Honestly, the gaming community is going to sh*t. I'm not talking about fanboys arguing back and forth, or trolls fanning the flames. I'm talking about the social justice warriors, and the idiot media that back them in their tireless, moronic crusades.
Right off the bat, before I go into the meat of the blog, I'm going to make one thing perfectly clear. Entertainment media is NEVER the place to make your social justice stand, or launch your political agendas. The fact that they can reach the masses is irrelevant. People want to be entertained, they don't want to be told how evil they are because they're straight white men, they don't want to feel bad for laughing at a joke that not everyone will get or think is funny, they don't want to have to think about what species of animal is in danger because a fictional character decided to wear non-existent fur. Entertainment media exists to entertain, not demonize.
Now that that's out of the way, the real issue that I'm on about with this blog is the stupidity of the people who are boycotting PAX due to a 3 year old comic. I'm not going to go into the details of the actual comic strip but suffice it to say, the comic strip made an incredibly mild and pretty lame rape joke. When the comic came out, it wasn't a problem and no one paid it any mind. Then, a few months later, a t-shirt line with Dickwolves on the shirts was released for sale by Penny Arcade and that stirred up a bit of controversy.
Fast Forward to now and the controversy has blown up to threats of boycotting PAX over a stupid comic strip.
This is the result of people thinking they can push their political correctness and political ideologies anywhere they want to. Jokes aren't allowed to push the limits any more or else we'll get another 12 video series by Anita Sarkeesian (whose whole operation is run, and was created by, her boyfriend. Link to that below) about how jokes like this further demean women (even though the comic didn't involve women), or articles from journalists talking about how disappointed they are with PAX and agree with boycotts, or Madam Sessler blowing something so ridiculously out or proportion that PAX (or something else) is forced to change just to stop the incessant whining.
It was the same thing with booth babes. Do you know how many people complained about booth babes? Sure, right now if you ask why you'll get the typical story of "they are just there to look pretty and don't know anything about the games" but dig far back enough and somewhere is someone saying booth babes are degrading to women and there's your start point.
So now, a yearly event for the gaming industry, is under the threat of boycott because of a comic strip that some people who don't have a sense of humour don't like? It's really come this far? This is absolutely ridiculous.
People should be allowed to make jokes without having to worry about the feelings of other people. If it's funny, then great, if it's not, then don't use it again. The attempt should never be forbidden because some person's sensibilities would be thrown out of whack otherwise. In fact, the late great Patrice O'Neal says it better on Fox which you can see right here.
http://www.youtube.com/watc...
That video can definitely be applied to gaming today. How many times have you seen protests over GTA because it has something that some might consider too lewd? How many instances have we heard about where people are complaining about stupid trivialities because THEY PERSONALLY are offended? Offense IS A CHOICE! You CHOOSE to be offended by something. You can CHOOSE to NOT be offended and remove the power that that thing has over you.
When did gamers become less about games and more about political correctness and sparing everyone's feelings? Go play CoD online and you'll never see something like that but at PAX boycotts are being threatened over a lame, 3 year old joke? Rape Culture is a myth people. It was created by feminists to further their agenda of creating a matriarchy and making men look evil, which is why you will never see the term Rape Culture applied to men even though men can be, have been, and are raped just as much as women are though don't report it as often. Since Rape Culture doesn't exist and is impossible to exist (a debate that is a whole other blog entirely), how can the dickwolves joke be promoting rape culture?
Is this what gaming is going to become? Just a platform for every group that thinks it is entitled to whine about some perceived plight they allegedly have and thus censorship becomes dominant in the medium? Because that's what will happen folks. Gaming is a business, and PR is very important to business. Even if the developers, or in this case event promoters, don't do anything legitimately wrong, if enough people yell out in offense then unnecessary changes and censorship will happen to spare a PR headache and curb financial losses as a result.
Grow up and realize that you don't have to find every joke funny. If you don't find it funny, then that joke isn't meant for you. If you want to boycott something, boycott something worth boycotting, like anything that helps an unjust war to be waged.
We've all been able to come together and defend gaming from those who say it promotes violence and school shootings, yet this kind of thing destroys us from within? This world has taken political correctness and empathy way too far.
Anita Sarkeesian: The Early Years
http://www.youtube.com/watc...
The armadillo returns.
I personally do remember Infogrames in the years prior to merger. They really did have a portfolio that stuck out and I enjoyed. I wonder what value they see in reviving it now though?
Sony is apparently experimenting with an AI tool that will play the game for you when you are grinding away. A PlayStation patent for “auto-play” mode would simulate your gameplay style in certain environments and apply them to skip that section completely. This technology would likely be built directly into the cloud-based PlayStation Network and be a new feature that subscribers would have access to.
Hah! Either will never happen or publishers will charge you to use this AI. This concept would only exacerbate the problem we already have with GaaS.
Why?
Why not just remove the Grindy part?
I hope it's not an excuse to make them worse, but optional if you pay
This IGN blogger mode will allow 'reviewers' to play games like rest of us.
I will never forget watching GamingBolts spoiler video for Horizon FW and realizing they never played it. Made me wonder if they play games at all.
Reminds me of those 24 hours races in gran Turismo 4 having your PlayStation play for you.
But realistically if you have to use any of these for Grundy games there's a bigger underlying problem of the game not respecting your time in the first place.
Grind for game length is a real problem in my view
Duuro says: "I think the idea behind the movement is cool, but on the other hand, the execution and clear limitation of the platform somewhat undermine the whole thing."
"Rape Culture is a myth people. It was created by feminists to further their agenda of creating a matriarchy and making men look evil, which is why you will never see the term Rape Culture applied to men even though men can be, have been, and are raped just as much as women are though don't report it as often."
Are you serious?
I'll say this, it's gotten incredibly difficult to differentiate between those who have genuine concerns, and honestly want to do real good by trying to change gaming culture for the better, from those who have a personal agenda and/or want to enforce their ideals on others regardless of whether or not there is any real harm being done to begin with.
And another thing, telling rape jokes isn't the same as condoning rape, same goes for racist jokes, not condoning racism, gay jokes not promoting homophobia and men/women jokes not inherently being demeaning to the opposite sex.
They're all jokes after all, so nobody is supposed to be taking them seriously, often the only ones taking offence to such jokes are those who have an agenda and/or aim to profit from doing so.
and people ask why more girls don't play video games. it's because when we try to participate in the community, we're met with awful, misogynist bullshit like this. wow. the scum of the earth on the front page of n4g. it's sad to see the state of things these days.