Malik
(10/15/04) Things
are a bit slow this week in terms of important news. There are
games coming out, and there are games going gold...yipee. It's
nothing really news worthy, and thus I have nothing to really bitch
about...well, I have one thing, or else this column couldn't be this
week. It's something pretty near and dear to my heart (people
acting like asses to make an easy buck). So, instead of
ranting for a while, I'll just get things started.
There's Something
Worse Than Reality TV?
As I mentioned on
my daily post for Monday,
the Rumor Control segment at Gamespot.com talked about some
rumors that are looking "Not bogus" about a new game that
has you surviving the September 11th terrorist attacks. This new
game, Survivor, is supposed to be the birth of a new genre,
according to Replay (the developer), called reality gaming. This, in
turn, sounds as morally hollow and just plain disgusting and
intellectually retarding as reality TV.
I should probably
explain something, before I piss off too many with what I've said. I
have no problem with some of the things that are classified as
reality TV. I mean in the end, reality TV is as vague of a genre as
rock is for music. However, I don't have a problem with what used to
be called game shows before they became reality TV...I don't
understand how a direct and individual competition, like those Great
Race type of shows or something like Fear Factor could be labeled as
reality TV and not "game show" (which is what they
would've been called before Survivor was invented...Survivor, the TV
show, not the game...I won't mention the TV show anymore for sake of
simplifying these terms). They are individual or team competitions
that don't differ from something like Double Dare or Jeopardy in
theme, and only have a more physical nature to them. On the other
hand, I have a problem with watching something along the lines of
that one TV show I won't name again this column, in which the
competition is minimal and the personal interactions are the key
element for the supposed entertainment. Seriously, if I wanted to
watch that type of stuff, I'd just hang out with my friends and then
I could cut out half of the stupidity, the bickering, and the
annoying factors (like the extreme yuppies, the brain dead arguments,
etc) and still have personal interactions...and I could actually be
involved and cause an effect to take place. So, that's my problem
with reality TV.
Anyway, with
something like Survivor (the game...I'll only use this name, from
this point on, to describe the game from Replay), the problem is not
just the stupidity or the brainlessness of it all. The real issue is
that we are being asked to buy a product that has so little morals
as to take many instances of great death and despair (some of the
darkest moments in human history), and to play them for fun. Am I
the only person who sees the problem here? On top of the fact that
we are being asked to buy this game (a game maker will only make a
game in order to make money off of it, unless it's something like
freeware, in which the product is made simply to have fun...so,
Replay is asking us to buy this), and in turn make a profit for
Replay...a profit that comes from a subject that can only exist from
human misery, suffering, and death...but also there are the morals
behind all of this.
These morals I
mention would be the simple fact that we are expected, as geeks, to
play this game and have fun with it. We are supposed to have fun
playing the role of someone surviving some of the most horrific
events in recent world history. If you didn't get that, let me spell
it out; we are supposed to have fun playing someone who is trying to
survive the massacre of deaths that were involved in the sinking of
the Titanic, the bombing of Hiroshima, or the assaults on the World
Trade Center. I won't even begin by questioning the intelligence in
this (but I will get to that in a minute), but rather the morality
decision involved. How do you decide that playing out some of the
most horrific moments of modern history, in a (I think they are
supposed to be) realistic manner. I mean this will include watching
virtual people who are based on real people suffer, be maimed,
wounded, watch as their loved ones die, or be killed themselves.
Plus, while many of these moments have passed beyond casual
recollection, the events of September 11th 2001 are still quite
alive as people continue to suffer from lingering effects (people
who were permanently disabled or disfigured, or people who are
suffering from lingering health problems associated with the dust
and gasses released as the towers came down). This is not the right
time or place to bring forth a game that asks you to ENJOY these
events and to have a fun time playing someone who manages to
out-survive the other victims. In fact, by saying this is not the
right time or place, what I should say is that this is the worst
time and place. There is not now, nor will there ever be (I
hope...unless society decays more than we can ever expect) a time
for this type of "entertainment". This is a tasteless, and
pointless pile of amoral shit.
