Worth Reading 03/08/2013

The negativity in the comments of the Sessler GoW review is astounding. The internet is a horrible place.

God dammit Patrick! You fucking got me excited for an indie game. Darkwood looks amazing.

EDIT: Wait, somebody in the comments used RE4 as an example, not the video which I hadn't finished yet. Oops!

It's interesting to see that girl use RE4 as a "damsel in distress" trope. That's a series that, from the very start, allowed you to have strong female protagonists, often running to the rescue of men. RE4 happened to have a girl to be rescued - and in that case, I don't even see it as much of a trope. Ada Wong is in that game, and turns out to be the ultimate nemesis in a way, showing prowess and ability that even Leon couldn't match. It seems to be the antithesis of her argument.

Otherwise, I feel like the "trope" comes from classic chivalry stories of knights rescuing kidnapped maidens/princesses from dragons. It's been subverted countless times in games and other media and I don't see it as a problem at all. Interesting discussion, but I almost don't see the issue. I'd like to see further development of the argument and see where it goes, if it has legs at all.

EDIT 2: "The belief that women are somehow a naturally weaker gender is a deeply-ingrained, socially-constructed myth, which of course is completely false."

There's a loaded statement. What is she talking about exactly? Physically, more than nine times out of ten a man of similar size to a woman can overpower her. Men are built with more muscle mass (in general) than women. So from a strictly biological, physical perspective men are stronger. That's not necessarily talking about prowess in certain athletics, scholarly pursuits, or general worth and capability, etc. etc. But there's a reason men and women don't directly compete in a lot of sports, and it has nothing to do with artificial gender roles or sexism.

I do, however, find it important to make sure we as a global society check ourselves constantly to make sure we aren't making sweeping assumptions about people based purely on race, sex, ethnicity, etc. The video was very interesting to watch and could prove important moving forward as games continue to grow up and expand.

Wow, that's a wall of text. Sorry about that, I just had a lot to write there...

Oh boy, MH eh? I think I'm dreading the response that game will get already. I quit that game a bunch of times when I thought "oh I'll try this for a couple hours." Definitely need a 'mentor' to get a grasp of the game. Mine was YouTube but that isn't the same as someone teaching you the ropes.

I'd say go to the forums and find some vets to play with. You'll learn just by watching them. And they will give you pointers for sure.

@ponyexpress: When did it become cool to want to annoy other people?

I kinda want to give Anita money now, as it seems to annoy just the type of people who I love to see whine and squirm.

Thank you for the Journey video, Patrick.

On that Metal Gear thing: is it possible Final Fantasy VII was doing the same thing, or at least something similar? Because reading it right now, Cloud's somebody that nobody liked as a kid and didn't really amount to much as an adult, so he made a fan-fic out of his life where he got to hang out his childhood hero (and was so obsessive about it that he drove the 30 year old into grey-haired insanity).

I wondered why Patrick included Sessler's review of God of War. When he talked about that trophy, it all made sense. #GettingTiredOfThisShit

Enjoyed the article as usual. But I really think the tone on Tomb Raider has been a bit harsh here - especially on the podcast last week. Of course, that's likely self-inflicted given the bizarre (and off-putting) statements that came out from the game's developers in the months--maybe years--before launch. But I thoroughly enjoyed the game and felt like it was a triumphant reboot that was made with real care to details both big and small. Further, I felt like the aforementioned statements that stirred up such controversy really never manifested themselves in the game. On its own merits--perhaps not on its own marketing--it's one of the most enjoyable and thrilling game experiences I've had this year.

@patrickklepekThanks for covering Etrian Odyssey 4. Its probably one of the best 3DS releases right now, and they have made significant changes to specific game mechanics to try and appeal to a larger audience (sub dungeons, ease of travel, more casual harvesting process, more revenue options). Of course that only bears fruit if its given a chance, and not shoved aside as a simple iteration of a series that HAS up until this release, been a predictable one

Hexel looks very cool but its a shame it limits you to plain hexes in the demo. The art produced from the other settings are really stylish and kinda remind me of this guy's work.

