Idle Thumbs 119: You, Fisher

[Twig]

Thanks for closing your mind and getting mad I guess?

Thanks for taking everything too seriously I guess?

 

Geez.

[osmosisch]

Thanks for taking everything too seriously I guess?

 

Geez.

I am literally SO MAD right now! Hilarious!

[Twig]

I don't get you. You confuse me on a daily basis. I was just being silly. Get over it. (Though I do hate fighting games.)

[Patrick R]

I think if Steve wanted to get back at the Thumbs' ghost-trolling, he could somehow find a way to keep Saints Row 4 in the podcast's conversation ad infinitum. The frustration that game causes here is fantastic.

[osmosisch]

I don't get you. You confuse me on a daily basis. I was just being silly. Get over it. (Though I do hate fighting games.)

Thanks for taking everything too seriously I guess?

 

Geez.

[thestalkinghead]

Thanks for taking everything too seriously I guess?

 

Geez.

 

Geez, would you two stop fighting, this is getting way too serious 

[CaptainFish]

Regarding fighting game macros: 

[smart Post]

I feel like being put in high pressure situations where you have to rely on your ability to not only read a situation and opponent, but also act on your training/practice to execute the move you want to do is why fighting games kind of work as a metaphor for the combat sports they depict. Which is kinda cool.

 

It's by no means a necessity, and I don't think it should preclude games that eliminate execution as a requirement, but it's kinda cool.

[Professor Video Games]

I think if Steve wanted to get back at the Thumbs' ghost-trolling, he could somehow find a way to keep Saints Row 4 in the podcast's conversation ad infinitum. The frustration that game causes here is fantastic.

 

It's almost as if Saints Row 4 is HAUNTING the Idle Thumbs podcast...

 

I'll just see myself out.

[Justin Leego]

I found these Fun Facts on the back of a Saints Flow cereal packet:

1. Eric Casper and Ghostface Killa both contributed to the original Saints Row soundtrack

2. Stillwater Caverns' gift shop is labelled a "Haunted Section" and multiple players report discovering a creepy nighttime Easter egg at the Saints Row 2 location of Mourning Wood Cemetery house

3. Promotional material for Saints Row: The Third appears within the Marlon Wagons movie A Haunted House

4. Soilers! Saints Row IV contains an achievement called Ghost in the Machine

[quidnunc]

I think it's funny that Canadians are so heavily involved in the Go America anti-terrorism fiction mentioned in this cast.  Toronto and Montreal are both very left-wing cities, especially compared to American politics. Kiefer Sutherland (Jack Bauer) is also Canadian, and his grandfather was responsible for our universal health care system.

I would argue this is an artifact of the criticism. There is a pattern of seriousness in interpretation of games which inflates the silliness in genre convention into real world parallel meaning. I think those commentators should be a little more self conscious about what they are bringing to the interpretation.

I think this imposition is in part driven by a desire for games to have social and political significance thus inappropriately interpreting works in unserious genre like action as if it reflected a stance about the world we actually live in rather than an entertainment with a narrow transgressive conflict resolution.

[Jake]

I would argue this is an artifact of the criticism. There is a pattern of seriousness in interpretation of games which inflates the silliness in genre convention into real world parallel meaning. I think those commentators should be a little more self conscious about what they are bringing to the interpretation.

I think this imposition is in part driven by a desire for games to have social and political significance thus inappropriately interpreting works in unserious genre like action as if it reflected a stance about the world we actually live in rather than an entertainment with a narrow transgressive conflict resolution.

Was than an overwritten way of saying "shut up games are fun" in response to criticisms that torture maybe shouldn't be portrayed as necessary, celebrated, and always successful by default in popular fiction?

[I Saw Dasein]

I think this imposition is in part driven by a desire for games to have social and political significance thus inappropriately interpreting works in unserious genre like action as if it reflected a stance about the world we actually live in rather than an entertainment with a narrow transgressive conflict resolution.

 

Obviously silly things like action TV shows, movies, and games do have an impact on the way the public views issues like torture. Here's a dramatic example: Justice Scalia cited 24 and Jack Bauer as demonstrating the acceptability or necessity of torture. cite I just don't think it's tenable to say that popular media doesn't help shape the public's view on moral issues like torture.

[clyde]

This episode was remarkably fertile. I just listened and my mind is intimidated by the buffett which lies before it.

I would argue this is an artifact of the criticism. There is a pattern of seriousness in interpretation of games which inflates the silliness in genre convention into real world parallel meaning. I think those commentators should be a little more self conscious about what they are bringing to the interpretation.

