FierceDeity

...[W]e should hire based on merit, and not gender.

Friend, I'll be honest: Every time I hear this phrase uttered anew, my brain explodes. The unfortunate — and unintended, I know! — insinuation being made here is that "merit" and "gender" (or "race," or "sexual orientation" or whatever) are somehow mutually exclusive. Yikes! Instead of letting people own their personal achievements, we perhaps suspect them of being hired according to some mysterious "quota." Yikes again!

No one is saying "hire a woman instead of a competent, qualified person." Yikes, yikes, yikes!

- Jenn Frank, The Rolodex

And that "Fuck you" was specifically related to the billionth time someone implied that Dan was the most qualified. Which was the point of my earlier replies in this thread detailing Maddy's qualifications, which in turn was met with a concerted effort to move the goalposts.

Anyone who thinks Samantha was out of line doesn't realize the context.

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.

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.

@joshwent: I'm kind of in the same situation. Whenever I think of Zenimax, I think of that and the "Scrolls" thing. And then I remember what studios they own, and I feel really bad for the developers of those games. They need to tell their legal team to calm the F down.

This story feels strangely like the whole "DOTA" thing between Blizzard and Valve. "Heck yeah DOTA is a pretty good user-made map in Warcraft 3. Wait, are those DOTA 2 numbers for real ?! HEY DOTA IS TOTALLY OUR IT'S IN W3 IT'S OUR GIVE US THE MONEY GIVE IT GIVE IT GIVE IT !"

And I'm slowly warming up to the idea of Facebook owning Occulus. They seem to be saying the right words, and saying them the right way. This response is an example.

Ah yes final destination mode where everyone who uses it is automatically flagged as an asshole. Seriously why is the community for these games so damn toxic.