I still do the ol left trigger right trigger, but as i get closer to 30 the gameplay gets thinner and thinner. Tacking thin RPG elements on haphazardly and the plot from a B-movie seems to be the trend to combat this.

Between the concept that it's so divorced from the actual, very real drama of what being in a firefight means to humans on earth...to the very samey "video game logic" by which most games DO work, they're not substantive. I had at least hoped most military shooters by 2016 would at least be at a "GRAW with Sniper Elite 3's ballistic modeling" phase, not "Remember Modern Warfare?".

Also, it's either "run forward and DONT STOP, dont bother thinking" or worse a more ArmA "I don't really know where I got shot from or how I could have prevented most of my deaths". That's an actual dilemma.

The genre has been all but stale since Modern Warfare, and I don't like progression in the MW sense, unlocking better guns, in any game with a competitive mode/focus. "Sidegrades" or not, it's a poor thing to balance a game around. Especially if it's got microtransactions.

I loved these games for almost 2 decades, but it's one of the genres that has matured the most poorly. The most fun I've had shooting dudes lately was with FO4 and that had more to do with the (admittedly thin) settlement system than anything.

Yep, agreed. I always consider it weird that this happens (it's not like we all haven't grown up with SciFi being pretty explicit about themes, black and white faces on Star Trek TOS to pick one popular example outside of novels) but it does seem that the setting here has acted as a lightening rod for commentary and avoiding that would likely have created a game with identical themes that was talked about far less for the ethics it promotes. I think that's a pretty sad state of affairs and hopefully something that corrects over time as academia becomes more interested in dissecting games with the same depth as other mediums.

@jmic75: dude... That response is probably the best thing I've read on this site in years. Bravo!

@spaceinsomniac: I hope you forgive any typos and such. I'm on my phone and just stopped for a moment.

The decision is always in the hands of the developer. In the hypothetical you put forward, I'd personally be against changes. But it isn't my call to make ultimately. Developers have changed game content due to religious concerns before. Big example being Ocarina of Time's change to the Fire Temple's music.

I think consumers have a misunderstanding about how much control or ownership they have over a game. In most cases, they confuse the fact that they will buy a game or have bought a game with a mindset that gives them authorship over the game. Which isn't the case. BioWare, for instance, didn't have to change Mass Effect 3. Consumers didn't have any ownership over it. They didn't own the game, they owned a copy of the game.

Short version: it is always up to the devs. It is certainly not up to gamers or consumers. And if a developer does change something after an outside group says something, they are not being creatively suppressed because that change is also a creative decision.

I wish the game didn't clearly mark enemies separate from civilians, it shouldn't tell you which is which so you'd have to observe more closely if you don't want to be murdering innocents left and right.

Overall though I find the whole idea of "virus breaks out, suddenly New York is under control of looter armies and only super secret agents can save us" so effing stupid that I don't even bother with the deeper moral problems of it all. It's stupid to the core and the implications of stupid are just more stupid. It's a game about killing stuff and getting better loot from it with a flimsy facsimile of real life pasted over the top, a mask so ill-fitting that it doesn't even fall into the uncanny valley. Nothing about the core mechanics of The Division fits remotely with its setting. A game about cooperating to take down hordes of super-powered monsters to find magical items. This game is probably the biggest example of ludonarrative discobiscuits out there.

As far as power fantasies go, I prefer the ones that don't beat around the bush and outright cast you as the villain. Think Prototype, for example. A game about killing everybody else so that you may stay alive and keep spreading a horrible virus, turning the city into a festering hellhole populated only by mutants.

I'd appreciate hearing an argument for presupposing messaging in every single game. You can absolutely wring a message out of literally anything, game or not, but that doesn't make it always reasonable to do so, nor does it automatically ascribe any particular message to the thing in question.

It's worth distinguishing between a game actively pushing a message, one that incidentally carries connotations, and your own personal readings. The Division can, at once, provoke questions of morality as you gun down people ostensibly because they're looting before partaking yourself, while itself not actually asking those questions, intending to, or even caring about them. The authoritative imprinting of personal interpretations onto the very fibres of a work is inherently egotistical and domineering.

That swings both ways of course, as releasing a game with content that obviously--despite supposedly being unintentionally--raises those questions, is a pretty glaring oversight. At the very least it is in retrospect. Nonetheless, a particular perception of the game that dismisses those questions isn't failing to recognize the actual nature of the game that is asserted to be your own particular perception of it.

The difference is when someone explicitly says "it's actually this way, whether you see it or not." An ultimate conviction that's so plainly emblematic of a greater problem in dialogues.

I think that mindset downplays, or even disregards wholecloth, other factors that might influence a creative decision that are besides creativity. There can be integral nuance to that sort of situation, which is unduly squashed out in the process of reducing any change to just another creative call.

@theht said:

I've actually been on that side of things when I worked as a designer. I was on a title that received pushback for certain stereotypes. The reality is that it still came down to a creative choice to respond to the criticism and implement changes or not. This will only be complicated in the case of large corporate mandates but that power dynamic is generally understood at the start of development in a contract with the publisher. In theory, this applies to shareholders too but I can't think of a case where a shareholder meeting altered game content. At least not off the top of my head.

The philosophical answer here is that, broadly, we are only ever under authority that we consent to. At least, when it comes to creative engagements. The practical answer is that development tends to account for the possibility of such criticisms and changes during the process, while a developer is never subject to any necessary obligation to change their game outside of the exceptions above.

(For the record, the game's content remained unchanged.)

@theht said:

Being under an authority that's consented to (whether it's liked or not), doesn't absolve the act of consenting and the authorities in question of being potential causes for concern. Protestation from any sphere that in fact leads to a change doesn't leave the buck purely in the hands of the developers. Market, corporate, and social pressure can have a role in the process, and it isn't always sensible to shirk that role when discussing authorial intent, authorial control, and so-called censorship.

I speak vaguely and without judgement because I'm not taking a hardline position on creative control here. I am however pushing back against the notion that changes made resultant from outside pressure cannot ever be indicative of creative suppression.

