Being jaded as fuck, no not really.
But finding out from the Remmber Me team that they cant not have the girl kiss boys because "the gaaay" really made my blood boil! (if you dont want I am talking about see: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/7044-The-Creepy-Cull-of-Female-Protagonists )
But that has more to do with shipping then gaming...
Speaking of, would Alister Fletcher and Lara Croft make a cute couple?
LOL WHATEVER, WILL NEVER HAPPEN!
Haha, fuck off shit-game industry~

I can't recall specific situations; I might have been offended in some games' use of hand-holding. I know I got mad a few times in Skyward Sword when Fi would jump out and act like I have no fucking idea what to do even though the game just showed me, but I don't know if it ever offended me.

Of course, I don't take offense to anything not aimed at me personally, and games never are, so maybe that's why.

Also, I can't tell if your image was made by a legit misogynist or an elaborate troll.

>>176205
I'm offended by this thread.

Posting someone's creepy fetish image like that disturbs me.

Never. I might have been mad about a game being bad, but never offended. Then again, the only time I remember ever being offended was at two chicks chuckling during the minute's silence we had at school the day after 9/11. And that was before I became utterly jaded by 4chan.

>>176207
>Battletoads
Sounds like trolling to me.

Only by Dante's Inferno because of how thoroughly it dicks over classical literature in general.
I'm fine with artistic interpretation, but that was just dumb pandering.

No, but certain things in a game/in an interview with the creators of a game have royally pissed me off:

- Female characters existing entirely for sex appeal, having no personality at all whatsoever
- Fetishizing underaged female (and sometimes male) characters
- Trying to act like there's no reason anyone would have an issue with rape
- "Gamers don't want to see a penis, who would be attracted to a penis? That's gross."
- "Who would want a gay option?"
- "Girl protagonists are boring, who would want to play a girl?"

im offended whenever a game gives me another white dude to play with no other options and they expect me to be excited about it. generally speaking unless its an rpg with a big cast of people, if your game doesnt have create-a-character, my level of care decreases dramatically (see the witcher)

>>176225
That sounds hilariously reactionary.

Losing care just because of the playable characters race or gender.

>>176220
Un-huh, but what about the manga?
http://kissmanga.com/Manga/Dante-s-Divine-Comedy/Dante-s-Divine-Comedy-Chapter-1?id=50989

>>176226
thank u anonymous dude ill be sure to forever consider your opinion about my own personal feelings toward video games (ﾉ´ヮ´)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

>>176226
When you make ten games in a series and every fucking character is a 20-something white dude with brown hair, and there's no option to make him look otherwise, it is justifiable to start wondering if the developers are lazy, unoriginal, racist, or all three.

The entire third game. The ending just sours anything good for me. Then there was the fact that I was "entitled" for thinking a half assed last minute attempt at looking deep was bad.I'll go back and reply the first and secondbut fuck that game. The multiplayer was the only good aspect.

>>176232
I'm really glad I stopped at the first one.

>>176227
Wow.
This is actually pretty great. Certainly more faithful than that game at least.

>>176233
Eh 2 was ok. Storywise it wasn't as good but its not godawful.

>>176230
At least they don't have blond hair.

>>176230
Is the character's identity integral to the story or series itself? Is he iconic? Does it make sense for the setting?

>>176241
>same brown haired dude over and over and over
>iconic
ok bro

>>176242

Not offensive, but I think it's weird we're still allowed to (and/or actively punished for not) do double taps in modern military shooters.

>>176249
You... totally are allowed to double-tap? But most games aren't "MUH REALISM" so it might take more bullets than in real life to down an enemy anyway.

Also if you want to get picky its not "double tap 1 - 2" in real life anymore, its "Fire until they stop moving"

>>176242
Your racism and misandry are shining through Nurse.

>>176255
lol misandry 4 life baby

>>176241
If it's an original setting, you get to decide what's "normal" for that setting, or not.

Video game settings, even ones based on real life, rarely have dark-skinned or female protagonists. Even though that happens all the fucking time in our world.

>>176253

I meant the execution kind of double tap. The kind where you shoot an armed enemy combatant, then shoot them again after they either drop their weapon or are no longer combat effective.

I haven't played the Witcher games, but I've read the first two books. The reason Geralt is a white guy is because he, like other witchers, drank this weird herb concoction that turns them all into albinos if I remember right. So typical "albinism is tied to weird magical shit" stuff.

Not that I don't agree that we need more diverse protagonists, but "protagonist is a white guy" is a dumb reason to hate something by itself.

Well the best vidya MC last year was probably Lee from Walking Dead, so there's that.

>>176264
Yeah, not to mention a lot of games like AC2, Bioshock: Infinite, or the later MGS entries take place in real-world settings or times where it would be highly unlikely for a character who isn't a white and probably dark-haired male to end up in the situations that they are or have the freedom to go about in the way a video game character would. I see the argument "It's not supposed to be realistic, it's a videogame!" thrown around a lot, but I think even the most open-minded gamer would probably still raise an eyebrow over an FPS set in 1930's Lower Manhattan that stars a black female commando, even if demons and dragons are involved.

The best solution is simply to have more games with nonwhite or fantastical settings where such characters would be more common in the first place. I wouldn't mind playing games in worlds based on Vodun mythology or a futuristic Inca-esque empire. But that also requires game developers to do the research and cover them with some degree of maturity.

>>176268
>I see the argument "It's not supposed to be realistic, it's a videogame/fantasy/comic!"
I am so very sick of seeing this crap everywhere.
When you create a world, you create confinements of believability. If you move outside those boundaries that you set, you damage the suspension of disbelief.
How is that not inherent knowledge? Just being unreal is not enough to make all nonsense acceptable.

>>176269

Plus? http://www.psmag.com/culture-society/video-games-dominated-by-whites-3561/

90 percent of primary (as in controllable) characters in the games surveyed by this study were men.

We've always had women in militaries fighting on the frontlines, ruling countries, social revolutionaries, pirates and criminals. Not to mention that there's tons of untapped potential in mythologies and real life stories belonging to cultures that just don't get touched on by games these days.

There's no reason to not to make more games with those kinds of protagonists and playable characters, especially since the current "percentage" isn't reflective of real life in any respect.

>>176269
But there is still a place for over the top going even more over the top Gurren Lagann style, right?
Like MGR:REvengeance or this vid here: Hatsune Miku & Megurine Lu…

>>176226
>questioning the default makes you racist/sexist

Why don't you tell me more about how women and minorities are the reason of all our problems?

>>176255
You asked for it.™

>>176269
>Magic? Acceptable.
>Giant robots? Acceptable.
>Mutant superpowers? Acceptable.
>Female or nonwhite protagonist? IMMERSION BROKEN

Your definition of "unacceptable nonsense" speaks for itself.

Put your name back on, you're not fooling anybody.

Before you complain about that not being your intention: context matters.

>>176276
>>Magic? Acceptable.
>>Giant robots? Acceptable.
>>Mutant superpowers? Acceptable.
>>Female or nonwhite protagonist? IMMERSION BROKEN
>Your definition of "unacceptable nonsense" speaks for itself.

WOW way to not get the point he made.

Say you make a videogame in set in World War II where aliens suddenly invade and the allies and axis have to join forces to repel the threat. Your main playable character is a high-ranking officer of the US military. Would it make sense for this main character to be female? Would it make sense for this character to be black (or any other race)? Fuck no. This is an established period of history. Regardless of what aliens, magic, dragons or other fantasy bullshit you put in this game, everything was pretty much as we know it UNTIL the aliens invaded. There were no female/colored officers in the US army in World War II (that I know of, at least), so making your main character a colored woman who is also a lieutenant just doesn't fit with what history tells us.

It's different if you make your own setting, of course, but any setting based on reality should accurately portray whichever part of human history it's based.

>>176276
>Magic? Acceptable.
>Giant robots? Acceptable.
>Mutant superpowers? Acceptable.
>Female or nonwhite protagonist? IMMERSION BROKEN

>Your definition of "unacceptable nonsense" speaks for itself.

>Put your name back on, you're not fooling anybody.

> you complain about that not being your intention: context matters.
Fine. Names back on but I think you'll find I'm just as much as a nobody with it as without. But my point has more to do with contextual setting as a whole. You can't just add realistic guns to Mario and claim its fine because its unrealistic anyway. Same if you just make Mario a young Taiwanese woman. It just doesn't make sense in the context its in. Don't be mad at games with white males as the leaders. Encourage more games with diverse characters to be made instead.

>>176278

http://www.sfwa.org/2013/05/guest-post-we-have-always-fought-challenging-the-women-cattle-and-slaves-narrative/

>>176278
...Yes there were. If I remember correctly, African-American soldiers were fighting back in the Civil War, and there were all-black units in WWI.

The Soviets in particular had an all-female unit of pilots.

