Sunjammer

Dante in DmC is objectifying men. I think it's fucking cool that games dare do that nowadays. We need more of it.

@JoeShadows: This is not a conversation. This is pontificating.

If the goal is to engage the community and industry in dialog about solving issues of sexism, a post of 8 female points of view creates exactly one thing and that is an "us and them" mentality. When I saw that statue I was just grossed out; I've seen more sexist things, so to me it just looked dumber than a sack of farts. I did not feel the need to raise a flag; It's not like we haven't been told plenty about sexism in gaming the past decade. It just made Deep Silver look stupid, and they were rightly shamed for it.

So, problem solved right?

Not when you bring up an article like this. For one, the issue has already been beaten into a pulp by the collective games press. We, the readers, are fully saturated with this topic. We know about the statue, we know it's dumb, and we know concerns have been raised about sexism. Yet you feed us, a predominantly male community (let's be honest), even more about it, presented by panel of industry women that we already respect.

At this point it ceases to be reporting and becomes shaming of the community. Are we supposed to be extra extra outraged now? Should we feel super bad that there are stupid men out there that make bad decisions? How fucking rotten is this industry, you guys? We need to be extra super more pissed off because we obviously were't properly outraged.

You've set "the women" up against "the men". It makes both sides go on the defensive. It makes dialog stupider and it makes no progress. If you took the effort to request these opinions you could have gone the extra mile and solicited male developers as well. You could have, but instead you made a gimmick article that, effectively, cheapens the topic it sets out to discuss and shames the community enough to make much further dialog fruitless. Well done.

@ajamafalous said:

yes, this statue was obviously a bad fucking idea from the start, but it didn't deserve two news articles and one where eight women said exactly the same thing about how offended they were. Blown way out of proportion to make a story out of nothing.

Seconded.

Awesome Alex. Love to see you write more, and a great article.

Also, extra points for Ducktales.

Shao Kahn on Normal+ is the worst time I had in video games all 2012. The worst time. That awesome story mode and they finish it with that turd of a boss design. How the eff does Ed Boon sleep at night having farted that one out the door?

That TBBT post reads incredibly defensive to me. I also strongly consider myself a "nerd" (though several venn diagrams identify me as more of a"geek"), and I have no problem laughing at seeing "myself" caricatured.

If you can't laugh at a caricature of your own stereotype, you are not fun. To be offended is giving it a power it doesn't really deserve, or in most cases even attempt. I just don't see the big deal. Bad or not, it's comedy. Let the people laugh.

There is no defending a broken and incomplete game with microtransactions this aggressive. If it was properly F2P, perhaps, but the initial cost plus the absolutely ludicrous game economy all but ensures this game will be thrown to the wolves. It simply has no reason to survive.

I reckon anyone who thought The War Z wasn't a cash in on Day Z, or think TWZ measures up in any way to the buggy mad thing that is Day Z, are out of their little minds. Is Day Z broken? Yes. But it's still a generous, intense, vivid game that all but embodies emergent gameplay, while TWZ is simply the opposite of those things.

4 hour respawns or you pay. Fuck you, developer. Fuuuck you.

@ShaggE: I'll just take back what I said about what I thought doing something in a game meant for your soul. Haha. It's pretty ridiculous to look back at.

It's cool to discuss this stuff. Probably the first time I've ever spent real time thinking about it rather than just reacting to it.

It's pretty funny that you can have issues with the morality of killing innocents and be dubbed a religious person.