Deadpan

Thanks for the reminder. That makes a double-whammy after writing in about pulling those ads. That bad. This good.

Sorry about that, I didn't want to make entirely sweeping condemnations anyway. There's always a non-creepy way of being into a thing, just seems like that becomes increasingly unlikely the more effort and commitment people put into it, at least in the case of something like this, where they invest a lot of money just to prepare for an eventuality. The more the focus of their lives shifts from what is actually happening to hypothetical events that could happen, the harder it is for me to accept that it's really "just in case" and they aren't looking forward, at least a little bit, to that case.

To maybe clarify that particular point a bit, I think she sees it that way, or I do at least, because the ability to not have a particular conversation and carry on with your own life unimpeded is a form of privilege in itself. Not everybody gets to take comfortable breaks like that. Say, I can drop out of conversations about sexism and then not have to worry about a thing in that regard, women go back to facing all sorts of shitty behavior when those conversations are without result. That wouldn't change instantly even if an agreement was reached, but that kind of time-out is still, on a very minimal level, a way of delaying change and tying it to my own comfy schedule (especially since "I don't want to talk about this now" often means "I don't want to talk about this ever."), in which I implicitly benefit from facing less shit. I can't say to share your view of history. Maybe way back when games journalism was entirely about unmitigated enthusiasm and love, but TB strikes me as emblematic of its angry phase, the indignant huffing and puffing, yelling and cursing (see also Yahtzee and any variation of reviews as rants). Then again I never followed him too closely, so the only times I really saw his videos when he got in trouble with developers for things he said previously, and those were clearly never particularly kind. Joyful advocacy doesn't tend to go hand in hand with tantrums about the lack of demonstrated gratitude at least. Either way, saying he was unwelcome because of his opinions makes me a little uncomfortable. Makes it sound as if he was trying to leave it all behind and the organizers were simply unwilling to look past his views on certain things, when it was more a case of them being understandably worried about what kind of people he'd drag to their party, and his following statements and actions entirely justifying any such doubts. I mean, it ultimately all circles back to his opinions, because those inspire his actions and determine his fanbase, but it's definitely also those two things that make him unwelcome.

Well it's a good list of good things. I wish I was more knowledgeable about actual sources or guides for this stuff, but a lot of it, for me, has come from listening to various feminists rant on Twitter for a long time. Which includes you, so, uh, thanks?

Possibly, and I don't even think it was that bad, if made slightly worse by there being no room to disclose such things in those short blurbs then (now?). Doesn't look particularly well if you're currently giving everybody else hell for not disclosing various made up things though. Definitely that in regard to him getting mad at a charity stream for not being grateful for his help while denying that he brought shitty people to them.

Hello, this is where I accept money for some of the weird things I write. JP's stuff looks hella interesting, but I always feel like it's a little too technical for me to really get into.

There's definitely a line somewhere between having an emergency bag or using survival gear for outdoor/hiking stuff that you do already and building a bunker in the wilderness that you stuff full of guns.

That point probably isn't the worst of his crimes, but it definitely captures how inept GG and its de-facto figureheads are when it comes to actually handling ethical journalism. Their stance is essentially "How can we ever trust you to not be corrupt when there aren't explicit, formalized rules for every little thing you do" but then that incessant demand for rules apparently leaves them dependent on explicit guidelines for any moral or ethical decision they make. So when TB ended up putting a game he had previously done a paid promotion for on his Steam curation list and later removed it when people complained, his defense was basically how was he to know that was not a good idea, the platform is so new and there's no established rules there yet. Meanwhile any reasonable person could have determined within themselves that this is a potentially misleading use of their platform and that they shouldn't do that.