>>176281
I don't see how this is at all relevant to the example I posted. There definitely were black soldiers who were treated much worse than their white colleagues. There may have been some women disguising themselves as men to fight on the frontlines. But, as far as I'm aware (I have to admit I only checked Wikipedia because I didn't want to spend 30+ minutes on an internet argument), there were NO female or black officers in the US military during World War II. Therefore, if you're writing a story for a videogame, a book, a movie, a tv show or whatever, if your main character is an officer in the US military you shouldn't make them black or female.

You COULD write a great story about a female french hero of the resistance who fights against the nazis, but that wasn't the example I posted. Like >>176280 said, your story and the characters in it need to match the setting they're in.

>>176278
>Say you make a videogame in set in World War II where aliens suddenly invade
Wait I have played this.
But it was less about teaming up and more getting curb stomp because the aliens was a zombie virus.
And I do remmber it having that chick from her majesty's secret service and that black guy from the co-op mode that no one in the cast gave a fuck about.

>>176286

The point is, no matter what era you're drawing your history from, there are models for female action heros.

Also, these ladies never stopped being a thing.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_Army_Corps

>>176288
Great. Push for that. Just don't get mad at people just because a male is represented in a setting where it makes sense.

>>176278
>Say you make a videogame in set in World War II where aliens suddenly invade and the allies and axis have to join forces to repel the threat. Your main playable character is a high-ranking officer of the US military. Would it make sense for this main character to be female?

Works for Metal Slug.

Thus we see one of the problems with using World War 2 as an example, there is precedent for EVERYTHING be it in fiction or reality surrounding the event.

Honestly the way I see it the people clamoring for a female or black protag rarely put down money for it.

Take comics for instance. People bitch that women aren't represented but a book like Glory comes along and they ignore it.

Frankly I'd rather someone wrote something well instead of worrying about appeasing everyone. I think tokenism is actually worse than doing nothing.

>>176292
True, but that game was already pretty tongue-in-cheek to begin with and I don't think they were supposed to correspond to any actual military organizations, some of which did allow women officers but many which also didn't.

In a more realism-based WWII game, if you're going to star a female or racial minority then special care should be given to their circumstances. Maybe point out to the player through the narrative that yes, there were indeed companies of females or minorities occupying certain combat positions in the war effort that your main character is a part of, making it educational as well. Or in the case that they aren't, maybe they belonged to the fictional 9999th Regiment where those were accepted. Alternatively you could acknowledge that while normally they weren't allowed as officers, maybe your main character is a a special circumstance. Sergeant General Carlita Valenzuela-Takeda, who was entrusted with a super secret recon mission, shouldn't just be dismissed as "normal" with the burden of suspension of belief placed on the player, especially since even in-universe most characters would probably find it unusual unless there's valid historical reasons or knew about it ahead of time.

>>176303
Glory died cuz it was bad, gorgeous art or not.

Also bullshit, the problem here is not tokenism but homogeneity, which is a central problem in the industry in a lot of respects as it is with comics even more so.

>>176303
>Liefeld
That was because it was shit. People aren't going to buy something that's objectively terrible, no matter how progressive it is.

On the other hand, having more talented women (not shit like Devin Grayson) in the industry like Gail Simone is much better. Especially since through personal experience they would know how to write the minorities in well in question without making them tokens.

As an added bonus I'd say Gail Simone writes male characters better than a lot of actual men in the industry do, so everyone wins.

I only see one problem with the women in the military.
And its not with the women.
But can we get back on topic before thing gets so lost I can start talking about trains and it not out of context.

>>176307
Uh, Tiki I think he meant tokenism would arise from blindly trying to combat homogenity.

Let's try not to jump down each other's throats while talking about this stuff.

>>176308
I would not say that's completely accurate. Hudlin was a terrible Black Panther writer. On the other hand Priest had a fantastic run. Jungle Action,a run praised by Dwayne Mcduffie as the best Panther he read was done by a white guy.

I really don't see the hype surrounding Simone. Ryan Choi was cool and Secret Six was a better Suicide squad than the new 52 but that's it. Batgirl is terrible.

What I'm saying is make something good, fuck worrying about trying to please every single person. I mean is not having your race/gender/ethnicity in really going to turn something awesome into a giant pile of crap. I'd rather have good characters rather than complete stereotypes.

Still liked Glory.

>>176312
Wasn't trying to, but gotcha.

The primary notion of the first Bioshock always offended me in kind of the same way that the Randian works that inspired it offend me.

>Game so corridors/on-rails it physically hurts
>Get to end of game
>Told that you are basically a slave because you followed all their narrow-ass corridors
>DEEP AND PROFOUND
>Ignores all tenants of good game design and what makes video games interesting

It wouldn't bug me quite so much if this wasn't the whole point of the game.

>>176308

>Liefeld

Wrong Glory.

>>176286

>female french hero of the resistance who fights against the nazis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medal_of_Honor:_Underground

Probably the one game I can think of where that happened.

>>176317
Oh my God. Thank you!

Seriously. I spent the whole game trying to look around for secrets and other areas only to be funneled down a path sense it was the only option available, and that makes me a tool.
It reminded me of cheap mind reader tricks. Where you lead the subject through limited options and claim that you knew their will.

Its a shame though because the bioshock worlds are so interesting, but the game play and exploration is so small. Feels like they would be better books than games.

>>176317
Oh my God. Thank you!

Seriously. I spent the whole game trying to look around for secrets and other areas only to be funneled down a path sense it was the only option available, and that makes me a tool.
It reminded me of cheap mind reader tricks. Where you lead the subject through limited options and claim that you knew their will.

Its a shame though because the bioshock worlds are so interesting, but the game play and exploration is so small. Feels like they would be better books than games.

>>176317
I got an even bigger problem with the first Bioshock.
FUCKING THINGS KEEPS KEEP FUCKING UP SO I CANT BEAT IT!
First time I lost my save do to ylod and when I finally got around to retry it a plotdoor bugged out on both my save so I cant go forward.
FUCK!
Dont help that I really want the brass balls trophy so I played with on hard with a hand behind my back...
Both times...
*sigh*
And it did have sideways with hidden stuff so its not super straight.
Also I did not know where to go next a lot...

Ok, even if we accept that it doesn't make sense to have a high ranking woman/POC character in a given story because of when it's set, why keep doing that? Why do developers keep going back to these worlds and settings where it only makes sense to have a scruffy white male brunette as the lead? Why not pick a different time period or just make something up? Why even give a shit about historical accuracy as long as the story rings true?

>>176343
Really, I think the simple truth of the matter is that white male game developers make white male main characters because that's what standard for them.

>>176344
You're probably right. Goddammit. You would think people involved in video games would be more imaginative. If I can write stories from the point of view of straight men and lesbians when I'm a straight woman—if when I was a child, I could play a game of pretend with myself as the T-Rex from Jurassic Park—then why is it so difficult for developers to come up with someone who isn't a straight white dude?

>>176345
Well, my own personal feelings on the matter, which are in no way an absolute truth, is that ethnicity/gender/sexuality aren't very interesting or matter much, and thus i seldom think about it but focuses on other stuff. This may be because I am a straight white male and have 90% of all main characters are made to be like me anyway.

>>176355
>ethnicity/gender/sexuality aren't very interesting or matter much

In a detached sort of way I can understand where you're coming from, but that's kinda fucked up. I guess you mean that you're not choosy? Or something? Do you just not care at all about the player character? (I do not mean this next question in a condescending or combatitive way at all. Just curious.) Have you ever had to think critically about representation of minorities/women versus straight white men in fiction, and why that might matter a lot?

The point was not "keep doing straight white men and lock minorities out," it was "dropping something just because the protag is a straight white man is dumb."

I'm all for more of Lee from Walking Dead, or Samus, or whatever, but Jensen being straight and white doesn't make Deus Ex HR a bad game.

>>176356
If the game/characterization is good I do care about the main character. I guess I'm just not choosey about it. That, for example, Faith was a woman did not deter me from playing Mirrors edge, nor did it give me problem with immersion. But i doubt it would have been different if she was a guy. Although, thinking about it, had Mirrors Edges main character been a generic white dude with short brown hair and stubble I would probably have been less interested, but only because it was uncreative.

I have however longed for more games were you get to play weirder stuff, like robots and skeletons and lizardmen and such.

>>176358
>rodyle
hahaha

and two what the fuck you guys are you all autistic? i never said i dropped something i said my enthusiasm for it decreases

this place is terrible

>>176360
Yes please. Fuck off forever.

>>176359
Pretty much this.

PEOPLE BEING OFFENDED ABOUT VIDEO GAMES OFFENDS ME

LOUD NOISES

>>176365
I knw it's probably weird, that's actually something I'm concerned with. How loud are those consoles going to be? Is it something they even concern themselves with? If the PS4 is going to end up being as loud as a Gamecube, that might actually be a dealbreaker for me until they get out some better models.

>>176367
so wait do you prefer things to be louder or quieter, I lean towards louder.

