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Worth Reading: 05/18/2012

You have 20 seconds to click on this article and discover what games you might have missed and what stories passed you by.

So weird to think this year will be my...12th time heading down to LA for E3. 12 years! Man. What?
So weird to think this year will be my...12th time heading down to LA for E3. 12 years! Man. What?

As I write this, Jeff should be heading to the airport, having finished a week of “judging” games in Los Angeles. It sounded long and grueling. We haven’t booked many E3 appointments yet, as Jeff’s time with so many of the games that will be present at E3 proves very valuable in determining what’s actually worth our time.

It’s truly hard to have a good sense of what we’re in store for at E3 this year. I’m actually pleased BioShock Infinite won’t be making an appearance--the less of that I see before release, and the longer they work on it, the better. As in years past, I’m most looking forward to wandering the show floor and being pleasantly surprised.

We’re hearing details on Unreal Engine 4, but there won’t be a console with the leap-frogging visual technology we have come to commonly associate with a brand-new console. Still, I’m intrigued by Wii U, and even if the tablet proves nothing more than a clever gimmick for a few games made in-house at Nintendo, that’s enough for me. We haven’t heard from Retro Studios in a while, and if the rumors of that studio rushing to have a game in time for launch are true, I’d be awful pleased. Those guys have proven trustworthy.

Such predictions are, perhaps, better left for the podcast. We have a few more until E3 kicks off.

I’m off to slay some evil things in Dragon’s Dogma.

Hey, You Should Play This:

You’re getting a blind recommendation here, but that’s because this episodic adventure has been recommended by so many others I trust. If the name sounds familiar, that’s because The Journey Down was, technically, already released. The developers spent a huge amount of time revamping The Journey Down, adding a voiced cast, more story and puzzles, high-definition visuals, and perhaps the greatest bullet point of all: more jazz. You can still play the award-winning original for free on the game’s website, but PC and Mac versions of the updated edition are now available. iPhone and iPad users can look forward to a touchable port soon, and Linux is on the docket, as well.

No Caption Provided

Adventure games are the the definition of peaceful, casual play. There is no rush, no death state. McPixel is a point ‘n click adventure game, but one that throws traditional notions out the window, favoring a frantic style of puzzle solving that has more in common with the WarioWare series than anything else. You have 20 seconds to solve each puzzle in McPixel, but just like WarioWare, success isn’t everything. Even if you click around the screen for 20 seconds and explode into a puff of smoke, the game moves on, the next puzzle approaches. Click, click, click!

You Should Read These, Too:

No Caption Provided

It’s always bothered me BioWare attached relationships in Mass Effect to achievements. Rather than encouraging players to inhabit their characters, it inspired them to trigger the game’s poorly scripted sex scenes and wait for the familiar blip. Denis Farr played a gay character in Mass Effect, even when the series didn’t have conversation options to outright support it. That ultimately changed in Mass Effect 3, and the series-encompassing story Farr tells about how his character finally came to embrace his feelings proves a moving meta-narrative about Commander Shepard.

More than others mediums, games can be enjoyed worldwide. There are fewer barriers to entry--mechanics transcend language. Our cultural understandings of traits like sexuality, however, are a far different story. There’s been a slowly brewing controversy about the Elins race in recent MMO Tera. Elins are a child-like race that have some key additional pieces of clothing in the version that launched outside of South Korea. The clothing decision caused ripples among observers and fans of the game. You need only look at the YouTube comments for the video featured above and in Wesley Yin-Poole’s piece for Euogamer for a taste of the perceptual divisions on this issue.

And Some Other Stuff:

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So weird to think this year will be my...12th time heading down to LA for E3. 12 years! Man. What?
So weird to think this year will be my...12th time heading down to LA for E3. 12 years! Man. What?

As I write this, Jeff should be heading to the airport, having finished a week of “judging” games in Los Angeles. It sounded long and grueling. We haven’t booked many E3 appointments yet, as Jeff’s time with so many of the games that will be present at E3 proves very valuable in determining what’s actually worth our time.

It’s truly hard to have a good sense of what we’re in store for at E3 this year. I’m actually pleased BioShock Infinite won’t be making an appearance--the less of that I see before release, and the longer they work on it, the better. As in years past, I’m most looking forward to wandering the show floor and being pleasantly surprised.

We’re hearing details on Unreal Engine 4, but there won’t be a console with the leap-frogging visual technology we have come to commonly associate with a brand-new console. Still, I’m intrigued by Wii U, and even if the tablet proves nothing more than a clever gimmick for a few games made in-house at Nintendo, that’s enough for me. We haven’t heard from Retro Studios in a while, and if the rumors of that studio rushing to have a game in time for launch are true, I’d be awful pleased. Those guys have proven trustworthy.

