JIMQUISITION: Nintendo, The Industry, And The Attack On Emulators (Bonus: We Happy Few)

Dyle said:

The We Happy Few thing is definitely hamfisted, but there is truth in it. The point seems to me to be more that antidepressant drugs are too often treated as an end-all be-all solution when they really can only be truly effective as part of a complete approach to mental health treatment, where medication is used alongside counseling and lifestyle changes. Simply taking antidepressants and nothing else is not a sustainable path to a healthy lifestyle, in part because the side effects are dangerous too, and such decisions should be made in concert with trained medical professionals and confidants who can help ensure that the medicine is working as intended.

No doubt they could have worded it better though

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While they do not not make someone completely healthy. Anti depressants will correct the chemical imbalance in the brain.So just using them can help deal with the problem completely depending on the mental condition.

TastyBurger666 said:

OT, I know, but that's great news, hope things are working out for you.

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Thanks. Got a very long way to go but getting proper support is now one less worry.

JINX said:

Thats what I got from the quote, when you look at the context of it in the game it only comes across as that. Joy is taken like candy in the game, there is also a reason for it and why the country would have to confront what Joy is covering up. Joy isn't really an anti-depressant as it doesn't really effect your mood but tricks you into having one, it alters reality and makes you forget your past and only look forward.

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Yeah, Joy isn't an anti-depressant from what I've seen of game-play, it literally a psychedelic drug that makes you see things that aren't really there. A rat looks like a pinata when on Joy.

Doctor Ironic said:

Well, let me go into more detail then.

Spoiler

Inside Out is a movie where a teenage girl's mind is represented by five different figures running a ship each corresponding to a different emotion. The main conflict of the movie is that, at the beginning, nobody wants to work with Sadness - they view her as useless and not actually able to help the human "ship" accomplish anything. After Happiness and Sadness get separated from the rest of the crew outside the cockpit, Happiness realizes that Sadness is a legitimate emotion of its own that helps with self-reflection and learning new things, and that constantly running away from sadness only makes it worse when it eventually comes, so actually working with it is the best way to cope.

Do you think Compulsion is making a similar point, or is there something else to it that's sending the message askew?

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This is very close to We Happy Few, yes. Also Joy isn't an anti-depressant really at all.

Why does this dude choose to present his ideas looking like a fascist dictator of a weird Tim Burton/2005-emo-esque future?

Doctor Ironic said:

Well, let me go into more detail then.

Spoiler

Inside Out is a movie where a teenage girl's mind is represented by five different figures running a ship each corresponding to a different emotion. The main conflict of the movie is that, at the beginning, nobody wants to work with Sadness - they view her as useless and not actually able to help the human "ship" accomplish anything. After Happiness and Sadness get separated from the rest of the crew outside the cockpit, Happiness realizes that Sadness is a legitimate emotion of its own that helps with self-reflection and learning new things, and that constantly running away from sadness only makes it worse when it eventually comes, so actually working with it is the best way to cope.

Do you think Compulsion is making a similar point, or is there something else to it that's sending the message askew?

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Not OP but I think Inside Out has a good message at its core. We Happy Few on the other hand deals with actual 'pills' and seems to express that ditching them and embracing sadness is for the best. No doubt you can relate that to irl medication and then it becomes a little more tone deaf or insidious depending on how you look at it.

Yes medication isn't the be all and end all of depression/mental health, but it certainly helps, and to send the message of 'F the pills' is damaging. Inside Out avoids this and delivers a succinct but meaningful message in comparison.

Haven't played the game so maybe I'm off base, though.

Charamiwa said:

If you're on anti depressant because of a condition, and you need them to function, I really don't see why you would be part of the "happy pill popping culture". Those are obviously two different things.

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The thing is, derogative terms like that one tend to cover far more than what they were originally intended for. It's very easy for people to assume that you don't need anti-depressants, as the issue tends to be trivialized by the notion that everyone nowadays is a "pill-popper". I've been there: I'm clinically depressed and the reaction I get when someone learns that I'm taking anti-depressants is always the same. They shake their heads and complain about people taking too many meds these days, as if I was doing it because I like the taste of them. They are literally the difference between not getting up from bed in the morning and being a productive person of my age.

Mental illness, for whatever reason, is still viewed as if it isn't a sickness. We treat physical ailments with medicine often, and yet treating mental illness with medication is seen as some assumed slippery-slope into dependence and abuse.

