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[PSqueak]

Except is this game (Overwatch) as big as it is due to its diversity, or is its success driven by both its developer & how great the gameplay is? I am inclined to say thats its the latter, not the former. Games don't do well just because they may have or feature diversity in some big, significant way. Having said that, its great that Overwatch embraced diversity from the get-go, but even still, diversity isn't necessarily uncommon in 'champion' driven games. LoL, Dota 2, Gigantic, Smite all feature a diverse cast of characters as well, and all of these games are fairly successful (with the exception of Gigantic, since it isn't out yet.)

Doesn't matter, Diversity in overwatch proves to the industry that having non white characters doesn't actually harm the success of a game, diversity doesn't drive sells, but overwatch's success will drive into more diversity in games.

I mean, remember the ex Lionhead dev who got into a bitching fight with microsoft execs because they wouldn't allow a black woman in a fable game cover on the grounds that "the game would not sell with a black woman in the cover".

Overwatch's success just presents undeniable proof that diversity doesn't hurt sales.

 

[Hari Seldon]

I am not saying that games should not be violent, but not all games have to revolve around violence. (I know that currently not all games revolve around violence.) Beyond simulations (sports and other) and puzzles there is no proven market for competitive games that are not violence based. That does not mean that there is not the possibility to create a market for competitive action games that are not based on violence. New markets are created/found all the time. There could be players that like abstract action games.

Hearthstone and Rocket league are two of the biggest games on Twitch.

 

[The Illiterati]

I want more types of power fantasies for sure. Most recent game that gave me a hint of what could be achieved was Watch Dogs 2. I played the game non violently....heck I didn't even knock people out non lethally for the most part. I did the majority of the objectives with just the RC car and Marcus stealthing past people. The fact that this was possible was a huge part of my enjoyment. You could literally take combat out of the game entirely and the game would still be beatable and fun. Although you still have quite a few people complaining that the guns and combat were not as good as other open world games, when I say go play any of those other games for that.

 

[DocSeuss]

The thesis statement precedes that:



Effectively those who rejected a broadening of possibilities to cover women, people of color and the poor are literally running the United states roughly six weeks from now. True, she does not have a concrete proposal for how to turn the status quo around, where those with an abundance of money and means are not catering to the needs of the marginalized, but that's not a requirement for a piece about how everything got out of control in the first place. Too many hand-waved away as transient or fringe or easily ignored the threat of toxic, hard-right and high volume hatred stemming from entrenched and insular communities that always, always always got their way in the past and now those who can't stand any change have powerful leadership in America to twist things back to the bad old days. The promise that our technological elite have everyone's best interests in mind did not pay off for non-whites and women. The election is the capstone on that idea, and the failure of faith in technology as a progressive force for democratization.

Complaining that Trump won the Presidency of the United States because Grand Theft Auto caters to his supporters has got to be one of the dumbest takes currently being shared in video games, don't you think? Dude didn't even win the popular vote. The excerpt you posted is stupid.

'Despite that reasonable belief, the industry model whereby wealthy white men peddle power fantasies that throttle everyone else’s needs out of consideration remains alive and well.'

The constant unironical prejudice and generalisation of statements such as these, is the exact reason why I can't take these arguments seriously.

Targeting sexists and racists? So target sexists and racists.

Attacking 'white men', it's fairly evident you are what you hate.

This is the person who said that because she watched the Xbox One reveal on her ipad alone in her apartment, consoles were dead because nobody but rich white boys wanted to buy a games console and nobody watches tv or streams in their living rooms any more.

Her brand is basically built on going "ew, boys are bad and what they like won't succeed," when anyone with even a few moments of thought could've realized why the premise was dumb (also, complaining about rich people when you're talking about the fact you own an ipad is hilarious).

I would also like to add that I don't see how taking games like Cities or Life is Strange and giving them the budget of CoD would make them better games. The standard AAA game designs lend themselves well to improving when given higher budgets, and even those are getting too high some would argue.

Yeah. A $500m marketing spend on Cities: Skylines isn't going to get it Destiny's average of 400k players per month (to the 1m during Iron Banner).

I'm completely supporting here general cause but i've never understood the whole "power fantasy"-discussion. I've never ever thought or felt about games as power fantasies, find the negative connotation very uncomfortable.

Basically, a lot of people seem to think that the fact games often have win conditions means that games are there to massage your ego.

