Using Games as a Scapegoat

For as long as there have been people on this earth, there have been people doing shitty things to each other.  For as long as I can remember, there are a lot of shitty things that people have done where video games and gamers have had to carry a portion of the blame.  It's a trend that is complete bullshit and needs to die because not only is it needlessly damaging to the image of people who enjoy video games as their main, or one of their main hobbies, but it's damaging to the people who have shitty things done to them.

From the pre-video game days of Dungeons and Dragons being accused of raising little Satan worshippers to school shootings being blamed on the likes of Doom, for the longest people have tried to use video games as the reason for shitty things happening.  Now, people have even added racism and sexism to the mix of things video games have caused so firing up gaming news can get a little depressing.  

Even with the most recent mass shooting tragedy in America, Orlando, there were articles trying to paint gaming as the reason for these things happening.  That horrible event happened around the time of E3 so there were a lot of people quick to point the finger and say it's their fault for "glorifying gun violence".  Take to a site like Twitter or Facebook and the number of idiots repeating these stupid ideas is ten fold.  

Here's the thing, using gaming or anything else as a sort of scape goat for the ills of the world is not only incredibly stupid, but it distracts from the real cause of the issue and basically guarantees that it will happen again.  It's a lot easier to attack games for gun violence rather than discuss things like gun control or the sorry state of mental care in America.  Whenever you read stories about violence at LAN cafes it's much easier to blame the game rather than examine the probably tragic lives of the victim and offenders.  It's much easier to blame games for sexism than actually have the balls to stand up for women in countries where you can be killed for that kind of thing.  It's spineless and shows that you care more about shifting blame rather than trying to solve the issue.  

Gaming is a huge hobby, a huge industry enjoyed by millions of people.  It's also still a fairly young industry that a lot of people either can't or don't want to try to get their head round.  When you have a hobby this large there are OBVIOUSLY going to be shitty people around and they are going to do shitty things regardless of their pasttimes. 

Using games to scapegoat real world issues is damaging, distracting and cowardly and any writer that's ever taken part in that shit should be ashamed.  

Your Race, Gender or Sexuality Doesn't Fucking Matter!!!!

Well fuckin' shit, I called it didn't I?  E3 2014 isn't even fucking over yet and I'm already hearing news of "outcry" from twats with too much time on their hands who don't know what they are talking about and hate fun.

Before I continue, let me put a big fat disclaimer on this post.  I am NOT Anti-Gay, Anti-Women or a racist and the fact that I have to spell this out for a number of people is fucking sad.  I'm not going to judge a person based on the colour of their skin, their genitals or what they decide to do with said genitals.  If I call you a fuckin' asshole, it's because you are being a goddamn fucking asshole and something as base as your sexuality, race or gender doesn't even fucking factor in.

Now that I've got that out of the way, let me address the first bit of outcry I got tipped off about and that was regarding the dude in the picture at the top of the post.  He is the villain from Farcry 4 and he's a flamboyant warlord type that goes around in a pink suit and has a foppish haircut.  The outcry comes from the fact that he MIGHT (Yes, MIGHT is the key fucking word because no one actually knows) be gay.

Well so fucking what? Villains can't be wealthy warlords? What kind of fucked up discrimination is that?  Well seriously the argument is that because he's the bad guy it's perpetuating and image of gays being "the bad guys" of society and teaches people that we should kill them off or some shit.  We all know that's bullshit and the only reason they are piping up about it is for attention and so that they have another wonky soapbox to stand on regarding the agenda.  But it's not just bullshit, it's fucking hypocritical!

[INCOMING SPOILERS]

This is Ellie from The Last of Us, as if you didn't fucking already know that since this game gets plastered everywhere.  In the DLC it was revealed that she was into chicks which is fine.  People were happy with this character being homosexual because she's the good guy and obviously they felt that the way Ellie was portrayed in The Last of Us painted homosexuals in a good light.

So let me get this straight....You're OK with good guys being homosexuals but when it's a bad guy it's a big no no?  Fuck off with your double standard!  You can't have it one when and then complain when it's another.