I think this imposition is in part driven by a desire for games to have social and political significance thus inappropriately interpreting works in unserious genre like action as if it reflected a stance about the world we actually live in rather than an entertainment with a narrow transgressive conflict resolution.

Do you believe in hyperreality? If so, can you see how genre-silliness affects hyperreality?

[quidnunc]

Was than an overwritten way of saying "shut up games are fun" in response to criticisms that torture maybe shouldn't be portrayed as necessary, celebrated, and always successful by default in popular fiction?

No not at all. The point was that critics aren't taking genre fiction for what it is. Anyone could point out hundreds of unrealistic things about characters in action and adventure that aren't opinionated in a way that is different from me. One aspect of violence in genre fiction is that it's typically drained of properties that would make it realistic, like suffering, so of course there is a negative reaction to torture but there has always been interrogation in Splinter Cell games that follow the same logic completely independent of torture or maiming. There's a grasping for significance in a mechanic wholly borne out of genre convention that is intentionally unrealistic (not unlike the law shows that have numerous instances of behaviour every episode that would, in the real world, lead to disciplinary hearings and disbarment)

[Niyeaux]

Man, people who think fighting games need to be more accessible are the biggest weirdos. I don't get it at all. Fighting games are so accessible if you're a player who has no idea what they're doing, and you're playing against someone else in the same boat. The two of you can literally just mash buttons and watch cool moves happen, and maybe figure out a couple specials and spam them at each other. It's great fun.

 

Why do you even care that there's super hard combos that you can't even begin to execute? Does the fact that a formula 1 driver can apex a corner like Jesus make you hate driving your Corolla? There's no reason the inclusion of an incredibly high execution challenge/skill ceiling should ruin your enjoyment of entry level play.

[quidnunc]

Obviously silly things like action TV shows, movies, and games do have an impact on the way the public views issues like torture. Here's a dramatic example: Justice Scalia cited 24 and Jack Bauer as demonstrating the acceptability or necessity of torture. cite I just don't think it's tenable to say that popular media doesn't help shape the public's view on moral issues like torture.

The ticking time bomb scenario existed and had been discussed long before television shows like 24. People have been disposed to think torture is effective because they want to believe that something can be done. As to the more general idea that media like games exert negative influence on moral attitudes that's an empirical question which I think is of doubtful significance (cf Steven Pinker's recent book)

[Gormongous]

The ticking time bomb scenario existed and had been discussed long before television shows like 24. People have been disposed to think torture is effective because they want to believe that something can be done. As to the more general idea that media like games exert negative influence on moral attitudes that's an empirical question which I think is of doubtful significance (cf Steven Pinker's recent book)

 

But Pinker's recent book has not been that well received by the academic community and, anyway, wouldn't declining rates of actual violence contrasting with increasing rates of perceived violence be an argument that media culture must be having some effect?

[Problem Machine]

There's a grasping for significance in a mechanic wholly borne out of genre convention that is intentionally unrealistic (not unlike the law shows that have numerous instances of behaviour every episode that would, in the real world, lead to disciplinary hearings and disbarment)

Wherever the mechanic was born is irrelevant. Whether it is its intention or not, it proposes a thesis that torture is effective and ethically defensible. I don't think it's just looking for trouble to point this out: I think this is a problem to anyone looking to craft a meaningful story within a game, whether or not you agree that it forwards a tacit argument. And, in fact, I think it would probably be worth pointing out at this juncture that possibly the most critically acclaimed television series of all time, The Wire, specifically dismantles the tropes which you argue for as a genre convention, and in so doing crafted not only a compelling drama but a strikingly honest portrayal of a broken system that claims lives wholesale.

[tegan]

By the way, mad props to Jake for the Gameboy Micro love. I never knew anyone shared my passion for the sexiest console ever built.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I finally broke down and bought one on eBay a few years back (the gorgeous gold and red Famicom one) and couldn't be happier with it. It's probably my most-used console ...after my 3DS XL.

[malkav11]

Man, people who think fighting games need to be more accessible are the biggest weirdos. I don't get it at all. Fighting games are so accessible if you're a player who has no idea what they're doing, and you're playing against someone else in the same boat. The two of you can literally just mash buttons and watch cool moves happen, and maybe figure out a couple specials and spam them at each other. It's great fun.

 

Why do you even care that there's super hard combos that you can't even begin to execute? Does the fact that a formula 1 driver can apex a corner like Jesus make you hate driving your Corolla? There's no reason the inclusion of an incredibly high execution challenge/skill ceiling should ruin your enjoyment of entry level play.

