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A PLEA TO GAMES JOURNALISTS: SOMETIMES IT'S OKAY NOT TO BE OUTRAGED - by Mr Biffo

29/3/2018

70 Comments

 
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What's going on with these Far Cry 5 reviews, eh?

Most of the ones I've read have thrown a couple of paragraphs in at the end - at most - which address what it's actually like to play the game... having blathered on in the preceding five million-word essay about the game's political content.

Or, rather, lack of political content. 

Far Cry 5 is set in Montana, USA, or somewhere, and a religious cult has taken over Hope County, or wherever, and you play a deputy US Marshall, or something, and... there's some stuff about zombie-like drug addicts, and lots of American flags and crucifixes and that... but ohhhh... apparently it doesn't do anything interesting with them!

It wastes an opportunity to make a political statement about America today, see. It plays it safe, see. Its "message" is all sort of vague, see. The good guys are as bad as the bad guys, see.

You know what? Go away and get a grip. Seriously. If you're complaining it's because you're annoyed that Far Cry 5 doesn't stand with you on whatever particular personal pedestal you've hitched yourself to.

I mean, I know I'm tired at the minute. It has been a tough month, and I think I'm coming down with a cold... but I honestly don't have the energy today to be diplomatic. Speaking more broadly, I'm just so weary of the outrage fetishising in the media and on social media.

Everyone is shouting at everyone else all the time, looking for reasons to be furious, trying to rally troops to shore up their own arguments and self-identity, and it's like watching a bunch of nursery school kids fighting over who gets to play in the sandpit.
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FOSSILS
We've reached a stage where nobody can release a film, or a book, or a TV show, or anything without it been picked apart by crack squads of outrage archeologists. They chip away at stuff, brushing at the rock, sifting through it for anything they can be publicly appalled by. 

"This dinosaur had a cock! Outrage! This dinosaur doesn't have immigration papers! Outrage! This dinosaur's voice box has been fossilised! It's an outrage against free speech! This dinosaur looks a bit like Katie Hopkins! Outrage!"

Even when there's not really anything to be appalled by unless you really dig - as in Far Cry 5 - they get appalled by the lack of anything to be appalled by, because they don't know what the game's trying to say... because these days everything seemingly has to be about something. 

Doesn't it?


Here's a messed-up thought: maybe Far Cry 5 isn't about anything, because it doesn't want to be or need to be. 

Maybe it's just a game. Maybe it just wants you to play it and have a good time while doing so? Maybe that's the whole point, and sometimes that's okay?
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BIG CHUNK
I've played a big chunk of Far Cry 5 over the last couple of days (though I had to stop last night when I realised it was making me more stressed, rather than less - I'd become stuck on one particular mission).

And it's simply this: nothing but a big, silly, violent, ridiculous, playground, like all the other ones we've had since the dawn of gaming. It goes out of its way to avoid making any sort of political point. The only thing it's trying to be is a video game.

Thing is, because we now live in the Age of Outrage, far too many reviewers and gaming commentators are outraged that Far Cry 5 isn't outraged about anything. At most you could say it holds up a mirror to the entire ridiculousness of the world, but that's as far as it goes.

That may be one of the things that most winds me up about Generation Rant - just because they're outraged about something, they feel that if you're not outraged about the same things they're outraged about (or, increasingly, feel they should be outraged about), then you're one of Them. You're the enemy. 
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Between the Ouroboros-like symbiosis between the media and social media, this 24-hour outrage cycle has reached such a shrill pitch now that I've finally had enough.

Remember when games weren't trying to say anything? When you just played them? Was there any hand-wringing over Space Invaders missing an opportunity to offer commentary on American immigration policy?

Yes, I know; extreme example, and games have become more complex narratively, but Far Cry 5 - despite its setting - isn't trying to be anything other than a game. To damn it as missing an opportunity to cast an eye on modern America - as many in the gaming media have - is missing its purpose.
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OLD MAN
It's an age thing as much as anything else. Reaching my mid-40s brought a degree of perspective I might've lacked before.

I can certainly remember ranting about things because I felt I should be angry, not because I actually was. I don't want to generalise, but speaking for myself I've felt less defined by external causes or beliefs as I've gotten older.

Be nice to people/Treat everyone the same/Choose your battles wisely/Be aware that you never know what's going on for another person/Trust in their ability to find their own way out of the dark/Go easy on yourself/We all want to feel loved and safe.

Admittedly, that's a grotesque oversimplification of my attitude to others and the world, but that's what it essentially boils down to. And yeah, I do have my buttons pushed if somebody fails to acknowledge any of the above. 