Such predictions are, perhaps, better left for the podcast. We have a few more until E3 kicks off.

I’m off to slay some evil things in Dragon’s Dogma.

Hey, You Should Play This:

You’re getting a blind recommendation here, but that’s because this episodic adventure has been recommended by so many others I trust. If the name sounds familiar, that’s because The Journey Down was, technically, already released. The developers spent a huge amount of time revamping The Journey Down, adding a voiced cast, more story and puzzles, high-definition visuals, and perhaps the greatest bullet point of all: more jazz. You can still play the award-winning original for free on the game’s website, but PC and Mac versions of the updated edition are now available. iPhone and iPad users can look forward to a touchable port soon, and Linux is on the docket, as well.

No Caption Provided

Adventure games are the the definition of peaceful, casual play. There is no rush, no death state. McPixel is a point ‘n click adventure game, but one that throws traditional notions out the window, favoring a frantic style of puzzle solving that has more in common with the WarioWare series than anything else. You have 20 seconds to solve each puzzle in McPixel, but just like WarioWare, success isn’t everything. Even if you click around the screen for 20 seconds and explode into a puff of smoke, the game moves on, the next puzzle approaches. Click, click, click!

You Should Read These, Too:

No Caption Provided

It’s always bothered me BioWare attached relationships in Mass Effect to achievements. Rather than encouraging players to inhabit their characters, it inspired them to trigger the game’s poorly scripted sex scenes and wait for the familiar blip. Denis Farr played a gay character in Mass Effect, even when the series didn’t have conversation options to outright support it. That ultimately changed in Mass Effect 3, and the series-encompassing story Farr tells about how his character finally came to embrace his feelings proves a moving meta-narrative about Commander Shepard.

More than others mediums, games can be enjoyed worldwide. There are fewer barriers to entry--mechanics transcend language. Our cultural understandings of traits like sexuality, however, are a far different story. There’s been a slowly brewing controversy about the Elins race in recent MMOTera. Elins are a child-like race that have some key additional pieces of clothing in the version that launched outside of South Korea. The clothing decision caused ripples among observers and fans of the game. You need only look at the YouTube comments for the video featured above and in Wesley Yin-Poole’s piece for Euogamer for a taste of the perceptual divisions on this issue.

And Some Other Stuff:

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InsidiousBliss

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Edited By InsidiousBliss

Nice

Finished this quest on my birthday :)

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Edited By rabbitinthemoon

I love these articles.

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Edited By 49th

I hope no one misses out on the quest.

edit: thank god

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Edited By ZmillA

'straight white mail'?

please proofread more

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@ZmillA: also, don't link to sensationalist crap from kotaku

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deactivated-5a4ea8fdbe490

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Swee

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It's a shame that Indie Game: The Movie is still not available for download. I feel like movies like this are trapped in procedures from the 20th century, with all its judging and festivals with release contracts. Many people that funded it haven't seen it yet. It's fucking ridiculous.

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Wait. Jim Guthrie wrote the score for Indie Game: The Movie? Looks like I will be purchasing that then...

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So, if Patrick has been to E3 12 times now, he went for the first time when he was... 13?!

Indiegames.com has been talking up The Journey Down nonstop. Looks interesting enough, and hey, you can't have enough indie adventure games.

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deactivated-5e49e9175da37

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I don't cry about reverse discrimination or all that other nonsense, that's mostly racists and sexists and bigots trying to find a reason to be racists or sexists or bigots... but that 'straight white male' article basically calls me a villain and a coward for existing. I don't deserve that.

The tone of that article seems to suggest I should be thankful every day that I was born white, straight and male, which when you stop to think about it is the most racist, misogynistic and vile thing you can actually say. If it were the other way around should I be angry that I've apparently been dealt a bum hand? What kind of fucked up message is that? "If you're not a straight white male I feel bad for you son, I got 99 problems but playing on hard difficulty ain't one hit me"

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Trying to find a guest pass for Diablo 3 made me forget I wanted to try Tera.

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wibby

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Edited By wibby

Patrick needs to rename these to "Something for the Weekend".

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@Brodehouse said:

The tone of that article seems to suggest I should be thankful every day that I was born white, straight and male, which when you stop to think about it is the most racist, misogynistic and vile thing you can actually say.

I am thankful every day that I was born white, straight and male. Sorry to quote an overused trope, but

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG4f9zR5yzY

and so on.

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Edited By guynamedbilly

I've got that Will Work For Fun article bookmarked to read this weekend now.

