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Battlefield V - or, women in videogames, how far is too far?

Started by Fry, May 24, 2018, 08:23:16 PM

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Fry

So the teaser trailer too Battlefield V has been released and it looks...



...hectic.

Now ostensibly the game is set during World War Two, but anyone who see's the trailer will notice a few historical inaccuracies. Things like soldiers walking into battle carrying cricket bats covered in barbed wire, or with katanas strapped to their back, or alongside a one armed woman. No prizes for guessing which particular inaccuracy has large parts of the fan base feeling betrayed and actually under proper attack?

If you take these fans' comments at face value, they'll tell you they they aren't necessarily angry about the fact women are included in games, they are angry that it will ruin the realism which is one of the a fundamental parts of the Battlefield experience. Next to base jumping out of a 3rd floor window to avoid fall damage and repairing bullet wounds with a defibrillator, naturally. People on Twitter are falling over themselves to provide actual historical evidence of women fighting in WW2, but frankly I wouldn't waste the effort doing that. Even if they had a point that it does ruin the oh-so-vital authenticity of the game, just... who cares mate? There are fucking thousands of games set in World War 2, all with grim, faceless white men shooting their way through a greyish brown french village. Pretty much every other WW2 game is like this, play one of those. Why do so-called videogame fans have such an aversion to a sprinkling of variety? Why do they just want to play the same thing over and over again with slightly nicer graphics? No other fans of a medium are like this, are they? Maybe comic book fans.

Now, the cynic in me is telling me that this is a cynical marketing ploy that achieves two things. Big internet drama which gets people chatting, and characters that have a lot of avenues for customisation *cough*lootboxes*cough*.

Apart from all the gumpf I thought the trailer looked interesting, will keep my eye out for proper gameplay footage.

Zetetic

QuoteWhy do they just want to play the same thing over and over again with slightly nicer graphics?
For that matter, this is the same thing again, and this doesn't really change that.

(If it's got a '5' in the title - and even that's an underestimate - it's not like I should be surprised that it's the same thing again.)

Fry

Quote from: Zetetic on May 24, 2018, 08:33:42 PM
For that matter, this is the same thing again, and this doesn't really change that.

Well, quite.

bgmnts

I just spent a lot of last night listening to probably teenagers or - shudder -  young men call each other n****r lovers and telling each other they fucked their mums and will rape their sisters.

The gaming community, an extension of the internet community, is full of angry or thick young men who either hate or do not respect women.

The fact of the matter is though the core hardcore audience for video games still, I am sure, these men. The thing is this shit is both a sad indictment of the ideological regression within the gaming community and the collective ignoring of the massive problems in the video game industry, which is full of anti-consumerist practices and, in my opinion, shit, incomplete, yet more expensive, games.

This is no different to television or film or comic books.

biggytitbo

I'd say there are 2 types of games you can make about WW2, one where you make an effort to respect the historical accuracy of the event, and one where you have fun with the comic book iconography of something that is as well known through representation in fiction as it is as real history. I suppose you might argue Wolfenstein has its cake and eats it by managing to be both, but they only get away with it because of astonishingly good writing, which the likes of Cod and Battlefield never come close to.


The recent Cod WW2 has a good female character in it who whilst a bit 'bad arse' is perfectly believable historically, and is written well enough to not feel like a contrivance. That's the key isn't it? If you have a realistic WW2 game with female soldiers storming Normandy beaches, that's just stupid, but there are millions of stories you could tell about WW2 with female characters that would be historically real and interesting.

Twed

Making it a woman really takes away from the realism of a soldier being able to call in an airstrike after five kills.

asids

Quote from: bgmnts on May 24, 2018, 09:59:54 PM
I just spent a lot of last night listening to probably teenagers or - shudder -  young men call each other n****r lovers and telling each other they fucked their mums and will rape their sisters.

...and that's the last time I go to my local community centre.

Quote from: bgmnts on May 24, 2018, 09:59:54 PM
The gaming community, an extension of the internet community, is full of angry or thick young men who either hate or do not respect women.

In some ways, I hope games and other "nerd culture" stuff include as much minority groups as they can, because then at some point these cunts will just have to accept it that games aren't just about and catered for white heterosexual men. Imagine if one of these AAA titles had a main character who was trans or something like that, they'd be going mental.

Cuellar


bgmnts

Quote from: asids on May 24, 2018, 10:56:37 PM
...and that's the last time I go to my local community centre.

In some ways, I hope games and other "nerd culture" stuff include as much minority groups as they can, because then at some point these cunts will just have to accept it that games aren't just about and catered for white heterosexual men. Imagine if one of these AAA titles had a main character who was trans or something like that, they'd be going mental.

