Worth Reading: 05/23/2014

There's nothing soulless about the designs from my perspective, and I'm having a very hard time understanding where the J-Pop descriptor comes into play. Seriously, in what way is Lightning's (or anyone else's) appearance "J-Pop"? I feel like you don't know what you're talking about.

I know everyone here is mostly in agreement, but this whole backlash over the farcry 4 cover is completely absurd. Especially considering the antagonist is clearly either mixed race asian or some asian (I guess officially he is burmese). Also, I know this might just be shocking to some people but homosexuality is not a big deal in that part of the world at least in tibet, nepal, bhutan etc. True Buddhist cultures couldn't give two shits about a persons sexual orientation, although there are strongly defined traditional roles for men and women. But the modern himalaya region is one of the most accepting places and full of wonderful people. Its like basically the opposite of texas.

I really think if ubisoft had any balls they would have made the antagonist obviously chinese. But people would either not get it because so many have no idea of the history of the region or they would think it was racist, despite the fact that china has almost ruined the native culture of that area of the world. If your not paying attention think 6000+ monasteries, 1000s of years of historical note keeping and relics, and the sovereignty of the dalai lama destroyed. This is all in the name of selling mopeds, prepared food, televisions etc. and building a rail system into mongolia to get all the copper they are now mining there.

Also I find it incredibly absurd that people picked up on the characters flamboyancy and western affect and were angry about that while the character is sitting on a statue of buddha with his head severed. Interesting imagery there for sure.

That notion leads me to hope that these implied concepts are explored well in the game. I have no problem with it at all but I hope the execution is more deft then in farcry 3. In that game exploring a tribal society and exploring what being a warrior means to those kinds of societies was interesting but it all felt too cursory. About half way through I was thinking "whats the point of this" and then the game goes completely off the rails towards the end. So if they are trying something similar with farcry 4 I hope they just either make it window dressing or go strait for the jugular.

Exactly. And it wasn't even just a "European White Male." He (and his co-horts) are the most selfish and unqualified white people on Earth for the task at hand. I don't know what the writer thought he was writing, but it wasn't what he claimed it was in post release interviews. I loved almost everything else about Far Cry 3, though.

you sir, nailed my thoughts exactly.

I believe I fall into the shitty millennial category you're describing and saw the image and felt nothing of the sort. Don't blame it entirely on my generation, it's really just a subsection of internet culture that is causing the problems. They overreact, lots of people pay attention, this is seen as positive reinforcement, so they overreact to the next thing.

Am I the only one who doesn't see racism on this Far Cry cover? Just because the guy who's head the villain's hand is on is somewhat brown, it's suddenly racist? Perhaps this villain just fucking hates everyone and doesn't care about race. He could well be championing equality by hating everyone equally.

You know what IS fucking racist though? Calling something racist on these kinds of grounds. Equality is not just equal rights for all socially, but the idea that we are all one and the same beneath our skin. Doesn't matter if he's a fuckin' brown guy being oppressed by the villain, it matters that it's a HUMAN BEING being oppressed by the villain. That's where the drama comes from, not the colour of his skin.

Problem is that stuff like is can really harm criticism of actually racist content. If you cry wolf every time you see a dog, people will just get tired of it. So when an actual wolf arrives nobody wants to listen anymore. Saying "this is racist and homophobic" because a seemingly white guy in a pink suite is an asshole to a brown guy without any other context is just plain overreacting. I've dug a little deeper into the criticism of this and there are a sizeable bunch of people who already condem this game as homophobic cause they believe the main guy is gay and portraying the villain as gay is seen as homophobic by some. And this stuff really needs to stop. If the character is portrayed well (which we obviously don't know yet) it shouldn't matter if he is gay or not. He can be a fantastic villain or he could be a horrible stereotype wether he is gay or not. We literally don't know anything about the story of the game or this guy. It could be horrible, racist and homophobic. But we don't know. Save criticism for when it's actually needed or you might find that you lost all people willing to listen. And that shouldn't happen cause it's important that stuff like this gets called out.

Turok was seriously so cool. I was too young to ever progress through the campaign without codes, but it was still a blast. The enemy and weapon designs were so captivating for a 10 year old.

I saw someone say it looked like Sega Genesis game box art and that's not really too far off, honestly.

