Worth Reading: 08/11/2014

@marokai: Well said.

Going back and reading it again, I'm still flabbergasted that Yerli is as upfront as he is in that interview. He is truly oblivious of the reasoning behind the personnel problems Crytek is going through. I can just imagine Crytek's PR people struggling to hide their embarrassment at his answers. If I were an employee of Crytek and reading that interview, I'd wonder why the heck I was still working there. I know that it's a difficult industry to break into and the number of jobs out there are limited, but Crytek doesn't sound like a stable work environment in any sense, and given his comments, who would want to work for Yerli?

@yummylee said:

I fucking love linguistics, dude. How language evolves over time, how words have different meanings added and subtracted over time, is an incredibly fascinating thing. Stuff like the evolution of Quebec French profanity, for instance, is so awesome to read about and really exemplifies how words have meanings completely changed depending on the context and the intent behind them. Innocuous words like tabarnak, originally an old Quebec dialect means of spelling tabernacle, evolved in the last several decades, along with other religious terms, to be the Quebec French version of "fuck."

There are probably people out there who use the term tabarnak with no specific understanding of what a tabernacle even is, but use it as slang because that's just how that word has evolved. I imagine old school Catholics there don't like it much, either. The evolution of language, yo!

@marokai: Yeah, I wasn't really trying to make a statement, just relaying something I found interesting. I read through here before looking through the articles that Patrick links to, and the 'personality disorder' comment sounded a little gross to me to begin with, so I was amused to find that little connection in the article brodehouse was referring to.

@marokai said:

There's a big difference between using those words passively and using them against a specific person who might be sensitive to them. I wouldn't call someone with mental issues crazy or an idiot. I wouldn't call someone with a physical disability lame. I try not to call women bitches, although I fall short of this way more than I'd like to admit.

Look, this probably isn't your intention, but this reads a lot like you're trying to rationalise the use of any word in any context. We all have to draw our own lines. Reflexively insinuating that a woman is crazy and a narcissist because of how she writes falls on the wrong side of mine.

@marokai said:

Ha, I wish I could respond with something equally as insightful and informative, but... well, there's little else I could offer! Though in general I agree that it's the intent of words that should receive the analysis and not simply the word itself. Though of course there are certain words that cross boundaries. This actually all brings to mind another Worth Reading article where a swath of comments were deleted for something as simple as calling Samantha Allen (I think?) crazy... When it's of course such a harmless and everyday word we throw around. Hell, consider how often the staff themselves will call someone crazy over a difference of opinion.

And of course this sort of reaction always only seems to arise when women are involved. I can still remember back when people like Jim Sterling or Angry Joe received all the shit whenever they came up into conversation (though Jim has admittedly become much more favourable recently), and yet nobody seemed to care. Better yet, there's even Dan Ryckert's recent bullying of that mexican wrestler guy with his incessant calling of him an idiot... No controversy, no nothing, least not as far as I'm aware. Hell, I myself was recently called a 'limey' (as a form of banter), which is like an old-timey insult for English sailors or something. Obviously I didn't pay it much attention, but if I was to react similarly to how the aforementioned reactions played out then I should have likely called for the posters head on a platter.

@conmulligan: I think people should generally try to be sensitive, of course. I wouldn't just randomly call a person struggling with mental illness crazy, or something like that. Obviously people should at least be more aware of the words they're using in certain situations. I just think implying a word like "narcissistic" has an inherently gendered connotation to it and therefore using it to describe any woman, ever, is out of bounds, or can be used to describe someone as sexist, is silly.

What I meant in my post is that if you comb through language, you can be offended by everything, and if you're just offended by everything, the discussion immediately stops being a discussion about a topic and starts being a pointless fight. The history of how a person uses that language is a better determinant of what he meant by it than him just using the word at all, and Brodehouse specifically has never given any indication that he's sexist. I generally find these digressions about fighting over what words are or aren't acceptable to be hugely distracting; you could have thousands of them. The subject of an argument is much more important to stay focused on.

I have known so many narcissistic men (real and fictional) over the years that the very idea that it could be considered a female-specific insult is ludicrous in my mind. Particularly since Narcissus was a guy.

@hailinel@marokai: I certainly don't mean to imply that narcissistic is a gender-specific term, because you're both 100% right that it's not. It is, however, a loaded term when applied specifically to women, just as greedy is a loaded term when applied to people of Jewish extraction, or lazy is to people from Mexico. It's especially common in men's rights circles, where rejection is regularly attributed to women's inherit narcissism.

