Jim Sterling (The Jimquisition)

Sorry, I should have said medium. A medium that is oversaturated with all-dude brofests.

That's your opinion, Tobias. There's no need to make it seem like you're opinion is right.

You're getting dangerously close into that territory.

What, my opinion of my opinion? Those are generally pretty right. I mean, sure, I've been known to mistake my opinions on my opinions from time to time. Like this one time when I thought I really hated a thing but it turned out I actually loved that thing. Boy was I eating crow once I finished correcting myself!

But usually when I express a thought that I think is what I believe about a thing, that typically turns out to actually be what I believe about that thing. I'd say at least 4/5 of the time.

edited 13th Dec '16 4:59:11 PM by TobiasDrake

I hear the resonance of a certain OTC thread calling out, whispering faint words on the winds: "Discuss...this...topic...here..."

No, Tobias is pretty spot-on here when it comes to the industry. In terms of protagonists, it's so absurdly male-dominated (and white-dominated, especially in the West) that it's not even funny.

I admit I don't have a concrete opinion on Final Fantasy XV, since on the one hand I acknowledge that there are stories that, when written a certain way, would just work better with an all-male cast. But on the other hand, video game protagonists are such a sausage fest already that I'm also tempted to say "...can we just have some female characters already? At worst all you need to do is write the story a slightly different way, and it wouldn't result in an automatic dip in quality."

Welp. Don't forget. Its not only the video game medium that has dominating white leads, tv shows and movies also have *shudders* white-washed characters.

Anyway, regarding that. I can blame the cliches that surround RP Gs nowadays. After all, Final Fantasy was always built for cliché storms.

Oh, without question. Live-action media has massive representation problems. This is by no means an issue unique to games. Now that said, I do think that more progress is being made in other mediums than there is in games, due partly to games being a fairly new an immature medium. Despite increasing pressure from diversity advocates, AAA video game protagonists who aren't the same square-jawed white guy are still few and far between.

Tanya DePass recently did a pretty good article about the need for inclusivity in games, and why it's a good idea for both consumers and the industry.

It's a road trip movie. If you want to mix that with an RPG, it's unusual but not egregious.

It's also a rather rare story to tackle in an RPG.

edited 13th Dec '16 9:19:37 PM by Beatman1

I mean, there's nothing about either road trip movies or RPGs that in any way impedes the presence of non-male characters, unless I'm missing your point here.

Just that this particular setup didn't strike me as egregious as say, Assassins Creed, where it took six games to see a non-white guy Assasin when they established female Assassins existed since the first one.

Are Arabs usually considered white?

Depends on who you ask. I can't pretend to be the most qualified one to unpack this, but as I understand it, Arabs are technically classified under "Caucasian" (the roots of that term being a whole 'nother can of worms entirely). However, there are many Arab people who reject the idea of self-identifying as white, if for no other reason than because they are effectively exempt from the benefits of white privilege in many cases. Most racists hate Arabs as much or more than other racial groups.

On the 2000 census forms in the U.S., I believe Arab people were indeed required to check "Caucasian," which resulted in something of a pushback from Arab people who wanted a new category to be created. I actually don't know offhand if this request was accommodated or not. I also remember in Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, they couldn't be bothered to cast Afghan actors as the major Afghan characters, instead opting for brownface. Which does strike me as being a little...yikes?

And of course, it all gets even more complicated when you remember that whiteness as most Westerners define it is a concept that isn't always easy to apply to other parts of the world, and my understanding is decidedly imperfect. So if anybody has a more nuanced grasp of the situation, then by all means correct me.

Funny, when you play the Saints Row games, the "Caucasian" set of skin colour presets covers a wide range from white to brown. Fancy that.

Probably because a lot of Caucasian people (Italians, Spaniards, Germans who work outdoors for long periods of time can become permanently tan even after they stop) can be darkskinned, just like plenty of non-Caucasian people are not.

Quite. I agree that Assassin's Creed handled the brofest much less gracefully than Final Fantasy did, but as I said before, not being overtly offensive while advertising it doesn't win them back any points from me. That's just common decency.

Like, if you walked up to me, grabbed my wallet out of my hands, punched me in the face, and ran away, I'd be very pissed off.

But if you walked up to me, grabbed my wallet out of my hands, complimented me on my fine hat, and then calmly walked away...like, I appreciate that you're being polite about it, but I still want my f*cking wallet back.

A distasteful thing doesn't stop being distasteful just because you were very courteous while doing it.

edited 14th Dec '16 11:00:28 AM by TobiasDrake

The Bullshit Roundup: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Remastered Just Got Microtransactions

edited 14th Dec '16 1:13:36 PM by Sixthhokage1

"Caucasian" is decades old, nebulous, 19th century bad shit science based on skull sizes anyway that for some reason has yet to actually be dismissed entirely for the outdated, nebulous, bad shit science it is like everything done by Freud (he was important for the development of psychology but bring up any of his theories and methods today and you'll be laughed out of the room). The reason why I could see "Arab" sometimes being classified as "Caucasian" is due to actual conflation with people from the Caucasus region which includes Azerbaijan, Armenia and parts Turkey.

As for FF 15's bromantic journey. I'm a little displeased and I do think the given reason for the boys club only is little bit of a weaksauce excuse, but honestly, I understand it and respect Squenix's decision to make a sausagefest because they said upfront it was the kind of story they wanted to tell. Not the dumb excuse bullshit that we went through with the Quiet guff or Zelda debacle which would honestly be less insulting if they just upfront said "Nah, didn't wanna".

(In other news, I just bought my Jimquisition pin from the store)

And the winners are...

Nice picks Jim. Personally I liked gaming this year, we have so much great games more than last year, and some sequels managed to keep me playing more than the usual ones. I have yet to play Inside though.

Waiting for the shittiest games of 2016.

I'm going to have to get Pony Island when it goes on sale. It sounds lik the kind of game I'd enjoy.

Speak of the devil...

Kinda annoying that the steam page basically spoils the whole game, but I guess it wouldn't garner any interest if the twists were left unspoken.

edited 22nd Dec '16 2:11:09 PM by carbon-mantis

Yeah, I did see it was on sale and thought of my post here. Rest assured it now has a proud spot in my Steam games library. Now I'm going to have to explain to my friends what attracted me to a game called "Pony Island".

I didn't bother reading the store page description, since I already knew from Jim video that it was the kind of thing I'd like.

edited 23rd Dec '16 8:05:21 PM by MainManJ

I also checked out Pony Island because of Jim. Pretty fun. I liked it a lot. There's something kinda Undertale-esque about it.

As he pointed out, between Pony Island, Undertale, Superhot, the Stanley Parable and a bunch of other games I can't remember it's becoming popular to deconstruct video games like that. It's a trend with a lot of room for cool application.