No, it's judging a piece of art by the piece of art. There's some very clear imagery going on, no matter what's actually in the final product.

Maybe the game will be amazing and cleverly subversive. Or maybe it will be like the previous entry in the same series made by the same people. I know where I'd put my money.

The week before Far Cry 4 was offending everyone, it was a harmless, goofy Nintendo game. Must we always be in a rage about everything?

To be fair:

1. Tomodachi Life was far more substantial.
2. People weren't outraged...at first.

@generic_username said:

Just to clarify what a "millennial" is*: If you are born between the years 1982 and 2004 (inclusive on both ends), then you are a millennial. (Oh, also: Generation Y is the same thing as "millennials", too, for the record).

*because everyone who uses it [almost exclusively in a derogatory way] seem to think it's people between the age of 15 and 25, when in fact, it is everyone between the ages of 10 and 32. It's such a wide range of people that the use of the term is completely meaningless.

This dude in the comments on that IGN piece got it right, in my opinion. Also, I used to listen to some IGN podcasts until Moriarty’s attitude soured me on them completely. He does not strike me as someone who thinks these things through.Staephendedalus • 12 hours ago

Jesus Christ. For the last time, the controversy isn't about the fact that racism is in the game. It's about HOW the developer employs racism in a sensationalist manner as a cliche or plot device. It's taking a very serious topic and cheapening it. And you all want gaming to be taken seriously? Grow the eff up. That includes you, Colin. This is why gaming is still seen as 'the immature douche' medium. In fact, whenever I'm on any forum and the topic of gaming not maturing is brought up, I'll have a reason why. I'll just link them to a random comment section on IGN. Or an article like this, in which Colin deflects, derails, and makes light of a serious issue to reassure all the 15 year olds on here that they don't need to grow up.

Actually a generation is 15 years, it's

1945-60 Baby Boomers

1960-75 Generation X, No Future

1975-90 Generation Y, the "grunge" generation, Fuck Everything

1990-05 Millenials

2005-20 The internet generation

Is it just me or does it seem like that in this age of social media there's a new gaming controversy every week? I don't know whether or not that means gaming's maturing to the point that it can incite so much meaningful conversation surrounding it's subject matter or if it's just the opposite. Remember the Dead island statue controversy? Now that was something worth getting upset over and discussing. Now we're at a piece of box art, from a game that was just announced, portraying a villain putting another dude in a perilous and compromised position.

If I recall the Far cry 3's box art did something similar. There's precedent for the direction of the box art's theme. The only difference being this one portrays a presumed white guy putting a non white guy, as said before, in a compromised position. As far as pulling it off, did Far Cry 3's box art pull it off? I don't remember anyone being upset about that, but now this one which follows the same theme causes a wide stir. To be honest, I don't really know how to respond to the explanation that people are only upset because of the hierarchy of minorities in the image. Don't get me wrong though. I can definitely can see why it upset people. So I'm not demonizing anyone in that respect. We're all entitled to our own opinion.

Anyways, I see that this revised box art surfaced shortly after the whole thing blew up. They labeled it "limited edition" and the original image is no longer available on Amazon. I can only assume other retail outlets have followed suit. Probably a smart decision in the long run. I doubt most of us will remember this whole thing by the time the game comes out, given the Internet's track record of short term memory.

Also in the name of fairness, I almost completely ignored the Tomodachi story because I assumed it was just another Dead Island Bikini Bust or Tomb Raider Sex Moans.

Filling the air with wolf-cries and white-noise is, imho, doing more harm than good.

Sometimes you just gotta mindbreak a motherfucker and have him carry a live grenade while sobbing at your feet. If it's racist if that motherfucker happens to be of a different skin colour and I happen to be white, then you are the racist.

The idea in a lot of young white male american heads is that it's racist, even if said motherfucker is BieberHitlerBinladinCelineDion bad.

The people complaining FarCry is not handling sexuality with the nuances it deserve are the same people who see a blonde man with an ear ring in a pink suit and think he's gay. In the end the blonde guy could be gay, straight, bi, but guess what? in the game he probably won't fuck anybody, so he'll remain asexual following a long history of predomintantely asexual game characters.

Yep.

@newtstradamus: that's awesome!

This comes dangerously close to the extremely common argument of "You're the REAL racist for pointing out that racism exists."

