bad Boss, and allowed or even enabled(!) a toxic culture to take over Irrational Games, and

 

There's plenty of evidence? Where is it? This poster, while claiming that there is plenty of evidence, cited zero evidence. Where is a first-hand account of this toxic culture? Or even a second-hand account?

 

Another poster, in reference to the Gamasutra piece:

 

Direct evidence! Well, ces't la vie. Was willing, and trying, to give the benefit of the doubt. But $200 million for Bioshock Infinite? I could see $40 million, a fifth of that. But 200? Geeze.

 

"Direct evidence." Of what? Of mismanagement? Of that Ken is a Really Bad Boss and the culture was toxic? Of the budget?

 

This is of course not "direct evidence." It's barely "indirect evidence." "Direct evidence" of the budget would be a copy of the relevant documents. The Gama piece includes a single attributed quote - which calls the piece into question. The section called "Foreshadowing" is full of innuendo  - Ken says crunch is bad but BI is not a formula game, Nate Wells praises the atmosphere at ND, and we're supposed to put two and two together and conclude that obviously that's a jab at Levine and that Levine forces his team to crunch and is terrible or something?

 

The actual Levine quote is perfectly reasonable. He doesn't like crunch and it should be avoidable with good planning, but sometimes you don't plan well and you crunch. I work in the video game industry, I know plenty of other people who work in the video game industry. The vast majority of them would say something similar. Everyone from CEOs to design interns. Trying to spin that as disregard for employees is extremely unfair. Most people in the video game industry, including almost certainly most of the people laid off, believe something similar to that sentiment.

 

Calling this "direct evidence" of anything is flat wrong. It's also confirmation bias - the piece is flimsy but if you're already prone to believe it why not pretend it's some slam dunk?

 

Now this is where it gets really bad:

 

This may sound harsh but based on some of these accounts, Levine comes across as more of an idiot than a creative genius. It's great that he has all these awesome creative ideas but the fact that he is so apparently clueless on how his practices impact the potential profitability of the game he is creating is baffling.

 

Based on what accounts? Again, there's no citation of anything. No quote is attributed to anyone. Are "these accounts" just that JP tweet? Are you guys sending each other private messages full of source material?

 

He comes across as an idiot? Not just he made a bad business decision, but he's "clueless." He doesn't understand that spending a lot of money on a game will impact profitability, or he doesn't understand that if you delay a game you need to burn more money?

 

He started his own business - a business that was more successful than most. I'm supposed to believe that subtracting spending from revenue is beyond him?

 

This is a gross simplification of how game development works, or how any business works. Sometimes you know that delaying something will cost more money, but you delay it because the product quality isn't there. Sometimes you go down a promising path then realize it wasn't so promising. Sometimes the guy over your head demands changes. This happens all the time at nearly every developer. The idea that he doesn't understand basic business concepts as evidenced by his studio eventually failing is idiotic.

 

Maybe his "sculpting" approach eventually failed. But that approach lead to the creation of good games in the past, commercially successful games and a successful business. Maybe it got out of control, maybe it didn't scale up. But his practices were profitable. It's not like he inherited a company and immediately ran it into the ground.

 

And do we need to call him an idiot? Based on nothing? Most business fail. That's life. Most business owners are idiots? This is where "if it's so easy why don't you do it?" becomes valid. It's just so simple to found your own video game company and keep it profitable for decades, and if at any point you fail it's because you lack the most basic business sense - really?

 

To me this looks unfounded and rude, but the poster explains how calling someone an idiot isn't so bad. I'm not going to quote that.

 

They then double down:

 

To be clear, I think being a competent game developer goes far beyond just being a 'creative genius' and Levine comes across as completely ignorant when it comes to anything beyond hatching his video game ideas.

 

Again, based on what? He started a business, his business grew to employ hundreds of people. I run a TWO PERSON business and it can feel overwhelming at times. (I sent out 1099 forms a week late!) He's not a competent game developer and he's completely ignorant beyond game ideas? There's a mountain of evidence to the contrary, and no evidence that supports that. There's a common saying in the industry: "ideas are cheap." (Personally I don't like that saying) People good at hatching ideas get mocked. Hatching ideas is not even considered a real skill! The idea that someone founded and ran a successful video game business when they are only good at hatching ideas is monumentally dumb.