While I respect the right of others to be outraged by things, I lose sympathy when they in turn don't respect my right not to be outraged about the same thing. Or, indeed, the right of Far Cry 5 not to be outraged.

As I've aged, I've found myself with less energy to devote to such rabid discourse, because I'm up here on Middle Age Spread Mountain, and it becomes clearer what really matters and what doesn't. Don't get me wrong; fiery youthful expression has helped changed the world - usually for the better, sometimes for worse.

But it also becomes clearer how much of it is motivated by emotional drivers that are formative and immature, or something a bit broken, or because people crave power, or control - be it over others or their own individual circumstance - or because they want to belong to something. If you're angry, ask yourself why you're really angry. Why does it matter to you?

PRIORITIES
It isn't that I don't still get cross - by all means, if you want to see me foam at the mouth why not try sending me some suggestions for how I should run Digitiser The Show? - but that I have learned to prioritise the things I get angry about. I think of it like the Starship Enterprise diverting power away from its life support systems to its shields.

I mean, it's weird in that going through this is revealing why my parents were like they were when I was growing up. They were simply going through the same process of Getting Old. It isn't so much that you lose your fire and your passion, but that you realise that it can better serve you - as well as the world and people around you - by channelling it more usefully.

And when I say "you" I mean "I", but I also mean "probably everyone".

Hopefully.

Far Cry 5 has given me exactly what I wanted; a big, open-world, sandbox action game, and it would've diluted the experience for me if it had repeatedly hit me over the head with politics.

​Then what would've happened is we'd have got a ton of hand-wringing opinion pieces about how Important a game it is, and then a load of counter-articles expressing their outrage, and that would've pissed me off, because it would've felt so unimportant in the grand scheme. 

Note to games journalists: you'll understand all this when you grow up...

Sorry if you find that a bit patronising.

​Bless. 
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70 Comments
bose
29/3/2018 09:54:22 am

Austin Walker's review of Far Cry 5 (https://waypoint.vice.com/en_us/article/qvxbeb/far-cry-5-review) is interesting, thoughtful,mature and well worth a read. Making it the diametric opposite of this article.

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Mr Biffo
29/3/2018 10:50:23 am

Read it. Seems to be exactly what I'm moaning about!

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Craig G
29/3/2018 10:09:21 am

Agree completely. The recent review of kingdom come on Eurogamer illustrates just how ridiculous some reviewers have become

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MENTALIST
29/3/2018 10:20:32 am

Snap!

I'm getting a bit fed up of Eurogamer's editorial stance lately. As Biffo implies, I think it's maybe a general problem with today's young adults.

I should perhaps be on the lookout for a replacement, and I suppose that's why I've spend much more time reading this site recently.

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Sick of Identity Politics
29/3/2018 11:16:03 am

Oh man, I went and read that Kingdom Come review. It started OK, with talk of the gameplay, but dear god the reviewer turned into a deluded, history denying, politically correct asshat towards the end. Obsessed with the idea the developers were evil racists and sexists, while denying actual history by bringing up an anonymous "historian" he knew.

The disturbing, and infuriating thing is, I looked up the reviewer Robert Purchese on Google, and he's allowed to interview major game developers, like John and Brenda Romero.

How is it such a snivelling, irritating, condescending charlaton is allowed to conduct major interviews and talks and give presentations like this?

I'd rather see Paul Rose do important work like that - I absolutely agree with and respect this column written here.

Now is precisely the time when the world needs something like Digitiser The Show.

I honestly cannot stomach anymore identity politics or outrage culture anymore. I'll just opt out of the internet if this crap continues.

Spiney O’Sullivan
29/3/2018 11:21:43 am

Between this site and the headlines on Reddit (I know, but it’s efficient...), you basically don’t need most gaming sites anymore. I scaled back how much gaming news I got years ago, and to be honest, I’m happier for it. It used to be the case that you were desperate for whatever gaming content you could get from a few magazines per month with mostly the same news (and Digi), but now you have almost every moment of every game spoiled on twenty thousand different sites trying desperately to get noticed despite being a drop in the ocean. It’s suffocating, and I enjoy games more for having distanced myself a bt from the 24/7 media storm around them. That said, I also don’t rely on reviews much anymore as I buy few games at launch anyway. They’ll be preowned eventually, and I’m way behind as it is...

Big Dave's Barn House
29/3/2018 08:54:34 pm

Christ, I gave up on Eurogamer years ago. They started this shit a long time ago. I blame that yank one that started writing for them. Bloody yanks. *shakes fist menacingly*

MENTALIST
29/3/2018 10:11:42 am

Wearisome as the identity politics driven outrage cycle of media and social networks is, you can hardly claim that Far Cry 5 wasn't putting itself slap bang in the centre of highly contested political ground, and doing so deliberately.

