Worth Reading 08/09/2013

I really enjoyed that free-to-play article. Except when I shared it on another site I got an insane amount of hate for it. I guess the people there are alright with being exploited by companies.

Candy Crush is one of the most fun games ever made. Fuck you if you don't like it.

I'd agree. The fact that you can play the game without buying a single bonus (I played till lvl 70) and still get far shows that at its base level it is still a game. Because of the F2P reasoning, they insist that you buy those bonuses or use their pyramid friend scheme to continue playing. Now a game that is truly rigged for constant payment plans is the browser game, King's Bounty: Legions. That's a game that all but forces you to buy their bonuses. I think it's more of why you should pay for the extra benefits rather than how are you playing this [F2P] game without those benefits.

@patrickklepek One thing I have always wanted to see investigated in games like Candy Crush is how the suggested move is actually provided. I have run into situations where I have only one move left and one clear move to finish a board, but the game actually suggests a different move. While the game shouldn't always tell you the "right" or "best" move, it also shouldn't suggest an obviously "wrong" move, thus causing you to fail a level and be brought to a screen to buy more moves. At best, this seems disingenuous or dishonest, at worst, I wonder if it is flat-out fraudulent.

This is kind of a fucked up thing to say.

I mean, if the community is so immature (and honestly, I don't think it is, but for argument's sake) that even bringing up the conversation turns to shit, isn't that a poor reflection on the community, not the person who initiated the conversation (completely neutrally I'll add, Patrick neither advocates for, nor opposed Sarkessian's video)?

Are we so far gone that we can't simply say and think things like "hmm, I'm not very interested in reading/watching that link", or "I disagree with that and here's a rational explanation of why" or "that's just clickbait". Are we instead people who you simply can't bring up certain topics around, because well, we'll react very badly and silly Patrick simply should have known better.

What would that say about the Giant Bomb community at large? It doesn't seem very flattering to me, and it's almost like the point seeks to infantilise us.

Because at the core of this, I don't get why there's so much outrage that Patrick has linked a video of what people are discussing in gaming on the internet this past week or so in an article designed to summarise what people are discussing in gaming on the internet this past week or so.

I get not likingthe videos. I don't think they're very pertinent or useful myself, and they do blatantly mischaracterise things and cherrypick examples, but I continually fail to understand this obsession with decrying even having the conversation, and shitting on Patrick as being the grand instigator for linking to something that's being discussed anyway (even on this very site via the forums).

Every gender discussion sounds like This Is Spinal Tap.

"The album cover is sexist."

"What's wrong with being sexy?"

The Ryan memorial link made me tear up all over again... I thought I was over this :/
Miss you dude.

@skillface: All I am saying is that either you post these videos and people discuss them and ridicule them or you don't post them and people talk about games instead

Perhaps Patrick should post his articles on sexism in digital media on a different post then it wouldn't dominate the page

@thecheese33: where is the misogyny in the replies? Pointing out that she is stealing content from others off of YouTube is just pointing out fact.

agreed....I can't believe people actually spend money on that crap and it's an obvious nickel-and-dime treatment. Yes companies are out to make money but when the way you do it is so shady and shitty...you should just off yourself.

however, and sorry but....

......I swear to god. That "twit" speak is as bad as l33t speak. Why are people using it outside of twitter? it's stupid as shit and really makes the user look like an idiot.

Is there enough news in video games to talk about twice a week?

Ugh, I need to stop reading the comments on these stories. The misogyny and sexism present in our community is too depressing.

thanks for the weekly kotaku round-up patrik.

you got the "issues" part right.

How dare Patrick post something that people are interested in having a conversation about! What an ass!

Yeah you guys are reaaaally just proving the original quoted comment with these responses. It's not the discussion itself that is the problem, it's the amount of blatant misogyny and "FEMINAZI" idealism on this site and in its comment sections. It's apparent everywhere, and Patrick just takes the flak for it.

I don't think I agree with that Grantland article. He's got some really good ideas but doesn't take them far enough in his argument. Is "empathy through agency" much different from empathy through reading a book or watching a movie? Moreover, I don't think games accurately convey "what it's like" to experience abuse. We might say "I escaped my abusive parent", but "I" didn't, "I" was playing a game. I.e. even though there's a linguistic difference between the "I" of the player and the character of Master Chief, we still understand the dissonance there. I guess what I'm saying is that if I kill someone in The Walking Dead, it doesn't weigh on my conscience.

