Come for the sarcasm, stay for the particularly spicy speech at the end. Either way, it’s time to consume our favorite videogame products!
The past few months have been rough both in and out of gaming, and I’ve come to understand that my weekly dose of pessimism is Literally The Actual Problem. The time has come to compartmentalize, make excuses, and ignore the game industry’s rot.
It’s not like we want to think about Ubisoft’s abuse when it has a bevy of hot new products to sell us! Ubisoft doesn’t want us to think of it either.
The high pitch “hehehehehe” 14:18 as he loses composure and tries not to choke on Vienna sausages was one of the most unreservedly joyous sounds I’ve heard since March. Thank Jim for God.
“The Happiest Place on Earth” reopened this past Saturday even as Covid cases topped 10,000 new victims/day in Florida. Yay!
Put politics back in my games! Give me something that makes my brain do some freaking work. I demand politics in games!
Man, I’m sick of these politics in my games! That’s why i enjoy *Bioshock*
Hey Jim I’m a long time lurker of over 11 years, starting watching you way back in my higher school days on the escapist. Just wanted to let you know I care about you talk about, a lot of people do. When people get angry at you, that just shows what you’re saying matters.
If they feel attacked then there is a good chance it’s because your making them think about their life in uncomfortable ways.
The world is a dark place and it’s gonna get darker before it gets better but at least we are not alone.
“Focus on video games!” as if the video game industry is somehow a separate entity that… somehow…. doesn’t have anything to do with video games is a hell of a take from people.
“when it happens to us? that’s just business.” god damn that hit hard. I was extremely disappointed in Ubisoft not addressing the sexual abuse in their workforce. As excited as I was for FC6 and Valhalla, I just can’t. The victims at Ubisoft deserve more than being ignored in this way. I just can’t support Ubisoft anymore going forward since they don’t truly care.
“I don’t want to SOLVE problems, I just want to ignore them”.
I had essentially the same argument with a guy about BLM. His entire argument hinged on the word “disproportionate”. People will always find words or skew stats to make their opinion on a matter sound correct or irrefutable. Rarely is any topic cut and dry especially when context and intent are taken into account. Many people don’t want to have a thoughtful discussion on something they believe and is intrinsic to their identity. They take any opposition to their view as a personal attack. Once the ego and personal attachment to ones view is gone its amazing how much easier discussing a topic becomes and how disarmed everyone is. Most of the time people will generalize so they don’t have to deal with forming a more than surface level opinion on a topic, whether they don’t care or they believe the topic is a simple one.
In the inmortal words of slowbeef:
“Don’t think, just click!”
Technically, Jim, “WE” are to blame for the industry’s predatory practices of today. By “we” i’m referring to the corporate “simps”(might as well use it in a somewhat correct context lol) that have been defending these practices since their inception. The people who have valiantly battled the “haters” on everything from on disk DLC that you had to pay to unlock and horse armor to lootboxes and battles passes. People who use a whole array of ridiculous arguments like “be thankful they’re not increasing the price of games”, “if we don’t buy what they’re selling they’ll never make another *insert franchise title* game again” or “you don’t have to buy it if you don’t like it”. People who, if you listen to them, would have you believe that these corporations are actually operating at a loss all for our benefit. All this while games have literally become cheaper to make, not more expensive, considering how prevalent digital media has become; how expert the corporations have become at not only hiding their profits and not paying taxes BUT actually receiving money from governments instead by taking advantage of various loopholes and grants; how their profits are so huge that they can afford to pay disgusting scumbags like Bobby Kotick disgusting amounts of money; how expert they have become at exploiting their workers, getting as many working hours as possible from them for as little pay as possible, as industry titans like Blizzard or Paradox Interactive once said, it’s an honor to work for them. But it’s ok, because these corporations love us and have only our happiness in mind… oh… wait… never mind, they just care about draining our wallets dry and then moving on to the next sucke… customer.
One my favorite moments from Hbomberguy’s Pathologic video is when he asked if a game should be fun. At least his audience were mature enough to understand that.
The whole “I want to enjoy something guilt-free” argument is pointless, because the moment you make it the cat is already out of the bag. Anybody who watches any video games news knows about the abuse, crunch, etc… the people who are ignorant don’t watch this stuff and don’t write these kinds of letters. And once you know, it’s entirely on you what to do with that information.
The argument is also kinda pathetic, considering how many people on earth have real problems (hunger, disease, war, etc.) and here you are worrying about your conscience playing frickin video games…
“No politics in video games!”
Philosophy is the ground of politics though and look how many games are talking about philosophy. Anti-religion is also a very political thing for some people so the Final Fantasy and Shin Megami Tensei series are very controversial for them.
>”Companies should not exploit people or enable predators and abusers”
>Stop being a simp!
Ah yes, nothing says ‘simp’ like not endorsing industrial systemic abuse for profit.
As someone who somehow has the taste buds that like Vienna sausage, I 100% agree that it’s the human equivalent of dog food.
Spot on.
“They just use any word now, don’t they?”
I mean, I don’t think that person understands about 40% of the words in that tweet but that’s just me.
“Politics”: The word people use when they don’t like a topic someone else brought up because it makes them confront an uncomfortable truth about themselves.
That’s why at thanksgiving when someone asks me to pass the stuffing I say “Whoa whoa, let’s not get all political here!”
Thank Jim for the Jimquisition.