All that said, I kind of agree with @marokai that it's too easy to get hung up on words when we should spend more time looking at intent. That was the crux of my initial objection to Brodehouse's comment — even if you ignore the whole narcissism thing, it's still full of nasty personal stuff in what could have just been criticism of gonzo journalism in general.

@patrickklepek Yo! Kinda of sad to see that Worth Playing might not be a feature anymore. Anyway, since you keep saying that using video as a medium will potentially be more worthwhile than writing articles, you could try making Worth Reading into a video feature. The video could cover some of the articles/news snippets that you mention along with your opinions on said pieces. Just an idea..keep on rockin'.

Yeah, transparently gender-coded way. Despite the fact that the most 'coded' thing I've said is generational, it must be gender-coded, because you'd like it to be that. When I give out about any male (like I did about Kanye West), that's just nothing. When I give out about a woman, that's transparently gender-coded.

Do you believe your own stuff?

Ahhh, I see... I must be a sexist, because the person I'm saying is narcissistic is a woman, and she thinks that the only reason people says she is narcissistic is because she's a woman. I must be the sexist who is looking at everything through gender bias, because she believes everyone looks at her through gender bias. We can't use words that accurately describe the ideas we wish to describe, because your specific cultural upbringing has assigned arbitrary and time-sensitive values to what is unacceptable language.

Here, by the way, is a wikipedia blurb on narcissistic personality disorder.

• Expects to be recognized as superior and special, without superior accomplishments
• Expects constant attention, admiration and positive reinforcement from others
• Envies others and believes others envy him/her
• Is preoccupied with thoughts and fantasies of great success, enormous attractiveness, power, intelligence
• Lacks the ability to empathize with the feelings or desires of others
• Is arrogant in attitudes and behavior
• Has expectations of special treatment that are unrealistic

But I'm to understand we can only use this standard for specific people and specific behavior of one sex, because to apply it freely to any human being would be monstrously sexist.

Ahhhh... I dunno, man.

I directly slammed the entire Beat generation and their entire style of slam poetry, but you didn't leap to "you're just an anti-Beat!", you immediately launched to accusations of sexism and gender bias because you know they're a much more effective political bludgeon. Everyone cares about the treatment of women, no one sheds a tear for the poor, belittled Beats. For shame and for ruin.

As for gonzo, I didn't find her rambling to be very poetic or revelatory. Occasionally Hunter S. Thompson wandered into something poetic (does Burroughs count as gonzo?). Anyways, I found that piece to be preening and self-absorbed, so I said it. I did not decide it had to be about them being women women women. Someone in the comments said "it seems like losing her virginity was the most interesting thing that ever happened to her". I immediately agreed, it didn't read like someone with a lot of life experience, it read like someone with a lot of self experience.

Also, despite the focus on Cara Ellison, I think I laughed the hardest at Nina(?). I'm pretty sure most of the 'myself' comments were from Nina. My objective was not to publicly shame Cara Ellison, but to point out this self-referential tendency that enveloped that entire piece. My problem is not with OH IT'S WOMEN my problem is with the piece.

edit: While I'm here, I liked that Controllers piece, though I would've liked to see more of the models. He skipped the no-sticks Playstation 1 controller, and I spent a lot of time with that crappy controller.

I'm gonna miss Worth Reading if it ceases to be a regular feature!

But, happily, I just yesterday discovered another source curating writing about games:

Critical Distance

Ah, well-thought out responses to false sexism accusations rooted in faulty logic and assumptions. Bravo, Brodehouse, bravo! :-D

Not to get too off-topic, but I find all this PC brigade stuff and odd tension both awesome and yet incredibly disheartening. It's hard to describe, really. I operate under the belief that when things truly are considered "art" by society, they get surrounded by lunatics who overthink every single angle and pick apart every little detail for something profound, offensive, or both.

Sure enough, that's been the past few months. No female assassins in that initial four-assassin lineup in the "Assassin's Creed: Unity" trailer? Gasp! Rants and raves ensue. Giantbomb hiring another person of Northern European ancestry? Okay, it's Dan and he's indisputably awesome... but how will he broaden our critical palette? Rabble rabble.

Brode, I saw someone critique you for gendered language by noting all the female pronouns you used... to refer to a female human. Reminds me of my graduate studies.

