aesthetics. people will perceive the aesthetics more than anything else.
startship troopers is a good example: it satirizes fascism but has the aesthetics of fascism, so thats what people perceive.
the boys was the same when conservatives liked homelander. he is the good looking blue eyed aryan with an epic powerful portrayal and those are usually the heroes.
If you liked the guy who murders a load of civilians in like the second episode then I don’t think you can pretend it’s because he’s handsome!
the ‘good guys’ go in murderous rampages all the time in movies. its just usually framed as a good thing. ‘oh those they killed were evil!’, ‘oh the city they destroyed was for the greater good!’
real life isnt so black and white but they do that same framing irl with varying levels of success.
It’s his piercing eyes
I see a Helldiver I up vote.
For Liberty!
But on a serious note, something as obvious as “Managed Democracy” and quitting your job by signing up for “Early Biovat Reprocessing” and the characters literally saying things like “HELLDIVERS NEVER DIE!” Before being obliterated by a 380? It’s satire. Satire is funny. Like hahaha look at stupid Facist regime, I’ll role play along to get into the mood of the game because the idea is so fucking dumb it’s funny with amazing gameplay.
It’s willful ignorance at some point. I don’t think media literacy has much to do with it. It’s simply listening for what they want to hear, then ignoring the rest, just as real facists desire.
I’m pretty sure it would be impossible to play a game like Spec Ops: The Line or Bioshock and miss the political message
People watch star trek and listen to fortunate son and miss the message in both of those pieces of art so I’m pretty sure someone would miss the political message in just about anything.
…and Starship Troopers, and every song by Rage Against the Machine…
Would you like to know more (examples of people missing the point)?
Does anyone really listen to RATM anymore? Tom Morello is a multimillionaire who hordes money instead of giving charity. Hes a hypocrite and a sell-out.
Well, you’re a dumb conservative. Of course no one in your circle listens to Rage Against the Machine.
Music and film don’t demand that you engage with them in the same way as video games. There are some games where you literally cannot play them without engaging with their narrative and message. Spec Ops: The Line is a good example of this. It actively pushes back against the player’s natural inclination to play it like a modern military shooter and not absorb the message.
Russians had flown out singers to Ukraine singing Gruppa Krovi to the soldiers. This shit goes across cultures.
They might not be missing the message. Its reasonable to think “this is just the writers opinion, it wouldnt work out this way irl”
It’s actually very possible to miss the message of Bioshock. Andrew Ryan built the perfect city and Atlas ruined it. Andrew Ryan cast him out, but Atlas brought the player character as his final ultimate weapon. You eventually rebel, saving the capitalist Utopia.
I have seen people who abided by this interpretation. Any art with any level of subtlety can be misinterpreted. It’s inherently subjective and depends on the viewer’s personal biases.
Capitalist utopia? Isn’t the whole point that it’s a Libertarian utopia?
I think you’re severely overestimating the average intelligence of the population.
I dunno how you could miss it in Spec Ops, that game is extremely blatant with messaging. I recently patient gamered it and was rather unimpressed. Bioshock still holds up though.
IMO it was a mistake to patient gamer Spec Ops. The whole point was that it was a pushback against the rhetoric of the US military and simultaneously a critique of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (and knockoffs thereof), which had just exploded in popularity. By not playing it when the things it was critiquing were in the zeitgeist, you don’t really get the same experience. Plus, the marketing for the game deliberately hid the fact that it was intended as a critique; it was marketed as yet another modern military shooter.
I think you can patient gamer it but it only works if you’re heavily familiar with that time.
I was really into COD4 and grew up during the Bush administration so I knew exactly what Spec Ops was critiquing. If you don’t have that experience though I agree it does not land.
What I didn’t like was the blunt messaging. I was expecting something a little deeper or more subtle than what I got. As a game, the clunky movement/cover system, simple enemy AI, and guns that just didn’t feel great hampered the experience. It’s very linear and there are forced choices (eg white phosphorus) that give you control but no choice but to be evil. The graphics are lackluster compared to its contemporaries, but I did enjoy the soundtrack at times. I really got into it with a few of those songs. Unfortunately that only happened a few times during the weekend I beat it in. It was okay, but I was expecting a lot more based on what people said about it.
