Worth Reading: 05/09/2014

Haha, Lounge Lord is great. I love Electroplankton, Mario Paint and such.

Also you still don't seem to know what a roguelike actually is.

That FF article is huge. I feel like future Final Fantasy games can't succeed because, as was mentioned, the teams are too big and they focus too much on graphics. It's not about fantasy and imagination anymore; it's about watching a movie and pressing A to "win".

@patrickklepek I'd be interested in the playstation voice control video. Also one on the playstation-vita remote play experience. I'm not sure how you'd record that one but it's a good idea to show these unique features warts & all. I've only ever seen them demonstrated on press conference videos.

Hey folks, for what good it will do, I'm posting this to apologize for my statement earlier in the thread. I may have edited it to soften it somewhat, but I knew the damage had been done, and I also made the personal decision to step away from the whole thing at that point because I didn't feel great about it either.

In retrospect, I think I really wanted the statement to be more a tongue-in-cheek response to the ideas being espoused in the comment I posted in response to (though unquestionably still very much coached in a fair amount of pointed derision for the ideas), but the reality is I let my ire at the ideas get the better of me and it ended up being delivered as much too much of a personal attack, and that just isn't cool.

I've made a personal apology to kindgineer for my statement, so this general apology here is for anyone who (quite rightly) felt my post was over the line. I'm sincerely sorry for the way I conducted myself on that one.

Man, I loved The Thing on Xbox. So good.

It it wasn't for all the outrage, I wouldn't even know what Tomodachi Lifewas.

It's fine that he linked the article. Exposing yourself to things you don't agree with can have the same effect as reading something you'd more readily accept, if not stronger.

It can galvanize you to figure out exactly what you do think about the issue.

I certainly don't think @patrickklepek posts them to stir up controversy and "increase revenue", especially when you consider the placement or brief descriptions of the links. I also don't think he posts all of these articles for you to agree with undyingly. He posts them to get people thinking about these topics, perhaps in ways they otherwise wouldn't have.

Whether you're swayed by them or not, hopefully you'll come away with a better, more realized form of your opinion, and that's only to the benefit of yourself and the discussion as a whole.

If you're not interested in a particular discussion, this feature tends have a pretty varied selection of topics to explore, so you ought to be able to find something else that is interesting to you.

So, are you for free speech? Are you for the free market? Because if you are then there's no reason why any of this should bother you.

A corporation cares about profit, not public reaction. If the public reaction is loud enough and is percieved as being possible to eat into profit then a corporation will respond in a way to try to recover any possible lost money. That's it.

The idea that some companies will say "F it" and be like "PEACE HATERS WE'RE OUT NO MORE VIDEO GAMES FOR YOU" is completely devoid of any reason or logic. It has never happened and will never happen.

The very idea that you see dissent and displeasure voiced by a consumer base as "social castration" is supremely messed up-- at this point the only tiny amount of power that consumers wield in this system is to voice their displeasure and hope that it can make a difference.

Why would you ever want that silenced?

And I'm not just speaking to you but to everyone who has a problem with this kind of social media focused dissent against corporations and other structures of power.

I'm kinda reminded of this time I got beat up for pushing a dude away from me when he drunkenly started grabbing my ass in a bar. I didn't have the time to tell his righteous friends that I'm bi, I just don't like getting my ass grabbed in bars. But they were so ready to pounce on any guy that they saw as a gaybasher that I was close enough I guess.

Good job adding fuel to the fire Patrick. Why does it never fail, that a Worth Reading is basically just an opportunity to link to other agenda-bait articles...non-issues that are continued for yet another week.

Why GB allows this type of "journalism" now is beyond me....but I guess they know it increases revenue, so integrity be damned I supposed.

Whatever, keep it up though...soon companies will just say "F it" and not make anything anymore, since unless they somehow make every game include every possible option everyone wants, they will get socially castrated.

@conmulligan: ....The games that DO feature character customization DO represent everyone, because you can create anyone. I'm not sure where you were going with that.

Feel like giving The Thing a go now. Wait, why does Andrew Curtis' face look familiar to me?

Oh shit, he was about to work on that Realm adventure game that I highlighted here a while ago but wasn't successful. And he shows up in that game's kickstarter developer diary.

