🎭 Dramacow Gamergate / Depression Quest Shitstorm

[Watcher]

 

[KingofManga420]

He is right though! GTAV is a game that is very offensive!

And it is very offensive on purpose! The whole nature of the world in GTAV is to riff on contemporary trends and such. Hell, I remember a in-game advertising campaign to ban nuclear familys (IE, a white 1950s style family with a husband, a wife, a young boy and a young girl) which (at least I think) is a heavy-handed jab at SJWs. Or maybe we should look at the opposat side politically just so we can stay balanced: REPUBLICAN SPACE RANGERS! ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6IP-Pk1zLw )

In short, GTAV pokes fun at everyone and I found it really hard to get offended by anything in it - not just because its only a videogame but also because for every jab at MY political views, theres a jab to the counterpoint, and it always keeps that balance.

(I know this is going to come up but for the record if it ONLY made fun of views that were not my own... that would be sad. People are allowed to have diffrent viewpoints on thins, you know)

Republican Space Rangers makes me so happy.

 

[Smutley]

Good morning kiwis I come bringing articles for your enjoyment. First up, we have an article from the Market for Computer & Video Games in the UK which interviewed three journalists and what can be learned now that Gamergate is finally over!

Have the events affected the ways you address your audience?

ML: So much of the ire aimed at the media boils down to a complete disdain for games journalists and a complete lack of any kind of trust. I don’t see any point in negotiating – anyone who thinks we’re scumbags and liars will never be convinced of anything otherwise. When dealing with people who have irrational beliefs about widespread conspiracies and corruption, you’ve got to be pragmatic about what you’re likely to gain from any conversation.

A wonderful opinion from someone who is a freelancer who's only known for his single podcast and begging for money on patreon. Also by Matt Lee:

What other long-term effects could the events have?

ML: This movement has actually exacerbated a very real and present problem; too much games media is solely supported by advertisements from video game publishers. The advertising issue is also being hurt by the swarming nature of angry hate-mobs. People don’t want to advertise on websites filled with comments by scumbags, which is rough – because these people aren’t indicative of the actual audience, and often aren’t even a part of the audience at all. Unless something changes, the future of games journalism will either mean arriving with a thick suit of armour or explicitly avoiding all contentious topics.

Right. Advertisers aren't leaving websites because they are notified those websites hate their audience, their audience is dead, the audience are all scumbag assholes who hate women and blacks. They are dropping advertising because of the vitriolic comments... vitriol that has been around since Nintendo and Sega fanboys started their console war on BBS services and magazine write-ins and hasn't stopped advertisers from giving more money, year over year, to every aspect of games journalism. Matt Lee you are such an amazing thinker I don't understand how you're even existing in our material plane.

Secondly, an Iowa Public Radio, an NPR affiliate, covers the story also by starting out with:

The #GamerGate controversy started with concern over ethics in video game journalism and quickly turned into a conversation on how women are treated and perceived in the world of video gaming – an industry that has been mostly dominated by men.

Yes, Iowa Public Radio, that's exactly what happened, except you've got it backwards. Women in the industry acting improperly are what caused people to research what they were doing and lead to wide spread corruption, not that talks about corruption have finally ended and let's go back to talking about how awful ladies got it.

 

[KingofManga420]

Good morning kiwis I come bringing articles for your enjoyment. First up, we have an article from the Market for Computer & Video Games in the UK which interviewed three journalists and what can be learned now that Gamergate is finally over!



A wonderful opinion from someone who is a freelancer who's only known for his single podcast and begging for money on patreon. Also by Matt Lee:



Right. Advertisers aren't leaving websites because they are notified those websites hate their audience, their audience is dead, the audience are all scumbag assholes who hate women and blacks. They are dropping advertising because of the vitriolic comments... vitriol that has been around since Nintendo and Sega fanboys started their console war on BBS services and magazine write-ins and hasn't stopped advertisers from giving more money, year over year, to every aspect of games journalism. Matt Lee you are such an amazing thinker I don't understand how you're even existing in our material plane.

Secondly, an Iowa Public Radio, an NPR affiliate, covers the story also by starting out with:



Yes, Iowa Public Radio, that's exactly what happened, except you've got it backwards. Women in the industry acting improperly are what caused people to research what they were doing and lead to wide spread corruption, not that talks about corruption have finally ended and let's go back to talking about how awful ladies got it.

I want to go bash my head in after reading that clusterfuck of anti-intelligence.