>>176345
Its not.
The Lost World Jurassic Park G…
Jurassic Park: Warpath PSX (T-…
Primal Carnage - T-Rex Gameplay
Or atlest it did not use to be like this...
And to sort off quote the Street Fighter movie, it fells to me that the mainstream gaming industry has lost its balls.(and grow big greed dick but thats another post)
Why this is I dont know, maybe its the whole economy tanking thing and/or idiots pointlessly chasing the Call of Duty money.
And I am not just talking about EA here.
The sad thing is that that is not even CoDs fault that its this/last gen Counter Strike.
But props to them for putting all their money into a solo campain that the main cod players dont give a fuck about.
Yeah CoD is basically the madden of shooter and I am sick of corps using it a template for EVERYTHING because of it.
Hell I would put down money on that if like the next next has you play a gay black guy for most of it, it would still not lose any sales.
I already said why.

>>176345
The thing is, as a straight white male, you kind of live in a little bit of fear of fucking up any other characters you do. A gay black woman as the lead protag is as far from my own experience as I can get. I can write her, yes, but I'm not sure I could bring interest to her character beyond just making a character and then having her act out what I think she should act out. The problem is somewhat like simply replacing a male protag with a female protag. The Female Protag still kind of acts like a male protag and it's jarring. I don't mind stepping out of my comfort zone, the issue is that I feel like it might come off as cheap or just a gender-swap. Hitting checkmarks on the "privilege" lists instead of really talking about peoples' issues.

>>176369
The funny thing about CoD is that up through MW2, the story and the single player were actually kind of interesting. You felt like they were getting at some point about the ludicrousness of war and violence, and the sheer insanity of anyone trying to take on odds like the game presents. In this, the story was kind of secondary; the game itself was about the ludicrousness of war, and it was baked right into their gameplay sandbox, right up to the Nuke killing everyone if one player achieved more than anyone else in multiplayer.

Every game since that has been riding MW2's creative coattails without any true innovation or driving point. They're just shooters that have been tweaked for the competitive gaming scene now (to their loss, imho).

>>176360
You said you got offended by it. Which means you're gettin' mad at videogames for what a lot of people have pointed out was a misguided reason. Next time channel your emotions in a more constructive direction.

This is reading a lot like "polite privilege check: the thread"

>>176368
Why would you want your consoles to be loud? That's horribly distracting and it drowns out the sounds of the game your playing, which are kind of an integral part of the game.

Imma post this just because http://thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=sexism_videogames

>>176384
Speaking of "indie" games, as an transferroavian otherkin I find Angry Birds hugely offensive and trivializing of the issues many of my fellow avians suffer from. Not to mention the whitewashing of many others such such as Porcine American supremacism.

>>176375
nah

>>176371
See, this is why you talk to people and ask about their experiences. See if they'd be willing to take a look at your work to make sure you haven't gone horribly wrong somewhere. Reading/watching things created by people similar to your own characters can also be helpful. No one creates in a vacuum. Believe me, as a straight white woman, most of your concerns are mine as well.

>>176371
Film Critic Hulk had a response to this line of thinking:
>A LOT OF TIMES HULK QUESTIONS WRITERS ON THIS POINT AND GET THE RESPONSE “I don’t know how to write women!” WHICH IS RIDICULOUS. IF YOU SAY THAT, YOU’RE INADVERTENTLY SAYING YOU DON’T KNOW HOW TO WRITE “PEOPLE.”

I would say the same line of thinking applies to homosexuals or black people or whatever.

>>176391
I remember Ashly Burch said she interviewed the Saint's Row writers, and they apparently ran all the jokes in front of their female/black/transgender friends, who were all apparently okay with them.

What's okay to one person isn't okay to another, though, I think that's fair to say.

>>176404
Saints Row was kind of tame in my opinion. I couldn't imagine someone getting offended by it. That's just me though.

Honestly I still think in trying to change things is fine. You want a black lead? That's fine. Just write it well. Hell look at Larry Hama's G.I.Joe., a huge team composed of different races, genders and backgrounds. Scarlet was just as badass as Snake Eyes. Thing is there were no "oh no the girls have to save the day because the men are incapacitated" issue. I mean there was an issue in Special Missions but that wasn't Hama's comic and it also features Firefly using weaponized hot dogs, so yeah. I'm just saying worry about putting out something good first, if its great and you aren't deliberately going out of your way to piss people off you're doing fine.

>>176418
>You want a black lead? That's fine. Just write it well.
A big part of this is, I think, that more games need to write black characters as a guy/girl that's black. They don't need to be defined by being "black"; no ghettoid voice, love for rap music, or other stereotypes. White guys in games don't go around saying how they'd like some mayo on their sandwich or a lawn really needs to be mowed or they could go for a Bud Light; so why should black guys do similar things? Or anything from the male/female divide.

The exception to that would be if a focus of the game might require it, like a game that has racism or race-relations as a large part of the plot.

>>176420
Exactly. We don't need to be reminded every five seconds that they're black.

Hell I like dudes and I was a little offended by Steve Cortez in Mass Effect 3 because it was constantly brought up. I mean you play chess with Traynor, learn more about her and what not. She doesn't even bring up her orientation all that much, just a comment about edi once. Steve's whole character was wrapped up in him being gay. I mean I was fine helping him with his grief but I was actually offended when Bioware interpreted "don't make me an anchor" as go fuck somebody a couple on months after your partner died horribly. That's about the closest I've gotten to offended actually.

>>176420
I think it depends.

Some people who are very [insert any culture here] make it a huge part of their life. Some don't. African-Americans are no exception. Same with women. Some women are very feminine. Some are very masculine. Some are in the middle somewhere. That's why writing any group of people is tricky, and you'll always have one person telling you you did it wrong.

>>176375
Nurse has recently taken to complaining about things and then turning right around and asking why people would care about these things/saying opinions don't matter to her.

It begs the question of why is she bothering to post about it in a public place if it's such an inconsequential topic and she has no interest in discussion.

>>176360
>this place is terrible
It's gamer culture in general that's terrible, I think. I've become increasingly convinced that there's no saving "gamers." They're too happy being awful and there's too much of an echo chamber encouraging them to greater depths of awfulness.

But it's hard to find communities made up of people who play and talk about games but who aren't gamers, so for now, we're stuck talking to gamers when we want to talk about games.

>>176427
Frankly whenever discussion is had about sensitive topics someone comes running in and saying how awful everyone is, no matter the media or how tame or not the discussion. I'm not sure such people actually want things to progress at all.

I'm just glad Japan never has to put up with this "muh representation" shit and can continue making games that are fun without the gay black tranny otherkin womyn demographic starting shit.

>>176429
I suppose there are a few benefits to being a homogeneous, xenophobic society.

>>176430
das racist you can't say negative things about people who aren't white do you even tumblr

>>176429
man did you just compare black people and gays to otherkin

>>176317
Speaking of Bioshock, does anyone have links to the early gameplay demos?

>>176420
If you just write the general character first and make them female, then you'll run into the converse issue, where there will be folks complaining that she's not "feminine" enough. They'll accuse her of still being a Generic White Male template wrapped in a female coat of paint, who serves to further glorify masculine ideals at the expense of feminine ones. And then there will be some in the black community who will accuse black characters who act as you just mentioned of being Uncle Toms for not exhibiting any of those characteristics.

Frankly a lot of the people who use these lines of argument come off as SJW level idiots, and the implications are pretty dire. You smile when greeting costumers, shake hands, and don't talk in AAVE? Sellout! What, you're wearing button-up shirts instead of basketball jerseys and expensive flashy jewelry? White identifier! Why are you majoring in STEM instead of women's rights or English? You only think science matters because you've been brainwashed by the patriarchy! Don't like makeup or dresses! Internalized misogyny! Sadly I've personally had those last two used against me.

But buried amidst it all there still is a good point. Why bother making your character visually different from the norm if in the end they're still confined to a very narrow range of characterization? True, in a world without gender roles a lot of women probably would act just like your male hero, but there are still those who would continue to enjoy feminine things like cooking and fancy dresses, and still be just as capable of heroic things. Whether or not it's a "good" thing that they do, women exist who prefer more masculine or feminine things, and black people exist who are or aren't into "ghetto" culture. If you only write your heroes as if none of them do the latter ever, it's tantamount to saying that while Generic White Males aren't the only ones that matter, you still have to "become" one to.

>>176427
What? This has been a fairly civil discussion with good points raised on both sides. Nurse is just mad because she espoused an ignorant view and people called her out on it and for her moving the goalposts, while still agreeing with the issues underlying it.

>>176428
I'm sorry. I just get depressed when I see how very lacking in self-awareness so many gamers are, and how very accepting of those people who use that lack of self awareness to abuse anyone who's "other" from them the other gamers are. In their unwillingness to engage in conflict with those who make the community toxic, even the non-horrible gamers are essentially expressing tacit approval of the toxicity that the assholes bring to it.

