@tempertress @Verenti @perceptive_yoda Wasn't it top five news items of 2013? I was saying top five "top five lists". Sarcastically. Top five lists are... stupid? Not least of all because to rank things you need to have some metric by which they can be judged. This makes top five lists less about actually being a literal top five, and more of "these are things I remembered and arbitrarily ordered". Maybe I'm just becoming a bit disillusioned with the whole idea of hierarchies as I go-- or at least arbitrary ones.
Sorry, still love you, Jess (In that way one might love a TV show or other work, rather than the way one might love a person). But ranking lists are dumb and only really around to generate page-views from people wanting to see if their own views are validated by consensus.
@Kevin-V @sol_invictus55 While I don't disagree with you, it seems to be fairly arbitrary to pan games for being sexist (or having elements found to be distasteful) while violence and murder run rampant and almost without note. Hell, taking lives is a celebrated trait within the gaming culture.
So murder is okay but discriminating against people based on their skin colour, gender or another part of their identity is taboo? I'm sorry, that argument doesn't sound like it has much of a leg to stand on. There isn't any room for taboos in realms of expression. If anything is off the table, then we stop being honest and instead start rehearsing the same damn conversations we will be having for the rest of our lives.
Yes, women should be treated better in our societies. Yes, we shouldn't act like psychopaths, but banning or panning games with objectionable material is not the way to go. We need to be able to disagree with content-- even intensely, without allowing that to cloud our judgement. The biker game is bad, doubtlessly, but its not because of its portrayal of women, no more than its portrayal of the rural landscape or social hierarchy of "anarchical" groups. Because a portrayal's value is completely based on your opinion of the object that it is portraying. If I think the idea of "anarchists", to use the term loosely, is that they are princes of the Earth and the highest example of humanity, then I might view Assassin's Creed 4 uncharitably, as the pirates squandered their freedom in this game and all turn out to be rotten individuals. My judgement of the game is inherently tied to my world view, in this case.
It's good to hold a view that women deserve better than what they get; I share it. But when ideology informs judgement then you are no longer seeking the truth. You've passed sentence before looking at the case. Judgement needs to be passed in merit of the case-- and fortunately, there seems to be little merit to be found in this game.
This show, in my COMPLETELY SUBJECTIVE OPINION, shows how barren Kickstarter is right now. This honestly makes me begin to doubt the longevity of our little revolution. I've been backing a project a month for about the past year now, but when I kick around the warrens of Kickstarter what I deem "backable" seems less and less.
That isn't to say that I regret what I have backed. Infact, now that I am employed, my contributions have significantly multiplied. My last project was... Read only memories? But that was a favour to my brother who is a huge Snatcher fan. Before that it was the Mandate. 150$ to support a game I tenatively call "Mount and Blade in Space".
The Mandate was a good idea, ambitious as it is. This video made me think: is that what kick start is about? Sure there is good ideas, but if you examine my backing history and compared it with Jess' and yours, the reader's' then might we find our money is simply just going to recreate the games of our childhood? That's why I back Eterium-- an unabashed Wing Commander 1 clone. Games from inXile and Obsidian and Double Fine can only make up so much of our fare. So when it comes to choosing which games receive our money past "good ideas" from well established studios and the veterans thereof are we simply lashing out again fate trying to reestablish our own pasts and further validate our experience through continuity?
The problem with this video is that I wasn't watching it on the 25th. I was watching it (technically) on the 27th and I did, indeed, have a beer in my hand.
What is this? Why is the IGN lady on Gamespot? I'm confused and wondering why I should care that professional athletes play videogames. Wouldn't it be more interesting to see Angela Merkel and David Cameron squaring off in a bloody war of attrition in EU4 or scientists playing Kerbal Space Program? Everyone plays games. Why give special attention to people who already get special attention from playing team sports?
Ending human suffering? That sounds horribly immoral. Human suffering is important. Pain is important? Why? Because these are the things that cause people to grow, mature and become better human beings. Suffering and our "darker" experiences define us as much as the "lighter" experiences.
I could do without cancer, but as Captain Kirk said in one of the worst Star Trek movies ever:
"(Pain and guilt) are the things we carry with us, the things that make us who we are; we lose them we lose ourselves! I don't want my pain taken away! I need my pain!"
What is humanity without suffering? Sheep, unable to make any developments or achievements because they haven't developed the character to look past this avoidance of pain. Without suffering we have the society of Brave New World. As much as we might not like dealing with death:
"'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,
To give these mourning duties to your father.
But you must know your father lost a father,
That father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound
In filial obligation for some term
To do obsequious sorrow.
But to persever In obstinate condolement is a course
Of impious stubbornness. 'Tis unmanly grief.
It shows a will most incorrect to heaven,
A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,
An understanding simple and unschooled.
For what we know must be and is as common
As any the most vulgar thing to sense,
Why should we in our peevish opposition
Take it to heart? Fie! 'Tis a fault to heaven,
A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
To reason most absurd, whose common theme
Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,
From the first corse till he that died today,
“This must be so.”"
Now, I take no issue with the main thesis of this video. But to seek to end suffering is not a moral course of action, because by giving man longer life you guarantee him a waking death:
"What is a man
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more.
Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and godlike reason
To fust in us unused."
This is a lot of quotes, but there is a lot written in moral philosophy on the nature of a man.
But to reiterate, yes it is ridiculous to place Cancer research below QA. Especially when all EA did was give out free licenses to people who donated money to Cancer research.
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