Maybe I'm taking Thompson too literally, but it doesn't seem like he has a strong argument beyond "games can evoke empathy". This is true, but he tries to fill it with immense portent and, for me, comes up lacking.

I'm all for diversity of player characters in games, but I don't think men have a problem playing as female characters. Tomb Raider sold pretty well. People love BG & E and Mirror's Edge. There are problems with diversity in video games, but to say that playing as another gender is some totally esoteric thing seems fallacious. It's not that we have trouble empathizing with our opposite gender (male or female) in any media, but that in games specifically there isn't a lot of diversity.

Like I said, I think Thompson has some good ideas, but the argument he makes is mostly empty. Playing Depression Quest makes you no less alone than reading The Bell Jar or whatever. Games evoke empathy, but art evokes empathy. This is a tautological and overly simple argument.

@player1: Tom Bissell (semi) regularly writes for Grantland as well. He did a really good interview with Ken Levine on BioShock Infinite and his approach to writing games not to long ago.

As a basketball fan I go to Grantland almost exclusively for Zach Lowe who is the best basketball writer I have found, but when they do games coverage it is generally top notch.

As soon as:

1. Anything mentions Anita Sarkeesian or Feminist Frequency or non straight/white/male issues
2. Patrick posts anything

Its not worth reading the comments, for your own sanity as a normal human being.

It really is gross how bad the f2p stuff has gotten. I wonder if people will eventually just get sick of it and stop falling for it. Probably not. I have to wonder though, how many of the "whales" they talk about spending so much money on the facebook games and browser games are just people who are for whatever reason bedridden or handicapped and can't leave the house but have disposable income. Like why home shoping networks thrive.

It's gross to think that so much development attention and time and money is going towards tricking a vulnerable group of individuals like children, not making quality games. It especially makes you feel bad when you see not just the shitty companies like zynga or kingcom but companies like capcom, namco, sega, etc getting interested in it. Hopefully the talent isn't stuck there making that shit forever.

Yeesh, I hate to be THAT guy, but does nobody else remember The Haunting: Starring Polterguy for the Genesis? Preeeeety much the same game as Poltergeist up there. Like, exactly the same game.

Here, check out a bad LP - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWQHaH6I0iw

@dr_zox said:

It's just blatant click/comment bait at this point, particularly since, even if you agree with Anita, she's not saying anything new or thought-provoking at this point.

Remeber its Patrick who brings it up, not the community... if he stopped posting Anitas silly videos the discussion wouldn't turn this way

good lord i just remembered why i don't read comments on giant bomb

@skanker:

Here’s the problem

I hate porn, but I am going to use it as an example

Is a playboy magazine sexist? It portrays women has overly sexualized objects its a fantasy... But men want to buy it. If women stood up and said we demand playboy change as it is reinforcing negative women stereotypes this would be ridiculous. Playboy is a magazine targeted towards males. you are free not to purchase this magazine.

Same goes with video games, they are allowed to have male protagonists because they are targeted for males. This isn't a case of the evil patriarchy trying to keep women down but simple supply and demand. As the gaming demographic is changing to become more equal so to are games changing (the latest tomb raider, mass effect, skyrim etc).

Also, Anita’s list of demands are unreasonable.

She lists Spelunky as a game that reinforces the damsel in distress issue with females. when presented with a male damsel in distress she dismisses this as its "not reinforcing male stereotypes"..... Wait what? So you can't have a female damsel in distress whatsoever... even if you have male damsels? this isn't equality this is blatant sexism, she wants all damsels to be male and that would fix the issue?

She needs to give more positive examples of what she wants in a game

This is related to the Jeff G blog

My problem with almost any (console) multiplayer game is the lack of proper filters for skill level. Jumping into Battlefield 3 last week with a PS+ account was not a fun experience, when teams of maxed out players are killing me while I am trying to get my bearings. The same when I tried Last of Us and was playing against teams of players with body armour.

I don't think they should let me win just for playing, but are there any ways to make this better? Could the systems in Starcraft and LoL work in shooters? Didn't Halo try this?

