The Giant Beastcast: Episode 08

@madara117: Either you are one of the luckiest human beings imaginable, or you are simply unaware of the systemic racial bias that pervades every single part of this country. Minority groups in this country are discriminated against in every possible sphere, and no amount of pretending racism is over so you can happily focus on mass media consumption will make that not true. The Deep South isn't a hotbed for intolerance? The families of Senator Pinckney, Cynthia Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lance, Depayne Middleton-Doctor, Twyanza Sanders, Daniel Simmons, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, and Myra Thompson would most definitely disagree with you there.The rest of the country is incredibly prejudiced as well (ask Eric Garner or Michael Brown's families), but it's only been sixty years since Emmitt Till was lynched for daring to speak to a white woman while black.

Your personal experiences do not invalidate centuries of pain and suffering minorities have endured in America. If you really can't handle the merest mention of ideas more complicated than "This game makes me Feel Good/This game is Weird," there's another podcast posted on this website every Tuesday that pretty much only does that and talks about weird eating habits.

Austin was presumably hired by Jeff to bring a critical and academic perspective that Giant Bomb has been lacking, because he is by far the best writer who has ever worked for the site. Austin is also a black man, and hiring him brought a different voice to a staff that had until his hiring been composed solely of straight white men. Asking him not to speak on the representation of marginalized groups in game is asking him to actively suppress his identity as an intellectual and a minority, and that's not something you should ask someone to do so you can hear more about the noise mario makes when he jumps on a goomba.

What they said about Iwata is exactly how i felt when Ryan passed.

@masterbrief Yeah, I agree. It really does seem like Austin rambles on at times, or adds things for seemingly no reason/ plugs his old articles. Though I feel like Patrick never seemed as rushed to get things said as Austin. It can lead to a lot of him talking over people, or vice versa, which I know annoys the hell out of Vinny. And me for that matter.

Then visit http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=game+design&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Agame+design and make your own game. You will never get anywhere by sitting on your duff and pontificating. The only valid course of action is to do it yourself; if you refuse to do it yourself then you have to just accept what others give you.

Christian Nu Metal? Brian "Head" Welch has got you.

I sit in a cubicle all day and think about how I can share things with the world that joy me beyond what terrible existence my life has amounted to (when we're talking a million dollars in medical bills it really becomes overbearing) and I always tell people about Giant Bomb. Giant Bomb has became my favorite website on the internet hands down. I spent this entire weekend catching up on videos (and watching about 8+ hours of EVO!) and tonight I listened to this beastcast and watched a few quick looks that I had missed in the past few days (godzilla, the golf one) ... I can't quite share how much happiness I get when I listen to the giant bomb crew sit around and talk about various topics. It is like at that moment I have friends sitting next to me at that time talking to me about things that make me laugh and smile - there is no hate or venom in their words. I doubt anyone from the giant bomb crew will read this as this was several days ago but I just want to thank you for everything you always make what essentially is non-stop waking pain and turned it into what I rarely lack in this life and that is joy. I am 32 years old and I have had friends come and go, had amazing parties and been at amazing parties, I've experienced a good "chunk" of life that a lot of people never would have but at the end of the day my life is laying in the bath resting my wary body or laying in bed waiting for sleep to take me to the next day where eventually it will end and when you talked about the "memories we make" and we're all connected, yes, it was a joke I am sure but it brought a tear to my eye because you are right some of us will never experience a fraction of anything and that is a crying shame and sharing those moments with us. Thank you for giving me one thing to look forward to as I navigate to giant bomb every day I get home from work and get to smile from ear to ear until sleep takes me to the next sleep.

@sev10: yeah he definitely needs to work on that. Also less hockey talk all around lol.

Squirtle!

@belialjtg87, @austin_walker: Please do continue speaking on these issues.

@alex not sure if you were calling it out on purpose or just coincidental when you said that every NHL team has a Fratellis style drum beat but when Jeff mentioned the game having Chicago's goal song specifically.. it actually is Chelsea Dagger by The Fratellis.

Stunning performance from the guys , including Austin 'Language is descriptive, not prescriptive' Walker!

For Rocket League I want a Giant Bomb flag, a Luchadeer flag, and a flag of Vinny's face.

Who blamed you or guilt tripped you?

@milkman: Yeah, they didn't really talk much about soccer teams. There's also the Western NY Flash (a ladies team) and the NY Cosmos.

And the New York Red Bulls, who play in Jersey but so do the Jets and Giants

@striderno9: "Why does the gender or skin color of a character matter?" <- For me, it's nice to have characters, at times, who may look like me, or who don't look like the same characters I've always seen: gruff white dude.

If the characters in Modern Warfare were bright green, it would matter to you, because it wouldn't make sense to have a game set in a realistic world, but the characters don't look like what you expect. So non-white people exist in the military, but none have been the protagonist yet? Why can't someone speak about that? At the very least, race matters to the companies who put out these games. The gender and race of the character is considered because some believe that it has an effect on sales.

