Maybe my memory of Fury Road isn't great, but I'm pretty sure it has a lot of the same problems as Rage 2, though to a much lesser extent.
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Rage 2 is a fun game that makes me feel like garbage - Polygon
- Thread starter TheHighMarshal
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Maybe my memory of Fury Road isn't great, but I'm pretty sure it has a lot of the same problems as Rage 2, though to a much lesser extent.
Which one would you like me to engage with? The one where you dismiss the article without critique? Or the one where you dismiss people who have criticisms without critique?
Interesting read. Not thought of that before.
I guess it's a byproduct of a visual medium. Standards of beauty are an easy shorthand to identify the internal nature of a character. It has been that way a long time and I strongly doubt it is a principle we will see change meaningfully any time soon.
I guess it's a byproduct of a visual medium. Standards of beauty are an easy shorthand to identify the internal nature of a character. It has been that way a long time and I strongly doubt it is a principle we will see change meaningfully any time soon.
EDIT: looks like I forgot Corpus Colossus, that character is definitely problematic
This is maybe the softest thing I have ever read. The game is set in a post apocalyptic world with crazy mutant monsters with all sorts of abnormalities. I know I'm gonna catch shit for this on here but come onnnnn. Get over yourselves. This is like a burn victim complaining about Darth Vader. Jesus Christ. Insanity.
Man, this article came up on my Twitter feed and I made the mistake of looking at the comments, most of which were trash mocking Polygon. I was hoping the Era thread would be better, but there's a lot of the same opinion here.
Steven Spohn (the creator of the Twitter thread in the first reply) is one of the nicest, most genuine people in gaming and he's a big voice in disabled gamer activism. When he speaks, everyone should listen to him, especially regarding ableism.
I appreciate this article a lot because it's something I wouldn't think about on my own, but to see the viewpoint is important.
Steven Spohn (the creator of the Twitter thread in the first reply) is one of the nicest, most genuine people in gaming and he's a big voice in disabled gamer activism. When he speaks, everyone should listen to him, especially regarding ableism.
I appreciate this article a lot because it's something I wouldn't think about on my own, but to see the viewpoint is important.
I intended to emphasize that they are individuals with rights to their own concerns, not a collective to be dismissed en masse. I'm glad you don't disagree.
Fury Road does at least show that the oppressed masses also have atypical bodies similar to the war boys.
I read the article yesterday and I agree with it 100%. There's literally 0% that the enemies need to be designed like this, or as the article mentions the designs didn't need to be entirely focused on the enemy side. Though I'm not surprised to see the people dismissing it completely because they're seemingly incapable of any display of empathy.
Or, instead:
These things have been an issue for ages and people are finding a voice?
Yes, in a way we do "have to have an issue with everything", how else is positive change going to happen unless we talk about the myriad unfair/imbalanced/ignorant/hateful/hurtful/etc... things in society?
I don't get people who stand against this.
Are 90% of enemies you fight in Bloodborne wheelchair dudes?
I think the authors that's the authors point, the cleft lip would not be a big deal for him if it was used occasionally or had sympathetic characters with that feature.
But its used as a distinguishing feature that sets the mutants as "the other."
Sorry to screw up your post by editing mine, oops. Anyway I was just agreeing with you that it doesn't seem hard to not repeatedly lean on the same shitty trope for every villain, especially when said trope makes fun of a common condition 1 in 1000 people have and is therefore mean-spirited.
Right? Like, people are complaining about a lot of stuff because there's a lot of stuff to fix and therefore a lot of stuff to complain about.
For all the posters who are like "I don't like having to read about it", I would point out that
(a) you don't have to read anything if you don't want to
(b) if it sucks to read about, it probably sucks way more to live
Outrage is now a general term used to dismiss or discredit valid AND invalid complaints about any medium. I'm not sure why, besides being lazy. But I see a pattern in the people in this thread willing to discount a simple observation and generally take offense at the very idea that treating people born a certain way with respect. Instead they mock it. It's really quite sad and depressing.