It's just the typical fanboys who've been led through a hype train and don't want anyone to let them off. They don't have an actual argument.

Wasn't God of War 3 similarly creepy with having you drag a naked woman in chains around a level and then having her getting smashed to bits under a gear?

The trophy was called "I didn't do it...but I wished I did!". (go to 7m24s for trophy)

Kinda weird to see both Adam Sessler and Arthur Gies address the same few issues they each had with God of War Ascension, and even weirder to see some people (and women, no less) telling them to fuck off with their "white knighting" of women.

i just want to say that zelda was totally the star of both Zelda: wand of Gamelon and Zelda's Adventure.

I don't get the Kickstarter remorse article, he just focused on Banner Saga Factions and it seems more like a whinge than a detailed journalistic article. He didn't even bother to ask the developers to respond as to why they released a F2P version of the game's multiplayer.

The AX tracks were always available in F-Zero GX, you had to complete all the cups on master difficulty if I remember correctly. Still funny to see all the arcade front end was in there as well.

@crusader8463: Gosh, if only the media had some sort of power to influence the way people viewed certain issues!

I always look forward to Worth Reading. Although I don't really check out the videos, the articles are always a good read. This is why this week I was surprised that Patrick choose the 'Addictive' article from the Kotaku website. I can't be the only one who found that article obnoxious, and, actually, insulting. I mean, calling people stupid from wanting to get a good number of hours out of a game they have bought?! As someone who has limited gaming time on my hands I don't want to play a game that requires hundreds of hours to complete, but at the same time I appreciate that there are people who do. I think a big issue with games journalism is that the writers sometimes can't think from the perspective of an average gamer when their whole world is in games, and make brash judgements.

Anyway, thanks Patrick. I found the SimCity articles all interesting. And, as a fellow gamer who has never played Monster Hunter, but is constantly surrounded by it, what with living in Japan, I am looking forward to reading about your experience with the game.

Man. That was a spectacular video. I tend to hate everything about Feminist Frequency (for mostly being 'psycho feminist harpies'), but that was an mostly understated argument that was also really educational.

That Journey thing with Austin Wintory doing commentary is fucking incredible. Thank you so much for that, Patrick - I totally would have missed it otherwise.

My friend just finished playing Enslaved and while I was watching that trophy came up and I agree that it totally messed up the scene.

Because games are made for straight men and not women. Mass market logic is that men can only relate to male leads since that's what they are, and the basest desire for most men is getting the girl at the end of the day. Not to mention that in most of society men are brought up to believe that they are big, rough, and tough and women are delicate flowers that need to be protected by them. So until you change societies view on that kind of stuff the damsel in distress is always going to be more common then anything else.

It doesn't, unless you have context. In this case, the context is the real world, where it turns out men and women aren't equal.

@nettacki: Moderating YouTube comments? Go ahead and let me know when there's a way to navigate that pool of filth.

@hinderk: If you're talking about Anita's video, it doesn't ask anything. It just shows a lot of examples and gives a history lesson. She's notorious for pointing out flaws while not offering a solution, but this is a completely different series, so we'll see if that changes come the final episode.

@manmadegod: It isn't inherently wrong in having a women that needs to be rescued. The problem is that it is almost always women that are in need of rescue. People aren't choosing randomly or it would be closer to 50/50 split between women and men needing rescue. Why are writers and developers choosing women in roles where they need to rescued and not men? That is the question I think the video tries asks.

I never said it was wrong. It is a choice someone made. That choice doesn't devalue the game or the experience. But to deny that there is anything to discuss is pointless. Games are becoming a medium on par with film, television, music, and literature. All of these mediums have in depth discussions involving issues like this and many others. I think people are getting caught up in whether it's right or wrong. I don't think that's the point at all. The point is to be mature enough to realize that there are many different people in the world with backgrounds that vary exponentially. Those people bring those backgrounds to the table so a 30 year old white female may find a different meaning in the novel Mrs. Dalloway than say a 20 year old Asian male. That doesn't make either person wrong. It just means they view the world in different ways.

