Editorial: Why We Write: On Game Critique, Influence, and Reach

So, a little further away from the extreme of “forcing” a dev to do something is arguing for action or incentives that would encourage them to act differently. Let's call these "incentive" legislation. Here, think about tax credits or media funds built to support to creators that meet certain requirements, like employing a diverse range of employees, working in a certain medium, or producing a work that is a “public good” because it deals with history, education, or some other interest. You’ll see critics calling for things like this sometimes, but it’s not common in our little corner of the world; I'm pretty sure it’s not a thing I’ve ever done (though I'm not fundamentally opposed).

This is a biggie here, that bigotry (helloooooooooooooooo Star Wars trailer!) and just the general "unease" with being what isn't oneself or percieved as normal for oneself to be* has in its In Box: how to make this desired enough to be PROFITABLE. Watch the Women's World Cup addition to recent Fifa games, or the realization of just how much freaking money women spend on games. Shining lights on the bigots seeking to shame or peer pressure people into not harshing their worldview gets us here (or maybe too few want women's soccer and it flops. Be ready).

Speaking of which, that "Why Witcher?" is specifically my problem. The entire push behind it isn't wild eyed Berzerkley spawn vs. caveman mouthbreathers, it's about just this angle alone of a series deeply steeped in one region's myth, legend, and history getting the question. The above paragraph, quite frankly is much more dangerous a club-swinging giant than this windmill, and I hope it fades before folks keep expending far too much effort ante-ing up on one side of this or the other.

*note: Chillicothe does not self-insert and bases protags on understandability, coolness, or attractiveness

Well said.

This is a great piece of intellect.
Keep up the good work!

@turambar: I can attempt to answer your question. First, some background: I was born in the U.S. in 1970, to a Canadian mother & an American father. My mother returned to Canada in 1973 and my brother & I became citizens. The CRTC was established in 1968, so I never knew any other context for broadcast media.

I think it's fair to say that Canadian Content laws were intended to protect both culture and commerce. However, I also think it's fair to say that they have stronger support from Canadian artists than they do from most privately-owned Canadian broadcasters. In the 1970's & 1980's, CanCon laws probably had their greatest impact on radio (as opposed to television), programming.

Before the CRTC, music written and/or performed by Canadian artists was rarely heard on commercial radio stations. Outside of CBC Radio, it was usually relegated to 'Beaver Hours' in the very early morning when few people were listening. This meant that the airwaves were flooded with music from the U.S. (& to a lesser extent the UK), and it was difficult for Canadian musicians to make a living in Canada - culture and commerce.

Growing up, I heard a lot of music that met the MAPL criteria - far more than my mother had when she was young. Back then the requirement was smaller, but it still meant that broadcasters couldn't get away with just endlessly replaying the American Top 40 hour after hour. It allowed for an expanded catalogue of songs and artists getting airplay and wider internal recognition of just how good the Canadian music scene actually was (and is).

Sure, there will always be Canadians joking that we don't have a national identity, but that's largely because good-natured self-deprecation & humility is a part of our national identity.

@austin_walker said:

Yeah I'm definitely trying to improve on this stuff. It's too easy to stick with the kneejerk reaction. Can't wait for you to challenge me more in the future!

And Mushishi is super chill and relaxing (and the 1st season is totally on hulu). I think you'll love it! :)

That is interesting, thanks I'll have to do some reading.

As a Canadian, I support our content regulation and policies surrounding culture. It actively protects our culture. Without trying at all, the US media influence can easily overrun and eventually displace our own home produced content. The US can under-cut Canada in everything we do: price, scope, scale and technical. Canada is 10% the population of the US with all the same land mass and expected infrastructure for modern life. It's expensive to produce content that is uniquely Canadian, even with government subsidies. It wouldn't exist in a market place where the audience for home content is so small and the US content is cheap. I'm glad we try to take measures to protect our culture here, while still offering Canadians access to US content as well.

@mariusaquarius said:

If smart and engaged people didn't take games seriously, there would be no games.

I really like the bit on Cultural Imperialism.

Cultural Imperialism looks like Hollywood and Coca-Cola. It pushes it's way in by bending over backwards to "fit it" and then overwhelms the local culture. Go to 10 different countries and you'll find 10 sets of McDonalds ads very specifically meant to appeal to the national identity of that specific place.

Thanks for the great write-up Austin, insightful and thoughtful, keep it up.

Thank you for this great piece Austin. Can't wait to here more from you moving forward.

The games industry is more financially powerful than Hollywood. Games are at least as important a part of modern culture as any other medium, and deserve the same level of respect.

Truth.

Great read, thanks for sharing your thoughts!

Nothing to add but echoing all the praise - this essay is fantastic; thank you for this Austin; really happy you're a part of the team now; etc.