The Hum looks to be the first alien invasion game? At least I hope so. The alien walking around reminded me of this scene in Signs:

If Thomas Grip played Alien Isolation like I did, he'd know that how the developers are trying to avoid the "death = relief" problem by making the xenomorph AI dynamic. I died twice in that demo and because of the AI's unpredictability, it made each trek to progress further into the game that more tense.

When you get more time to look at the enemy, I'm still worried that I'll die so even if I got a good look at its intricacies, I'm no less scared of its abilities.

Grip's idea of having the story and exploration tie into the monster is interesting and I can't wait for SOMA either. I've seen developers be critical of other games in their own genre and I like them challenging each other, but sometimes it doesn't pan out in the final game because of certain limitations so I hope SOMA proves he can walk the walk, too.

It would be if that was what people were responding to.

It's her article that people have an issue with, mainly because it pretty directly accuses Nintendo of being hateful bigots.

The amount of missing the point in response to the Samantha Allen tweet is a bit unbelievable. You detractors understand that in broad terms, she's referring to white males, and not various subsets of white males, right? By an undeniable majority, video games have a (generally straight) white male or inanimate object on screen as a controllable entity most of the time. There are certainly exceptions, but let's be realistic here. Not a personal affront, just a call to do better. More diversity doesn't necessarily threaten the existing game market. Interpreting a point literally to disprove it is a poor way to pose a counter argument.

Not trying to be shitty or holier than thou, but some of these comments are just silly.

Tone really matters though. To dismiss tone is to do a disservice to these debates.

Also I think her labeling went pretty overboard. Throwing around the "racist!" and "sexist!" and "bigot!" terms too casually can result in them meaning nothing. It's something to really watch out for.

These things are not mutually exclusive as you make them out to be. Someone can empathize and still criticize a person, but it is your right to exercise a fallacy here, just don't expect people to buy it.

It's also ridiculous that it's up to people criticizing her work to prove that Nintendo aren't bigots or that the statement wasn't hateful. There was plenty besides those specific words to disagree with her piece, but since you're talking about dismissing something wholesale because of a few words, the same can be said of most people analyzing Nintendo's initial statement, including Samantha.

@theht:

I'm not quite sure what you're calling for here. Do you want her to be able to express the way she feels without anyone responding with how they feel? That sounds horrible.

Of course not. I think it's kind of shitty that someone would respond to an expression of anger and hurt with criticism on how that message is delivered instead of empathy and understanding, but obviously that's their right.

Consider these two hypothetical examples: "the statement shows how those assholes at Nintendo are idiots when it comes to LGBTQ issues" is a tonally rough statement, while "the statement shows how those bigots at Nintendo are hateful when it comes to LGBTQ issues" is more than tonally rough, it fundamentally changes the proposition using words and context that carry very particular connotations.

You're right, but I haven't seen anyone in this thread actually argue that Samantha's assertions are incorrect or explain why they think her choice of words is inappropriate. Instead, it's mostly a bunch of people dismissing her piece out of hand because she used a word they don't like to describe a company they do. If they're going to dismiss her article on the basis of tone, then I will happily criticise them for doing so.

Yup.

I think what @evajolli was trying to say here is that those who become actively opposedto equality because of the tone in the article are bad, not people who merely disagree with the tone. evajolli is judging someone's character based on their willingness to take an entirely opposing position on LGBTQ issues purely because of the way Samantha Allen wrote in her piece.

It's the distinction between someone who disagrees with her tone, and someone who disagrees with her tone and then because of it takes up an anti-LGBTQ stance.

That point is reasonable, even if it's not something @stingingvelvet was actually suggesting was okay. As I understood it, StingingVelvet was saying that it's far more effective to try to appeal to empathy rather than stoke animosity. Also reasonable.

Now this, none of this is okay. All humans have a stake in these movements. The first message put out by Nintendo in no way indicates bigotry. It's not a matter of sugar-coating, it's a matter of being harmfully incorrect in your assessment and inciting senseless conflict.

I'm not quite sure what you're calling for here. Do you want her to be able to express the way she feels without anyone responding with how they feel? That sounds horrible.

If Nintendo fucks up, she should absolutely be free to express the way she feels about. If she fucks up, other people should absolutely be free to express the way they feel about it. And if the people that respond to her fuck up, then others still should be free to express their feelings on that.

As for "mincing words", the problem there is when those words veer from merely an issue of tone to being impactful parts of her argument.