I assumed Joy was meant to be similar to Soma in Brave New World, acting as a chemical that induces a sort of blissful apathy as a means of repression. There's also the added element of using it to prevent people from remembering whatever terrible thing happened in the past. From what I've seen, it seemed to be less about sadness and more about guilt. I haven't played the game proper though, so I'm not fully aware of how Joy is presented in the whole scope of the narrative.

Brian Damage said:

I assumed Joy was meant to be similar to Soma in Brave New World, acting as a chemical that induces a sort of blissful apathy as a means of repression. There's also the added element of using it to prevent people from remembering whatever terrible thing happened in the past. From what I've seen, it seemed to be less about sadness and more about guilt. I haven't played the game proper though, so I'm not fully aware of how Joy is presented in the whole scope of the narrative.

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From what I've seen of the game it's huge on guilt. There's a constant guilt of, "What the Germans made the Wellingtons do during their occupation".

That Epstein quote is absolutely awful and insensitive.

Brian Damage said:

I assumed Joy was meant to be similar to Soma in Brave New World, acting as a chemical that induces a sort of blissful apathy as a means of repression. There's also the added element of using it to prevent people from remembering whatever terrible thing happened in the past. From what I've seen, it seemed to be less about sadness and more about guilt. I haven't played the game proper though, so I'm not fully aware of how Joy is presented in the whole scope of the narrative.

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Joy in the game is exactly what you describe. Having played the game that quote looks even more absurd and unnecessary.

Kalentan said:

Yeah, Joy isn't an anti-depressant from what I've seen of game-play, it literally a psychedelic drug that makes you see things that aren't really there. A rat looks like a pinata when on Joy.

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Have I got this wrong, as I'd assumed Joy was a means for the corrupt Government to control the masses??

(essentially what Brian Damage said)

TastyBurger666 said:

Have I got this wrong, as I'd assumed Joy was a means for the corrupt Government to control the masses??

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It is. On Joy the Government can do horrible things out in the open, and people just shrug it off.

Phantom Thief said:

Why are there "many problems with anti-depressants"?


Depression is not just an American thing. It's something that affects people worldwide. That people outside of North America have trouble getting the medicine they need because of stigmatization isn't something to celebrate.

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People don't have trouble getting the medication they need outside NA. In fact it's even easier in most first world countries. The US has a real issue with mass overprescription of antidepressants and the drug lobby makes it worse and worse every year. A very high percentage of antidepressant prescriptions are made by people that have no qualifications to do so.

Mind you, what the Dev said is 100% dumb, I'm just pointing out that issues with antidepressants do exist

Kalentan said:

It is. On Joy the Government can do horrible things out in the open, and people just shrug it off.

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Cheers, I'm actually intrigued by the game now, might play a bit of it later.

Klobrille said:

That answered it, yes. I didn't know Era was fine with that and thought maybe I was missing something.

Thanks.

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Yeah, I do it for some GameXplain Videos and the "Rise and Fall of..." Videos by GVMERS because I think others will like to see it. I also want people to discuss franchises which ain't always in the limelight.

Admittedly I haven't finished We Happy Few yet, but I interpret it being more in reference to those who feel they can't party without molly/go in an alley to buy a bag of oxy because they like how it makes them feel. Not every single person who use pills on a regular basis.

Phantom Thief said:

Depression is not just an American thing. It's something that affects people worldwide. That people outside of North America have trouble getting the medicine they need because of stigmatization isnt something to celebrate.

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In Sweden it's just that the health care usually try other ways to treat the issues before handing out antidepressants, therapists try to get you to rethink your living situation and workout routines etc, tries to find the root of your problem. Medicine is the last resort kind of but it's not like we can't get medicines, we have problems with over-usage of addictive medicines just as elsewhere, often when it's not really needed. But in some cases it's needed and then nobody will stop you to get the medicin you need to function.

Without my antidepressants I'd be dead ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

What was that Fox/Wolf... thing game he was showing occasional footage of? It looks kind of alright.

Real Renaissance Man said:

Admittedly I haven't finished We Happy Few yet, but I interpret it being more in reference to those who feel they can't party without molly/go in an alley to buy a bag of oxy because they like how it makes them feel. Not every single person who use pills on a regular basis.

