The thing that immediately strikes me about the video is that you would be fucking wrecked if you spent 10 hours walking at that pace, in those clothes, over that kind of surface.
Unless you are routinely going on such walks you would be looking at chaffing, blisters (seriously your feet would be fucked) and the obvious ones like exhaustion, dehydration and whatnot. The "10 hours of silently walking" things is bullshit. In the night-time shots, which I assume are towards the end of 10 hours, she doesn't look like someone who has probably just walked about 40 to 50 miles (basically 1.5 to 2 marathons). If they have the same camera person for the whole time too? Nah, I'm calling bullshit.
If it is legit though then all that for "100+ incidents of street harassment"? Stupid.
In effect all they have shown is that street harassment does indeed happen.
You could have just done that with a 3 hour walk surely (since they claim they are averaging 10 instances per hour they'd be able to capture the 30ish instances shown on the video in 3 hours).
The request for donations at the end? Hmmm... I wonder do non-profits pay their staff or would they be volunteers only? Seems like a good way to invent a job that then pays you a salary. Donate to my non-profit. I will pay myself a salary with the donations though.
I think at least we can agree that catcalling and harassment are bad things? I think we can agree that they exist? These guys really need donations to raise awareness? I'm guessing they made a few hundred thousand dollars from this video and I'm also guessing some of that was used to pay themselves salaries.
New York City has a population of around 8.6 million people. How many people would she realistically encounter on a 10 hour walk? Couple of hundred thousand? Yet only 100 of those actually went out of their way to say something to this lady?
So the very premise of this localization choice is fundamentally rooted in bullshit.
How can something be truly educational when the lesson being taught stems from what is basically a lie?
That's not "education". That's propaganda.
Fucksakes.
The story behind this game is interesting at least.
Game got pulled in Japan in March because one of the actors involved was caught for possession of cocaine. It will be relaunched, with that actor scrubbed, next week.
Now the western version has been changed so it can be more "educational" to western gamers.
Amazing.
How is the "lesson" supposed to work exactly?
"In a weird way, I saw something of an educational experiencehere, because our player base is primarily male — and I do kinda hope that being thrust into the first-person perspective of a woman being catcalled felt a little gross. I hope there’s some level of sympathy for Saori, and on the larger scale, empathy for women who deal with it on a regular basis"
I wonder actually if this is accurate for how videogames actually work from the players perspective.
Like, in the game it feels like it's played for laughs, even with the change. Haha, we've put you into a hot woman's perspective and look dudes are saying how hot you are. OK. Then with the change it's just the same but a dude is asking you to smile.
Isn't it very common for NPCs to say antagonizing or provoking things to the main character?
Me: What a nice day, just minding my own business, out for a lovely stroll, might go up to Bleak Falls Barrow later.
Guard: Cause trouble in Whiterun, and I'll haul you into the Dragonsreach dungeon myself.
Me: Woah, steady on mate. FFS, walking while Breton, amirite you guys?
Me sometime later: *huffs own fart* It's amazing how the experience with the Whiterun guard really educated me, a straight white male, on what people who don't look like me go through on a daily basis. It felt a little gross and now I have a level of empathy on a larger scale.
Me: Let me just drive my axe through this Orcs skull before I burn that Khajiit alive and ressurect that dead Argonian to fight for me. Yay! It's fun to kill and enslave! I've learned fuck all.
It's so fascinating to me that you have all of these games where violence is a key gameplay component, sometimes just mindless and indiscriminate violence, but also they are attempting to moralize on issues that have less real-world impact than actual violence.
Game: Now don't be catcalling women, you little shits.
Player: Got it. I feel all empathetic and shit.
Game: Right, now just go ahead and beat the shit out of those dudes.
Player: Fuck YEA- wait... should I really... it seems excessive.
Game: DO IT! Pick up a bicycle and beat the hell out of that guy NOW!
Player: Can't I like... defuse the situation or something? I don't want to just smash a dude's face in if I can avoid it.
Game: What is this!? Empathy!? Shut your mouth, you little cunt, and do some ultra-violence.
Serious mixed messages from the gaming industry.
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