I've only read two reviews, and mostly they've complained about the narrative dissonance between confronting horrors in story missions and creating fun mission in the more procedural open world bits. For all people may have complained about Far Cry 3's White Saviour complex (was it being satirised? I buy the story that it was), at least the madness was consistent with the story.


Frankly, I think there was far more fuss about Kingdom Come Deliverance. Eurogamer's review of it was so busy decrying its deleopers that I couldn't get any impression of the quality of the game.

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MENTALIST
29/3/2018 10:13:22 am

That should be "creating fun chaos" in the procedural bits. I really should learn to proofread these posts.

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Geebs
29/3/2018 09:15:44 pm

Seriously, anybody who failed to pick up on the hamfisted “satire” in Far Cry 3 really should have their public outrage license suspended for complete incompetence.

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Ben
29/3/2018 10:24:21 am

I can't imagine how this, or frankly any game (or any other form of entertainment for that matter) could have tried to say anything without triggering the hyper-sensitive online masses on either side of whatever argument in one way or another. Nor can I see how, as you have pointed out, taking any, no matter how nuanced, balanced or intelligent political viewpoint in the creation of this content could have lead to anything other than endless hand wringing, finger pointing or foaming accusation in the media. You can hardly blame Ubisoft for avoiding the issue entirely, like it was ever their remit or intent to say anything profound in the first place (something the creators of the game stated quite clearly during production).
Even Rockstar, whose sledge hammer approach to 'satire' in the GTA games amounts to little more than taking the piss in the broadest way possible, really have very little to say and whenever they get close to it, come across as hypocritical in the context of the general bombast of the worlds they create. They just avoid the issue and effectively cancel out any controversy by waggling their juvenile, offensive willies at everybody, simultaneously offending everyone and no one.
You're completely right though, in many ways it feels like measured discourse is dead and all anybody is looking for these days is validation or vindication of the view from their bubble and failing that, seething outrage will comfortably suffice. We live in worrying times.

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Abel
29/3/2018 11:10:07 am

Is this really a generational thing ? The 'outrage culture' isn't something I find attached to any particular demographic - but you appear to be creating the sort of 'us v them' divide you criticise in the article.

Some people might want to discuss games in a wider context, some people don't. Personally I don't think any art exists in a vacuum, and is ever 'just a game'.

But It's not that big a deal. It's not something to get worked up about. This article is just part of the same cycle it wants to stand aloof from. It's weird.

This might sound patronising. But as I'm older than you, you know .. bless.

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Mr Biffo
29/3/2018 11:27:57 am

YOU'RE weird.

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Abel
29/3/2018 04:13:27 pm

At least you've learned something today. That what's important.

Dr. Budd Buttocks, MD
29/3/2018 06:45:25 pm

I don't know if it's generational, but something has changed. I was born early 80s. I don't really consider myself as being on a particular side of the Gen X/Millennial fence.

Games with something to say aren't a recent thing, but it's only just recently that people have started to make it a problem. Let's take the original Bioshock for example, I'd say that's long enough ago. I played it when I was in my mid 20s. I was a disillusioned Labour voter and didn't have any strong ideological beliefs. The "objectivist dystopia" setting meant very little to me. It was just a good game. I don't remember seeing any libertarians that were upset about Ayn Rand's name being besmirched. The only people who got outraged about games back then were the evangelical conservatives.

I'd consider myself firmly left wing now. But I've played hundreds of games that ostensibly glorify war and violence, games that are verging on military propaganda like Call of Duty/Battlefield, games that shamelessly objectify women, games that were quite obviously created for the single purpose of making lots of money. I don't necessarily want to play a game that panders to my beliefs.

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ChorltonWheelie
30/3/2018 07:24:03 pm

I like the cut of your jib Sir.

DEAN
29/3/2018 11:11:28 am

Wow - everybody is angry about something!

Games don't exist in a bubble any more than movies and we've all witnessed movies being delayed and films on TV being pulled because of tasteless timing.

America and guns are so in the public eye right now that to look the other way because it's just a game does strike me as being a little bit naughty.



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combat_honey
29/3/2018 11:12:24 am

"maybe Far Cry 5 isn't about anything, because it doesn't want to be or need to be."

I agree, but a lot of the pre-release marketing did suggest that the game would in some way be 'making a statement' about America, so I think it's understandable that people are a bit annoyed. It's as though Ubisoft are trying to have their cake and eat it - generate a bit of interest and controversy with the MAGA angle in the marketing, but then ultimately shrugging their shoulders and saying "gee, I dunno" in place of actually saying anything significant.