For the Tera stuff, I think people are making too big a deal out of it. When it comes down to it, these are just drawings, cartoons like you might find in (insert random anime here.) They are not humans. They didn't use motion capture on little girls swaying back and forth. They are code and colors from the artists imagination. I don't play games because they remind me of things in real life, but even if I did, they are still just games. Violence in game isn't real violence. That's not real blood. These are not real people. They're all just digital daydreams.

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deactivated-5e49e9175da37

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@NoelVeiga: I'm thankful I was born in a prosperous part of the world and to good parents.

But saying "being a man is awesome" means that by the transitive property you're saying "being a woman sucks". It's tantamount to placing skin color next to disabilities. "Thank God I'm not blind, or crippled, or Puerto Rican". Bigotry is horrible, but pity is almost worse.

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Edited By gunharp

@wibby said:

Patrick needs to rename these to "Something for the Weekend".

I concur.

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I can't believe how much air time was wasted on the Bombcast about how much clothing this race is wearing in an MMO no one will remember by the end of the summer. And I can't believe I wasted time commenting on it. Moe-style shit is popular, and it makes some people uncomfortable. What else is new? If that's the kind of thing that sets you off, what the hell are you doing playing a South Korean MMO?

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Edited By Tarsier

fuck that tera game is creepy... shame ..

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@Brodehouse said:

@NoelVeiga: I'm thankful I was born in a prosperous part of the world and to good parents.

But saying "being a man is awesome" means that by the transitive property you're saying "being a woman sucks". It's tantamount to placing skin color next to disabilities. "Thank God I'm not blind, or crippled, or Puerto Rican". Bigotry is horrible, but pity is almost worse.

No, it's not. That's fucked up logic right there.

It's like claiming that the statement "being able to run 100 metres in 10 seconds is awesome" is somehow offensive to slow people. The clip has the perfect rebuttal built in "I'm not saying that white people are better, I'm saying that being white is clearly better". That is correct. It is accurate.

Now, we need to pretend it's not true, because condescension is rude, plus it also implies bigotry, which is why that clip is funny and clever and challenging. It's exposing social hypocrisy by making you focus on two contradictory ideas you actually believe to be true at the same time. But until it's genuinely no longer true that being a white straight male is better, it *is* true. It is polite to pretend it doesn't matter, but it is very rude to get angry at people pointing out that it matters. That's human race for you.

When it comes to the Internet, and especially to gaming, though, we're not even at the level where we get to pretend that we're all the same and that race, gender and sexual orientation don't matter. At the point where teenagers use "gay" as a derogatory term, let alone "faggot", females pretend not to be female to avoid harassment and racial slurs are commonplace we need to stop and tell ourselves to go back to 1960s standards. We are back to "I have a dream" territory right there, we've lost the right to politely pretend we haven't noticed that our white straight male existence is so much better than anybody else's.

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Edited By jacksukeru

O'boy! With at least three controversial topics this one is going to be a dozy, best to stay out of it.

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that straight white male article is pretty dope

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Ed Sullivan will have NONE of this gyrating Tera shenanigans on his big shoe. Film those girls from the waist up.

@CH3BURASHKA: Pretty much. With to E3 with his dad. I was/am also lucky enough to have an awesome dad like that.

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More like Patrick's multi-colored rainbow selection of hipster shit for the weekend. That pac-man game had good sound effects though, so I'll let this one slide.

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@Brodehouse said:

@NoelVeiga: I'm thankful I was born in a prosperous part of the world and to good parents.

But saying "being a man is awesome" means that by the transitive property you're saying "being a woman sucks". It's tantamount to placing skin color next to disabilities. "Thank God I'm not blind, or crippled, or Puerto Rican". Bigotry is horrible, but pity is almost worse.

Whatever dude. Go hate yourself and save the world. This kind of stupid hypersensitivity is just as damaging as genuine bigotry, and perpetuates the real problem just as much as well. In your world we'd all be forced into bigotry by virtue of having to be hyper-aware of anybody's differences, check the room for gender or color variations and make a special effort to not let on that we noticed a green apple mixed in with the reds.

The rest of us want to see obvious differences and not care until we forget to notice them anymore. And we want to joke about the stupidity that can be found in history because it can be funny. And guess what, being healthy and whole is awesome. That doesn't mean crippled people suck. Well...it does to you, but that's your problem.

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Edited By ptys

If you haven't checked out the wired article you should, as Cliff and Co. are pushing for the next gen. to look like this:

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Edited By arch4non

I think the censorship in TERA is pretty stupid. There is far, far worse crap shown on daytime TV.

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@plaintomato said:

@Brodehouse said:

@NoelVeiga: I'm thankful I was born in a prosperous part of the world and to good parents.