It's so... ridiculous, but it's good! Well, kind of. I have a Master's in English Literature, and it was crazy-ville. Like any good cult, the intro levels lull you in with a false sense of security... and then each level adds another dose of absurdity until you're using Hemmingway's late-life anal experimentation via strap-on sex with his wife (burn your diaries, my friends. Don't leave it to chance!) to examine latent homo-eroticism in a novel he wrote 40 years prior. My hobby (video games, not strap-ons) is now popular enough to attract the same level of overthinking. I'm thrilled.

However, I'm also kind of bummed because I preferred how it was. I like the Dan & Drew or Alex & Vinny quicklooks that just have fun with it, and all the serious pseudo-artistic gravitas in the forums and media burns me out all over again. There's a reason I haven't bothered to pursue a Doctorate yet. I'd rather just watch Jeff make jokes about getting "dark sparked" in Transformers and drink a pumpkin ale. This sucks. :-P

Edit Addition: Not trying to leave out any of the other guys, by the way. I try to be equal-opportunity in referencing the staff. I'll plug Breaking Brad, Patrick's 1001 Spikes stuff, and the other duders later. Not that anyone cares, but I hate giving uneven praise to equally delightful silliness.

This brings a few questions to mind:

In your opinion, what insult isn't a loaded term when applied specifically to women? That's not meant to be dismissive. I really am curious what insults you don't have an issue with when they're applied to women.

What should be said in cases when a woman really is being a narcissist?

Would you be defending Sarah Palin if someone suggested that she is a narcissist?

I just watched a man excitedly talk about mostly japan-only Dragonball Z games for half an hour despite the part where said games look rather... poor. On the plus side, I now know where SaltyBet Mugen got all of its DBZ sprites from.

I'm pretty sure it applies only to Worth Playing's. To be honest, I probably watched only one over the course of its lifetime. Terrible indie supporter.

Man, I remember actually liking that saturday morning Sonic cartoon from the 90s. They were just fucking freedom fighters waging war against Robotnik and his robot army, it was great. I'm pretty sure there wasn't even any humans besides Robotnik. Just random cyborg anthropomorphic animals fighting robots in the post-apocalypse. It was actually pretty fuckin rad.

No idea if it holds up now, but at least I remember it being awesome. Unlike the games which I always thought while fun to look at (and listen to) were not fun to play. But it was my cousins Genesis and I was a kid, so I didn't want to talk bad about their games and any video game was a video game I'd be willing to play. Except for the one where you play as Knuckles. Gliding around clinging to walls was actually kinda fun. Better than going too fast to react to things in any cool way, or going as slow as wading through a pool of molasses.

Yeah, this is the crew from the cartoon that I remember being great:

@theht said:

Man, I remember actually liking that saturday morning Sonic cartoon from the 90s. They were just fucking freedom fighters waging war against Robotnik and his robot army, it was great. I'm pretty sure there wasn't even any humans besides Robotnik. Just random cyborg anthropomorphic animals fighting robots in the post-apocalypse. It was actually pretty fuckin rad.

No idea if it holds up now, but at least I remember it being awesome. Unlike the games which I always thought while fun to look at (and listen to) were not fun to play. But it was my cousins Genesis and I was a kid, so I didn't want to talk bad about their games and any video game was a video game I'd be willing to play. Except for the one where you play as Knuckles. Gliding around clinging to walls was actually kinda fun. Better than going too fast to react to things in any cool way, or going as slow as wading through a pool of molasses.

Yeah, this is the crew from the cartoon that I remember being great:

As I recall, there was a team at Sega that actually prototyped a Sonic game based on that cartoon. It would have been interesting to see how it might have turned out, as it was still back in the pre-Sonic Adventure era as a 2D side-scroller from what little I could gather.

As for the cartoon itself, I remember liking it, too. No idea if it holds up, but it was definitely one of what I thought were the better cartoons on Saturday mornings at the time. And that Sonic cartoon was far, far better than the other Sonic cartoon that was made at around the same time (the one that Mean Bean Machine took characters from). Which was just really dumb in an almost Wile E. Coyote sort of way.

@brodehouse: As I relayed to @marokai, my comment simply meant to point out a coincidence in the article vs. what you wrote. I found it funny. Not calling you sexist, I intended nothing of that sort.