And what is the solution supposed to be? Both sides are motivated by a lack of social acclimation--the awful ones are actively antisocial, the ones who are avoiding conflict are just socially awkward, but in either case they have no genuine interest in seeing the toxicity eliminated.

But in the end, there's not much point in fighting it. Gaming is becoming mainstream--this is inevitable. And it is equally inevitable that once everyone plays games, gamers will not be able to maintain this exclusive club that allows them to maintain this toxic environment. Eventually, gamers will be forced to abide by the rules of society in general or be ostracized for their assholery.

If you want more diversity in game protagonists, why not donate all of your money to the Arkh Project?

>>176437
You're a funny guy Anon, I like you. Thats why I'm going to kill you last.

>>176437
Did that shit ever even go anywhere?
Last I heard they wasted the budget on concept art.

>>176438
You just don't want to give all of your money to Arkh because you're racist and hate queer black womyn!

>>176439
They have several pieces of concept art and a .04 second run animation.

Mostly the creator's blog since then has been about raising money for their dentist appointments or chronicling their dine n' dash adventures at the local chinese restaurant who obviously took so long bringing the food because they hate all black people.

You want to play a great game with a black character, play Lyle in Cube Sector. That's some lovely shit.

>>176434
So the long and short is "No matter what you try to do to appease everyone you'll piss off a lot of people, or you'll piss off a small but entirely disproportionately loud group", and in the end the effort is for naught, so just fuck it and make what you want to make and hope there are a few people who will like it and the rest will just get along.

>>176443
This should really not have to stated at all.

>>176371
The good news is alot of the talent behind that is working on Titan-fall.

>>176437
I actually like that they're being more inclusive, but they don't seem to have gotten any farther than concept art, and it's true that a game needs to be, well, playable, and that's gotta be the first priority.

I think the thing is, you guys that explicitly don't want to play a transgender black woman, you don't have to. You'll always have your buff white guy games. Just give the option for some games to have some diversity.

>>176446
Don't, because the person behind it is probably as bigoted as your average redneck, only from the other side, not to mention they're doing more damage to the cause of racial equality anyway.

>>176446
>we play our games with white guy protags
>devs realize white guy protags are where all the money is
>companies need dosh to stay afloat and make more games because happiness and good vibes can't feed their kids
>devs don't bother with black trannies because they don't put their money where their mouth is

A+ logic

>>176448
>>176447
This is completely wrong, a, and b, we'd buy them if they existed.

Also, it's "transgender", not "tranny". Don't be an asshole.

>>176446
Holy shit are you actually defending horrible rip-off artists with a terrible concept?

They are pretty terrible in both behavior and content, if anything they are just making 'progressive' people who want games to be more 'inclusive' look bad.

>>176446
You know... there's more segments of people between 'white male who is also muscular' and 'transgender black woman'. Are you trying to boil this down into an us/them scenario.

>>176449
Go back to tumblr

>>176449
>We'd buy them if they existed

sure

>>176450
All I know is that they made a game concept that never got past concept stage. To be fair, that's all I know about it.

I'm just angry at these people going out of their way to shit on anyone who looks or acts different than them, as if because they're not non-white or a woman or transgender, they could never have the remotest thing in common with that character.

>>176455
White, black, gay, strait, christian, atheist, and everything in between.
Assholes are assholes.

>>176453
No.

>>176454
>>implying I don't already read Renee Montoya comics

>>176457
See if you can tear the rest of tumblr away from their Avengers yaoi long enough to buy some too, I wouldn't mind if she got a little recognition

>>176460
Tumblr's got over a million people, they're not a hivemind singularity. And some people just like Marvel and you can't get them into DC.

But I'll try.

>>176461
It's tumblr you cumbucket all you have to do is say QUEER POC and you'll have at least a few hundred swarming like flies on shit

(KEEP CALM and TAKE A TIME OUT)

>>176462
>>cumbucket
>>cue eyebrow

That's not the case. There's just as many people who are disinterested in social justice stuff of any kind, or who think any political issue at all is far less important than arguing over Harry Potter plot points, or who think men are being mistreated, and women aren't, or feminists who disagree on what's okay or what's not. I see fighting on my dash over it constantly.

I'll do my best, though.

>>176463
ARGH TUMBLR ASDFARGLESNARGLE

Ignore anon, anon.

>>176465
Nevermind that anon, I'm a gigantic faggot

>>176427
As much as I agree with the assessment that "gamer culture" is shit (a decent approximation for the reasons can be found here http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html), a general hostile reaction to outsiders attacking them is inevitable.

"Normal" people (including the media) have spent so much time calling videogames something for children, losers and future murderers, to the point where they push for LAWS against them.

Now when another group of people goes "this is morally wrong and so are you if you don't work to change it", you can't really expect a response other than "fuck off".

I know that a lot of social justice people think diplomacy (the art of manipulating people with words) is beneath them, because why would they need to convince people if they're so obviously RIGHT, but they really shouldn't be surprised (or worse, indignant) when the response to "I'm morally superior to you and this is why" is "die in a fire".

>>176436
>In their unwillingness to engage in conflict with those who make the community toxic, even the non-horrible [variable] are essentially expressing tacit approval of the toxicity that the assholes bring to it.

That is a generic observation applicable to many groups. "Gamers" are neither the only nor the worst example.

>once everyone plays games

Okay, there's something that really needs to fucking stop already.

No matter how much you believe it, NOT ALL VIDEOGAMES ARE EQUAL.

Angry Birds and Farmville are NOT on the same level as Deus Ex and Baldur's Gate 2 and NEVER WILL BE. By claiming "games are games", people essentially state that there cannot be a measure of quality that can be applied to videogames (since that would result in some games being better (aka not equal) than others).

Sure, eventually "everyone plays games", but not everyone plays GOOD games. In fact, the vast majority of people don't, because the vast majority of people are not hobbyists. Most people already have no idea at all about what makes a videogame good, and that is not going to change when more people start playing games.

>>176439
Deader than pre-patch Skullgirls and Starcraft Ghost.

>>176472
>Now when another group of people goes "this is morally wrong and so are you if you don't work to change it", you can't really expect a response other than "fuck off".

Every internet discussion ever in a nutshell.

>>176439
>implying it was ever anything more than a scam by Riley to guilt-trip retards out of their privilege-earned dosh

laughing genderqueer womyn.jpg

>>176484
>implying a POC can ever be wrong or bad ever

check your privilege you white cis straight abled cisethnic neurotypical thin privileged male scum

THE CREEPY CULL OF FEMALE PROT…

I think this is pretty related.

Okay we can talk about how terrible Arkh is or we can talk about how homogeny is a problem in mainstream video gaming, but I feel like if we try talking about both we're just gonna end up hurting ourselves somehow.

>>176487
Espealy sense I already posted that in the second post of the thread.
Just saying~
But I still make the shipper in me burn with holy fury that they are blocking my ships do to "gaaay"!
Faith better get some loving in ME2 I tell you that!
I will settle for a tryckare(swe) or atlest a hug.

>>176489
Ahh, sorry.

>>176472
The problem with a lot of that is that engaging people online in what are usually competitive scenarios doesn't really lend itself to diplomacy on such subjects when they do arise. There was a wave of Nazi/KKK emblems in Black Ops 2 in the opening months after the game was released. And the thing is, short of winning with a crushing victory, there is little that will convince someone in the space of 1 minute that their ideology is garbage and that their emblem is offensive. (The accounts have since disappeared, likely they were banned)

I do recall a situation where a female gamer was berated at a tournament and no one stepped in to tell the guy to stop, and someone could've definitely stepped up there. But trying to go head to head with some of these creeps is like taking on /b/ single-handedly. You don't really have a position of power or respect where they'll listen to you most times. And anyone who does stand up for common decency just gets called a white knight and a faggot. Most times engaging them over that isn't worth it.

>>176560
>and someone could've definitely stepped up there.
And of course be berated and ostracized for "whiteknighting" and "moralfagging."

Animal Crossing could use a few more skin tones I suppose.

>>176568
It's different in that setting. Standing up to someone when you're face to face with them, at a public event where there are presumably security personnel and possibly video cameras (and increasingly just cell phone cameras), you could probably get a lone creep like that booted out the door, especially if it escalates into an incident when you're rather politely telling him to "shut up".

There's a little bit of group psychology in that too, however. Confronting the guy may mean causing an incident, an incident for which both of you could be ejected from the premises. For a lot of people showing up for a tourney, that's not necessarily an outcome they want to embrace, possibly giving up any shot at victory just to take douchebag down a peg or two.

The caustic attitude is more endemic to men, I feel. Not to say there aren't girl gamers, not to say they don't rage. Competitive scenes are never one for the nicest of chats, and most of what I hear on Xbox Live is male voices being generally insufferable in various ways. I have had some quit pleasant experiences on xbox live and met some very decent people, though few that I have carried it beyond live without knowing them on other forums. I even game with girls semi-regularly. Gaming itself isn't solely the realm of men, but I would argue that the competitive scene is mostly male dominated and has been allowed to brew with some pretty potent cocktails of bad ideas and anger. It's pretty bad when sometimes the most favorable match up you hope for is just a bunch of people who can shut up and play.

