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[jay]

Is this a gamergate light thread? Let's complain about things like sexism and racism being perceived in games without actually looking bad while doing it.

 

[GeeTeeCee]

This was the RE5 trailer that kicked off the controversy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxJbz_3PKQo

Even with the incredibly vague shot of the civilian getting infected with something (the only real hint that things aren't normal in town), someone with little to no knowledge of the Resi franchise would probably find the imagery going on here a little off.

 

[SolidSnakex]

Considering the patents they held at the time - and the business motivations that pushed Microsoft to include those systems... there's not much of a reason to assume they weren't considering it. The role of the press is often analysis, and it made a lot of sense in context. They ended up dodging the bullet for sure - but no foul in thinking they'd follow what seemed to be an industry mandated trend.

I sat down with Yoshida a few hours after the PS4 reveal tonight and one of the first things I asked was whether used games would be blocked.

"Do you want us to do that?" he asked.

No, I said. I think, if you buy something on a disc, that you have a kind of moral contract with the person you've bought it from that you retain some of that value and you can pass it on.

Do you agree, I asked?

"Yes. That's the general expectation by consumers," said Yoshida. "They purchase physical form, they want to use it everywhere, right? So that's my expectation."

So if someone buys a PlayStation 4 game, I asked, you're not going to stop them reselling it?

"Aaaah," was Yoshida's initial answer, but seemingly only because he'd forgotten his line. "So what was our official answer to our internal question?" he asked his Japanese PR advisor. The advisor stepped in but didn't seem to answer clearly, at least to my ears. Yoshida then took control again firmly:

"So, used games can play on PS4. How is that?"

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...gamer-playstation-4-will-not-block-used-games

But somehow the "Sony too" narrative from the games media persisted even though Yoshida put it to rest just hours after Sony officially announced the PS4. It was like they couldn't believe that MS would make that decision on their own so Sony must've been doing it as well.

 

[Brawly Likes to Brawl]

Kotaku saying that the sorceress in Dragon's Crown is part of a lolicon fantasy

The entire mess surrounding that was insane.

 

[Alucrid]

the whole "they're japanese they don't know better" shtick is so tiring

 

[Karkador]

Is this thread just meant to un-bury every hatchet we've had on GAF discussions about these topics?

 

[LyleLanley]

the whole "they're japanese they don't know better" shtick is so tiring

Seems kind of racist.

 

[Triggerhappytel]

The Sony Too stuff in 2013 was insufferable.

All those Ars Technica graphs showing the X1 not that far behind on a not scaled properly graph, while at the same time saying don't look too much into the numbers of PS4 launch sales.

2013 was a bad year for press.

Yeah, the journalism trying to downplay the PS4's launch success and defending/apologising MS was really embarrassing. I remember reading several Eurogamer articles at the time, and they were really negative about the PS4 reveal and launch while being a lot more positive about the Xbone.

 

[martino]

Oh, I agree. Sure, ME3's ending was a huge disappointment, but people were writing off the entire game because of that. I think it was indeed a stellar experience sowhat marred by the ending and lack of impact your choices had. The extended cut made up for a lot of the ending's shortcomings IMO but it was way too little and too late.

never will understand it...mass effect 3 as a whole is a sum of ending of all plot of the galaxy throughout the game...you can sum up the end in this game to the 5 last minutes and you have already ended pretty much everything when at this point.

 

[Vlaphor]

For me, the biggest issue with the Mass Effect 3 ending is just how little everything else mattered. Throughout the whole saga, we were told that our choices mattered...and then we get a multiple choice ending that takes none of our previous decisions into account.

 

[ShockingAlberto]

The entire mess surrounding that was insane.

I think Schrier's original complaint was hyperbolic (though I agreed then, and still do, that the character designs were clearly sexual for the sole purpose of selling the game), but Kamitani's response of essentially calling him gay was fucking terrible. How anyone believed "No I just wanted to ask him if he liked dwarves" is beyond me.

 

[martino]

For me, the biggest issue with the Mass Effect 3 ending is just how little everything else mattered. Throughout the whole saga, we were told that our choices mattered...and then we get a multiple choice ending that takes none of our previous decisions into account.

when i read that i have a feeling people while playing the whole game until the end were

 

[dragonzdogma]

I think Schrier's original complaint was hyperbolic (though I agreed then, and still do, that the character designs were clearly sexual for the sole purpose of selling the game), but Kamitani's response of essentially calling him gay was fucking terrible. How anyone believed "No I just wanted to ask him if he liked dwarves" is beyond me.

Wait what!?
seriously?

 

[KoopaTheCasual]

Oh man this is the most glorious thread backfire I've ever seen.