Power fantasy, in the strictest sense, is more about fantasizing about ordering your boss around or taking over your favorite game developer so they make a dozen more of the games you like. But way too many people take "you can win!" as "oh my god, this is a power fantasy," and this has never made sense to me. There's a lot of equating simple escapism, or just the act of success at all with power fantasy, and that's not really the right thing to do.

What kind of world does someone have to live in where the act of succeeding at something is considered a fantasy? No idea, but that's how a lot of people use the phrase.

Doesn't matter, Diversity in overwatch proves to the industry that having non white characters doesn't actually harm the success of a game, diversity doesn't drive sells, but overwatch's success will drive into more diversity in games.

I mean, remember the ex Lionhead dev who got into a bitching fight with microsoft execs because they wouldn't allow a black woman in a fable game cover on the grounds that "the game would not sell with a black woman in the cover".

Overwatch's success just presents undeniable proof that diversity doesn't hurt sales.

The most popular game of this generation is a game where you start out playing as a black man (GTAV), and... I wanna say the second most popular game of this generation lets you play as a woman (BLOPS 3).

For me, this goes to the fundamental problem with AAA games where all developers design interactions based on one simple verb: to kill. And this is reflected in all aspects of games, where controllers basically have gun triggers on them to better simulate the action of shooting a gun. So we're always going to be stuck in this mode of making games because a) it's what we're used to and b) we just assume that no one wants to play games where the primary verb isn't killing.

(The big exception, of course, is sports games but that's clearly fulfilling a different type of male power fantasy)

That has more to do with the drama inherent in violence, and the fact that programming/game design/basic human behavior lends itself really well to fights. It's extremely clear. You enter a room, a person shoots at you, so clearly you must eliminate them, so you then take action to do so, and when they are eliminated, it is clear because of the deletion of the entity.

It's easy, basically.

Once in a while there is someone who tries - lately it's Sony making the most effort, with Until Dawn and David Cage's games, where the interactions are a bit different (whatever you think about Cage, he tries to make interactive love stories which is more than can be said for the awkward bits of a BioWare game where you are just choosing a "waifu") - the burden has been placed on smaller games like Life is Strange or various other VNs/adventure game type experiences like Cybele.

But imagine if someone tried to make a 20 million dollar, 100 person dev team, adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. You play as Elizabeth Bennet and your mission is to try to find a way to end up with Mr. Darcy.

The last big film adaptation of Pride and Prejudice cost 20 million, starred Keira Knightley, and made 120 million at the box office - so clearly the story and the idea is a money maker. But can you actually see game devs trying to tackle the same subject? To take a risk on a mid-budget Jane Austen adaptation that put you in the head of a young English woman dealing with her emotions as she deals with various romantic entanglements around her?

The main reason that it's easier to do in film than games is because conversation systems are extremely hard to do. I know. I've worked on some. I'm working on a shooter right now because I've done the market research. I would like to be working on a game where you're a black market operator and the game interface looks like the mIRC client, but that requires the game's characters to pass the turing test. Otherwise, you're just inputting from a select few dialogue options the game can reply to, and it's a boring choose your own adventure game.

I don't think anyone working at any of the big companies have even considered such an endeavor, let alone are capable of doing it in an interesting way that involves more than crappy dialog choices and QTEs.

Trust me. They have. I know, because I've talked to them about it, some at length.

That said, who would have expected Titanfall 2 to have one of the best FPS campaigns in recent memory? Funny, on the flip side BF1 included a campaign with a female protagonist but that whole mode felt so ill-conceived that it was quickly written off entirely.

I mean, if you pay attention to shooters at all, this makes sense? Respawn is responsible for some of the best shooters ever made. Mohammad Alavi is one of the best level designers we've ever had in video gaming. It's not surprising at all that it's a fantastic game.

Oh god, I forgot that Mirrors Edge came out this year. I still remember how, for whatever reason, they felt the need to include combat in the first game though.

And the first game was vastly better than the second.

 

[sasliquid]

I do think if you look at the games most heavily advertised to the gaming audience (i.e. At E3, TGS etc) everything is so heavily male power Fantasy dominated.

Obviously alternatives exist but the larger, traditional industry still acts like they don't exist

 

[patapuf]

I want more types of power fantasies for sure. Most recent game that gave me a hint of what could be achieved was Watch Dogs 2. I played the game non violently....heck I didn't even knock people out non lethally for the most part. I did the majority of the objectives with just the RC car and Marcus stealthing past people. The fact that this was possible was a huge part of my enjoyment. You could literally take combat out of the game entirely and the game would still be beatable and fun. Although you still have quite a few people complaining that the guns and combat were not as good as other open world games, when I say go play any of those other games for that.