>>176577
In general, sadly, if someone's being a dick, the person who complains is generally the one to get in trouble, for being "disruptive". Which is a shame. I've seen someone in a position of power on a team use that to their advantage to get anyone complaining about their dickery kicked out, because "we can't risk losing someone so valuable". Even if by "best player", they mean "sucks the least".

You know, there actually is game series that has managed to offend me- the Arkham games.

But not in the way you might think. Yes, the gender stuff is bad (consistently disappointing, with the neat exception of the ninja gals in the 2nd game.) But what really struck me as problematic was its portrayal of the mental health system, patients, and convicted criminals.

Yes, I know, Batman. Don't think for a second I'm objecting to his villians all being murderous lunatics or Arkham Asylum being more a specialized containment unit. But the games never stop portraying portraying every last inmate and mental patient as an irredeemably violent and depraved individual. All of the numerous attempts (both in-game and in stuff like audio diaries) to provide genuine counseling, therapy, or any kind of altruistic action towards these individuals will always fail to have any positive effect, and the whole idea of "therapy" is a laughably misguided sham. In the world of those games, anyone who's mentally ill or convicted of a crime is an evil bad person who should get beaten unconscious and then locked away forever. These are genuinely harmful ideas to buy into. =(

>>176579
...For FUCKS SAKE!

You're complaining that Supervillains are bad people in a comicbook franchise? Really?

>>176581
Read the first sentence of the third paragraph. I'm basically talking about everything BEYOND that, all the nameless mooks and so on.

>>176584
Did you miss the part in the first game where its mentioned that after someone started a major fire at the prison they had to move a large number of prisoners to be temporarily held at Arkham facilities? A plot by the Joker for his takeover plan
If an inmate of the asulum weren't in on the Joker's gambit they wouldn't be out and about ready to fight batman, they'd be hiding somewhere and thus take no part in the game.

Being offended by the game over this is pretty... insane.

>>176585
Oh, you can headcanon it really easily. But you never ACTUALLY SEE (or hear about secondhand from an NPC or whatever) an inmate hiding away. You never ACTUALLY SEE any inmate in Arkham City try to help or even cooperate with the air volunteers. You never ACTUALLY SEE any case where Quincy Sharp's deranged interference is even implied to have prevented treatment that could have possibly done some good. He just accelerates existing failed treatment models. They could have done all of these things very easily, it would have ENHANCED how villianous everyone else was.

>>176586
And you never actually see Batman poop. What's your point?

>>176586
Not to pry Dagda but do you have any personal reasons for why this is such a massive deal for you?
It doesn't seem to come across that way to anyone else, it really does seem you are blowing it out of proportion.

I started a post to respond to this, but I'm too exhausted to think right now.
o well. tonight

>>176588
Silly anon. Batmans don't poop.

>>176589
*shrug* Psych major? I've had alot of chances to see how social stigma against mental illness prevents people from seeking help, and how badly proper mental health institutions have gotten slashed over the last few decades. And as for incarceration: I'm in the US, it's a problem here. http://www.economist.com/node/16636027

I'm not sure what kind of proportion you think I'm giving it, though. All I've said is that it managed to offend me. I found this single aspect of two otherwise-amazing games unpleasant and distasteful. Is that really so hard to accept?

>>176606
I could see that. Immersion breaking, especially on a subject you're relatively well-versed in, can be annoying. On this subject too, it's one of those things that we really don't treat fairly and that we kind of should.

>>176579
I have that problem with Arkham in any Batman adaption. The only sympathetic characters with mental health issues are Batman himself, and Harley Quinn (when they focus on her abusive relationship with The Joker). And they're still violent. They also focus on the jail so little that it seems like all criminals get sent to Arkham, which is also wrong-- a guy who robs a convenience store because he can't afford his rent doesn't deserve to be locked up next to Joker.

I definitely have seen other people with mental health issues (particularly manic-depressives) react very, very badly to "Have you seen a psychiatrist?" They'll insist psychiatrists are just there to brainwash and force them to do things, which is not at all true. And it worries me.

I think this is why I like Psychonauts so much. Most of the characters are traumatized in some way, but they're mostly sympathetic, and Raz is the altruistic little guy he is, and wants to help them.

H'okay. Well rested.
"Legitimately offended by a video game?"
Hmm.. In what sense? In the sense of advancing ideology I don't concur with? In the sense of poor performance? In the sense of forwarding cultural values I disagree with? I don't really have enough information to conclude anything meaningful.

I was offended by Megaman X 7 because there are quite seriously better games now being built by one man in his garage. I am convinced somebody being paid 10,000 could pump out something equally on par with that steaming pile of drek in less than a year. The voice acting, the controls, the character designs, the dialog.. it was all just terrible. It offended me in every way what we know of as video games can possibly offend me, short of having the protagonist burn a flag at a klan rally and then talk about the Jews doing 9/11 mid-game. Capcom phoned this in.

Much as I adore the atmosphere and story of Legacy of Kain, Amy Henning's writing is very histrionic. You kind of need to put yourself in the knowingly retarded and juvenile position you put yourself in to just go with the grain and enjoy things beneath your maturity level. Be they shows and comics about giant robots, or tiny equines for little girls. So.. It's not really 'offense', so much as 'shame.'

The only closest approximate to offense otherwise would be how I felt at the end of Jak 3. Revealing the Ottsels as the precursors. I feel like they were going somewhere in Jak 2 and setting up this one story, and then by 3 they decided to take what they had established and change it around for no real reason. I'd like to believe this is a case of red herrings in the writing and they still intend on pursuing that original story thread at some point, but I guess it's similar to how in comics, the last writer defines the current canon. Not really offended.. just disappointed. Unimpressed.

As for the subject of white protagonists in vidya gaems:
Know how Japan got around the lack of representation of Japanese in video games? They made their own.

>>176675
>Know how Japan got around the lack of representation of Japanese in video games? They made their own.

Easier said than done, friendo. It's not like minorities (particularly in the US) are encouraged to pursue game design.
It's like...I'm having trouble coming up with an appropriate comparison, but please bear with me. Someone might ask, "Why don't black people just make their own movies?" Well, they do, but that by itself isn't enough.

>>176676
>It's not like minorities are encouraged to pursue game design.
Depends on the minorities, I'd wager. Asians and South Asians are going to be generally accepted (although likely pushed into more serious business/math/science/medicine fields by their parents/subcultures.)


Unless by 'minorities' you just meant 'blacks'.

>>176677
There's also Latino people, women technically qualify, as well as the entirety of west Asia.

>>176677
Women are also often actively discouraged from pursuing science and computer related fields.

>>176679
People have also said that women should not enter art fields, as everything relevant in the field of fine art and animation was done by men, and that most game devs are men, so women could never write or design something as good as them.

Which is bullshit. I don't honestly know why people care what color someone's skin is, or what's in their pants, as long as something is good.

http://redkit.cdprojektred.com/index.php?c=mod&m=show&p=77

The Witcher 2 Combat Mod is out about 1.5 gig download as its not just Combat but a world revamp to put mechanics in line to what they are doing Witcher 3.

>>176676
>easier said than done.
This is why it's typically done by generic brunette white dudes who put the years into nerdity it takes to make video games. They own the canvas, they own the paints, they decide what goes on it. They won't draw you? Tough. It's no different from an artist drawing whatever they want. And there is nothing physically blocking non-white nerds from participating in the art, programming and writing community.

>>176679
>>176680

You don't have to be Booker T Washington. But at LEAST be Tyler Perry. Nobody is entitled to representation in art. Nobody.

>>176684
I can already hear people searching for articles about how there are non white brunette programmers and how hard it is for them to get into the industry despite putting the same amount of years as their counterparts.

Your overall point is correct, but it also couldn't hurt for some effective diversity to get into the game industry's gene pool from time to time. If only to make sure it doesn't cause a big Hollywood scale crash from AAA development and a lack of differing creative output.

>>176684
>But at LEAST be Tyler Perry.
>be Tyler Perry

I have no idea what you're trying to say with this, but it's one of the worst things you can tell anyone.

>>176688
Hey, the dude may produce unwatchable drek, but he has the creative control over that drek. But fine.
Instead, "You don't have to be Miyamoto, but at least be Edmund McMillen or Tommy Refenes.

Overall I'm just pissed when people say feminism isn't an important issue, but discussing what the best Kanye West song is is a thousand times more important.

Just...fffuck people who think this.

>>176690
Honestly though, the fact that there are people out there that think Yeezus and MBDTF are better than College Dropout and Late Registration is a fucking tragedy. I'm not saying that getting rid of these people would do more good than granting women, minorities, and the poor equal rights...

...I'm just saying that it might.