Will it reduce my enjoyment of the game? Probably the opposite, as while I support games handling political issues, I don't really want to be thinking too much about depressing real-world problems when playing games. But I do find it slightly disappointing that Ubisoft have chickened out a bit and delivered a sanitised version of what they implied would be in the game.

Disclaimer: I honestly can't remember to what extent the hints that the game would be 'political' actually came from Ubisoft, or if it was mostly just speculation by games media people.

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MENTALIST
29/3/2018 11:39:51 am

Ubisoft continually played it down in any interviews that I read about it. But just look at the iconography in the promotional material for the game. It makes it look like it's going to be a systematic takedown of a survivalist, religious, rural white American leader figure.

There is no way that Ubisoft's people (especially given that they are French, Canadian or otherwise non-American in the main - https://www.ubisoft.com/en-US/careers/experience.aspx#world-map) don't see what that looks like.

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combat_honey
29/3/2018 11:59:29 am

Totally. Despite my earlier disclaimer, I've just remembered that they used phrases like "Joint THE RESISTANCE" a lot in trailers and the like. And there's just no way you can use that phrase in the context of fighting white, rural American religious cultists and not know exactly what you're doing.

Spiney O’Sullivan
29/3/2018 12:55:16 pm

Ubisoft were very deliberately treading on difficult and controversial ground by going into the idea of smalltown doomsday cults, but I think a lot of the political angle was more implied as a result of the immediate backlash of smalltown right-wingers who overreacted and decided that the game was clearly going to be about city “elites” going after them and Christianity in a new “war on Christmas” (even though it was clearly about a Waco-style cult rather than the local church) and the subsequent -admittedly jeering- press coverage of that, which didn’t help to provide any nuance. Ironically, it would now appear that the new backlash is from that press who wanted it to go after rightwingers more. So either Ubisoft were too cautious or too nuanced...

That said, I also disagree to an extent with the “it’s just for fun” thing. You make games about candy crushing and space invaders just for fun, not ones that specifically go into really dark parts of society and human psyche, which is kind of where cults live. I think Ubisoft really were hoping to do something a bit on the Spec Ops side here, so I honestly don’t think this game should be divorced from how well it makes whatever statement it’s trying to make (probably “cults are quite scary”), as I’m all for games being meaningful and would like more of that. But personally I took it more as a game about smalltown cults than about modern-day smalltown Republicans, so I’m disappointed if it doesn’t do much with that theme. I read a really interesting piece about the game’s music design, where the composer was trying to make hymns that would actually make you think “huh, all this stuff about peace and hope is kind of nice... uh oh.”. After all, the whole point of cults is that they’re convincing. I would really love it if Ubisoft delved into that wholesale instead of backing out for the sake of broad appeal.

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Spiney O'Sullivan
29/3/2018 03:17:34 pm

Actually, having seen combat_honey's post above, I realise that I too had forgotten about those ads. So yes, Ubisoft knew fine what they were doing, but chickened out in a way that is kind of backfiring.

Having read further, it sounds like it has some interesting ideas and scenes (particularly with the area leaders), but just doesn't follow through on any of the themes that it traded on. It doesn't really even seem to deliver fully on the cult stuff, explaining a lot of things away with mind control drugs, which is kind of weak. That's somewhat more disappointing. I can understand them backing off on the politics-baiting stuff (even if I do think it's a bit cowardly), but not even wanting to make meaningful statements on what really makes people join cults (hint: it's not mind-control drugs...) is a real missed opportunity.

And yes, I know I'm not letting games just be games for the sake of games, but if you make a Pong clone where the paddles are Corbyn and May and the ball is the NHS, but don't actually say anything with it, you can't complain when people feel a little ripped off because you baited them with subject matter then backed off on it.

Nick
29/3/2018 11:53:58 am

Oh well. I don't know anymore.

They are playing with the imagery somewhat. It isn't necessarily unfair to expect them to do or say something meaningful with it. But, who goes looking for meaning in a Far Cry game? And, more to the point, who then gets upset when that meaning is nowhere to be found? Far Cry 2 did some sub-neitiezn crossed with Heart of Darkness rubbish I suppose.

I think games as a medium/art form can and should attempt to say more about the world they're part off, the same as film, TV n' that. But, I don't really expect the new Transformers film to offer a considerate critique on plans for the A303 bypass and I don't really expect Far Cry 5 to offer a reasoned 2nd Amendment debate.

Umm. If I had a point at the start of this comment it's lost to me now. Just adding to the noise I guess.

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Geebs
29/3/2018 09:26:00 pm

Honestly I don’t have a problem with the critics getting cross at Far Cry 5 for not having an obvious message; after all, it’s a vast commitee-designed Ubisoft Corporate Product and I don’t think that they are capable of providing worthwhile commentary on this, or any other, issue.