That it's possible for art to be many things at once isn't being put on blast here, nor is the way we tend to consume art. When I experience a work and form an interpretation of it, I don't impose that interpretation onto others. In recognizing the nature of art, we recognize its versatility. Aggrandizing your own viewpoint by insisting on its rootedness within a work goes beyond having a personal experience. What we do--quite consciously--when we play a game, is craft from it--using all that we are--a personal opinion.

Sometimes a cigar is much more than just a cigar. Sometimes it also really isn't. Identifying where, when, how, and to whom it is and isn't is maintaining a measured approach to differing angles, without necessarily arbitrating that one is the one and only true to the indignity of those who disagree, the degradation of the self, and the boxing-in of the work. It is often (reasonably) implied that a position someone takes is a personal one, but to explicitly expand that to one that is either accepted as true or ignored is, in a sense, presenting a false black-and-white. Either someone agrees that you're right, or they ignore the fact that you're right.

It essentially boils down to distinguishing subjectivity and objectivity, which, again, speaks to a greater problem in dialogues. Not to imply that subjectivity is some sterling brooch that isolates any and all from criticism, or elevates any and all to rationality. Mistaking a subjective for an objective though, taking your personal conviction (because why would you actually believe something if you didn't think it true) and turning it into an incontrovertible (in a non-rhetorical way), is quite hand-in-hand with closed-mindedness.

@theht: Someone gave a hypothetical, to which I gave an answer informed by my experience; it has been my experience that (in a broad sense) consumers fundamentally misunderstand the nature of labor when it comes to dictating who has control over a piece of art.

Worse, they have uncomfortably loose notions of what constitutes suppression or censure. Among the things often misunderstood is the role of criticism and review. Hard criticism against a game isn't a call for it to be altered or any type of judgement of anything other than the game itself.

When you critique, you make qualitative statements. That's just how it goes. It should be fundamentally understood by a reader that these statements are from a single, personal lens of interpretation. It is a mistake for critical thoughts to be full of gratuitous vacillations because timid criticism is poor criticism.

I'm amazed how many people are simply unwilling to think about games they enjoy differently.

If we want different experiences in games, we need to examine them and critique them.

Otherwise studios will just keep giving you another bland, left trigger-right trigger, shooter every year and expect you to buy it.

There's nothing wrong stepping into a new game and expecting it, as a piece of art, to build upon the themes and stories of previous games just like it builds upon the mechanics and designs of previous games.

@finaldasa: I agree that there are a lot of people with that attitude. But there is also a lot of people who are willing to debate and have deeper conversations about games who just don`t agree with specific critiques and convey these feelings with well written and calm-headed responses (not in the majority I know, bear with me though). These people are however often met with responses that tell them that they are just not willing to engage in discussion and critique of the entertainment they like when they are actually actively trying to do so. I think these kinds of responses are just as harmful to nurturing intelligent discussion as the responses that don`t want games to be criticized at all. You don`have to agree with all critique to willing to critique something.

It probably doesn`t help that games journalism tend to be very one sided in these matters. It`s not often you see articles with opposing viewpoints from the major websites. So when opposing viewpoint gets shouted down in comment sections debate doesn`t really get room to grow.

Note that I am not talking about you or Heather (who has been doing a great job of responding in the comments) specifically, but more about the general tone I see in a lot of these articles and forum threads. Also if I come of as aggressive I apologize that`s not my intention.

Oh, absolutely. Like I said, it's often reasonably implied that the position a person takes is a personal one, and I certainly don't deny that there are misunderstandings surrounding the creation and alteration of works, or that sometimes some folks take reviews and critiques too severely. Obviously the substance of the review or critique determines how justified they are or not, but it's all besides the point. The point is that social, corporate, or market pressures on a work are potentially influential, and their part is worth paying mind to when discussing the nature of creation and alteration. I get wanting to push back on the idea that a bad review is somehow censorship though. That's pretty silly.

The other point is that explicitly stepping beyond your personal lens of interpretation such that your perspective presupposes itself in supercession of any other within a dialogue is a misstep. A work holding many (even opposing) meanings is not necessarily carried by the work itself, but rather the people who hold those perspectives. Asserting one (or many) to being intrinsic to the work, as opposed to distinct interpretations of the work, is off-base. Their signifiers are obviously within the work, but just as not giving consideration to these interpretations doesn't refute their existence for other people, having an interpretation doesn't belie it's rejection by other people.

@odinsmana: You don't come across as aggressive and I totally understand. There are few conversations happening about games and games criticism.

And it's complicated. To moderate a conversation correctly you need to be careful about how far commenters can go. Or you can let them have free reign. So do you restrict the conversation, possibly preventing it, or do you let everyone in?

It's a hard question to answer really.

What is the difference between the division and any other game where you are doing a thing? Why can't I stop and do taxes in game or make a meal in super mario? Really this is just how tyouy want the game to be. Work at the game company if you want to change the game.

This is a bizarre article and it really pertains to just opinion about how we want a thing to be.10-20 years ago we never heard of people complaining about the way the workers are treated at black mesa, or why there are no animals in the Quake world.

The division has the worst writing and the least interesting story I have ever seen.

Ah nothing like the riveting conversation where a man is told to find his balls, or some guy is a fucker, or some lady is a bitch. It has the worst dialog in any game. I love the part where she says "off like a prom dress" wow great writing. I don't know how the voice actors could even read half the lines.

I played through the entire story getting to level 30 very fast so I could do end game ( I have 1000 phoenix credits banked for the record). I love the game, but the story and the writing? It is so very bad. Towards the end of the game someone says "if it weren't for you we wouldn't have done this and this and this and this" and I don't even remember doing any OF that. Even if I do a mission 3-4 times I still forget the layout. The whole scenario and everything is much of the same. It is beautiful don't get me wrong, but you never feel like an impact to any of the environments or characters. It is a great shooter but a bad story. I don't know any of the bad guys or what they did or why. They never try to explain it well. They throw one crappy cutscene at you and then expect you to feel like you are involved. Nothing ever happens after that..