I think comic books are suffering big time at the moment partially due to the perceived shoehorning in of diversity, which we all know is the stupid way to do things.

There are quite a few games with female, bisexual and even gay leads, AAA titles even. Bioware and Bethesda have been kind of trying to fly this flag for a while but that has backfired a bit.

Its weird, I dont know what dictates negative response from gamers. There are lots of cool female lead characters in games nobody gives a shit about being female and they are even favourites but a female writer for Dragon Age 2 gets death threats.

Kelvin

These people are arseholes, obviously, but I don't understand why, whenever these things come up, more progressive people feel it's okay to make huge generalisations about "gamers", and suggest we're all sexist, homophobic, racist bigots.

No doubt a large number of gamers are bigots, just as a large number of TV viewers and film goers are bigots (see their reaction to Ghostbusters or Black Panther, for example), and those people and their ignorance need to be called out. I just don't understand why we have to talk as if gamers are inherently bigoted. There is a problem, and it is still far, far too widespread, but I just resent the idea that those that shout loudest speak for all of us. It should be entirely possible to attack these individuals and their ridiculous arguments, without implying that gaming and gamers are all toxic. 

samadriel

I think it's because it's the people who define themselves by the fact of their playing videogames that tend to be fucked in the head.  If the racist, sexist geeks we're talking about called themselves 'viewers' or something, to denote their obsession with genre films/TV, then a lot of people would probably say 'viewers are fuckwits', much as they do with 'gamers'.

If you play on PC, you're statistically probably a gamergater and paedo tendency. Least respect for this group.


If you play on PS4/XB1, you statistically probably only play FIFA and look forward to the new Far Cry. You probably think superhero or football hooligan films are great.


If you play Nintendo, you are statistically probley emotionally damaged obsessive or great guy or girl. That's me.


This is straight up the truth. You can move across the areas like tourism but you know where your heart lies.




popcorn

I've worked in the games industry (twice! idiot) and played games all my life and I would never describe myself as a "gamer" in a million years. It was a loaded word even a decade ago before all the Gamergate shit kicked off. It describes a belonging to a subculture, even an ideology, as much as it does someone who plays games.

Kelvin

I guess I don't have that singular association with the word. I just consider anyone who plays games fairly regularly a 'gamer', and that doesn't mean defining your life by that one pastime, or subscribing to some right wing mindset.

Maybe the 'gamer' label isn't just self imposed, but also imposed upon us by people trying to narrowly define and stereotype us as one thing or another. I consider myself a gamer because I play games so often. These sexists do not speak for me, and by only allowing the word gamer to apply to them, we drag all people who play games through the mud.

Lemming

I love that almost everyone in the British army in Battlefield 1 is non-white. It's silly, it's obvious misplaced pandering to whatever the devs think progressive people want, the tone of the game isn't comic-book-y enough to justify it, it's completely hilarious to see a squad of British soldiers consisting entirely of black and Indian men charging towards a squad of black German soldiers in a European battlefield, and that's why I love it. The fact that it drives certain people absolutely up the wall is the icing on the cake. Fully support the addition of women in the new one, and would also like soldiers in wheelchairs.

Quote from: Kelvin on May 25, 2018, 05:33:45 AM
I guess I don't have that singular association with the word. I just consider anyone who plays games fairly regularly a 'gamer', and that doesn't mean defining your life by that one pastime, or subscribing to some right wing mindset.

Maybe the 'gamer' label isn't just self imposed, but also imposed upon us by people trying to narrowly define and stereotype us as one thing or another. I consider myself a gamer because I play games so often. These sexists do not speak for me, and by only allowing the word gamer to apply to them, we drag all people who play games through the mud.

As someone who's been playing videogames since childhood and used to have gaming as my main hobby and more or less the focus of my whole life, I think the broad-brush generalisations about "gamers" being bigots are completely understandable. I've spent a vast amount of time on gaming forums/communities, and so many people who call themselves gamers do in fact define their lives by it and subscribe to an insane right-wing hivemind. There's a reason people started to reject the term in the first place.

Every single dedicated gaming forum I've ever been a part of has been a nightmare cesspit packed with edgy racist/sexist kids and actual neo-nazis. Every single online multiplayer match I've ever played has had, at some point, a lecture from another player about International Jewry or some shit. The amount of times I've been called n*gger (incorrectly) and faggot (correctly) is absolutely off the chain. Every other big online gaming commentator turns out to be some kind of milkshake duck. None of this even touches on the bitter misogyny, which manages to be even more prevalent than the racism and homophobia, if such a thing were possible. The problems in the gaming community are real, and to an outsider (if there's such a thing any more, given that videogames are almost as ubiquitous and popular as movies now) it's easy to see where the generalisation comes from.

