Humble Bundle V

The Humble Bundle is a nice little concept: a collection of indie titles for you to pay what you want for and then decide how much of that fee goes to a) the developers, b) Humble Bundle themselves, or c) charity.

I got it on the first day (and, sorry, but by the time this post goes live I suspect the window will have closed) so I only got the first five games that were included.  Since then there’ve been three more titles added if you paid over the average.  These were added in light of this bundle making over $1.8 million in the first 15 hours.

Included in the Bundle were:

• Psychonauts
• Amnesia: The Dark Descent
• LIMBO
• Superbrothers: Sword & Sorcery EP
• Bastion*
• Braid*+
• Lone Survivor*+
• Super Meat Boy*+

* denotes games that were unlocked if you paid over the average; + denotes those titles added at a later stage.

Like I say, I only got the first five, but I’m not too sore as I already have Braid (not a big fan) and I’m not overly interested in the other two.  I’m not going to discuss the games themselves here because that’ll be coming in a “Playing…” post later on.

I thought it would be nice show you that sometimes, somewhere out there, someone does something good.  A lot of money has been raised for charity through this: not least through Big Names of Gaming competing to be the top contributors (Notch and HumbleBrony Bundle have been vying for the top spot: when I bought the bundle they were dueling around the $3000 mark, now they’re on $12,345.67 and £11,111.11 respectively).

Taken from Humblebundle.com at 10:40am GMT, 13/06/2012

Of course, as the popularity of indie games continues to rise, it’s nice to be able to have the choice to decide how much of your cash goes to the developers as opposed to not really knowing for sure how much just gets kept by various third parties.

Sigh, Misogyny

From that nice little snippet of camaraderie, I regret that I must now depress the tone somewhat and talk about InternetFail, and more specifically, how it’s been discussed recently with regard to the world of gaming.

At the start of June BBC News Magazine ran an article highlighting the constant, abhorrent abuse that female gamers get in online play: here.  It mostly focusses on the experiences of one Wisconsin gamer called Jenny, of the CoD ilk, and the abuse she gets daily on voice chats.  She records them and uploads them to her website, Not in the Kitchen Anymore, and I gotta say, she handles this shit pretty well but the point is she shouldn’t have to.  Especially, as the article points out, 42% of US gamers are women, and adult women outnumber teenage boys quite considerably.

There’s also a BBC World Service programme based on her experiences and those of other female gamers.  If you read the article or listen to the programme you might hear some charming young fellows claiming “freedom of speech”, but here’s a point of interest for any such time someone tries to use this smokescreen of an excuse if you call them out as misogynists (or racists, homophobes, etc… the list, depressingly, goes on).  In both American and European (incl. British) law the “freedom of speech” excuse doesn’t fly.

Why’s that?  Well, if you actually read the laws you’ll see there are exclusions to what the precious First Amendment protects: look here.  What’s that?  Obscenity?  Threats?  Defamation?  Intentional infliction of emotional distress?  They’re all excluded from protection by the First Amendment?  OHGAWDNO!  It’s like living in a world where people treat each other with respect!  How horrible.

And, Euro law?  Just for starters you can consult Article 10 and Article 14 of the European Convention of Human Rights.  Yeah.  Human rights.  But be careful out there: trying to educate these fools in the error of their ways and the legal flaws in their defence might offend them.  The fact you’ve done some learnings (that aren’t centred around how to make tasty lunchtime treats) is clearly a work of pure evil!

Although Jenny of Wisconsin might be able to deal with it, there are a lot of people out there who can’t or don’t want to.  It takes a lot of effort, seriously.  I’m an antisocial gamer – we know this – I like playing games on my own, I hate chat and I hate voice-chats even more.  I don’t want to listen to somebody’s inane drivel while I shoot stuff, regardless of the content.  I ditched the one MMO I played a long time ago because of the racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic crap that occurred on a daily basis.  Not directed at me, just there – and no one really ever objected (if you did, you got the abuse turned on you).

My solution is not one that everyone can adopt.  I just avoid the social elements, even if it’s online team-based play like TF2, and I refuse to disclose any information about myself.  Generally, I am the wallpaper: I keep quiet and ignore chat.  This is mostly because I’m a misanthrope and do not care for being social, but partly it’s also because I know that a lot of people on chat are going to be dicks.  I just don’t understand why banter has to be offensive, even if it doesn’t go near questions of gender.