>>176684
>there is nothing physically blocking non-white nerds from participating in the art, programming and writing community

except poor living conditions, poor wages, schools that are staffed with bad teachers and a general lack of access to technology and good tutors.

It's one thing to say "get beyond it". It's another thing to say "balance your wildly unfair and hazardous life with learning and developing a craft that at the high levels takes upwards of 100 people to produce even a middling title". It doesn't help that a lot of that technical skill is put to dangerous (more profitable) use in addition to making games. Creative control is one thing but technical skill is bred in relative conformity.

>>176691
You'd have to get rid of me then, I've never been a fan of Kanye period.

>>176692
It's a shame art is so hard to teach. I've had even professional art teachers who were just shit at critique and explaining what was good or bad about a piece.

>>176694
It's not that art is hard to teach, it's that a lot of people who try to learn art don't want to learn bad enough to actually do the work or listen to what they're told.

You could teach a monkey to make great art easier than you could a lot of young artists.

>>176695
This isn't what I dealt with. I dealt with teachers who said "do it again, differently" if they disliked something, or "this is good, I like this" if it was good. Their critique was so vague that you didn't know what you needed to work on or what you should continue doing.

>>176696
Sounds like they were encouraging you to experiment rather than keep working in the same rut. It's decent enough advice, though if you hadn't learned the fundamentals yet I would've probably gone with teaching the fundamentals first. That said, just doing it different from how you did it before when you do it wrong isn't a bad way to learn. It's certainly better at teaching you to be loose and improvisational, even if it wouldn't do much for your draftsmanship.

You've got to understand that art is basically a Disgaea game. The "difficulty" mostly comes down to figuring out when and where to grind properly.

>>176699
I haven't played Disgaea, unfortunately.

I just have no idea what my skill level is. I do better with direct critique, being told very specifically what to fix, I felt like there was a very specific list of what defines "good", at least to the teacher's standards, and I just had to learn how to hit all those checkmarks.

I find even professional game critics do this, sometimes they're very vague on what they think a game needs to fix. And as a dev, I wouldn't be mad, I just want to know very specific things my fans want tweaked.

>>176679
Not where I'm from. Everybody was hugely supportive of me going into science, and I've never ever been told that I should do anything else. It was always the stereotype even into high school that girls were better at science than boys because they studied hard while boys were too dumb or lazy (though my school might've just been unusual since it's got a rep as a Harvard farm), and there were a healthy amount of STEM initiatives to get more girls interested in the subject. And as an undergraduate there was probably a 70:30 ratio of women to men in the science field to the point that in all the labs I worked in, men were the tokens unless the PI made a push to recruit males into the research elective programs. And now that I'm a grad student in a totally different state, there's a grand total of like 5 boys and 20 girls in my year who want to become PhDs.

The informatics programs were a little skewed in the men's favor, but the most common reason I hear from them for not going into computer science is because they personally find it boring, dry, and repetitive, something my female relatives who did go into the field have echoed in the past (also that it's a killer on your eyes). While things aren't totally equal I'd say that at least in the case of biology we've moved forward a lot from Rosalind Franklin. A lot of the pressure I'm seeing comes more from internal issues like the the difficulty of juggling work with family.

>>176709
This has been a little contrary to my STEM experience, though I have focused mostly on computers and yeah, most of my classes (which were given at public schools then later college) were something like 80-20 men to women.

Which is kind of disturbing, imho. Yeah, other STEM fields, especially if you excel in them, they pay better and they offer higher job security. You just can't get around the fact that computer technology drives our everything these days. I've had to advise sound engineers, graphics designers, physicists, hydroponic gardeners. All because I understand the underlying technology on which most of their digital "equipment" is built better than they do.

It's easier to break into computing than other science fields and it tends to pay more in general, even at the lower levels. I also feel it has become central to "keeping up". I noticed a lot of people sort of fell behind in keeping up with news, developments, and technology after I left highschool. I've never had this problem, being wired as fuck, but it's a little disturbing to see the general populace kind of take a hit because "it's too boring". It's incredibly dry and painful sometimes, I grant you, but it's also being used to model the chemical equations for the chemists, spread news faster and more easily than any previous form of communication, and turn our phones into omni-tools.

Computing is like the one thing I wish girls would get pushed into more because it's one of those places where the "old boys club" is still very much in full effect.

>>176724
When I think "old boys club," I think an industry that has systematically and internally tried to keep women out of it, regardless of what society says or thinks, regardless of the individual's perspective on it. I just don't think computer science as an "old boys club" thing is historically accurate. I don't think they've worked to disenfranchise and eliminate girls from participation in it.

Just because something contains a lot of old boys and few girls doesn't necessarily make it an 'old boys club' or a hot bed of exclusion. It can be a sign they aren't welcome, but it's not a given..

>>176733
There doesn't have to be a conspiracy--the discouragement to women to get involved in these sorts of fields is not employers refusing to hire them. It's society seeing those job as fields for men, and therefore making a woman feel less accepted among her peers (whether we're talking her friends or her future coworkers) because she "doesn't belong." The very fact of a profession being a sausage fest discourages women from getting involved. There often has to be actual outreach to fight that.

>>176735
So you're telling me that unless something is explicitly outreaching for people, the assumption will be that it's exclusionary or prejudiced, on the level with Old Boys Clubs?..
I.. I don't even. How the hell did we ever get female doctors? If there's any outreach whatsoever, if there's any big ole propaganda poster saying, "COME DO THIS, [TYPE OF PERSON]" it's the fields of science and engineering and medicine trying to attract females to them. Unless you're coming from the mentality of what women should be doing, and thus men do everything else, the general consensus is men and women can pursue whatever they want.
I feel like I've just been told everybody else is responsible and at fault because someone gives themselves an eating disorder. If it's a perception women are imposing on themselves, that needs to be addressed.

>>176735
Fuck I'm glad I don't have deal with this stuff at my job. Never seen a woman who even wants to work there. Well, what we do.

>>176733
And when I think "Old Boys Club", I think of all the toxic, virulent, absolutely vile SysAdmins I have seen or heard about over the years. The people who are the absolute best at this are nearly all men, and in very subtle ways they set the tone for all of the tech industry. That tone is not friendliness and inclusion, it's an absolute hatred for any perceived failing and derision. This is kind of the whole thing: it's not a conspiracy to keep women out, it's a kind of vileness that arises from being so technically adept and at the same time so shut off from the world. Simultaneously you are hated, revered, and kind of untouchable in a SysAdmin position. Tie that up with the perceived sexual inadequacy of the geek (who is hilariously more employable than the jock now), and it's not so much the unforgiving work that gets to you as it is the intolerable people.

Which, I think is unfortunate, because this technology is so central to everything. But this has been the key failing of the American school system over the last 20 or so years; we've failed to push out high enough numbers of really technically adept students. Which is a problem, because technical adeptness is what's driving the future, what's driving economy, what's driving business, what's driving science, and what is driving true innovation. The significance of these technologies is massive and we have failed to leverage them to create better classrooms, to create more interesting schools, and to create a smarter public.

Opportunity is lacking, quite simply. And as we continue on our current path it lacks even more. It is there for a slew of people who have the right roll of the dice, the right upbringing, teachers, experiences, etc. But the frequency with which people do not understand or have no reason to care about the tools handed to them is what is truly crippling our society on some level.

The women are all too busy working hard on their Gender Studies degrees to go into something that will land them in a more prestigious job than McBurger Flipper

>>176751
Well if the women are getting useless degrees then the men are getting equally useless degrees. It's impressive how many people can go through a computer science program with an incomplete understanding of what that education effects and how to apply it.

Eric Snowden is a GED holder who was being paid $200k a year (for comparisons' sake, I doubt anyone on this site is breaking 30k. Most of us will be sitting in the 20-25k range, I imagine). All that with no College experience, simply a background in computing and a history of doing jobs like that. But the reality of it is that there are jobs out there, they're just very technical and require similar technical aptitudes. Or, people who can teach technicality better.

Meanwhile, men are failing out of university more than ever before. Or graduating with Business Degrees, which are right up there with any Gender Studies Degrees, Philosophy Degrees, and Basket-Weaving Degrees in terms of fucking uselessness in STEM fields. We are failing to produce true achievers on any level, man. And this is the whole system; we have a population that can't handle modern complexity. Those that can, get good jobs, but eventually we're just going to be dominated intellectually and economically by one of the other superpowers. Probably China, at this point.

That'd be a hoot; America becoming not unlike a third world country. A Failed Superpower. I don't think there's been one of those yet.

I'm sure if you think really hard you can come up with one or two.

>>176758
You just described the USSR.

Also China is not a superpower. Actually there really aren't any superpowers anymore.

I think we've eventually hit the part where this thread is no longer about video games and more about people spewing nonsense about college.

>>176764
Eh, there's only so many places you can go with "this game offends me". If you go by Zelda, technically we've all been kleptomaniacs by the time we were like 10

Hey, can I just throw in that if we're going to have a bunch of games starring white dudes, can we at least get a little diversity there? Not so many 20-35 year old, 6 foot tall, 180 pound brunettes?