With, Dishonered 2, Deus ex and ironically hitman (sans the targets) we've had a fantastic for games that allow you non-lethal approaches.

Though, all of those are still quite violent games. Sans hitman they also bombed.

 

[Gentleman Jack]

Complaining that Trump won the Presidency of the United States because Grand Theft Auto caters to his supporters has got to be one of the dumbest takes currently being shared in video games, don't you think? Dude didn't even win the popular vote. The excerpt you posted is stupid.

What's stupid is assuming the column is only talking about video games.

 

[chrominance]

I would also like to add that I don't see how taking games like Cities or Life is Strange and giving them the budget of CoD would make them better games. The standard AAA game designs lend themselves well to improving when given higher budgets, and even those are getting too high some would argue.

There was a great article I read a while back that turned this assumption on its head. It talked about a brand new type of game called a "shooter" with all-new mechanics that had never been attempted before in games and flew in the face of existing mechanics designed around conversation and emotional interaction. Tested and true methods of personal interaction like robust conversation trees and ways to gauge the emotional state of NPCs were the bedrock of video games and more obviously developed than the realistic ballistic physics, ammunition and item management, aiming conventions, etc. of the new shooter genre.

The point of this bizarro-universe piece was to illustrate that the conventions of the shooter genre didn't come to us fully formed, nor were they inevitable developments. What we think of now as "standard AAA game designs" were crafted and refined over decades based on specific assumptions about what gaming audiences would find fun, and who would be willing to pay for what. But those assumptions are not ironclad. A company betting the farm on a different set of game mechanics may very well have found some success, leading to a very different perception of what are "traditional" mechanics and what are "risky" or "unrefined" ones.

I'm not saying that developers and publishers have unilateral control over what people are attracted to in a game; nobody has that much power. But you look at how the industry began targeting boys to the exclusion of girls in the 80s and 90s, and you have to think that different priorities could have made a difference in how games are conceived, created and sold today.

 

[DocSeuss]

What's stupid is assuming the column is only talking about video games.

I'm not making any assumptions. I'm taking issue with a specific complaint.

 

[Fine Ham Abounds]

I think a lot of this was certainly obvious to anyone looking at the election through the lens of Reddit. How representative this is for the entire population I'd be hesitant to draw the same level of crossover she does, although gaming is certainly far more ubiquitous than it even was a decade ago. Personally I feel she's drifting too close to self-satisfaction and self-importance and just blurting out "I told you so" in parts here, like she's disgusted but even more confident in her worldview now. I like her as a writer, but it's a slippery slope when you see something so clearly because of one perspective and it makes you avoid considering other factors.

This does bring to a head the curious (or perhaps not so curious) overlap between insecure manchildren, misogyny, successful businessmen, lowest common denominator based consumerism, disposable income, lack of accountability, certain portions of the population feeling fewer repercussions from their personal choices, and indulgence in fantasy by people who may technically be the closest in society to being able to achieve those fantasies in the real world if not for limitations which may or may not be clear based on the other factors.

 

[sasliquid]

I mean games also tend to lean towards certain facisty ideas not unlike superhero stories and the west is getting more facist.

 

[SystemUser]

Hearthstone and Rocket league are two of the biggest games on Twitch.

Hearthstone isn't an action game (is it? I still haven't played. Don't the cards have violent actions on them too?) and I thought people would say that Rocket League does contain some violence. Also Rocket League might be considered a sport based game.


EDIT: Hearthstone is a game violence based game. The object is to attack and hurt/kill another entity/object. Maybe my definition of violent in games might be too broad though. Chess could be considered violent using the criterion that I just stated. The fact that you considered Hearthstone a non-violent game just shows how standard violence is in the video game world. In another thread about non-violent games some else suggested fighting games like Street Fighter. People seem to think that violence in a game only refers to graphic and gun based violence. It reminds me of restaurants where they think something with only chicken broth is vegetarian because there is no meat and only the juice from boiling the meat.

 

[Gentleman Jack]

I'm not making any assumptions. I'm taking issue with a specific complaint.