Interesting read, but playing The Division purely as a nice looking loot driven shooter, which seems to be all the game is worth, I've never even considered these criticisms. The whole time I've had podcasts or videos playing too so I've only been the gist of what's going on with the city and story. The whole thing is way too video game-y with all the levels and loot and health bars and damage numbers for me to even think of any of these criticisms because I can't take the game that seriously. I mean, it would always be interesting to see a video game with more of the things talked about in the article, but at some point it sounds closer to an 'RPG' and a very different game. Maybe that game would have been more interesting, I dunno, but the mindless cover shooting as it is, is alright.

It's not an unwillingness so much as I don't see the point in asking things to be something they are not. Could I critique a Martin Scorsese film for not being more like a Wes Anderson movie? Absolutely. No one is stopping me and if I can get paid to write such an article, why not? Beyond that, what exactly am I adding to the discussion if the movie I'm seeking exists elsewhere and abundantly at that? Is it merely a desire to homogenize all media and art until it is all things to all people or is it just that things that don't exactly match your taste should be made to conform to those tastes?

Seems to me based on sales that the people that buy The Division and Destiny and Diablo are perfectly fine with not having a dialog tree to resolve conflicts and they number in the millions if not tens of millions. It's a vocal minority that has the issue. Now, that minority might have quite the soapbox to shout from, but even with that, most people seem to largely either not care at all or care about other issues within the game a lot more. Go to the Division subreddit and the discussion is why HE Division Tech drops are so shit and if the risk/reward balance for going rogue is right, not if you should be able to reason with the enemy mobs or whether or not shooting a black person that is shooting at you is racist or not.

In summation, critique away but while games like The Division and it's ilk sell in the multiple millions, you'll save yourself a lot of agita if you're not at all surprised when that critique goes largely ignored by the people making those games. Meanwhile the critique and suggestions of the majority fanbase are taken into consideration. Not only is it a lot easier to tweak some drop rates here and there than to fundamentally change the game, but looking around it's what the majority of consumers are (currently) more invested in. When games with dialog trees start selling like gangbusters and (sh)looters sales drop off a cliff, that's when you'll see what you are asking for, barring an indie looter looking for a niche to differentiate it.

I was going to write a lot about what I find inherently flawed with these type of articles but graf1k managed to elaborate on the issue a lot more succinctly than I probably would have. Likewise I have no problems with trying to look at games "differently" or more recently the angle of "we can be critical about the things we enjoy," but for the life of me I cannot understand the somewhat unrealistic expectations, almost demand, that games of a certain ilk conform to a standard they were never designed for and that most people don't care about or simply don't want. The idea that an action focused game like the Division should have a micro layer of civilian interaction ranging from dialog trees to mini quests which wouldn't involve combat on top of the existing gameplay seems to come from a place detached from the current gaming reality and seems almost ignorant in a way. It is as baffling as a complaint that Gone Home doesn't have a robust combat system integrated into the narrative exploration aspect of the game, or that Max Payne doesn't portray hunger, thirst or exhaustion realistically. If we are to use the "games are art" argument then it's similar to asking why this post-modernist painting doesn't have more baroque touches in it - simply because it's not a baroque painting, and the one style does not agree with the other nor does it necessarily need it.

Articles like this make me realize, theres an underserved audience there for something between the video game power fantasy and the entirely narrative story experience. Bioware comes close, but still can't hide the fact that at the end of the day it's "shoot the thing, score the points". Telltale comes from the other direction, but ultimately can't get beyond simply being a set of branching paths. Though perhaps the group of potential fans just isn't big enough. I know a lot of players who only care about leveling up their guns, basically only buying things to play online and a lot of people who only play single player games for story, but few who would be interested in both.

Also, some unshakable truths: One, the internet demands without fail, that every video game cater to their personal preferences, and two, that there is some set of people playing both action and narrative titles and not having these preferences met.

I think this topic would be much more depressing to me if I was writing from the heart as my profession, as @graf1k says the truth when the industry doesn't really take much away from critique of this sort of thing, most of the designers really thinking about it in a way that may translate into a finished product are niche indies, and almost every niche indie that broke out and got noticed by AAA are people making game mechanics, not story. The coincedence is not lost on me that stores can be copyrighted and mechanics cannot. Thats not to say AAA designers don't think about this sort of thing, it's that they think about it but know they can't pitch it to an investor and get funding.

There could easily be a game that captures the balance between gameplay and story, and it might even be a shooter, but I can almost guarantee it won't say Ubisoft, EA or Activision on the box.

@corvak: I mean, don't count out the large publishers.

EA pushed out Mirror's Edge: a game that's still a form of power fantasy (lots of disabling foes and living in a world built around your story) and even included some shooting (certainly not the actual part of that game that was the best) but far from making you the Punisher, here to mow down thousands of foes without so much as a scratch. That was far more about traversal than combat (far more than, say, Assassin's Creed did for enhancing traversal and downplaying combat - at least initially when the combat mechanics were less well developed than the sequels).

Far Cry 2 plays with this somewhat, again keeping it a power fantasy but tainting it with the elements of that game that lots of people bounced off of. Again, AAA and this time a Ubisoft funded project.

I'd also go back to the original Thief games. That's very much the story of a disempowered, lowly minion of a man who is a pawn of those around him. Yes, you're generally taking on foes but hardly with the upper-hand (ok, primitive AI of the time) and there was a push for pure stealth as the true way to play.

As you say, Bioware have more RPG in their games but they're still very much about a power fantasy. I'd say these titles (off the top of my head, I'm betting I've missed a few more really obvious candidates) are far closer to looking at some middle-ground between the super-powered hero who has one tool and that tool is genocide to save the universe and the branching path story-only game with some QTEs of Telltale (or even the slightly more action-oriented stories of Quantic Dream: offering a somewhat different type of power fantasy than just man-shoots or man-spells).

@finaldasa: Studios as large as Ubisoft will do whatever the market dictates. The market likes left-trigger-right-trigger. Whether or not this is bland is just a bickering over matters of taste.

@shivoa: I think Dishonored played with that concept really well.

Minor spoilers: Going the lethal route also meant increasing the amount of rats in later levels due to higher body counts, while going pacifist which was slightly more time consuming and difficult did the opposite.There were also different ways to take out targets that didn't require killing them but one could also say that some of the non-lethal options were also somewhat cruel. I really liked that those choices had that much impact to the story and in-game world.