Make one then retard.

>>176797
Easy buster, it was just a suggestion.

Honestly what is it about this topic that makes shitposters crawl out of the woodworks? Although I'd wager it causes certain regular users to foam at the mouth instead of the former.

>>176806
Politics is a polarizing subject.

>>176807
And internet is a polarizing medium. Frankly, I'm surprised this thread is as civil as it is.

>>176808
Not to sound arrogant, but I think many of us came here to escape a lack of civility.

>>176811
>>176808
That's what I like about this chan.

4chan moves too fast and is more likely filled with spam, *porn, and trolling bullshit than actual quality anything for me to ever go there again.

*nothing against porn, but I think there's a time and a place for it

>>176797
I did. It was called Kaiserreich. I added a bunch of doughy southerners to the game.

>>176806
Maybe the OP pic?

Question about other people being offended.

Okay, so I'm guessing a lot of you know already about how Plants vs. Zombies had, pre-2009, a Michael Jackson zombie in it, and Popcap was given the option either to pay Jackson's estate when Jackson died, or replace the zombie. They opted to turn him into a disco zombie, instead (which I don't mind, I do think the intro cutscene for him in "Garden Warfare" is hilarious).

Here's the thing, though. When Michael Jackson did the "Thriller" video, he knew he would die at some point. And the okayed-by-Jackson's-estate "Michael Jackson Experience", which came out right after he died, had him as a zombie AND a ghost in it. So it's only okay when they do it, but when another company does it several years before the celeb dies, it's not okay?

You basically answered the question yourself. Popcap just didn't want to pay. No moral dilemma involved.

>>176839
Enh. Fair enough, I always figured it was a "dude, you can't have a reference to a celebrity being dead now that they're actually dead, even if it's a reference to a role of theirs" thing, or being mandated to pay someone because you did a shout-out to them in a game.

>>176838
Copyright law is insane.

>>176867
That it is. Especially the "it's only okay when we do it" kind of thing.

>>176868

Wait, was it a "don't make a Michael Jackson zombie, too soon!" kind of thing, or was it a "we have control over Michael's estate, so we say what his image is lent to, and how much such a thing will cost!" kind of deal?

It sounds more like the second, frankly.

I've never been bothered enough with the race of game characters to be agitated by it. Even if the character was dull I wouldn't blame his race for it. Just the writing and gameplay.

>>176886
Well, from what I know, PvZ made a Michael Jackson zombie reference over a year before he died. So it'd been in the game awhile before they asked Popcap to replace it.

The fact the we just can't be different.

The more people push for cinematic games, the more you will see the comparison.

Back on the feminism thing, sort of, but as a thing that happens in movies, too. A series will introduce the protagonist's daughter, and will feature her regularly as a secondary character, but when it comes time to do a spin-off, it'll focus more on a never-before-seen/seen only once son instead. I don't know if it's sexist, or more just bad/weird writing.

Examples being Layton Brothers Mystery Room (Which isn't about Herschel's brother, it's Adrian Brody with a ponytail, I can't unsee it, which is about Alfendi Layton, Herschel's not-yet-born son, not Flora, his sister.

As a black guy, I can't bring myself to be offended by the lack of representation in the entertainment I consume, mostly because I've come to accept that the people who provide it don't "owe" me anything but a product worth paying for. That and I'm the kind of guy who tries to enjoy things for what they are, not for what they aren't.

>>177105
It's still pretty shitty, though.

>The background to this troubling statistic was the news that according to the ABS, the digital games sector has dramatically fallen in terms of employees. That 8.7 per cent represents 51 people of an overall 581-person industry, down from 151 women out of a 1431-person strong industry (10.5 per cent) in 2007.

http://www.abc.net.au/arts/blog/Daniel-Golding/Who-makes-videogames-Australia-gender-130627/default.htm

austrailia maek gaem?

>>177115
I thought video games were illegal in Australia.

>>177105
>That and I'm the kind of guy who tries to enjoy things for what they are, not for what they aren't.
This is exactly what a white apologist would say.

>>177117
Only when it's not aimed at children.

>>177123
I'm Trinidadian. I don't get salty for games not having Trinidadian protagonists, because its just goddamn impractical.

>>177115
>an overall 581-person industry
Wait, what exactly qualifies for "making" a game? Because in between programming, art direction, sound direction and the like in a nation of 20 million I would imagine the industry was a lot bigger than that.

>Diversity—of gender, of sexuality, of race, of disability
>disability
Unless they're able to make competent gimmicks for them or find a good way to handwave keeping a "normal" playing style I do NOT want a sudden influx of blind/deaf/crippled protagonists for the sake of avoiding "ableism". I've heard enough wank about goddamn prosthetic limbs and neural or limb regeneration medicine being offensive and evil from that particular sector of SJ.

>>177133
Against prosthetic limbs? Really?

>>177138
Yes, because they believed prosthetics and restorative therapy "shamed" (god I fucking hate that word) disabled people by implying they couldn't live a full life without them.

>>177133
>Unless they're able to make competent gimmicks for them or find a good way to handwave keeping a "normal" playing style I do NOT want a sudden influx of blind/deaf/crippled protagonists

>>177141
From the way the previews show it, Phantom Pain seems to be going for the "competent gimmick" approach during that segment, and the "handwaved disability" afterwards. If he doesn't control like a fully-able character, at least they have some sort of idea for how it's going to affect actual gameplay without feeling token. Hopefully Phantom Pain will be a case of how to go about a disabled character the "right" way (they have the disability, but it's implemented in a "fun" or truly interesting way, or dealt with so that it doesn't cripple the gameplay).

What would be the "bad" kind of way to implement disabled characters as opposed to the two I just mentioned, would be an FPS where you play Woozie Mu, or a bunch of developers thinking: "Let's put our protagonist in a wheelchair! That'll show how progressive we are!" but instead of being Bentley they'll move like a tank complete with terrible physics and insurmountable barriers. Truly "disabled" protagonists, as opposed to cases where the disability is dismissed (like Adam Jensen and Blind Kenshi who I don't think people would really even count) are a lot more difficult to do than other "underrepresented" groups, and may even hurt the gameplay tremendously if people just stick them there for the sake of diversity, as opposed to doing something interesting like Pulse. It has a much bigger impact on gameplay than race/sex/orientation, so it's not something to be taken lightly like as a pet cause.

>>177142

Keep in mind this only really applies to games where you gotta do a lot jumping and shit.

If we just had like, a puzzle game where the MC was wheel-chair bound it'd be a lot simpler to pull off.

Payday: The Heist

>>177141
I have no idea if it will be a good portrayal of disability, but judging by how MGS has a history of having segments where the gameplay is super hampered, and how Snake can never properly stand up during that segment in the trailer, I'm pretty sure gameplay will be different for that stage. Of course that could be attributed to waking up from a coma or hospital drugs as much as it could be the hand.

I found some old gaming magazines from '04 that mentioned the treatment of women, and I realized that it's been an issue longer than it's been at the forefront. I just don't know if I liked how they handled it back then.

PSM would complain about certain females' costumes by calling them "slutty", and captioned a pic of three female cosplayers at E3 with "Did someone pay them to show up, or did they sneak in here?" Ugh.

I assume by "offended" you mean as in, something has struck you as being morally unsound without the creators being aware of that moral unsoundness or worse with the full acknowledgement of its unsoundness but framed in such a way to make it seem noble or right?

Cause if not I've been offended by videogame STORY and MECHANICS before purely in the sense that they're bad and unfinished. But I get the feeling that's not what we're discussing.

I don't think I've encountered many because I mostly play platformers and action games and those tend to not have things like blatant misogyny or racism. That's more the realm of shooters of the grim and gritty variety... oh wait no I got one.

God of War 3. Specifically the sex minigame. It was kinda funny and cheeky and risque in the first two games and I get that Aphrodite is kind of... well... goddess of love. But they dwelled on that scene WAAAY too long and at the end I just got the impression they wanted to pander to the 14 year old boy in me... who was honestly more creeped out than anything.

ON THE TOPIC OF RACE REPRESENTATION WEEELLLLL...

OK this is gonna be a bit hard to put into words but... having minorities in your show or game or whatever is not really how you have representation. I know that sounds wrong, but if that's how it was then why should any minority feel underrepresented when we have the Burger King Kids Club?

The point is this: Representation comes from people exploring a different culture or a different perspective and knowing when doing so will improve the narrative of your work or add a little extra fluff or detail that'll make it something unique. And it SHOULD come from a legitimate drive or spark of creativity. It should come from the writer asking himself "What would this character be like if he was an urban black youth?" or "What if this person was a black man who grew up in a rich-white community?" or even "What if this person was a Chinese immigrant?". All of these questions should or could be things explored by authors or creators in the process of creating their characters.