You're right, race SHOULDN'T matter. But it does. A quick look at history and sociology shows that not only does race matter quite a bit, but also that racism is deeply ingrained in our society and our media. Most people who perpetuate bigotry honestly don't realise they're doing it since they can't see past their biases (due to them being human, and bias being an unconscious system.) Most people think that they're treating everybody equally, even when they're not. It's why the common "let's pretend race doesn't exist and just treat each other as equals" approach is ineffective at shifting the status quo towards something that actually resembles racial equality.

While you talk about the villain's potential motivations in the picture, the reality is that he can't have any motivations, because he's not real. The only people with motivations here are the people who put it together. More pertinent questions would be: What was the artist's motivation? Since this is the very first thing that Ubisoft showed regarding the content of the game, what where they trying to convey with the imagery, and why? What immediate emotional reaction are they trying to draw from the audience, and how is that achieved? Does the artist actually succeed, and are there any implications or subtext that might to be unintentional?

I'm not even arguing the picture is racist. I'm just arguing that if other people see racism where you don't, at least be a little more self aware than to dismiss it outright, and never, ever, assume that you might be too smart and too much of a good person to be biased, racially or otherwise. I spent pretty much all of my teenage years thinking I was too intelligent to be a bigot, and it's frustrating to see other people potentially fall into the same traps.

In conclusion, I think Far Cry 4 will be a really fun sandbox shooter and I hope I get to hunt a Yeti with a flamethrower.

Wait, so if a character in a game is racist, that makes the entire game racist? Interesting.

People have pointed out that pink-suit-guy is actually asian, when I look at it I still see a guy who could be from Europe. Let's say it is. Does it make the character potentially racist? Yes. Does it make the game potentially racist? No.

It's like saying Martin Scorsese movies are racist. It's like saying The Wire or The Sopranos are racist. Or Oz, because it depicts a gang of white supremacists picking on the black guys. The leader of that gang also enjoyed using one of the other white males as his bitch and raped him a couple of times. That didn't make the show homophobic. It's just reality.

People need to get a fucking grip. This is getting beyond ridiculous now.

@twisted: You completely misunderstand why people are apprehensive about the game. It has nothing to do with the fact that it may feature a racist villain.

@conmulligan: You know what? You're probably totally right. If you could give an explanation, I'd appreciate it.

To be honest, the racist villain part is all I seem to be reading, I could be missing a big part of this.

@twisted: I can't speak for everyone, but the gist of it is that a lot of people, myself included, don't have a ton of faith that Ubisoft will tell a nuanced story featuring a different culture after Far Cry 3 was so ham-fistedly executed. When the cover was revealed, and it seemed like Far Cry 4 might tread the same ground (white guy swoops in to save the hapless oppressed foreigners), it was easy to jump to conclusions.

Best Worth Reading in a while. Keep 'em up, Scoops.

Let me give you a hypothetical scenario: A woman gets hired to work in some office building. Her new, male boss acts like a patronizing asshole to her. Is the male boss a sexist?

If we're acting on a rational, objective basis here, instead of 'feelings', we have to say no, not necessarily. Since we don't know how he treats or views his male employees based on the information given. He may, in fact, be a patronizing asshole to everyone. Well, likewise we don't have the full picture of this villain either.

Right, because telling someone to "Grow the eff up" for having a different view is a clear sign of maturity. Talk about a lack of self-awareness.

That really sums the whole thing up. "Judging a game by its not-even-final cover."

Man. I could really go for a new Ape Escape game.

A lot more contentious articles this week, huh? I read a number of them, and I'll read some more next week while you're gone. Your thoughts on Vinny ring true. I have no doubt that the man will make cool stuff. But it will be different, and I really loved what was already there, and I'm going to miss his interactions with everyone so much. You've done great on your own, Patrick, but you are primarily a really good news reporter(and... interview reporter??). Vinny has always been cool as a producer and a collaborator, and wishing no offense to Alex, he is no replacement for the combined Brad, Jeff and Drew in terms of "cool people to work together with on something". This would have happened anyway, it's because of family. But I have no idea why you guys felt the need to expand a site popular for the chemistry between a small crew into a franchise of small crews that may or may not also have that chemistry. It's like if Supergiant Games decided that what their focused little indie team with their own voice and style really needed was Greg Kasavin and JenZee leaving to start their own, even smaller studios that don't really work together but sort of call each other once in a while.