I want to be pissed off and be able to complain about simpler things, Ridley not being in Smash, or The Phantom Pain's release date not being out yet. Not this shit.

Smutley help. My soul hurts and I can't #fuelthefight

 

[Jaimas]

https://youtube.com/watch?v=ud0NSRSWm1Y

You are the wind beneath my wings.

I want to go bash my head in after reading that clusterfuck of anti-intelligence.

I want to be pissed off and be able to complain about simpler things, Ridley not being in Smash, or The Phantom Pain's release date not being out yet. Not this shit.

Smutley help. My soul hurts and I can't #fuelthefight

I'm not Smutley, but look at it this way, since it'll let you have a laugh at Alex Lifschitz, which should be worth the price of admission.

These people screaming about how awesome and perfect special snowflake-y games like Depression Quest and Dear Esther, these hyper-minimalist MY GAME IS SO IMPORTANT FOR REAL YOU GUYS games that want to be something as legitimately interesting as say, The Stanley Parable, but aren't fit to nibble at its table scraps would love, by their own admission, a world where their games get made and nobody fucking else's does. You heard this during the earlier thing from Sargon I posted, but their belief is along the lines that those of us who support any game that isn't theirs marks us as brainwashed sheeple that they have nothing but absolute fucking contempt for. Seriously, there's a lengthy diatribe where Alex Lifschitz says that anyone who bought GTAV should be killed.

The fun part, however, is that reality will never make their vision a reality. Ever.

They could hold the world at gunpoint tomorrow and threaten to pull the trigger if their insane demands aren't met, and it won't matter worth a shit because the free market that these people alternate between holding as an absolute truth and being the worst thing evar says that these games rank somewhere slightly above Air Control in terms of marketability. The simple fact of the matter is that the actual core of vidya gaeming, which is, was, and forever shall be us, has already spoken. Depression Quest is objectively not a very good game - it's lazy, poorly-written, and incredibly patronizing, and at the end of the day, it's been outsold about 100 to 1 by fucking Goat Simulator.

Think of how much it pisses them off that their incredibly super-special this-game-defines-a-new-paradigm (but totally just nibbles at other games' castoffs, as we saw with Depression Quest doing so for far better VNs, Dear Esther trying desperately to be an artsy version of Stanley Parable when the reason the latter was good is because of clever writing and setup, and so on) games will never have a fraction of the sales of some of the mainstream game industry's biggest kickstarters. Shantae: Half-Genie Hero and Mighty No. 9 are likely to move huge numbers based on their kickstarter successes alone. Hell, AAA games that are resounding failures will make more money than fucking Depression Quest will.

That, by the way, is the real reason assholes like Alex Lifschitz hate us, by the way. It has nothing to do with misogyny and everything to do with the fact that their artsy zero-effort I-am-so-important game has about as much chance of survival in a realm of objective analysis as Chris does of dying of natural causes. Without their echo-chamber, their bullshit self-importance games can't get critical acclaim - Depression Quest was demonstrably shit, and most who've played this and aren't completely in the tank readily acknowledge this.

That's what this is all about, at the end of the day. Simple. Easy. Ego.

 

[A Random]

Hell, AAA games that are resounding failures will make more money than fucking Depression Quest will.

Isn't the game basically F2P anyway?

 

[Jaimas]

Isn't the game basically F2P anyway?

It is now. Now it just begs you for money at the end.

At launch, it was a $10 game.

That just backs up what I said, mind you. They're not even charging for it, and it will still never achieve a fraction of the fucking success of your average "Pewdie Bait" youtube fodder shit game on Greenlight.

 

[Varis]

Not to derail the discussion, but I've been listening to Socks' daily updates on #GamerGate and realized that this movement has some awesome, talented people.

/v/ The Musical playlist

 

[Smutley]

Smutley help. My soul hurts and I can't #fuelthefight

Shhh, there there, young soldier. Soothe your worries and pains with the balm of schadenfreude:

Just stumbled across this, so keep on keeping on.

 

[The Mountain]

Good morning kiwis I come bringing articles for your enjoyment. First up, we have an article from the Market for Computer & Video Games in the UK which interviewed three journalists and what can be learned now that Gamergate is finally over!

Are... are they seriously "Mission Accomplished"-ing this debacle? I realize they're hoping that saying it enough will make it true, but they can't honestly be that blind and stupid.

 

[GREEDY FIREMAN]

Are... are they seriously "Mission Accomplished"-ing this debacle? I realize they're hoping that saying it enough will make it true, but they can't honestly be that blind and stupid.