This may sound callous but, Representation is not an obligation. It's a service. A service to people who don't get seen enough in media or by the general public because their population simply has a smaller voice compared to the majority, so it's a nice and good deed to perform it. But it's not something you should feel like needs to be done. If you're a writer for a game or a movie or whatever and you're happy with this character as is and you feel adding or changing details wouldn't really suit how you feel his arc or narrative will progress then don't feel like you HAVE to change him to fill some invisible representation quota. You aren't setting the country back 10 years to the age of segregation because you wound up writing a story about white people. Believe me, when writers feel they're FORCED to change something not to improve narrative coherency or character dynamics and make what feels like an aesthetic change (from their perspective) tends to lead to bad results. Feeling like you need "The Black Guy" or "The Asian guy" rather than thinking about what a Black person in America deals with or what an Asian person might go through in life is going to lead to really cache stereotypes, really bland characters or KINDA RACIST characters. At best you'll be given a pat on the back for trying and at worst you'll be lambasted by everyone for your terrible portrayal.

Representation SHOULD involve research, understanding, empathy and a clear artistic vision before you undertake it. And I totally understand if a writer simply isn't able to do that at this time. Maybe his story just doesn't call for that kind of thing? Or maybe he feels if he tries to insert a trans or genderqueer character he'll just come off as insensitive? Again: I don't judge less an Author remove all doubt about his preconceptions. Not everyone feels they need to study foreign cultures or other people's self-made lifestyle in order to tell their story and that's fine. And sometimes people will use "problematic" set pieces, articles or language and again, that's fine.

As long as nobody drags out the point to when it stops being civil or informative or if one or the other side devolves into screaming man-children and the topic basically has to become taboo entirely to prevent a scene from being made. If an Author or writer accepts his goof or misuse with a simple apology then no harm's done, as any hurtful action from others that might result from that accident could easily have resulted anyway or been triggered by something else. We wouldn't know, because illogical people can't really be predicted.

WITH ALL THAT SAID the issue I think most people have here is that there are games with huge fucking dev teams. 40,000+ people all programming away at a multi-billion dollar release title, with a crack team of developers, artists, writers, etc. And a whole EMPIRE BUSINESS CONGLOMERATE BACKING THEM with the potential to make any game that they want and they keep making shit that looks the same.

This is the exact same argument people have been making for eons. Only now they're complaining about the lack of black people or transgendered persons instead of the lack of well... anything original. The reason why this is now is the same as why it was back then, and it was as dumb then as it is now. These are games meant to pander to the most blanket idea of what the focus groups and share holders THINK their primary demographic is.

And it IS white dudes in their mid teens to early 30's. Ergo they make protagonists that THEY can relate to as well as mechanics THEY'RE familiar with. And plots that pander to THEIR sensibilities. Yes there are other demographics out there. Yes they can always attempt to attract NEW demographics. Yes the fact they've tried and failed isn't a good excuse to give up. But at this point? I feel like bitching about the lack of good PoC or QUILTBAG protagonists in games is a lot like the bitching about sameness in media in general, just with a new coat of paint. How do we fix this? I dunno. But bitching seems to have a 33/33/34 trackrecord of improving slightly, doing nothing, and making the problem worse.

NOW AS FOR "BLANKET" protagonists? IE: the ones with character creation options but conveniently lack certain tones of skin? Well... I hope that's because they just didn't have enough memory... I hope.

I'm coming to feel like the entire "offended" discussion is a red herring

For example, someone on /tg/ was posting snuff gifs. Gifs taken from recordings of actual people being shot/electrocuted/run over. None of them had visible blood or gore, and they were actually relevant to the thread topic, i.e. he was trying to participate.

Several people said hey, that's not okay. And the assumption by all those who disagreed is that the people who said "hey don't post that stuff" were offended. That they were saying "don't do this because it causes me distress. You are causing me to experience negative emotions."

It took me a damn long time communicate that I, for one, was not distressed or upset. That wasn't the issue here. The issue here is that they were being disrespectful (in that case, of the person who died). Same thing goes for unironic sexism or racism- it's not about whether it causes me emotional distress, it's about the other person failing to respect a significant portion of the human race as people.

>>185023
That actually makes me wonder if the problem isn't the representation so much as its' the underlying thematic values.

In the latest Call of Duty, for example, you play white guys assaulting a Latin American Army that is lead by a White Guy who formerly worked for the Ghosts but now has been "brainwashed" (uh it seems more like he made a rational decision to switch sides, even if it was for a dumb reason). America has become this war-torn wasteland, essentially by their own folly of putting an orbital bombardment system in space (wasn't there a Justice League episode on that?), while Latin America has become a thriving center of culture and apparent democracy. They are churning out weapons, yeah, but only because they've become the new economic super power. Meanwhile, the "bestest" stealth squad ever, the Ghosts, do most of their work by indiscriminately killing anyone who gets in their way and causing disaster where ever they go, for no really adequately explored reason. There is one level that stands out in my mind, an infiltration into a corporate skyscraper over a thumping dance festival below. The level ends with the Ghosts literally dropping the skyscraper on the civilians below as they parachute off it for extraction. While I wouldn't describe myself as "offended" per se, this kind of narrative is hugely unappealing for myself personally. I think Yahtzee even went so far as to count the number of non-white people in the game with Names, because you can literally do it with one hand. In that case, even if there is nothing offensive about the portrayal of the individuals, what ends up being offensive is the ideological underpinnings of the entire narrative CoD hasn't really had a decent narrative since MW2, each successive game foregoing the somewhat more respectful narrative the MW games had. That's IMHO though.

Far Cry 3 can actually be kind of read as a "Heart of Darkness" dark satire of the whole "White Savior Complex" as well, and a lot of the odder elements of the game are actually meant to be a kind of lampoon on it. But as one Gamasutra article pointed out, the satire is largely lost when most gamers simply miss the points and just see a fairly standard shooter.

>>185060
Far Cry: Blood Dragon is superior.

>>185060
Eh, I dont think you can really blame gamers for missing the point in a giant ass sandbox.
They probably gave up on the plot as soon a Vaas dropped out and/or spent all their time sidequesting and hunting before getting bored with it and moving on to the next game.
>>185062
True but I dont think that has a point here.
Well, maybe that (to me) ballsy(yet hilarious) sex scene got to some.
(and yes I do think the game industry has less balls then Hot Shots! When it comes to sex atlest)

>>177141
Seeing as this is the part where Big Boss becomes a villain, I'm sure there are going to be swarms of SJ hellions that are going to make the connection that both parts of MGSV are saying BB is Evil/Willing to do terrible things because he became even more mutilated.

>>185501
They're too busy being hung up on Quiet's design, even though there's a lot of stuff in the game that is potentially far more offensive (Paz ryona, child soldiers, fanboys whiteknighting Big Boss, etc.).

>>185505
>child soldiers
See, the game knows that's wrong.

Quiet's design is without a certain amount or irony.

>>185553
To be fair the man did say the same of Snake. And it's not like they haven't done similar, arguably worse things with previous characters like EVA and the BB unit. People didn't literally threaten to boycott the game and send Kojima hateful messages over them.

I got offended by the Drebin telling the B&B's backstories in MGS4

In the sense that it offended my intelligence how idiotic that crap was. Not only that's the worst kind of exposition, the writing was so abysmal I have a hard time bellieving it wasn't on purpose. Which leads to making the matter of WHY would Kojima allow such stupid shit.

>>186399
Seriously it was this close to being self-parodical. I was half expecting a set of bongos playing in the background like Drebin was one of those bongo loving New Age poets or something.

>>186399
Kojima doesn't give two shits about MGS, he just keeps getting brought back to make new ones because they are popular.

The only times I am legitimately offended at a videogame is when the developer obviously half-assed it, especially when the games belong to a franchise that usually delivers quality. Other than that, I don't really care.

Last game that gave me that reaction Was Ninja Gaiden Yaiba. Part 3 wasn't stellar by any means (it hepls my opinion that I played Razor's Edge, which I understand is a bit better than vanilla 3), but goddamn, Yaiba was putrid.

The post-credits screen from Beyond: Two Souls says "For Maria and Mercedes. From the Infraworld, I know you are watching me." The Infraworld is Cage's name for his fictional concept of the afterlife.

The whole thing is potentially offensive with advocating suicide as a means of "coping" with the deaths of loved ones, but that last message REALLY rubbed me the wrong way.

Art can't go anywhere if it's not offensive once in a while.

When games I don't like get big sales and games I like don't. It offends me.

>>186805
Well, games you don't like selling well generally means more of that game coming out and worse making game you used to like more like the game you don't.

>>186807
Has Anyone Really Been Far Even as Decided to Use Even Go Want to do Look More Like?

>>186808
Let me try cutting that run-on down to be more comprehensive.

Popular shit gets copied. Sometimes even into other series that want a piece of the pie. That tends to suck for fans of those series, especially when new fans come in and tell them how much "better" the games are now that they're like every other mimic.