The Japanese Tragedy and MotorStorm: Apocalypse

The Mexican Drug War and Call of Juarez: The Cartel

The Question

All I know is this topic will reach epic proportions in less than 24 hours.
 
Other than that, if No Russian was acceptable, anything is.

The same could be said about film and literature.

" The same could be said about film and literature. "

" All I know is this topic will reach epic proportions in less than 24 hours.  Other than that, if No Russian was acceptable, anything is. "

 Also, terrorism in the U.S. is instanced"

" @Axxol said:

" The same could be said about film and literature. "

I don't want to get into a "Are video games art?" discussion but I would say films and literature are also at fault when they deal with contemporary real life events as mere entertainment and offer no constructive social discussion or message. Examples of films at fault are all those "narcocinema" films that they sell at Wal-marts close to the Mexican border. These awful movies are a product of money laundering and both normalize and glamorize the narcos' lifestyle. I haven't encountered any serious literature (only Tijuana bibles and the like) dealing with contemporary tragedies as a simple source of amusement. The reason why I am bothered by video games dealing with such subjects is that video games rarely offer any constructive criticism, it is often only for entertainment's sake that they display tragedy. Now, I have no problem with them doing so with fictional tragedy or past tragedies that are now part of our collective, cultural subconscious but when it is about contemporary suffering it's tasteless and insensitive. What do you think? "

Is it exploitation? Yeah. So is poorism. All you can do is get offended and tell people it's in poor taste. Other than that, yeah, people shouldn't do it, but it's not right to stop people from doing it either.

" @G3RHRT said:

 Also, terrorism in the U.S. is instanced"

Oh yeah, just like in Guild Wars or APB! "

The Motor Storm thing is just pure coincidence and bad timing. I think as Sony is a Japanese company should delay the game or do whatever they need to. The Juarez thing is much different but more dicey since the violence there has been going on and will go on for a while. I know nothing about the game or the place so I don't know how it portrays the people and places. The previous games where also set there and I am not sure why games would get any different treatment than films or books when it comes to on going conflict or events. The game also seems to have you fighting against the criminal elements of the city which is good right. I also don't see the point of telling me about how the people there are suffering, people all over the world are suffering right now from lots of things that are portrayed in games for entertainment. 

In the new CoJ, are you not playing as cops fighting the cartels?

The argument can be made (if this is the case) that, far from glorifying the troubles in this area, the game is in fact presenting a point of view condemning it, allowing the player the escapist fantasy of moving into this terrible tragedy as the noble, heroic modern cowboy and making a real difference to a horribly oppressed people. Wish-fulfilment, essentially.

While this is definitely exploitative of current events, is it any more so than the myriad Afghanistan/Iraq movies and games?

Note that I'm not actually saying I disagree with your point of view OP, just trying to present an alternate view that isn't necessarily my own.

" @MurderByDeath said:

" @G3RHRT said:

 Also, terrorism in the U.S. is instanced"

Oh yeah, just like in Guild Wars or APB! "

Haha, I meant that it is fortunately measured by occurrence or event (e.g. 9/11) and not daily. "

" @G3RHRT said:

" @Axxol said:

" The same could be said about film and literature. "

I don't want to get into a "Are video games art?" discussion but I would say films and literature are also at fault when they deal with contemporary real life events as mere entertainment and offer no constructive social discussion or message. Examples of films at fault are all those "narcocinema" films that they sell at Wal-marts close to the Mexican border. These awful movies are a product of money laundering and both normalize and glamorize the narcos' lifestyle. I haven't encountered any serious literature (only Tijuana bibles and the like) dealing with contemporary tragedies as a simple source of amusement. The reason why I am bothered by video games dealing with such subjects is that video games rarely offer any constructive criticism, it is often only for entertainment's sake that they display tragedy. Now, I have no problem with them doing so with fictional tragedy or past tragedies that are now part of our collective, cultural subconscious but when it is about contemporary suffering it's tasteless and insensitive. What do you think? "

But tragedy in films is often used as entertainment.  "

" Is it exploitation? Yeah. So is poorism. All you can do is get offended and tell people it's in poor taste. Other than that, yeah, people shouldn't do it, but it's not right to stop people from doing it either. "

" @Axxol said:

" @G3RHRT said:

" @Axxol said:

" The same could be said about film and literature. "

