Thursday 30 October 2014

Too Much Drama In Western Games Industry

I want to come clean about something.  Ever since it started, I've been silently following the #GamerGate story pretty closely.  I'm not going to talk about that whole thing at any length because it's the kind of interest controversy that I don't want to get myself in.  If you give a shit about what some nobody on a blog has to say about the whole thing, then make a request with a charity donation because I've already received nasty emails for making certain, unrelated tweets and I can't be arsed potentially getting anymore.

#GamerGate had me thinking though that there is WAYYYY too much fucking drama in the western games industry.  Every time there's a new game or someone writes an article it's always surrounded in some kind of fucking drama and it's rather tiring.

A while back there was some promotional content released for the upcoming Hotline Miami 2 but any excitement I had was dashed by a number of idiots on the internet crying about a certain scene and how it offended them.  More recently, Bayonetta 2 came out recently and while press surrounding the game is positive I can't help but trip over a number of articles crying about how the game is "sexist" or whatever stupid uneducated bullshit they are trying to peddle for clicks.

All these issues that keep coming out of the western press about violence, sexism and other stupid shit just pisses me off.  Why can't I play a game with a sexy woman and just appreciate it for being a damn good brawler?  Why can't I just play something horrifically violent and just have fun killing dudes in a virtual world and not have someone claim that I'm a serial killer waiting to happen?  Whenever I read articles on websites about games that I enjoy, I get the impression that I'm not allowed to have fun unless I feel some kind of sense of shame or self disgust for finding said games enjoyable.

There's a lot less of this drama and PC crap in Japan though.  Granted I don't follow either regions gaming press all that closely but all I ever see out of the Japanese press is a celebration of a games release.  It can be a game about big tit ninjas or killing millions of dudes and as long as it's fun to play then it will be talked about favourably.   I find that Japanese people care a lot less about the various -isms or worrying about if X, Y, Z game is going to cause the next mass murder, they just ask "is it fun or not?" and go from there.

I'm not saying western games are bad or anything like that, just that western releases always come with a lot more baggage than Japanese ones, which is sad really.



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