Consider these two hypothetical examples: "the statement shows how those assholes at Nintendo are idiots when it comes to LGBTQ issues" is a tonally rough statement, while "the statement shows how those bigots at Nintendo are hateful when it comes to LGBTQ issues" is more than tonally rough, it fundamentally changes the proposition using words and context that carry very particular connotations.

Hyperbole doesn't help in every situation. When the humor is lost, it just makes you sound like you're overreacting.

@hailinel:

hyperbole noun

1. obvious* and intentional exaggeration.
2. an extravagant statement or figure of speech not intended to be taken literally, as “to wait an eternity.”

* Although not obvious enough for some, it would seem.

Monopoly

1. 1. the exclusive possession or control of the supply or trade in a commodity or service."his likely motive was to protect his regional monopoly on furs"
   • the exclusive possession, control, or exercise of something."men don't have a monopoly on unrequited love"
   • a company or group having exclusive control over a commodity or service."areas where cable companies operate as monopolies"
   • a commodity or service in the exclusive control of a company of group."electricity, gas, and water were considered to be natural monopolies"
2. 2. trademarka board game in which players engage in simulated property and financial dealings using imitation money. It was invented in the US and the name was coined by Charles Darrow circa 1935.

White men do not have a monopoly on representation. To claim such is to claim that there is zero representation of any other group across the entire span of the medium.

None of those games feature character customisation, so it's not a fair comparison. Besides, no one is saying every single game has to represent everyone, but right now white guys have a monopoly on representation at the expense of other groups.

I don't know, Samantha Allen. I really like Nier, Shadow of the Colossus, and Dishwasher, and none of those games really "represent" me. Maybe some games don't have to represent people, majority or otherwise.

I do like how she claims that games like Super Mario Galaxy are now somehow blackened by Nintendo's decision on Tomodachi Life. I don't think that's how video games work.

Yeah buddy, they came here spoiling for a fight. As far as I've seen within these comments, the only person who has been outright nasty towards anyone is evajolli who states they support the article. No one who has offered a dissenting opinion about the ARTICLE (and I do mean the article, since I haven't seen anyone attack the idea of equality) has been rude or condescending at all. As for Patrick, I would prefer if his coverage of issues like this, which includes suggestions for things that are WORTH READING, would perhaps not try to present people who have a different opinion than the authors he suggests as wrong or morally bankrupt. Again, to your last snide point, I have yet to see anyone here actually attack the idea of equality.

@theht said:

I don't even know what stance you folks have, your posts are so full of bullshit. What are these social issues of our day that could be fixed so easily?

That was hyperbole, meant to illustrate how absurd it is that some people waste an inordinate amount of energy criticising women and minorities for their tone when they could be engaging with their arguments.

Women, LGBTQ, racial minorities, "straight white males"; everybody ought to be treated with as much decency as any human stranger deserves. Nintendo's initial response completely missed that point. It was dumb, it was not hateful. It was misguided, it was not bigoted.

Calling someone a bigot when they show nothing to support that isn't a problem with tone, it's a problem with your argument. Insisting on misrepresenting those you take issue with only shifts the argument away from the point, that all people should be treated respectfully, to the misrepresentation itself.

I should probably make it clear that I would not have taken the same tone as Samantha Allen. But then, I'm straight, white, male and middle class and have never been systemically discriminated against. I have the luxury of being able to show restraint because I don't have to deal with the kind of bullshit that people like Samantha put up with day in, day out. In this context, I can only begin to imagine how hurtful it would be to feel like Nintendo — a beloved company, capable of delivering incredible joy — doesn't consider me someone worthy of representation. I suspect Samantha Allen felt hated, which is why she chose those words. Given that, why should she mince words? Why can't she express that without having dozens of guys with a superiority complex pile on, whipping out dictionaries and telling her how she should react? Fuck that.

I'm not sure that's canon (it was at the cake mini-game, right?).

Technically, he didn't.

I really enjoyed the Demon's Souls article. I know the Souls games sort of got beaten to death on this site, but I'm glad it was brought to my attention. Thanks @patrickklepek

@lordandrew: mario kissed bowser once didn't he in mario rpg if i recall correctly

I don't even know what stance you folks have, your posts are so full of bullshit. What are these social issues of our day that could be fixed so easily? What's good about the fight to misuse words and hostilize discussions with hyperbole? What's anime avatars got to do with any of this?

Women, LGBTQ, racial minorities, "straight white males"; everybody ought to be treated with as much decency as any human stranger deserves. Nintendo's initial response completely missed that point. It was dumb, it was not hateful. It was misguided, it was not bigoted.

