Cracked on gaming prejudices

Cracked.com made an article on how videogames are still dealing with prejudices and stereotypes society has moved past. Thoughts?

Eeeeehhh, not the greatest Cracked article. At all.

I like how they say the Redguard's ability to regenerate Stamina is totally racist.

I won't deny that games tend to be way behind on gender equality, but that article is really reaching when it comes to racism.

edited 18th Jul '12 5:33:52 PM by RTaco

The first racism one wasn't properly thought out and if there was possibly an actual point there it wasn't clear in his argument.

That said, I've always had an issue with relationship sidequests in games and RP Gs with how they're presented (I've mentioned it several times in the Dragon Age thread) and the writer definitely had a point in that regard.

The rest of his article had the same issues in that he didn't properly think about it. Calling out Bioware on only doing "lesbian relationships" and ignoring the male homosexual relationships in both Dragon Age games and ME 3 (and there is plenty to criticise in that regard if you take the time to formulate good arguments) and somehow saying "(And Those Chicks Can Be Converted)" when that isn't true at all in any relationship sidequest that is homosexual in any game I've played just reflects poorly on him.

There are plenty of issues in gaming with how it approaches stereotypes and diverse demographics, unfortunately this article doesn't do a particularly good job of portraying it.

I think the points raised are fine. Mass Effect 3 and Dragon Age don't exactly change what someone says about the first Mass Effect. That could be making an argument that things have gotten better since then but hell.

Yeah, Ganondorf's Gerundo people are loosely based on Roma/Gypsies. That doesn't offend me, but then I don't know much about Gypsies or Roma if me lumping them together as one word didn't tell you already. Am I correct if I say someone who does know more about them shouldn't be offended?

I do agree that this wasn't Cracked's best article only because it wasn't very funny. Except the closing at the end, which really explains most problems with any industry.

The weirdest part about the "no male on male" complaint is that there's a picture of Zevran. It's luterally right there.

Granted, they could do better with these characters, but man.

Totally agree with the "cure Jack with your penis" thing. Bioware clearly tried to be more nuanced with Jack's relationship, but then you do her at the end anyway.

They really exaggerated with Samara and Morinth, though.

edited 18th Jul '12 6:40:12 PM by JotunofBoredom

Dear lord......

Bioware then to play with cliches and stererotype more often than other companies so im not surprised

edited 18th Jul '12 6:43:57 PM by LOEADITOOx

The first section has some good examples of general racism in the lead-up, but the main point is fairly off: Fantasy "races" are generally closer to species

Second section is perfectly valid, but is mostly a consequence of gameplay, not prejudice

Third section... is probably correct, but not very well written. Few examples, and the focus wanders

Fourth section doesn't seem right. I think I've seen more gays than lesbians, thanks to the occasional Gay Option and general lack of female leads

Fifth section is probably somewhat valid? Need more examples

The racism part was kinda silly. It's a bit much to say fantasy races, as incredibly Unfortunate Implications it can be, are racist because... they don't exist. Unfortunate Implications, sure, definitely! But to say it's out-and-out racist is too extreme. Not to mention the Imperial lose willpower or speed and agility, or the Nords lose intelligence, personality and maybe willpower. At least be thorough instead of just saying the game hates black people.

The feeling I got from section #5 was that if there are races (as opposed to species), or even species based off races, and they aren't all exactly the same? Racist.

^^This is an issue with the article as a whole. It puts such a biased slant on everything without elaborating why.

There's a bit where he says that the least inflammatory way to describe RE 5 is a white guy who massacres hordes of diseased africans. This is a serious strawman and not even the "least inflammatory" way to describe the game (You could just say Chris Redfield deals with a zombie outbreak in Africa). On top of which he never explains the problematic assumptions of the text using evidence and well reasoned arguments. That one liner simply isn't good enough and can be easily rebutted.

The entire article is largely full of baseless and biased accusations. There's nothing wrong with accusing games of racism or sexism or homophobia etc but you are going to have to elaborate why with well reasoned arguments and evidence beyond simple strawmen or no one will take you seriously.

The comment about chess was far funnier than the entire poorly researched article.

Of course it was exaggerated. The whole "this was the least inflammatory way to say this" bit was a joke. It's Cracked.

The trouble is that the article is trying to use that joke to back up his argument, rather than just making a joke about the fact.

edited 18th Jul '12 8:24:24 PM by RTaco

Problem is, some part-time Cracked writers have that problem of balancing jokes and facts. Here, for example.

The racism section brought up some fair points, for the most part, even if some of them were stretching a bit, but the rest quickly went downhill.

Then it's pretty much as effective at being concerned about being egalitarian as most game developers are. I'm K with exaggerated jokes, but not when you're trying to complain like that.

edited 18th Jul '12 8:25:19 PM by VutherA

I'm not seeing the joke.

Also it's a cheap scapegoat to say "Hey it doesn't matter that many of our arguments are utterly terrible because it's funny."

You can still be funny with compromising your argument.

So I'll say again, I didn't find much wrong with the points made and backed up. I just didn't think the article was very funny. More like, "we know but it aint gonna change" at least not from a comedy site's observations, so why not be funny about it?

The thing about female characters usually getting sucky gear is true by my experience. Even if it wasn't, one guilty game is one game to mock. Where's the scenes of Carna running around the frozen tundra with her boobs hanging out between two strips of metal and details about how nothing you get in the area would be helpful in any way that would preserve the Willing Suspension of Disbelief? This was a little funnier.

Well, there are roughly the square root of fuck all gay or lesbian characters (who stay that way) in video games, most armour for females in just about every video game other than Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas is still the classic Chainmail Bikini (or worse) and you can count the number of strong, heroic Black characters - either male or female - on the fingers of Captain Hook's one remaining hand. So the problem with the tone of the article is wrong how exactly?

Lara Croft has massive breasts and a huge arse because the (male) programmers didn't want to look at a guy's arse for the duration of the very game that they were fucking programming. And the industry as a whole has NOT progressed from that yet.

Badly written, mostly.

Wait, what about the Raider armors? I get that the majority of it is still good, but they had literal bombshell bikinis.

The most well dressed women this side of gaming tend to come from Touhou, it seems.

The problem is that the article is biased and poorly written

And not exactly well researched. The author says that both routes end in both female sidekicks dying. Not true; the Evil route results in Kuo surviving to endgame.