In fact, the only thing you wrote that I was weary of was the personality disorder thing on its own. It could be because I have a personality disorder, and hearing them brought up in public forums always makes me a little tense. It seems like more often than not, someone is about to say a super shitty thing. You know, like using mental illness as an insult or whatever. Now that I understand you meant it literally/medically, as you did post the list of narcissistic symptoms, I'm not worried, and I apologize for my post if it seemed rude!

dark souls II, good game

@rusalkagirl: *hands to my sides* Alright, peace. Truce.

Listen, I'm not nearly above narcissism. I can relate a lot to the navel-gazing tendencies of that article, but I just think it's far more enriching to consider bigger ideas than isn't it great that I am me? Or to spend time ruminating on why people are failing to appreciate you the way you want to be appreciated. I could list a bunch of negative four dollar synonyms (because I love impressing people with my vocabulary) but I understand that's coming off as hostile.

As I said, I will cop to some degree of generational baiting. I'm giving them shit on account of them being twenty-somethings, and playing into a grander stereotype about millennials and narcissism. Actually, might be more a stereotype about twenty-somethings or young adults across a wider paradigm than even that. I can recognize it in myself, I can recognize it in my contemporaries, and it's such an unhelpful tendency I do feel an urge to castigate real funny examples.

When it comes to the Crytek CEO interview: I am not sure about this, but I don't know. I don't think he means to come off arrogant. It may be a language thing.

His main focus was purely on how much all of the things Crytek has done recently were "strategic" which to me implies "necessary for the future plans we have" but he does constantly contradict himself too. Other times, though, he seemed to genuinely want people to understand it was something they felt was necessary for the future.

I don't know, in a lot of ways I am super impressed by that interview. He was more candid, and dare I say human, than most executive interactions with games press. That doesn't excuse his tone deaf responses, but again I'm not sure that's entirely his intent. It seemed like it could be a language barrier thing for him. I don't know, though. That's just how it reads.

I also continue to enjoy the things that Rhianna Pratchett says.

If you had just made fun of beat poetry, I wouldn't have said a thing because beat poetry is dumb. There's a significant difference between mocking a form of art and singling someone out. I don't know where you're getting the "political bludgeon" thing from, either. I thought you said something shitty, so I pointed it out. For someone who's so abrasive when criticising others, you're awfully sensitive to being on the receiving end.

This is precisely why your original comment raised a red flag for me. The idea that women spend all day sitting around preening over themselves is an old stereotype, and the fact that the only thing you seem to have taken from the piece is that both of these women are not just narcissistic, but have fucking personality disorders, is bizarre to me.

I'm not sure what exactly you're asking for? I mean, I don't think calling a woman a shithead is a loaded term. There are plenty of insults that don't feed into a gender stereotype.

Look, I've mentioned this a couple of times before, but I'm not saying you can't call a woman narcissistic. But, if you are going to, I think you need to at least be aware of the fact that you're potentially playing into a pretty common stereotype that woman are facile and self-obsessed. It's like, if I was going to describe a hispanic person as lazy, I would be extremely judicious in making sure that was the right word to use.

Well I guess that answers the question "are games really art". Joking aside I agree with your sentiment. My favorite part of Giant Bomb has always been how unabashedly goofy and light hearted they are. I hope the tone of most of the content put out by the site proper never diverges far from that spirit no matter how far in the weeds the community can go sometimes. The Assassin's Creed outrage was particularly hilarious because because people were getting so miffed that the video game equivalent of a summer blockbuster popcorn movie isn't the vehicle of social change they apparently expected it to be.

There's a difference between being called a narcissist in public and being called a sexist in public. There's a difference in the way people react to 'this person is a narcissist' and 'this person is a sexist'. You know it, and you know why you chose to call me a sexist rather than a little insulting. I don't get the 'singling someone out'. I can poke fun at the entire Beat culture for being obnoxious, but I can't poke fun at a specific person who directly states her Allen Ginsburg influence because that's shitty.

Also beat poetry is dumb, but gonzo journalism isn't? It's another game of Subjective Soccer!

This is precisely why your original comment raised a red flag for me. The idea that women spend all day sitting around preening over themselves is an old stereotype, and the fact that the only thing you seem to have taken from the piece is that both of these women are not just narcissistic, but have fucking personality disorders, is bizarre to me.

Narcissism is a personality disorder.

Listen, I get it. You're mad that I ridiculed something you like. I sure did. I still would. That doesn't make me a sexist, and I don't think it's bizarre to read that article and conclude 'these two people are obsessed with themselves and what they want people to think about them'.