I just wanted to say that the woman doing the Damsel in Distress videos is DEAD WRONG about "pre-existing stereotypes" when comparing the guy and girl in Spelunky.

LOOK AT THE GUY. All guys are supposed to have chiseled features? Abs? Look at this..

She was on point until railing against Spelunky. There are SO many bigger, better examples. I think she makes some good points, but I think she's much more just view-baiting.

Love some Greg Miller, that guy is okay. Also, pretty funny...

I found depression quest entirely unrealistic.

There were no options to buy lottery tickets in hopes of a big win, complain/troll on internet forums to pass the time, or to buy a gun and kill yourself.

I'm glad they inserted the "adopt a kitten" option though, that's true that people sometimes turn to pets.

Great read, Patrick. Nothing like coffee and great articles to cap off one's morning.

That is one fine typing game there. It literary had me gushing with excitement! :b

I'm sure that not publicising that feminist bullshit merchant would help to see her leave a slime trail back to the rock she originally oozed out from underneath & thus returning to being an internet nobody

At this point, all I care about in gaming right now is Virtual Reality.

I don't really understand the point of Sarkeesian's videos. I mean, the message that I get from them is this: "There are too many games with male protagonists saving damsels in distress and I believe it to be harmful to how society views and treats women.". Or something along those lines. That is, she wants more games that subvert those tropes we're all used to.

But doesn't that mean, that what she is really saying, is: "Hey Developers, you need to make games that do this and this and this, but not this or that.". Isn't that a bit weird? If you allow me a bit of hyperbole - it's like walking up to Monet and telling him that maybe he should stop with the impressionism stuff and try out some surrealism instead.

It's fine to critique the games that you don't like. But to ask creators to capitulate and create only things that suit your purposes is something totally different. But maybe I misunderstand her intentions. If awareness is all she is after, then I suppose she is succeeding in that.

@mrmazz: It covers the thief part, the ignorance bit I admit is unfounded but I think there's a strong likelihood that she hasn't played many of the games she is criticizing in the video as well as past examples where she shows ignorance of a character or game she's criticizing such as in her video on Bayonetta where she claims that Bayonetta removes her clothing in order to perform attacks using her hair and claims it makes no sense, where I know that her clothing IS her hair and I haven't even played the game before. Not that bayonetta is any better a character knowing that fact lol.

As for spreading false information aside from the above example, Anita skews every character she discusses as being a helpless worthless woman in need of saving by a man, I consider this false information. Here's a good video, from a lady, regarding this part of Anita's videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJihi5rB_Ek

Dominated? It skews about the same percentage wise for population. Since there are more women in the States than men, they are a very slightly larger movie going audience. Its by like a percentage point. Its more or less always been that way. For tickets sold in 2012, its was 50/50 down the middle for genders...

The problem lies is that typically, women will have no problem going to see a film with male protagonists. But men won't flock to the movies for female centric stories with regularity. Exceptions like Twilight/Hunger games can pull in the doe occasionally since it specifically targets young women. But it doesn't do Avengers/Avatar money...

Plus, the biggest way to pull in female audience members isn't by making them central characters. Sad to say, the biggest pull(most of the time) is putting an attractive male as the star. I have some anecdotal evidence for this:

I went to see a matinee for Wolverine. More than half of audience were middle aged ladies. I have my skepticism that they were there because they were big Xmen fans...

Nice bit of things to read & try out though the Poltergeist game just looks like a browser version of a favorite game of mine, Ghost Master from a few years ago where it was you being the ghosts in a Sims world, steam link.

Women are now more involved with the military than they were in World War 1.

And video games barely reflect reality as it is so I don't understand why you want male-only protagonists so bad. "It has to be true to life!" Welp, then chuck out the whole fucking game.

@bishop113 "but at the same time disagree with Anita's piss poor method of getting her "point" across while flamboyantly slinging around the word misogynistic every chance she has, as if to suggest that video game writers are a bunch of woman hating scumbags when in fact it has more to do with the way in which storytelling is and has and always will be done when coming from people, we write about our life and our experiences and the trials and tribulations of being a person living on earth"

She doesn't toss the word misogynistic around very much and she has clarified a ton of times that she doesn't think video game developers/writers hate women just because they do a poor job of portraying women. You should probably watch her videos before going on a tirade?