But saying "being a man is awesome" means that by the transitive property you're saying "being a woman sucks". It's tantamount to placing skin color next to disabilities. "Thank God I'm not blind, or crippled, or Puerto Rican". Bigotry is horrible, but pity is almost worse.

Whatever dude. Go hate yourself and save the world. This kind of stupid hypersensitivity is just as damaging as genuine bigotry, and perpetuates the real problem just as much as well. In your world we'd all be forced into bigotry by virtue of having to be hyper-aware of anybody's differences, check the room for gender or color variations and make a special effort to not let on that we noticed a green apple mixed in with the reds.

The rest of us want to see obvious differences and not care until we forget to notice them anymore. And we want to joke about the stupidity that can be found in history because it can be funny. And guess what, being healthy and whole is awesome. That doesn't mean crippled people suck. Well...it does to you, but that's your problem.

I just find it awesome that you've managed to mash together both of our arguments, disagree with both at the same time despite being opposites and still miss the mark pretty significantly.

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@NoelVeiga: I'm not specifically targeting you as much as that article, just to be clear. But it's a pretty simple equation. In your example, "being able to run 100 meters in 10 seconds is awesome" is more apt when telling this to a crippled person. Someone who will never, ever be able to run and by the transitive property will suffer for it. "Life is good because I'm white" solves nothing for anyone. The goal is equality, and that straight up doesn't serve. It just prepares some children to be penitent and some to be bitter. How is that a kinder world?

Straight up "Our existence is better" is kind of a crazy, horrible thing to say. It's bad enough to establish that your race or sex is what truly defines anyone, it's worse yet to establish that some are to be pitied because they didn't 'luck out'. You mention various struggles people go through on the internet, and "you're a woman so you're a BITCH BITCH BITCH" is little different from "you're a woman and that must be hard for you to deal with." Neither of them should be tolerated. The inequalities of the world need to be shown and phased out, yes, but not shown and then re-established again and again and again. Nothing will ever change that way.

I do pity people who are born in places where they're in clear and present danger for existing. I feel sorry for people whose parents couldn't or didn't provide for them. But I won't start this path of feeling 'luckier' than my girlfriend because she's got a hoo where I have a haw.

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@plaintomato said:

@Brodehouse said:

@NoelVeiga: I'm thankful I was born in a prosperous part of the world and to good parents.

But saying "being a man is awesome" means that by the transitive property you're saying "being a woman sucks". It's tantamount to placing skin color next to disabilities. "Thank God I'm not blind, or crippled, or Puerto Rican". Bigotry is horrible, but pity is almost worse.

Whatever dude. Go hate yourself and save the world. This kind of stupid hypersensitivity is just as damaging as genuine bigotry, and perpetuates the real problem just as much as well. In your world we'd all be forced into bigotry by virtue of having to be hyper-aware of anybody's differences, check the room for gender or color variations and make a special effort to not let on that we noticed a green apple mixed in with the reds.

The rest of us want to see obvious differences and not care until we forget to notice them anymore. And we want to joke about the stupidity that can be found in history because it can be funny. And guess what, being healthy and whole is awesome. That doesn't mean crippled people suck. Well...it does to you, but that's your problem.

I'm not sure you even understand my point. Hate myself? What the hell are you talking about? Are you actually preaching my own point to me? You don't appear to actually know my point, you've just decided to invent one and then use personal attacks to resolve it. Smarten up.

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Can't unsee pixel dude's boner touching that other pixel dude's belly. Both with their "wtf" faces.

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@Brodehouse said:

@NoelVeiga: I'm not specifically targeting you as much as that article, just to be clear. But it's a pretty simple equation. In your example, "being able to run 100 meters in 10 seconds is awesome" is more apt when telling this to a crippled person. Someone who will never, ever be able to run and by the transitive property will suffer for it. "Life is good because I'm white" solves nothing for anyone. The goal is equality, and that straight up doesn't serve. It just prepares some children to be penitent and some to be bitter. How is that a kinder world?

Straight up "Our existence is better" is kind of a crazy, horrible thing to say. It's bad enough to establish that your race or sex is what truly defines anyone, it's worse yet to establish that some are to be pitied because they didn't 'luck out'. You mention various struggles people go through on the internet, and "you're a woman so you're a BITCH BITCH BITCH" is little different from "you're a woman and that must be hard for you to deal with." Neither of them should be tolerated. The inequalities of the world need to be shown and phased out, yes, but not shown and then re-established again and again and again. Nothing will ever change that way.