Good article! I haven't played The Division, but having played Destiny (and not gotten into it) I have a bit of an idea of what it's like. The Dark Zone seems like potentially the most interesting aspect of The Division. That is the space where the most interesting decision can, apparently, be made. Where some moral questions and cost-benefit analysis gets made. I want to play The Division just for the Dark Zone, but don't want to pay for everything else, which looks like it's tired and formulaic. Shoot baddies, get loot. I don't think loot shooters are for me. Personally I prefer games with good narrative (Mass Effect 2 was amazing) that help carry the game play. Make me think, make me care about what I'm doing!

I love gaming, but I'm kind of falling out of love with a lot of the big AAA releases. I can often get more value for a $17 indie game. I think I'll just buy the occasional big release from now on.

Great article. For me personally I find the Division interesting because, as noted, the concept of a hero unbound by society with limitless authority has been long present in games. As have games where your primary interaction with the world is killing bad guys. But the Division is the first game that has seriously bothered me by having those concepts to the point where I couldn't really get into the game.

Being a Spectre in Mass Effect or running the Inquisition in Dragon Age both were both compelling and strangely realistic. I have to think it's a combination of different stakes and different setting. Saving all sentient life in the galaxy or preventing the return of ancient evil demon in worlds entirely different from our own makes an extraordinary authority seem plausible. While the realistic stakes of putting down a riot in NYC doesn't provide the same justification to empower an unbound authority or condone gunning down hundreds of people, to the point where it becomes implausible and uncomfortable.

That may also explain why games are obsessed with Saving the World. If those are the consequences for failure, whatever freedom you grant your main characters to act makes sense. If you ground your game in the real world with everyday stakes, then a character with that level of authority and killing power easily becomes absurdist or internally inconsistent. For example I'd disagree with the citation of Sleeping Dogs as a game that handled things well, as the idea of undercover cop that killed hundreds seemed patently absurd and the game never really explored the concept of good cop caught having to do bad things all that much.

The weirdest paradox for me in this game is the fact that if you come across a man mugging a person, the mugger is a "friendly." You turn around the corner and come across three guys scrounging through a ruined electronics store, and they're the "bad guys." The morality of your character is to blindly attack anything your AI has decided is hostile without second thought, or provocation.

Some interesting discussion here. Ultimately I think that this piece misses the point that it's making, which has less to do with the message that games send and more to do with the limitations that our proven gameplay mechanics have when applied to creating an emotionally resonant story. Though there are games where you can talk your way out of a violent situation, there aren't many where talking is fun. And though there are games with more active, nonlethal solutions to problems, they're mostly handled with unrealistic analogues to the traditional gunplay with tranquilizer darts and tasers.

There are some types of stories and some gameplay structures that make it suitable for you to shoot your way through an army of bad guys. Mass Effect (frequently mentioned herein) is such a story. In most cases, the problems you're solving are military problems. However, the Division tries to be a story about a city in a state of chaos, and most people would say the solution to that situation is not "kill all of the rioters". The question is, how should that situation be resolved, and what would it require of a game to make that resolution fun to play out?

I think the main disconnect between this article and its readers is that the Division doesn't actually seem to care whether its story is very good, which is why a lot of people don't seem to be bothered by the disconnect between the story and the structure through which it is told.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to disagree with you there. I personally feel that persuasive criticism requires respect be shown to opposing thought before arriving at your conclusion. And if you're not trying to persuade people with your criticism--especially when it comes to social issues--then I don't understand why you'd bother in the first place. Sure, you can preach to the choir, but that doesn't bring anyone over to your way of thinking, and too much hostility shown to other viewpoints could even lead an increase of people who hold the opinions that you oppose.

I was once told that women use a lot more indefinite modifiers in their writing than men do. "I feel, I think, I believe, perhaps, possibly, could, might, etc."

After hearing this, I began to notice that I also use a lot of indefinite modifiers. The thought is that women generally lack the level confidence that men do, and their writing is "weaker" because of it, but I don't think that's true. I think perhaps more women understand the power of displaying some level of uncertainty when it comes to matters that actually are uncertain, due to their subjective nature. Maybe it's unintentional, but either way, I think that it helps.

When it comes to potential effectiveness, "This is how I feel about this topic, and even if you feel differently, I hope you understand why I feel the way I do" beats "You're wrong, and I'm going to tell you why" any day of the week, at least for me.

I don't think I agree with this either, at least not always. When you're arguing that certain content shouldn't be found in art because it harms society, you've gone past criticism into pushing for censorship. Or if you haven't yet, you can easily reach that point soon after.

I recognize that not everyone agrees with this, but here's one of the arguments I've made in the past about the topic:

For me "is it censorship?" comes down to "is it bigotry?" Is it an action of intolerance designed to suppress various beliefs or opinions?

Here's a small section of a Wikipedia article on the TV program Soap, which featured one of television's first major gay characters:

- In June 1977, a Newsweek preview of the fall season written by Harry F. Waters panned the show while mischaracterizing some of its basic plot elements and offering exaggerated reports of its sexual content. Despite having not seen the pilot, Waters called the show a "sex farce" and claimed (erroneously) that the show included a scene of a Catholic priest being seduced in a confessional.

...

- Within days of the Newsweek report, a number of local and national religious organizations began to quickly mobilize against Soap, despite the fact that they also had not seen the pilot. Among these were the National Council of Churches, the United Church of Christ, the United Methodist Church, the National Council of Catholic Bishops and the Christian Life Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention,[7] the latter of which went so far as to divest itself of 2,500 shares of ABC stock "because the board does not approve of programming related to the abuse of human sexuality, violence and perversion."[8]

- The Roman Catholic Church, led by its Los Angeles Diocese, also condemned the show and asked all American families to boycott it saying "ABC should be told that American Catholics and all Americans are not going to sit by and watch the networks have open season on Catholicism and morality. [Soap] is probably one of the most effective arguments for government censorship of TV that has yet come along."[9] In August, the Board of Rabbis of Southern California representing three branches of Judaism, joined the Catholic protest saying that the as-yet unaired show "reached a new low."

...

