Video game Twitter: the world’s worst takes

Rob, , , ,

We all know that social media is slowly smoothing our brains. On Twitter you’ll find discourse about literally any subject, and you’re guaranteed to come across contrarians who live to argue purely for the sake of it. But when it comes to Gamer Twitter™, that discourse reaches a whole new level of crazy – it’s everywhere. The only way to tolerate it is to just laugh. I wish it was all just bait, but some are willing to die on their ridiculous hills…

If you’re even remotely interested in the gaming world then you probably know about the Activision/Blizzard sexual harassment scandal – a frat boy culture which became so toxic that one woman ultimately took her life as a result of the abuse she endured. As a regular player of Overwatch and Call of Duty, I understand the sentiment of feeling conflicted playing a game that you enjoy while knowing that the developers have serious workplace issues. But not knowing a victim so ‘therefore I don’t care’ is exactly how this kind of problem is perpetuated, and while boycotting their releases may work to some extent (and only with a properly organised effort), learning about the depths of the problem and pushing the right people to fix it is the best way to overcome it.

but tbf this guy did preorder their games pre-scandal so therefore it’s fine

Ahh, a recent classic – the Yassification of Aloy. After the release of Horizon Forbidden West‘s first-look trailer, the dudes who miss the days of rampant female objectification in games took to the timeline to vent their anger over the fact that in HFW, Aloy was designed as… a normal woman. Which led to this absolute masterpiece of a tweet. This dude’s ‘2 cents’ is effectively saying that a woman living in a post-apocalyptic world fighting for survival against a race of machines should look as if she just stepped out of the Met Gala because… hot? The best (and only good) things that came out of this were the endless parodies which showed just how idiotic a take it was.

This one really needs no explanation lmao

https://twitter.com/9_volt_/status/1289548650473861121?s=20
This one does need a bit of backstory. Abby Anderson, the deuteragonist of The Last of Us Part II, is built like a brick shithouse, and (as above with Aloy) this proved too much for the Male Gaze. Countless people resorted to pure hatred over her inclusion, but others took things to a more investigative degree – they literally combed through every asset in the game, attempting to find ‘evidence’ proving that Abby’s physique was illogical in TLOU 2’s world. And clearly this single clipboard was enough to convince them that muscly women can’t ever exist! The only thing it truly proves is that this guy needs to touch some grass.

https://twitter.com/RedMakuzawa/status/1447207409370353664?s=20
Kotaku have gained a bit of a reputation in the last few years for their shitty takes, and this is just one of the more recent ones. Metroid Dread took a LOT of time and effort to finally make it to the shelves, and within days Kotaku decided to promote emulating it. Emulating in itself isn’t immoral – Nintendo’s poor approach to video game preservation means that it’s effectively the only option to play older games. But for a major video game journalist to promote pirating and emulating a BRAND NEW game, potentially threatening its sales and even the future of the series, is dangerously stupid. Then again, Kotaku does just rewrite reddit posts and upload them as articles, so you just probably just always swerve them.

When did we reach a point where it was expected to remake every single asset for the next game in a series? God of War Ragnarök is a direct follow-on from 2018’s God of War, and so it makes sense that for a game which is a similar format to its predecessor, animations and assets might be reused so that it’s not a huge development effort (like for the 2018 game). Especially when it’s something as insignificant as the boat animations. Anyone who actually watched the full trailer can plainly see the improvement on GoW2018. I’m expecting the comments to say ‘They even reused the voice actors… disappointing.’

https://twitter.com/badvgtakes/status/1400611800278732800?s=20
That’s just bait. I’m out.

(Thumbnail: u/Outspokenbeef15 on Reddit)

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