Jake

Idle Thumbs 173: Ridonkulous Rift

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I will say that I was shocked when I watched the snippet taken from God of War 3.  Shocked.  I don't play AAA games generally, and had no idea that such things existed inside them.  Whether contextless or not, there is no way that the scene with the half-naked princess could ever be considered okay.  It was brutal and horrific, and the achievement served to give weight to the idea that what had happened was an inherently good thing, something to be charmed by, or humoured by, or pleased by.  Horrific - I honestly had no idea that mainstream games had such things in them.

Yeah this recent episode I was behind 100% and that part was so fucked up. I can't believe you do that in that series. I've never played them because probably it seemed very bro and I vaguely remember things about threesome minigames, but I imagine anyone who played the first two may have gotten kind of sick getting to 3 after investing all of that time. Like I don't even know where to begin, the lady is half naked and being thrown about, she is crying and pleading for her life, then you kill her in a grotesque way for a fucking door puzzle? What?! Oh, and then the trophy, cherry on top. I was going to make a flippant comment about David Jaffe, but it appears he didn't work on that game.

 

Oh yeah:

bugs-taz-thugs.jpg

ElmersCamera.jpg

 

Oldest Bugs Bunny was my favorite. When he was a god damn jerk instead of looking around like he's cool and eating a carrot while Daffy argues about Rabbit Season. Also old wacky Daffy is fucking awesome. Miss him too. I don't even consider the characters as the same after Clampett and Tex Avery quick.

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I got another great article from someone on Twitter, pointing out a phenomena known as "extinction burst" and how we're seeing that in video games at the moment.

http://www.doctornerdlove.com/2014/08/the-extinction-burst-of-gaming-culture/

 

This is interesting -- oh my god this is just Insomnia.ac writ large, isn't it.

 

Okay, so: the previous forum I was at had to ban outgoing links to that website, or mentioning its owner, because it'd trigger a whole bunch of really entitled and furious guest posters who were incensed that gaming no longer treated pure technical challenge as the only valid kind of game. Games that had a story and you didn't have to show mastery over the game systems? It was a cancer that was ruining video games.

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Oh dear, I googled Jonathan Mcintosh and this is one of the first things that comes up:

 

http://anongamer.tumblr.com/

 

I don't recommend reading it but it is a weird collection of bits and bobs that some one has compiled as a way to discredit Sarkeesian and also share a bunch of her personal information and information on her family.

 

Jesus fucking christ... "Seems Jonathan doesn’t have a problem with the sexualization of women / characters after all" with links to his pictures of... cosplay?! THAT'S SOME DAMNING EVIDENCE RIGHT THERE!

 

Fuck these people..

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Jesus fucking christ... "Seems Jonathan doesn’t have a problem with the sexualization of women / characters after all" with links to his pictures of... cosplay?! THAT'S SOME DAMNING EVIDENCE RIGHT THERE!

 

Fuck these people..

 

This is what I mentioned in a couple other threads. There's an obsession in certain parts of the internet, mostly the part that's incensed by the popularity of social justice, with finding contradictions and hypocrisy in everything. It seems as though it's their primary mode of interaction with other people. To them, anything that is not a hundred percent consistent is at best a confused mess that can't possibly be right and at worst a coverup for something darker underneath.

 

It reminds me a lot of how I was back in high school, when I felt much more discomfited and isolated by the paucity of absolute truths in social interactions, and moreover it explains how some people are inclined to interpret friendliness between different parts of the games industry and the criticism of discrete thematic elements in video games as the total corruption of one and a calamitous attack on the other.

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I have reached a point now where I can only feel sad for these people. My anger has all burned up for this thing and now whenever I see some new idiocy I just feel a sharp pang of sadness.

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Oh God, I have that Diddy Kong Racing promo VHS that was sent out via Nintendo Power.  I assume that's one of the tapes that was talked about?

 

Dutifully, the tape has been uploaded to Youtube by some anonymous Social Awesome Warrior.  I completely forgot about the mugging ersatz Jim Carrey and fake commercials between the big commercial.  I actually think I love this.

 

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My favourite is the Starfox 64 one, because it's a blatant attack ad from back in the days when you could do that.

 

 

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It seems like these kind of promotions would have cost Nintendo more money than it's worth. Weren't VHS tapes pretty expensive back then? Plus these probably had printed covers and labels right? Then all of that shipping cost.

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Well, both games in question were massive sellers, but we'd need a Nintendo accountant circa 1997 to truly close this case.

 

Attempting to extrapolate what this might have cost would be pretty interesting, in all seriousness.  How many subscribers do you figure Nintendo Power had at that time?

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If anyone hasn't seen it, Andreas Zecher wrote an open letter for devs to sign, which is more or less a declaration against harassment and threats. It has like 2,000 signatures so far (I think I saw Remo signed it when I scanned over it).

 

According to a tweet he posted though, some people are now trying to falsify names to add to it, likely with the intent to declare all the signatures are fake. As someone else put it, "As mild as an open letter against harassment is the fact that it’s rattled people enough to try and work to delegitimize it is telling."