Taken from Kickstarter.com at 11:30am GMT, on 13/06/2012

But back to the specific point of misogyny in the gamingverse.  I mentioned the KickStarter from Feminist Frequency in May’s “Playing…” post and the woman behind it, Anita Sarkeesian, has been yet another figurehead victim of abuse.  She put her head over that parapet, so to speak, and has had it all but shot to smithereens.  Gladly, however, this isn’t going to stop her making those videos, nor has it stopped people pledging (when I last checked, she was on $87,000+ with 68 hours left to go).  But this sort of thing does make me want to adopt a superhero persona, fly all over the world, and stand in defence of these women.

I was going to say “brave women” just ther, but that, to me, gives too much credit to these scum-sucking parasites of the internet.  It shouldn’t have to be brave just to identify as female and like games.  FFS.

At least – if we’re to take anything positive away from this – this all-too-common abuse is being given more and more of a public face.  A site that BBC article mentions is Fat,  Ugly or Slutty (because that’s pretty much all you are if you’re a female gamer, apparently) where you can upload screengrabs of sexist abuse/harrasment.  So, if you can catch the abuse you receive, or see, in a screen grab or a recording, make it known!

Are your boobs bulletproof? Apparently, Friday's are!

First of all, my sincerest apologies for disappearing into the far reaches of the internet but that terrible thing called Real Life decided to poke its nose where it wasn’t wanted.  I will tell you all about the Eurogamer Expo, and I still have those goodies to give away, so please forgive my extended absence!

Today, I present to you my observations of the post-apocalyptic female form, with visual examples from RAGE, the recent id Software release.  In case I didn’t mention it before, I am a bit of an id fan – seeing as how Doom was the first proper game I ever played – so criticising them was a bit of a forced exercise for me.  But criticise I must!  When I first saw the trailers and preview footage for RAGE I noted the presence of female characters(!). However, they were distinctly boobed-up and inappropriately attired for life in a wasteland environment, especially given all the violence also included in these vids.

I’d noticed this before in other post-apocalypse/global bad thing games, like Fallout: New Vegas and definitely in Borderlands.  It is also apparent in fantasy RPGs like Dragon Age, as well as sci-fi/horror titles like Dead Space.  All these women are stereotypically ‘beautiful’, i.e. there is not a blemish in sight, their waists are tiny, their boobs are pert (and, more often than not, on display), their eyes are big and shiny, etc – you get the idea!

However, my quibble here is not just the fact that it is disgustingly demeaning, shallow and pathetic but also that it is totally unreal and impractical.  What were the developers thinking?!  I’m sure women may seem all alien and scary to design, but when it comes to internal vital organs, like the heart and lungs, they’re in the same place as a man’s.  IN THE CHEST.  So, why would any vaguely intelligent female survivor of the apocalypse waltz around with the most vulnerable part of her body un-armoured and on display?  How are they not all dead?  In this world full of bandits, territorial gangs, mutants and some evil authoritarian organisation out to kill them, how is it all the bullets/knives/arrows/rockets/etc have missed the gaping void in their armour exactly where their hearts are?

So there’s that part of the issue.  Secondarily, if we look at these women in these games, they look as if they could be glamour models in this day and age.  Now, not to cast doubt on the practicality of models in general, but how many of them, do you think, would even survive the initial global devastating event, let alone eke out an existence fighting and killing fellow humans?  Personally, I intend to build a labyrinthine nuclear bunker under my house when I can, but I accept that I’m abnormal and most glamour models won’t be thinking of these things.  My point being, I am not that kind of pretty and of all the people I know that might survive a wasteland environment none of them are model-esque in their features.

Nor are any of them stupid enough to wear armour that exposes their chest.

So this leads me to wonder whether all of these devastating global events were actually designed so that – in the most Bill Bailey of ways – they killed all the trolls, leaving all the beautiful ladies (in danger) behind.  If so, how then can we assume these women survived?  Proffering sexual favours with the alpha males for protection?  It’s an ogre-ish thing to consider, but what other explanation is there for only the glamorous women surviving?

