This was a really interesting video on how modern wargaming is used by the military and its links to the recreational scene, I just got done watching it yesterday. I think Quinns, in typical fashion, seems to try to moralize a bit much, especially with his pointed questions, but then does a good job of coming back around to show the other point of view, though I think the overall view he had seemed negative. He tried to present both sides at least.
He did recognize the need for militaries in general, but then seemed to equate any use of wargaming as resulting in deaths, which was automatically bad. I think some of the wargame professionals made pretty good cases for why it was justified and how “wargaming” is a bit of a misnomer, it’s more a way of contingency planning and working through possible scenarios you might encounter, so wargaming just helps prepare for different scenarios by showing the range of actions that players/actors might take in a given situation. They’re mapping out probabilities using human psychology, along with boardgame and videogame mechanics.
I think the ending portion where he called on gamers to “do something” about making wargaming ethical was kind of whatever. As if the gaming community was any sort of unified bloc that could even do anything about it. Something like that would probably require like a wargamer’s guild or union that added some sort of restraints on the kinds of projects they would work on (only scenarios that minimize casualties) or something like that, but that sort of defeats the purpose of trying to map out probabilities, since you’d purposely censor certain probabilities from your line of thinking. I think wargamers will just continue to do whatever they’re doing.
Yeah, it feels like the entire time he’s really trying to link these games to actual deaths during war that seems pretty tenuous, largely due to his own “ick” factor that “his thing” is being used by the military.
The section in the middle where he essentially asks all his interviewees basically “have you killed anyone” is pretty awkward. Like, of course these people don’t really want to talk about that. Nobody wants to go around thinking they’re directly responsible for preventable deaths. It’s like he wants someone to just say “Am i the baddie?” like that Mitchel and Webb sketch.
It also completely glosses over the way that “play” is often just training for something more violent. Tag is a fun game until someone brings a knife. But there’s a world of difference between “you sunk my battleship” and the Bismarck. It’s like he’s somehow taken the stance that video games cause violence in the most roundabout way possible.
It’s a shame because the video is good but it could be so much more interesting diving into examples about how these games actually work and are used instead of hemming and hawing the whole time over his imagined Cluedo to murder piperine.
I’ve had no excitement for this game since Ubisoft is such a disappointment of mediocrity. I grew bitter to them back when they announced the controversial shutting down of their legacy activation servers: this would prevent gamers from passing the online checks to play their games. Suddenly, despite me possessing a physical disc of Splinter Cell Blacklist on Wii U, I learned I would lose access to the DLC I paid for and “owned”. Certain missions would also become unplayable since you need online co-op. Ubisoft backpedaled after significant backlash from gamers, but since then I hesitate whenever I see them attached to any project.
I miss old Ubisoft. I’m playing Beyond Good & Evil 2003 on my GameCube for the first time, and this game is spectacular! Wish Ubisoft didn’t become evil, but it was inevitable.
I don’t trust any corporation. However, Valve has treated customers with respect and doesn’t try to bend us over. For that, I’ll keep buying from them.
However, I fear for the day Gabe Newell is no longer running the show.
I like the art style, I’ll have to see about the leaders.
Gwendolyn Christie is a really good choice for the narrator.
I don’t like the sound of there only being three ages, but maybe there’s more to it.
Also not sure about switching civs mid-game, but being able to do things like a French Cleopatra might be fun.
Are they going to restrict this to avoid potentially offensive combos, especially in multiplayer? I’m thinking of things like using real-world colonizers for leaders of places they occupied (like an English ruler in charge of India and stuff like that.) At the very least it seems like they’re inviting trouble unnecessarily.
The prices are completely bonkers, nearly $170 CAD for the Founders Edition! This is gonna be the first Civ game in a long time that I don’t pick up on launch day.
From what I’ve heard, the ages are going to be much longer and more game-changing that Civ 6 eras. Like age of exploration unlocking new parts of the world and new era appropriate civs to play with.
I'm a bit torn. On one hand it seems like a step back from the Civ 6 cartoon garbage. On the other hand the ground textures still look like blurry paint vomit. It's kinda weird because the foliage and mountains / rocks seem to be in a higher resolution and much more detailed. I guess it might be WIP and a remnant from Civ 6.
The unit sizes also seem gargantuan? I guess that part would not be as hard to fix via mods but that was already a compatibility nightmare before, especially when the mod authors quit.
So, graphically it might be a buyable Civ game again, but...
Picking a new civ or mismatching leaders makes me worry though, because that sounds awfully familiar to another game that had a similar terrible feature. The Aztecs turning into France while being led by some Japanese dude just does not feel right.
The FOMO unlocks to bait you into signing up AND buying the cartoon shit are a hard pass for me though. Selling that as a "thank you" is nothing but insolent.
Are you seriously claiming Civ 6 does not have a cartoon art style..?
And no, Civ V had a much better unit scale & diversity, especially with certain mods.
From what I saw of the gameplay is that civilizations are sorta locked on a path, but you get a choice of similar civilisations. Unless you play in the style of a different civ and unlock certain milestones you could unlock other paths. At least from what I understand.
No, you got it backwards. I don't play obnoxious eye cancer games that cause me migraines and look ridiculous. When you go from Civ V with diversified & smaller units that shows basically big armies, to some World of Warcraft-esque eye bleeding mobile game like art style that shows units as a single big cartoon unit, then that's just not what I want from a game like this.
Looks like more doom which is all right in my book. Now If they can keep out the always online and live service bullshit out of this one and focus on single player it might turn out to be yet another good doom game. Not sure about the dragon and mecha though, I would rather not have any vehicles, mounts and anything like that in Doom games.
I’m privvy to some of the details from this on the EA side of things, and everything in this video is accurate, from what I know.
It was quite a bit of work for EA to strip FIFA out of everything, though. All the UX elements, of course, but they also wanted to be sure to strip FIFA from database names and entries, servers, and a whole host of other places. EA wanted to be 100% confident that there was no mention of FIFA anywhere, just to be completely in the clear from any trademark disputes.
Hearing my connection in EA talk about it reminded me of Y2K patching, lol. Going through the codebase and databases meticulously to check and double check everything.
Across the globe, companies can simply say you DO NOT own your games as long as they have a EULA, and it even gives them the power to destroy your ability to play a game!
Ross Scott (of Freeman’s Mind and Game Dungeon fame) has done the leg-work of researching how much power these companies have in various countries, and what he found was that, as a gamer, you effectively have the same amount of rights as a squirrel.
The only way to stop this practice would take millions of dollars to fight it legally in court, and uh… I don’t really see any millionaire gamers willing to take up that cause. So, in any realistic sense, the corps have won here. There’s nothing we can realistically do, short of boycotting.
BUT, that doesn’t count for the EU, Scandinavian countries, Canada, UK, or Australia. Unlike the US, they actually have functional consumer protection laws, and ways for consumers to fight back against corporate overreach without needing to have a few million in the bank.
If you live in any of those countries, we could use your help! It would help even further if you’ve purchased and own The Crew at any point in time, but you can help even if you haven’t!
If you live anywhere else, you can STILL help by helping sign a French consumer petition, which has real weight to do something, it isn’t like one of those pointless change(dot)org ones! But to participate, you must have owned the game.
You’re on the front lines of consumer protection for gamers across the globe! Your actions (if we’re ultimately successful) would likely have ramifications even in the US and Canada!
How can you help? If you can’t watch the video, here’s the website with an FAQ on what you can do to help: StopKillingGames.com
This is likely going to be the biggest push for consumer protection for gamers there has ever been, so… Like, it’s kind’ve a big deal. Let’s make this count, guys.
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