 

The cool moves are a large part of what I'm interested in in fighting games, and as a lifelong button masher I can attest to button mashing actually very rarely leading to most of the really flashy and entertaining moves in the fighters I've tried (things like various Mortal Kombat titles, the Guilty Gear franchise, one or two of the Tekkens, SoulCalibur...II, I think...). Ultimately it just means I don't buy or play them very often, but I certainly wouldn't turn down a control scheme that let me reliably execute cool special moves with a couple of button presses the way a lot of games in other genres do. And I wouldn't mind being able to seriously expect to be able to get through story modes or other similar singleplayer content, in the tiny handful of fighters where that's even worthwhile.

[Jake]

By the way, mad props to Jake for the Gameboy Micro love. I never knew anyone shared my passion for the sexiest console ever built.

I finally broke down and bought one on eBay a few years back (the gorgeous gold and red Famicom one) and couldn't be happier with it. It's probably my most-used console ...after my 3DS XL.

I only have the Famicom-styled one and I like it a lot.

[Twig]

I always wanted one, but never got around to getting one. Now I'm feeling that urge again. Grrr.

[miffy495]

I will have a big boy job in a week! When I start making big boy money to go along with it, I may ebay this thing that teenage me is still kind of pining for.

[TychoCelchuuu]

No not at all. The point was that critics aren't taking genre fiction for what it is. Anyone could point out hundreds of unrealistic things about characters in action and adventure that aren't opinionated in a way that is different from me. One aspect of violence in genre fiction is that it's typically drained of properties that would make it realistic, like suffering, so of course there is a negative reaction to torture but there has always been interrogation in Splinter Cell games that follow the same logic completely independent of torture or maiming. There's a grasping for significance in a mechanic wholly borne out of genre convention that is intentionally unrealistic (not unlike the law shows that have numerous instances of behaviour every episode that would, in the real world, lead to disciplinary hearings and disbarment)

You don't get to just drain something of meaning by removing realistic aspects and saying "it's a video game mechanic!" Even the very act of removing the most meaningful aspects of an act and reducing it down to "press LT to torture to get the information to win" means something. To argue that games don't mean anything when they're just meant to be played or that genre fiction in general doesn't mean anything because it's just meant to be enjoyed as genre fiction is ridiculous. It doesn't matter one bit what anyone thinks they aren't saying when they make these games - what matters is what the games do say when they present, for instance, torture as something that is totally effective all the time forever.

[quidnunc]

But Pinker's recent book has not been that well received by the academic community and, anyway, wouldn't declining rates of actual violence contrasting with increasing rates of perceived violence be an argument that media culture must be having some effect?

Yes it has been well received as far as I know. The Wikipedia page gives a false impression of legitimate criticism through false he-said-she-said balance. As to the specific question it presupposes some things about media consumption that I don't think is tenable and more likely a product of moral panic. Pinker's book goes on at great length about changes in attitudes flowing from the rights revolutions with data from surveys concomitant with the data showing reductions in violence. The idea that the (out of context) level of media violence figures here is not only contrary to the data regarding the reduction of violence but also the surveys of attitudes which flow from ideas about human (and animal) rights which makes the idea that there is some harm in unrealistic torture scenarios doubtful because we simply think it's wrong as a matter of human rights. These hypothetical harm scenarios tend to rely on a (formal or informal) passive model of consumption where mere exposure is enough to alter attitudes and "behavioral scripts" that are not only simplistic but also resting on blank slate assumptions about human nature.

The ticking time bomb scenario in particular is a thought experiment which is presented in such a way to violate balance through a large disparity in harm which supposedly militates against the normal balance of human rights. Daniel Dennett has a lot to say about what is suspicious about those kinds of thought experiments in general in his last book Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking. But to say a Supreme Court justice like Scalia is persuaded specifically on that intuition alone is a naive view of both belief and jurisprudence. A more likely scenario is he's disposed to adduce examples which fit his (necessarily ideological) legal opinions in response to government lawyers arguing that there is an imminent threat that allows the executive to strip normal legal rights and use some forms of torture that are deemed humane (Charlie Savage had spoken at length about how insiders in the Bush administration who are experts on interrogation who think these methods are ineffective were run over by executive branch lawyering )

That isn't to say that some aspects of escalating having an opinion aren't perfectly valid criticisms (I myself hated the direction they went with Conviction - it's reminiscent of other Ubisoft series like Prince of Persia that have flirted with edginess - but I'm perfectly fine with and think there is room for other edgy and transgressive action/revenge scenarios - the movie Taken, for example - for reasons which hang on a morally valid stance in approaching and interpreting such media which isn't invalidated by the having an opinion and literalist interpretation that casts the people who make such games as unenlightened heathens)