 

Edit - Links to tweets.

https://twitter.com/andreaszecher/status/506837798171979776

 

https://twitter.com/celsiusgs/status/506841836141690880

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Here's another article about things going on. 4chan /v/ created a female avatar / spokesperson to be on their side. The article has links to everything it alleges the community did regarding that, and yet the comments are full of, "Where's the proof?" type shit.

http://www.vice.com/read/meet-the-female-gamer-mascot-created-by-anti-feminists-828

 

The other amazing thing about those comments is that they're full of haters who are on the same side and yet don't realise it because they don't actually read each others' posts properly, and so end up calling each other morons.

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If only they followed the bit about there only ever being two of them ):

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Here's another article about things going on. 4chan /v/ created a female avatar / spokesperson to be on their side. The article has links to everything it alleges the community did regarding that, and yet the comments are full of, "Where's the proof?" type shit.

http://www.vice.com/read/meet-the-female-gamer-mascot-created-by-anti-feminists-828

I honestly don't understand any narrative that tries to vilify 4chan for supporting a charity games project designed to get a potential female designer's game pitched and developed. They put up enough money to be able to have a character in the game, so they made a character. The only way they "took their support a step further" is by donating enough money to surpass that stretch goal. The Fine Young Capitalists have received no coverage from gaming outlets, so I think for 4chan their project is an example of a place where they can have a real impact on something that is not supported by the journalists they're railing against. It's not really "an opportunity to make Quinn look bad" as the article suggests, but rather a tangible positive project the image board believes they can support.

However, because they are 4chan and their discourse is full of abrasive, offensive language it's easy to paint those supporters as just being trolls. I notice the article, for example, doesn't mention how they raised $17 000+ for charity. Even if it's framed as a response to voices they don't agree with who are speaking out against sexist issues in games, it's in no way an unhealthy response. The hacking, threats and harassment are the unhealthy responses. I'd like to think that their support of this project shows that while some of the harassers stem from 4chan, not every member fits that mold.

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I honestly don't understand any narrative that tries to vilify 4chan for supporting a charity games project designed to get a potential female designer's game pitched and developed. They put up enough money to be able to have a character in the game, so they made a character. The only way they "took their support a step further" is by donating enough money to surpass that stretch goal. The Fine Young Capitalists have received no coverage from gaming outlets, so I think for 4chan their project is an example of a place where they can have a real impact on something that is not supported by the journalists they're railing against. It's not really "an opportunity to make Quinn look bad" as the article suggests, but rather a tangible positive project the image board believes they can support.

It's because "Zoe destroyed TFYC, this proves she doesn't really care about women in games, see how the SJWs just say this stuff for personal gain and don't really believe it" or "Zoe doxxes others like TFYC and then has the gall to fakes her own doxxing and complain about it" is right up front in the political 'manual' of evidence and arguments that forms the first post every time a new thread on this stuff is posted there (every 30 minutes or so?).

Vilified is too strong but you can see where it's coming from and it's not a great place. I do believe them when they say they just want to do a good thing and that they don't want to be the villain here. But they start from the assumption that Sarkeesian or the people they call SJWs don't truly believe what they say and that they're gullible audiences for personal gain... and TFYC becomes the proof that they are on the side of the righteous, the non-hypocritical. We support the people actually fighting for women, is what it says.

That said if TFYC capitalist thing does well, and does end up doing good work, hard to complain, yeah.

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The hacking, threats and harassment are the unhealthy responses. I'd like to think that their support of this project shows that while some of the harassers stem from 4chan, not every member fits that mold.

 

Quinn raised some (IMO) valid points about doing spec work that haven't been adequately addressed by the FYC. If you go ahead and say donating money to the project is a good idea, you're playing into the rhetoric that Quinn was lying when she raised those concerns.

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I honestly don't understand any narrative that tries to vilify 4chan for supporting a charity games project designed to get a potential female designer's game pitched and developed. They put up enough money to be able to have a character in the game, so they made a character. The only way they "took their support a step further" is by donating enough money to surpass that stretch goal. The Fine Young Capitalists have received no coverage from gaming outlets, so I think for 4chan their project is an example of a place where they can have a real impact on something that is not supported by the journalists they're railing against. It's not really "an opportunity to make Quinn look bad" as the article suggests, but rather a tangible positive project the image board believes they can support.

However, because they are 4chan and their discourse is full of abrasive, offensive language it's easy to paint those supporters as just being trolls. I notice the article, for example, doesn't mention how they raised $17 000+ for charity. Even if it's framed as a response to voices they don't agree with who are speaking out against sexist issues in games, it's in no way an unhealthy response. The hacking, threats and harassment are the unhealthy responses. I'd like to think that their support of this project shows that while some of the harassers stem from 4chan, not every member fits that mold.

 

I made multiple posts about the FYC over in the Feminism thread. I think it's perfectly reasonable to look on that project with great skepticism, and to criticize them for their message, their lack of transparency, their conduct, and the structure of their project.  4chan only embraced the project because they perceived the people running it as being allies once the FYC jumped into the dogpile on Quinn.  If the FYC hadn't publicly jumped into the shitstorm around Quinn, 4chan never would have done anything for it, which should be cause enough to view their actions with some skepticism. 

 

This isn't even getting into the territory of breaking down the structure of the FYC project completely separate from the Quinn/4chan mess, and figuring out whether it is likely that a single dime will ever go to charity.  The entire thing looks like a sham to me. 

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To be clear, I think an article about the ethics of the monetary split between the pitch creator, charity, developers and TFYC, how their transgender policy was and is framed and the FYC's generally unprofessional conduct would be of way more value. The VICE article isn't about that.

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