Thought Leigh Alexander's article would be about her passionate writing style. I dislike it when she describes single games and "emotional journeys" through them or whatever, but I appreciate it in articles like this about, you know, the feelings you get from playing games(or rather, procrastinating) in general. It was nice. I can certainly see a bit of myself in the way she plays games(or doesn't play games, rather).

The Bulletstorm article sounds like the Ghost Trick/that scifi game on kickstarter thing of solving your own murder. I'm glad the most resonant part of their ideas has lived on even if their game never got to see the light of day, it has proven to be a fun idea. They talk about how it would be the most amazing game ever, but so is every project that never got made. It's a shame the studio has had rotten luck, but like their publishers, I can't take them on their word when they say their game(that sounds like it would be spread very thin))would totally be amazing if I just gave it a shot.

Christian Nutt's article about "roguelikes" is a bit of a bummer to me. Yeah, it's good that gamers get new and exciting experiences every time they turn in, and that developers get to make more stuff more easily and cheaply. But the other side of that coin is that procedurally generated environments can make for way more boring games than a planned experience, where every environment looks the same because they are the same and excessive difficulty is eased by carrying some stuff over into your next life instead of proper balancing. Some roguelike(like-likes) are great, especially ones with a ton of content and good basic gameplay like Spelunky, and they make for good games to watch streams of. But I sorta hope it dies out as a "trend" soon. It's part of the reason I'm excited for Hyper Light Drifter(as far as indie games go), to capture a sense of adventure in the traditional sense rather than a sense of "Going as far as I can, then die and do it again and this time the dog will be in a different spot, just another run".

Last week with John Oliver's take on Tomodachi Life was super funny! Was really surprised by the effort they put into it, did not expect 3D animation.

Kris Ligman finding a representative (in her headcanon, mind) in Phoenix Wright is good for her, I suppose. It's cool to find a character that mirrors you. To my mind, there are a lot of characters who care about others without having sexual relations to someone, especially in stuff aimed at families(One of her criteria was "not aimed at children", but what's Phoenix Wright then, rated M for Mature?). I have no idea about her question, though, how to represent an asexual romance in a game. But it sounds like it would be the most unobtrusive romance subplot ever.

Adam Sessler's article was a great read. I know next to nothing of the man. From my impression, he was some guy at Gamestop with a huge head that Jeff talked with about Bioshock Infinite on camera that one time. I never knew he had such a history, and I'm sad he had such depressing last years. Although when he describes working as not being able to stand any aspect of his job aside from playing the games, I'm glad that he stopped.

The Far Cry 4 cover stuff just reminds me of this article by Shamus Young(about this video by Errant Signal) http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=22737

It talks about how people don't seem to get the point of discussing things like how the game mechanics are in conflict with a game's themes, how they try to reduce it to a "Is this game good or bad?" rather than an interesting discussion for its own sake. Paraphrasing, "it doesn't mean that the developers were racist or it's a bad game, it's just where the most interesting things to talk about are". Personally? I do not think these things are very interesting, but I do feel like people try to make it a "good or bad, is this racist" thing whether they have the impression that it is or not. It does not make for an interesting discussion, it makes for finger pointing("This image is racist!" "You must be a racist for thinking this image is racist, that man isn't white." "This image is clearly homophobic." "Anyone in a pink suit has to be gay now? What a stereotypical view you have of homosexuals."), and I'm never happy when the number of comments on Worth Reading reaches triple digits because people are calling one another out for being sexist or racist or whatever the most divisive topic is about that week.

I agree Patrick's doing a great job and his output is only going to get better - I absolutely cannot wait for his Crusader Kings 2 coverage as that game is completely amazing. Well worth watching the Idle Thumbs play through and the story of that magnificent bastard Ragnar if you've never seen CKII.

However I'd hope Vinny is going to do his own thing and not follow the same template so to speak? What works for Patrick works for Patrick I reckon.

In the end though, I think a wider spread of Giant Bomb geographically is a fantastic opportunity for the content to broaden to the gaming community around them. It's all good.

Giant Bomb UK next please! ;-)

Even if the villain was horrible racist piece of shit, that doesn't make the game (or even just this image) racist; it all depends on how he's portrayed and how he fits into the greater narrative. The question isn't "Is the villain racist?" because the villain isn't a real person. He can't be "judged" as a human because he doesn't exist.