OT: The Lords of Shadow "rape" scene is definitely up there.

 

[LordGorchnik]

Kotaku saying that the sorceress in Dragon's Crown is part of a lolicon fantasy

Yeah that was really dumb of him. Do some research people.

Also <3 Kamitani's artwork.

 

[Mr-Joker]

Probably the "Nintendo hates women" statement that I see flying around from some gaf member of late, completely untrue and I don't where people got that idea from.

Not related to Game Press but I remember that before Captain Toad was released a gaffer made a thread discussing how "Captain Toad is so sexist because you have to rescue Toadette".

Then it turned out that you

Spoiler

get to play as Toadette and have to rescue Captain Toad in book 2.

When people thought that Atlus US was censoring Persona 5 because Morganna was in front of Anne's chest.

I legit facepalmed when I saw that as I thought that it was obvious why they moved Morganna, but nope people turned off their logical thinking skill and jumped on the "censorship" bandwagon.

I'm gonna go with the recent "Nintendo is joking about Gamergate" thing that popped up recently. While I understand why it looked that way at first with the two images that were posted, it was later revealed that the two images were minutes apart and referenced older jokes from Nintendo. Despite this fact, many games journalists still held firm, finding different ways to say that Nintendo was still at fault and not taking any responsibility for their own overreaction or admittance that the original evidence was presented in a less than factual way.

Yeah that one is another case of people failing to use their logical reasoning skills and researching the truth meaning behind that joke plus the fact that Nintendo games are aimed at kids so they wouldn't put a gamergate joke in their game.

I even had to unfollow someone on twitter as they were being stubborn and just refused to listen to reason.

 

[Bossking]

For me, the biggest issue with the Mass Effect 3 ending is just how little everything else mattered. Throughout the whole saga, we were told that our choices mattered...and then we get a multiple choice ending that takes none of our previous decisions into account.

I just couldn't believe that the three endings they gave us were so similar, with some slight edits and different hues. Like, even a Fallout style slide-show with narration about our impact on certain planets and races would've been fine, but they couldn't even do that.

I was more disappointed about the gaming press refusing to call out what a lazy, rushed, clunky game Mass Effect 3 turned out to be. It was such a chore to play through, and easily the most sloppily-written of the trilogy. There was no way it deserved such unanimous praise and near-perfect scores.

 

[Rats Off To Ya]

Yeah, the journalism trying to downplay the PS4's launch success and defending/apologising MS was really embarrassing. I remember reading several Eurogamer articles at the time, and they were really negative about the PS4 reveal and launch while being a lot more positive about the Xbone.

I still don't know what was up with all that. It was as if a large swath of the gaming press wasn't ready to accept a world in which the Xbox isn't dominant. Like the home console business began in 2005, or something.

 

[charlequin]

Why though? The game starts of in a urban area in Africa, black city people, black city zombies. Tribes or tribal culture still exists in Africa, Australia, New Zealand etc. I thought the tribal zombies were a great addition and looked somewhat believable and not like a offensive caricature.

I am very curious to know exactly the breadth of your knowledge of "tribal cultures" in Africa that serves as the basis for this judgment.

 

[FloweryMarston]

when the fake nx controller was shown and "insiders" said "it's true! i can confirm that!"

 

[old manatee]

Resident Evil 5 made me feel ill. It was too fucked up to be a big buff white dude storming through African villages mowing everyone down. Hand wave the criticisms however you want, I found it deeply unpleasant to play, and not because of the schlocky 'horror'.

 

[Dremark]

"Why is racism against black people different from racism against spanish people, I don't understand"

Racism is racism. I don't see why either should be tolerated or condoned. Having said that I haven't played either game so I don't know how valid either claim really is.

I think Schrier's original complaint was hyperbolic (though I agreed then, and still do, that the character designs were clearly sexual for the sole purpose of selling the game), but Kamitani's response of essentially calling him gay was fucking terrible. How anyone believed "No I just wanted to ask him if he liked dwarves" is beyond me.

Wait what!?
seriously?

He posted a picture of three half naked male Dwarves with the text "It seems that Mr. JASON SCHREIER of kotaku is pleased also with neither sorceress nor amazon.
The art of the direction which he likes was prepared."

You can actually view it here: https://m.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...925660254.85466.100002565488533&type=1&ref=nf

He later apologized, said it was a joke and explained the design process he uses here: http://kotaku.com/the-artist-behind-dragons-crown-explains-his-exaggerat-482450927

I suppose it's up to interpretation as to what his intentions were. It didn't sound to me like he backpedaled on it being a reference to Schrier being homosexual, he just later stated it was supposed to be a joke rather than an attack.