I do pity people who are born in places where they're in clear and present danger for existing. I feel sorry for people whose parents couldn't or didn't provide for them. But I won't start this path of feeling 'luckier' than my girlfriend because she's got a hoo where I have a haw.

I don't think he was saying that we should pity women for being women, but to pity women for living in the society we do; an important distinction I think. and I don't think people say that and just say "oh well!" If they're aware enough to know that, they're usually aware enough to know that it's wrong.

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Edited By MudMan

@Brodehouse said:

@NoelVeiga: I'm not specifically targeting you as much as that article, just to be clear. But it's a pretty simple equation. In your example, "being able to run 100 meters in 10 seconds is awesome" is more apt when telling this to a crippled person. Someone who will never, ever be able to run and by the transitive property will suffer for it. "Life is good because I'm white" solves nothing for anyone. The goal is equality, and that straight up doesn't serve. It just prepares some children to be penitent and some to be bitter. How is that a kinder world?

Straight up "Our existence is better" is kind of a crazy, horrible thing to say. It's bad enough to establish that your race or sex is what truly defines anyone, it's worse yet to establish that some are to be pitied because they didn't 'luck out'. You mention various struggles people go through on the internet, and "you're a woman so you're a BITCH BITCH BITCH" is little different from "you're a woman and that must be hard for you to deal with." Neither of them should be tolerated. The inequalities of the world need to be shown and phased out, yes, but not shown and then re-established again and again and again. Nothing will ever change that way.

I do pity people who are born in places where they're in clear and present danger for existing. I feel sorry for people whose parents couldn't or didn't provide for them. But I won't start this path of feeling 'luckier' than my girlfriend because she's got a hoo where I have a haw.

Yeah, but you're two steps removed from both reality and my statements there. Well, three if we count that you just made up what I said because what I really said did not fit your argument. But even ignoring that, you've made some mental gymnastics there, haven't you? You've jumped from "I get it good because I'm white, male and straight" to "I pity you because you're a black gay woman".

There's a lot wrong with that leap. First, you could pull a muscle. Second, notice that my statement is declarative "I get it good" while your landing point is an opinion, an action on hypothetical me's part "I pity you". Now, me having an unfairly better life because I'm a straight white male doesn't imply that I either pity people who aren't or that I hate myself for being white, straight and male. In fact, I quite like all of those things, thank you very much. I just acknowledge that all of those things give me a leg up.

It seems to me that between the guy openly acknowledging that it's been easier for him in life for being white, straight and male and the guy refusing to even discuss the matter, the one with the latent self-hatred is not the one linking to the Louis CK joke.

I don't treat women any differently, or gay people, or non-white people. I don't care. Society at large does treat them differently, though. And they treat me better than they treat them. So until that changes, I refuse to ignore that fact. And I sure as fuck refuse to let people accuse me of being "oversensitive" because I acknowledge my privileges, which I've merely been lucky enough to be born into. I've also been born into a family with a history of cardiovascular disease, and you won't hear me requesting you to not feel lucky for getting to 60 without having a heart attack, just maybe to make sure that when the time comes medicine has gotten as good as possible and I can get a good treatment.

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The revamped Journey Down was released? good, I've been keeping my eye on that for a while.

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@NoelVeiga said:

@Brodehouse said:

@NoelVeiga: I'm not specifically targeting you as much as that article, just to be clear. But it's a pretty simple equation. In your example, "being able to run 100 meters in 10 seconds is awesome" is more apt when telling this to a crippled person. Someone who will never, ever be able to run and by the transitive property will suffer for it. "Life is good because I'm white" solves nothing for anyone. The goal is equality, and that straight up doesn't serve. It just prepares some children to be penitent and some to be bitter. How is that a kinder world?

Straight up "Our existence is better" is kind of a crazy, horrible thing to say. It's bad enough to establish that your race or sex is what truly defines anyone, it's worse yet to establish that some are to be pitied because they didn't 'luck out'. You mention various struggles people go through on the internet, and "you're a woman so you're a BITCH BITCH BITCH" is little different from "you're a woman and that must be hard for you to deal with." Neither of them should be tolerated. The inequalities of the world need to be shown and phased out, yes, but not shown and then re-established again and again and again. Nothing will ever change that way.

I do pity people who are born in places where they're in clear and present danger for existing. I feel sorry for people whose parents couldn't or didn't provide for them. But I won't start this path of feeling 'luckier' than my girlfriend because she's got a hoo where I have a haw.

Yeah, but you're two steps removed from both reality and my statements there. Well, three if we count that you just made up what I said because what I really said did not fit your argument. But even ignoring that, you've made some mental gymnastics there, haven't you? You've jumped from "I get it good because I'm white, male and straight" to "I pity you because you're a black gay woman".