The excerpt I quoted is also not only talking about video games. Alexander provides multiple examples: Twitter, one of many social media platforms as a promising playground for everyone, unless you happen to be a woman or a person of color and someone on the platform who doesn't like that turns their attention on you. AI, as a playful 'millenial' chatbot that was instantly turned into a racist engine of discriminatory invective. And probably virtual reality, as yet another engine full of promise for exploration and inclusiveness, perched to be tossed into the exact same morass as the preceding examples. This is the 'expensive toyland' from the excerpt. And the hateful people who do not want to share it are winning. I find it hard to disagree with that.

 

[The Illiterati]

With, Dishonered 2, Deus ex and ironically hitman (sans the targets) we've had a fantastic for games that allow you non-lethal approaches.

Though, all of those are still quite violent games. Sans hitman they also bombed.

These are non lethal but for all intents and purposes they are the same level of violence. Don't get me wrong, I love these games. But a tranq gun or a throat choke instead of a throat slit is barely changing the gameplay. I liked that in Watch Dogs 2 I could often not interact with the enemies at all. I'd come and go from a mission with everyone awake and alive. Though most other people will never play it this way, judging by the OT. I suppose you could probably do a bulk of the above games like this also, though I think it would be a great deal harder. In WD2 I felt it was quite doable.

 

[patapuf]

Imo we are already seeing more non violent stuff become more popular.

Survival games, exploration stuff like No mans sky or "walking simulators", Telltales sucesses (and similar games like LIfe is strange and David cage's games) even huge sucesses like Minecraft.

all stuff based around social cooperation and exploring spaces/ dialogue trees.

This stuff is already pretty popular and i don't see that trend reversing soon.


still ways to go gameplay wise though. Hard to do good social interaction without relying mostly on predetermined paths. Making a simulation of people that does not feel empty and wooden is not easy. But we'll get there eventually. Even if the first game to do it will be about killing dragons and saving the princess.

Edit: and even though they are ridculed around here, i find the popularity of simulator games like the farming simulator, is another example of nonviolent stuff that is made, successful and rising in popularity.

 

[His Majesty]

that they don't take into account the experiences of marginalized groups when they design their software

Can you give an example of this because I'm not quite sure what this is supposed to mean.

like more games with protagonists from different cultures?

 

[RedSwirl]

Read this yesterday. I think a lot of responses to this (and other articles like it) take the criticisms a bit out of proportion. No one is saying power fantasies are inherently bad, just that the console space is dominated by them to a potentially unhealthy degree.

The AAA scene is the blockbuster scene. It's like being mad that tentpole releases are all Superheroes and Action films, but taking it a step further and just straight-up ignoring all the films that aren't that simply because they don't make as much money.

GTA and COD are gonna make more money than Stardew Valley and Anno 2205. Saying, year after year, over and over again, that games need to change so they stop appealing to brutish neanderthals isn't going to do anything. It's just bitching about what's popular.

It's literally the dumbest premise you can come up with. She's like a music critic who does nothing but complain about Kanye's popularity and is upset that Tibetan Throat Singing isn't more popular.



Her career is literally built on this kind of empty criticism. Just "we want more/games can do more" without offering any kind of tangibles. Super easy to like and share, completely impossible to take action on, which is why she's so useless as a critic.

The main issue I see people complaining about is that that AAA space is often treated like the only thing that matters on consoles. The western console market in general for decades has been dominated by either action games or sports games.

Things like Stardew Valley and Anno exist sure, but games like that are either almost invisible or nonexistent on consoles. I left this in a comment on the story itself, but a difference I've noticed is that mobile and PC have a greater abundance of games about... things other than male-oriented power fantasy, like building cities or farming or solving mysteries and other things to balance out all the killing. Oddly this seems to be the case in the Japanese console market which has always had a space for visual novels, simulation games, strategy games, and other low-key things outside action games. It seems to be the western console market, and really the North American console market in particular, that has had this hyper-focus on the biggest action games, possibly for decades.

 

[bishoptl]

According to the author it feels that way. My problem is they like to pick and choose and then they ignore games that fit their fantasy which usually do very poorly sales wise. I don't know. It's very frustrating to read some of these articles because the bias is so blatant and usually is just a turn off.

Really.

 

[A Link to the Past]

The only thing that makes a game "AAA" is the financial backing of the publisher based on the assumption of financial support by the gamer.

If you want see a change, support the type of software that you want to see more of. Instead of spending your time talking about whats wrong with games you want to see less of... spend time talking about games you want to see more of.

At the end of the day, gamer spending controls the AAA market.

