Is it a generalisation that when a woman speaks up in an online multiplayer game, she will get harassed? Same for anyone else part of marginalised groups. Or how quickly gamers want to shut down any political talk when it doesnt affect them directly. You wouldn't be baffled if you have been reading this thread properly and can be empathic for others' struggles in gaming communities.the term was never dirty in the first place, at least not outside of era.
frankly i'm baffled that this kind of lazy generalizations is so widely used on era, but here we are.
Don't you dare question our feelings and opinions on discrimination that females or minorities receive, just because we have an opinion of what "Gamer" means.Is it a generalisation that when a woman speaks up in an online multiplayer game, she will get harassed? Same for anyone else part of marginalised groups. Or how quickly gamers want to shut down any political talk when it doesnt affect them directly. You wouldn't be baffled if you have been reading this thread properly and can be empathic for others' struggles in gaming communities.
It's not about pride, I'm just stuck on the logical part of this argument.
"Gamer" literally means "a person who plays video games or participates in role-playing games." I'm not letting that be redefined as "Gamergate people" because of peoples prejudice.
Thankfully I'm not from America, so that's fine.As said before, you can do whatever you want, but just because you don't want to face reality don't be surprised that people give you weird looks for using the term Gamer.
Neither am I, so can still safely say the situation hasn't changed just because you don't live in America.
So in the future we should all applaud Konami for doing the right business move in making their games pachinko games?
How dare you use the word "America" in a deragatory way rather than it just being a place where people live.
LolHow dare you use the word "American" in a deragatory way rather than it just being a person born in America.
It's not about pride, I'm just stuck on the logical part of this argument.
"Gamer" literally means "a person who plays video games or participates in role-playing games." I'm not letting that be redefined as "Gamergate people" because of peoples prejudice.
Gamergate is a particularly American phenomenon and a particularly niche internet phenomenon. The meaning of the name "Gamer" doesn't change Worldwide because of what is going on, on the American internet.
I'm from the UK. I can tell you a fact that Gamer here is the dictionary definition.
Providing well reasoned and educated explanations is unfortunately not landing quite well here and Polygatari has already made his mind up - ironically acting in a very typical "Gamer" way.Matt Lees wrote a fantastic piece in the Guardian about GG. Country makes no difference, I would argue.
And you should know this already with other words - the use of "gay" in the schoolyard (and dictionary) is vastly different to what 2 men in a loving relationship would mean by it.
Providing well reasoned and educated explanations is unfortunately not landing quite well here and Polygatari has already made his mind up - ironically acting in a very typical "Gamer" way.
Still a generalization. You focus on the worst and wanna change the meaning of the word to reflect that. Like if someone sees an African American teen gang and wants now the term "African American" to refer exclusively that, instead of, you know, the sea of other people that are of that ethnicity.Is it a generalisation that when a woman speaks up in an online multiplayer game, she will get harassed? Same for anyone else part of marginalised groups. Or how quickly gamers want to shut down any political talk when it doesnt affect them directly. You wouldn't be baffled if you have been reading this thread properly and can be empathic for others' struggles in gaming communities.
So the reality is what era decides and not what the definition given by the organizations created to monitor and update the meaning of words say?As said before, you can do whatever you want, but just because you don't want to face reality don't be surprised that people give you weird looks for using the term Gamer.
I'm from the UK too, so I do know exactly what people mean when they use the term "gamer". It's not just someone that plays video games.....
So the reality is what era decides and not what the definition given by the organizations created to monitor and update the meaning of words say?
OK.
So the reality is what era decides and not what the definition given by the organizations created to monitor and update the meaning of words say?
OK.
It's just straight that people would almost prefer the nomenclature to be "Yes, I'm a gamer, but not one of THOSE gamers". As if that's supposed to mean something to anyone not in the know.
I get it if someone you don't know very well and also doesn't know gaming very well uses it as a catch all for some sort of conversation starter, but...I think everytime I've had a real-world conversation about "GAMERS", it has been when some vile dealings in this culture have hit the mainstage and called into question the morality or general cognizance of people who play video games. Maybe it was gamer gate, maybe it was Steve Bannon explaining how he started a gold farming company to pull gamers into GOP echo chambers, maybe it was Milo Yannopolis getting kicked off college campuses, maybe it was the rationale behind the Sandy Hook shootings, maybe it was the congressional hearings behind night trap and mortal kombat.
But when someone wants to have a conversation about "GAMERS" it's usually because something bad happened. As if they want to discuss the nature of the pejorative. Because if someone I know wants to talk about video games and they don't know about video games, they'll bring up specific examples. Fortnite, Halo, Call of Duty, Madden, etc. But they don't bring up "GAMERS".