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The problem is that people that take medication of anxiety or depression or other mental health issues get put in the same bag more often than not either way.

While yes, I'm sure there's issues with over-prescriptions and things like that. It's pretty tone-deaf.

I will never understand this.
We, as consumers, don't have the constitutional right to play a video game. It's not water, it's not food or a home. It's nothing vital.
If you can't play a certain game because the company, who owns the rights to it, doesn't make it available, then you are out of luck. End of the story.
It sucks, yes, but that's not a good reasoning to go the illegal route to play a video game.

Sounds like WHF wanted to make some statement about over prescription of medicine, and some statement on properly coping with emotion, but blunders both statements by conflating them into one sentiment.

Society today likes to stigmatize depression as mere "sadness", encouraging instead to suppress feelings. This goes double for men, who are raised to suppress emotion and go through much of life without knowing how to cope. Depression is made worse in this environment, because people mistakenly think it's "not real" and think it's only about an attitude change.

Overperscription of drugs IS a problem, but the answer isn't to take pot-shots at people with depression who legitimately need these medications, but rather at for-profit healthcare providers prescribing shit to people they don't need (and often things other than antidepressants).

Ironically WHF clumsily tries to say "learn how to cope with your feelings" and then turns around and says "don't take antidepressants because you should value sadness", which is a completely inappropriate way of suppressing feelings and only exacerbates the problem.

Vicious17 said:

What was that Fox/Wolf... thing game he was showing occasional footage of? It looks kind of alright.

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Ditto, I thought that looked pretty cool, definitely gave off a retro-platformer vibe.

Anyone able to shed light on what game it is?

Eatin' Olives said:

Ironically WHF clumsily tries to say "learn how to cope with your feelings" and then turns around and says "don't take antidepressants because you should value sadness", which is a completely inappropriate way of suppressing feelings and only exacerbates the problem.

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But wouldn't it only be saying that if Joy was purely an anti-depressant which it isn't?

Joy not only messes with your chemicals but also gives you hallucinations. It makes you think your happy, but not because it's helping fix your chemical imbalance that leads to severe depression, but because it's overdosing chemicals that induce the feeling of happiness.

Not saying the game is perfect, from what I've seen it's far from it. But I think there's a misconception that Joy is just an anti-depressant, when it's not.

Vicious17 said:

Fox

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Peckmore said:

Ditto, I thought that looked pretty cool, definitely gave off a retro-platformer vibe.

Anyone able to shed light on what game it is?

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https://foxnforests.com

looks super neat, but a 69% on metacritic makes me feel the gameplay doesn't live up to the aesthetics. Haven't played it yet, though.
7.8 user score, though!

Antidepressants aren't happy pills. They're like life prepreservers. They keep you from drowning, but that's it.

Kyolux said:

The problem is that people that take medication of anxiety or depression or other mental health issues get put in the same bag more often than not either way.

While yes, I'm sure there's issues with over-prescriptions and things like that. It's pretty tone-deaf.

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I agree it's tone-deaf. My point is I don't think its entirely fair to just assume they view both groups of the same.

Fliesen said:

https://foxnforests.com

looks super neat, but a 69% on metacritic makes me feel the gameplay doesn't live up to the aesthetics. Haven't played it yet, though.

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Thank you. The 69 is worrying though, maybe I'll check it out sometime later.

Very, very hard to disagree with Jim here. If the game industry gave a shit about piracy they would have a viable, cheap alternative to piracy like the movie and music industry (eventually) figured out. Not to mention the historical preservation aspect of the whole thing. Example:

Once again Jim bringing up salient points in regards to Nintendo's business practices with regards to their virtual library. They'd rather funnel more resources into shutting down rom sites than giving consumers viable means of legally purchasing them through their own channels (IE either putting them all up online for purchase, artificial shortages with the classic launches, or the abysmal netflix style service thats barely a netflix style service with the 20 NES games). People want to buy your products Nintendo. Let them.

I think this is a pretty big misread on Jim's part. To me prescription drug culture is not people that are legitimately ill, it's people thinking that every time they feel bad they can just go get a prescription and it'll fix the problem. After a while it's easy to get used to doing it to the point where you get addicted because they make you feel better but don't help at all with fixing your life and would you look at that? That's exactly what the game is about.