There's a lot wrong with that leap. First, you could pull a muscle. Second, notice that my statement is declarative "I get it good" while your landing point is an opinion, an action on hypothetical me's part "I pity you". Now, me having an unfairly better life because I'm a straight white male doesn't imply that I either pity people who aren't or that I hate myself for being white, straight and male. In fact, I quite like all of those things, thank you very much. I just acknowledge that all of those things give me a leg up.

It seems to me that between the guy openly acknowledging that it's been easier for him in life for being white, straight and male and the guy refusing to even discuss the matter, the one with the latent self-hatred is not the one linking to the Louis CK joke.

I don't treat women any differently, or gay people, or non-white people. I don't care. Society at large does treat them differently, though. And they treat me better than they treat them. So until that changes, I refuse to ignore that fact. And I sure as fuck refuse to let people accuse me of being "oversensitive" because I acknowledge my privileges, which I've merely been lucky enough to be born into. I've also been born into a family with a history of cardiovascular disease, and you won't hear me requesting you to not feel lucky for getting to 60 without having a heart attack, just maybe to make sure that when the time comes medicine has gotten as good as possible and I can get a good treatment.

I quoted you twice, the first time is word for word the second time just erases a double negative. "Our existence is awesome" is the same as "not going to pretend our existence isn't awesome". I'm keeping this civil, don't start accusing me of twisting words when I'm not.

And yes, by the transitive property "It's good to be white, male and straight" means "It's not good to be black gay woman". Once again, this isn't jumping up your ass specifically, it's the thought behind it. Trying to make simple logic into a personal attack isn't going to get us anywhere. Don't ignore the point. If 'being X should make you happy', then the very next step is 'being the opposite should make you unhappy'. Either way, that only continues to reinforce inequality. It shouldn't matter, but it still does because people make it matter. I'm sure you would agree that 'white knighting' women online is scarcely any better than the pricks who try to hurt them. Whether for good or bad, it works out that 'you're a woman and thus your rules are different than the rest of us' in a serious and real way. And not in the fun social commentary of Louis CK.

And accusing me of latent self-hatred actually just made me angry. Don't do that. It's not true and I don't deserve that. I haven't made any personal judgements on you, do not treat me like that. My entire point in this thread is that no one should feel penitent for being 'lucky' and no one should feel upset that they're 'unlucky'. That they're 'playing on hardcore mode'. No one has spoken up in favor of 'ignoring' inequality. It's reinforcing inequality that needs to stop. And saying that "being white is the best!" is exactly that.

I never accused you being oversensitive. Don't you dare hang that on me. As for privilege, that's my entire point in this thread. That encapsulating an entire person's life to what 'privileges' they happen to be born to just destroys equality as much as any bigot. Because the opposite of a privilege is a disadvantage. I will not call anyone 'disadvantaged' because they happened to be a different race, or sex, or orientation than me. I find that repugnant.

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@Brodehouse said:

@NoelVeiga said:

@Brodehouse said:

I quoted you twice, the first time is word for word the second time just erases a double negative. "Our existence is awesome" is the same as "not going to pretend our existence isn't awesome". I'm keeping this civil, don't start accusing me of twisting words when I'm not.

And yes, by the transitive property "It's good to be white, male and straight" means "It's not good to be black gay woman". Once again, this isn't jumping up your ass specifically, it's the thought behind it. Trying to make simple logic into a personal attack isn't going to get us anywhere. Don't ignore the point. If 'being X should make you happy', then the very next step is 'being the opposite should make you unhappy'. Either way, that only continues to reinforce inequality. It shouldn't matter, but it still does because people make it matter. I'm sure you would agree that 'white knighting' women online is scarcely any better than the pricks who try to hurt them. Whether for good or bad, it works out that 'you're a woman and thus your rules are different than the rest of us' in a serious and real way. And not in the fun social commentary of Louis CK.

And accusing me of latent self-hatred actually just made me angry. Don't do that. It's not true and I don't deserve that. I haven't made any personal judgements on you, do not treat me like that. My entire point in this thread is that no one should feel penitent for being 'lucky' and no one should feel upset that they're 'unlucky'. That they're 'playing on hardcore mode'. No one has spoken up in favor of 'ignoring' inequality. It's reinforcing inequality that needs to stop. And saying that "being white is the best!" is exactly that.

I never accused you being oversensitive. Don't you dare hang that on me. As for privilege, that's my entire point in this thread. That encapsulating an entire person's life to what 'privileges' they happen to be born to just destroys equality as much as any bigot. Because the opposite of a privilege is a disadvantage. I will not call anyone 'disadvantaged' because they happened to be a different race, or sex, or orientation than me. I find that repugnant.