I don't want to get into a "Are video games art?" discussion but I would say films and literature are also at fault when they deal with contemporary real life events as mere entertainment and offer no constructive social discussion or message. Examples of films at fault are all those "narcocinema" films that they sell at Wal-marts close to the Mexican border. These awful movies are a product of money laundering and both normalize and glamorize the narcos' lifestyle. I haven't encountered any serious literature (only Tijuana bibles and the like) dealing with contemporary tragedies as a simple source of amusement. The reason why I am bothered by video games dealing with such subjects is that video games rarely offer any constructive criticism, it is often only for entertainment's sake that they display tragedy. Now, I have no problem with them doing so with fictional tragedy or past tragedies that are now part of our collective, cultural subconscious but when it is about contemporary suffering it's tasteless and insensitive. What do you think? "

But tragedy in films is often used as entertainment.  "

Yes, you're absolutely correct, it is also used in literature (who could ever denounce the tragic plays of Sophocles?). I have nothing against this, tragedy is part of the human experience. I only find fault in depicting tragedy when it is still happening for the sake of entertainment. Especially when it's not your own tragedy, like in the case of Ubisoft. "

" The Motor Storm thing is just pure coincidence and bad timing. I think as Sony is a Japanese company should delay the game or do whatever they need to. The Juarez thing is much different but more dicey since the violence there has been going on and will go on for a while. I know nothing about the game or the place so I don't know how it portrays the people and places. The previous games where also set there and I am not sure why games would get any different treatment than films or books when it comes to on going conflict or events. The game also seems to have you fighting against the criminal elements of the city which is good right. I also don't see the point of telling me about how the people there are suffering, people all over the world are suffering right now from lots of things that are portrayed in games for entertainment.  "

" In the new CoJ, are you not playing as cops fighting the cartels? The argument can be made (if this is the case) that, far from glorifying the troubles in this area, the game is in fact presenting a point of view condemning it, allowing the player the escapist fantasy of moving into this terrible tragedy as the noble, heroic modern cowboy and making a real difference to a horribly oppressed people. Wish-fulfilment, essentially. While this is definitely exploitative of current events, is it any more so than the myriad Afghanistan/Iraq movies and games? Note that I'm not actually saying I disagree with your point of view OP, just trying to present an alternate view that isn't necessarily my own. "

Are they planning on cutting that level out? It looks really good looking. Disasters have been around long before games and film have. People basing things of actual places or events doesn't add or enhance violence or anything. If anything it could make people aware of the situation. However. Video games are like movies, they're a fantasy world. So real life environments, Problems happening throughout the world. These will continue to have them wither or not movies, literature or games feature them or not.

Hahahaha "We don't want kids to be given a bad impression of Juarez" just seconds after they say it's in the running for murder capital of THE WORLD.

" @G3RHRT said:

" @Axxol said:

" @G3RHRT said:

" @Axxol said:

" The same could be said about film and literature. "

I don't want to get into a "Are video games art?" discussion but I would say films and literature are also at fault when they deal with contemporary real life events as mere entertainment and offer no constructive social discussion or message. Examples of films at fault are all those "narcocinema" films that they sell at Wal-marts close to the Mexican border. These awful movies are a product of money laundering and both normalize and glamorize the narcos' lifestyle. I haven't encountered any serious literature (only Tijuana bibles and the like) dealing with contemporary tragedies as a simple source of amusement. The reason why I am bothered by video games dealing with such subjects is that video games rarely offer any constructive criticism, it is often only for entertainment's sake that they display tragedy. Now, I have no problem with them doing so with fictional tragedy or past tragedies that are now part of our collective, cultural subconscious but when it is about contemporary suffering it's tasteless and insensitive. What do you think? "

But tragedy in films is often used as entertainment.  "

Yes, you're absolutely correct, it is also used in literature (who could ever denounce the tragic plays of Sophocles?). I have nothing against this, tragedy is part of the human experience. I only find fault in depicting tragedy when it is still happening for the sake of entertainment. Especially when it's not your own tragedy, like in the case of Ubisoft. "

Like another user stated, this was merely a coincidence and bad timing. If Japan feels the need to omit this level from the game, then I totally understand. Look at any work of fiction and you can compare it to a real life tragedy. Do we need to remove those? "

Honestly I think it's down to the player/viewer. As long as the person playing the game or watching the game is aware that it is JUST a game, and the game itself is presenting a particular view on the subject matter, then no one gets hurt. It's a different story when a person watching it is like "YEAH BLOW THAT SHIT UP, DRUGS GUNS AWESOME THAT'S SO COOL", as opposed to someone who can take a step back and think about what makes the game fun/not fun, what the game says about what people find fun/entertaining etc. Awareness and explanation is key, censorship is not the answer.

