Idle Thumbs 186: Doctor DNA

[sclpls]

Thanks!

[BobbyBesar]

Interesting. One thing that article leaves out is the actual distribution of the wins. It lists a hard ordering of the characters, but that implies they're evenly distributed. If the top 5 character represent 90% of the wins, that describes a very different (and probably less interesting) competitive scene than if that top 5 characters account for, say, just 30% of the wins.

 

You can infer some of this from the volatility of the ratings. I.e. if there's a lot of constant jockeying across multiple ranks, that implies that they're closer together. However, even that's not necessarily true (i.e. the best character could be consistently, but only very slightly better than the next character).

 

In the Melee dataset, Jigglypuff is definitely the most interesting data point. But aside from her, the top 6 seem remarkably stable, which re-inforces the general impression of high level Smash being Fox vs. Fox all the time.

 

Also, that X axis is totally bonkers, so it does a terrible job informing you about the time scales involved. While the spirit (that the meta changed significantly over time without patching) is sound, I don't really trust his data analysis at all. I'd be really interested to see his raw data set though.

[Arathain]

On racial representation in games: the cast discussed the problem inherent in development teams dominated by white Western men appropriating perceived tropes from other cultures to make their game seem exotic, leading to broad insensitivity in representation. 

 

On the other hand we have a problem in which white men are making games largely featuring and about white men, thus making other groups feel less welcome in gaming, and denying them the comfort and thrill of being represented in our gaming spaces. Statistically speaking, if this is to improve noticeably, some white men are going to have to make a bunch of games not about white men.

 

How do we reconcile or balance these opposing problems?

[Gormongous]

On racial representation in games: the cast discussed the problem inherent in development teams dominated by white Western men appropriating perceived tropes from other cultures to make their game seem exotic, leading to broad insensitivity in representation. 

 

On the other hand we have a problem in which white men are making games largely featuring and about white men, thus making other groups feel less welcome in gaming, and denying them the comfort and thrill of being represented in our gaming spaces. Statistically speaking, if this is to improve noticeably, some white men are going to have to make a bunch of games not about white men.

 

How do we reconcile or balance these opposing problems?

 

Either make sure you're educated in and sensitive to the non-white and non-Western subject matter of the game you're making (with Never Alone being a recent example of a foreign culture portrayed intelligently and appropriately by a Western studio, albeit with help from "ambassadors" from an Inuit tribe), or hire more minorities (rather than just asserting a diverse and inclusive studio culture, like Ubisoft did for the first few Assassin's Creed games).

 

Brianna Wu said some interesting things on the latest Isometric podcast about the challenges of hiring minorities, both women and people of color, because most studios have a hiring process that's tailored to identify certain types of success and potential for success that are most common among white men. Basically, you have to change the rubric itself, which isn't likely to happen in a top-level gaming studio expected to make a blockbuster hit every year.

[BobbyBesar]

The discussion about race representation in games reminded me of an AV Club article from a while back where they evaluated an episode of the Amos and Andy television show. This kind of discussion is probably fairly commonplace in critical race theory, but that article encapsulated a lot of issues therein.

 

It talks specifically about how something can be appealing from a personal perspective (as per the reader's mail who noted that they appreciated an Asian character with non-caricatured physical features) while remaining generally abhorrent in a broader social context.

 

But the main thing they highlight, and something that I've taken away from that article, is that when there is minimal representation, it puts too much pressure on those individual instances to be all things to all people. Amos and Andy featured a broad cast of black characters which included some ugly stereotypes, but also included some progressive subversions of those stereotypes. In a medium with broader representation, the comedy aspects (as noted by the historian weren't entirely dissimilar from contemporary comedies) could have passed without comment*. The problem isn't just that there's a black man that's presented as a lazy buffoon*: it's that that lazy buffoon is the ONLY black man on television. But is that Amos and Andy's fault? What is their responsibility as the only television show to even bother featuring black characters to begin with?

 

Similarly with Ubi and Far Cry 4. What is their responsibility with regards to Pagan Min. Is it enough to put the character in there, or do they need to account for all the other characters that other games (ones they can't control) didn't create?