Berordn said:

Clinical depression is an actual life threatening disorder. Inside Out is about emotion and the value that even negative experiences have on our development. They're not at all related, since anti-depressants don't act as a treatment for an emotion but an actual biological imbalance and Inside Out is dealing with an adolescent child who's just coming to terms with herself and her environment.

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This. Thank you.

I love it that he's so used to using funny voices when reading other people's statements aloud that he does it for both Nintendo and Emuparadise.

Re: depressed people who need medication, I'm 200% with him, fuck people who stigmatize others for that. Fuck them to hell, as if there wasn't enough stigmatization already. I won't wish unmedicated clinical depression on them, though, because nobody should have to go through that.

Charamiwa said:

If you're on anti depressant because of a condition, and you need them to function, I really don't see why you would be part of the "happy pill popping culture". Those are obviously two different things.

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OK, so what is "happy pill popping culture" then? Antidepressants aren't something you can just munch occassionally when you're feeling down. For one they typically don't have any effect until after two weeks of taking them. For another the side effects are so shitty (I hope you like sleeping) it would not be worth it at all.

Doctor Ironic said:

Honest, good-faith question: how is the quote by Compulsion there any different than the central message of the movie Inside Out?

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The fact that Inside Out doesn't in any way, shape or form feature antidepressants or any other drug should be an answer far beyond what this disingenuous question merits.

Sadness is not depression. If you think they are the same, you never suffered depression, so count your blessings and stop spouting ignorant nonsense. Antidepressants treat one of the two; take a wild guess which one is it.

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jviggy43 said:

Once again Jim bringing up salient points in regards to Nintendo's business practices with regards to their virtual library. They'd rather funnel more resources into shutting down rom sites than giving consumers viable means of legally purchasing them through their own channels (IE either putting them all up online for purchase, artificial shortages with the classic launches, or the abysmal netflix style service thats barely a netflix style service with the 20 NES games). People want to buy your products Nintendo. Let them.

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Such thing as artificial shortage don't exist and it's one of the most stupid arguments ever.

And I'll never understand people who talks as if a company is a user reading a post lol

It's disappointing to see Compulsions attitude toward prescription anti-depressants which, though I've had bad experiences with them, help many. That said, I think there's still some value in the themes of the game beyond that subtext. There's also the idea of burying our pasts, and the pasts of our culture, in order to keep the veneer of happiness on. Really the idea of facades runs throughout in both its narrative and machanics, and in many more ways than just the straightforward pill/anti-pharma message. They could've chosen many more angles to focus on, so it's a shame they went for that one.

Maybe I'm being overly optimistic with respect to Nintendo, but I think there's a reason why they're being so litigious on their back-catalog this year as opposed to every other year prior: that they would, in fact, be planning to make as much of their first-party back-catalog available through the Switch's online service as possible. Not saying I necessarily think that, but I think the timing makes the possibility nonzero.

Kalentan said:

But wouldn't it only be saying that if Joy was purely an anti-depressant which it isn't?

Joy not only messes with your chemicals but also gives you hallucinations. It makes you think your happy, but not because it's helping fix your chemical imbalance that leads to severe depression, but because it's overdosing chemicals that induce the feeling of happiness.

Not saying the game is perfect, from what I've seen it's far from it. But I think there's a misconception that Joy is just an anti-depressant, when it's not.

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You're right, Joy is not just an antidepressant, I think it's quite literally an amalgam of "all drugs that make you feel better". I do think that Compulsions' statement was pretty directed at antidepressants, though.

I don't think Compulsions' statement is fundamentally wrong. There's a lot of people that escape reality through drugs in a very unhealthy way. There's also a lot of people who have gone through life not knowing how to cope with their feelings, particularly depression and sadness. Some turn to not anti-depressants, but other drugs that don't let them cope at all, it merely "takes the edge off" and ends up being worse in the long run. I think Compulsions definitely screwed up what would otherwise be a sound message when they specifically said "value sadness" as a reason to not take anti-depressants.

Blackpuppy said:

Can I just say that I really don't get the uproar over EmuParadise not linking to ROMs. Ok, it was a great site but for goodness sakes, it's not like ROMs have just disappeared.

Like pirated music and movies, video games will move to private trackers and while it will be harder to find that ROM of Cool Spot, it wont be insurmountable.

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Exactly, some people are overreacting. Just type "x game" Rom on Google.