@dr_zox: It's a pretty terrible attitude to have that sexism is okay because the audience is largely male. Firstly, the audience is not as skewed towards men as you think. Secondly, do you really expect more women to get into video games when their portrayal in video games is shit and the community is so toxic? Thirdly, we've seen female dominant audiences in cinemas for a while and that's done jack-squat for the sorts of movies that are being released.

Great, in-depth criticism towards her videos, by the way.

Also, People really paid $160,000 dollers to see her youtube videos? Really? They are limited in scope and not very infomative. They are basically the same video for each iteration making the same points over and over again.
And it appears she doesn't even listen to her critical feedback because she doesn't include any of it in her vidoes.

It doesn't matter if games are sexist because the large demographic of video game players are male. As this begins to change so will games. Oh and attacking spelunky when it had both a male and female damsel.... wait what? All her problems are made up problems and don't acutally exist

She should take the $160,000 and give it to an actual good cause like fighting cancer or helping starving children.

@mcghee:

One thing to note. There is a myth out there that women are victems of violence and rape caused by males.

This is very far from the truth

According to 200 independant studies women are more commonly the instigators and perpertrators of violence

(thats why the girl with the dragon tattoo is fiction written by a very liberal author I have read the books)
link here:
http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm

Holy shit people. Can we not even talk about Mario anymore without having some pseudo-elitist argument about feminism? Mario? REALLY?!

I don’t think anyone doesn't understand why these feminists are upset. No one likes to be stereotyped as powerless. We get it. And if they don’t – well, fuck ‘em.

Let’s look at the other side of the equation. Why should I feel so guilty about wanting to rescue a damsel in distress? Hell, why should I feel guilty for enjoying a bit of sex in a game? I find it hypocritical when I hear all these guys shaming the developers of these games for “boob physics” when you know these same guys watch porn at home.

Guys, by their very nature, are aggressive, sexually-charged, and self-important creatures. Rescuing damsels in distress and looking at boobs is essentially hard-wired into our DNA. What other fantasy/goal would I have in a game? No way I’m hiking my ass across the country to save some dude.

To all of you who get upset for being forced to rescue a girl or see hyper-sexualized female characters, stop playing the game. This is America goddamnit. No one is forcing you. If you think you’re going to change the media – you’re not, unless you change what centuries of evolution did to guys or change the target demographic of video games to females. Guys want sex and damsels to rescue so there will always be a place for it in our hobbies.

So, can we go back to talking about video games? Because that’s what I came here for. Video games.

One of the things I find interesting about free-to-play games is how some of the Japanese gaming companies are already involved in gambling through pachinko. Both Sega Sammy and Konami make a sizable amount of their earnings off pachinko (and in Konami's case also outright selling casino management software), and both seem to be acutely aware of the promises and risks of free-to-play's gambling angle.

Here is a nice quote from Sega's recent annual report:

http://www.segasammy.co.jp/english/ir/library/pdf/printing_annual/2012/ssh_ar12e_0925final.pdf

While focused on creating quality games, in addition to frequent players we will also view casual players—who comprise the majority of the market—as a key target. I believe seeking out more interesting games and more beautiful graphics is simply human nature. Additionally, the current trend toward self-regulation for games with a strong gambling element might become a tailwind for SEGA.

And here is another little quote from Konami's recent annual report:

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1191141/000119312512313223/d272373d20f.htm

In addition, the social content we develop for social networks have been rapidly growing because our games can be played free of charge, a feature that has obtained support from players. If this type of game is deemed to be harmful to players’ interest in light of commonly accepted social norms, legal regulations may be imposed by the government, which could potentially impact the growth of content for social networks. In cooperation with the social platform operators, we will endeavor to improve the health and soundness of the social content business by taking appropriate measures as needed.

Was extremely surprised to see a gaming article over at my favorite sports website, Grantland. Really really good content on that site. Thanks for the heads up patrick, will for sure be keeping my eye out for this guy.

Thanks for linking the the newest episode of Damsel in Distress, Patrick, didn't know it was out yet.

The F2P article makes me think the player of those games should be referred to as the mark because the design clearly sounds like a scam. It's the reason I hate this constant move towards making everything (including new entries in old series) F2P because the design goals shift completely and they are no longer "make a good game".