I think that if games are to "evolve" as a medium it is perhaps necessary to have games comment on current (or probably more realistically, recent) events. Of course these games have to be crafted in a very considerate, serious manner. It would be no good to have a game that is essentially a Michael Bay movie to have a level in the middle commenting on war and terrorism in a serious manner. Basically what I'm trying to say is that games crafted for the purpose of examining tragic events and not simply for entertainment's sake (basically a serious game). Having said that, I don't know enough about Call of Juarez: The Cartel to really say one way or another if it's insensitive to the situation in Mexico but I'm going to guess that it isn't one of these games. So, no I don't think there should be boundaries that developers should be wary of as long as they approach the subject matter in a thoughtful way.

A lot of great points.

I got a lump in my throat watching that MotorStorm video. I may not feel so bad about it if it weren't called, "Waves of mutilation."

" @G3RHRT: I understand your point of view, but I will have to respectfully disagree. Thanks for the debate, though. "

" @KingWilly said:

" @G3RHRT: I understand your point of view, but I will have to respectfully disagree. Thanks for the debate, though. "

Wait, about the first thing or the tangent? You don't think there's better ways to increase awareness for breast cancer, or that it is unfeminist? You dont have to respond, I was just interested on what you had to say. "

" @G3RHRT said:

" @KingWilly said:

" @G3RHRT: I understand your point of view, but I will have to respectfully disagree. Thanks for the debate, though. "

Wait, about the first thing or the tangent? You don't think there's better ways to increase awareness for breast cancer, or that it is unfeminist? You dont have to respond, I was just interested on what you had to say. "

All of it. It was a good bit of discourse, and I do disagree that the marketing itself (which is what awareness really is) is anti-feminist or promotes sexualized objectifying of women over their struggle against breast cancer. That very well may be the thought behind the men you see wearing those wristbands and shirts, but the marketing itself doesn't hold that intent. It's a bit like blaming the tool for user error, in my opinion. That said, I don't think we're going to learn anything new in this debate. We've both laid our opinions and thoughts bare and there's really nothing left to say, from my end at least.  It was a good bit of fun, though. "

What's appropriate or not is a real subjective matter and I doubt any conclusion is going to be reached here.  However, I think most people have a fairly good idea of what society as a whole thinks is appropriate. It's unlikely any game will aggressively break with what is considered appropriate by the general public.  EA , Activision and other big publishers have too much money at stake. We've seen the public speak before no "Six days in Fallujah" or Taliban in "MOH".  What's ultimately appropriate is a subjective call, but I think most publishers will choose to behave with tack.

Glorifying cartels? No one complained about the "El Mariachi" movies. 

that is pretty weird timing for something like that to happen. they should delay it for a while as it is just weird for that to happen. i guess stuff happen all the time like that.

I wholly disagree with just about every position you've taken. Production of media comes with no intrinsic responsibilities. There is no reasonable argument to the contrary.
 
Of course, you're suggesting something more akin to courtesy. However, I see no reason to extend courtesy in the case of Juarez. The Motorstorm delay is reasonable. The unforeseeable coincidence of the disaster in Japan provides good reason for a delay. Aside from sensitivity to a sudden misfortune, the delay is a good business strategy. Surely, they will sell more units with a delayed release.
 
The Juarez situation is entirely different. While the infrastructure in Japan is doing a remarkable job addressing the problems and will recover in the near future, the cartel violence, as well as violence in general, in Juarez is a quagmire unlikely to resolve in the foreseeable future. The authorities have done a piss-poor job for decades; corruption and incompetence at nearly every turn are largely responsible for the situation. Mexican authorities aren't giving any indication that their failures will soon cease. As such, a delay would be unwise. Are the developers to shelve the game for another thirty years in hopes that things will improve?
 
Given that a delay is inappropriate, the question becomes whether the game should be made at all. I don't see a compelling argument for making drug wars off-limits for games. If such games are made (which they inevitably will be), then why should they not take place in an appropriate setting? Clearly, the game would not be as effective were it set in Manitoba. It makes perfect sense for a game about the mafia to take place in New York or Chicago, for a game about killer gorillas to take place in Rwanda, and for a game about drug cartels to take place in Juarez. There's no appropriate setting for a crime story that does not face problems with crime. The people of Juarez face high murder rates, rampant drug smuggling, plenty of sexual assault, politicians that cannot be trusted, a police force that oscillates between impotent and criminal, and an infrastructure that is unreliable at best. A game that makes the area look dangerous is hardly worthy of their concern.
 