1. Who isn't playing enough of the games they want to see made?

2. The AAA market constantly makes excuses for why they can't, say, have a female protagonist or whatever, citing sales risk, even when this rarely if ever affects the game's success.

 

[bishoptl]

The only thing that makes a game "AAA" is the financial backing of the publisher based on the assumption of financial support by the gamer.

If you want see a change, support the type of software that you want to see more of. Instead of spending your time talking about whats wrong with games you want to see less of... spend time talking about games you want to see more of.

Tell you what - we'll do both.

That okay with you?

 

[Mesoian]

2. The AAA market constantly makes excuses for why they can't, say, have a female protagonist or whatever, citing sales risk, even when this rarely if ever affects the game's success.

The bigger problem being they do this while making even more boneheaded decisions that have nothing to do with inclusion or diversity, just straight up dollars, which end up biting them more than the effects of any social intervention could possibly do. It's a lot of, at best, safe and at worst, bad decisions being made in order to make the same more money while changing nothing.

And as I said earlier, this is more a publisher issue than a development issue but it's an issue that dictates what the norms are, what gets greenlit and what gets shitcanned.

 

[RedSwirl]

Possible real problem: the market for things outside AAA is still kind of weak on console compared to other sectors. Indie is getting stronger, but consoles don't yet really have the thriving mid-budget scene PC has been enjoying. That tends to be the market that makes space for non-blockbuster genres.

 

[Robert at Zeboyd Games]

How many AAA story driven single player console games come out these days? This market is dead compared to 5 years ago lol.

Funny to read a quote like this the day after Final Fantasy XV comes out and the week before Last Guardian comes out. And there are still a lot of AAA games that have both strong single & multiplayer (like Titanfall 2).

 

[Hari Seldon]

EDIT: Hearthstone is a game violence based game. The object is to attack and hurt/kill another entity/object. Maybe my definition of violent in games is too broad though. Chess could be considered violent using the criterion that I just stated. The fact that you considered Hearthstone a non-violent game just shows how standard violence is in the video game world. In another thread about non-violent games some else suggested fighting games like Street Fighter. People seem to think that violence in a game only refers to graphic and gun based violence. It reminds me of restaurants where they think something with only chicken broth is vegetarian because there is no meat and only the juice from boiling the meat.

Hearthstone is not a violence based game lol. "Health" in the game is a resource that you use to win. You could give it a generic name, its sole purpose is serve the game play. Just like in chess your pieces are a resource that you expend to obtain a winning position. Your definition is too broad if it includes this type of board-game style of competition.

I would define a violent game as a game that has elements that are trying to effect the player psychologically. The setting of an FPS in a war, graphical gore, physical combat, etc.

 

[Yoshi]

I agree there is too much of a focus on what some may describe on male power fantasy. But imo, the right course of action would be to make a lot less games about some superficial crap and more purely based on their mechanics and gameplay. Make more of those, please, no matter what the main character looks like (though, of course, ones looking like dinosaurs or bears-with-bird are particularly appreciated ) . Imo, games shouldn't be about "being someone" but about "doing something". And here I mean the mechanical side of "doing something".

 

[Hari Seldon]

Funny to read a quote like this the day after Final Fantasy XV comes out and the week before Last Guardian comes out. And there are still a lot of AAA games that have both strong single & multiplayer (like Titanfall 2).

Those are pretty bad examples considering they have both been in development since the war of 1812. TF2 is indeed great (from what I played) but no one seemed to care about its single player based on its lack of sales. I don't know what to say. If you like RPGs and deep single player story campaigns, you might get a few hits a year from the AAA market, but nothing like it used to be.

 

[patapuf]

I agree there is too much of a focus on what some may describe on male power fantasy. But imo, the right course of action would be to make a lot less games about some superficial crap and more purely based on their mechanics and gameplay. Make more of those, please, no matter what the main character looks like (though, of course, ones looking like dinosaurs or bears-with-bird are particularly appreciated ) . Imo, games shouldn't be about "being someone" but about "doing something". And here I mean the mechanical side of "doing something".

She's clearly looking for escapism though, the way the gameplay loop is packaged is important to what she wants.

 

[Yoshi]

She's clearly looking for escapism though, the way the gameplay loop is packaged is important to what she wants.

I agree that she sees it this way, which is why I'm only agreeing to a certain point. I think it is a horrible approach to go at a game with any other premise than to look at what kind of interaction, what kind of gameplay you want to offer, how the interaction may be shaped and in what ways it can be leveraged by world design. When you go at a game from that perspective, you end up with something gender- and ethnics neutral most of the time - and with the potential of a great rather than a servicable game on top.

