The Big Bad Console Thread - Sway your Station with an Xboner !

Not too shocking, the easiest way to bump up your 'console exclusive' count is to buy some exclusivity periods for some indies.

PS was behind last gen, and spent the cash on them, and MS is behind this gen and doing the same. Though the video above has way less impact than Sony dragging all those indie devs on stage for their ten minute dog and pony show for the PS4.

spronk said:

Actors also used to be the best looking specimens of humanity, but in the last decade we somehow want every actor to look like people who shop at Walmart.

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This is wrong on both counts. Different types of actors have been used for different types of roles, even in leading roles. James Cagney is not James Stewart, Tom Hanks is not Tom Cruise. I don't even know who the second statement is supposed to be applied to.

@Dom if you stretch the field of video games to things like interactive fiction, experimental free games, self-published indies, etc there is indeed a huge diversity of video game experiences available, but thanks mostly to the fringe. If you apply the same criteria to movies and add the fringe to it, the diversity explodes even more dramatically. Now, if you restrain both to some semblance of "mainstream" it's difficult to argue in favor of video games. For me the most telling factor is what happens when you reverse the problem and look at media consumption instead of media production. If you allow me, I don't feel like writing a master thesis on the subject so I'll leave it at that.

popsicledeath you got them strawmen good !

Szlia said:

This is wrong on both counts. Different types of actors have been used for different types of roles, even in leading roles. James Cagney is not James Stewart, Tom Hanks is not Tom Cruise. I don't even know who the second statement is supposed to be applied to.

@Dom if you stretch the field of video games to things like interactive fiction, experimental free games, self-published indies, etc there is indeed a huge diversity of video game experiences available, but thanks mostly to the fringe. If you apply the same criteria to movies and add the fringe to it, the diversity explodes even more dramatically. Now, if you restrain both to some semblance of "mainstream" it's difficult to argue in favor of video games. For me the most telling factor is what happens when you reverse the problem and look at media consumption instead of media production. If you allow me, I don't feel like writing a master thesis on the subject so I'll leave it at that.

popsicledeath you got them strawmen good !

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I would love if you'd provide a rebuttal other than telling people they're wrong because Tom Hanks isn't Tom Cruise. Or just telling strawman as if that is a valid point. Strawman arguments are easy to counter, so why not at least try?

As to your middle paragraph dissertation, you didn't really say anything. Reminded me of the smart-dumb kids in school who didn't do the assigned reading so when called on they just start rambling off glossed terms: I felt the characterization of the protagonist was effectively contrasted with the foil character that resulted in the denouement effectiveness of the moral of the first person stream of consciousness verisimilitude. And the teacher says "good" but only because you wasted everyone's time to not really say anything and they'd like to move on.

Really, everyone, shove a stick in your ass and/or pretend you're wearing a monocle, and re-read that response about diversity. What did it actually say?

I do give credit where credit is due. Tom Hanks isn't Tom Cruise. Brilliant insight, and important to note in an entertainment culture that is saying black characters must be voiced by black actors only and that actors can't act like a tranny to do a movie but that and actual tranny just be hired. Yes, literally saying actors acting is no longer acceptible.

But, more importantly, tut tut, guys, because if you stretch the field of video gaming diversity explodes when considering the fringe and restrain the semblance of the problem by looking at the reverse is the most telling factor, if you'll allow me, master's thesis, I'll just leave it at that. Please clap.

You're what ruins everything, including video games.

Are we having another betting pool for console sales this time around?

popsicledeath said:

I would love if you'd provide a rebuttal other than telling people they're wrong because Tom Hanks isn't Tom Cruise. Or just telling strawman as if that is a valid point. Strawman arguments are easy to counter, so why not at least try?

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I am still half convinced you are trolling, but since you at least put some effort into it I will bite.

Tom Hanks not being Tom Cruise is a pretty clear rebuttal of the assertion that "Hollywood used to cast the most beautiful people it could find." For some parts you need an average looking person and you hire Tom Hanks (even if average according to Hollywood is not the same as average in reality), not Tom Cruise. If you make a film about Facebook, you hire Jesse Eisenberg, not Ryan Gossling. It has always been like that throughout film history across the globe and deviation from this norm are deliberately breaking typecasting (like Charlize Theron in Monster), part of some form of counter-culture (New Hollywood, French New Wave) or fringe artistic choices (like Bruno Dumont or Carlos Reygadas working with non professional actors).