 

 

 

*Amos and Andy is incredibly interesting and fertile ground for this debate in general. As noted in that article, the TV show was relatively mild, but much of the backlash associated with the title comes from it's days as a radio program, which did feature white voice-actors doing what amounts to blackface on the radio.

[sclpls]

EDIT: Sorry, posted in wrong thread!

[Brodie]

Re: Far Cry 4 discussion,

 

I think being a little harder on Far Cry 4's portrayal of ethnicity & culture in general is absolutely fair in the wake of Far Cry 3's absolutely egregious levels of poor decision making; from their initial marketing to their lead writer's weak 'you just don't get my art' responses to criticism. From what I've been hearing it seems that maybe they made some different choices this time, which is good, but lets not forget that they set the bar pretty damn low last time around. 

[Sean]

Re: Far Cry 4 discussion,

 

I think being a little harder on Far Cry 4's portrayal of ethnicity & culture in general is absolutely fair in the wake of Far Cry 3's absolutely egregious levels of poor decision making; from their initial marketing to their lead writer's weak 'you just don't get my art' responses to criticism. From what I've been hearing it seems that maybe they made some different choices this time, which is good, but lets not forget that they set the bar pretty damn low last time around. 

 

This is precisely my point on this week's forthcoming cast.

[Stuart]

Been wanting to voice my thoughts on Far Cry 4 for a while, and all the talk about on the pod has motivated me to do it. A main concern I have with the game is how despite featuring a PoC (Person of Color) character and featuring issues surrounding PoC, it's still codified in the very gross narrative framing and politics Far Cry 3 presented explicitly, which in FC4 it's presented more insidiously due to the setting change. Also, note that I said "featuring issues", which is also a humongous problem AAA games have and FC4 specially has, but I'll get into that a bit later.

 

On the subject of Pagan Min, his demeanor, mannerisms, and even way of dress bring to mind the same sort of blatantly flamboyant, pseudo-queer codifying presented in Disney villains. It uses these queer stereotypes to add to the multitude of reasons why to hate this guy. "He looks tacky" could easily be to someone more ignorant the equivalent of "He looks like such a ponce." Here's the post on this kind of insidious codifying present within Disney villains that explains it concisely. 

 

http://fandomsandfeminism.tumblr.com/post/73592250014/could-you-talk-more-about-the-male-disney-villains

 

Another big problem is that every mission is codified within Western colonial feedback. Biggest example: The fact that you don't "take over" or "fight against" an outpost of PoC villains. No, you LIBERATE the outpost. You don't just kill an animal and take it's meat, you get a nice + 1 UI notice whenever you do it. The game is all about giving you feedback as a sort of pat in the back for the gross shit you do. This kind of framing is present all around in Far Cry 3, and in Far Cry 4, it's featured in a more covered up manner, and it bugs me people are giving it a pass because of how it wells it covers that up. 

 

And now that I'm on feedback, that's another big problem I have with the game. How despite how intricate and interesting its systems are, its designed to always pat the player in the back, and that's such an Ubisoft open world design garbage thing, that it's become so tired and boring to me. I cannot relish this random experience I just had when I get a fucking UI or cinematic, telling how fucking awesome this thing I just did. It's a game that is open to how manufactured and calculate it is, and robs players of the experience of, as Sean would say, to suspending their disbelief. 

 

Finally, on this "featuring issues" thing, or rather "featuring X social issue/theme" thing so popular in AAA. To put it bluntly, it is nearly always obnoxiously ham-fisted, vapid social commentary and exploration of themes in something that in the end, isn't concerned with commenting, but serving you on things. An exemplar commercial, capitalist-as-fuck video game. It uses theme and issues not as things to explore, but as "content" to be consumed along with it's lavish systems. And you don't even have to play it to see this. All of this is presented in the forefront of all of that game's marketing. They take pride in saying and doing absolutely nothing, intent to feeding us the same bullshit. See: Bioshock Infinite as a perfect example of a game that does that and ends up shooting itself on the foot. Also, Far Cry 3.

 

But yeah, that's all I had to say on Far Cry 4. That felt cathartic.