Amazing! looking forward to more of these. Austin Walker straight changing the game.

Claiming "better representation" leads to token race characters, which is BY FAR the most damning thing about political correctness, and the one thing, as someone who was raised in a multicultural third world country, always makes my eyes roll when I see American media.

Yo put some more lines on that plot and you've got yourself an identity matrix. Then the talk about race/sex/gender/class can really get going.

@dstopia: Do you sincerely believe that it's impossible to include minority characters in media without tokenism? Which, by the way, is hardly a uniquely American phenomenon.

I don't think anyone is asking for developers to put a black guy in every game and then call it a day.

I cannot put into words what it means to me personally to have someone on staff who will write about this. Myself and a couple others like community member Truth Tellah have written forum posts along these lines, but I have a job that prevents me from sitting down and writing about it more. This issue is too important not to talk about, especially now with all of the things happening on the ground here in the States with issues around diversity.

For the longest time I felt, due to various reasons (many of which not nefarious in any way from all outward appearances) that the only person talking about similar issues was Patrick and when he brought these issues up he was chastised for it. Maybe not always here in the community comments but to deny that he got heat for it is disingenuous ( I am not referring to any particular comment here just in general). Even when Patrick was talking about this many still felt that it was all talk, because the only diversity GB had in its content were guests that were sparsely invited to be on the morning show that Patrick and Alex did. As well as the occasional guest, mainly Samantha Kalman, (Mary Kish occasionally) on UPF, but typically only seen on big events like E3 coverage and cons. which was maybe 4 times a year.

My point being, that due to this neglect, many started feeling that GB didn't care about diversity. Therefore, people like me started to talk about why diversity is so important to people here on the forums (mainly to make ourselves feel better in some obscure nerdy way). It didn't always go well for some who stuck their necks out.

Therefore, it means so much more now that they hired Austin. He not only wants to talk about this issue but he is able to articulate the problem in an intelligent and objective way using academic style and level of detail. Something I only aspired to do with my pitiful College level honors english intellect (which isn't always evident since I badly need an editor).

Since words can not express every emotion I am feeling right now after reading Austins article, I will simply say...

Thank you Giant Bomb for hiring Austin Walker.

And it will, in time. Possibly. The thing about this medium is that there's a lot more barriers to the player than if you sat down and watched a film. That's a much more passive experience with a lot less to think about. Gaming requires the player to understand controls and mechanics before they can even decide if they're enjoying it. And there's a bigger time investment.

It'll require a generational shift but in many ways the respect is already there. Its just coming from within. Even the financial success is some kind of vindication. Its also worth noting that this medium has moved spectacularly quickly in a relatively short space of time. In 20 years we probably won't know where the hell gaming is at. Or the people that play them.

Amazing, I no longer have to search elsewhere for a good read :D

I have great hopes for you, Austin. This post hits so many nails on the head. Keep expressing stuff this plainly and changes will happen. Pre-crushing the common replies is always good. Stops people from being able to just fling out their reactionary rage-lashes without at least coming up with some non-standard nonsense to base it off of.

I am ready for some social progress yalls!

This was a really good read coming off of a late-night injection of Pervert's Guide to Ideology. Thanks, Austin. I disagree with tiny points here and there but I'm in no state to articulate why, and I'm glad you've become part of the team.

You were also great on the BEASTCAST!

@jiggajoe14: There's certainly something to be said for experiencing a work and coming to your own conclusions before delving into the wealth of online reviews, interviews, analyses and think pieces about said work. Especially with TV shows - sometimes I just want to shut out the internet hate/hype machine and watch the show for what it is. I'm glad I didn't follow along with every little breadcrumb of info the creators of Lost sprinkled out as the series progressed, or dig deep into the endless fan theories about that show. Or obsess about reviews of every single episode, telling me what the show's doing right and wrong. I had my own opinions about those things, and it can be kind of frustrating if you're inundated by so many outside opinions while you're trying to experience something like that.

I don't really have the same attitude about games and games criticism, but information/opinion overload can still be a problem at times.

As for the original article, I always like seeing the point made that criticism of a work is not the same as hatred/dismissal/demonization of a work, its creator, or its medium as a whole.

The whole idea of "you criticized a game I like, that means you're criticizing me and are going to bring down video games as we know it!" is just so ridiculous.

Really great article.

Fantastic piece, Austin. Your ability top unpack and unravel issues without sounding condescending or dismissive is impressive. Keep on writing!

The Witcher 3 can have coloured characters when Mario have one. The Mario franchise over all these years have exponentially much influence on the gamers both young and old than the Witcher ever had, and not one bi-racial or minority character surfaced all this time, and no, Donkey Kong, Yoshi, and Bowser don't count.