Cam is good people, Lana is amazing. I guess I could also mention that I have one of those Patreons but it's not very good

Well alright then, I'm not asking for anyone to condemn the comic, but I will say that I don't feel like this interpretation is taken as equally valid when you suggest it's based on misreading or ignoring what is actually contained in there. Like, we're weighing things differently for sure, but I don't think it's that outrageous to see certain elements of its staging as exaggerated when you're dealing with the setting of a Victorian city beset by marine mammals, or that I'm ignoring things when I tell you that the statements you see as entirely self-referential are also quite similar to what people get to hear for taking up certain causes. I'm not going to speak for her, but the reason I can see myself in that comic isn't because "Hey, I'm annoying like that!" but because I recognize the attitude of the other two as something I've had to deal with when raising certain issues. "You just can't talk to these people" is both something you might end up sighing after particularly exhausting arguments, but also something that will frequently be said about you for engaging people about shitty behaviour. I imagine you've seen that kind of "Can you believe those SJWs?" talk around.

I remember watching this and thinking that it wasn't the most wrong-headed video about this I've ever seen (where Blunderfoot still takes the cake among stuff I am aware of), but honestly, at the point where you decide to create a direct response to Tropes vs. Women in order to be point out how wrong she is or be pedantic about this or that little point (What about Wand of Gamelon?!?), there's really no coming back. You can focus on different aspects of the portrayal of characters and groups, you can do a more close read of a particular series opposite Anita's very broad introductions, you can even not care about any of this at all, but realizing that Anita's videos aren't a threat and don't have to be fought, even if you disagree, is the very first hurdle in a very long race. Always disappointing how many people are stuck just there.

While I'm sure it's possible to do in a positive, non-creepy way, it seems to me a lot of people who are into that survival and doomsday prepping stuff just can't wait for everything to go to hell, and then they'll be the top dog for once, and they can get back at eeeeeeeveryone else. Like, I overheard my brother watching that show about it and the guy was talking about how many thousands of rounds he's got tucked away for self-defense and I'm like "You just can't wait until you get to shoot people without being put into jail, can you?"

That is still a pretty specific read of it though (the comic offers no more introduction to the dislike than a general "Ugh, those people" statement), plus it's not like discrimination only shows up in the shape of that kind of open hatred of people who are different to you in some way, although that sadly also still exists. Generally though, people are conditioned to mask their prejudice by rationalizing it in exactly the same way the person in the comic supports their world view: "Women are too sensitive, you can't even say [sexist remark] without getting in an argument. Getting upset? I guess that proves me right then." Depends. It's already been suggested this is just an analogy of a Twitter conversation happening at the same time, which continues longer than the first two would wish. You can take a literal read of this being a comic about breaking and entering, but I'm personally not inclined to do so. I mean, there's also a talking sealion in this without wanting us to think too closely about that. The way the comic has been taken up anyway, is to describe what it feels like to be constantly but mildly bothered by folk and not what it's like to have your home invaded.

That strikes me as rather close to the "everything is subjective so that thing I just said really wasn't offensive at all" line of reasoning employed by folk who think that because the meaning of words can change, they're really some kind of unknowable, gelatinous beasts. Sure, you can drastically alter the meaning of a sentence if you introduce some entirely new element (like adding race to a sentence that previously wasn't about race), but you can also alter one word and hardly change it at all, say if you subsitute one type of fruit for another type of fruit, or replace "talking" with "chatting". Consequently, it's needlessly alarmist to suggest that replacing a word is liable to flip everything on its head. Whether such a change is absurd or reasonable simply depends on whether the two things are similar enough to make it work. Sauron and Sarkeesian? Clearly not. Sealions, as portrayed in the comic, and folk with disabilities? Both haven't chosen to be born this way, both still get shit for it, both are seen as annoying when they try fighting that kind of discrimination. Such substitutions don't fall flat because the concept is flawed, they just lead to absurdity when people choose silly replacements.

Developer of How Do You Do It?, a game about mashing naked dolls into each other that tells you how many sexes you maybe did, if that's any help.

Maybe the direct analogy of another pastime could have replaced the visual gag. Personally I would have liked a miffed unicyclist.

