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[hatmoza]

Gabe always seems to have a problem expressing what is on his mind through words.

 

[Yoritomo]

Lets try yoritomo then.

clumsy words, i don't believe there was any malice but definitely clumsy.

If takei and yoritomo become common parlance than the Japanese will be upset

 

[Des0lar]

Calling someone a "retard" and using a metaphor that includes mental retardation as a condition are different things. You fellows ought to read more closely and put words and sentences into context.

As a Special Ed teacher, I know I find my students can have huge difficulties with that task, but as members of the general population, y'all are held to a higher standard of thoughtfulness.

Ether

 

[Htown]

I don't really care if he's being PC or not. What I don't understand is how the terms "retarded" and "autistic" apply to single player protagonists.

It's not that hard to figure out.

Think about watching a movie of your last playthrough of a single player game. Now think about how that character acts - not just in cutscenes, but during the actual times when you are controlling the character. Think about the limited way in which that character interacts with the world and people around him or her.

 

[cicero]

Calling someone a "retard" and using a metaphor that includes mental retardation as a condition are different things. You fellows ought to read more closely and put words and sentences into context.

As a Special Ed teacher, I know I find my students can have huge difficulties with that task, but as members of the general population, y'all are held to a higher standard of thoughtfulness.

oh snap..

 

[tafer]

Calling someone a "retard" and using a metaphor that includes mental retardation as a condition are different things. You fellows ought to read more closely and put words and sentences into context.

As a Special Ed teacher, I know I find my students can have huge difficulties with that task, but as members of the general population, y'all are held to a higher standard of thoughtfulness.

Ouch!

And sadly, as many said earlier, those higher standards you are asking for are quite inconvenient for the faux outrage crowd that loves to overreact after someone uses any word they deem "bad". And let's not forget that you are automatically granted the "insensitive ignorant dick" label by the same people who ignore, willingly or not, the intent and context of said word to be a dick about it.

 

[JaseC]

I think I grok what he was going for, but it was really clumsily worded.

Definitely. The comment was, at its core, a model for comparison attempting to illustrate that protagonists in SP games are inherently bound by the limited and prescribed conventions of player agency, whereas in MP games the rules punctuating a game's design are ignored in favour of the underlying social interaction (e.g. Gabe's comment about how both adding and removing the riot shield in CS caused player numbers to increase).

 

[sonicmj1]

Definitely. The comment was, at its core, a model for comparison attempting to illustrate that protagonists in SP games are inherently bound by the limited and prescribed conventions of player agency, whereas in MP games the rules punctuating a game's design are ignored in favour of the underlying social interaction (e.g. Gabe's comment about how both adding and removing the riot shield in CS caused player numbers to increase).

I think it's a tiny bit more complicated than that in multiplayer games. When we play games with other people, we expect there to be a limited set of ways we can interact. Those limitations are called rules, and they govern every kind of game people play, from board games to sports to house. In a sport, nobody thinks its weird that the forward in soccer can't pick up the ball with his hands. Those are the rules, and everyone agreed to them before the game started. Verisimilitude is less important in multiplayer.

In a singleplayer game with a narrative, we have to accept the illusion that Gordon Freeman is a person in a world much like our own, except that he can only throw switches, grab objects, and hurt people with weapons.

 

[JaseC]

I think it's a tiny bit more complicated than that in multiplayer games. When we play games with other people, we expect there to be a limited set of ways we can interact. Those limitations are called rules, and they govern every kind of game people play, from board games to sports to house. In a sport, nobody thinks its weird that the forward in soccer can't pick up the ball with his hands. Those are the rules, and everyone agreed to them before the game started. Verisimilitude is less important in multiplayer.

In a singleplayer game with a narrative, we have to accept the illusion that Gordon Freeman is a person in a world much like our own, except that he can only throw switches, grab objects, and hurt people with weapons.

Yes, "ignored" was a poor word choice; "implicitly accepted" would have been more accurate. The point being that a multiplayer game's ability to reconstruct what we would deem to be natural or "realistic" is not a key measure of the experience as it is in narrative-driven titles (Edit: to reference the video again, Gabe provides an example where the animations of the HL2 NPCs were updated so that they would make believable movements with their eyes when talking to the protagonist or expressing emotion, which was met with surprisingly positive reactions from playtesters).

 

[EVIL]

Lets try yoritomo then.

clumsy words, i don't believe there was any malice but definitely clumsy.

Not clumsy, just casual
Allot more casual then you would expect from the founder of a large video developer, but that's Gabe for you, no titles, just Gabe, and he works at valve. None of this political nonsense.

 

[AkuMifune]

Not clumsy, just casual
Allot more casual then you would expect from the founder of a large video developer, but that's Gabe for you, no titles, just Gabe, and he works at valve. None of this political nonsense.

Word. Just a big old billionaire Jesus who tells it like it is.

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

I get what he was saying, but he said it in an inexcusable way.

That's not "hooray, he's being un-PC!", that's "... that was an incredibly poor choice of words".

Being "un-PC" =/= speaking without thinking. If you guys think that's what it is...

And it's fucking horrible that he's gonna get a free pass from the vast majority just because he's Gabe Newell.

 

[Dead Man]

I get what he was saying, but he said it in an inexcusable way.

That's not "hooray, he's being un-PC!", that's "... that was an incredibly poor choice of words".

Being "un-PC" =/= speaking without thinking. If you guys think that's what it is...

And it's fucking horrible that he's gonna get a free pass from the vast majority just because he's Gabe Newell.

You bumped this to post outrage that has been addressed already?

 

[jim-jam bongs]

I went to a genetic counselor with my girlfriend to discuss our impending baby a couple of days ago. She freely used the terms retarded and autistic, and is a well regarded medical professional. Still, I told her that people on GAF would be offended by her proper use of medical terminology so you guys can sleep easy.