Appropriately for the thread, the WP scene had a choice: walk away. It kept telling Walker to walk away. The player could have shut the game off.
That’s the pivot point: if you’re just playing a game about Walker, then having a choice doesn’t matter, you’re just being told a story about a lunatic. But, if Walker is a stand-in for you, and you’re playing the game “because you wanted to be something you’re not - a hero”, then not only is playing on a choice, choosing to play war porn in the first place is a choice.
I was expecting something a little deeper or more subtle than what I got.
That’s the problem when these things gain reputations. The reputation builds it up to be more than the piece of art can deliver.
Now imagine playing it when it was new and you weren’t “expecting” anything but a military shooter. It would still be just as blunt, but it landed back then far more effectively than when you go in knowing the reputation the game has built in the many years that followed.
Yeah that’s fair.
IMO a lot of the subtlety comes from the imagery and symbols around you as you progress through the game. The vibrant tree that you pass that burns up when you look back, etc.
As far as gameplay goes it is very linear. The only “choice” is to stop playing. If I remember correctly the development behind Spec Ops was very rushed so they didn’t have time to so any of those branching paths.
I appreciate it like I would a visual novel more than I do an interactive game.
a lot of the subtlety comes from the imagery and symbols around you as you progress through the game
One of the things I did appreciate about the game was seeing how grimy and worn down everyone got as the game progressed. That was an excellent small detail.
Neat stuff.
That part’s wild to me, when people are like “This villain in your story seems to have said and done bad things? So that means you agree with them, yes?” No! Of course not! It’s the literal villain in the story, man!
But there is no utilitarian point of art. It exists to express ideas and to tell truth. I think maybe a lot of people get upset because from their point of view, they are paying money, and they have this relationship where it’s like “If it’s not giving me what I wanted out of this transaction, then it’s bad.”
To be honest, “If it’s not giving me what I wanted out of this transaction, then it’s bad.” is a heuristic that works well for most things we buy. If I buy candy and it doesn’t taste good, it’s bad. If I buy a car and it breaks down, it’s bad.
I think the real problem is that some people see games as a product and others see it as an art piece. Some games fail at being either, some succeed at both.
A thread of the problem is likely the publisher/developer conflict of interest. When the two can’t come to an agreement, the end result usually fails horribly in both aspects.
I hate those people who take content for validation. If I have a nazi in my story I am not, myself, also a nazi.
A lot of people are just… not so bright. I remember seeing the video of all those trump supporters rocking out to “killing in the name of” by rage against the machine. Waving a thin blue line and american flag around with the lyrics blasting in the background.
Its the same with that new game Helldivers 2. Zero awareness.
It’s more that when the writing is bad something is perceived as “political”, as the insert of whatever political messaging is being used comes out of nowhere and smacks the player like a cudgel. That’s what most gamers have a problem with, obviously there’s a loud minority that rage about stupid shit like Jesse Faden being too masculine. But that’s not what most people are talking about.
Games need to tackle these issues head on and fully integrate them into the world, not just tack on preachy dialog that doesn’t make sense within the wider game world.
FF16 is blatantly about slavery and no one really complained, it’s not exactly peak fiction, but they at least had everything contained within the world. FF7 is the same but with fossil fuels and much better writing.
New Vegas is the best example, it’s simply written well and gives the player agency.
Death Stranding did a great job of both integrating it’s themes directly into the world, and also tackling them head on without any remorse.
Helldivers is so ludicrously full on and absolutely dripping with it’s pro fascist ideology that everyone knows what they’re getting into from the intro video, and then the game starts adding texture and “are we the baddies” energy straight away.
Fucking Disco Elysium is near universally praised by the wider gaming audience, and I don’t even think I need to explain how that one is political.
It’s the same reason why most ideologically driven media is cringe as fuck. Christian media being a prime example, it’s contrived slop that doesn’t make sense within its own story. Like God’s Not Dead and it’s illogical legal system built on feels and Shapiro logic.
Who remembers the weird pro-life Doctor Who episode? That was bizarre and out of place. The characters stopped acting like themselves for the sake of whatever message it wanted to get across. It just felt really out of place.