I’m just a bit disappointed than none of the reviews I’ve read have actually made anything interesting out of it beyond wagging a disapproving finger; they’re all as politically toothless as the thing they’re criticising.

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paul
29/3/2018 12:32:56 pm

Outrage is the current fashion, and it’s more than likely to be down to social media. We all live in our social media echo chamber, and when you find something that does not support that view, it’s easy to get angry about it. So when someone with a viewpoint totally opposed to you goes off on on eat you, that’s because his (or her) echo chamber is wildly different yours. You are a shock.

I’ve seen some interesting reactions to a few things like this, the main whipping boy is the BBC. I know some right-wing types, and I also know some people who do the whole left wing angry vegan thing. The BOTH rant about how the BBC is biased. Why? Because the BBC does not report the news as they think it should be. Either things are not given the right amount of priority, not on the 10pm bulletin, or absent from the web site. Maybe a couple of the senior political editors and correspondents are not voicing an agreeable opinion.

The outrage is palpable, and given that the BBC seems to infuriate both sets of people in equal measure kind of tells me that the BBC is probably about right. The thing is that it seems that if outrage is not expressed promptly and strongly, that it loses its potency, and, I suspect (especially on the angry vegan side - but I’m more aware of how that side of the fence seems to tick), the approval of peers in various groups. I expect that last bit is the most important part of things - not necessarily expressing outrage, but being seen to be expressing it.

That, I fear, is where we are.

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MENTALIST
29/3/2018 12:48:11 pm

Nation Shall Speak Pissiness Unto Nation.

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phil
29/3/2018 12:50:23 pm

I agree, I feel like we're going through social growing pains due to the rapid emergence of new forms of technology, think about how much the communications landscape has changed in the last fifteen years. Ultimately I feel people want to try and make the world a better place but there seems to be a scatter gun approach to all of this sanctimonious ire and faux outrage...Not everything needs to be deconstructed....i blame Lacan and all that BS.

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Mrtankthreat
29/3/2018 01:09:21 pm

Which reviews did you read? I've been on metacritic and from there I've read about five or six reviews and can't find any outrage at all.

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LCNights
29/3/2018 01:34:09 pm

Gameplay is obvs top priority, but telling a cohesive story is also important in this kind of game Far Cry 5 fails at this because it's either too badly written to get across its point of view or because Ubisoft are hedging their bets politically so as not to alienate customers. The former is incompetence and the latter is cowardice.

It's the kind of thing that should be called out by reviewers imo.

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Jam
29/3/2018 01:34:36 pm

It's like reviewers these days are more interested in proving how "woke" they are than actually assessing the objective merits of the thing they're reviewing. It most bothered me recently in the number of Black Panther reviews I read that spent the majority of the review explaining to me why the film was important. I know this, I haven't been living in a cave. When I read a review, I only care about one thing: is it good?

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Gibley
29/3/2018 01:42:12 pm

Having a black superhero does not, by itself, make Black Panther a great movie. I mean, it didn't save Catwoman. Better representation of minorities is, however, a positive thing and therefore not irrelevant to the question "is this movie any good".

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Jam
29/3/2018 05:45:38 pm

Just to be clear, I didn't say representation is irrelevant to the quality of the films/games/whatever, I just don't need to have it explained it to me *why* it's a good thing in the context of a review. If it affects the quality of the film, let me know. Otherwise, it's not what I'm looking for in a review. Each to their own, however.

Mrtankthreat
29/3/2018 02:08:14 pm

The only outrage I've seen is from the people bemoaning the supposed outrage. People in comments section under reviews are actually counting the amount of words dedicated to story vs gameplay as if there should be a preferred ratio. I didn't see them moaning about that when it came to The Last of Us. If reviews for that hadn't blathered on about the story and focused on gameplay only it would have scored 4/10s across the board. (It should have scored that anyway, the story was crap as well)

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Neptunium
29/3/2018 02:14:45 pm

Wow Biffo, you're brave. By writing this piece full of common sense you will now be tarred, feathered and put on the official register of GamerGate championing alt-right nutjobs, despite clearly showing you're none of those things in your past writings.

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Mr Biffo
29/3/2018 03:12:07 pm

Yeah, well, I've learned that today. Show's my ignorance of alt-right causes that I didn't even know "leave politics out of games" is a thing. Point is, I don't believe that: I'm all for politics being in games, and all the better if they tackle the alt-right... but it seems ridiculous to me to complain when a game is released and the obvious politics are absent,.