Also, from an
intelligence standpoint, I am even more confused. The events in
Survivor that I'm aware of consists of the Titanic, the bombing of
Hiroshima (which, on the last subject, I might add, had more deaths
than we should all like to ever think about in one small moment),
and September 11th. Well, some of these I could understand, if I was
an amoral shit-head, how they could be made into a game, but how the
hell do you survive a nuclear bomb attack. This is not something
like a terrorist attack as we think of them; there is no damage with
small pockets of survival...this is a freakin' nuclear bomb! There
is devastation, and that is about it. It's not like you can outrun a
nuclear attack (ala Arnold in Predator), and it's not like a bunch
of pockets of survival will occur. When a nuke hits a town, the town
is gone. How the hell are we expected to play a video game in which
we survive a nuclear bombing, in which the game is striving to have
any resembling features to reality?
Solution
The solution to
this type of tasteless crap is simple. This is the same solution
that there should be for movies like the Faces of Death series and
for games that focus on the suffering of real people in real events
like Survivor. The solution is for the people who develop and
publish these titles to pull their heads out of their asses for a
brief moment, realize what the f&^$ they are doing, and then to
stop.
With some games,
like Disaster Report, it is obvious that there could be an interest
in a survival game that is not the typical RE style of survival
horror. However, DR was developed by people who were smart enough to
not base the game on reality, beyond the fact that earthquakes do
happen. It is not focused on actual deaths and actual suffering as
the main theme of the game. So, if Replay wants to make such an
amoral and stupid game, couldn't they at least throw some morality
into the mix. In other words, base it on fictional attacks,
disasters, and so forth. Any good game studio should have enough
imagination to make a fake natural disaster (it's about the easiest
storyline to make up from scratch since it has set rules to it...)
and enough morality to leave the real suffering where it belongs;
not in our entertainment.
As for the
solution to the other side of things; Reality TV needs to stop.
Individual competitions are fine, since they are actually called
"game shows" (am I the only person with any memory of TV
before that one reality show that shares it's name with an immoral
game in development?). However, shows that are primarily about
bickering and really forced and bad social interactions need to
stop. Can't anyone see that there is no entertainment value from
this stuff? Blah.
Conclusion...Almost
Well, things are
pretty short this week. I mean there are some other things that are
pissing me off, but not nearly deep enough of subjects to go fully
into. For example, there's how messed up some
companies are in terms of customer support, how a good deal of
sites that used to have downloadable free drivers will now charge
you a membership fee to enter the site (before you can even see if
they have the driver you need)...in fact, that's a pretty bad one.
With how the Internet is becoming a pay service more than an open
community (try to make a web site and then get it listed on any
search engines...it takes a lot of work to get it on a search engine
for free...and you'll be stuck with some pretty annoying newsletters
once you do), it's making it hard to keep upbeat and enjoy the old
sense of community. It used to be that if someone would like your
site, they'd link to it on their site, and then they would ask you
for a return favor (of linking to their site). Now, a link will only
be placed for your site if you are ready to bow down to this other
entity (people rarely exist on the Internet...it's all a bunch of
faceless entities) and call it master...and then link to their site
with a special format in which their ad banner is located at a
certain required size and within a certain space on each page you
have...then they will post the link to your site at the bottom of a
list of about 500,000 other sites. Blah.
When this lack of
community reaches the levels of turning the previously free driver
downloads into a direct business...one that charges a yearly fee of
$25, all so you can find one little driver...it's not a good day for
the Internet. I personally have to wonder the legality of this type
of maneuver. I mean these drivers were not made (usually) by these
driver-sites, they were originally free software (I mean the
companies who made your device will give you a driver that took
little effort, since you already dropped $500 on their
hardware...it's the hardware manufacturer's way of pretending to
give a damn), and now they are being charged for. Is this really
legal in the strictest of senses? Blah...it probably is since
there's a legal loophole for anything if it's on the Internet.
Conclusion
So, there's
nothing deep enough to get into for a full Bitching. So, I'll have
to leave things at this...for now. I'm expecting that next week
should have some real news (I mean with how little there was this
week, there would have to be something next week...right?), so I'll
then be able to bitch to my heart's content. At least, for the time
being, while I may not be able to be all that bitchy, I can be
content to play one good game after another (I'm not even going to
think that there could be a large chunk of great games that are
going under my radar due to how I don't have time or money for them
all). I'm usually so pissed off and bitchy when it comes to Fridays,
so I might as well try to enjoy one good Friday in which there is
nothing to piss me off...blah. It just feels like a hollow victory. Anyway,
feel free to write
me or put it on the forums,
if you think you've got something to add.
Malik
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