 

[Senoculum]

I'm cutting a documentary, and have scrubbed through 140 hours of footage, clips and interviews of about 16 nations in Africa. I think it's a beautiful continent with beautiful people. There are huge cities, as well as taut tribes who live just as prosperously. Quite frankly, there isn't enough media that uses this setting.

And there's a lot of misinformation out there. The team at CAPCOM did in fact visit the continent. They took photo references. There is ZERO ill intent in their depiction of the setting. Further, it's a science fiction story deeply rooted in mythology and anthropology - it runs with the "African origin of modern humans" and spins it as a part of the game's lore; an idea that's rarely utilized.

As someone else mentioned, it's about exploiting the specificities of the locale. If I'm writing a horror story in Afghanistan, you bet I'll be touching on ancient ruins and folklore. Afghanistan is beautiful too, with its snow capped mountains and sprawling cities - but if you played MGSV, you'd think it's nothing but military camps. At least RE5 has the decency (and narrative chops) to start the hero's journey in a small (and accurate) town, eventually moving up to the sea port, and then mines, and then across saharan steppes, until it escalates to remote villages who are affected by the remote labs. In fact, I took it as as an example of a multi-billion dollar corporation exhausting the resources of a small nation - which let's be real, it happens all too often. The plot and its themes, and how it unfolds, is very natural and appropriate for the genre. It's a blockbuster.

Is something like the b-movie Green Inferno also misaligned and tone-deaf for depicting an uncontacted people in South America as cannibals?

 

[Dr.Social]

This thread will probably go better if people post sources.

So here's some of N'Gai Croal's actual criticism of the Resident Evil 5 reveal trailer.

And here's the trailer in question.

 

[Vlaphor]

I'm cutting a documentary, and have scrubbed through 140 hours of footage, clips and interviews of about 16 nations in Africa. I think it's a beautiful continent with beautiful people. There are huge cities, as well as taut tribes who live just as prosperously. Quite frankly, there isn't enough media that uses this setting.

And there's a lot of misinformation out there. The team at CAPCOM did in fact visit the continent. They took photo references. There is ZERO ill intent in their depiction of the setting. Further, it's a science fiction story deeply rooted in mythology and anthropology - it runs with the "African origin of modern humans" and spins it as a part of the game's lore; an idea that's rarely utilized.

As someone else mentioned, it's about exploiting the specificities of the locale. If I'm writing a horror story in Afghanistan, you bet I'll be touching on ancient ruins and folklore. Afghanistan is beautiful too, with its snow capped mountains and sprawling cities - but if you played MGSV, you'd think it's nothing but military camps. At least RE5 has the decency (and narrative chops) to start the hero's journey in a small (and accurate) town, eventually moving up to the sea port, and then mines, and then across Saharan steppes, until it escalates to remote villages who are affected by the remote labs. In fact, I took it as as an example of a multi-billion dollar corporation exhausting the resources of a small nation - which let's be real, it happens all too often. The plot and its themes, and how it unfolds, is very natural and appropriate for the genre. It's a blockbuster.

Is something like the b-movie Green Inferno also misaligned and tone-deaf for depicting an uncontacted people in South America as cannibals?

...and all that is fine if that's how you want to take it, but when you get to the 1950's depiction of African people with the explanation that the virus is causing them to regress (thus giving the implication that this is how all African people are deep inside), then you get to a problem that can't so easily be explained.

 

[CloudWolf]

I think that ridiculous 'The Witcher 3 is racist'-article from Polygon counts.

 

[Arkeband]

Probably the whole Lords of Shadow 2/"rape" thing. Quite a huge reach by the journalist

I found that ridiculous, considering you kill a female boss later on by shoving a pipe in her mouth which was clearly evocative of fellatio.

That whole game was a mess.

 

[Rembrandt]

The Tomb Raider rape scene.

Even if she would have been raped, I dont actually see how thats a problem. Its a storytelling device.
In movies it is, in tv shows it is, in books it is and of course it can also used in games...

Wasn't it more of people getting upset than the press and then the scene turned out to be well done and realistic?

 

[Fantastapotamus]

Kotaku getting accused of delaying No Man's Sky was pretty fun

Edit: Oh, I guess I missread the thread

 

[Scientist Supreme!]

Almost everything being brought up seems totally fine and just seems like some don't like people talking about "touchy" subjects.

 

[Crayon]

Yeah, the journalism trying to downplay the PS4's launch success and defending/apologising MS was really embarrassing. I remember reading several Eurogamer articles at the time, and they were really negative about the PS4 reveal and launch while being a lot more positive about the Xbone.