Thus, I agree, all those games aimed at escapism in the way of offering power fantasies are worthless, but (and here I disagree) they shouldn't be replaced with other presentationally focussed games, but with mechanical games. Though I am aware that this is just what I wish for games to do in the future, not what she wishes for.

 

[Aters]

Doesn't matter, Diversity in overwatch proves to the industry that having non white characters doesn't actually harm the success of a game, diversity doesn't drive sells, but overwatch's success will drive into more diversity in games.

I mean, remember the ex Lionhead dev who got into a bitching fight with microsoft execs because they wouldn't allow a black woman in a fable game cover on the grounds that "the game would not sell with a black woman in the cover".

Overwatch's success just presents undeniable proof that diversity doesn't hurt sales.

You mean waifu doesn't hurt sales? Yeah I fully agree. I don't think diversity affects sales, either in a positive or negative way.

 

[IrishNinja]

i need a MAGNETO WAS RIGHT shirt, but with Leigh on it

 

[Mesoian]

You mean waifu doesn't hurt sales? Yeah I fully agree. I don't think diversity affects sales, either in a positive or negative way.

Which begs the question, if so, why not do it?

 

[Massive Duck. C.M.]

Will read all later but Leigh is generally on point. Would also help if people would stop being so risk averse so we could get PS1 era level variety of gameplay experiences

i need a MAGNETO WAS RIGHT shirt, but with Leigh on it

Would rock

 

[Drazgul]

Doesn't matter, Diversity in overwatch proves to the industry that having non white characters doesn't actually harm the success of a game, diversity doesn't drive sells, but overwatch's success will drive into more diversity in games.

I mean, remember the ex Lionhead dev who got into a bitching fight with microsoft execs because they wouldn't allow a black woman in a fable game cover on the grounds that "the game would not sell with a black woman in the cover".

Overwatch's success just presents undeniable proof that diversity doesn't hurt sales.

To be fair, Overwatch has a big character roster and those've always been diverse in games (fighters and other arena MP FPSes come to mind first), I would imagine it's a different proposition altogether for the marketing dept/execs if developers wanted to have a minority character as the only protagonist in a game.

 

[Lime]

Can you give an example of this because I'm not quite sure what this is supposed to mean.

like more games with protagonists from different cultures?

Twitter is the best example which Alexander also mentions in her article.

 

[BennyBlanco]

I actually agree the power fantasy stuff is getting old. Tired of saving the universe.

 

[LordJim]

I actually agree the power fantasy stuff is getting old. Tired of saving the universe.

More games need to be 'destroy the universe' oriented.

 

[SystemUser]

Hearthstone is not a violence based game lol. "Health" in the game is a resource that you use to win. You could give it a generic name, its sole purpose is serve the game play. Just like in chess your pieces are a resource that you expend to obtain a winning position. Your definition is too broad if it includes this type of board-game style of competition.

I would define a violent game as a game that has elements that are trying to effect the player psychologically. The setting of an FPS in a war, graphical gore, physical combat, etc.

I am not saying that Hearthstone is the most violent game, but the concept of game is that you attack each other. They submitted the game to ESRB with the Fantasy Violence descriptor. The main mechanic and concept of Heartstone is violence. Your criteria for violence would fall into ultra-violence. When I was a kid First Blood (Rambo 1) was considered a violent movie.

We are so desensitized to violence that you only consider the most extreme violence as making a game a violent game.

 

[BennyBlanco]

More games need to be 'destroy the universe' oriented.

I would play the shit out of that. Looking forward to trying Tyranny.

 

[Mael]

Now the CEO of Breitbart, Steve Bannon, is an advisor to incoming President Trump.

That part shows that clearly the GG types scum of the earth are absolutely not going away.
This is probably the worst part of it all.
I don't know about any of you but I know I solved the problem my way, I'm just going to limit any interaction with the gaming industry to avoid this kind of shit.
The industry is clearly not interesting in providing an environment decent enough and I'm supposed to pay them for the privilege on top of that these days.
The more it goes, the more they're pushing me out of it anyway.
There comes a point where it's all fun and games but if there's not interested in my business I'm not going to reward them for it.

