What point did you think you were making? What argument was I making that you refuted or contradicted or elaborated on by pointing out that black people enjoy video games too?
Because here’s my stab at it. You, a white male who took Darren Wilson’s testimony at face value, has surveyed the gaming culture and industry and found nothing worth commenting on in terms of race. Yes, people say the n-word constantly on Xbox Live. Yes, the overwhelming majority of characters are white, and what black characters exist tend to be stereotypical roles like “gangster” or “wise old man”.
But you don’t see a problem.
OK. Granting all of that for the sake of argument. So? What is your point?
Teiman
4123
I think maybe the NBA has a thing against white people. Has anyone notice how few basketball players in that game are white?
Perhaps white people is disallowed from playing basket.
flyinj
4124
Uh oh, seems like the two upstanding gentlemen who were making the searing tell-all expose “The Sarkeesian Effect” have parted ways, putting the project in jeopardy.
Apparently one of the partners was able to have sex with women, which drove the other partner so insane it resulted in him being ejected from an airplane.
Of course, it’s again women that have been the root of all the problems…
Women! When will they just let us have sex with them like they are supposed to!
However, he does go on to say that the whole documentary and Patreon wasn’t an elaborate scam, and the project is a moral obligation to society that will decimate the SJW movement in one fell swoop.
http://www.staresattheworld.com/2015/03/jordan-owen-absconed-budget-sarkeesien-effect/
Teiman
4125
For anyone wondering if follow the link. SPOILER. The article don’t clear if the ejection happen after take-off. The way is written make it look it was before taking off.
Theres a Moral in this history, and is crazy people do crazy things.
LMN8R
4126
That’s so rich.
GamerGate - “It’s about ethics in games journalism” - donated to support a documentary about Anita Sarkeesian - not a journalist, no actual evidence of unethical behavior - being created by two guys who meet the literal definition of stalkers, and then unethically squander the money people donated to them.
GamerGate in a nutshell, folks!
Timex
4127
The part about the guy freaking out about women so much that he had a panic attack is pretty awesome.
A dev on Elsinore thumbs her nose at GG.
Elsinore is an adventure game set in the world of Shakespeare’s Hamlet - which places it, historically, in 16th century Denmark. Since we began work on the project a year or so ago, I’ve shown the playtest build to family, friends, and strangers alike. After they’re done playing, intermingled with their feedback on gameplay, they often point to Ophelia and ask: Why is she black?
My answer is always the same: Why shouldn’t she be?
Eh, that’s always going to be something of a contentious subject, and not exactly GG related. “We want to make characters diverse because diversity!” and “We want characters in well known literature to reflect what came before because accuracy!” are not really opposite positions.
I just heard a historian on a podcast railing against plays that reinterpreted Greek tragedy, such as Medea and Lysistrata, into modern ‘feminist’ contexts (he wasn’t clear exactly want he meant) as missing the point of what the Greeks really intended. You could say he’s missing the point as well. There can be many takes and interpretations, and the original intent of the work may or may not of interest to a modern audience. Anyway, just saying this is an older pre-GG argument.
Timex
4130
Is the game still set in 16th century Denmark? If so, that would be kind of weird to have a black Ophelia.
But if it’s just hamlet in some new setting? Then whatever, because it’s just a reinterpretation. Folks have been doing that with Shakespeare forever. Hell, they made a reinterpretation of Romero and Juliette with the Capulet’s and Montague’s replaced with Asian and African American mafia groups.
I’ve seen I believe five performances of A Merchant of Venice.
Some portray him as sympathetic, some as villainous.
Two were set in the modern era (one brilliantly treated the “pound of flesh” initally as a joke between merchant bankers), one was set during WWII and two were “classic” performances.
…
In Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, those two characters were explored by Tom Stoppard.
In Elsinore, that character is being explored by Katie Chironis.
So…yea, why not make Ophelia black?
Games are art, after all.
Nope. 16th century Denmark. She explains the reasoning. Starting from “why not have a black Ophelia” she researched the historical viability.
Much of this included digging into historical sources on Google Scholar to learn more about the cultural trends of 16th century Denmark. Unsurprisingly, the 16th century was a time of increasing trade volume for all of Europe. Port cities became centers for cultural mingling and for dispersed people to begin new lives. In a development more relevant to Elsinore, the Spanish Reconquista ensured that a heavily Muslim and African Spain came under the control of a powerful European dynasty: the Hapsburg family. Now united under the Holy Roman Emperor, it became possible for southern denizens of Europe to move north, and vice versa.
We decided that Ophelia’s mother, now deceased, could easily have been descended from a line of Spanish-African women; she would have come to Denmark as a servant, part of another (Hapsburg) character’s retinue. She then married into her husband Polonius’s family line, giving Ophelia a higher social status.
Timex
4133
Eh, if they went to the trouble to make some plausible story, then it seems fine to me. Presumably the whole thing is pretty much out of the scope of the original story, since Ophelia only had like three lines in the original play, and then kills herself.
Much ado about nothing, really.
I hope that’s exactly the game. Push X to jump into brook.
Timex
4136
Lol, this made me laugh harder than it should have.
Game spot review :
Brook jumping was pretty linear. Water shaders were excellently rendered, with no framerate hiccups.
8.5
Reminds me of The Graveyard.
(Note what paying gets you!)
Teiman
4138
I somebody had frozen Shakespeare and unfrozen him recently, he would be so disappointed. People refrashing old classics instead of creating new ones.
But the old classics are decent enough and you can do cool things with them. Black, blue, gray, yellow, who cares about the colour of Ophelia?
LMN8R
4139
Yeah, the failing I usually see is people asking “why should a developer include <black / woman / gay / transgender / etc.> in their game if it won’t improve their game?”
The person who asks such questions is unintentionally putting “white straight male” as the default. It’s not about putting a diverse set of characters in your game to automatically improve it, it’s that there’s no reason for diverse characters to not be there in the first place.
The real question is “why would you include primarily white straight males? Does it make the game better to do so?”
Timex
4140
Are folks actually complaining about the Ophelia thing?
I mean, let’s be frank. I’m not thinking most of the folks who would complain really know a lot about Shakespearean characters.