Letting "gamer" be a self-imposed word is good, I think, because I completely agree with this statement:
Quote from: samadriel on May 25, 2018, 03:44:16 AM
I think it's because it's the people who define themselves by the fact of their playing videogames that tend to be fucked in the head.  If the racist, sexist geeks we're talking about called themselves 'viewers' or something, to denote their obsession with genre films/TV, then a lot of people would probably say 'viewers are fuckwits', much as they do with 'gamers'.

It's easier to just consider ourselves as people who play games, rather than self-identifying as "gamers" and trying to tackle the insurmountable tide of gamergater dicks. Just cut them off.

Kelvin

Quote from: Lemming on May 25, 2018, 03:47:39 PM
I love that almost everyone in the British army in Battlefield 1 is non-white. It's silly, it's obvious misplaced pandering to whatever the devs think progressive people want, the tone of the game isn't comic-book-y enough to justify it, it's completely hilarious to see a squad of British soldiers consisting entirely of black and Indian men charging towards a squad of black German soldiers in a European battlefield, and that's why I love it. The fact that it drives certain people absolutely up the wall is the icing on the cake. Fully support the addition of women in the new one, and would also like soldiers in wheelchairs.

It is very comic-booky judging by that trailer. You have three tanks crashing through a house, while planes whizz around, people get squashed by cars, and you're saved by a character with a hook for a hand. Beyond a giant Hitler mech, I don't know how much OTT it can get. These twats complaining about historical innaccuracy are being even more disingenuous than usual.   

QuoteNone of this even touches on the bitter misogyny, which manages to be even more prevalent than the racism and homophobia, if such a thing were possible. The problems in the gaming community are real, and to an outsider (if there's such a thing any more, given that videogames are almost as ubiquitous and popular as movies now) it's easy to see where the generalisation comes from.

It is worth noting that I never suggested that gaming culture doesn't have huge problems, or that there aren't still a frightening number of bigots involved with it. In fact, I explicitly acknowledged these issues in my original post.

QuoteIt's easier to just consider ourselves as people who play games, rather than self-identifying as "gamers" and trying to tackle the insurmountable tide of gamergater dicks. Just cut them off.

I mean, I seem to be in the minority in so far as not considering that word ("gamer") singularly tied to right wing gaming culture, so maybe I just need to move with the times and accept we lost that battle. I just think it's stupid that, as someone who plays games every day, who listens to numerous gaming podcasts, and who talks about it on here, and with friends constantly, it would be inaccurate for someone to call me a gamer. I am involved in gaming subculture, most of us in this thread and subforum are, in some way, involved with gaming subculture... yet we're not gamers.

ASFTSN

Ah yes, the historically accurate FPS series that had Mark V tanks gunning it at about 40mph in its last instalment.

Cuellar

I'm sure I heard a voiceline from one of my teammates that was "Let's capture the objective guys"

Now, I'm not saying someone in 1916 would NEVER have said that...

Lemming

Quote from: Kelvin on May 25, 2018, 04:33:06 PM
It very comic-booky judging by that trailer. You have three tanks crashing through a house, while planes whizz around, people get squashed by cars, and you're saved by a character with a hook for a hand. Beyond a giant Hitler mech, I don't know how much OTT it can get. These twats complaining about historical innaccuracy are being even more disingenuous than usual. 

I was on about Battlefield 1 which generally doesn't feel too comic-book-y, other than the giant steampunk train of death that appears on some maps and the general Battlefield chaos of planes smashing into tanks and wing-surfing. But you're right, the people complaining about inaccuracy are out to lunch as usual.

QuoteI mean, I seem to be in the minority in so far as not considering that word singularly tied to right wing gaming culture, so maybe I just need to just move with the times and accept we lost that battle. I just think it's stupid that, as someone who plays games every day, who listens to numerous gaming podcasts, and who talks about it on here and with friends constantly, it would be inaccurate for someone to call me a gamer. I am involved in gaming subculture, most of us in this thread and subforum are, in some way, involved with gaming subculture... yet we're not gamers.

Agreed, it's sad that we've essentially lost the ability to easily identify with one of our hobbies, but the word just has too many connotations at this point, and getting it back doesn't seem like a battle worth fighting.