"GAMERS" is reserved for when something bad happens. "Gamers" is said with squinted eyes and a sneer.
I don't care. I just want a great Space Sim. Let there be white people, or black, or asian, or just little green people. Why is it so important? All I care about is a great game and characters regardless of their gender or ethnicity.
I'm just going to ask one thing - why do you spend your time counting the amount of white characters in the game? If having all-black films is okay, then what is wrong with having all-white characters? Why do you even pay attention to these things? I'm not American but I happen to live here, yet for some reason it doesn't bother me that my nation is not represented.
The characters are not there to represent you or anybody else, they are characters to tell the story and if we really are equal, why can't you feel for white characters the same way you'll feel for black?
Maybe the creators thought they want to have a different style (retro), maybe they wanted to give it a feeling of a different country (not all countries in the world have black people, you know?), etc. - you can't know what has influenced their creative thinking.
I have no idea what this game is about and the screenshots threw me off, but I know one thing - you can't use culture, art as a way to prove something to yourself or the world. Culture doesn't have any "missions" or "requirements" (aka number of color people, number of good/bad guys), culture has only one goal - to express the story, the idea and to teach us how to love things, that's it. It is not meant to be a slave to any ideologies, beliefs or ideas.
Good example: Civilization V has a feature where you can create a piece of art. There are two types: Political Treatises and Great Work. Political treatises have no author, title and quote when you make them, they only give you a one-time boost of popularity; they serve the regime and have no value because once the regime changes, they'll be forgotten; Great Work not only boosts your overall culture, but raises tourism and has a nice little quote, an author and a title. Great Work will not be forgotten but it doesn't give you a quick boost and that's how things are with culture - easy-to-accept Political treatises might give you an illusion of happiness, but do you really want to be in illusions?
The Question: do you want to live in a world where all of art is filled with Political Treatises that make people somewhat happier but will be forgotten once the "happiness" definition will be changed by new regime? Or would you rather live in a country with Great Works that will never be forgotten?
Unless that piece promotes the idea of hate, direct calls for it, then you cannot complain about it, it's not a service and nobody owes you anything.
Culture is not meant to be used, it is there to appreciate.
Maybe the guy hired the people he wanted, their is no onus on creators to make sure POC / minorities are represented.
If I was to create a game / book or movie, hitting arbitrary targets of representation would not be a part of my creative process, if the story led to POC being part of the narrative then I would gladly include them, or people of different genders / sexual orientation.
I don't believe affirmative action has a place in all areas. In the work place, education etc .... absolutely.
Creativity is not one of those places.
Vote with the your wallet against this game if the representation is not sufficient / to your liking and support those that meet your personal criteria.
Shaming people where it does not belong is a bit strong, as is the racist label.
Why does everything has to be diversity this, diversity that? How about the devs make what the hell they want?
Except that they are. Otherwise they'd be playable by now but male is the default. And it still doesn't excuse the lack of women and minorities in the single player mode.
Does this make aliens an afterthought? Does it mean that any feature that doesn't get added first is an afterthought? It doesn't really make sense to me to apply this to a game that's still deep in development
Are you comparing aliens and women
That's about as shallow a view on why we need more inclusive casts in video games I've read.
Now that I think about it, is it 100% sure all the actors who use the voices on these models to be white?
I am not talking about the well-known actors of course.
Or are they all well-known actors?
Also the Devs can anything they like.
Their game, their rules.
No offence to the others of course.
I put effort doing others things, so sorry for making you angry.
What if in this sci-fi world only the white people have supremacy? it is a possibility.
Unlikely, but you never know.
Also don't get so serious about it. it is just a game. I never think so much for a game which you travel with a spaceship in space and kill lizard like aliens.
That I am trying to say is, relax. It is just a game, again. I don't want to start something. I just want to talk calmly.
Yeah, why not? Is it so difficult that maybe the Devs wants to create a Sci-Fi World which the white people are the only allowed to space travel?
The movie Gattaca done something similar I think?
i really don't care about how they promote GOG and it definitely have zero influence about my interesting in buying Cyberpunk 2077.
I'm sorry but where exactly are they making fun of the movement or criticize it? This is just a use of a political hashtag in a dumb way, but I don't see wrong intentions here.
They basically say "they might take trans rights away in the US, but we won't take your PC games away", which is a dumb and insensitive thing to say perhaps, but not transphobic
Are people seriously talking about the "true nature" of a company based on 2 tweets ?
This is so incredibly fucking stupid. What would make more sense is making a sub-forum called politics and gender discussion so we can actually have a forum about games.
I think transphobia of any kind is horrible but the way this thread is throwing out bans to different opinions is quite fascistic.