I don't think that isn't being considered so much as just not being very relevant to the discussion. Unintentional or not it has been picked up by a lot of people condemning GG, to the point where I've often seen this polite heckling referred to as "sealioning," so it's worth getting into why that's not a great analogy. See, but at a certain point you have to get in people's face to achieve any kind of change in attitude, let alone some sort of systemic progress. Nobody enjoys being called out on shitty behavior, but if they get to retreat to their comfort zone any time it comes up they'll never address it. Feminism and other social movements have been waiting a long while for people to confront stuff of their own accord, it just doesn't happen. People are unwilling to engage in the discussion even if one is, as the sealion suggests, unfailingly polite in bringing it up. Like, it's fine if you don't share that read and latch onto the invasion of their home rather than the dismissal of the group, but I don't think it's something you can disagree with (at least not the basic truth of "this makes me uncomfortable"), nor do I think it warrants statements about what we as a group can and should do. If anything it just shows what a non-alliance the opposition to GG is. Plenty of people condemn it now, but as soon as it ends, or even just disappears from their radar, they'll go back to hiring their buddies, writing ableist shit (TWD Season 2?) and generally ignoring any such issues. The other person refers to them with "dude" in the last panel. Or just says "dude"? Maybe not entirely clear.

Clearly it should be "The simile of the sealion" if anything. Though all types fall under the umbrella of metaphorical language use, so I don't think it's an issue. Metaphors are like analogies in that I'm making one right now.

Yup, and another case of GG styling themselves after villains and not realizing how truthful that is. I don't want to talk down any hopeful upstarts, I just find all this extra, extra gross because I made a site for the specific purpose of having a place where people can start out writing about games every now and again and not be served the usual bullshit about how they'll paid eventually, when the site makes it big, or how they need to keep their writing objective, whatever that even means. Instead I get to watch hateful ideologues playing pied piper and drawing them to such crap as garbagegamers.barf UGH It's incredibly (and terrible!) how much work they're willing to put into researching everything and anything about whoever speaks up against them but won't consider what they are saying for even a second. GG, looking for the tiniest speck of fecal matter on their enemy's coat with a magnifiying glass, forever unwilling to turn around and confront the heap of dung right behind them. On a more general note: Nina White wrote about why the term sealion makes her uncomfortable and more people should probably read this. She raises a valid point, I think, and it's disheartening to see people dismiss it (r/GamerGhazi doesn't deem it worth talking about, for instance). Makes me worry that condemning GG is seen as the mark of progressive Video game folk, when really that's just a good baseline.

Played quite a bit of this some months ago, but I haven't really checked back since. I understand the nuclear throne is an actual real thing by now? Also Rami Ismail mentioned daily runs on Twitter today, anybody have any experience with how different those are? I usually go for the high-risk, high-reward glass cannons, so Melting is right up my alley. Those explosions can really spiral out of control when there are a lot of enemies around, especially once you get Throne Butt. Gets a bit confusing with all that screenshake, but fortunately I think they also destroy projectiles, so your carpet bombing can actually keep you pretty safe that way. #TeamMelting

A Nature debate piece about the ethics of studying intelligence and race (or sex) that we read in a recent Gender Studies course basically made these points: 1) None of these are well-defined terms so much as arbitrary, socially constructed distinctions. 2) Even if they weren't, we lack the tools to analyze intelligence anyway. 3) Even if that was possible, such research would still not be worthwile because no good can ever come out of it, it will only ever serve to justify existing prejudice or establish an arbitrary ranking of worth. Salient quote: "In a society in which racism and sexism were absent, the questions of whether or not whites or men are more or less intelligent than blacks or women would not merely be meaningless - they would not even be asked." It may not be a direct analogy, but what is true of group differences probably also applies to individual differences, which would be seen as far less significant in a more egalitarian society.

Free and short is definitely a good idea to make participation easy, and also because these games never get enough discussion elsewhere. I don't even know! Sorry, I am just totally that guy in this thread, but I'm thinking out loud in part because we're planning to introduce a monthly game club type discussion across multiple essays at another site I write for (inspired by The Dissolve, movie buffs tell me) and now I have unresolved feelings about what our selection should look like. I guess I wouldn't mind variety above all. We can include the free, short games that come up in games discourse anyway, but also go back some years and revisit some classics (Today I Die, Gravity Bone, The Company of Myself or such). I'm not sure how a list that achieves a good mix of different stuff would fall into place, but then I also don't have my finger on the pulse of altgames curation as much as you two or other fine folk around here.