After #Gamergate first hit, I tried to start referring to bigots as "gamergaters" rather than "gamers", but it doesn't work in the end, and easily leads to being sucked uncontrollably down a vortex of discussion on the intricacies of Ethics In Games Journalism. Most of them already call themselves gamers and at this point when people complain about "gamers" or "the gaming community" we all know who they're talking about, so it just seems like it's time to let it go.

If they want to make games so right on, one in ten people are gay so should have on average two players in every match of FIFA who run like Sterling. And one in every ten refs.

If women really want equal rights, they should be slaughtered in exactly the same numbers as men so kill one woman for every man who dies in war, or in any circumstances.

Fair's fair.

No fucks will be given from me with regard to historical accuracy.

General gameplay on the other hand = many many fucks given and BF1 didn't cut it for me in that regard. I'll have a good try out of this one but I'm not holding much of a hope for it.

Yeah, BF1 wasn't a patch on BF4. I'm sure BF2&3 fans said the same about 4.

biggytitbo

In 10000 years time (sometime after 'the fall'), fictional accounts of WW2 will have Hitler as Chinese and all the soldiers at Normandy beach as androids. And its on Mars.

Quote from: biggytitbo on May 25, 2018, 05:21:15 PM
In 10000 years time (sometime after 'the fall'), fictional accounts of WW2 will have Hitler as Chinese and all the soldiers at Normandy beach as androids. And its on Mars.


asids

Quote from: Lemming on May 25, 2018, 03:47:39 PM
Every single dedicated gaming forum I've ever been a part of has been a nightmare cesspit packed with edgy racist/sexist kids and actual neo-nazis. Every single online multiplayer match I've ever played has had, at some point, a lecture from another player about International Jewry or some shit. The amount of times I've been called n*gger (incorrectly) and faggot (correctly) is absolutely off the chain. Every other big online gaming commentator turns out to be some kind of milkshake duck. None of this even touches on the bitter misogyny, which manages to be even more prevalent than the racism and homophobia, if such a thing were possible. The problems in the gaming community are real, and to an outsider (if there's such a thing any more, given that videogames are almost as ubiquitous and popular as movies now) it's easy to see where the generalisation comes from.

Half the problem is because none of the decent people really call out this shite when it pops up, because why would you? Then they'd just start abusing you for daring to question them, and in a online gaming community you'd cause a big stir and piss people off. It would then ruin your experience of playing the game.

The only happy solution is to play within certain communities you know will be more tolerant, e.g. specific communities for LGBT or female gamers, or to play with people you know in real life. The idea of jumping back onto a random Garry's Mod server for example and trying to integrate myself with the regular players there just isn't possible, because I *know* some of them will inevitably be cunts and you just have to play along with it.

Barry Admin

Bump. Seems like there's been a lot of developments here - it is curious that so few people engage with video game content on CaB. In brief, there's a lot of talk about presales being poor, and the game has now been pushed back, presumably so it's not continuing to directly compete with CoD BLOPS IV and RDR 2.

There's also a rumour that at some point a remastered version of Bad Company 2 will become available to people who buy the game. This would be amazing, as it was one of the most fun games in the series. I find myself pretty bored of the Battlefield model these days, and get tired or simply capping points in Capture. Even Rush has got stale. But BC2 is a game I remember very fondly for its large scale destruction and its more fun and less stupid approach to the BF franchise.
Fun

biggytitbo

I heard about the poor pre-sales, and if true, it might be down to general fatigue with the series, especially considering this is a WW2 entry less than a year after Call of Duty WW2, plus EA's reputation is still in the toilet, which probably hasn't helped?

Ferris

I'm a sucker for buying new video games, and even I have no interest in another frenetic World War 1 or 2 FPS. I just can't be doing with it. Micro transactions, baffling online play, shite story mode, the sheer cost of the bloody thing.

I'm usually a pretty good bellwether for these things: I haven't heard of this game, I don't like EA trying to gouge every penny they can out of me, and I'm fatigued with the premise. That's probably why the game is on its arse.

God I'm excited for RDR2 though. Booked time off work and everything.

Josef K

Anyone here been playing this?

I put hundreds of hours into BF1 and I can see myself doing even more with this. The gunplay feels incredible and the building mechanic adds a lot of dynamism to the battles. It's a bit light on content with only 8 maps but they're all excellent and another one drops on Dec 4.
A few people seem to be having bad experiences with bugs but I guess I've just been lucky as it feels like the most polished launch since 2.

It also runs *really* well on my ageing 2600k and 8gb Ram that I bought for BF 3

biggytitbo

The Raymond Tracing stuff in this is meant to be superb. Was he a British spy?