Worth Reading: 10/04/2013

Phew. For a second I was worried that the headline was saying RL Stine died.

Yeah, I can see that. Picked something more appropriate now...

Glad you posted a link to the GTA-transphobia tumblr, Patrick. The attempted discussion of it on the GB forums sort of descended to madness, but I still think it's something worth noting. It's rare I dislike a game's attempts at humour so much it actively makes me like the game less.

Speaking of videos you should watch: It's getting deleted as fast as people are putting it up, but the new Godzilla trailer is wonderfully executed, despite also being worryingly reminiscent of World War Z...

I feel like the troll article by Jon Bois was completely deject of its wit, especially after the review highlighted the things he's critiquing...

That later link to that hack app developer just makes me so, so mad. And somehow people look up to him! Just disgusting.

I love the stuff you put out Patrick, but boy do you need a copy editor!

Regarding transphobia in GTAV... Give me a break...It's GTA and California has plenty of trans people. To not apply the typical GTA humour or ignore those people altogether would be unequal treatment....Equality doesn't mean you are off limits for humor, and GTA is always derivitive.

So I somehow missed that Dorkly piece by Gabe Newel this week. That man is a fucking hero.

I'm sure this guy has something important to say, but I completely fixate on this when he's talking.

Beware the Snowman, Patrick.

Perhaps this is a common theme in Bogost's writings, or perhaps not as I rarely read them, but I find the line of "Everything you find good is mediocre, and everything else is shit" media criticism to be a giant bore.

Huzzah you linked to the Bogost piece

Making jokes at the expense of trans* people =/= making jokes involving trans* people

Excitedly logged in to PSN Europe to see how much they were charging for Project Zero 3 (ended up only owning the first two, time to belatedly fix that) and... not on the UK store.

Which is becoming something of a standard for these smaller (re)releases on PSN. You'd think there was good money to be made selling these old titles (and at reasonable prices, almost as if Steam and GOG were shining a light on the power of the long tail in a digital era with no risks of unsold stock and shelf space restrictions) to people now that new stock of anything PS2 or older is basically exhausted (did manage to get a new copy of Persona 3 FES recently but a lot of stuff will be completely out of print/stock and so impossible to send money to the rights holder / publisher* without digital re-releases). I really hope the console space starts to focus more on maintaining the ability to collect money on the full catalogue of games that are out there.

* Access to 'used' games to make sure titles never totally vanish is important (as are not tying games to DRM servers that eventually go offline) but ideally I'd like to pay for 'new' rather than rely on second hand and the fluctuations of supply/demand there.

I am disgusted and offended by one piece of news in that list. It makes me sick to my stomach that the issue has not been discussed more often .

Where the hell is the fatal frame series on the EU psn store ? i mean i understand copy right issues and such but come on at least give us the American version just like capcom did with Resident Evil 2.

GTA makes jokes at the expense of everybody. What makes trans people so special that they can't be the butt of a joke every now and then? It reminds me of a situation recently where Ben Croshaw was harrassed into going back and editing a joke out of an episode of Zero Punctuation because it was insensitive to trans people. Never mind that ZP is a show which frequently aims scathing humour at all different kinds of people without incident, this was clearly proof that Yahtzee hates trans people and is a massive bigot.

I hate that a certain section of society are trying to create a world where there are topics which are off-limits for comedy. Where it's unacceptable for anybody to ever have their feelings hurt about anything. At least as long as they're a member of a minority with a vocal community on Tumblr.

Making jokes at the expense of people = making jokes at the expense of people.

Unless you want to argue trans* (special snowflake?) people do not = people.

Tom Clancy is a horrible, horrible writer.

Jokes are made at the expense of EVERYONE in that game. I didn't even know trans*** people were in this game, nor have I heard any mention of them. That's after dozens of hours of play time. There are jokes that are all cheap shots at everyone and everything. Don't take it so damn personally. It's not meant to be taken personally, and there is no reason for anyone to take it personally unless they want to start stirring shit up.

That doesn't make the jokes any better. The humor in GTAV is stupid, crass, and immature. That it targets a variety of groups doesn't make it any better. It's just dumb and unfunny across the board, the less humorous it is, the more insulting it tends to be.

That fake Gabe Newell letter is funny, but I kind of disagree with everything its trying to say. I for one am one of the people who desperately wishes that Valve would quit trying to be some silicone valley wunderkinds and just start making some goddamn games. I'm also more than a little sick of all the anti-shooter condescension that I'm hearing all the time I get that there are a lot of people who don't find FPS games anymore, and while they're entitled to their opinion they don't need to be dicks about it and treat everyone who does look forward to shooters like they're some kind of parasitic neanderthals.

Then don't take offense when other people find it offensive.

"other wide of the world." huh....

"Louis Lu made a game so that he could play with his son on the other wide of the world."

Think you ment other side of the world

Oh dear lord, you just took offense that he took offense that other people took offense. I'm gonna say it now, there comes a time to walk away and I'm pretty sure you passed it. Not that I'm taking offense...uh...that would just be hypocritical and...uh...(nervous laughter)...(backs away slowly then runs off)

@patrickkelpek considering our shared love of Grantland gaming articles, I thought to mention this to you on Twitter but hoped it might just show up anyway: Wind Waker HD Reprinting the Legend by Tevis Thompson: link

@feckhead: Holy shit, you're right. What a disgusting trend.

Also, Patrick: Please don't link to anything that has to do with thumblr opinions in the future. Those people are socially retarded and so far removed from reality that they live in their own rectal channel.