If you're going to complain about that kind of thing then as a British person I have way more fucking right to complain than you guys do.  Almost every villain in every action movie ever is some stuck up British dude, but you don't see us complaining do you?  Assholes

So now that I've complained about that, let's move on to outcry number 2 which is the whole thing about female characters in the new Assassins Creed.

I've talked about this issue before, maybe not on the blog but I discussed it with a few people with the game Deep Down which had a similar issue.  From a plot perspective and a development one, there was a reason for not including female playable characters in that game and it seems to be a similar issue here.  I don't care if you think the idea of including female models in the game to be used as player characters is too much work is bollocks, that's their story and they are sticking to it.

But at the end of the day, so fucking what?  Assassins Creed is a game about sneaking around and stabbing people in the face, who gives a flying rats arse if the protagonist or any other character in that game has a pair of tits or not?  As long as the sneaking is good and the stabbing is fun then who gives a shit about what gender the characters are.

Imagine if I took Doom and changed the little face at the bottom of the screen from a man to a woman.  Would it affect ANYTHING in that game? Of course it fucking wouldn't, it would still be fucking Doom and it would still be an amazing game.  So if we take Arno, the protagonist from AC: Unity and call him Arlina and give him a pair of tits, NOTHING FUCKING CHANGES.  You are STILL jumping on buildings being a sneaky bugger and you are STILL stabbing people in the face so WHO FUCKING CARES YOU WHINY PIECE OF SHIT.

There are rare examples of games that have included a characters sexuality or gender to actually mean something to the story.  Metal Gear Solid 3 is a good example of this.

This is Volgin, the bad guy and he just happens to be a fucking psychopath who gets off on sexually torturing people.  However, he also happens to be bisexual but in THIS case, that fact is an important part of his character.  He's not just some chauvinist torturing women for kicks, he's a fucking nutter torturing EVERYONE for kicks and it doesn't matter if he's taking his electro powers to men, women or even fucking dogs, he gets off on it all and THIS makes him just that little bit more intimidating as a villain.  It doesn't paint bisexuals badly it paints HIM, Volgin, the character, as a total nutter and that's what they were going for.

Unfortunately this kind of thing is pretty rare.  Even characters that people cite as "Strong female leads" are completely interchangeable.   Faith, from Mirrors Edge for example is nothing more than a camera on legs that runs on buildings.  It could be Fred for all we care and it would still be a fun game, nothing would change.

95% of the time, the race, gender or sexuality of a character in a game doesn't fucking matter.  Developers don't hate gays, women and they sure as hell aren't racist so they aren't out JUST to offend you.  They are serving a market, which is mainly made up of straight males and that's why games are made the way they are.  If you don't like it you have 2 choices, fuck off and stop moaning OR make your own game to suit what you want to see.  We live in an age where crowd funding is super popular so getting capitol for a project like that isn't an unreasonable idea.

Finally I know, I fucking KNOW that not everyone who happens to be gay or female or whatever who plays games are like this, I'm very much aware that it's a vocal minority of idiots and it's sad because I can promise you there are a lot of people not quite as level headed as me who has it out for all of you because the caustic complaints of the few are giving the rational many a bad name.

What's even worse is that things like women's issues and gay rights are an actual thing that needs support in certain places.  There are countries where it's still illegal to be gay and women still get circumcisions which is fucking disgusting and THAT'S the kind of thing that needs to stop.

So stop moaning about fucking video games and go do something worth while.  There's enough of you to maybe make a difference if you put your mind to it, stop being so fucking petty.

The Stanley Parable and Racism

This is kind of a hard issue to talk about because I've not actually played the game in question yet, it was one of those things I was going to get round to when I move into my new place, but now I don't know if I even want to play it at all.

So the story is a remake of an old mod called The Stanley Parable gets released on Steam and people are happy.  Then people start playing and enjoying the Stanley Parable and it seems they are having fun with their interactive storytelling experience.  Then some moron on twitter says that a certain scene in the game is racist and this prompts the developer to back peddle on himself and change his work.

