Joystiq lives on

[the7k]

social justice is the worst

Their socio-political leanings isn't even close to the worst part about Polygon. I can think of 750,000 reasons you shouldn't trust Polygon when it comes to their opinion of Microsoft and Microsoft's direct competition. Hell, even more when you look at their editorial staff and where some of them came from.

Within a week of opening, they had already broken their own ethics policy by printing advertorial content. There's nothing inherently wrong with advertorial content, but when it's in your own ethics policy not to print it, just wow.

http://www.accelerated-ideas.com/news/t ... round.aspx
^ Written before that particular event.


^ Uploaded before that particular event.

Feel free to have your own socio-political views, I honestly don't give a shit about that stuff in concerns with video gaming which is already one of the most populous and diverse entertainment sectors in the world - but don't take up a charlatan as your messiah.

[nullPointer]

Criticism has its place, but criticism doesn't change the world. Martin Luther King Jr. lectured his criticism on racism until he was blue in the face, but it wasn't until after the hero was murdered that the country took action and did something about it. Actions change the world. There's no such thing as a Youtube hero.

I get what you're saying, and I really do agree with most of it. For better or worse history is shaped more by action than by words. But I think it's a slippery slope to rob the power of thoughts and ideas to in turn lead to action. After all, if not for Martin Luther King's words and challenging critique of his society, he probably never would have been assassinated. His cultural critique invoked an action (vis-a-vis his own assassination) that formed a catalyst of sorts for a shifting cultural zeitgeist within society.

OTOH, Ceser Chavez was never assassinated and yet through his cultural critique (and actions!) was able to invoke positive cultural change.

Edit: Holy crap I'm always amazed by how fast this forum moves! Never mind the retreading above, as it's pretty much done and over with.

[MrPopo]

I thought the audio dev breakdown for gender and % representation was most interesting; the disparity is a real outlier compared to the rest.

The general field of "working under the hood on computer software" is male dominated, not just games. There are advocacy groups that basically sum up their mission as "get girls interested in tech jobs".

[Exhuminator]

These kinds of criticisms do change culture.

Those examples cited show a change in the consumption of a medium, but not a change in the societal context of the medium.

The Metacritic example for instance. Metacritic changed game design? I agree to an extent. It changed publishers' opinions to focus on publishing more first and third person shooters, because those genres scored higher on average. So game design took a tonal shift towards shooting more and doing other things less. (An example would be how much more of a shooter Mass Effect 2 is versus Mass Effect.) Metacritic certainly did influence game design in that aspect, but how does Metacritic influence cultural representations in games?

Take Assassin's Creed III: Liberation for example. It's the only game in the series where you play as a black female. Its Metacritic score is far lower than nearly every other game in the series. Now you would say it's because of bad game design/glitches and you'd be right. Certainly the score doesn't reflect the fact that you aren't playing as a white male. (I hope.) But let's say that Liberation scored really high. Now would that influence other publishers to publish games that star black females as the lead role? Or would it influence publishers to mimic the particular game design* of Liberation and use whatever gender and race of protagonist they saw fit?

*Indeed there are some game design changes in this one that are unique outside the main series.

Lets create a more inclusive gaming culture that is more welcoming and respectful for women.

This is not directed at you, but everyone in general. It's something we all know, but sometimes we forget. For the average gamer, the best thing you can do is choose carefully how you spend your money. Your money will have an actual affect on the gaming industry, far more than any elegant sociopolitical stance you could ever thoughtfully type out on a forum. (But damn if it's not fun to do this anyway ha ha.) Now I do realize that a well thought out post might affect how someone spends their money on gaming. I'm just saying with game publishers money is the final word.

their mission as "get girls interested in tech jobs".

Bingo. Maybe the fact that women are underrepresented in game development is because most women are not interested in it. I have not met very many females in my life who said they wanted to make games, but I have met tons of guys who did. Now is this because of mere sociocultural pressure, or because of psychological-neurological differences concerning a particular gender's aspirations in life?