 

Is this informed? Is this "criticism" of any merit? Is this fair? Would this be fair to say about someone you know, a friend of yours? About Tim Shafer? Or is this something a guy can get away with saying because it's part of a pile-on?

 

If you think Levine is completely ignorant beyond "hatching his video game ideas" then the ignorant idiot here is you. Full stop. Sorry if that's me attacking another poster, but I don't see a huge moral distinction between attacking a poster vs attacking a guy who isn't around and can't defend himself.

 

 

The fact that he, the head of a major developer, was under a lot of stress seems like a pretty poor defense against accusations that he treated employees poorly during development or in the shutdown.

 

Where are these accusations? Some of you are upset that he is re-tweeting job posts - is that an example of his poor treatment? Are the accusations just that Gamasutra piece again?

 

Ken Levine ran a large studio. There are going to be people who thought they were treated poorly, especially when they were just laid off. So far I've seen very few people saying they were treated poorly. How many of these accusations are there? Who is making them? Can someone list them, link to them?

 

People in this thread keep appealing to evidence, accusations, etc, while citing nothing. You heard that Ken Levine is a monster - ok, where? Let me decide for myself whether that source is reputable.

 

Boo fucking hoo. Do you actually have anything useful to contribute?

 

This is post that wouldn't fly at Neogaf. That's all I'll say about that, other than that this is an odd objection given the amount of useless junk in the thread. Making fun of Cat Daddy was a useful contribution?

 

I could probably have managed to make it less racist, at least. I feel like I could handle that.

 

Now we bring out the big guns! There's no better way to seize the moral high ground than call others racist. This is the entire post. There's no explanation. There's no "I thought the way it handled race was troubling - I can see what they were going for but it came out poorly." Nope. The game is just racist. Racist enough that it could be less racist and still presumably be racist. Case closed.

 

I could make TWD less racist by having Lee not be a convict. I mean, didn't anyone on the team watch Hollywood Shuffle? Fair statement? It seems fair, if going from zero to racism is acceptable.

 

Whether or not BI is racist, or a product of racist intent, or maybe can come off as racist, or used race just as a marketing ploy, or tried for something and just botched it - I think any rational person would recognize this is a conversation that goes beyond the blithe observation that nope, it's just racist.

 

This is not criticism, it's not informed, it's not fair. It's "how can I score cheap points while being snide?"

[Bioshock Finite: Irrational Games shuts down]

I appologize. That last post was a snarky way to voice my opinion, I was aware of that as I was writing and that was semi-confrontational for confrontation's sake and I probably should have censored my self as soon as I realized that.

 

 

You shouldn't apologize. The last couple pages of this thread are gross and you're right to call it out.

 

"Yeah I feel really weird about this, though a large part of me doesn't really have any reaction to this that's any different than any other time there are massive layoffs at other studios."

 

My entire team except for my boss was laid off. Fuck that incompetent idiot!

 

Oh wait, my boss felt really bad that we were laid off, is a friend of mine, and we now own a business together. We also regularly meet up with our ex-coworkers for drinks.

 

It sucks when people are laid off. I don't see how that's an excuse to lay into someone with a mix of vitriol and ignorance. Managing a project is hard. If Ken Levine is an incompetent piece of shit what about Tim Shafer? DFA isn't exactly well-managed. It took Idle Thumbs forever to send Kickstarter backer items and some people are having problems / still waiting. Are they incompetent morons also? Valve takes forever to make games - also worthless pieces of shit? If Valve goes out of business next week can I point back to the interview where he said he played DOTA for 1000 hours and say "the warning signs were there! The lazy piece of shit was a terrible manager who just played DOTA all day!"

 

There's not a lot of evidence that Ken Levine is a terrible person or an ineffective manager, other than that his business eventually failed - like most businesses. There are a few mostly anonymous rumors and some "I heard on Twitter that someone heard that Ken Levine is kind of a dick" bullshit. Someone laughably called that Gamasutra piece "direct evidence."