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Neptunium
29/3/2018 03:50:53 pm

Personally, I don't care whether politics are in or out of games - it's up to the artists to decide what or whom they want within their world, and the public gets to decide whether we want to buy into them or not.

Matty
29/3/2018 05:31:47 pm

At the risk of being a touch finger-steeply, tho', I'm not sure you really *can* leave politics out of videogames. Even the basic "casual" stuff is going to rub someone up the wrong way. Wargames based on real-life wars always piss off the supporters of one side or the other, management sims often bring economic ideologues in rashes (I learned a while ago that, hilariously, some doubtless-American objectivist/neoliberal types have an issue with Sim City because it encourages people to think the best way to manage is top-down monopoly leadership; they presumably think the game would be great if the player did fuck all and the city just organically rose and fell based on some kind of market theory). When people object to politics in videogames, they're usually pulling the "I don't want *these* politics!". I doubt the Comic Book Guy soundalikes who got furious at Balders Gate: Siege of Dragonspear because of one transgender fantasy character (or it not running on their "sweet rig" at "1080p 60FPS" or some other such shite) got so hot and bothered about, say, Postal 2. I can understand people being irritated by being lectured to by a game, but then it's possible for a game to get people thinking about things by, y'know, trusting their intuition and humanity (Papers Please does this very well).

Spiney O'Sullivan
29/3/2018 06:31:05 pm

@Matty:

I recently read a quote to the effect of "the easiest way to tell someone's politics is by what they don't think is political".

Mark M
30/3/2018 01:54:26 pm

I'm all for keeping modern identity politics and peoples' political bugbears out of games. There's already enough polarisation and outrage in the news and on the internet, thanks - I like to escape from it once in a while.

Four and a half swans and a pack of toffee crumble to you for your bravery, sir.

lemonapple
29/3/2018 11:21:48 pm

Remember when gamergate was still relevant? Me neither. Perhaps it's time to stop mentioning it?

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Neptunium
30/3/2018 09:33:26 am

I think GamerGate is still very relevant. It shows what can happen when a witch hunt starts and how it can be manipulated by people with vested interests. If anything, it's a direct result of the online outrage culture Biffo is lamenting in the article, and we shouldn't forget that.

Ford Alan
29/3/2018 02:25:00 pm

Didn't you bring up sexual harassment and #metoo in a game about a plumber collecting moons to save a princess he was friends with?

How does a game like farcry 5 which deliberately set itself in a reality adjacent dark take on cults in rural American count as fun escapism yet Mario Odyssey needs to reflect on modern societal trends.

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Mr Biffo
29/3/2018 03:09:24 pm

Completely different games and arguments, but okay - I'll take the bait. The difference is Mario Odyssey felt slightly out of step with the modern world, while Far Cry 5 doesn't. Mario had something in it which I found controversial... my point is that Far Cry 5 is proving controversial precisely because people are complaining that it isn't. Also: I'm not above hypocrisy in my endless quest for Content(tm).

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Mrtankthreat
29/3/2018 03:56:43 pm

In your opinion. Isn't the point some people are making about the story that it is out of step with the modern world in their opinion? That they're avoiding actual things happening in the real when it comes to certain politics or as Spiney pointed out above, the actual nature of cults and how they form?

For me the controversy hasn't stemmed from the game not being controversial but from the people complaining about the reviews who mildly criticised the story.

I don't care much for stories in games but if the reviewer does and wants to dock score points because of that, even if it's based on political ideologies that's there perogative. I wouldn't call that outrage (the kingdom come review I would count as unnecessary outrage). I read the polygon review for example and when the reviewer moved on to talking about the gameplay it made me want to play the game.

As far as I'm concerned the review did it's job. If I'm someone who cares about story the review outlined why I might or might not like it and same for the gameplay.

Once again though what jarred people the most was the score at the end. For me reading the review made it sound more like an 8 than the 6.5 it got but it got that for the reviewers response to the story. In the the same way the last of us got extra points for the story. It's yet more evidence of the over-importance people give to the score as opposed to reading the whole review. Far Cry 5 got 6.5 but I want to play it. TLoU got 9 (maybe not in polygon but yiu know what i mean) and I wish I never had played it.

Spiney O'Sullivan
29/3/2018 06:39:57 pm

@Mrtankthreat: From reading the reviews as a whole I am actually slightly more interested in playing this game than I was yesterday. Even if it doesn't quite manage to do as much with the subject matter as it could, I still kind of want to see how much of a stab at it they've taken...

Ford Alan
29/3/2018 10:21:33 pm

Fair enough, I didn't mean that to come across like such a "gotcha" or "bait" statement, I was genuinely reconcile those two view points.