[dsheinem]

Metacritic certainly did influence game design in that aspect, but how does Metacritic influence cultural representations in games?

My point is that criticism can cause change (or lack thereof) in a medium, including in games.

To extend past games...we don't see the same kind of racist caricatures on TV as we did in the first few decades of the medium, we see more nuanced and better written shows with a wider variety of characters than we typically did in previous decades, we see more kinds of identities on screen, etc. Formal forms of criticism are certainly a factor in those kinds of long-term changes in cultural representations.

Your money will have an actual affect on the gaming industry, far more than any elegant sociopolitical stance you could ever thoughtfully type out on a forum.

There are a TON of folks on this very forum, myself included, who would acknowledge that things people write about games on a forum influence their purchasing decisions. Like, I just bought Kururin Squash b/c of Mike's GCN thread.

[Jmustang1968]

Proof that such criticisms and movements work can be seen by the harsh reactions to those movements by those who resist the change.

For example, MLK assassination, violence and harassment of gays in response to legalization of gay marriage etc... These people feel threatened and can sense the cultural change against their status quo.

[Exhuminator]

To extend past games...we don't see the same kind of racist caricatures on TV as we did in the first few decades of the medium

Hey now pal, last time I tried to conflate the gaming industry with other mediums you said this medium stands alone and I'm not allowed to do that. But I do agree that this medium is still in a juvenile stage of evolution.

There are a TON of folks on this very forum, myself included, who would acknowledge that things people write about games on a forum influence their purchasing decisions.

Yes that's why I said...

Now I do realize that a well thought out post might affect how someone spends their money on gaming.

Too bad most the people buying games are not forum addicts then.

[Forlorn Drifter]

I'll miss Joystiq, it had become my main go to for news, after G4 up and died. I have no idea what else is out there and actually good though.

I think there is an interest in getting more women interested in making games. I think there isn't that much interest, and now that the problems the industry has in gender relations has been shown, its going to push more women away. There's fields out there where you just don't see many women. Since I always do, I'll use agriculture as an example. With the women going into it, looking at my current group here at school, the majority aren't going for typical jobs in ag. They want to be vets, get involved with show stock, get involved with various equine jobs, or focus on entomology or one of the other "outlier" groups that involve ag, but aren't necessarily ag based. None of this is bad, and these are all groups who need to be filled out. (Except the show stock people.) Now, there aren't many women in the whole production aspect of the industry. There's a low amount of women in feed lot work, seedstock production, large scale horticulture, etc. This has slowly been changing over the years, but its still a slow movement. Why? I'm not really sure why, but I think it has to do with the fact of not only the manual labor and "demeaning" view many take of production jobs, but also the environment of these types of jobs. Working a feed lot, for example, leaves you with a decent amount of people who are well educated, and probably cultured. It also leaves you with a bunch of people who are only high school graduates from small towns or rural areas, who might cuss and fight and do or say rude things to each other. It might not sound like a big deal, but if you get around these types of people enough and aren't in tune with how they work, it can really make it hard for you if you can't take what they dish out at you.

This might come off rambly and without point, I'm just trying to say that women being in an industry, or even part of an industry, doesn't mean that the pull is there for women to actually be interested.

[dsheinem]

To extend past games...we don't see the same kind of racist caricatures on TV as we did in the first few decades of the medium

Hey now pal, last time I tried to conflate the gaming industry with other mediums you said this medium stands alone and I'm not allowed to do that. But I do agree that this medium is still in a juvenile stage of evolution.

You were talking, iirc, about what the games do, not how they are critiqued as a type of media.

[Exhuminator]

You were talking, iirc, about what the games do, not how they are critiqued as a type of media.

That's it I'm coming to your house.

Seriously man, if how something is critiqued affects what it does, then the inverse is true. And that means if the way something is critiqued carries across mediums, than what those things do also carries across mediums.

And jello pudding pops, please, god, I need one right now.