- These religious groups organized a letter-writing campaign designed to pressure the show's sponsors from advertising on the network.[11] Although some of the religious groups asked their members to watch the show first, and then inform ABC of their feelings about it,[7] others began working hard to get ABC to cancel the show before it premiered. One ABC vice president was shocked to learn that his 11-year-old child was required by a parochial school teacher to write a letter of protest to ABC to take the show off the air.[5] In the end, 32,000 people wrote letters to ABC,[7] all but nine of them against it.[12]

Personally, I have no issue whatsoever with calling actions like these an attempt at censorship. Although I'll gladly agree that government intervention is pretty much always worse, public and private groups can absolutely force their bigoted views on others. In this instance, the catholic church ITSELF used the word censorship to describe their objective.

I grew up in the 80s and 90s with the religious right telling people how they should think, and what they shouldn't say. I didn't like it then, and I don't like it now. It's why I take the issue so seriously when someone stands up and tells everyone that their completely subjective opinion on a given topic should be received like it was gospel, and art should be changed to suit their worldview, because they find something offensive.

Ultimately, I don't see much of a difference between what the Catholic church did that ended up changing the content of Soap, and what some journalists do that ends up changing the content of video games. Yesterday's letter writing campaigns are today's hashtag campaigns.

It's a consistently confusing trend in this comments section how frequently I see people saying, basically, "You shouldn't have written this article."

"I disagree with you." is one thing. But "You shouldn't have written this in the first place." is on a different level. What else do you folks think Heather does for a living?

The article brings good things to think about. Whether or not it would happen, this Tom Clancy game is letting us play through a pretend setting that some people think could happen in a US government collapse of sorts. The banter on the radio and the fears that are spoken through the story can feed conspiracy hunger. Honestly, when I play this game, I feel like I need to keep myself in check. Don't think that some of the things would never happen, but also don't let fear run your life.

I've also wondered what the looters' (bad guys) objectives were. Why are we killing them? Are we the good guys in this game just because we're more powerful (like winning a war in real life)? The game hasn't made me feel like I can relate to my in-game character because I don't know that I align with anyone in the game's crisis.

The game is quite fun to play, and I don't think the OP was saying it wasn't. However, it feels like propaganda to make people on edge about their safety and trust in US government. I'm not trying to say the government has been and will always be the great protector, but it's also not a safe idea to put the whole country on edge. Why? Because their resolve would be dysfunctional and chaotic. People would fight each other more than rally together.

Honestly, I think it's kind of awesome that someone can get paid for writing social commentary about a video game, even when I don't agree. It would be nice to also see some articles coming from opposing social viewpoints--not specifically about this game--but I don't expect that to happen anytime soon.

This article is pretty respectful too, so even if you do disagree, I don't see much reason to be upset. Nothing here comes close to crossing that "how DARE they put this in a video game" sort of line, calling out developers and the perceived harmful aspects of their creation.

And as I said earlier in the thread, when it comes to the ideal game described in the article, I might have enjoyed it more than I liked how the Division actually turned out. Who knows.

Disclaimer: The following may or may not be satire, so don't take it too seriously.

Listen here... I've heard several opinions on The Division about how it's somehow bad that the secret police is send in to clean up the streets, under the guise of popping down the pharmacy for some cold medicine. I keep reading articles about how "those poor rioters didn't do nothing wrong", even if you are constantly catching them attacking civilians and looting stuff, not to mention the fact that they attack you on sight .

Obviously, all the games bloggers are out for the game, because they know they'll be the first to be lined up and send to the iso-cubes if Judge Dredd (hopefully) becomes real. The only faction you should sympathize with in The Division are The Cleaners.

The Cleaners are your everyday heroes who has to clean up your fucking discarded Starbucks coffee cups, Mtn Dew cans and Doritos bags from the streets, while you lot are busy tweeting about how a virtual butt of a virtual girl is "literally the worst thing that has ever happened in the world as we know it". These are real people with real jobs and it's a tragedy how they don't get recognition for doing the right thing and clean New York City up with purging flames, while the secret police is just faffing about and killing each other over dirty beanie hats.

Serious answer: I love doing to morally right thing in video games, which is why I sticked to the "Good" path in Bioware's games, as it allows you to talk everyone into getting along. True villains will take you for a ride, though. They'll exploit the fact that you want to debate everything and twist you around so much that you'll find yourself defending terrorism. The only way is to put them down hard and fast and the only way you can do that sometimes is going above the law.

I admit the first thing I did in this game was try and hold up some looters MGS style instead of killing them, just to see if I could be a good cop and non-lethal the game, but you can imagine how that went. Oh well, worth a shot.

The division isn't completely about you being an awesome murder junkie, but it's close. I think you have to give them some credit for what happens with the story line about the "first wave" division agents. A couple moments stood out to me:

Were those scenes not-so-perfectly done, and was there more they could've done to delve into the player's moral ambiguity? Definitely. But for what's mostly a mindless, for-the-masses loot game, I do think it's neat that they tried to address it at all.

I found this to be a well-written article that’s ultimately a bit misguided. I don’t necessarily disagree with some or even most of the sentiment espoused here, just the target thereof. It’s not that The Division is beyond reproach – far from it – but I find these to be rather odd criticisms of this particular game, given its nature, which is, for better or worse, a grindy looter.

I’ve logged literally thousands of hours into D3 and probably about a thousand between the various Borderlands titles, hundreds in Path of Exile, Grim Dawn, Sacred, Titan Quest, and even played a fair share of Hellgate London (probably the closest analog of the bunch). I dig these types of games (obviously). I have issues with all of them, but none of those issues involve storytelling, morality (or lack thereof), or any underlying message (intentional or otherwise) – they’re all mechanical. That’s because these are exceedingly mechanical games – some of the “gamiest” games in existence. I could give two shits about D3’s story or characters and that game has a better crafted tale to tell than The Division (though that’s not saying much). I never have a moment where I have to stop and think “I wonder if that treasure goblin is just trying to provide for his family” – I’m thinking “I sure hope he drops [X] ancient legendary that has the stats I need”. The former would illustrate a fundamental lack of understanding of what game I was actually playing and what its intentions are (which are, most assuredly, not to tell a thought-provoking and introspection-inducing tale).