@manmadegod: Your view is too black and white. I do not want to censor any games, I don’t think Anita wants to censor any games. It’s possible for a game to be good – great, even – and still use the DiD trope. Great games (or other cultural artifacts) can have flaws. (Scott Pligrim vs the World has some nasty sexist flaws that annoy me but I still love it to death.) That all is not really the issue here. (And I also never said that it is impossible to eliminate a stereotype – eliminating it is exactly the reason why people speak up, it’s exactly the goal. It’s why I care about this. You only have to look back at history to see that pushing a stereotype to the margins is very possible.)

Using the DiD trope doesn’t make you a sexist monster, though I would argue, given its past prevalence, it at least makes you a lazy and unimaginative storyteller, one that re-enforces a stereotype no less. Think about that and maybe pick a different approach. Is that so much to ask?

All this is is being critical of culture and the stories it tells. You are free to make as many DiD games as you like, but don’t be surprised when you get called out on it.

When is it ok to use the DiD trope? Well, it’s legal and always should be legal. I don’t think anyone is calling for a legislative ban of the DiD trope. Given its past prevalence however, and the context in which it exists I wouldn’t recommend any game developer (or screenwriter, or author, etc.) to use it, at least not without also subverting it. That’s just it.

Do you want me to list more examples? Is that your only stumbling block? She only showed a handful of DiD scenarios in the video.

You're right, they could have made the story about the President's son. But they could have also made it about his daughter, and they did. It shouldn't make a difference. There should be no difference to an objective game player.People seem to being looking at these games with a preconceived notion of sexism and flip a switch when anything regarding a women happens. In how many games do you have to rescue the president? A male president? A shit ton. Those games could have been about the President's daughter or wife. They were not. Yet she find the one example about the President's daughter and throws it in a video about tropes. The answer seems to be that every game in which a character is captured, the captured character should be male. Problem solved?

I wish we could be at a point where it wasn't inherently wrong for a daughter to be rescued. It's just what happened in the story, no dirty strings attached.

In your other post you claim that "The Damsel in Distress trope (DiD) in isolation and without context clearly wouldn’t be a problem."

Yet that scenario is impossible You just admitted that the stereotype will always exist, which is the problem I was alluding to. Women simply can not play certain roles in video games without it being deemed offensive. The only way to avoid the DiD is to replace it with the MiD. This basically is a form of censorship. Same holds for women in supporting characters roles (white mage). This can be seen as social commentary on the role women play to men and thus should be avoided.

I want to know WHEN is it ok. Give me an example of when a female character can be taken hostage and saved by a male. Your post seems to say never. There has been a lot said about the gaming community "maturing" yet that idea doesn't seem consistent with the notion that women's roles need to be limited based on perceived sexism.

I do understand what you are saying and appreciate the response.

Isn't the point that they decided to make the person in peril the President's young daughter instead of, say, the President's young son? I mean, we know that the writers of the game come up with a reason for the events to propel the game forward. They have to or else no one would want to play the game or find the action compelling. But the person in danger could have easily been a teenage son, so why did they choose to go with making the character a daughter?

And of course there are examples of men being in danger, but just because you can point to 10% of the time the trope being reversed doesn't suddenly negate the 90% of the time the person in danger is a woman.

Mind you, this is what I think her point would be, and a point I have tried to elucidate myself in discussions here. However it usually falls on deaf ears. I mean, we can always find one example of a different scenario, that doesn't mean the trope as stated is any less pervasive as a storytelling device. It also doesn't make the trope any less effective in some ways, but also cliche or played out as well.