And a strawman is a strawman. There is nothing more to say. You graced us with a diatribe about things I never said or even implied. I did not say a word about the diversity of the people creating the games, about who should tell what type of story and who is more likely to enjoy them. If you want my opinions on those topics, I can share them with you. Let's do this ad absurdum : do you think increasing the diversity of the people inventing the stories can lead to a reduction of the diversity of the stories being invented ? Do you think people that are currently not interested by the stories being told are less likely to be interested if the diversity of the stories being told increases ? It's also important to note that it absolutely does not mean that only X people must tell stories about X and that only other X people can enjoy those stories, nor does it mean that being part of sub group X prevents you from the ability to tackle universal themes. I mean I can enjoy Steve McQueen's Hunger as well as his 12 Years a Slave. I certainly can enjoy The Wire or Treme even if David Simon is not a Baltimore gangbanger nor a New Orleans' indian.

I am still not writing that master thesis, but I'll just mention that in the early 2000 Nintendo did some market research and found out that something like three quarter of the people who played video games in their youth stopped playing video games when reaching adulthood (I would have to dig into unsorted archive material from 15 years ago to find the exact number and the protocol, but you get the gist : video games hemorrhage people). The research was prompted by a Nintendo exec' realizing no one he knew around his age played video games. This analysis resulted in Nintendo going for this huge potential market of people familiar with video games but no longer interested in them with some games that ended up being very popular such as Brain Age and Wii Fit. I think part of the hope was that this type of video game-ish not really games would be a kind of gateway to bring back former gamers. I am not sure it worked so well (but the idea still lives on in things like classic emulators on Switch, etc), but what I am sure is that film and literature do not have this type of concern (at least not on this magnitude), because when people grow up and their expectations increase and their interests diversify they still easily find books to read and films to watch.

EDIT: formatting

Szlia said:

I did not say a word about the diversity of the people creating the games, about who should tell what type of story and who is more likely to enjoy them.

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In the middle of a conversation about the diversity gaming you responded saying

Szlia said:

There is a push for diversity, that is welcomed by most for different reasons...

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You seemed to agree there is a push for diversity so you could list a bunch of bullshit reasons you seem to think should be accepted and

Nothing to whine or despair about.

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If nothing else, we both agree there is a push for diversity.

My contention is diversity based on the color of someone's skin is racist and stupid. Now, before you chicken-shit your way into saying that isn't what you were talking about recognize that WAS the conversation everyone else was having. So at best, you interrupted a conversation to add irrelevant, tangential information. At worst, though, in my fuck you opinion you certainly did imply who should tell what type of stories and who is more likely to enjoy them when you said

We are certainly not in a context where the industry is shrinking and less games are being made, so it's not really a problem - quite the opposite really - if video game get closer to other media in the variety of experiences it can provide and the variety of audiences it can reach.

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If we remove all your bullshit reasons why diversity is good, we get this:

There is a push for diversity, so it's not really a problem if video games get closer to other media in the variety of experiences it can provide and the variety of audiences it can reach.

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That certainly seems to me that you are at least implying that the push for diversity will produce new, unique experiences that will be relatable to specific audiences.

Now, maybe you're saying that the push for diversity is good across the board, but that the only thing that push shouldn't include is diversity in game creators. Bullshit.

Now, maybe you can chicken shit your way out of the implications of your statements by providing a 'technically' that you didn't specifically and literally say the exact thing I'm saying you meant. Also, bullshit.

You either entered a conversation about a specific topic to provide your opinion on irrelevant topics, which if that's the case then feel free to get fucked. Or you said a bunch of vague, empty platitudes and are a fucking moron so you don't understand the implications of the things you just said. Also, feel free to get fucked.

Either way, we're in a pedantic, semantics discussion of 'akshually' and 'technically' because you're either a moron or disingenuous. But you can take your 'whaaat, whoo meeeee?' act and get fucked if you want to keep playing this game.