Destinee, Jani and Mel model the high fashion of the dystopian future.

I doubt that the developers ever think this sort of thing through, as they’re too busy patronising their male audiences with images of huge tits to realise it’s more than just sexist and misogynist.  For games that desire heightened realism, they haven’t thought it all through very well, have they?

And that’s before we even go near the fact that all these women are caucasian.

Yessir, that does say VIP!

That’s correct, folks!  I trundled my way down to London last Thursday to insert myself into a world of new and upcoming games, developer sessions and general geekdom.  What’s even better is that Eurogamer were kind enough to give me a press pass to do so, and now, my dear readers, you get to hear all about it!

First of all, this post right here is going to be a general look at the whole experience, and I’ll give you some insight into what else I have in store for you in later posts.  Simple as that, really!  Shall we get started?

As I had to travel down from our second city in the morning I didn’t get into the Expo until close to midday. Even so, with a little ticket with the words “Press Pass” on I still got in without issue (even if they did give me the wrong wristband).  My brother had come along for the Thursday and was already inside, so I had a task trying to locate him.  In the end I gave up and darted straight to see Rage (coincidentally, so did he) as I am a mild id Software fanboi… don’t tell anyone!

After that I went to visit Special Effect‘s World Record Attempt and did my practice run – you’ll be hearing more about this in a dedicated post – in which you have to complete a racing track using nought but your own eye movements.  These guys were there trying to raise awareness for gamers with disabilities who need modified controls to enjoy the world of gaming.  Very admirable, indeed.  I had a nice chat with one of them on the Friday and I will be urging you all to give them a shout however you can.

After a bit of milling around I headed up for my interviews with Trion Worlds on their games Rift and End of Nations.  I had a good hour between the two and some interesting responses to questions, but you’ll have to wait for the interview posts to hear more about that.

Over the course of the two days I also got round to playing quite a few of the big names like Skyrim, Mass Effect 3, Battlefield 3 and CounterStrike: Global Offensive, as well as some of the more family-suited games like Sonic Generations and Ratchet and Clank All 4 One.  You’ll get to hear what I thought of all the games I played in my round-up post, which will include a series of mini-reviews for your delectation.

Another excellent facet to the Expo was the Indie Arcade and the Retro section – in which there was Wolfenstein 3D on no less than a Jaguar – where I had great fun playing with games I hadn’t seen in years on consoles and arcades that are likely part of someone’s private gaming museum.  This and EG’s Game of the Year for the past decade wall were a genuine pleasure to see.

Also upcoming from my experience at Eurogamer there’ll be a post on what I think about the prevalence of oversexualised women as a (meagre) excuse for marketing at these events – what does this say about how marketers view gamers? – with interested snippets from an overheard conversation between two stall workers (they weren’t being all that covert about the chat, either!).

Onwards to meet your heroes of geekery!

Another piece I’ve been brewing for a while, but held off just in case I could corner someone from id Software after their Developer Session to ask them about it: Dystopian Beauties.  Ever noticed how almost all the women in the post-apocalyptic world are pretty stereotypically hot?  What happened to all the ‘normal‘ women, hmm?  Is there some sort of “Kill the Trolls” global event that occurs simultaneously with the collapse/destruction of the world?  I will be exploring the many possible explanations for this.

On the overall experience front it was pretty great for me as a first time Expo-goer, with a few snagging points: the demonstrable exclusion of female gamers in the marketing; the assumption (several times) that I was clearly “new to FPS genre” or “new to war games” (so tedious) on the basis of what I looked like and the assumptions stall reps made about a) my gender and b) my personality; the ridiculous prevalence of consoles on the playable games – I am a dedicated PC gamer and trying to play things with thumbsticks drives me up the wall; and, finally, the fact it cost me £6 for a sausage in a roll and a bottle of water.  Otherwise, the punters were all very friendly with each other and it was a good environment full of like-minded individuals that I really enjoyed.

But what’s that, you say?  A competition?  Why, yes!  Yes there is a competition!  I have gathered a few little goodies at the Expo to give away… but more on that later my eager chums!  For now, I will have to leave you with feverish eyes filled with the fire of excitement – to be continued, fellow travellers…