 

SHORT VERSION, COURTESY OF @BooDooPerson: http://boodoo.biz/Fuck%20Far%20Cry%204

 

EDIT: I MEAN FAR CRY 4 AT THE START. Also, some more elaboration on some stuff.

[Nachimir]

A main concern I have with the game is how despite featuring a PoC (Person of Color) character and featuring issues surrounding PoC, it's still codified in the very gross narrative framing and politics Far Cry 3 presented explicitly, which in FC4 it's presented more insidiously due to the setting change. Also, note that I said "featuring issues", which is also a humongous problem AAA games have

[…]

Finally, on this "featuring issues" thing, or rather "featuring X social issue/theme" thing so popular in AAA. To put it bluntly, it is nearly always obnoxiously ham-fisted, vapid social commentary and exploration of themes in something that in the end, isn't concerned with commenting, but serving you on things. An exemplar commercial, capitalist-as-fuck video game. It uses theme and issues not as things to explore, but as "content" to be consumed along with it's lavish systems. And you don't even have to play it to see this. All of this is presented in the forefront of all of that game's marketing. They take pride in saying and doing absolutely nothing, intent to feeding us the same bullshit. See: Bioshock Infinite as a perfect example of a game that does that and ends up shooting itself on the foot. Also, Far Cry 3.

 

I think AAA writers often mistake referencing things for actually talking about things. I hate it; it's probably the worst tendril of games trying to do things better but actually doing worse. There was that developer who said something like "If you hate social justice you'll hate some of the things we've put in FC4", but everything I've seen has made me think "That's it? Just a bunch of nods at things?"

[eRonin]

Interesting. One thing that article leaves out is the actual distribution of the wins. It lists a hard ordering of the characters, but that implies they're evenly distributed. If the top 5 character represent 90% of the wins, that describes a very different (and probably less interesting) competitive scene than if that top 5 characters account for, say, just 30% of the wins.

 

You can infer some of this from the volatility of the ratings. I.e. if there's a lot of constant jockeying across multiple ranks, that implies that they're closer together. However, even that's not necessarily true (i.e. the best character could be consistently, but only very slightly better than the next character).

 

In the Melee dataset, Jigglypuff is definitely the most interesting data point. But aside from her, the top 6 seem remarkably stable, which re-inforces the general impression of high level Smash being Fox vs. Fox all the time.

 

Also, that X axis is totally bonkers, so it does a terrible job informing you about the time scales involved. While the spirit (that the meta changed significantly over time without patching) is sound, I don't really trust his data analysis at all. I'd be really interested to see his raw data set though.

 

I withheld on commenting about the data presented, despite being pretty into the Smash Bros competitive scene. Partly because I don't agree with how the data is presented, including the X-axis representation, like you say. I'm also not involved with the production of the rankings and I know there is a lot of discussion that happens to produce this information, much of which would go over my head. My understanding is a "backroom" of select users, mostly on the Smashboards forums, assigns a ranking to each character after some deliberation. The rankings from each backroom member is averaged out and then this is presented as the tier list ranking.

 

Here's the current tier list for the first three games (I imagine no preliminary consensus has been reached with Smash 4): http://www.ssbwiki.com/Tier_list

Note that Metaknight has a 1.000 ranking average, meaning a unanimous agreement that he is the #1 ranked character in the game. In fact he is in a tier of his own. The Melee tier list is less segregated, and there are 8 characters in what is considered the highest tier (however note that there is a large gap between Peach and C. Falcon's rank average, this is somewhat important). What none of this data show explicitly is the fact that in Melee, there is a group of "5 Gods" who individually are famous for one or two characters, representing the top 6 characters. (PPMD: Falco, Mango: Fox/Falco, Mew2King: Sheik/Marth, Armada: Peach, Hungrybox: Jigglypuff). Jigglypuff is an interesting character because on paper it looks very weak, but has a devastating combo game against Falco and Fox especially, hence its meteoric rise from low tier to high tier. 

 

Because of the existence of the 5 Gods, major tournament winners are almost always these six characters, because these five players are considered to be above and beyond the rest of the players. There is a lot of discussion about who would round out a top 10, but essentially those players also likewise represent a character from the S class or upper part of the A class, e.g. Axe with Pikachu.