Also, I most often use the term 'preening' in reference to men and machismo, so to hear it called 'gender-coded' for women is mysterious to me. Especially since I think the majority of animals who preen for attention are male animals.

Look, I've mentioned this a couple of times before, but I'm not saying you can't call a woman narcissistic. But, if you are going to, I think you need to at least be aware of the fact that you're potentially playing into a pretty common stereotype that woman are facile and self-obsessed. It's like, if I was going to describe a hispanic person as lazy, I would be extremely judicious in making sure that was the right word to use.

Really, I would point out five specific examples of them living up to the label, like I originally did. And it wouldn't matter, because accusations of racism are not about being 'judicious' with my language, they're about cultural stick-in-the-ground vigilance. Anything that doesn't resemble the stick we're rallying around must be all the worst things in the world.

@brodehouse said:

I deliberately didn't call you a sexist. There's a distinction between being an active sexist and saying something that plays into a gender stereotype. I don't think I'm a sexist, but I still unconsciously say sexist shit way more often than I'd like.

Of course there's a difference between poking fun at a subculture and targeting a specific person. I wouldn't bat an eyelid at someone saying all games journalism is terrible, but if someone unfairly mocked, say, Patrick because of his chosen profession or because of how he writes I'd consider that kind of shitty.

You can think Gonzo Journalism is dumb, and I'd agree with you that a lot of it is. If that's all you'd said, we wouldn't be have this conversation.

No, it's not. There's such a thing as healthy narcissism, which is distinct from destructive narcissism characteristic of a personality disorder. Unless you're a mental health professional, you are not equipped to diagnose personality disorders.

You keep trying to ascribe motive where there is none. I'm not pushing an agenda, I'm not trying to make a political point, and I'm not mad because you don't like Cara Ellison's writing. I just thought you said something shitty, so I pointed it out.

What I'm asking for are some examples with a bit more specificity, rather than a completely generic insult that isn't critical of any particular aspect of a person's character. This is very much as if I asked you what you like to eat, and you replied "food."

If you're going to argue that there are loaded terms that people should be careful about using specifically when referring to women, I'm curious what you think those are, and what specific insults you don't feel are loaded terms.

@spaceinsomniac said:

You're being completely unreasonable. I can't possibly list out everyone word or phrase that might or might not be considered loaded, especially when it so often depends on the context. If you're looking for an example, calling a woman callous or bad-tempered doesn't playing into traditional gender stereotypes, but describing them as gossipy or manipulative can do.

Cara Ellison is awesome. Also, I haven't kept up with Worth Playing in awhile, but I always check in on Worth Reading. Please keep it going! @patrickklepek The breakdown of articles allows me to be lazy!

People be crazy...

Crytek have brought this on themselves! I tried working with their engine, but the constant updates, proprietary formats and different version plugins that only work with certain builds of the engine, make it a hassle to get used to. A small studio cannot really use their engine without investing time into schooling its members, first. And even then, there are simpler engines to work with, such as Unreal 4 or Unity.

Cryengine has the best lighting in the industry and a great world editor. You can see they are trying to create greatness, but they forget the human element in it. Their licensing conditions weren't great and to some extend ridiculous (before the commercial 9$ /month solution, you were not allowed to use their assets or shaders in your production, and you were not allowed to make a game resembling Crysis).

To go out and blame the employees and the economy for errors in management and ludacrous expansion with no big or original titles at hand, is pure arrogance on Yerli's side. And they just don't learn, still behave like little kids that can't take responsibility. The worst thing is that they used to make great games, up to Crysis 2 and then nothing.

Dear Rhianna Pratchett

Sorry some people didn't like your game. Tis true, you can't please everyone. However, I think if you take away all the jerks, the fools, and the terrible people saying vile things there is still a logical, thoughtful, and well spoken group of people who think your story was disappointing and that it put Lara in a bad light. That's their opinion, so of course you can take it with a grain of salt. Yet, I find it puzzling you see no merit in their thoughts and criticisms.

Perhaps, it is time to think about what they few logical voices says and think about your story critically. Chalking up of all criticism to "just cranks" does you a disservice.

Will you ever have the balls to talk about race? For such a dude who prizes himself on tackling hard hitting issues you NEVER talk about race. Only about sex.

I really enjoyed Terence Lee's article. We should make a list of good player-story driven games!