They'll be paying the price with their credibility for a long time. Games journalism has been sliding towards joke status for years and it's because of corporate back scratching like this.

 

[SomedayTheFire]

There is a story note that explains that they returned to those tribal ways after being infected with the virus. It's however easy to miss and arguably just window dressing.

That's racist as fuck.

Is this a gamergate light thread? Let's complain about things like sexism and racism being perceived in games without actually looking bad while doing it.

I wouldn't even say light. It's very obvious.

 

[SlipperyFishes]

Being Japanese devs they probably didn't know much about African culture and was going to be viewed as being racist.

Anyone who thinks that capcom or the devs made this game with any intent of being racist is what I consider ridiculous.

There is this thing called research, the internet and even things like transportation which annul that whole line of thought.

This OP screams more "leave video games alone" than anything else I've read this week (it's only Monday)

 

[Senoculum]

...and all that is fine if that's how you want to take it, but when you get to the 1950's depiction of African people with the explanation that the virus is causing them to regress (thus giving the implication that this is how all African people are deep inside), then you get to a problem that can't so easily be explained.

That's not even close to being the truth. As one author puts it: "I played the game and I couldn't even pretend I was playing an ethnic cleansing sim for a joke." The real villains exploited the native Africans. The game goes through great lengths to point out the Majini were once peaceful villagers, who were lied to and tricked. Know where this was inspired from? How about Pfizer who administered doses of experimental drugs to African children without their parent's consent in 2005?

The offensiveness of RE5 is subjective. And I don't believe that vilifying CAPCOM makes much sense, when we can shift the dialogue to more overt prejudices in the world.

 

[Fantastapotamus]

Imagine if in RE7 you suddenly encounter a village of americans all dressed like Cowboys with old revolvers and nobody even reacts to it. Surely everybody would be fine with that?

Spoiler

And that's not even racist, just stupid.

 

[Kinyou]

Imagine if in RE7 you suddenly encounter a village of americans all dressed like Cowboys with old revolvers and nobody even reacts to it. Surely everybody would be fine with that?

Spoiler

And that's not even racist, just stupid.

RE4 did have you fight monks who were armed with crossbows and catapults, so it wouldn't even be that out of order.

 

[Curufinwe]

The entirely unsupported Sony, Too accusations about online DRM.

 

[Gabriel_Logan]

"Why is racism against black people different from racism against spanish people, I don't understand"

You jest but a lot of Europe was racist to the Spanish, especially the English. They just didnt give a fuck because they owned half the planet. I'm not sure the Japanese are racist towards Spaniards but they sure have been towards black people.

 

[NinjamicWZ]

(though I agreed then, and still do, that the character designs were clearly sexual for the sole purpose of selling the game)

A reason, but not the sole reason. Everything in games is done with the intention of selling the game, but he also just wanted it to look cool.

 

[Acquiescence]

Not that I liked the game much, but the amount of shit the Tomb Raider reboot got prior to its release was embarrassing. None of it was warranted.

 

[deadscreensky]

But Europe being stuck in the middle ages in RE4 is fine.

Yeah, living in enormous castles is a really harmful racist stereotype that Spanish people still have to deal with today, poor bastards.

There's different levels of stereotypes, and the stuff RE5 plays with like the tribal clichés or the early scene of a white woman getting chased and attacked by black men is far more hurtful and serious than a generalized backwards foreigner shtick.

Certain people here seem to think racism has to have deliberately vile and cruel intentions behind it before it counts ("Capcom didn't know better!"), but the reality is that most racism is the RE5 sort of unexamined, dehumanizing stereotypes. I don't think anybody was suggesting near release that this meant Capcom hated black people, but it was still absolutely racist and deserved to be called out for it. This doesn't mean they need to go out of business or that RE5 needs to be banned, it means they need to be more sensitive about this sort of thing, that's the intent behind this sort of criticism. It's a simple "hey, check yourself, that's insensitive" kind of thing, and there's no reason to get deeply defensive over it.

It's sad and a little troubling that so many gamers still don't get the issues with RE5. Other posters have already covered this topic better than I can, but I wanted to add to the pile just to shift the discussion balance a little bit closer to 'getting it'.

 

[Kal-El814]

"Why is racism against black people different from racism against spanish people, I don't understand"

There's no stereotype about Spanish people being savages, the Ganados didn't "regress" to being spearchucking savages, and a huge white American armed to the teeth wrecking African villages evokes different history than a white guy doing the same thing in Spain.

You can't change meaningful characteristics of the actors in a scene and wonder why it's being perceived differently. Racism is racism, but context matters. If every Ganado in RE4 was female and nothing else about the game was changed, it would be seen differently than it is and rightfully so.