If you want my opinions on those topics, I can share them with you. Let's do this ad absurdum

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All your opinions so far have been vacuous platitudes that when you don't get empty validation you chicken shit out of or claim innocence, so I'm not sure why anyone would want to have a discussion with you about your opinions but a self-hating English major like myself.

do you think increasing the diversity of the people inventing the stories can lead to a reduction of the diversity of the stories being invented ?

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Honest question for a second: is English your second language? You speak like someone who is trying to sound very smart and natural, but misses all the passive aspects of a native speaker.

I think artificially increasing the diversity of anything is a form of Eugenics and racist. People are diverse, and the least important aspect of diversity is skin tone (well, it should be, but the woke racists are trying to change the perception on that). Again, I'll say it: PEOPLE are diverse, in thoughts and experiences, so your question is stupid. And actually, in the culture and climate we're currently in that leads to artificial diversification based on racist classifications, yeah, that probably can lead to less actual diversity in stories, because there is also an accompanying element that pressures certain types of stories that are acceptable to the same racists that are pushing for artificial diversity based on race.

Do you think people that are currently not interested by the stories being told are less likely to be interested if the diversity of the stories being told increases ?

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English, mother fucker, do you speak it?! It's very hard to unravel your questions, so give me some latitude if I don't seem to understand what the fuck you're talking about.

I think people are interested in interesting things, what I often call the 'human experience' that is depicted in fiction, film or even video games. The idea that people may not be interested in stories being told, but may be interested if there is more diversity, is again bringing us back to the initial conversation. We were talking about diversity of skin color, so if you're going to try to chick-shit out by saying you're talking about some irrelevant diversity, then please do so and fuck off.

Otherwise, I still find it racist to imply that people may not like the stories being told in video games, but artificially forcing diversity into the industry will somehow jump-start their interest, because that implies black people somehow have unique stories to tell, which in my experience is wrong and racist. PEOPLE have unique stories to tell, and they're interesting when they capture the human experience that everyone can recognize and enjoy. Black people can be good writers and/or programmers, just like anyone can be. And good writers and/or coders will tell interesting stories because they're human, and tap into a recognizable human experience, not because they be black and gonna tell some black stories or some racist shit like that.

It's also important to note that it absolutely does not mean that only X people must tell stories about X and that only other X people can enjoy those stories, nor does it mean that being part of sub group X prevents you from the ability to tackle universal themes.

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Great, so you agree the BEST people and best stories should be given the space and freedom to flourish. But how well does that happen when there is artificial pressure of any kind, much less forced diversity based on skin color.

For example, what started this discussion is the presentation of what seemed like a disproportionate number of black female characters. My contention is that was a conscious decision made irrespective of whether it was the best decision for that game, or the best story, or the best coding, but rather someone or many someones identified a push for increasing diversity and artificially misrepresented/exploited the imagery of women of color.

Are you implying that anyone can make anything that is good, and it just so happened that what's good right now is a lot of depictions of black female characters?

Because I'm pretty sure one of David Mamets rules is when the audience notices such overt trends that it seems to be more of an external agenda, then it's a crock of shit.

Nintendo

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Nintendo noticed gamers grew up and out of playing video games, so sought to re-capture that market. That's fine. Everyone is fine with that. In fact that's great. Nobody is saying MS or Xbox shouldn't be trying to have wide appeal, or even open avenues to appeal to niche markets.

All anyone is saying is, first, these 'more black faces' efforts towards 'diversity' are ironically presenting a LESS diverse image with repeated similar images presented of black female characters. More black women isn't diverse, it's cowtowing to the woke culture's directives that black women in particular need to be, like, OVER represented to make up for some past perceived slights. That's not diversity, it's racism.

Secondly, your analogy regarding Nintendo would only be applicable if Nintendo thought the way to re-capture adults who played video games as kids was to start putting adult gamers in a majority of their marketing. Imagine if boxes of Nintendo cereal, and Nintendo magazine, and commercials for game on Nick Jr were suddenly majority adult male gamers! That would be noticeable, and absurd, and justifiable called out as a crock of shit if it happened.

Nobody would give a shit if Xbox was taking the Nintendo-adult-gamer approach and just like having some games they hoped to appeal to untapped audiences. But instead, it's all blacksploitation all the time! You log into Xbox and there are messages about BLM. You watch their upcoming console events and there are black female characters all over.