I don't have problems following people with differing opinions but I was worried you were just hot taking for fun and profit.

I've committed more than my share of hypocrisy just to lord my opinions over other people, so I can't really hold that against you.

Ford Alan
29/3/2018 10:29:57 pm

clarification: I meant that lording my opinions thing as an example of something I catch myself using hypocrisy for, not as a passive aggressive jab suggesting that that's what you were doing.

Abrax
29/3/2018 03:33:04 pm

Oh my god Biffo, you are literally Hitler!

It seems to me that most reasonable people have a breaking point with the whole identity politics/outrage culture thing, maybe this was yours.

The problem with inviting these sorts of political commentaries into a piece of fiction/media is that once those doors are open, everyone wants a piece of the pie. Take the Black Panther movie for example; there are obviously plenty of things involved in that film that satisfy the complaints of people involved with identity politics, but not *all* of them. There were criticisms against it because it "missed the opportunity" to include a homosexual angle. And if it HAD done that, then another group would complain that they weren't represented, and on and on.

In Mass Effect: Andromeda, there was a transgender character somewhere in the world you could talk to, clearly put in there by the creators as a nod to their inclusive politics. But this received complaints by the trans community for not representing them in an acceptable way. Bioware apologised and went out of their way to fix it, even when there were far more urgent problems with the game itself that needed addressing, but the thing is... it's almost certain that if they had never included a trans character at all, then these complaints would never have arisen in the first place.

Another one I read recently... the Netflix show Altered Carbon, which seems to me to have very little to do with real-world politics or cultural issues, was criticised for not being "progressive" enough.

It's like there's a checklist of ideological issues that must be addressed in every form of fiction, or it's subject to accusations of bigotry.

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Matty
29/3/2018 05:15:18 pm

I don't think this is something that crosses the politics divide as well. Look at all the bullshit thrown at that new Balders Gate game because there was a line of dialogue suggesting a character was transgender. If that had been in a game in, say, 2000, most people wouldn't have noticed or regarded it as quirky, but because it's a time of Angry Political Extremism people started shouting loudly about how the game was a "SJW outrage!" and banging on about boycotts. It's a character in a fucking fantasy videogame, not a threat!

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Matty
29/3/2018 05:15:58 pm

"I *do* think..." that post should have opened with. God damn these electric sex-pants!

Abrax
29/3/2018 07:13:41 pm

I wasn't aware of the Balder's Gate thing, but that doesn't surprise me. I think what's happened is that certain themes are now so politicised, that any mention of them is assumed to be part of some agenda (and in many cases, it actually is).

...Just googled it... and it seems as well as the "SJW outrage!" thing, there are also complaints by trans people because they saw the character as simple tokenism, the same as the Mass Effect example I mentioned. So there you go, another example of a lose-lose situation. It's all very ridiculous.

Meatballs-me-branch-me-do
29/3/2018 03:38:12 pm

This really gets me. US Gamer do some great in depth features about interesting or obscure topics... then they reviewed Uncharted: Lost Legacy.

https://www.usgamer.net/articles/uncharted-lost-legacy-review

First reviewer (black guy, need to point this out given the situation here) talks about the game and how it’s good in places and tedious in others, it’s a game.

Second reviewer (white girl) goes on and on about the race and gender of the protagonists, culminating in being angry that they didn’t get POC actors for POC characters and Tumblr will hear about this REEEEEEEEEEE

You can’t win.

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Matty
29/3/2018 05:11:46 pm

I miss the more innocent days when people got vaguely cross about how Just Cause was probably about overthrowing Hugo Chavez or something before everyone moved onto something else because it wasn't, and Chavez turned out to be a dick anyway.

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Dr. Budd Buttocks, MD
29/3/2018 06:03:13 pm

I'm so, so, SO, very, very TIRED of the identity politics permeating everything I see on the internet like the permanent stench of cat piss. I can't even get away from it on the discussion pages of my work's intranet site, where insecure young white men (and it's always, always them) are parroting whatever they've heard jacob peterson or count dankula saying about "the left" this week, on mundane articles about encouraging more female managers or whatever.

And I'm utterly fucking bored of it in video games. It was the same thing when Wolfenstein: The New Colossus came out. The gamergate arseholes were in a froth about ANTEEFA, and the punch-a-nazi gang were ecstatic because there was a new game where you could punch comic book nazis (with hatchets and bullets). And review after review talking about this for 90% of the time, and only for about 10% of the time about how it was a mediocre game with a ludicrous story.

I honestly don't feel I can enjoy games any more, this shit has absolutely done me in. Many of the people I know in real life who I would consider "serious gamers" have become quite insufferable because they are completely immersed in this shitshow and don't have the self awareness to realise how bad it is.

