NAG Online: Have gamers become too sensitive?

[Zoop]

It’s no secret that humanity, as a whole, is becoming a lot more sensitive. Everything that is intended for public consumption has to be heavily screened for political correctness – set one foot wrong, make one ambiguous statement and some affronted group of individuals is going to take offense.

This isn’t exactly new – it’s human nature to look for the negative; people like to have something to protest. The difference today is that society is accepting these complaints; we nurture them and lift them up and make them rational – they’re not.

Read more.

Well, my personal opinion on the article? Chris doesn't exactly understand the reasons for outcries such as the one about the Dead Island torso statue, so he naturally misses their point.

[GeometriX]

It's good to get feedback on things like this, but I don't know if Chris reads the forums or not - why not comment on the post itself? Not a big deal; I'll ask Dane to pass along a link to Chris to this thread if discussion picks up.

I do agree with you though. Dane and I chatted about this opinion piece a bit once it was posted and it's unfortunate that he did miss the point. He touches on good points here and there but didn't really commit to the issue of sexism. Maybe he doesn't feel prepared to tackle that particular issue, or thinks that it has nothing to do with the Dead Island thing. Not sure. I think if he had avoided Dead Island altogether (which really proves that gamers aren't sensitive enough), and stuck to the Splinter Cell issue, he might've had a stronger case.

But seriously, this kind of feedback is important, especially for new writers like Chris. I think everyone who suddenly has a soapbox thinks that it's easy to form an opinion piece but it certainly has its challenges.

[Zoop]

Yeah, I don't entirely disagree with Chris. The Blacklight issue had me scratching my head as well, seeing as I couldn't quite understand why people would complain about excessive violence in a game about violence. I just don't feel that you can compare a complaint about excessive violence to a complaint about casual discrimination and/or the objectification of women. I'm still convinced Deep Silver made the bust on purpose, seeing as almost nobody was even aware of their game at the time.

As for why I didn't post in the comments section, it's mostly because I often feel the comments section is not really a comfortable space within which to have an in-depth discussion. I'll definitely try to leave some feedback in the future, though.

[Squirly]

I do agree with him, mostly. We get riled up about the wrong things. Well, people in general do. Gamers are people.

Anyway, when the Dead Island thing started my first thought was 'gawd, another controversy'. And that's the thing for me - there might be legitimate reason for an outcry, but I'm sorta suffering from controversy fatigue, here. It's like crying 'wolf'. At some point I just can't be bothered with it even when it's something worth being bothered about. I mean, did you look at that torso statue? It's really tacky!

[Wesley]

I don't see the issue with the sexism in the torso. There are zombie babes on the island in bikinis. Zombies don't cover up and they have terrible dress sense. Babes in bikinis being attacked during an outbreak don't have time to change into something less skimpy.



Look, zombies in bikinis. I still don't see what the problem is here apart from people seeing something similar to a naked, big-breasted women and taking offense at the fact that it has breasts and shows a lot of "skin." Honestly I'd have a much easier time with there being an outcry because this promotes necrophilia or something equally weird. Sure, it's icky and in bad taste for some, but I wouldn't mind having that torso in my small memorabilia collection.

Also, those statues are hand-painted. That's actually pretty cool, means no two will ever be alike:

[Legion]

I disagree the human race has actually been concocting darker and darker material every day.
How is this true then?

[Mikit0707]

As for why I didn't post in the comments section, it's mostly because I often feel the comments section is not really a comfortable space within which to have an in-depth discussion. I'll definitely try to leave some feedback in the future, though.

No ways man, please get involved! There have been a couple of cool discussions off the back of articles. It would be great if it happened more often, especially with the reviews.

[Zoop]

snip

Well, I'm not really going to redo an argument we've already had on the forums, so I'd suggest you just read through the following thread that dealt specifically with the Dead Island bust.

http://www.nag.co.za/forums/showthre...hlight=riptide

In particular, this article Grimnebulin linked to is a genius bit of writing on the topic.