You might as well have just put up an OP and not allowed comments. Isn't this a discussion board?
It's better to argue with people and convince them they're wrong than to just remove them from the board. Dare I say...erase?
Anyway. I hope this comment isn't taken too badly. I'm just saying what I see and being the natural contrarian I am. It often gets me into trouble.
And I hope I'm being reasonable enough to not be thrown out with the others. I like this board.
Nobody is trying to erase trans people. That's just ridiculous.
CDPR's hashtag joke makes more sense than that weird hashtag.
Relax people. The 20 pages of outrage in this thread are just pointless.
What a whiner.
They designed it to let you pick which character you want to play, and explanations aren't meant to be taken seriously. It's just handwaving. Taking this seriously and escalating it to point of argument is so unnecessary.
Nothing in this world has be inclusive. You can argue about it on the internet if you want, but the only thing companies care about is their monetary gains. The marketing is one facet of the cash flow, and analysts will have put forward their documentation on what generates the most cash flow from marketing.
In the next game we might have a only female protagonist then other people will be upset that they can't use a guy or complain that females weren't warriors in whatever period. Ubisoft is never gonna win it's impossible.
Oh, brother. Now we're going to whine if marketing doesn't have equivalent outcomes. Most of the people picking up the game are going to be men, and most of them are going to want to play as men. The idea of a female spartan warrior holding her own against an army of physically stronger men is sort of a fantasy, but it's a reasonable videogame accommodation to players who want that option.
But let's not pretend it's going to be the popular choice. Why should marketing focus their money on the less popular choice? That would be like if ME focused all their marketing materials on Fem Shep. To do that means you're asking the company to lose money in order to accommodate your social justice sensitivities.
Is it not enough to just enjoy video games. Male lead female lead black blue orange who gives a fuck?
I'm seriously starting to think that some feminists here are yelling at clouds.
Genuine question: why would the "canon" character matter two shits to players? As far as I'm concerned, the character I choose is canon. And I guarantee you that more people overall will choose Alexios. So I do understand why they might focus more of the marketing on him while also offering the choice to play as Kassandra. Win-win.
Until half of the audience for every game is female, then publishers and developers will still be inclined to focus on male protagonists. It's basic business sense.
People like to throw around the vague statistics that 50% of gamers are women but they fail to note the kinds of games they play. That's a pretty important distinction. If I'm making a military shooter and 99.9% of my target audience is male, I could probably save a lot of money by simply sticking with a male protagonist instead of trying to cater to audience that doesn't really exist for the game I'm making.
Ultimately, game development is a business and as a business, you need to make intelligent decisions as to where to invest your funding and where to cut costs. Would it be nice to have playable female characters in every game? Sure. Do the costs of including that feature often outweigh the financial benefits? Definitely. So yes, when a publisher or developer decides to include playable female characters in a game primarily targeted towards male customers, it's often a PR move done to draw media attention and create headlines.
... As for advertising, Ubisoft is a publicly traded company and as per their obligations to their shareholders, will try to maximize initial sales of the game to boost profits. Thus, focusing advertising on the demographic that predominantly bought their prior Assassin Creed games.
The problem is that you (and others) are completely dismissive of legitimate business reasons, as if business is completely irrelevant when discussing marketing and AAA game development. Yes, most game marketing focuses on male protagonists even if the player can choose to be female. As I said before, this is because the majority of players are male and prefer to play as males. The whole point of marketing is to make your game look appealing to your target audience. Placing the marketing focus on a female protagonist would actually make your game less appealing to your target audience.
If you want to have a productive discussion, you need to consider all sides of the issue, not just the sides you favor. Implementing a female player character into a story-driven, cutscene-heavy game isn't a trivial task and requires a lot of time and money. Demanding that publishers not only implement playable female characters but also revolve the marketing around them seems a bit entitled. You're literally asking businesses to make poor business decisions in order to satisfy your ego.
Now if only there was some forum too talk about games :)
So therefore it's cool for people not to want to be called gamers - which the OP disagrees with.I play games so that makes me a gamer. If some folks associate the word "gamer" to some other meaning then so what? Don't let others define who or what you are
Yep, I also love fishing so I'm also a fisherman and a surfer and a bodyboarder. Just words linked too the activities I enjoy doing.I play games so that makes me a gamer. If some folks associate the word "gamer" to some other meaning then so what? Don't let others define who or what you are
I thought Lady Gaga identifying herself as a gamer would kill this debate, but here we are.
I thought Lady Gaga identifying herself as a gamer would kill this debate, but here we are.
I feel like I'm talking with crazy people here. Good day to you all.
You are registered to a gaming forum.
Don't want to be called a gamer.
OK.
LOL
Sweet sweet irony.