As for the tangent regarding breast cancer, you're quite wrong. There is nothing misogynistic in the least about the "Save the Boobies" campaign. In terms of raising awareness, the campaign is a resounding success. Sexualizing the matter not only does nothing to downplay the disease, but it is necessary to appeal to the desired demographic. You read far too much into the campaign, and your suggestion that it "erases" the women or prioritizes breasts over health is absurd. Breast cancer is a major concern for women of a certain age, but young women are not too worried about it. It is considered an older woman's danger. By taking a sexual approach, the point is made that young women should keep an eye on breast health, too. The campaign also appeals to men in a positive way. While a vast majority of men in any age range are anti-breast cancer, there aren't many ways to get young men to take a more active interest. The "If you love 'em, rub 'em" slogan, in particular, is a good idea. Most gynosexuals rather enjoy handling breasts; it's a rather common pursuit of young men. This slogan brings to mind that lumps can be noticed through groping. If men have breast cancer in mind during petting, they'll be much more likely to notice potential problems. Women, especially young women, don't do enough self-examination. Their partners are probably going to be handling their breasts much more than they, so why not make them aware that they can hit two birds with one stone? If one can add a sexual element to important safety, then everyone wins; a fun protective measure will be taken much more often than a dull, clinical one. In the last few years, as these ostensibly tacky campaigns have grown, the portion of early detections discovered by a woman's partner have increased. This isn't necessarily due to the campaigns, and there haven't been enough studies to prove causation, but early indicators are positive. Gynosexuals are already interested in breasts, so it makes perfect sense to get them interested in breast health.
 
The reason that you don't see sexualization of prostate cancer is two-fold. First, as a society, we don't really care about men's health. Women's health is a major industry as well as a common topic, but men's health takes a backseat, even among men. If you ask women what their health concerns are, many of the answers will be gender-specific; if you ask men, they'll be overwhelmingly gender-neutral. The second reason is that a prostate simply isn't sexy. These breast cancer promotions aren't so much sexualizing the issue as they are taking advantage of the existing sexual aspect. That can't be done with a prostate.
 
There are far larger problems to be addressed with breast cancer. There are countless charities for it, and a surprising number of them are utter shit. A huge amount of money donated goes to overhead, and many awareness campaigns raise money just to pay for more awareness campaigns. A lot of the charity walks spend most of what they raise to pay for permits, ribbons, and commercials. Very little money actually goes to research. Charity corruption is more prominent with breast cancer than most causes. The tacky campaigns to "save boobs" should be low-priority for complaint, as they are generally not raising money or being billed as charities; they're simply selling clothing and accessories as a business.

Simply put games are fake just like movies.  Take one of the bigger recent uproars, I seen no problem in being able to play as the afghans in medal of honor's multiplayer.  Because it is not real, and anyone who meets the games rating should be able to play what the developer intended the game to be.

" @G3RHRT: @KingWilly: To be honest, on the issue of those wristbands and shirts, I would think that people would know well enough to see that those shirts are just using a clever/funny/mildly erotic statement in order to draw attention, as opposed to saying "oh, we're saving the breasts for sex". 
 
This is why I have a huge problem with sooooo much feminist opinion, is that it's based on what something could be interpreted to mean, rather than on what something is interpreted to mean.  For instance, I'll use a discussion brought up in both my philosophy and sociology classes: the use of -man as a suffix, for instance in the word "yeoman". My professors both said that the language sends a subtle message about who should be doing the job (as in the difference between "men's work" and "women's work"). But I completely disagree with this on every level. I feel that the gender of the job isn't intrinsically linked to the label, and that the language doesn't indicate a gendered occupation. The word "yeoman" is a perfect example, because the first time I heard the word was when I was like 6, watching Star Trek with my dad. And Captain Kirk called one of the generic woman crew members "yeoman", and I thus learned that all those words that use -man as a suffix give absolutely no indication of gender whatsoever.  The representation itself isn't what determines the meaning. The meaning can only be determined upon interpretation. And thus, the marketing itself isn't harmful to women unless people interpret it in a harmful way. And realistically, no one would look at an "I heart boobies" t-shirt and think "he/she's trying to sexualize the issue." I think most people would look at it and go "cool, he supports a good cause." I may still think it's tasteless in its evocativeness, but that doesn't mean I think it's harmful. "

Motorstorm is clearly a fantasy setting and really no more evil then the next best Gozilla movie, or actually even less so, as the game is about the setting, not the suffering. If they wanna delay it a few month, because they would expect bad press otherwise, fine with me, but as a game itself I don't see a problem with it.
 