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Dr. Budd Buttocks, MD
29/3/2018 06:04:51 pm

I meant Jordan Peterson, I dislike his devotees so much I don't even want to learn his name

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Mrtankthreat
30/3/2018 12:31:03 am

If Biffo thought this article caused a controversy he should be thankful none of those peterson goons saw this. They normally show up in droves at the slightest provocation. Actually now I've said that they'll probably crawl out of the woodwork and there'll be 200 comments by the morning. I apologise in advance.

Matt W
29/3/2018 06:15:41 pm

I'm with you on this 100% Biffo, but in the opening couple of paragraphs of your Mario Odyssey review you did oddly end up at Harvey Weinstein! Mario is about as far as you can get from a game making a political statement.

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Mr Biffo
29/3/2018 07:44:24 pm

Oh indeed. Completely over the top on my part! It still felt a bit dated though.

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Pagan Min
29/3/2018 06:58:29 pm

I don't go anywhere near those websites.

Corrupt, unethical, divisive, race and gender baiting scum who want to stir up division just to get clicks.

I'm the one with the £50 and they have no influence or ad-revenue from me. My cash dictates what games get made, not the trash these sites are putting out.

I tend to go to ACG for reviews (and put money directly in his pocket via Patreon) but ultimately I will watch a few let's plays and make a decision based on what I see on the screen.

So it really doesn't matter what these pathetic click bait morons have been up to. It's just background noise. I'd urge extreme caution to developers/publishers who are thinking of pandering to these hacks. Nice to see that Ubisoft didn't get suckered in and just concentrated on making a decent game without stuffing it up by pushing agendas.

I think contemporary politics in a game is a bad idea. For a start with games taking many years to develop, events/outcomes can render your narrative outdated and ridiculous looking when one sides predictions of doom and gloom don't actually come to fruition - e.g. WW3 following the BREXIT vote, Corbyn nationalising every Butlins camp and turning them into Gulags or Trump putting all women in gas chambers).

The other issue is that it's probably not a good idea to alienate 50% of your audience in one of your largest markets when your titles already need to shift a perilous number of units to break even. Leave that to the one-person indie devs.

So yeah if you want to do politics, stick to covering issues from 20 years ago or more.

Mafia 3 doing it = good
Far Cry 5 doing it = would have been a financial disaster

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Matt
29/3/2018 07:15:03 pm

It's like - just a game, man.

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Ewan Kerr
29/3/2018 09:17:50 pm

I agree entirely with Biffo's article above.

Looking at the reaction here, and probably elsewhere too, this just strikes me as excellent, if slightly cynical, marketing. No doubt the game is very similar to 4, as 4 was to 3, but this is being overlooked somewhat.

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Dunc
29/3/2018 09:18:09 pm

I'm personally outraged by your outrage at the outrage of reviewers at the lack of outrage in the game. Also you spent most the article talking about the politics of the lack of politics in the game and only mentioned the gameplay in the last paragraph.

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colincidence link
29/3/2018 10:23:37 pm

'identity politics' involves addressing demographic oppression. Like, that bit is the identity politics we should be sick of; not the reaction.

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PS1Snake
29/3/2018 11:25:17 pm

I miss the PS1 and PS2 era. That was when gaming was still an underground cultish hobby. There was none of this political/ ID politics stuff creeping into games. Now it is inescapable.
Also, smartphones didn't exist back then. This single device has made raging at anything at anytime too easy.

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James Walker link
29/3/2018 11:55:34 pm

It looks shit and I'll probably never play it because it's not Street Fighter 2, so I don't care.

Ps: that's me being all punk, that is.

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Col. Asdasd
30/3/2018 12:11:11 am

It feels like we've been in outrage culture for a long time. Here's a (long) essay that really digs into why so much discourse trends toward conflict online:

http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage/

And here's a recent article by the excellent Shamus Young on what Twitter contributes to the situation.

http://shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=41853

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Mrtankthreat
30/3/2018 01:46:12 am

Cheers for that. Really enjoyed both of those. I especially love how the comments on the twitter one decided the important thing to focus on was the colour schemes of political parties.

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Games Freezer link
30/3/2018 12:33:16 am

I like to distill the review process down to...

Was it fun to play?

YES or NO and reasons why

Surely that's ultimately what video games are all about?

Maybe i'm just a simple guy?

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Mark M
31/3/2018 06:09:03 pm

Well I certainly don't remember any of this kind of political BS in Amstrad Action. :)

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Lummox60N
1/4/2018 10:49:55 am

Well, this was an interesting read.

I'm with you, Biffo, can't we all just get along?

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