 

If a project is having development issues there are going to be people who grumble. They may be completely justified from their perspective, but that doesn't mean their perspective is the one true one. Maybe your boss isn't paying attention to the game and that reads as negligence, when in reality the reason they aren't paying attention to the game is that they're busy lobbying the parent company for more budget so you can stay employed. At a large company there are going to be people who left due to personality conflicts with nasty things to say about some ex-coworkers, or just disagreeable people who like to stir up shit. People who were slowly frozen out because they were incompetent or lazy.

 

 

When I was laid off I don't see how "your former boss is a fat cat idiot!" would have helped me. There is this weird thing these days where people act like petty, ignorant asses but that's somehow ok because they dress it up as liberalism or concern for their fellow man or fighting for the proletariat or something.

 

People were laid off. How you go from that straight to "Ken Levine is a racist idiot and I have proof that I mysteriously can't share" is beyond me.

[Amateur Game Making Night]

You can get some really wierd bugs from removing or adding items in an array when trying to loop through it, that's for sure.

 

If you want to loop through and remove elements from an array/list structure that slides elements down when you remove them start at the end and move towards the head. Simple tip.

 

That said, removing things from an array/list (rather than a linked list type structure) can be expensive due to that sliding behavior, so it's something you want to think carefully about if you are doing it often or on long lists.

[Idle Thumbs 146: Osama's Dog]

I just listened to that part again, here's my transcript.

 

Ok. Yes, clearly she did refer to the review, I stand corrected.

 

 

I would personally love to hear them talk about sexism in games all the time, but it's their podcast and they took Danielle's word for it. You, the listener, can then go read the review to see her opinion about it or go tweet at Danielle if you want to discuss it. Or write here to discuss what you find objectionable about her opinions? Her saying this and there not being a discussion right at that moment doesn't exclude further discussion in another venue..

 

She said there's "some sexism in the game", I "objected" (I guess - I'm saying a potentially interesting discussion was glossed over) to flatly asserting that, and now I'm cast in the role of finding her opinion objectionable. I don't find her opinion objectionable. In fact I really dislike the idea that this has to be antagonistic and that I have to be against whatever she's for.

 

I'm saying that, almost as a rule, assertion of the existence of sexist content is something that deserves some discussion if brought up rather than to be mentioned in passing. And I think BD would make for interesting discussion because it has a lot of positive elements, a couple things that are clearly fan service (like certain costumes), and things like the sexist character which can be interpreted a variety of ways. Basically the topic was given short shrift. I believe it was given short shrift in her review (which I had previously read), so I was hoping to see it discussed in a longer, more conversational form. So basically a missed opportunity. Which plays in to my overall frustrations with the gender in games debate and how it's largely a "this thing is sexist" "no it isn't idiot" back-and-forth.

 

And again, I think and hope that if a podcast guest said "there's some sexism in Walking Dead" that wouldn't be the end of the conversation. (And yes, a bit apples to oranges as Jake and Sean are obviously more familiar with and invested in WD)

 

On another note...saying "I don't see why that's hard to understand?" and implying that the person you're talking to has trouble grasping things you find simple is not a great way to conduct a conversation. Maybe that's completely unintentional. I often come off as more antagonistic than I intend, it's just my writing style, so if you didn't intend anything sinister I apologize. But please give me the benefit of the doubt - if we disagree it's not because I have trouble grasping simple concepts.

[Idle Thumbs 146: Osama's Dog]

She was referring to a review she wrote and that review has a tiny sidebar that explains the particular tangent in the game she refers to as sexist. I think it's fair of her to assume that if anyone was interested in knowing why she thought Bravely Default had some sexism in it, that person would just go check out her review to find out?

 

I am in fact familiar with that review, and was writing up a reply that specifically brought it up when I saw the "new reply" indicator and read your post.

 

First, I think it's a bit of a cheat to say that she was referring to her review. I don't believe she actually referred to her review - she was discussing a game she also wrote a review for. It also seems strange to me to say that the podcast didn't need to discuss it because it was covered in the review - well why are they discussing the game at all then? I'm going to be bold and guess that not all the other casters were familiar with the review, so even if they review explains it better it still seems like a discussion worth having in the moment.