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Phantom Thief said:

Jim throws his own hat in the ring on this matter. A lot of it is surprisingly poorly researched, regarding the legality of emulators (Jim, emulators are legal, and even ROM dumps are, it's the sharing of ROM dumps specifically that's a legal grey area), but the core points he makes are sound.

Bonus: He talks about We Happy Few. A lot of it is just him shitting on the game, but he ends by pointing out how Compulsion said some stuff about depression, the "happy pill popping culture" of anti depressants, and how we need to value sadness- which, as someone who suffers from clinical depression, and has been on anti-depressants just to function before, what the fuck? Fuck Compulsion, and fuck We Happy Few.

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Isnt that why most people watch his stuff ?
Because it is poorly researched, and thus fits into their narrative ?

The pills in We Happy Few aren't antidepressants, they're basically mind altering drugs the government want you to take so you forget/ignore the terrible things the powers at be have done. I'm only about 7/8 hours in so far but that's the vibe I get from it.

From what I gather, it's not about "Antidepressants are bad and depressed people should just be happy" but rather about people consuming whatever thing they "need" to make them feel better when there's something wrong or sad happening in their lives, from binge drinking/eating to antidepressants, even if they're not clinically depressed.

You know, the "pill popping society" in which you take whatever pill you think it will make you feel better, you ask your doctor for certain drugs because you think you need them and because of how everyone already takes something they treat people who are clinically depressed or need any kind of pill to "function" as "you should just cheer up and not feel sad".

Nemesis162 said:

Such thing as artificial shortage don't exist and it's one of the most stupid arguments ever.

And I'll never understand people who talks as if a company is a user reading a post lol

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Ok so it wasn't aritifical shortage, it was just a completely incompetent understanding of demand by Nintendo since they literally saw the NES mini go flying off the shelf and then allowed the same thing to happen with the snes mini despite knowing they would sell gangbangers. Your choice of what to believe.

Phantom Thief said:

Why are there "many problems with anti-depressants"?


Depression is not just an American thing. It's something that affects people worldwide. That people outside of North America have trouble getting the medicine they need because of stigmatization isn't something to celebrate.

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While I'm not denying anti-depressants can be useful for a lot of people and overdoses exist alll around the world, prescribed opiates has become the first cause of death in the U.S in 2016 http://www.lepoint.fr/monde/etats-u...-cause-de-mortalite-10-08-2018-2242771_24.php

Depression can be treated better with probiotics as the gut is now considered as "the second brain" https://www.psychiatryadvisor.com/d...nate-treatment-for-depression/article/745272/ and obviously, looking for psychological ad socilogical causes of depression with psytherapy.

Agreed with on all points here.

Holy shit at the end there regarding We Happy Few...

Weltall Zero said:

The fact that Inside Out doesn't in any way, shape or form feature antidepressants or any other drug should be an answer far beyond what this disingenuous question merits.

Sadness is not depression. If you think they are the same, you never suffered depression, so count your blessings and stop spouting ignorant nonsense. Antidepressants treat one of the two; take a wild guess which one is it.

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I really, really do not appreciate this comment. You obviously read my first post on the matter, didn't read any of my follow-ups where I learned more about the subject, and ran off of the assumptions that not only was I just concern trolling with that question (when not only was I insisting that I specifically was not, but the fact that I stuck around and engaged with people's answers proves I wasn't) but, on top of that, that I am not clinically depressed or that I have never taken antidepressants, which I am, and I have.

Yeah that's a fucking dangerous comment on anti-depressants. To hell with that game. I remember a stupid Doctor Who episode propagating the same thing, so irresponsible.

Blackleg-sanji1 said:

You answered ya own question right there. Ppl like you(no offense) continue to ask why does soso get their own thread. Well because ppl make them. You got somebody you think is thread worthy post them

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And if the thread isn't worthy it'll drop off the first page. It's the beauty of forums - popular chattage.

Regarding that quote, and I may be mistaken, but isn't it about the current "self-help be positive" culture that we kind of live in nowadays, specially when talking about social media? I can't see the relation to medically diagnosed depression, but maybe it's naïve of me to say that? I mean no harm to those who have gone through depression, I haven't, fortunately, even if my family has a history of that. I also don't wanna sound "tone-deaf" or anything, but maybe someone more experienced on this subject could help me understand.