The Last of Us Part 2, to label the most controversial example, had periods of good and bad writing, but focusing in on the “violence bad” part of it’s messaging, it completely missed the mark. Giving the characters names that they shout was just hilarious, and having Ellie repeatedly kill dogs whilst Abbie pets them was just so hamfisted. Then making the gameplay violent and fun which just divorced it further.
TLDR:
GamersPeople love politics invideo gamesmedia, they hate hamfisted preaching invideo gamesmedia. Especially when it doesn’t make sense in the crafted worldThe drama with helldivers was because fascists saw the over the top campy depiction of fascism and unironically agreed with it. They had no idea they were the ones being lampooned. You should look at the reactions when they found out the devs were actually not fascists. They were distraught.
Please could you provide some examples? I’ve legitimately never seen someone upset at the devs for not literally being fascists.
If I have to go out of my way to find this, I’m assuming it falls under the “loud” minority group. I’m sure these people exist, but it’d surprise me if they made up a significant amount of the over 12 million players.
Edit: Had a further look, there seems to be more people complaining about people taking it literally than people actually taking it literally. I did find like 3 Reddit posts, but all had 0 upvotes and like 30 comments telling them they’re wrong and stupid
Specifically starship troopers, but you know what kickstarted that discussion again. Also a bunch of Twitter discourse. Reddit is generally left adjacent. You won’t find too much fash shit there.
Sorry man, but that’s a relatively milk toast YouTube video with 81k views. Definitely very right leaning, but outright fascist is a bit much. She clearly has no media literacy or is deliberately misleading people.
Her latest video got only 11k views, and most of her titles look like some right wing grifter shit like “Ben Shapiro SILENCES Candace Owens, CANCELS Debate?”.
And I’m sure that right wing grifters will use this for content, that’s what they do.
I wouldn’t say that shows anything more than a loud minority. Honestly 81k views is lower than I expected and more proves my point
Don’t go to the article, it’s click bait garbage
I think this person means non partisan, because Metal Gear Solid is filled with political intrigue.
Do we always want to play as the good guys? Are all actors to be prohibited from portraying bad guys? Is all media going to end up like Barney the Purple Dinosaur episodes? Games, movies, books, songs are supposed to be entertaining.
I think this explains at least part of the phenomenon…
Guilty as charged. I’ve played hundreds of hours of souls games and all I know about the lore is that souls are money
Now compare that narrative experience the Super Mario Bros.
Im sure it’s been done, but i would love to see interpretations of a First Time User Experience of OG mario if it came out today.
I cant tell you how many games ive just noped out of because i just want to actually play the game and not read or listen to either dialogue or forced tutorial railroading for 20+minutes (even 5 minutes of NOT being in control of what im doing is annoying) when you start a new game.
Even character creation can impede just wanting to get started. Let me come back later, or engage with that as i PLAY the game. Injecting extensive dialogue or forced interactive tutorial should be a reward or a much appreciated rest from the action, not a burden i must bare.
Not every game needs to be story rich to be fun, thank you vampire survivors
My friend has told me to watch a bunch of YouTube videos for the lore. It’s apparently very deep.
what is your art if it’s not engaging with the issues of the time? What is your art if you’re claiming that it’s not political? Because the point of art is to tell the truth, and you’re lying.
Say what? Are they referring to just a specific type of art, like political art?
16 Final Fantasy Games and the Earth is still getting consumed by us.
Gamers are not very smart, and they are the most readily twisted by alt right deception brokers.
Most gamers are fkin stupid that’s the reason. Radicalised by the right and don’t recognize political themes right in front of them.
I feel like it also has to do with lots of games featuring elements of (or full-blown) violence as part of their regular gameplay loop.
Yeah, in Helldivers 2, you’re committing genocide for insidious political reasons. But in Pokémon, you’re committing genocide, because you’re a ten year old and your neighbor gifted you a pet.Normally, the genocide part would be the very obvious red flag for something political going on. Instead, you need to be aware of why precisely you’re doing the genocide this time around.
Such genocide elements are usually also paired with fun gameplay (because violence is easy to translate into gameplay), and with a terrible story, so it’s understandable that people would skip all the story elements.
Jeez, I wish I could downvote you twice.
Conflating Pokemon and genocide really reduces the value of genocide. That it might be a tongue in cheek accusation towards our livestock and animal treatments … but genocide.
Like calling everyone Hitler and a nazi. Or groomer or…