Right, first of all let's talk about the scene.  Apparently it's a scene about choice or something and there is an image of a man lighting a cigarette for a little boy, or pouring him in petrol and lighting him on fire.  From what I've been told regarding the scene the gag is satire of old values from like the 50s and may or or may not have something to do with how first world meddling in third world affairs isn't actually doing all that much good.

Anyway, the point is that race actually had nothing to do with the scene, but morons on twitter got all upset about it because it features a white man in a suit and a small black child being set on fire.  Race doesn't factor into this part of the game AT ALL, yet people are whining about it offending them.  These are people looking for issues where there are none and desperately grasping at straws to try and kick up a fuss.  I bet that if the kid in the above picture was white, there would be no issue here, which kind of brings up the idea that the people who complained are actually the racists because they aren't complaining about a black kid being set on fire, they are complaining about a black kid being featured in the game.....think about that.

So anyway, the developer of The Stanley Parable said he isn't particularly "married to the gag" and is willing to change it.  THIS, is a fucking problem, right here.  People have been saying that it's sort of commendable of the developer because he's changing it after people have complained about it and this shows flexibility and receptiveness or whatever, but no, that's a load of bollocks and anyone with half a brain knows it.

The Stanley Parable is one of those games that's being thrown around as an art game.  Go fire up your steam client and read some of the review quotes on the store page, it may cause you to roll your eyes a little bit.  But here is the thing, art is one of those things that is supposed to inspire debate and not all art is supposed to make you happy.  If something is truly art, then sometimes it's going to make you feel uncomfortable or maybe even offended, but that's what makes it a good piece of art.  The fact that it drew those emotions out of you and made you talk about it is good, that's what art is supposed to fucking do.

But no, the developer of this game proved right here that The Stanley Parable is not art in the slightest.  It doesn't matter how fond of the gag or not he is, the fact is that he made that scene for a reason and he made it that way for a reason and now he's changing it because people are offended by it.  He doesn't care about his own artistic vision, he just wants to sell as many copies as possible.  So if The Stanley Parable is supposed to be one of those games you could consider art, but the integrity of the art is shattered because of this, then why the fuck would I buy it?

It's BARELY a game and now after this it doesn't even qualify as a piece of art.  So my only remaining impression of The Stanley Parable now is that it's sort of like Portal but with absolutely 0 game play.

I think The Stanley Parable will be getting moved to quite a low position on my wish list, and it'll take a pretty big sale to get me to buy it.

Borderlands 2 Racism Bullshit

Borderlands 2 is a game that has yet to be played.  I own a copy and it's been added to my eternal backlog, but as I'm writing this post, I've yet to play it.  Luckily, I'm not commenting on the quality of the game, but more the idiocy of certain people on twitter.

While browsing the internet I was made aware of this article.

http://kotaku.com/5981171/players-accuse-tiny-tina-from-borderlands-2-of-verbal-blackface-gearbox-writer-says-hell-change-her-if-racist

For those that don't want to read, some idiots on Twitter are claiming the character of Tiny Tina in Borderlands 2 is racist because she talks in black slang.  Yes, I am totally serious, the link above contains the story in more detail and the twitter conversation.

This is quite possibly one of the dumbest things I have ever heard and I can't believe that people have gotten to the point where they are being offended by the way a character speaks.  I've heard white people speak like this all the damn time, and a dialect like that isn't limited to just one group of people, any prick can talk like that, it's not a hard speech pattern to imitate.

The character of Tiny Tina, from what I looked up on youtube, is super annoying but not racist.  You would have to be some kind of drooling turbo idiot to think that speaking a certain way makes you a racist.  It pisses me off that there are all these people that are on a crusade to try and ban everything that may be even SLIGHTLY offensive to someone.

NEWSFLASH!  Probably every game/movie/book has something that offends SOMEONE, so if you start trying to change things so that no one will be offended, the only thing you can possibly do is just stop making things.  Example, I find these people on Twitter to be offensive, so I think they should stop posting, but they wont.  These people think characters like Tiny Tina are offensive and want them to stop being written that way, but they wont, so shut up.

If anything, I'd say that the dudes making the argument that the character is racist, are racist themselves since they are making the implication that the only kind of people who talk in low class black slang, are black people.  Maybe these people should think before they chat shit.