Holy crap, whoever decided to put logic in high school curriculums should be shot in the face. I'd much rather take ignorance than misuse any day. I honestly believe that to be the cause of a lot of the online nastiness that exists. As in, the words "straw man" should never ever be used together again, and you're making a case for "transitive property" to be thrown in with them.

See, by the "transitive property", what the article and I actually said (I get treated better for being a white, straight man) turns into "non-white, gay females get treated worse". If anybody had said "it's a good thing to be a man" meaning to say "you should really try to be a man, because being a man is a superior state of being" that would be pretty gross by the "transitive property". Fortunately, nobody said that. Well, you did. And it *was* pretty gross. But I'm willing to forgive and forget.

So, once again, from the top, with feeling. I'm fucking lucky that I was born a straight, white man. It was a really nice random thing that happened to me because I was also born in a society in which being a white straight man carries the least amount of oppression with it. I have two sisters. They lack penises. This makes it harder for both of them in life. I think that sucks. I, however, have a penis, and that made things easier for me than for my sisters in some key aspects. For instance, I get a significantly lower amount of sexist insults thrown at me when I decide to play videogames online. That's better than getting a significantly higher amount of sexist insults thrown at me when I decide to play videogames online. That's a good thing that happened to me.

Now, here's the tricky part, so pay attention:

Sometimes, good things that happen to me are unfair.

This is one of those things. It's good for me. Great, even. It's also bullshit. I shouldn't have it this good. That shouldn't happen. But it does. I enjoy this privilege every day of my life. I do. My sisters don't. That's a really dumb aspect of our society. But as long as it doesn't change, I don't even get to choose NOT to enjoy this privilege. I can't even opt out. If I could, I would, but I can't. So the honest, nice thing to do for me is to acknowledge it (I've had an easier time than other people because of my race, gender and sexual orientation and had to work less to prove myself in several areas of my life to get what I have as a result). That, despite your wonky use of logic, does not mean I pity everybody else or that I define anybody by their race, gender, religion or any other single trait, but it is still, undeniably, irrefutably, an accurate, true statement.

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That McPixel game is pretty weird. Your character sure loves solving problems by kicking people in the genital triangle. I definitely see the WarioWare parallel, though. I was able to figure out all the puzzles in the demo except for the one with the army man and bomb; the only options seem to be kicking the guy in the junk (which does nothing?) and kicking the bomb (blows everything up).
 
And I guess since people seem to be talking about the straight white male article, might as well pen a few thoughts. I don't really get the point of slathering a layer of video game metaphor on top of the issue; are white people really so adverse to the term "privilege", as the author claims? If that's the case, then it seems like those same people recognize that it's an issue in society, but would rather obfuscate the problem to make themselves feel better. Just conjecture though. Hopefully society as a whole will get its shit together sooner rather than later.
 
I am reminded of this song that is pretty thoughtful and poignant about the issue (plus it has some excellent kazoo), if people care to give it a listen: 
 
  

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25.3 seconds DAMMIT!

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Edited By happymeowmeow

Re: certain game mechanics being investigated in Japan, not sure what the official name for them is, so I'll just call em "gambling mechanics" because that's what it basically is. And it's the backbone of most of the social gaming industry. Take it away, no profits. Would not shed a tear if scumcorps like Zynga went under, except for all the lower ladder people losing jobs. Would the American govt. actually try and regulate/ban this kind of thing? I doubt it, unless there's some kind of very public "won't someone think of the children" case where a kid blows his family's life savings trying to unlock a costume in a facebook game.

Would be weird if it was actually regulated and social games became like gambling and controlled by organized crime. Social Game Mafia.

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@OriginalGman said:

I can't believe how much air time was wasted on the Bombcast about how much clothing this race is wearing in an MMO no one will remember by the end of the summer. And I can't believe I wasted time commenting on it. Moe-style shit is popular, and it makes some people uncomfortable. What else is new? If that's the kind of thing that sets you off, what the hell are you doing playing a South Korean MMO?

I don't think the Elin in Tera are sexualized children. They don't really look like children as much as anime girls. You know what does sexualize real life children? Beauty pageants. The tv show Toddlers & Tiaras is exactly the type of thing people should be raging about and yet that crap is allowed to exist.

Can someone explain to me how people decry the Elin in the US and yet Toddlers & Tiaras continues to air in the US?