I think a social justice warrior would annoy me if I had to hang out with one, but @austin_walker doesn't come across to me as that. He's not having shouting matches with anyone. He's a young dude doing his masters, and he has a certain philosophy about society. I don't see it as any worse than Jeff talking about how much he hates certain things.

@reelife It's up to you if you feel guilty over something you have no role in. You can't always escape real life listening to these podcasts. Iwata died,for example Can't escape from that being mentioned on the show.

@austin_walker: I mentioned how much I appreciated your perspective via Twitter DM a few weeks back, but I wanted to register here and comment on it. Hearing your thoughts on how minority-led DLC is frequently handled was great, and I'm glad to hear you will be continuing to bring similar topics up regularly.

Would love to have you guys bring on a female perspective in the future, even if only as a spot in the "rotating" guest seat.

Love the show guys (even if you did fail to mention the true NYC soccer team - NYCFC!)

@vichussmith:Most of us don't care about whom we are playing as but what annoys me is that people are attacking developers about it. Here's the thing though, I'm not American thus your politics and problems does not concern me in the slightest (I for some reason assume you're American based on nothing). I believe in creative choice and developers should have all the right to create whatever they wish.

I'm currently developing a horror game which has 2 female protagonists in it, did I do this because people forced me to? No. I did it because a lot of horror movies that I grew up with and love today have female leads in them. I didn't do it to pat myself on the back.

Having white male protagonists in games shouldn't be a problem at all, seriously people are trying to find a balance between everything today ranging from culture and gender and it seems to be getting out of hand. At least for you Americans that is. Seems to be a case of everyone vs everyone and how everyone hates everything. Let developers tend for themselves and start enjoying games instead of finding faults everywhere.

EDIT: Your comment about Iwata, of course if must be talked about, it's news right? But I don't think they will bring him up in every beastcast that follows this one.

@reelife:I don't want developers to be attacked at all, but are we talking insults and threats, or are we talking arguments against the recycling of character archetypes, such as the Gruff White Dude (TM).

I don't want developers to feel forced to diversify, either. What I do want is for people to continue to say "Hey, developers, I'm a woman, I'm trans, I'm Asian- can you make a game with someone who has had an experience similar to mine?" With unprecedented access to the people who create our games, I implore everyone to reach out and converse with these people and give constructive feedback.

No, Iwata's death would not be a constant topic of discussion, but race is a topic that wont be going away for a while. I don't think that the topic is brought up in every episode. I'm pretty sure of this, because we're less than double digits into Beastcast episodes.

@vichussmith: I know that the Doom 4 developers was attacked regarding this very subject.

"Make an experience similar to mine"? So you want a game based on how it is to be an asian-trans-woman? Wouldn't that be more fitting for a movie or something?

And yes this topic has been brought up since episode 02.

So Austin's cryptic references to Kingdom Hearts at the end coupled with the fact that Vinny tweeted a picture of the first game a few weeks back. Am I crazy in thinking that their might be a Kingdom Hearts playthrough by the Beast Crew?

OK, maybe I should've used slashes so it could be made explicitly: asian/trans/woman Let's go with that, though. Why would the story of an Asian trans woman only have to be the subject of a film? The story of an adventuring male archaeologist used to be just the topic of a film until video games came along. The story of an Asian Trans Woman could be the subject of an adventure game, a visual novel, an action RPG, etc.

I don't know the story of the Doom 4 developers. All I know is that people didn't like the way the game looks, not any issues of diversity. I do not remember hearing issues of diversity brought up in every episode of the Beastcast, but maybe I have selective memory. It is, after all, 2 hours a podcast. I could have let it in one ear and out the other.

@vichussmith: I don't understand the importance for you to have that specific type of character in a movie or game other than just to show "this is very important for social construct". But hey, making games is very easy nowadays. Knock yourself out.

@reelife: I wasn't asking for that specific of a character in games. Those were example- three different examples.

I've seen what's on Steam Greenlight. No it's not very easy to make games. At least, not competent ones.

@alistercat: I dunno...I thought Austin's examples were bad. Ubisoft has done pretty well with diversity, and with as massive as the teams are that work on the AC games...I don't see how anyone can pick and choose the A,B,C,E,F,H, etc. teams...since, like I said, so many teams touch those games.

The Batgirl DLC was a bad one, too. Batgirl will not get a game, on the level of AK, in my lifetime because she's not a big enough character. If Wonder Woman hasn't gotten one, who is the crowned jewel of feminism at DC Comics...how could Batgirl? Complaining about her not getting a major release is ignoring major realities about commercial art that comics and games. And WBM isn't a bad team. Origins was great, and if a Bat-fan has to choose between which team would be better suitedfor telling a story with a female lead, especially a popular Bat-family character, it's WBM. They're better storytellers, and seemed to have a far better understanding of the characterizations.

I feel like there has to be better examples and better cases, but Austin seemed to pick the ones I can't agree with.