For the sake of clarity:

Dumb: stupid

Hateful: arousing, deserving of, or filled with hatred

Misguided: having or showing faulty judgment or reasoning

Bigoted: having or revealing an obstinate belief in the superiority of one's own opinions and a prejudiced intolerance of the opinions of others

It's unfortunate that these conversations often have to include an element of word defining, but when individuals insist on using strong words with even stronger implications, it's necessary to address the actual meaning of those words in the untangling of their misguided position.

"Tone" can have an adverse effect on an argument, but if your argument itself is cogent, it shouldn't matter. Calling someone a bigot when they show nothing to support that isn't a problem with tone, it's a problem with your argument. Insisting on misrepresenting those you take issue with only shifts the argument away from the point, that all people should be treated respectfully, to the misrepresentation itself.

You detract from your own ambition, poison your own discussion.

It is a big deal when this sort of thing has become uncommon in game journalism. Game journalists have gone a little overboard these past couple of years in attacking developers. Depict something that is violent, and they're purposefully supportive of rape culture; don't have the option to create a female character, and they're clearly sexist; don't include same-sex relationships, and obviously they're bigots who released a statement filled with hatred. At no point have these developers actually done what they're being accused of doing, but they're guilty because one game journalist says so, and the rest comply with that by retweeting or linking to it in their own writing. If there's a follow up comment from developers trying to clarify things, we can expect either an update at the bottom of the page instead of a retraction, or a separate post quoting the developer, with the author still calling them terrible people. Never do we see a retraction and an apology like other types of journalism, making me think game journalism still has a ways to go in order to mature.

I don't agree with some of the interpretations that Christian Nutt made in his blog post, but it was a much better piece than Samantha's. It's easy for some, including Samantha, to say the reason people are more supportive of his post is because he wasn't angry, but that's not what makes his better. His piece was logical and presented relevant facts to back some of his opinions. Her piece had several fallacies, and the facts she presented were tenuously connected to Nintendo. Based on just these parts, he wrote a good piece and she didn't. The big difference wasn't the tone, it was the opening, libelous ad hominem in her piece.

Everyone, including Samantha, has the right to express their feelings in their writing, whether it's disappointment, furious, or anything in between. I might not always agree at the level of anger, but I won't condemn them for showing their passion. However, I'm not going to just let it pass when someone crosses the line, and she crossed the line to me. I would feel the same way if this were a male journalist calling a female development lead a bitch, regardless if he followed it up with well thought out writing. The only difference is that I would probably see more of his colleagues calling him out than I've seen calling Samantha out.

I'm not baffled by some people calling her out, because most of the people calling her out are basing it on her work; the lack of professionalism shown in using loaded words to describe Nintendo and their initial statement. Instead of realizing why she's being called out now, Samantha and her supporters have double-down. If you disagree with anything in that opinion piece, then you're the problem, not her or the words she chose to you. That's pretty evident by a particular person in this thread that I've decided isn't worth responding to.

I agree with you that people should critique her work and not attack her personally, but at some point her work is a reflection of her.

@president_barackbar: I find it seriously hard to believe that Samantha Allen's piece being linked here is the cause of the flamewar in this particular comment section. I'm pretty sure it's enough that the topic was mentioned at all. If there are two things people love, it's fighting about opinions on the internet, and self-righteous indignation. Most of these people were not casually browsing through the articles, enjoying themselves, and were suddenly shocked into action by her terrible, spiteful words. They came here spoiling for a fight. Hey, I've done it myself in the past. Let's not pretend that either side of this "debate" isn't guilty of that. Or of hyperbole and aggressive language, or even straight up bigotry, for that matter - you may have missed some of these deleted comments, but I haven't.

As far as Allen's article itself goes, well, your criticism of its content is sort of fair - it's certainly vitriolic, although you and I may disagree about how much of it is warranted. But I don't think that Giant Bomb has any stated goal of presenting an even-handed view of anything. This article is just a collection of stuff that Patrick has found interesting over the course of the week; take it, or leave it, as you please. If you're looking for some sort of "fair atnd balanced" coverage, then I sincerely think that need might be better served elsewhere - but I wholeheartedly disagree that Patrick is somehow fomenting dissent amongst the users by linking to someone else's opinion.

Also, I think it's worth mentioning that I'm pretty sure no one in Allen's camp is interested in converting anyone who is on the fence about or against equality.

