It's going to get worse and then you'll finally realise what I am saying is true,
But it's not getting worse! Games have gotten progressively better in the past couple of years, across the board, and I do believe that this is at least partially due to games criticism growing to encompass criticism of gaming culture from within gaming culture (as opposed to Thompsonite criticism of gaming culture from without). What I'm seeing from you is not constructive in this regard, you seem to be saying that there's a whole class of opinions games journalism (and journalists) cannot have, and I strongly disagree with that. I just cannot get my head around the idea that it is categorically wrong to write about perceived ills in the gaming industry or gaming culture if those perceived ills fall into a specific category. That's what I'm hearing from you here: The absolute statement that certain topics or ways of thinking are not only wrong or misguided, but need to be taboo because if they aren't, something terrible is going to happen. Admittedly, this is a topic I am wavering on a lot, but currently I am of the opinion that the best answer to bad opinions is good opinions, not trying to suppress the bad.
The criticism is lazy, unfair and merely "progressive" by fad alone. It's done by hacks, not by "intellectuals" trying to get the world become a better place.
That is the true mirage. Let's all band together in outcry against that horrible, horrible shirt that made mankind take two steps back, while the meteor landing only gets to be awarded one step further, because that's the way, that's the spirit, right?
No, it isn't and yes, it's destructive. That you don't feel the sting of its inherent injustice, untruth and overall degeneracy is a testament to your own obliviousness or merely lack of first person experience with all the guilt tripping passive aggressive nature of these vermins. In a way, I envy you.
Funny how most of the uses of the phrase I come across on the internet are coming from decidedly non-liberal places. That being said, I cannot disagree with the desire to avoid a widespread radicalization/regression of the left in a mirror image of what has happened on the right, but we do differ a lot on what exactly is a symptom of said radicalization or regression. I do not see critical examination of games and gaming culture as such.
"Tea Partyists" is a phrase mostly used back then by progressives and liberals. Didn't describe an irreality, now did it? And think about that one. Since when have we decided to marginalize 50% of the population as demented twats just because they are more conservative than not? And then we get to complaint about the trends of ever increasing polarization? The change we want is within us. If we want polarization to diminish and reason / debate / conversation to go through everyone then we must open ourselves to what "The Other Side" is saying.
Because many times, they may well be right.
My problem is that, in order to properly explain my viewpoint, I have to be able to empathize with yours, and I just can't. I disagree with you on such a fundamental level on this issue that it is beyond my rhetorical abilities to bridge that gap without resorting to name-calling (and we both know that that doesn't work). This is my failing, not yours.
I applaud your honesty and self-awareness. It's probably your biggest quality (apart from your professionalism, ofc).
I look at this statement:
Because I hate these pretensious ignorant hacks vomiting their so-called "intellectual" (what a misnomer that is) activist agendas as if they are reporting on some "objective" truth, blaming innocents for all the ills of the world, self-hating douchebags who are an example of how the western civilization is beggining to destroy itself, by hating itself and by blaming itselft for anything and everything.
and I just have no idea how to unpack it and address the points made properly. There's so much in there, so much background that we do not share or do not agree on here that I have no idea how to respond to it.
Hey, it's just me being a pretensious twat ranting about what I believe. The difference though, something that just woooshes past someone like Ralwood's head, is that I'm not paid to write this stuff. I vent for free and it's all voluntary, in a forum where people are supposed to do just that. That some people can't recognize that a
games journalist is supposed to behave differently, then it's beyond my power to help them at all.
And I'm roughly with the authors of that piece Luis posted: I don't think that events like Orlando should be unackknowledged. Games do not exist in a vacuum, and if the games you're about to promote are all about the feeling of power that comes from holding and using a gun, then some statement regarding such a tragedy is appropriate. What form that should take, I don't know, but continuing on with business as usual is IMHO not the right choice. In any case, I see no harm in an article that is asking the question what the right choice should be, because that's a thing that I believe should be discussed.
Yeah except the tone isn't nearly as generous as you are writing in here, and all the guilt tripping traps are scattered throughout the entirety of it. Because the main idea of a minute of silence (as was actually done in one of the shows, I think the Sony one?) or a few words regarding the issue are absolutely of good taste. To write something righteously pointing fingers at anyone who fails to do so is just pretensious twattery of the worst kind, and something that we are all just accustumed to suffer from the same old writers. To even read some of these journos' twitter TLs regarding the shooting and games' intersections is to invite the revolution in your stomachs.
Again: That's not the message I am getting. But I am known to be an ideologically blinded regressive leftist.
A core trait of regressivism is machiavellianism: lying is good if it's For The Cause (tm). I have yet to see you lie, so no I don't think you're a "regressive". But that's just IMHO.
Well then go ahead and actually justify what it's saying! Why should EA be obliged to perform some penance for selling games about shooting people? We have those games in the UK and we don't have people shooting up gay clubs!
That's the thing, innit? They are totally to blame for the mass shootings, except no of course not no single anyone is saying that, that's a total misrepresentation, but they better say sorry for what they've done... etc. It's totally dishonest passive aggressiveness.