I'll back up a little bit on the Kickstarter criticism point. It isn't wrong to comment on a Kickstarter even if you haven't contributed to it. It's happened on the Bombcast a few times (like that guy who wanted some absurd amount of money to make an MMO despite having no experience with it). So in that sense I agree with you.

The problem I have with people complaining about the Tropes Kickstarter is the absurd standards it's being held to. The original Kickstarter asked for a relatively small amount of money to make a series of videos. That is exactly what she has done so far. Anyone who had contributed to the Kickstarter received regular updates on how the videos were progressing and knew how their money was being spent. So nobody was "scammed" in the sense that she took the money and ran.

Everybody who put money into the Kickstarter also did so voluntarily. Not only that, they knew exactly how much money had been raised when they made their contribution, so if they felt that more than $X was too much they could have simply not contributed. Again, if they didn't feel like such a cause was worth that much money all they had to do was not give money. So not really scam there either.

Honestly most of the people complaining about how the Kickstarter money is being spent clearly did not contribute to it, but speak as if they have some financial stake in it or are "concerned" about the plight of those who did contribute. While I can't read the mind of every angry internet commenter I'm willing to hazard a guess that this has less to do with the integrity of Kickstarter and a whole lot more to do with the fact that it's a woman criticizing something they care deeply about.

I say goalpost shifting because the argument turned from "she's stealing people's money" to "well other people did it better so this whole thing is stupid anyway". Edit: and it looks like you made that complaint from the beginning so my bad there.

I really would like to know what you mean by her not being the most reasonable person to debate, any examples would be helpful. I'm not being facetious here either, I genuinely want to know what you're referring to.

@manmadegod: You reject and remove the stereotype by (among other things) not re-enforcing it with you own depictions of the stereotype, i.e. by avoiding or subverting the DiD trope. That’s it. It really is as simple as that.

You cannot wave a magic wand and make a stereotype disappear. In many ways that stereotype is constructed by stories using the DiD or similar such tropes. To separate the two is hard and often makes no sense. You can always ask which was first (the stereotype or the trope), but the stereotype likely owes its continued existence to DiD and similar tropes (among other things, obviously).

You treat the situation as though the situation of men and women were exactly equal and thus arrive at your conclusions. When a MiD (Men in Distress) trope is ok, why then is a DiD trope not ok? Because the stereotype of the weak and passive man does not exist the same way that stereotype exists for women, that’s why.

Patrick as an experienced Monster Hunter (300+ hours on the portable titles) I highly recommend My Fair Hunter's Monster Hunter Beginner's Guide. I purchased it for a friend and gave it a read myself to make sure it was all solid. It's easy to follow and gathers everything you'll need to know before venturing out on your first quest. It's the best guide for entering the world of Monster Hunter. Having said that I still recommend playing and absorbing all you can from whatever tutorial they put into MH3U. I got hooked from a friend but much of my early learning was from the psp game's tutorials and solo hunting, so hopefully the MH3U tutorial is also worth wile and should be taken seriously.

The best thing about that trophy, is that it's title was written by a woman.

Can you give examples?

The video shows a clip for RE4. Ashley is the president's young daughter and is being infected with a virus so that she can infect America. Seems to me that Capcom understood what and why it was creating that situation. It's inclusion in the video seems to say that they don't.

@manmadegod: Tropes are not bad.

you can still create situations like with a damsel in distress, you just have understand what you're doing and why you're doing it.

But because that stereotype does exists, we can never have have a female be captured and saved by a man. You say that if the DiD trope existed in isolation it wouldn't be a problem. But it CAN NOT existed in isolation. The stereotype is real and will continue to be, even if everyone rejects it's legitimacy. I think the example of Luigi's mansion still holds: it's offensive if Mario is replaced with Peach because it is now seen as fulfilling the stereotype. This is why I simply can't follow her line of thinking.

I'm not saying that the existence of a man being saved somehow over rides the fact that DiD exists. I simply don't see how offense can be avoided going forward unless a male is used as the "object". What you're left with is an un-winnable scenario of special pleading.