 

Second, the review doesn't really do much to clarify. The gist of that sidebar is that the game has a character in it who acts sexist. So yes, "this game contains sexism" is a true statement. But I don't think "this thing has sexism in it" is a useful statement without a little more explanation of what that sexism consists of - there is a huge difference between the game having a sexist premise or endorsing sexism vs containing a sexist character. The sidebar states that the game has a sexist character, but does so in a way that is a clearly a negative judgement - it's an "unwelcome hit of sexism." So it's not just that the game has a sexist character, it's that this is problematic in some sense.

 

The problem called out in the sidebar is that it's out of place with the "sweet and innocent" tone of the game. So is the problem not that it's sexist but that it's a downer? But this a game that includes a lot of messed up stuff, and isn't really sweet and innocent at all outside of graphical presentation. There are multiple points in the game where the sweet presentation is clearly purposely juxtaposed with the content.

 

There's a limit to what can be communicated in a written review, especially in a one-paragraph sidebar of a written review. A review also isn't a conversation. A podcast seems like a great place to elucidate.

 

I would guess (I'm full of guesses!) that if a podcast guest said "The Walking Dead has some sexist elements" that some sort of discussion would follow. Now obviously Jake and Sean are invested in the game in a way they aren't with BD, but it seems like the sort of statement that should be discussed almost as a rule. Not refuted or debated, but at least talked about. And I can't help but suspect that there's some element of cultural bias at play - that the existence of negative sexism in games is just accepted more readily for Asian-made games, to the point where it's not even a point. This may not be true of the Idle Thumbs guys in particular, but it definitely seems true of the western games media.

 

The bottom line is this: I've read her review and listened to the podcast. In both places she brought up sexism seemingly as a negative to the game but in neither place did I get a real understanding for what the problem is. I'm not looking to say "no, here's why you're wrong!", I'm looking for insight. That's largely why I listen to podcasts.

 

And in this particular case (and also with regards to the Catwoman "bitch" stuff), the discussion of sexist characters and what that means about the game as a whole seems like it would be interesting.

 

To the other poster (Gormongous): I'm not saying she needs to "justify" her reading or win a debate about it. If she found it sexist she found it sexist. I'm saying she didn't articulate what the issue was and nobody asked, which is just strange to me. She said the game had sexism and the conversation moved on.

 

Maybe there's an element of "well, she's probably just talking about typical save-the-princess type stuff," but that doesn't describe the content of BD very well. If you think about how games are typically sexist - lack of female characters and especially playable characters, female characters with no agency, female characters as motivators, etc, none of those apply.

[Idle Thumbs 146: Osama's Dog]

It bothers me a bit how words like "sexist" and "misogynist" are bandied about so blithely. To me it reads like trying to define the discussion through word choice, to a priori assume what you should be arguing.

 

For example, Danielle just sort of casually mentioned that Bravely Default has some sexism in it. (I forget her exact wording) She didn't describe what that sexism was, or why it was sexist. It was just stated as fact, everyone accepted it, end of discussion. I get that if you haven't played the game it's hard to debate, but I don't think there needs to be a debate so much as an explanation.

 

BD has 4 playable characters, 2 of which are female. A fifth non-playable character is also female. Two of those female characters advance the story, while the male characters are mostly along for the ride. Even if the game has sexist elements it is still far ahead of most games in some respects. I'm not trying to argue whether or not the game is or is not sexist, just saying that an off-hand claim of sexism doesn't do it justice.

 

I could pretty easily state that Walking Dead has misogynist leanings and make at least a weak case for that. (Google "walking dead sexism" if you dare!) I could state that about Bastion as well. (And I wouldn't be the first) But simply stating those things doesn't do much for anyone, and is unfair to the developers and the topic. I suspect if someone said "Walking Dead is a great game - I mean, it has some sexist elements, but overall it's really fun" you (meaning Sean) would probably want some elucidation.

 

It's fair to look at the statistical level and say "games as a whole have few female characters, few of those are playable, and few of those aren't conventionally sexually attractive." But calling out specific games as sexist seems like it deserves a bit more care. Especially when it appears to me that which games get pegged as sexist is fairly arbitrary, culturally biased and often based almost entirely on superficial details like key/box art.

 

I often think to myself "please keep your gender analysis out of my games", not because I think video games are devoid of political expression or unworthy of such analysis, but because that analysis is usually poorly done.