[BobbyBesar]

Thanks, that's interesting about the way the data is constructed. I assumed that it was harder data, like tournament appearances / wins. The fact that it's consensus ranking data is in some ways better, and in other ways worse.

For instance, how does consensus ranking data square with the speculation that Mewtwo rose in the ranks due to simply popularity, i.e. "I beat you with the worse character"? If that's the case, then he should have remained at the bottom because he's still the worst. (Unless increased usage revealed increased nuance in the character, which increased his overall rank, but in that case shouldn't people have started using the new worst character (losing to Pichu would have to be more embarassing)? Unless there's a sweet spot of "worst that's even potentially winnable with. So, even (maybe especially with) knowledge of the data set, the data analysis is definitely suspect at best.

[eRonin]

Take a closer look at the Melee tier list - It goes S, A, B, then skips C-E, and goes straight to F. The implication is that any character in the first three tiers have a decent chance at winning a tournament in the hands of the right player. The ability to win for F-tier characters are almost non-existent. Melee has a tool-set of engine exploits and other included mechanics like L-cancelling that make even a low-tier character like Mewtwo viable. So that answers your question about a sweet spot of potential, I think.

 

With Brawl, the lack of an overall game-wide tool-set makes the distinction between different characters clearer, so there is a more gradual drop in the potential of characters as you go down the tier list.

[Sean]

Great post. 

 

Been wanting to voice my thoughts on Far Cry 4 for a while, and all the talk about on the pod has motivated me to do it. A main concern I have with the game is how despite featuring a PoC (Person of Color) character and featuring issues surrounding PoC, it's still codified in the very gross narrative framing and politics Far Cry 3 presented explicitly, which in FC4 it's presented more insidiously due to the setting change. Also, note that I said "featuring issues", which is also a humongous problem AAA games have and FC4 specially has, but I'll get into that a bit later.

 

On the subject of Pagan Min, his demeanor, mannerisms, and even way of dress bring to mind the same sort of blatantly flamboyant, pseudo-queer codifying presented in Disney villains. It uses these queer stereotypes to add to the multitude of reasons why to hate this guy. "He looks tacky" could easily be to someone more ignorant the equivalent of "He looks like such a ponce." Here's the post on this kind of insidious codifying present within Disney villains that explains it concisely. 

 

http://fandomsandfeminism.tumblr.com/post/73592250014/could-you-talk-more-about-the-male-disney-villains

 

Another big problem is that every mission is codified within Western colonial feedback. Biggest example: The fact that you don't "take over" or "fight against" an outpost of PoC villains. No, you LIBERATE the outpost. You don't just kill an animal and take it's meat, you get a nice + 1 UI notice whenever you do it. The game is all about giving you feedback as a sort of pat in the back for the gross shit you do. This kind of framing is present all around in Far Cry 3, and in Far Cry 4, it's featured in a more covered up manner, and it bugs me people are giving it a pass because of how it wells it covers that up. 

 

And now that I'm on feedback, that's another big problem I have with the game. How despite how intricate and interesting its systems are, its designed to always pat the player in the back, and that's such an Ubisoft open world design garbage thing, that it's become so tired and boring to me. I cannot relish this random experience I just had when I get a fucking UI or cinematic, telling how fucking awesome this thing I just did. It's a game that is open to how manufactured and calculate it is, and robs players of the experience of, as Sean would say, to suspending their disbelief. 

 

Finally, on this "featuring issues" thing, or rather "featuring X social issue/theme" thing so popular in AAA. To put it bluntly, it is nearly always obnoxiously ham-fisted, vapid social commentary and exploration of themes in something that in the end, isn't concerned with commenting, but serving you on things. An exemplar commercial, capitalist-as-fuck video game. It uses theme and issues not as things to explore, but as "content" to be consumed along with it's lavish systems. And you don't even have to play it to see this. All of this is presented in the forefront of all of that game's marketing. They take pride in saying and doing absolutely nothing, intent to feeding us the same bullshit. See: Bioshock Infinite as a perfect example of a game that does that and ends up shooting itself on the foot. Also, Far Cry 3.

 

But yeah, that's all I had to say on Far Cry 4. That felt cathartic.

