Superman 64 Discussion Thread

[Troy Maskell]

Off Topic: But I do find a touch of humor in my DP considering this discussion

[Gazz]

It's reviewing video games, it just simply doesn't matter. There are far, far, far more important issues to deal with in the world than if some dude is getting a backhander to give a review. What score Kotaku gave 'Super Army Shooter XIV: War Bastards' is so unbelievably inconsequential to anything.

Personally, I think it's a lot of people who have gone far too deep down the rabbit hole of 'Computer games put me as the all powerful centre of the universe and that is an addictive feeling' that when they come up for air and realise how utterly insignificant they are in the real world, they try and shout really loudly to make themselves seem important.

[brenchill]

It's reviewing video games, it just simply doesn't matter. There are far, far, far more important issues to deal with in the world than if some dude is getting a backhander to give a review.

Is that what all this is about?

[peteypirahna]

Tbh it's not really like journalists are to blame for the video game industry being so terrible right now when almost every AAA game failed to deliver in 2014, if anything the video game industry right now is in a decline following a spike and everyone is trying to paper over the cracks because if the video game industry collapses then they're all out of a job. It's better to create a narrative of "it's good but could be better" than "this is nowhere near the expected quality of a AAA game in 2015"

Not that I'm agreeing with the ethics of such a thing, but the total death of the video games industry would drastically reduce the number of good games per year if there's no profit to be made developing video games.

[Rich]

I like the way you treat journalism in video games differently from other forms of journalism, because Fox, CBS, any news outlet, hasn't had a crisis of independence over it's sponsors, advertising partners, people who the journalists are friends of then you have a really distorted view of the world and what happens and what is actually important

(hint: It's not gamergate or video game reviews)

[The Lusophone]

It's reviewing video games, it just simply doesn't matter. There are far, far, far more important issues to deal with in the world than if some dude is getting a backhander to give a review.

Is that what all this is about?

No, it's what GamerGaters pretend its about.

[gunnar hendershow]

Tbh it's not really like journalists are to blame for the video game industry being so terrible right now when almost every AAA game failed to deliver in 2014, if anything the video game industry right now is in a decline following a spike and everyone is trying to paper over the cracks because if the video game industry collapses then they're all out of a job. It's better to create a narrative of "it's good but could be better" than "this is nowhere near the expected quality of a AAA game in 2015"

Not that I'm agreeing with the ethics of such a thing, but the total death of the video games industry would drastically reduce the number of good games per year if there's no profit to be made developing video games.

There's plenty of profit to be made. It's called freemium and it's the way the market looks to be heading right now. You could even say the MOBA model is the future, though I think it's very much the present. There's far more people to cater to for far less development costs than there is in AAA titles which, due to demands of vocal fans primarily, are sabotaging themselves and can't reach a wider audience anymore. It's like the comic book industry multiple times honestly, the fans became the creators and made something too niche for a wider audience. It's going on with anime AND video games in Japan right now. As soon as the fans become the creators, creation somehow stagnates. They can't reach a wider audience because the audience they're making something for is them.

GamerGate's entire objective is hilariously to keep this exact same problem going. If you can't reach an audience outside of one you already have you're doomed to failure. We consistently deride WWE for trying to cater to "casual" fans but the circumstances of the market basically force them to. Video game developers making games for already existing fans is financial suicide. So if you want to get involved in game development, have an original idea, it's very hard to have one of these big studios put it out there. They have far too many people in power who want gaming to be this and don't want to try something new. Talk to people who try to get into the industry, they simply can't. The doors are shut and it's an old boys club. You have to make your indie game, release it on a platform where not a ton of eyes will see it, OR you can make a game for mobile phones and reap the profits. Why wouldn't you do the latter?

[Colly]

Sousa, I'm really sorry. I still don't have a fucking clue.

[Quom]

I'm actually on the gamergate side in all this. I got sick of seeing paid for advertisements masquerading as previews, sick of gaming media building hype for a title then linking to where it could be pre-ordered. I then gave up when I read a feature by Patricia Hernandez, telling people how gay men felt about some game which instead of featuring interviews with gay men or whatever it was 'if I put myself in the shoes of a gay man'. Add in people being ex colleagues of people's games they are reviewing or housemates with them or dating them and the whole thing gets weird. It seems less genuine journalism and more people writing about a scene they are intimately involved in, which in and of itself is cool, but if I want a suggestion of which music is good I wouldn't ask a groupie of a band if I wanted an objective opinion.

I don't really care who's fucking, I don't care about feminists complaining about game design (I generally agree with them and whilst there have been times where they've stretched things incredibly far to make a point haven't we all?) but I don't like how chummy the industry is and how people who have close connections to the people making games are the ones writing about them.

I don't really get people arguing that games media don't wield a ton of power in the industry, if what games media said had little impact then publishers wouldn't be tying dev bonuses into scores on Metacritic.

I'm not bothered enough to get angry though, I just don't bother with games sites any more and rely on youtube videos of people who seem genuine or gameplay videos or whatever to create my opinions.

[Maxx]

Mostly to Troy on this one:

If you really think GamerGate is about something else, ethics in journalism or whatever the fuck, why don't you just state your point about that plainly and not associate with a toxic group like GamerGate at all? Stand up for views you have, don't throw in with a bunch of shit heads who might believe something similar and then get pissed off when people rake you over the coals for all the shit they do.

[gunnar hendershow]

GamerGate already had their SVU episode. Any opportunity for it to "get back to its original purpose" however untrue that has been proven to be time and time again has been lost. History will forever judge them as misogynistic loons, but people who genuinely do care about "ethics in journalism" or whatever really should continue to care about that because it's something worth caring about and absolutely should not associate with a group like that.