Someone I used to work with had a saying that I think applies to them:
'You need to get a strong tractor, at least a four-cyclinder.' Why? 'So you can pull your head out of your ass.'

 

[Mechanism Eight]

You are the wind beneath my wings.



I'm not Smutley, but look at it this way, since it'll let you have a laugh at Alex Lifschitz, which should be worth the price of admission.

These people screaming about how awesome and perfect special snowflake-y games like Depression Quest and Dear Esther, these hyper-minimalist MY GAME IS SO IMPORTANT FOR REAL YOU GUYS games that want to be something as legitimately interesting as say, The Stanley Parable, but aren't fit to nibble at its table scraps would love, by their own admission, a world where their games get made and nobody fucking else's does. You heard this during the earlier thing from Sargon I posted, but their belief is along the lines that those of us who support any game that isn't theirs marks us as brainwashed sheeple that they have nothing but absolute fucking contempt for. Seriously, there's a lengthy diatribe where Alex Lifschitz says that anyone who bought GTAV should be killed.

The fun part, however, is that reality will never make their vision a reality. Ever.

They could hold the world at gunpoint tomorrow and threaten to pull the trigger if their insane demands aren't met, and it won't matter worth a shit because the free market that these people alternate between holding as an absolute truth and being the worst thing evar says that these games rank somewhere slightly above Air Control in terms of marketability. The simple fact of the matter is that the actual core of vidya gaeming, which is, was, and forever shall be us, has already spoken. Depression Quest is objectively not a very good game - it's lazy, poorly-written, and incredibly patronizing, and at the end of the day, it's been outsold about 100 to 1 by fucking Goat Simulator.

Think of how much it pisses them off that their incredibly super-special this-game-defines-a-new-paradigm (but totally just nibbles at other games' castoffs, as we saw with Depression Quest doing so for far better VNs, Dear Esther trying desperately to be an artsy version of Stanley Parable when the reason the latter was good is because of clever writing and setup, and so on) games will never have a fraction of the sales of some of the mainstream game industry's biggest kickstarters. Shantae: Half-Genie Hero and Mighty No. 9 are likely to move huge numbers based on their kickstarter successes alone. Hell, AAA games that are resounding failures will make more money than fucking Depression Quest will.

That, by the way, is the real reason assholes like Alex Lifschitz hate us, by the way. It has nothing to do with misogyny and everything to do with the fact that their artsy zero-effort I-am-so-important game has about as much chance of survival in a realm of objective analysis as Chris does of dying of natural causes. Without their echo-chamber, their bullshit self-importance games can't get critical acclaim - Depression Quest was demonstrably shit, and most who've played this and aren't completely in the tank readily acknowledge this.

That's what this is all about, at the end of the day. Simple. Easy. Ego.

Dear Esther was actually quite visually interesting in some areas, but that is its' only saving grace, and the only thing that allowed me to stomach it even once, so I'm mostly going on vague memories here.

If I wanted to "play" a game made of neat visuals, I'd just go get Yume Nikki or something like that, and save some money.

 

[Judge Holden]

Dear Esther was actually quite visually interesting in some areas, but that is its' only saving grace, and the only thing that allowed me to stomach it even once, so I'm mostly going on vague memories here.

If I wanted to "play" a game made of neat visuals, I'd just go get Yume Nikki or something like that, though.

The Folks who made Dear Eshter also made Amnesia: Machine For Pigs which I enjoyed quite a lot, but was (like pretty much errybody) disappointed that they stripped out pretty much all gameplay cept walking and hiding, which was decidedly NOT what they advertised

I think there is a niche for "vaguely interactive movie" type games, but game journos SERIOUSLY need to get over it. if they want to review artsy movie type things they should go and do that, and not presume that anything that claims to be "artsy" and have an "important message" is the ultimate video game and errybody else is stupid evil and wrong for not agreeing. Snobbery is the key of why gamergate has arisen as much as self righteousness and authoritarian censorship

 

[Andrew Noel Schaefer]

To be fair, some "walking simulators" can actually be quite good. Although with that said, the only one that I would seriously consider playing for longer then five minutes is the Vanishing of Ethan Carter, and even that has more gameplay then just bubbling around like a dumbass (you are trying to find this kid, and along the way need to use detective skills and a little bit of psychokenisis to solve murders!)

aside from that theres uh.. hrm... well, I guess The Vanishing barely even qualifies there too since it has actual gameplay ... uh...