Hey Patrick, thanks for posting that Jeremy Parish article about Final Fantasy's direction. It's certainly given me some hope for the future of the series, and I'm glad to see that Kitase and Toriyama are willing to examine what went wrong this last generation. Both those dudes get a lot of flack for the tone of Final Fantasy games nowadays. Maybe it's not entirely too undeserved either. Motomu Toriyama once said that the linearity of FF13 was necessary -- "We think many reviewers are looking at Final Fantasy XIII from a western point of view. When you look at most Western RPGs, they just dump you in a big open world, and let you do whatever you like... [It] becomes very difficult to tell a compelling story when you're given that much freedom." He's not wrong, and that would have been fine if FF13's story didn't feel so rushed. Still, the rush was understandably so given the game's troubled development cycle.

As a series director, Yoshinori Kitase produced what FF fans hold up as some of Square's very best games -- Final Fantasy VI, Chrono Trigger, and Final Fantasy VII. If he is looking at Bravely Default and considering that as good case for a return to form, then I really am excited for what's on the horizon with SquareEnix.

@homelessbird: It's not just that. Now we get giant flame wars between people in the comments all the time when stories like this are highlighted. Patrick obviously believes that the GB audience needs to be accosted by people like Ms. Allen or he wouldn't have presented it as something to read. As Hailinel pointed out, there is a much more reasoned article that was written by someone else who didn't just immediately jump to the worst possible conclusion. We as a society need to realize that you can't throw around words like "sexist" and "misogynist" because you think it makes you look like a social crusader, these are SERIOUS accusations. This also does nothing to change the minds of people who are on the fence or against gender and LGBT equality, it only serves to push them further away.

How dare you try to generalize like that. That is totally inappropriate and contributes absolutely nothing. Are we just going to start making generalizations about people's avatars now and how they feel about social issues based on a tiny picture that says nothing about the person other than they liked the picture or character? That is totally not fair and I would seriously reconsider that stance if I were you.

I need to think of some other way to wear my general interests and sexual identity on my sleeve if they have this bad of a reputation.

1. I didn't demand anything. You could follow along with my suggestion, and we could at least try to hope for a reasoned debate, or not. You chose not.

2. Where in this thread have I said anything regarding my gender, race, or sexual orientation?

It's evident that you have absolutely no interest in a reasoned debate where you see the other parties as equals. Counter to the repeated claims you make, I am perfectly capable of reading, and I have read your posts. If I hadn't, I wouldn't have bothered engaging in any attempt at debate with you for this long. But debating with you is like debating with a petulant child. You assume everything that you say is correct and get angry when people disagree with or point out flaws in your arguments. You are petulant to the point that you're even lashing out at people like Milkman despite the fact that in principle, he doesn't disagree with you.

Ironically, you are embodying the extreme sense of why people aren't taking Samantha's words seriously. Your tone is repeatedly insulting and filled with anger, you refuse to acknowledge other viewpoints as anything other than targets for derision, and you make those that do agree with you look poor by association. Seeing as I have given you an opportunity to clarify your standpoint, and you've chosen to squander that in favor of lashing out with more insults and accusations, I am done here.

Do I need to post that Katawa Shoujo pic again?

Seriously. If these dudes spent half as much time asking how they can help as they do criticising women for their tone we'd have solved the social issues of our day and still had time for ice-cream.

I would hazard that it's "worth reading" because it's at the center of a current news topic. I don't think Patrick only posts articles here that he agrees with 100%. Also, it's a tiny link at the bottom of the page - really not that hard to avoid if you really have such a problem with "feel(ing) worse about" yourself.

Did Hailinel even mention his or her gender, race, or sexual orientation? Or do you just instinctively see everyone you don't agree with on the internet as a straight white male? And even if that were true in this case, isn't making assumptions about someone's character because of their gender, skin color, or sexual preferences literally the definition of bigotry? And Isn't the same is true for making assumptions about gender, skin color, or sexual preferences based on someone's opinion or the stances they take on social issues? Isn't that bigotry?

itt: so much tone policing. "Someone called you and people like you a political statement, you shouldn't be sp angry!" And of course, OF COURSE it's the dudes with anime avatars. @evajolli I don't know how you do it. Keep fighting the good fight.

@evajolli: I don't disagree with you but tone is important. Just saying "you can't read" over and over again isn't going to convince anyone.