 

[PBY]

That's not how racism works OP.

That game had issues that needed to be discussed.

 

[Mesoian]

What are some ridiculous things games have been accused of?

(IMO)Anyone remember Resident evil 5 devs (capcom) being accused of being racist?
Devs being Japanese,setting the game in Africa with a partners from Africa didn't stop them from implying that.

I'm sure there are far worst examples tho.

I mean, the RE5 argument was STROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG.

 

[Sky Chief]

Being Japanese devs they probably didn't know much about African culture and was going to be viewed as being racist.

Anyone who thinks that capcom or the devs made this game with any intent of being racist is what I consider ridiculous.

Assuming that for some reason Japanese people are inherently ignorant of African culture is pretty messed up and does not excuse their racism

 

[WrenchNinja]

I'm cutting a documentary, and have scrubbed through 140 hours of footage, clips and interviews of about 16 nations in Africa. I think it's a beautiful continent with beautiful people. There are huge cities, as well as taut tribes who live just as prosperously. Quite frankly, there isn't enough media that uses this setting.

And there's a lot of misinformation out there. The team at CAPCOM did in fact visit the continent. They took photo references. There is ZERO ill intent in their depiction of the setting. Further, it's a science fiction story deeply rooted in mythology and anthropology - it runs with the "African origin of modern humans" and spins it as a part of the game's lore; an idea that's rarely utilized.

As someone else mentioned, it's about exploiting the specificities of the locale. If I'm writing a horror story in Afghanistan, you bet I'll be touching on ancient ruins and folklore. Afghanistan is beautiful too, with its snow capped mountains and sprawling cities - but if you played MGSV, you'd think it's nothing but military camps. At least RE5 has the decency (and narrative chops) to start the hero's journey in a small (and accurate) town, eventually moving up to the sea port, and then mines, and then across saharan steppes, until it escalates to remote villages who are affected by the remote labs. In fact, I took it as as an example of a multi-billion dollar corporation exhausting the resources of a small nation - which let's be real, it happens all too often. The plot and its themes, and how it unfolds, is very natural and appropriate for the genre. It's a blockbuster.

Is something like the b-movie Green Inferno also misaligned and tone-deaf for depicting an uncontacted people in South America as cannibals?

I'm not sure where you're going with when comparing stuff to Eli Roth tripe

 

[Mesoian]

Why though? The game starts of in a urban area in Africa, black city people, black city zombies. Tribes or tribal culture still exists in Africa, Australia, New Zealand etc. I thought the tribal zombies were a great addition and looked somewhat believable and not like a offensive caricature. Don't agree at all about it being racist even though I'm rather sensitive to maters like these. I feel like some of the outfits in the game are much more sexist than anything else is racist.

Edit: And yes. I remember the outrage already started at the first trailer which depicted black zombies in the urban area of the game. I'd still defend the tribal zombies though.

Everyone forgets about that scene in the beginning of the game where a black zombie who has just turned/is turning drags a white woman into a shack and forces her down before biting her huh? They eventually changed the skintone of said zombie to be lighter, which is a really shitty way of sidestepping that shit.

The native zombies, while still being incredibly insensitive, isn't even the most racist stuff in RE5. RE5 has a lot of the same tone that the early chapters of the manga Teraformers does, where you're reading and squinting a little more with each page as things become more and more racist, but you're not sure if they don't understand that it is racist or if they're just...cribbing from something that's racist.

But yeah...that thing was...ROUGH. Spear chucking imagery aside, there's a whole lot taking from early 50's film that depicts African natives as backwards savages only there to rape white women and human hearts.

 

[God Dayumm]

Any accusation of a game being "too violent" is cringe soccer mom comedy bronze. The most ridiculous of course being Battlefield 1 (of all things, jesus christ). We even had people suffering from PTSD because their great grandfather was involved in WW1! Ok, that was not the game press but they wrote pretty ridiculous articles

 

[PSqueak]

What are some ridiculous things games have been accused of?

(IMO)Anyone remember Resident evil 5 devs (capcom) being accused of being racist?
Devs being Japanese,setting the game in Africa with a partners from Africa didn't stop them from implying that.

I'm sure there are far worst examples tho.

American going to Spain and murdering hundreds of Spaniard mutants? OK!
American going to Africa and murdering hundreds of African mutants? THAT'S RACIST!

 

[Garrett Hawke]

American going to Spain and murdering hundreds of Spaniard mutants? OK!
American going to Africa and murdering hundreds of African mutants? THAT'S RACIST!

Maybe read the thread pls