The author presents why they feel this way and I think it's well supported. Whether or not one agrees, you and I both agree that the drive-bys are unwarranted at the very least.
Me neither friend. Reading through all of these dismissive replies is exhausting.
Birth of a Nation is fiction too. Defending something by saying it's make believe isn't exactly a compelling argument.
Rage was influenced by Mad Max... which features disfigured mutant enemies. Bethesda specifically contracted Avalnche, the dev of Mad Max the game to work on Rage 2. It sad that someone is affected negatively by the designs, but they are a very small percentage of players and definitely shouldn't be mocked for it.
Think about the thing you are most insecure about physically. Okay, now imagine a game where every enemy is defined by that insecurity, no matter how silly it may seem. I don't see how anybody with a shred of empathy could do that and not find the author's position relatable, unless they're just overwhelmingly stubborn and defensive over this.
Was going to bring up this exact example. Yes, I do think that people are easily influenced enough by fiction that it can have real-world impacts. That's the whole point of arguing for more/better representation of marginalized groups in fiction, because people really do take social and ethical cues from the media that they consume.
no. pretty sure he just said seeing things like this
where the cleft lip imagery is a part of something that is supposed to be mocked and jeered at doesn't make him feel good.
I'd like to highlight this post, because it strikes me as exactly why people talk about privilege. People who have been historically demonized and mistreated try to explain themselves gently, and the people who aren't act like they're the victims because the underprivileged won't shut up and let themselves be walked over.
When they have no other people, the last tool that any group can wield to defend themselves is their voice, their ability to simply say what's happening to them. But the moment they use it, the others who target them try to take that power away.
Young women watch Hollywood actresses in movies and think being that thin is the pinnacle of beauty. Young men watch Hollywood actors and think being ripped and muscular is the peak male form. Or they watch TV shows and think being a "nice guy" gets them unlimited women.
Even if it's subconscious, what we consume as entertainment influences our world view.
Literally everyone is that influenceable. Not overnight or anything, but media does have an effect on how you see the world.
It's really fucking disappointing coming from this forum. It's the sort of shit I expect to see on Reddit, not Resetera, which makes me wonder why I'm on Resetera in the first place.
No, because Bloodborne doesn't tie disability to moral alignment. The wheelchair Yharnamites are not bad because they're in a wheelchair, they're just part of a wide variety of townspeople gone mad. Gherman is also missing a leg and partially bound to a wheelchair; he's one of the most sympathetic and prominent characters.
I had to think about this one as I agree fully with the author of the OG polygon piece when it originally came out. I enjoyed to read willits saying he felt like shit about it after.
Sucks that the mutants in the game make this author feel like crap, surely, with enough foresight, there are many ways to design mutants which do not revolve around a common birth deformity. Warhammer 40k teaches us that!
I was curious by the way as how this might have become default Rage 2 mutant design (and rage 1 to an extent), and then reading on cleft lip/ facial features you can find out it is a birth deformity resulting from iodinising radiation apparently (among many other enviro factors). It is not too left field, but honestly, the baddies do not need to look that way and I really sympathise with the OG author.
Sucks that the mutants in the game make this author feel like crap, surely, with enough foresight, there are many ways to design mutants which do not revolve around a common birth deformity. Warhammer 40k teaches us that!
I was curious by the way as how this might have become default Rage 2 mutant design (and rage 1 to an extent), and then reading on cleft lip/ facial features you can find out it is a birth deformity resulting from iodinising radiation apparently (among many other enviro factors). It is not too left field, but honestly, the baddies do not need to look that way and I really sympathise with the OG author.
It's crazy to me how often this false equivalence happens. But, that's what happens when historical privilege becomes part of your self-identify. Power is a helluva drug.