I feel like there are plenty of games out there that this sort of criticism could be legitimately levied against, but The Division is an exceedingly odd choice. I wouldn’t criticize Doom because it doesn’t let me hug it out with a Cacodemon. I wouldn’t criticize the next Madden game because I can’t shoot the other team with lasers. I feel like this article is incorrectly comparing The Division to games like The Witcher, a deeply narrative-driven experience, when it’s much more akin to Diablo. Those are two vastly different experiences that should espouse vastly different expectations.

I love bad movies. I’m kindof a bad movie aficionado. If it involves a UFO with visible wires and papier mache monsters, I’ve probably seen it. I appreciate bad movies for completely different reasons than normal movies and I judge and examine them accordingly. They’re objectively terrible, but you see…that’s the whole point. Reveling in their utterly insane degree of ineptitude is what makes them entertaining. I don’t fault them for a lack of narrative coherence or production values because that’s not why I’m watching them in the first place; indeed, that incoherence is precisely what I signed up for. I would fault them if they were boring though, because that’s not what I signed up for and isn’t intrinsic to the genre (if you want to call “good” bad movies a genre). If I want a magnum opus of cinema that’s thought-provoking and challenging, they’re at my disposal. Starcrash and Samurai Cop don’t detract from those in any way, and I don't judge them by the same metric that I would with Citizen Kane.

If you feel like The Division is mechanically broken or that it’s boring or that the gameplay loop isn’t compelling, those are completely understandable and legitimate concerns, but focusing on narrative dissonance or complaining that a game entirely about shooting bad guys and getting treasure only lets you…shoot bad guys and get treasure…is pretty far off the mark in my estimation. At the same time, if this was intended to be a fundamentally narrative and story-focused game where you make impactful choices that drive and change the story, where the entire point of the game is choice and consequence, and then the game strips you of compelling options…that’s also a legitimate concern. That isn’t what The Division is though. It’s a loot shooter, not Mass Effect or The Witcher.

@zombeaver: Do you think that sort of loot-driven game can ever also be narratively-focused? It's not particularly revolutionary or uncommon at this point for games to pull and mesh different sorts of experiences together. A loot-driven game that specifically incorporates the nature of how you engage with a loot-driven game within its narrative, for instance, sounds like it could be fascinating. In a way not entirely unlike how Spec Ops: The Line took a military action romp and turned it around on the player, or that RPG joke about trespassing into other people's homes, taking their shit, and breaking their pots.

Of course, it could also be heavy-handed and otherwise poorly done, but it's a fun and interesting premise that doesn't seem impossible. Not that The Division is that game either way, but I think the supposed genre of a game shouldn't be the be-all-end-all of what it can do.

@theht: I am reminded of Cow Clicker. (Does GB not have a wiki page for that? I couldn't find it - how does that not already exist?)

I think that a AAA deconstruction of a genre is going to be exceedingly rare due to the relatively small gaming audience size (Hollywood deconstructions of Hollywood movies can play to a wider audience who are familiar with what is being satirised - billions have seen Hollywood movies) and lack of a well-understood genre of comedy/satire to draw from outside of the thing being satirised (to situate it beyond the "this just replicates the issue with the genre and that makes it a bad thing to engage with rather than being a deconstruction of that badness" problems that games can fall into when attempting to satirise genre conventions*). When you're going big (AAA) then you do have to worry about failing to find an audience and certain aspects of games are simply very expensive (so you can't make a AAA-like without spending AAA money). Not to say it's not something every indie game has a go at but I don't think there's the same market for it in AAA as you get in the equivalent forms in some other media.

* When making a game commenting on the issues of loot-driven games that might uncharitably be compared to Skinner boxes then building a Skinner box and putting a wink on it seems like a particularly weak play. The GB crew have commented on this before as a failure of games trying to comment on genre conventions by replicating them - it's just bad game design at some point.

@shivoa: Well it doesn't necessarily need to be in the form of comedy, or even be presented as a rebuke. Something like a narrative that's essentially about materialism using a genre that's traditionally been focused on acquiring shit, doesn't have to fall short the way a joke about how boring tutorials are falls short when it's followed up by, or embedded within, a completely generic tutorial. The difference just comes down to execution.

But that, and the market viability as well, is getting a bit ahead of whether or not it's even possible for a loot-driven game to be more than just. Though I do think the basic concept of "here's a thing that's better than the thing you have" is so base and so prevalent across the medium, that anything that deals with it probably wouldn't go over the heads of most.

Even then, a self-aware narrative is just one example of a possible narrative for a loot-driven game to have. The important part is that it doesn't have to only be about the loot. An easy response to that might be "well, then it's no longer a loot-driven game," which is fine. It could be called something else then. Another hybridization of genres, among plenty of others.

Something that illustrated this disconnect to me was playing D&D. When you have a good DM, violent combat becomes a solution, rather than the solution. A clever player can talk their way out of a situation by clueing into what their foe wants and how the can give it to them. Intelligent enemies surrender or try to flee and you can kill them, capture them (which is a pain in the ass when you're raiding a dungeon), or let them off with a stern word. Maybe these bandits you're fighting wouldn't have shot you on sight if you'd made friends with them when you had the chance. In a well run campaign, there is very little mandatory combat, yeah there are zombies and stuff but any intelligent enemy presents the opportunity for a more intelligent solution. Because it's a lot harder to put that all into code than it is to fling around in the back of your head, video games are still far away from that reality, but I also think it's a reality that we could do a better job of pursuing.

@theht: I certainly think it's possible, yes; though the fundamental questions are:

Why are you playing the game?

What are you expecting to get out of it?

What aspects of the game do you enjoy most and compel you to continue playing?

As someone who enjoys these types of games, I'll approach these from my perspective, as they pertain to this genre. I enjoy having that constant goal of improving efficacy through small incremental improvements - the never-ending path to perfection (which is basically unobtainable, in reality). I like to set goals for myself and see how close I'm able to come to meeting them. I like math and testing and theorycrafting. I like having an "end-game" that challenges me and puts the planning, experience, skill, and time that I've invested to the test; something that allows me to push myself. These are the things I expect in a loot-driven game for me to be able to enjoy them. If it has a good story on top, great, but those fundamentals need to be met first and foremost.