Hell, last month there was a category for LGBBQ friendly games! What the fuck does that mean?! Were there a lot of games actively unfriendly to LGBBQs? Were there games that, what, needed a trigger warning because halfway through the game they started tossing gays off rooftops? Or, worse, and more on topic, is this implying that LGBBQs are somehow different than regular people, so they need a special group of games? That's pandering and offensive. And of course when you went into the games they were just a bunch of normal fucking games a variety of people enjoy for a variety of reasons. It was all just bullshit pandering, which if you care about gay rights and lifestyles, is 'othering' them which used to be an offensive thing to do, but is now the standard. Look at these queers and how different they are, needing different games that are friendly to their differentness! Let's all single out... those people... who are different.

JUST MAKE GOOD GAMES and stop the fucking racist, sexist, bullshit pandering. And guess what, because black people and gay people are people too, they'll like games or they won't, and often for the same reasons the rest of us do, because guess what, yeah, they're just people, so stop treating them like they're some other species that needs to be 'othered' and treated differently or gawked at like fucking animals in a zoo.

Did I answer your questions? Let me know if there is any confusion so I can clarify or clear things up.

Oh, and if your response is something like 'but I was talking about something else' then, again, please recognize you entered a conversation about a specific thing, so if you're responding using words relevant to that discussion, but mean something totally different, then you're being very rude and basically interrupting a discussion to add irrelevant opinions or [intentionally] misusing words from our discussion to mean something unrelated. And honestly if that's the case don't respond, just fuck off until you feel you have something to add to the actual conversation we were having.

edit: didn't proofread so probably some fuckups and typos

popsicledeath You post is too long to reply to it line by line, so i'll just randomly address some things.

English is technically my fourth language (out of 5), but, when it comes to command of said languages, it's without a doubt my N°2. N°1 is french and there is no limit to the potential complexity of a french sentence, so that might be why, along with my playful pedantry, my English sentences end up sounding, time and again, unnatural for the native speakers. I guess "You must be new around here" would have been more concise.

We do agree that, in an ideal world, "the BEST people and best stories should be given the space and freedom to flourish." It so happen that, in the actual world, being part of the best people and having the best stories are only two factors in a complicated social machinery and those two factors are not always enough to be given the aforementioned space and freedom to flourish. This thread is not the place for a great philosophical, sociological and political debates about devising the ideal world, modelling the actual world and elaborating policies that can nudge the actual world toward the ideal one, but I think we can agree that the dominant opinion of the times (whether we agree with it or not) is that some manual corrections are needed to counteract some measurable societal bias.

What we can also agree on is that dumb people do dumb things even if sometimes the intentions are good. So yes: an industry that notoriously struggles to competently tell half-decent stories is likely to fumble a lot when attempting to venture outside its tiny set of tropes. Because of the Zeitgeist, we will get more than our fair share of stereotypical minority characters (the low hanging fruits I mentioned in my first post), but, according to Sturgeon's Law (90% of everything is garbage), 10% of those will be interesting and original characters that we probably would not have seen without this current diversification tendency.

What’s the TLDR on those last posts?

Izo said:

What’s the TLDR on those last posts?

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With the success of these time limited demos done in lieu of the traditional summer cons I wonder if companies will change their overall strategy and move away from developing micro-builds to demo in the booth and more stuff like this?

I've checked out a LOT of Indy titles and misc stuff I would likely not be interested otherwise as a direct result of these more 'open' formats.

Szlia said:

popsicledeath This thread is not the place for a great philosophical, sociological and political debates about devising the ideal world, modelling the actual world and elaborating policies that can nudge the actual world toward the ideal one, but I think we can agree that the dominant opinion of the times (whether we agree with it or not) is that some manual corrections are needed to counteract some measurable societal bias.

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I'm for human rights and freedom, so will never agree with racist eugenics or propaganda being acceptable, especially under the guise it's okay as long as the authoritarian power mirrors the dominant opinion, especially when we've seen throughout history how easily opinion can be manipulated into dominance, no matter how overtly evil.