But again, the idea that having to think a little bit about people who are different from you's struggles is just as hard/difficult as going through those things (especially when you've been complicit in perpetrating them!) is just so hard to take seriously, but I swear someone makes this exact comparison every single time they want to bin an article like this as "outrage". There's a difference between how exhausted you get having to see the headlines of articles you disagree with and how exhausted you get being crushed beneath historical power asymmetries, lemme tell you
Always remember that there is nothing innately special about ResetEra's userbased. It's a gaming forum, and it draws in people who are attracted to gaming forums. The barrier of entry to ResetEra is not so large that people who visit or used to visit the likes of 4chan or Reddit are prevented from coming here.
Basically, the only thing that would make ResetEra better than any other gaming forum is a constant, active effort to make sure it that it and remains that way.
I'd rather people complain about things they don't like than just eat shit and ask for seconds. Especially from giant game companies.
Wow, some of the posts in this thread are fucking embarrassing.
Someone pointing out problematic aspects of a piece of media is not a call for you to stop enjoying that media, nor is it an attack on you for enjoying that media. It is a call for you to acknowledge those aspects and in doing so, lessen the capacity for them to influence your worldview. Art is one of the most powerful tools for shaping the way you perceive the world, and if you just blindly consume it with no further analysis, you're going to wind up absorbing some shitty lessons along the way.
Someone pointing out problematic aspects of a piece of media is not a call for you to stop enjoying that media, nor is it an attack on you for enjoying that media. It is a call for you to acknowledge those aspects and in doing so, lessen the capacity for them to influence your worldview. Art is one of the most powerful tools for shaping the way you perceive the world, and if you just blindly consume it with no further analysis, you're going to wind up absorbing some shitty lessons along the way.
It's almost as if a lot of people here came from a place like NeoGAF.. oh wait.
No, this would be like all the Stormtroopers and Sandpeople and whatnot being insane burn victims who kill, rape, murder, and eat non-burn victims and are slaughtered en masse by the non-burn victim heroes.
Which would be understandably really fucking uncomfortable for a burn victim to watch.
Polygon writes a pretty innocuous article about subtext that seems pretty legitimate and of course we get trash like "where do draw the line?" Arguments from gamers.
It's a legitimate discussion, no one is coming to take your games away
You and me both. It's threads like this that show how much of Era's "progressiveness" is a facade upheld by strict moderation.
I wonder what would happen if posts like these had to be elaborated on threat of ban.
https://thebaffler.com/kate-takes/dont-let-people-enjoy-things-wagner
EDIT: TL;DR the author (Kate from McMansion Hell) argues that criticism is a vital part of media consumption
Nah. The game is set in a post apocalyptic world like Mad Max. That shit is normal for the insane crazy people that have to live in that world. They do that because it's their only option. Not because they are deformed.
It's "soft" to consider the impact these things have perpetuating negative stereotypes?
It's "soft" to consider those whose representation is largely in a negative light, who are already demonized by society?
It's "soft" to stand up for the countless issues that plague society?
Get over ourselves because we think these things are important and you can just ignore them easily?
Come on now...
They are mutant characters in a video game. They are not dehumanizing people with actual physical deformities.
User banned (3 days): trolling a sensitive thread
threat of ban for having a opinion that differs from yours.... seems legit.
edit: era members need something to get mad over every day. Yesterday it was the fact that america is called america, today it's this. Video game mutants.
On one hand, I can totally see exactly what the author is saying and it is fucked up. On the other hand, I just see these guys as video game characters and don't put any value into their appearance.
Dude with cleft-palate sees game portraying characters with same or similar disfigurements as villains or idiots, points out that its kinda shitty, and somehow he's the asshole.
Cool. Fucking cool.
I wish drive by posts like that were banned honestly. Either expound on that one sentence or dont make it.
They are helping perpetuate negative stereotypes.
This is literally how it works: media presents things, people's perceptions are effected. Don't be naive.