 

[SquirrelWide]

Man, I love the dungeon crawl aspect of Persona 3/4. Yeah, the dungeon design is poor, but the combat is tons of fun & it's a blast building the ultimate persona team. And I hear it's even better in P5.

Dropped by to agree with this. Combat was fun. Dungeon visuals were cool. Dungeon layout was a snoozer. I'd rather see that fixed than cut.

 

[schwabdizzle]

They should just make every game with a character creater......that would solve all these issues.

 

[Mael]

They should just make every game with a character creater......that would solve all these issues.

That cannot possibly be the solution, I mean if you want all games to fit the Westworld analogy the writer is talking about, sure.
But there's some type of games you absolutely can't do that and that also a useless limitation you put on the games.

 

[ClayKavalier]

Honestly it's coming down to male power fantasy simply being overdone. I'm tired of it by now. I'm getting bored of playing as Attractive Brown Haired Man or Guy with Helmet on.

Same. Now Girl with Helmet on, oh yeah.

I think there's plenty of games out there that don't cater to fantasies exclusive to straight white males. Most of my favorite games this year like the Witness aren't power fantasies at all. It seems like big-budget action games will always be disproportionately represented on best sellers lists, but there's interesting stuff out there. Giving and attracting attention to games that aren't catering to a common denominator seems a lot more productive than saying "I told you so." And shitty as it may be, games with the largest budgets will continue to be designed for the masses. Stuff like BF1 is encouraging.

I'm not sure how I feel about games as power fantasies. On hand games like BioWare's are really annoying to me. Being constantly reminded that I'm the Chosen One in Mass Effect and Dragon Age doesn't feel fun, it feels like I'm being pandered to by someone who thinks I'm pathetic. On the other hand, Doom was probably by favorite game this year. I guess the difference is you have to earn feeling like a badass in Doom instead of just constantly being told you are.

They should just make every game with a character creater......that would solve all these issues.

I assume this isn't always financially feasible for smaller devs. It also wouldn't always be as inclusive as it may appear at a glance. I wonder how Drinkbox would feel if Severed had a character creator and a large share of players made a bald white guy.

This is also not going to fly with many existing franchises. Go look at the number of people upset by the idea of a female Link in one of the Linkle threads.

 

[redcrayon]

Here's a related question - JRPGs (and RPGs in general, but especially JRPGs) tend to have a very even male/female audience split, despite being literal power fantasies (the focus of gameplay is to increase your stats to defeat harder enemies). Why is it that the power fantasy presented in JRPGs appeal to both genders in ways that the power fantasy in other genres do not?

I've often thought it's because they generally emphasise progression in power through personal growth, with defeating the enemy a by-product of understanding your true abilities, often only possible when it's done. It's a bit more endearing than wisecracking adult doing wisecracking adult things while bouncing baddies heads off the nearest bit of scenery, but the downside is putting up with yet another cliched depiction of teenage growing pains and the power of friendship. I thought Persona 4 handled an idealised group of school friends really well though, I thought their friendship was really genuine and touching in places.

Man, I love the dungeon crawl aspect of Persona 3/4. Yeah, the dungeon design is poor, but the combat is tons of fun & it's a blast building the ultimate persona team. And I hear it's even better in P5.

Yeah, tinkering with party setups is one of my favourite parts of rpgs.

 

[Gummb]

Wow, this is such a great perspective to have. Can't wait to read the entire thing.

 

[djtiesto]

Here's a related question - JRPGs (and RPGs in general, but especially JRPGs) tend to have a very even male/female audience split, despite being literal power fantasies (the focus of gameplay is to increase your stats to defeat harder enemies). Why is it that the power fantasy presented in JRPGs appeal to both genders in ways that the power fantasy in other genres do not?

I've noticed this too, and interesting enough Suikoden and Lunar have a very sizeable fanbase of women, too (both fairly niche as far as game series go). I remember a few years ago being on a date with a big Zelda fan, we were talking games and the waitress at the diner said "I couldn't help but overhear your conversation... I love the Suikoden games, are you familiar with them?"

It could be anything from having a more diverse and engaging character roster than most game genres / more striking, vibrant and visually engaging worlds/settings / a diverse array of themes being covered (Shadow Hearts, Phantasy Star, Lunar, Xenogears are all drastically different in tone and presentation) / not afraid of attempting romance storylines regardless of their quality (Lunar, Emerald Dragon, FF8, later FE games). And to get a bit boorish and stereotypical, it could be because of visual 'dressing up' of characters in certain games (DQ9, MMOs) or even that lots of RPGs stress problem solving and strategy over reflexes.