I'm trying to play through as much of Fatal Frame 1, 2, and 3 as I can this month. I'm barely into the first one, but so far I absolutely love it. The voice acting is bad, some of the translation is wonky, and the mechanics are aged, but damn it if it isn't telling me one of the creepiest little Japanese ghost stories. I'm having a ton of fun with it.

Oh god that dude's mug on that stereotypes video. Fuck, man.

I feel like that's always the undercurrent with this kind of "Intellectual" game criticism, the general feeling that the writer isn't so much done with the game they're writing about as much as they're done with video games.

I don't think it's that as much as it is looking at everything with a more critical eye, so what IGN might give and eleven-point-awesome, they'll actually analyze to determine its merits beyond a boilerplate review with a skewed review score.

Here's a line from his piece.

"For a literary audience,Gone Home will certainly be more appealing than Bioshock—but less appealing than, say, Jeanette Winterson's Oranges are Not the Only Fruit, a book Bioshock players have no more heard of than readers of Winterson have heard of Ken Levine."

That's not criticism so much as stating video game players are somehow of a lower intellectual class. While I might be a bit of an ivory tower academic myself with a bit of a snobbish attitude, no, fuck you. (Directed at Bogost, not you Hailinel)

My problem with people namedropping books in 2013 is that most of the books people hold close to their heart - and I'm speaking as someone with books close to my heart - find those books in college courses, or mid-adolescence, and are often highly specific to that person's experience rather than a culturally accepted norm (other than the socially prescribed classics).

It's maybe 1/10 people I come across these days who are just reading books because they're recommended, on the NYT best seller list or what have you. Maybe my viewpoint is skewed, but literature as a barometer of social intellectualism just feels private to me at this point.

Somewhere, when a far-left video game luminary dies, an archconservative op-ed piece will put out a too-early opinion obituary, and it will speak as much about that penner as this does.

It's cuz his face is a fist magnet.

That message from Gabe was fake. In my book that was pretty poor too.

Has there any mention of Inafune with Mighty No.9 hitting all stretch goals on GB much? I know it's not their Doublefine buddies but there could be something about it.

I like how Patrick acknowledges Clancy's passing by posting an article that shits on the man.

Also no mention of the transgendered person who lied about being called "it" and tried to destroy someones career.

Uh, that dorkly article is not really Gaben. Just in case anyone was thinking that it was.

Reading the comments on it makes it seem like people actually thought so. Which just further makes me lose faith in humanity.

Yeah, it should be pretty apparent by that third paragraph at least. But to be fair, even Patrick linked it to his person page here on GB.

We live in the age of twitter links and skimming.

@aliens4: @bam_boozilled: @aretak: The "jokes" in GTAV about trans* people are that they're all sex workers and that they are all predatory. The protagonists of the game all respond to them with disgust and even threats of violence.

Trans* people are attacked, physically and socially, on a day-to-day basis. Government bodies work to keep them from identifying as trans*. Trans* joblessness is more than twice America's national rate. Trans* people face an astronomical likelihood of violence.

You can't simply wave away this bigotry by saying "but GTA targets everyone," because not everyone is targeted in the same way. The neocon children's shows in the game are satirical because they're exaggerated political ideas wrapped up in the pretense of a terrible animated show. The trans* jokes attack that entire community.

If I made a game that purported itself to be racial satire and some of the white characters were mildly neurotic and danced poorly, and then every single black character was violent, uneducated, and lazy, I'd technically be targeting multiple demographics, yes, but I would be doing it in an extremely racist and hateful way. Rockstar's treatment of the trans* community in GTAV and games previous isn't some cheeky quip, it's actively hateful stereotyping that serves to reinforce transphobia. Sure, maybe it's "satire," but it's terrible satire.

Also, if you're going to make snide remarks in regards to the Tumblr social justice community about a group of people who are literally murdered in the fucking streets for simply existing, you need to take a long, hard look at your life and then change practically everything about it.

Jesus, that site about buying source code is just dirty.

@feckhead said:

I'm sure this guy has something important to say, but I completely fixate on this when he's talking.

Fuuuuuuck now I can't un-see that. If you're going to be a jackass and wear glasses purely for aesthetics, then suffer through keeping lenses clean/unscratched like those of us who actually need the damn things.

Also, what's up with the editing and backdrop being suspiciously similar to =3 (yeah I know, it's a terrible show). That can't be a coincidence right? The content of the video is otherwise fine, but that shit is weird.

@funkasaurasrex: In the first video of the series he has lenses in but the glare is quite bad. My guess is the man needs glasses, but the producers wanted to get rid of the distracting glare but keep his look, so they got rid of the lenses and he is wearing contacts. I can't unsee it now, just lake the arrow in the FedEx logo. It's sad because the videos are pretty good and even handed, and a great addition to PBS' channels on youtube.

If anyone enjoys the Game/Show videos, I would highly recommend the PBSIdeaChannel as well. It breaks down how things in popular culture are informed by the world and history, as well as how it can inform our views of the world. Pretty interesting stuff even if you don't agree with all of the points made, because at the very least it is a view point that is pretty well researched and reasoned.

The Game/Show episode on violence in video games is really interesting in my opinion.

@raethen said:

You're right, I checked out the first video on the channel and he was totally wearing glasses and sure enough there was mad-glare going on. I guess I'm the jackass!

@funkasaurasrex: That wasn't my intent in the post at all if it came off that way. And if it did, I apologize. You shouldn't feel that way at all. Having the guy wear frames without the lenses will probably turn off more people than the glare would have so PBS made a poor decision in my opinion. But the content of this channel as well as their others like it are pretty great none with less.

@raethen said:

Oh no I was just making a self-deprecating reference to my previous post; sorry if that wasn't obvious. And yeah, the content of the videos are pretty good and it's a shame that the glasses thing might become a vocal point for viewers.