tegan

I Had a Random Thought (About Video Games)

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The only thing that really put me off about that video was that the audio only worked in my right channel. Drove me nuts. Did that happen for anybody else, or did something specific fuck up for me?

 

 

EDIT: Also, Tegan: In honour of your recent accomplishments:

 

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I watched that Black vs White vs Truth video, mainly out of interest, but I made sure I finished it because the guy's voice made me react badly - I've never heard someone speak like that outside of a movie/TV, and I'm also an academic snob so I thought it was important to continue. 

It was a great video, he made a lot of good points. It's kind of upsetting to have it said straight up and in my face like that.

 

 

I just wish he hadn't gone all evangelical at the end. 

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Of interest: he mentions the ECA brand ambassador announcement as being the trigger here. Here's a story from VentureBeat talking about it. Some broken links there but judging from the Googles I'm guessing that he was pretty shitty when he first started and this came when he'd improved some (I note that the 'Hot Girls in Gaming' series doesn't seem to be a thing any more). 

 

There's some fun questions about intersectionality and how easily past transgressions are forgiven for white people to be asked here that I am going to step wellllll back from because I know I'm not very good with racism at all.

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Miffy: I only get a right channel too.

I watched that Black vs White vs Truth video, mainly out of interest, but I made sure I finished it because the guy's voice made me react badly - I've never heard someone speak like that outside of a movie/TV, and I'm also an academic snob so I thought it was important to continue.

When my inlaws visited us on Kauai, we went on a zip-line thing. Our guide had a heavy Hawaiian accent. My wife and I didn't think anything of it, but in later discussion with my mother-in-law and father-in-law, we discovered that they had thought the entire persona was for show. They had just never heard that accent in anything that wasn't a performance I guess. My wife and I were working with people who had far heavier accents at the time.

Also I lived in New Orleans, working as a server for a while and then later when I moved farther north (Georgia) I was a a server at another restaurant. I was serving a wealthy looking, business-dressed black couple in the georgian restaurant and as was habit at the time respnded with "sho" when they asked me to go get some ketchup or something. They were immediately very offended and didn't speak to me or make eye-contact for the rest of their dinner. They obviously thought I was talking to them differently because they were black. I can understand that. It's hard to convince people that "sho" for an affirmative and "alright" in greeting are the speech patterns of white guy when not in NOLA.

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To be fair it's not just "minority accents" that I have a similar reaction to. When I first moved to the north of England and heard someone speak with a Liverpudlian accent for the first time, I couldn't stop laughing when I walked out the bar. It was such a shock that people actually talk like that, and it's not just some ridiculous TV caricature. 

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Going into the video, the only thing I knew about HHG was he was the guy that was called out for using homophobic slurs. A person I followed on twitter linked to this video where he gives a sincere apology regarding that and addresses some other things:

 

 

I think the call to action is the best part of his most recent one in how encouraging it is.

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Seriously, please watch this video. It's something I wish people talked about and people rarely do, and this guy not only does it well, but he does it by pouring his heart out and being down to earth. Genuine. 

 

So I know next to nothing about this guy.  His message is obviously a good one.  Yes, we need a more diverse set of voices talking in the gaming space.  I don't know that there's much else to say about that video otherwise.

 

I'm reading about him and his history over the last few years, and its fascinating.  You can see the different levels of memory and condemnation circling around, depending on who is being judged. 

 

To some extent, I'm reminded of a local media controversy.  I wish I could find an article that didn't center around his on air resignation, but a few years ago my local public radio station replaced a veritable local legend (Walt Bodine) with Jabulani Leffall.  Leffall sounded different, had a different tone, did subjects that were different.  There was a lot of love and a lot of criticism for the new host, but in the criticism you could just see people struggling to not just be overtly racist.  So they used a lot of wiggle words, like different.  And then Leffall quit in a spectacular fashion, and there were rumors of addiction and mental health issues, and again the criticisms against him skirted right up to being blatantly racist, but public radio listeners are too nice of people, too proper, to think of themselves as being racist.  But some of them reveled in the confirmation that a black man just wasn't appropriate for their radio station. 

 

There are a lot of people that struggle with hearing a black man speak to them from a place of authority, and someone like Leffall on the radio or seeing HHG at big gaming events brings out the worst in them.

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I've started a Pokémon eugenics program and am currently breeding for a shiny Beldum. The parents are a perfect Japanese Ditto and a Perfect Canadian Beldum. Soon. Soon.

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This is an important video. Please, please, please, please, please, PLEASE watch this video. Especially if you are in the games industry in any way, and are white and male (which is like 90-95% of this community). 

 

And if you're instantly put off by the thumbnail, the title, or how this dude talks, you are part of the problem this guy is talking about and you REALLY need to watch it. 

 

 

Seriously, please watch this video. It's something I wish people talked about and people rarely do, and this guy not only does it well, but he does it by pouring his heart out and being down to earth. Genuine. 

Whew, thank god this is a Hip Hop Gamer-produced video and not some takedown of him, as the YT still sort of indicates it might be. His Oculus Rift demo YT from CES this year made me a fan.

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I've started a Pokémon eugenics program and am currently breeding for a shiny Beldum. The parents are a perfect Japanese Ditto and a Perfect Canadian Beldum. Soon. Soon.

I hope this thread is eventually remembered as the place where Tegan created the Pokemon master race.

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All along, we have been so blind: BigDog was a Pokemon the whole time.

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UNSIhx0.png

 

 

Perfect Attack, Defense, Special Attack, Special Defense, and Speed!

 

 

...but miserable HP.

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Since tags are now user-defined, we could just select one, all start using it, and hope that it catches on. "Non-violent"?

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Since tags are now user-defined, we could just select one, all start using it, and hope that it catches on. "Non-violent"?

 

As tempting as it is to try and be clever, something direct like non-violent would seem to be best.  And it doesn't appear to be a tag that people are using. 

 

Edit: Forget that, Baby Games it is.

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Woo, I got earthbound cheap and it triggered my wii u digital deluxe voucher allowing me to get a link to the past for 49p. The retro gaming starts tomorrow!

Actually it started tonight. I couldn't wait to start ALTTP

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Sorry, I should have specified good baby games.

 

That search for nonviolent gives
 

Not enough items tagged with "Nonviolent" yet


so I guess the tag does exist, just not yet in force.

A search for babygames gives
 

An error was encountered while processing your request:

Invalid Tag


Gabe says no (or no-one's suggested the tag yet). Nonviolent online multiplayer = Games for Babies Live?

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If the tag is being used already, the chances it actually becomes a real tag if we all start using it is probably greater.

 

As much as I ironically appreciate baby games, there is almost zero chance that will catch on.

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