There are no good walking simulators. I take it back. Say what you will about cowadoody (I enjoy it!) but it is yknow.. a game

 

[kcbbq]

Shhh, there there, young soldier. Soothe your worries and pains with the balm of schadenfreude:

View attachment 6830

Just stumbled across this, so keep on keeping on.

Gamasutra verified that they were dropped. They can stick to their guns all the way to the unemployment office if they want, or they can do some self-reflection and realize they can still fix this. I don't hold out any hope.

 

[Jaimas]

Dear Esther was actually quite visually interesting in some areas, but that is its' only saving grace, and the only thing that allowed me to stomach it even once, so I'm mostly going on vague memories here.

If I wanted to "play" a game made of neat visuals, I'd just go get Yume Nikki or something like that, and save some money.

There's good and bad when it comes to narrative-driven so-called Walking Simulator games. The thing is, there's always a lot of hacks. This is true of any medium, but you're going to find that for every one that has an interesting narrative (Stanley Parable), there's another that is so far its own ass it can taste the corn it had for breakfast despite eating it less than an hour previous (Dear Esther). This is true of every game type though - there's a reason that there's a few billion CoD clones now, after all. The so-called Walking Simulator genre catches a lot of flak mostly because it's filled with such hacks - they take very, very little to make, and this makes them appeal to people who are greedy and/or possess egos larger than the fucking sun.

There are no good walking simulators. I take it back. Say what you will about cowadoody (I enjoy it!) but it is yknow.. a game

Gonna stop you there, Woody.

The "this is not a game" defense is something that games like this love to hide behind. The likes of Alex Lifschitz actually thrive on people saying shit like this. The likes of Tale of Tales loves to hide its poorly-designed garbage behind the defense that it "isn't a game" in an attempt to deny people the ability to take it to task for what it is. The fucking team behind the likes of Fahrenheit would fucking love to be able to duck behind that defense when justifying any of its overglorified quick-time-event simulators. These fucking things don't deserve special treatment, and the knife cuts both ways. If they are going to be marketed on Steam, sold to gamers, and treated as games by the attached Steam forums, then we damn well should review them accordingly.

No. Exceptions.

And here's the fun part - they are games. I'm an old enough oldfag to remember text adventures and Shadowgate (BTW - check out the remake, it's fantastic) and such. That genre's still alive and kicking, and with good reason - there's a lot of fun to be had with these. PC Gaming practically started with text-based games like fricking Wizard's Castle and The Lurking Horror (to this day, still one of the scariest fucking games I've ever played). There's plenty of room in the gaming kingdom for the Phoenix Wrights, the Deja Vus, the Machines for Pigs. We shouldn't hedge them out just because they may or may not be barely-interactive - instead, we should focus on their merits and drawbacks, like we pretty much always have. Like, say what you will about Stanley Parable being a walking simulator that got most of its resources from the HL2 source - it at least has a very clever narrative and surprisingly good writing, so it succeeds at being what it is. Say what you will about Amnesia and its successor being rather path-based and straightforward - they still manages to handle atmosphere and pacing better than a dozen games released before and hence.

 

[Super Collie]

Holy shit Jamias, did you just name drop Fahrenheit on the Sega CD?

 

[Smutley]

Holy shit Jamias, did you just name drop Fahrenheit on the Sega CD?

Jaimas has always been. He is the alpha and the beta, the gamer and the game. He has existed when existence hasn't.

(But I think he might have been referring to David Cage's second game Fahrenheit, or Indigo Prophecy to the US audience.)

 

[KingofManga420]

Jaimas has always been. He is the alpha and the beta, the gamer and the game. He has existed when existence hasn't.

(But I think he might have been referring to David Cage's second game Fahrenheit, or Indigo Prophecy to the US audience.)

Hah, that fucking hack. I will let P4rgaming's beautiful satire, er, HONEST REPORTING sum up that piece of shit.
http://www.p4rgaming.com/david-cage...s-is-that-they-are-too-much-like-video-games/

Smutley I think you in particular would love P4rgaming. Not to off topic advertise for the site or anything, but they're the harshest critique of the industry I know that nobody knows of.

The Citizen Kane of Game Journalism.

 

[Jaimas]

Jaimas has always been. He is the alpha and the beta, the gamer and the game. He has existed when existence hasn't.

(But I think he might have been referring to David Cage's second game Fahrenheit, or Indigo Prophecy to the US audience.)

Smutley would be correct. I was referring to its international release name.

Although I have played the Sega CD game of the same name.

And acknowledge that the likes of Fox Hunt would've been glad to duck behind the "not a game" defense as well.