Well no, and maybe I shouldn't run my mouth so much seeing how the last such game I played is Modern Warfare one, which had very distinct anti-war undertones. I also mostly wanted to use it as an example of this kind of game, of which there are many more. I know recent Battlefield games for instance exacerbated tensions with Iran and China, respectively. However, I would say that the series role as a cultural artifact isn't defined primarily, but at the very least not entirely, by the content of its respective campaigns, simply because a lot of people play those once, and then spend hundreds of hours in multiplayer matches, where the focus naturally shifts from any narrative mediation of themes to the representational values inherent to making gameplay feel rewarding. So less time spent thinking about how you're maybe not the playing the good guy here, and more time spent thinking about how that new gun you unlocked is totally sick, presumably. More subversive reads of the campaign and the general action obviously exist, you could latch onto whatever amount of western incompetence takes place in the course of a game for instance, but that doesn't mean you automatically have that experience if you boot up the game. That said, my musings are a little uncomfortably speculative: the audience of the Modern Warfare series vastly outnumbers the amount of people who read game criticism, let alone the kind of game criticism that would talk about the glorification of war and conflict. So truthfully, I don't know what they think while playing, simply because we never hear from most of them. I think we'll have to clear up what you mean by "specific," because I'm not sure what makes Unity of Command and Oregon Trail, both of which are rooted in real history, largely nonspecific to you (I assume because their content can deviate from real history?). What you say about Splinter Cell also suggests that maybe we're talking about different kinds of specificity here - specific to the real world, specific to the present, specific to me - and maybe there's a similar mix up with Spec Ops. I wouldn't call it fantastical - as in, pertaining to fantasy - just because its conflict is fictional: it's still tied to real locations, real political tensions, etc. It's made up, obviously, but it's clothed in the garb of present reality, opposite something like Mass Effect. Don't think what you're saying there is even opposed to my point, just perpendicular going in an entirely different direction.

I'd say so, yeah. I haven't played Advanced Warfare, or any military shooter since the first Modern Warfare, really, so this conversation could probably use a bit more specificity (Where's Brendon Keogh when you need him), but in general I'd say that not only does not having these direct material ties to conflict and those interested in profiting from conflict make it less unethical, the further you go from real conflicts towards the fantastical, the more indirect and thus ineffectual its cultural implications might become. A game about a space age war in which you shoot purple humanoid aliens easily can (and probably will) take a racist attitude towards those aliens, but in my mind that's still a different can of beans than othering an existing group of human beings. To make war and violent in conflict on the whole appear heroic by way of some fantastical tale is still questionable to me, but perhaps less questionable than presenting a real conflict (or an obvious stand in) as grandiose and righteous, where that opinion-building might have impact on how the conflict continues. Continuing the war on terror relies in part on continually affirming to the public that the actions of your side are justified, whether as part of a conscious political effort or the way it's negotiated in media. That's fine, I guess, I might not entirely agree with that, but that's probably just a conversation about how much importance we think should be placed on them. However, while arms manufacturing might not be ethically concerning in and of itself, I would posit that arms manufacturers are. I doubt that they would happily go out of business should utopia come to pass against all odds, and while I don't want to suggest some sort of PMC conspiracy bullshit (as these military shooters are actually wont to peddle), these companies probably do posess a non-negligible amount of political clout and lobbying power.

The impact such games have on gun culture and their perceived coolness is definitely worth getting into, but where stuff like Call of Duty definitely crosses the line into gross territory for me is that - even outside of that one time one of these games did a tacky "Why not buy these guns for real?!" promotion - developers end up supporting gun companies by paying licensing fees in order to get to use real brands in their games. So while these oh-so innocent simulations are already worth criticizing on a level of representation and cultural impact, they also often indirectly subsidize the production of real guns. Something that I feel is rarely brought up, or maybe conveniently forgotten when it comes to the age of the modern military shooter. Edit: I tried chasing down where I last read about this (Parkin, of course), and turns out EA has reportedly stopped paying such licensing fees. Probably stil a couple of other devs who do? I dunno.