I don't think it's impossible to incorporate a more meaningful narrative to drive the looter experience along, but at the end of the day the things that I'm actually looking for and want out of this type of game are not narrative-related. A good story certainly isn't going to hurt matters, but it's not what got me in the door in the first place and, in all likelihood, isn't what's going to keep me coming back months later; and unfortunately the gameplay hook of this genre isn't exactly conducive to having a deep, meaningful, narrative-driven interaction with the game world.

What if those nameless looter thugs were all unique NPCs that had backstories and, once killed, never returned? That could be interesting...except "How do I grind now?" How do you have meaningful choice and consequence in a setting specifically designed to have you repeat tasks (murdering enemies primarily) to get better gear; something which, by its very nature, makes killing inconsequential?

I'm a huge fan of Bioware games, The Witcher series, etc. I think I should state that because I don't want to downplay the importance of storytelling in games. While I don't think good storytelling is diametrically opposed to the looter genre, I don't think it necessarily has the same significance as it has in those games. I played through the story in D3 (and paid attention) once. After that, it became literally nothing but a nuisance - something that got in the way of improving my effectiveness as efficiently as possible. After those first 10 hours or so, the other thousand were driven purely by the gameplay (loot hunt) hook. From that perspective, it doesn’t matter how good or compelling the story is, it’s no longer the driving force of the game (it really never was to begin with) and the more it gets in the way of the gameplay hook the more annoying it’s going to be (regardless of how compelling the actual narrative is in and of itself).

I have to ask. What did you really expect from a game with this setting and pedigree?

@theht: Sorry, I think I slightly misread your post the first time through and got the wrong end of the stick (and so went off on a tangent).

Ye, I totally agree with you. Making a game that's got a core loot loop but is also about other things (hybrid) and uses those mechanics as leverage in the narrative (including as commentary) sounds really good. Games can definitely be about more than just a core mechanic without stopping being a game with that core mechanic (or doing harm to that mechanic). Hell, you can play a Bioware game (or an Obsidian game, Pillars of Eternity patched in Storey Difficulty recently) as a mechanical test of your RPG skills or as a narrative experience about dialogue choices. The ability to pick a focus or do both doesn't weaken the game (it just offers more options and different ways to engage with the mix of systems). Or I can think back the the first reboot of Tomb Raider and the difficulty sliders separately for combat and exploration. Pick your mechanical complexity, your focus. Games are very capable of being many things to many people without detracting from the whole.

I'd love to see a game like the Division that really pushed the story component much further (in fact that's one of the things I hope for in a sequel - use this as an Assassin's Creed 1 to 2 path to remove some of the copy-paste design, develop out the narrative, and iterate on the mechanics already there to find new complexity and smooth over some rough edges to other bits that aren't quite polished just yet - something the year of DLC will hopefully also be working on).

@zombeaver: That's fair, and I don't want to give the impression that any loot game going forward should always be more than just a loot game. I'd personally be excited to see one that is, after now having thought about it, but I still enjoy standard loot games nonetheless. That desire for more than just a loot game isn't necessarily to the detriment of my appreciation for loot games as they are.

As far as expectations are concerned, the desire for something more stands largely apart from them, or at least, in my opinion, should. Whenever I experience something in a game that subverts my expectations, even if it's something tangential like allowing me to give out aid to civilians, or to pet a yak, or kick a soccer ball, it can put in mind vague pieces of something more. Some hypothetical game that does more of this, or more of that. It doesn't even need to be something the game does, it could be something it doesn't, like some of the stuff Heather brought up with The Division.

But I do think criticizing a work for not being that hypothetical something else is unfair, and this article does occasionally read like Heather's doing just that. Criticizing it for feeling like it isn't quite complete is fine, since that's a fault that lies directly with the work. Criticizing it from the perspective of your personal lens is also fine. Maybe you just don't like shooters, or are bored with stories of a certain kind. But the moment it stops being about the work or your perception of it, and more about it not having this other particular thing that you want, you're no longer really criticizing the work for what it is. I think her greater point is aimed towards that something else on its own, for sure, but it seems to build that point upon an indictment of The Division, and other games, for not already being it.

As one of the many who just kind of completely skipped the story of The Division because it's a looter as I wasn't expecting much from it, I started watching some of the cutscenes that are unlocked for beating story missions and collecting collectibles and I have to say, they did a better job than I would have given them credit for. The actions and motivations of the LMB are basically the embodiment of what @halexandra64 is looking for, as far as a rebuke of the idea of unlimited military authority. They went in with (and still have in their own minds) good intentions, but their execution shows how that free reign can absolutely backfire. Now yes, the developers missed an opportunity to further comment on the situation of how dangerous and essentially crazy it is to combat zero accountability force (LMB) with zero accountability force (Second Wave Agents) but as someone else pointed out earlier, those are pretty much the same questions Mass Effect overlooked asking. Is it a missed opportunity? Yes, but arguably a minor one for a looter RPG. If The Division was more of a narrative focused RPG, I'd be more on board with the criticism, not because it deserves a pass but because it's goal is first and foremost a fun and engaging loop rather than narrative.

In that regard, The Division does what it does rather well. It reminds me a lot of the first Darksiders in a lot of ways. Mechanically it is very similar to a lot of other games in the genre, but it meshes some of the best of those mechanics with an original setting for the genre, takes good ideas liberally from other genres and merges them in, and builds upon all that with some really innovative and original ideas, in this case, the DZ. If they could have gone all out with the story and really blown the doors off the genre with deep characters and poignant writing, the game would have naturally been all the better for it. I just don't know if that's the type of stuff you can risk with the first outing of a new franchise IP nor was it anything I personally was expecting. Thus, it doesn't really bother me that it's somewhat deficient in those aspects.