 

SHORT VERSION, COURTESY OF @BooDooPerson: http://boodoo.biz/Fuck%20Far%20Cry%204

 

EDIT: I MEAN FAR CRY 4 AT THE START. Also, some more elaboration on some stuff.

[pkirkner]

On the subject of Pagan Min, his demeanor, mannerisms, and even way of dress bring to mind the same sort of blatantly flamboyant, pseudo-queer codifying presented in Disney villains. It uses these queer stereotypes to add to the multitude of reasons why to hate this guy. "He looks tacky" could easily be to someone more ignorant the equivalent of "He looks like such a ponce." Here's the post on this kind of insidious codifying present within Disney villains that explains it concisely. 

 

I think it's worth pointing out that this

(and arguably still is: Skyfall certainly makes use of it) a Hollywood-wide trope, not just a Disney thing.

[Stuart]

I think it's worth pointing out that this

(and arguably still is: Skyfall certainly makes use of it) a Hollywood-wide trope, not just a Disney thing.

 

Oh of course, I was just using that as a quick example. This is a art/media problem that goes back for centuries in narratives. cannot deny that.

[sclpls]

I think it's worth pointing out that this

(and arguably still is: Skyfall certainly makes use of it) a Hollywood-wide trope, not just a Disney thing.

 

It's also extremely common in Asian crime and action movies, so even though this was pointed out as something the devs might be referencing, I never really made the argument that that was a point in the game's favor.

[Bjorn]

I think it's worth pointing out that this

(and arguably still is: Skyfall certainly makes use of it) a Hollywood-wide trope, not just a Disney thing.

 

That looks like a fascinating documentary, and one I need to watch at some point. Thanks!  Some of the movies they highlighted even in that clip are ones that I watched in junior high or high school, and I super blind to anything that was even slightly subtle. 

[Gerretic]

I think it's worth pointing out that this

(and arguably still is: Skyfall certainly makes use of it) a Hollywood-wide trope, not just a Disney thing.

I was watching Catching Fire again the other night and thought back to this discussion immediately. I haven't seen The Hunger Games as recently, nor Mockingjay yet, but I recall / imagine they're much the same. I noticed in Catching Fire that the president / main bad guy, Snow, dresses in this style, but he's not campy or effete in the way other characters (Caesar, the general masses of the Capital) are. I suppose they want Snow to be cold and intimidating, but still part of the frivolous Capital culture.

[TychoCelchuuu]

why hello there, today I started listening to my massive backlog of Idle Thumbs episodes, so here are my belated thoughts

Jake pitching a jokey movie idea and realizing by the end of it that he was pitching Demolition Man is a good example of why Idle Thumbs is my favorite podcast. No worries, Demolition Man is actually a really good movie.

I feel like Demolition Man is extremely underrated. Lots of people like it, but the most common opinion I see is that it was bad or even terrible. But it totally isn't! It's amazing! Wesley Snipes is just going fucking nuts, everyone in the future is adorably goofy, Sly Stallone is getting shit done, there's satire around every corner, and it's just plain funny! I mean, yeah, it's not flawless, and for an action movie the action is generally pretty anemic, but still. Definitely a classic.

On racial representation in games: the cast discussed the problem inherent in development teams dominated by white Western men appropriating perceived tropes from other cultures to make their game seem exotic, leading to broad insensitivity in representation. 

 

On the other hand we have a problem in which white men are making games largely featuring and about white men, thus making other groups feel less welcome in gaming, and denying them the comfort and thrill of being represented in our gaming spaces. Statistically speaking, if this is to improve noticeably, some white men are going to have to make a bunch of games not about white men.

 

How do we reconcile or balance these opposing problems?

White dudes could stop making so many games. Like, I'm pretty sure at this point I know what large groups of mostly white mostly straight mostly Western mostly men think about basically every conceivable scenario in which you might want to murder six hundred people for whatever reason. I'm not sure the progress of video games as a medium would be seriously retarded if a lot of the white guys gave it a rest for a little while. We've had hundreds of years of white dudes dominating the canon in pretty much every aspect of culture, and although games are by far younger than everything else, there's still way more homogeneity in gaming than we really need, I think.