Not sure if anyone else said it, but this feels like a bit like Game Crit Hulk. Without the caps. Pretty great.

Great piece.

Let's see your sources for these quotes.

The fundamental challenge of making a criticism without also making an attack on someone's worldview is to not make the assumption that if the individual were not misinformed, stupid, biased, or incorrectly socialized, that their opinions would be different. Something I have appreciate about your work versus some others' is the effort to emphasize the validity of counterarguments. This is very difficult to do without weakening your own argument, however, and therefore also the impetus for change therein. Nevertheless, those who do not make that effort should expect their provocation to be answered in kind. Some might say that "it's just one man's opinion" but there aren't many things you can criticize about a person than the way they think.

@namoo: Let's see here... I'll take the very first one off the list.

http://bfy.tw/HFF

Oh. Look what I found! An article with what you were asking for. Who would have guessed?

http://www.caabu.org/news/blog/does-ukip-hate-islam-blog-joseph-willits

I wouldn't worry so much about using the phrase "we" Austin. Fantastic article and I'm behind you 100%. Glad to see this sort of content and discussion coming to Giantbomb and I'm looking forward to whatever you tackle next.

I like Austin a lot now because he used and image of Metal Wolf Chaos in his article. Oh and the article itself was nice too.

Dude, I love how open you are.

This is a really good read Austin! There are so many other articles that you link to in this that it may keep me reading for a bit. I am glad that you wrote something about this though because there is not only a lot of people upset when people critically discuss issues by this but it seems like a lot of writers don't know how to respond back to their readers. A lot of people I read just shrug it off on twitter and laugh or they get upset but no one has responded in such an interesting and critical way. I keep becoming more excited with each article you write. Looking forward to see what else you come up with!

fantastic piece austin! you have a wonderful way of organizing your thoughts and reasoning. LOOKING FORWARD TO HEARING YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE OPPRESSIVE HEGEMONY OF THE ONTARIO LIQUOR BOARD; OR- FUCK THE BEER STORE.

Thanks for writing this Austin. If there is another follow up, can you talk about the ideas of "tokenism" and the developer not having the license to deviate from the original work (i.e. the books)? These seem like the remaining arguments that people keep throwing out in defense of the lack of PoC.

Dang @austin_walker, two weeks at GB and already dropping some mad editorial bombs. I'll echo the sentiment a lot of people are saying in the comments for this article by saying It's good to have you here at Giant Bomb. It's been a long time since I've read "one of these" sorts of articles without feeling like I'm being sermonized to.

In regards to the article itself, I'm probably not the right person to ask about minority representation in video games, but I did find myself nodding my head to your talk about why you write. I do some occasional user blogs/reviews here and aside from the obvious self-indulgence that comes with any sort of expressive writing I do a lot of it in the hope that I can influence someone with my opinion, even if my opinion is just "I don't think Massive Chalice is a very good game".

So glad to see a piece on Giant Bomb that I knew I had to wait until I had the time to take it in properly in order to digest it fully.

I think your approach to criticism is right on. I feel part of the reason controversial articles elicit a visceral reaction is that even when intentions are good and honest, so much about the tone or angle an author takes with a piece says whether or not it's valid food for thought or easily dismissed. Especially if it's coming from a place the reader may not agree with in the first place.

There will likely always be a segment of the gaming audience that's interested in technical, story or design criticism but gets uncomfortable or even combative when social or issues deemed political become targets. In those points of view as well, tone plays a huge role as to whether or not they have any merit. I'll always take someone more seriously who can articulate their thoughts than a driveby "games should be fun" post. Honest opinion, the clarity and care in which you present your ideas and thought process is a cut above most game criticism - it's very welcome in a sea of sensationalism and hot takes and will hopefully create some great, nuanced discussion as a result.

Great piece, Austin, and I really liked the bit on the "perfect time". I've been thinking about that the past few days and that was a nice, concise way of putting it.

Also, making you the new Mickey Mouse should be the site's new goal!

Canadian Content laws keep Victor Lucas paid.

I think it's important for this community because god knows how many times I've had to explain to people that Anita Sarkeesian isn't trying to ban games. I just wish it was not the case. I think people in film or music understand that just because you have a problem with something and can point to issues, doesn't mean you're holding anyone hostage to your point of view. and maybe, just maybe, people crating these things actually like to here opinions on their works.

I like that you explained the different reactions people take to their disagreements with developers. I believe influence should be just that, not regulatory. Also, it's great that you acknowledged the Polish view here because that is a problem outside of the US.

Metal Wolf Chaos might be the three coolest words ever strung together, like of all time. How have I never heard of it until now?

Write, Austin. Write.