 

[M0nochromatic]

The criticism of the AAA and mainstream is articulate and accurate. It makes me ever more grateful to the independents out there who are able to create worlds free from the oppressive systems of AAA development and production which always seem to strip out all of the life from their art.

 

[UncleSporky]

They should just make every game with a character creater......that would solve all these issues.

But this is what I was asking about on the first page...are games where you can play as a woman, or must play as a woman, not still male power fantasies in some respect?

Maybe part of the fantasy is exerting control over a woman, i.e. playing as them.

This is why I was hoping we could get some agreed upon definitions going so we can identify which games are doing the right thing and which ones aren't.

There have been a lot of vague statements about AAA shooters. There have been some statements that simulations are not male power fantasies...I'm not sure I agree with that. On some level isn't it a male fantasy to own and control a city, or control the world? Set the taxation level and tell others what to build where?

 

[firehawk12]

That has more to do with the drama inherent in violence, and the fact that programming/game design/basic human behavior lends itself really well to fights. It's extremely clear. You enter a room, a person shoots at you, so clearly you must eliminate them, so you then take action to do so, and when they are eliminated, it is clear because of the deletion of the entity.

It's easy, basically.

I mean, that's my point though. It's easy, it makes money, so there's no reason to try anything else.
But romance has enough drama in it that it made that 50 Shades of Grey woman millions of dollars, let alone the people who churn out Harlequin romance novels, even though the stories are just as cliche as your typical dudebro shooter.

The main reason that it's easier to do in film than games is because conversation systems are extremely hard to do. I know. I've worked on some. I'm working on a shooter right now because I've done the market research. I would like to be working on a game where you're a black market operator and the game interface looks like the mIRC client, but that requires the game's characters to pass the turing test. Otherwise, you're just inputting from a select few dialogue options the game can reply to, and it's a boring choose your own adventure game.

Trust me. They have. I know, because I've talked to them about it, some at length.

I remember when Ken Levine and Shawn Elliot said somewhere that Bioshock Infinite had to just be about combat because they didn't really have a good way to actually address the issues of race and class that are brought up in the tedious audio logs that you have to listen to and it was just disappointing to me to see that. Every single problem in that game is basically solved by being trapped in a circular combat arena for 5 minutes, and while that's fine as a game, to me it just undermined any social commentary that they might have been trying to make.

I know people think I'm crazy, but I think David Cage is at least on the right track when it comes to doing something with interactivity that allows for stories that are just about people talking to each other instead of shooting each other. Beyond Two Souls, with Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe, was basically the most earnest attempt to try to make a big budget game experience that tried to appeal to "casuals" who would be drawn by the star power and also to make a game that tried to have more narratively meaningful moments of interactivity.

With text parsers, there's a ton of those hacking games at least or Christine Love's games, but we're getting into the realm of indie games and I think it's clear that indie games are much more diverse than "mainstream" (whatever that means) game development.

I always felt that Rockstar COULD do something with GTA just to fuck with people, particularly because millions of people would buy it regardless. It could just be a high budget version of Cart Life, where you play as a single mom trying to sell coffee and keep her daughter in the divorce. That's all they'd need to do and suddenly it'd be seen as a crowning achievement in gaming. lol

I mean, if you pay attention to shooters at all, this makes sense? Respawn is responsible for some of the best shooters ever made. Mohammad Alavi is one of the best level designers we've ever had in video gaming. It's not surprising at all that it's a fantastic game.

Well, considering the last game and the fact that it's still a multiplayer game, the fact that they made a Portal-esque map is kind of hilarious. That and I saw it as a nice full circle in terms of returning to Modern Warfare and the ideas that they tried to introduce there (it remains perhaps the most effective "anti-war" game to be made, perhaps next to Spec Ops: The Line).

And the first game was vastly better than the second.

I haven't played the second yet, but I remember the combat frustrating me to know end. Of course, story-wise, there was also the fact that the first game was butchered by making the protagonist silent when it was written and designed for a speaking protagonist early in the game.

 

[Funyarinpa]

I don't agree with the impression I'm getting of "male power fantasy" continuously gaining a negative connotation to describe a game. I think it's perfectly fine for a game to cater to any particular demographic.

However, I definitely have nothing against more diversity in games. That means more viewpoints, more stories to tell, more cultures and ideas to represent, more experiences to reflect and learn from. How is that a bad thing?