[Quom]

Because to people involved with GamerGate that's exactly what it is about, it's about the nepotism and fucked-upedness within the industry. It has just been gaslight by those involved on the other side to involve Doxxing and death threats and misogyny.

If the non-crazies decided to change the tag to #deathofgamingjournalism or whatever then within a week people would be saying 'lol offshoot of gamergate featuring the same misogynist virgins who will threaten to rape and kill everyone'.

There really is no way to change it from one thing to the other, because for a large portion it was never about Zoe Quinn, she was just the final straw or got swept up in something that was slowly building before she came to prominence which then created the massive snowball. Then once it happened and people on the other side kept screaming 'IT'S ALL DOWN TO MISOGYNY' is when people actually started taking a closer look at these 'identities' and realised it's pretty much par for the course since it's how they handle the majority of conflict in their lives and lets face it, it's seemingly a highly successful tactic.

Edited February 22, 2015 by Quom

[gunnar hendershow]

If I'm hanging out with a dude who assaults someone I stop associating with that dude.

This is essentially what you're saying you can't do. You have to hang out with that dude for some cause or something, or I don't know. Stop using revisionist history to make it sound like the real victims were GamerGaters all along. Plenty of people cared about the problems prevalent in the gaming industry before the Zoe Quinn smear/harassment campaign started. But nobody felt it was worth making an actual group to bring about the issues until then. It's like if a bunch of us on EWB had a problem with a member and once someone decided to make up a false story about that member sleeping with kliq to become a donator for free we decided to suddenly mobilize against "ethics in donatorship".

It's not about "ethics" don't try to make it sound like it is. It's about giving people a platform to justify sexism and sociopathy. Make it about ethics by pointing out things OTHER than than Kane & Lynch to prove that "hey it's more than Zoe Quinn". Because right now I've seen zero evidence from anyone associating with the movement to the contrary.

[=BK=]

Why would people try and tank the vote for her game?

From what I've been able to tell, it's because it's really not much of a game. It's scrolling through windows of text and nothing more. At least that was the reasoning from the reasonable people who don't just oppose everything made by a woman.

[Quom]

I don't represent them so I don't really know what you want or expect from me, nor do I really care about the movement :/. What I will say is there have been death threats, rape threats, and general horrible shit on both sides. As well as plenty of made up bollocks and fake doxxing. Neither side is clean or seem to be nice people, so it's a bit hard for either side to take the moral high ground.

I mean there was the 5 guys hashtag which seems to be what you're upset about rather than the gamergate one. Which is my entire point, no matter what happened it will always be 'Nup that's them guys who hate the women'.

So there is no winning this argument because no matter which shape it takes it will now always be traced back to Zoe Quinn and on that basis opposed.

Frankly I don't care. Traditional gaming media isn't going to change so I just don't consume or trust it any more. Problem solved and don't need to bother with either side.

[apsham]

Why would people try and tank the vote for her game?

From what I've been able to tell, it's because it's really not much of a game. It's scrolling through windows of text and nothing more. At least that was the reasoning from the reasonable people who don't just oppose everything made by a woman.

Some of the first PC games were barely intractable text adventure games. It's been around, there are companies these days that exist based off games like this (eg, Slammed!) so I'd still hardly call people reasonable.

[apsham]

What I also enjoy is the constant "but both sides did things that are mean" line, because here's the thing.

YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE ON SOME FORMAL ANTI GAMERGATE TEAM TO SAY NO ONE SHOULD DO ANYTHING LIKE THAT.

And that is what it comes down to. You care about what people "say" GG is about? Do your cause away from some toxic bullshit that started off false pretenses and is at this point a total irredeemable joke.

[Quom]

What I also enjoy is the constant "but both sides did things that are mean" line, because here's the thing.

YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE ON SOME FORMAL ANTI GAMERGATE TEAM TO SAY NO ONE SHOULD DO ANYTHING LIKE THAT.

And that is what it comes down to. You care about what people "say" GG is about? Do your cause away from some toxic bullshit that started off false pretenses and is at this point a total irredeemable joke.

I have no idea what you are saying as your final sentence seems to make no sense. At first I thought you meant 'steer your course away' then I thought it was meant to be 'the cause has been done away with by the toxic bullshit' but now I'm just confused.

Your caps point makes zero sense as well. Of course nobody should do it. But it isn't somehow more justified when either side does it, yet throughout this thread there are countless instances where it's 'OMG GG did this, so horrible and indefensible', totally ignoring that so did opponents to GG. Just look at the Wikipedia article and the shit it caused with both sides being reprimanded and banned from editing it. Both sets seem to have plenty of childish people. But your point is like being angry at the Nazis for shooting soldiers.

[Nick Adams]

Is it still Godwin's Law if the person bringing up the Nazis is comparing his own side to Hitler? If so, conversation over?

[DMN in the House]

It's a flawed premise anyway, because you totally can be angry at the Nazis for shooting soldiers, because they started the wars with their invasions.

Either way, the attempts to 'reclaim' GG are flawed as well, because, as has been pointed out, as hard as you attempt to retcon history, the whole fucking thing started out as an attack on a single woman, and 'ethics' was simply the cover used. It never was about that, was never intended to be about that, and anyone who legitimately thinks it is, or ever was, are the sheep the wolves are hiding in.

People have been scammed, and it's very hard for them to admit that, because then they'd have to admit they were duped. Nobody likes to have to do that, you feel like an idiot, and it sucks. Still, better to admit your mistake than cover for blatant misogyny.