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@happymeowmeow said:

Re: certain game mechanics being investigated in Japan, not sure what the official name for them is, so I'll just call em "gambling mechanics" because that's what it basically is. And it's the backbone of most of the social gaming industry. Take it away, no profits. Would not shed a tear if scumcorps like Zynga went under, except for all the lower ladder people losing jobs. Would the American govt. actually try and regulate/ban this kind of thing? I doubt it, unless there's some kind of very public "won't someone think of the children" case where a kid blows his family's life savings trying to unlock a costume in a facebook game.

Would be weird if it was actually regulated and social games became like gambling and controlled by organized crime. Social Game Mafia.

I don't think your interpretation isn't accurate. Zynga doesn't use that many random purchases. More often than not, you know what you're getting (i.e. you pay this much, you remove ads or buy a new cow or make your crops grow faster). The gambling element is removed because you're not paying for a random chance of something to happen. If Zynga proves anything in the Gree case is that a lot of money can still be made in social gaming without using the gambling elements at all.

Ironically, this reasoning was already used by the US government... to ban pinball machines. Famously, proving that there was skill involved helped raise the ban.

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@NoelVeiga: "Here's the tricky part, so pay attention"? Do you actually expect anyone to speak to you when you can't be bothered to show the simplest of respect? When you talk about 'online nastiness' you should reflect on your own behavior. And accusing me of being a bigot for not wanting to tell people they have it worse than me because they're not my race/sex/whatever? Too far.

The way you speak about your sisters, it fully brings into light what I was speaking about. Through no 'fault' of your own, you're better off because you're a man, men have it better than women, women have it worse (you're right, there is no transitive because there isn't a third comparison, it's simple greater than less than). Well I submit that it's that very thought that reinforces the inequalities of the world. Acknowledgement of inequality is the first step to moving to a new continuity, but those declarations (women struggle because they're women and that's how it is in this world) don't make anything better and in fact, makes it worse. I know it appears like that's the 'just' or 'fair' thing to do, to be empathetic, but it just roots us in the same inequality we've had.

It's not just the bigotry of assholes, it's this exact wretched pity that does nothing to help (and please don't explain how acknoweldging you have it better does not mean she has it worse, that's the only logical conclusion). I don't have sisters, but I have a girlfriend, and I don't think she's disadvantaged because of it, she shouldn't have to hear bigots telling her she's bad for being a woman just as she shouldn't hear people such as our article writer tell her that her sex is a cross she has to bear. She shouldn't feel like she's 'stuck in hard mode' and you shouldn't feel bad for her because she was born a woman. If I were to tell her that her life is worse because she's not a man, it is no different than the various forms of bigotry, and for the exact same reason; it distills all of her humanity down to her sex.It's no better when done with empathy than with hatred. Do you understand my point now? All this style of 'these people have it easy, these people have it hard' does is get us farther and farther from equality. Equality is the target we should be after, not emotional recompense for a trick of genetics.

It's strange that you would pin me with self-hatred and bigotry despite my entire point that no one, not you, not me, not your sisters, not any race, or sex, or orientation should feel bad because of how they were born. It may be a surprise, but as nice as it is to hear someone empathize and say 'you've been playing in hardcore mode', it only serves to reduce people down to the very base conditions we're trying to make irrelevant. I know it must seem like it's okay because it's supposed to convey some kind of 'respect' (the traditionally male contest of 'whose suffered the most') but it's not. Acknowledging the bigotry and problems in the world is good, but this kind of empathy does nothing positive. Do you understand where I'm coming from? Or are you just going to use more personal attacks and disrespect? Because I've tried so hard in this thread and it's completely disheartening to see you ignore my point in favor of 'an internet argument'. I don't care about it, I just want you to understand the point I'm making.

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You know, after reading 'Will Work For Fun", I'm reminded of how easy it is sometimes to over think gaming (or entertainment in general.) In the end, however we individually define 'fun', we have the power to turn the game off, or not buy the game at all. In the end, so what if you don't play "Resident Call of Battlefield XIII"? Will it really make that big a difference in five years? Especially when there are so many other things we can do to enjoy this life.

In the end, video games are a luxury. The corporations, the advertisers, they only have as much power as we give them, based on what we buy and how we buy it.

JGH

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Man that Journey Down game is giving me a serious Monkey Island meets Grim Fandango vibe .

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@jonano said:

Man that Journey Down game is giving me a serious Monkey Island meets Grim Fandango vibe .

Same here. I wish this game would get a quick look! Make it happen, !

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McPixel's end sequence, when you find all of the gags, pretty much validates games as art. Pretty much.

And as for "The Essay..." I don't think I've seen a more ridiculous and condescending explanation of privilege in my life. Nothing written there is necessarily incorrect, (though as with anything concerning privilege/discrimination, it is by necessity a gross generalization,) but the metaphor was extremely grating.