I play The Division and other looters the same way I imagine a lot of people play Clash of Clans and the like, so I'm not going in expecting a lot of social commentary. I just want to shoot stuff and level up and get new gear. Basically a clicker. If it actually has a decent story and some social commentary, all the better. But I feel like a lot of games circumvent that expectation in a lot of people just by making a game in a magical cartoonish realm and never get called out for it in a similar fashion. I don't think setting your game in modern times in a realistic setting should instantly put upon it a bunch of expectations that are not foisted upon the likes of other games in the same genre just because theirs is a fantasy setting. Nobody gives a shit that Destiny lets you slaughter hordes of warlocks from the moon or whatever the hell is going on in that game without an option to dialog with them and I really don't understand why The Division raises concern where Destiny doesn't. Warlocks in Destiny or Rioters in The Division; they're all fictional at the end of the day.

EDIT: I realized soon after posting this that I'm basically restating a lot of what @zombeaver already said so yeah, props to him. If you read what he said it's spiritually very similar to my wall of text.

I'd like to think of myself as a thoughtful person, but as I played the Division the only thoughts that weighed heavily on my mind involved the location of loot and its color. I didn't come to the Division to explore questions on morality, empathy, absolute authority, social classes, etc. There are times when I feel like engaging those subjects, but not while playing the Division. When I play the Division with friends I just want to find loot and shoot people.

Agreed. Again, I'm not opposed to the concept at all, and if something were to come along that surprised me and went above and beyond my expectations, that'd be great; and at the same time it's not going to harm my love for the genre as a whole. My point is just that a somewhat insubstantial story in this type of game isn't quite as detrimental as it is in games like The Witcher or Mass Effect, where a strong narrative is basically the entire intent.

I know what you mean. It's a great feeling when you encounter that sort of thing; things that shake your preconceptions of what a game can be or do. It's great when a game can flip your expectations on its head.

This is going to be a really weird example, because I know a lot of people hate this game, but for some reason this conjures to mind some parts of Two Worlds for me. Again, I know it's not a well regarded game but bear with me. There's a quest...well it's really not even a quest... there's a completely optional event that takes place where you go to a village and when you talk to the townspeople they say that there's a nearby cave that's full of giants that have them all terrified. They beg you to just leave it alone though because they don't want to make matters worse. But...I'm the hero...so I gotta go take care of them and save the day right? Except that, if you do go to the cave and kill the giants, when you go back to the village all of the townspeople are dead and a bunch of giants are walking around in town. I...didn't expect that. I'm "the hero" and I can always resolve things with force and save the day - at least that's what games have trained me to believe. So when there are dramatic and actually negative ramifications for that it's something special.

I feel like this sort of thing could fit right into The Division, given the setting and plot. And if they were to do something like this, it certainly wouldn't hurt matters, but the truth is its going to be lost on most people, myself included, if I'm just focused on the loot grind. To a degree these games are kindof mindless - there's a reason people talk about listening to podcasts or music while playing them. So again, it's not that this sort of thing would be detrimental, it's just something the vast majority of the player base for this type of game simply isn't going to care about and most of us are probably of a mind that there's plenty of room for improvement in what we deem to be more pressing (mechanical) issues.

Yes, that's essentially the issue I take with it as well. There's nothing wrong with wanting the kind of hypothetical experience that's being described in the article - I like those sorts of things too! The problem is, the specific game that the commentary is being directed towards was never intended or advertised to be any of those things. I think its misguided because it's either comparing it to things that really aren't comparable or expecting things from it that aren't present in any other title that actually is comparable. I feel like it's expecting it to be something that it's not and then criticizing it for that. Given the enormously wide spectrum of games at our disposal these days, that just seems kindof odd to me.

@graf1k: Yep, we're definitely on the same page. I also think the grounded in reality vs fantasy point is a good one - there are myriad examples of similar games that haven't had any such criticism levied against them, and I'm inclined to think this is the primary reason. Even a lot of the reviews I've read have admitted the perceptual difference this makes - usually in reference to the bullet-sponginess of the enemies; within the realm of fantasy or science fiction this sort of thing can be explained away by magic or technology but here it's just dudes in hoodies. The requirement for suspension of disbelief is even greater than it normally is, and people are getting hung up on it. When you back up for a moment and think about it from a gameplay perspective though, it kindof falls apart. If the damage model was more akin to say (ironically) Rainbow Six, the game would be an absolute nightmare. Again, I stand by the statement that these kinds of games are some of the "gamiest" out there. Jeff even said in his review that there's plenty of stuff that you'll just have to shrug off as "typical video game shit".

I don't know if anybody has mentioned it, but I feel like Deus Ex Human Revolution did a lot of what the author wants to see back in 2011. Its prequels probably did this back in 2004 and 2001, but I didn't play much of either so I can't comment on them.

Human Revolution rarely forced players to kill anybody. Last time I played it, my body count for most of the game totaled 6, not including bosses (after Jensen woke up on the ship, I was ready to get to the end of the game and I had more resources than I knew what to do with so that number got well beyond 6, though I still don't think it went over 50, which is ridiculously low for a shooter or RPG where you can kill pretty much anyone in your way if you choose).

In any case, as others have pointed out, there are plenty of games out there for those who want better justification for killing, or for those who want something more peaceful. The Witcher 3 provides a way more complex story than most games, there's Deus Ex and Thief and Dishonored if you're looking for something that's dark but also gives you a choice in how you handle things. If you're looking to create and nurture rather than destroy, Minecraft, Terraria, and Stardew Valley all scratch that itch pretty well.

I haven't played The Division but it seems to be taking some of this flack for including stuff like we see in @furiousjodo's post. If you're going to tell me to mercilessly slaughter a bunch of guys, don't then try to humanize one of them by saying he's got a kid without also giving me some other way around it.

I think that's an interesting angle to explore, regarding consumer tastes. I'm not convinced that the mainstream consumer is only interested in games where their only verb is to kill, but maybe that devs know how to make and sell that, so rarely attempt to make and sell something different on the same scale. In fact, games that are about more than just that have done very well -- the Elder Scrolls and Bethesda Fallouts, or Bioware RPGs. And of course, I don't think anyone here, myself included, is arguing that there isn't a place for games primarily about shooting badguys with guns, its fun, but there is always room to be critical and examine what a game is doing. The division is particularly interesting for that, I think, because the setting is one where being able to do more than kill people would make a lot of sense.

The fact is that we all have a dark immoral side in our psyche. Maybe we should be glad that in our modern culture we have found an acceptable way to express these feelings that is not harmful to other people.