The answer for me is to reject and remove the stereotype. This returns to your point of DiD existing in isolation, which at that point it is no longer a problem (your words). But that returns to the problem of intent. If no one intends to fulfill the "females are weak and need men" stereotype, yet get blamed for doing it anyway, then what's the outcome here? Casing offense seems unavoidable. Female characters are simply not allowed to play certain roles in video games without a stereotype being evoked.

While I'll agree that the first entry in the "Tropes" series is pretty dry, it's just that: the first entry. From the word go, it's presented as the first section of a larger statement. Unsurprisingly, she's spending this first segment laying groundwork. Was it boring to me, personally? Well, yeah. I already know this stuff.

But I'm not everyone.

By doing this, she gets everyone up to speed on the topic. "This is the history, this is where we are, this is why this is sucks." The rubber will really meet the road in whatever she has planned for part two. I'll be much more interested in being critical of her work when it's more than just a rote history lesson.

@sexyrandal: Actually, I took you literally because that's sometimes the best way to disarm sarcasm. And since when did someone need to contribute to a Kickstarter to feel justified in commenting on a Kickstarter's funding? I've contributed to other Kickstarters in the past and I've seen them met with varying levels of success and failure. I'm aware of the risks involved any time a pledge is made that there is the stark possibility that nothing of substance may ever come of the money donated. In this case, "substance" referring to the actual existence of these videos and the content within.

I'm not sure what goal post-shifting argument you're referring to. I merely stated that her first episode is focused entirely on the lowest-hanging fruit of the discussion, which in my mind is not the best way to kick things off. As for the "reasonable people" comment, Anita has not had a history of being the most reasonable of people to debate. To be fair, she doesn't exude the shrill idiocy of Bill O'Reilly and his ilk, but even so, there are better people to talk to if you want reasoned discourse on her chosen topic.

Either you have a poor understanding of sarcasm or were being willfully ignorant but no, it's pretty clear you did not contribute to the Kickstarter. Hence why your objection to how the money is being spent is utterly baffling.

Also, I don't understand your new goalpost-shifting argument. If something has been said before it isn't worth saying again? What does "reasonable people" mean? How is she being unreasonable?

Damn, Sessler got mad in that review. That was kind of weird.

Read most of what was on this list but passed on the pokemon one till now. And holy good gravy that's damn impressive. Great collection of interesting links =)

@sadsadsad: Nah, I don't think that Quick Look gives the game its dues. They do like, two turns, and it was a game that obviously didn't interest Brad or Dave very much. But Patrick seems to understand the allure of strategy games now, so I'd like to see him champion what turned out to be one of the best PS3 exclusives to ever come out.

It’s not really necessary to prove intent. Yes, intent makes it worse, but it is possible and even common to do sexist things without intending to. The kind of consciousness raising Anita does is, in that context, especially valuable. Please note that in her video she accuses barely anyone (and certainly not Miyamoto) of intentionally doing sexist things and no one of being sexist.

I also think you kind of missed the point of her video. The Damsel in Distress trope (DiD) in isolation and without context clearly wouldn’t be a problem. Sometimes people really are caught and helpless (become objects) and other people have to heroically save them (are the subjects). Nothing wrong with that. If only the Mario games used the DiD trope and nothing else, there would be no problem. If the stereotype of the weak and passive woman didn’t exist and there would be more gender balance in who has to be rescued, the DiD trope would also be no problem.

The problem is the prevalence of the trope, how it fits right in with stereotypes of women and men and enforces them.

The problem is not that no games exist where a man is helpless and has to be saved.

This quicklook from 2009 might suffice.

@patrickklepek Monster Hunter is another one of those games you can't just jump into, unfortunately, but don't let me dissuade you from the goal of branching out.

I'm bummed out by the vehement reaction to Sessler's review of God of War (specifically his comment on a unfortunately named trophy) but not exactly surprised.