As for Call of Juarez, here is where it gets tricky. I absolutely want games to tackle those real world issues, as they can be a great way to teach people what is happening, present things from different viewpoints and actually be an insightful social commentary. The problem with that of course is that by far most games touching those real world issues don't do that. They do the exact opposite, they present only a single view point, present war as this clean "good vs evil" fight with civilians casualties and they mess up things in plenty of other ways. Games tend to take real world problems and turn it into a flat Michael Bay-type action fest, void of information, commentary or anything else actually useful. And even when a game tries to be more realistic and not present some twisted hyper-reality,  they tend to be generally extremely one sided and provide only a very limited viewpoint (i.e. presenting only a single historic battle, without saying anything about the larger war itself).
 
And thats really the problem, I really want to see that game that tackles a realistic issues in a proper way, but so far I don't think I have really seen any (at least as far as modern console games go).

" @G3RHRT: I guess I should've clarified. My philosophy course was philosophy and gender, taught by one of the Women's Studies professors. We spent the entire course dealing with the issues you've described. And I can't help but disagree with you on the issue regarding language. 
 
For instance, the word "woman" is the most basic word to use the gendered suffix, because women are defined in this society as "not men". I really don't want to get into too deep of an argument, because that would require talking about the definition of women as "the other" and all of that, which I feel isn't exactly relevant to the point I'm trying to make. 
 
Basically, language in and of itself holds no intrinsic meaning. Language's meaning can only be applied relationally within a context, and as such, there is no such thing as a true abstraction. Think about this: if you heard someone speaking ancient Sumerian, would you have any idea what they were saying? 
 
The answer is no, because Sumerian words have no meaning to you, since you have no context (in this case, context and definition can be used interchangeably). Thus, the use of what has historically been a gendered suffix ("-man", in this case) will only be used to define gender within the mind of someone who has been taught that it defines gender. Since I learned that the suffix didn't define gender, whenever I see it, I don't automatically assume the role to belong to one gender or another. This is simply due to how I was socialized. Thus we could easily socialize the next generation to see traditionally gendered suffixes ("-man", "-or", "-ess", etc.) without a gender, and could easily streamline the language to exclude them. The fact that we still use separate suffixes in the first place is, in my opinion, more harmful to women than the use of a male gendered suffix, because it would be a lot easier to remove gender bias by removing gendered language than by actively shifting the paradigmatic interpretations of the words in people's minds, especially since those paradigmatic interpretations are partially subconscious, and thus not completely malleable. 
 
So in other words, using the word "yeowoman" alongside "yeoman" is, I feel, more deleterious than simply using "yeoman" as a universal term, because the use of separate gendered words does more to further the idea that there is a difference than the use of a term that would traditionally only cover one gender. I know that I'm in the extreme minority in my opinions, because I support women's rights and women's equality, but I don't fully support feminism and the entire doctrine I learned, but I don't really give a damn, because I think it's more telling that I've been able to formulate my own unique opinion on this, rather than simply taking sides.    I was going to add more in response to your last two paragraphs, but I feel like I've mostly covered what I want to say. However, I will discuss the issue of sexualization.  Girls Gone Wild is exploitative, blatantly. But that's because it's produced and intended for that sole purpose. That doesn't mean that sexuality is exploitative, however. I watch porn, for instance. But I don't objectify any of the women in the videos, and I specifically avoid watching anything that involves either pure acting or some type of male fantasy being acted out. I don't find that arousing. I find imagery of women enjoying themselves arousing, and thus I'd much rather watch a woman feeling genuine pleasure in what she's doing than some video of a girl fake screaming/moaning and asking for the male actor to fuck her harder. I also don't enjoy watching clips of drunk women, because they clearly have no clue about what they're doing and are in no position to be video taped, placing it in an extremely exploitative (and unappealing to me, I might add) category.  I'll add at the bottom that language is constantly evolving, and that we can change the way words are used. Just look at the word "nigger" (I don't care what anyone thinks, "N-word" is a hypocritical cop-out; if you don't want to say the word, don't craft a sentence that would use it, rather than just using a euphemism to try to get away with it). There are still people who use it as a perjorative towards blacks, but I doubt you'd find many white people willing to use the word at all. That's changed a ton in the past century. Also, your paragraphs were kind of a mess on my 15" screen,  but I did read them. "