What we ACTUALLY have is a piece of art, fully formed. Not only that, but this is the first piece of art to be released about the game. This is the thing that they specifically chose to be people's first impression of Far Cry 4.

If we're going to be actually critical, we have to judge it on those merits.

lol Patrick really loves to talk about himself at times. Anyway I hope to hear more about what Vinnys and Alex's set up situation is going to be sometime soon.

Not according to the guys who named the Millennials, in the book in which they named 'em: [i]Generations: The History of America's Future, 1584 to 2069[/i] by Strouss and Howe.

Also, the Baby Boomers lasted until around 1962-1964ish. There is no hard or set time length for what a "generation" is. It's an arbitrary grouping of people born within an arbitrary set of dates.

And there is not yet a name for anyone post-2004. The internet generation and the information generation are two names being thrown around, but those are far from being concrete.

Keep killing it PK.

@hailinel: Don't worry, I know very well what I'm talking about.

@hassun: I'd appreciate a better explanation, then. The one you provided is woeful.

I see. And how are 'people' so certain that it is a white man subjugating a person of color and it isn't just a person subjugating a person?

Nothing implies that it is the former. That's 'people's' perception of it. It's 'people' who are being racist here. They are making a distinction between the color of someone's skin.

I think one of the things regarding discussions of potential racism, sexism, etc., that we need to remember is that those discussions ARE worth having. These things are (and will always be) elements of our society because that's part of being human. Even if people want to jump on the Far Cry cover, they certainly should be at least considered, even if they are disagreed with (as I disagree with them).

People tend to want to avoid these discussions. It's tiring to think about this stuff, it's hard work, and sometimes we just want to play games. I get that, but at the same time, just because a discussion is difficult or uncomfortable or even consistently advanced to the point that we are momentarily tired of having it is no reason not to have it.

People sometimes say things like, "But this gets in the way of REAL racism/sexism/etc.," as if they have some clear definition of what separates "real" bigotry, whether purposeful or subconscious, from "not real" bigotry. I disagree with this notion. We need to do more listening to one another (even if we end up disagreeing) than talking about how we know what is real racism, etc.

I think this goes for everyone on all sides of any of these sticky social issues. People jumped on Mark Cuban last week for admitting that he, like all of us, is bigoted in some ways. In fact, he noted that the key is to be cognizant of how we might be acting in this way, which really is a great message. It takes maturity to admit your own weaknesses no matter what they are. However, some people jumped on the "I'm bigoted" part and Cuban apologized to the family of Trayvon Martin for being insensitive even though "black guy in a hoodie" bigotry is what played into Mr. Martin's death in the first place. I'm glad we can bring that discussion of judgment by clothing choice back out into the light. We all do it, and we all need to be reminded not to do it.

As for Far Cry 4, I'll hold judgment until I play the game. Art always gets criticized by many types of people, and one thing I'd like us to do is to deal with the criticism without pooh-poohing the critics. If video game fans want games to be taken seriously as art, it's time to develop stronger critical minds and to be able to intelligently discuss (and if need be, counter) some of the ideas that people have about the fans, games, etc.

Am I the only who didn't think of race at all with the Far Cry 4 cover? I saw it, it reminded me of Far Cry 3, and made me super excited.

Nope. I just saw one guy being a dick to another guy. Didn't see anything racial about it.

@kentonclay: Everytime someone tells me "we need to have conversations about this topic, it's important and brings us together" I look at posts like this and remember "Oh, right, I'm not the one that's refusing to actually talk about it in a back-and-forth manner."

"Fight your dad, fight god. Sometimes your dad and God were the same person (a lot of people answered "of the Christ" when I asked about "passion"; you know, crucifixion, self-sacrifice)."

- A snippet in Leigh's article where she either completely misses the movie reference or tries to spin it into something way more serious than it should be.

@marokai said:

I've already made two serious posts, and I'd just be saying the same thing over and over. At best, "I don't see race" is naive and overly simplistic and does nothing but help keep the status quo exactly where it is. At worst, it's bigoted and spiteful and is used to actively downplay and dismiss very real racial issues.

"I don't see race" is not so much naive, as it's essentially impossible. "I don't see what about this situation made you come to the conclusion that race is a factor" is what we're arguing here.

@hailinel: I'll switch to PM.