I'm especially not accepting of propagandistic racism if you promise it's for some greater good and I'm to simply trust your vision of an ideal world is reason to give over power and control to anyone.But the people, much less a giant corporation.

When one sees racism and propaganda it is always the place to speak up against it. Especially when others are trying to silence it, as that proves there is some sort of when agenda and it's not just an individual mistake.

But let's bring it back down to video games.

You seem to be saying it's good that Xbox is nudging society toward a more ideal gaming industry. I'm saying I don't agree with their vision of what is more ideal, and even if they're right, I don't agree with their methods. They're being racist. Why?

The gaming industry is more diverse than ever before because that was the natural direction progress was being made, so why is drastic change now suddenly needed?

Why are they implementing a strategy of exploiting race? Do they want to undermine natural progress, meaning they actually want less diversity?

Do they have a vision for an ideal industry and will force that agenda no matter how much temporary racism and exploitation of race, because the ends justify the means? If so, do we think that is good or should be supported?

Probably they're just ignorant, but if that's the case when did it become acceptable to senselessly pander based on skin color? For our entire lives we've been told that was wrong and to call out that racism when we see it. But now, suddenly in the last few years were told it's not only okay, but that's how we become more tolerant and diverse. We become more tolerant by being less tolersnt, and more diverse by displaying less diversity? Wot?

I'd like Xbox to stop being racist and instead just make games. What do you want? A giant corporation to be empowered to force social and political change in their pursuit of an ideal world? An ideal world that aligns with your vision, lucky enough for you!

Umm, let me sum it up this way: That's not your job, Hitler! Fuck off!

Izo said:

What’s the TLDR on those last posts?

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Xbox are racists. Communists and women are okay with it because they're idealistic morons. Cucks think "this is fine" as long as they're tossed some scraps every now and again. Nothing we say or do in this thread will change a thing so don't read if you don't care, but don't ask for a tldr like a faggot.

popsicledeath said:

Xbox are racists. Communists and women are okay with it because they're idealistic morons. Cucks think "this is fine" as long as they're tossed some scraps every now and again. Nothing we say or do in this thread will change a thing so don't read if you don't care, but don't ask for a tldr like a faggot.

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TLDR; okay.

Qhue said:

With the success of these time limited demos done in lieu of the traditional summer cons I wonder if companies will change their overall strategy and move away from developing micro-builds to demo in the booth and more stuff like this?

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People do know this has been done before, right? The Lost Planet E3 demo was 2006, for pete's sake.

And the answer is, probably not. Getting a demo polished to the point where it won't crash despite everything people at home can do to it (vs. a press guy getting one run through on a fresh install) is a large time investment that is usually better spent on polishing the final product. It's a nice idea in theory, but the cost is difficult to justify.

Denamian said:

This really seems like a discussion for gamergate.

Just saying.

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Has been pretty specifically related to the Xbox showcase event.

At some point as these social justice occurrences become more common they'll just have to be discussed as a routine part of gaming, right? Not some special thing happening in dark corners of the industry only to be discussed in special threads. Xbox put these issues front and center, so why wouldn't it also because part of the regular conversation?

Maybe if less people treated this nonsense as some rare thing only happening on the internet that would go away if ignored then we'd ironically not be faced with it and the conversation it causes at increasing rates.

Or sure mods can segregate out the undesirable conversation to appease the people who are just sure this is all just fine and won't be happening if people just don't discuss it. My guess is this continues to get worse, though, and the conversations become increasingly less parallel as they continue to intersect. At some point censoring the side of the conversation that addresses these issues is going to be pretty awkward and obvious, but maybe we aren't there yet.

Denamian said:

I should have clarified that I was saying that as a poster, not amod. That's my fault. There have been no complaints as of yet.

I'm just saying that this topic seems like exactly what the gamergate thread is for.

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Thanks for the clarification. I still feel the same way, either way. It's like people used to get pissy in mmorpg threads when people would discuss the direction of the genre or the business side of a game or the potential for vaporware. Eventually after enough failures and fuckery those aspects became pretty standard topics in those threads. Most posters would love to not have to discuss topics that aren't purely game related, yet here we are in 2020 where everything is stupid and even a console reveal event has implications for responses in any number of threads, but seems appropriate here, too, even if annoying to some people.