PC Do Gooders Strike Again

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

I don't know everything about them, but I play video games.

In fact, I am in the process of building a gaming PC at the moment. Would you like to know the specs?

I tend to like RPGs. 4xstrategy, RTS and I also like TPS-style games (so long as they have good story and I like the story and find it interesting and worth playing).

But if you paid attention to things here you would already know that.

And yes, I know that games go back to the '70s. I used to play off an old Intellivision and Atari system my folks had. I never got a Nintendo or similar console though.

Oh and I forgot, I also like sandbox simulation style games too.

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: Benevolent Heretic

So the free market no longer allows the Civil War in America, but we can fight Nazis and see swastikas all we want in WWII games?

The free market doesn't "allow" or "disallow" anything, really. It just operates. The free market is simply private businesses competing with each other by serving the consumer with the products they want. If people don't want a game with swastikas, they are free to let the businesses know their opinions and those who DO want a game with swastikas are also free to communicate their opinions as well. Based on their best interests (money, usually), the companies will decide whether or not to sell games with swastikas.

My position is that if people don't want a game with swastikas, they don't have to buy it (just like abortion or gay marriage... don't want it, don't do it.) But there was a very good post earlier in the thread (by BrianFlanders) outlining why some people don't even want these games on the market, for the betterment of society. And since the free market is based on businesses giving the consumer what they want, that might mean NOT selling a particular product, in the hopes of increasing their consumer base with their other products. www.abovetopsecret.com...

Keep in mind - this isn't the government saying these symbols aren't allowed in video games. It's the businesses responding to consumer demand.

a reply to: Benevolent Heretic

No, I understand, but in this case, the free market wasn't deciding.

When the free market truly decides, it is about supply and demand. If there is no demand for a product, then there is no reason to have a supply. In this case, we don't know what the demand for Civil War apps was because Apple just decided they were no longer going to supply them, not out of lack of demand, but out of a fear of being seen as racist for having games with a politically incorrect flag on them.

Of course, Apple isn't under any obligation to sell anything, but to call it a free market forced decision is a misnomer.

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

And were those questions?

Do they relate to this thread?

I'm not sure why you are so upset that I talk about video games.

a reply to: ketsuko

I already said they were in a different thread.

But, that's fine.

originally posted by: crazyewok
a reply to: Chadwickus

Right now im playing a game that lets me lead a band of vikings round Britain looting, killing and sacking churchs.

As a English Christian should I be offended? Cause im haveing too much fun

The migrants are doing it for real in Sweden ,Norway ,Denmark why play games when you can do it for real

originally posted by: ketsuko
No, I understand, but in this case, the free market wasn't deciding.

The businesses decide.

When the free market truly decides, it is about supply and demand. If there is no demand for a product, then there is no reason to have a supply. In this case, we don't know what the demand for Civil War apps was because Apple just decided they were no longer going to supply them, not out of lack of demand, but out of a fear of being seen as racist for having games with a politically incorrect flag on them.

It's not all about the demand of a product. I already addressed this:

Since the free market is based on businesses giving the consumer what they want, that might mean NOT selling a particular product, in the hopes of increasing their consumer base with their other products.

Bottom line, the business is going to do what makes them the most profitable, even if that means not selling something, even if there is a small demand. If that means scrapping all their confederate flags, that's what they'll do. It's THEIR decision. Not the free market's.

Of course, Apple isn't under any obligation to sell anything, but to call it a free market forced decision is a misnomer.

If you believe the free market is based ONLY on supply and demand of product, Then we have a slightly different understanding of how the free market operates. There's a lot more to it than supply and demand. For example, a business might bring a better profit if they have practices that are considered "environmentally friendly", so they're really selling you their business, in addition to their product, so you'll get your stuff from them instead of going to their competitors, whose practices aren't so "green". Free market at work.

I gotta go. Maybe we can continue later.

a reply to: Benevolent Heretic

What you aren't getting is that you aren't separating the market from the business. Apple made a business decision that wasn't market based. Did they watch to see what other Civil War games were doing in the market or did they just yank their games to look avoid looking racist and to fit in with the zeitgeist?

This is how it works: When we are talking politics, a politician says something the zeitgeist doesn't like and they jump all over him to tell us how horrible it was and how he will sink in the pols and not get re-elected. Generally, without standing strong, the politician walks back his remarks and apologizes before the effects are even known.

Trump has stood this paradigm on its head by not caring what the zeitgeist says and owning his remarks or doubling down. In every case, the zeitgeist says he's finished, but he comes out stronger than ever.

Which will a company be? Because Apple bowed to the zeitgeist, we'll never know. However, I did not note a movement to ban the Civil War because it was racist.

nothing should ever be suppressed because people are offended by it. were supposed to be living in a world where that kind of stuff doesnt happen.

originally posted by: AVoiceOfReason
nothing should ever be suppressed because people are offended by it. were supposed to be living in a world where that kind of stuff doesnt happen.

It used to be that this kind of thing was something that unless it was specifically implicit that you were supposed to go around murdering Aborigines (or other ethnic groups) or other similarly blatant things, if you felt offended by it, you simply didn't play the game.

I don't like Grand Theft Auto. I find the premise abhorrent. I don't like the idea of all the things they encourage a player to do, but instead of going on crusades to get the game banned or withdrawn from the market, I simply don't buy it.

Too many people these days think that if something upsets them, they have a right to get it forever banned from the world even if they never intend to do more than happen to glance in the general direction of a store window or scrolling app section where they might see it as if they cannot bear the very idea that such things exist. It's ridiculous.

a reply to: Benevolent Heretic

Yea its really sad that when people yell loud enough people tend get what they want. The civil war game was put back online because they realized the people so offended were actually just complete ignorant loud mouthed fools.

If you think the public should dictate whats on the market you have way too much faith in humans.

I'm glad Steam barely ever listens to the masses about which games some people find offensive. the game Hatred being a great example. bad game with a horrible premise but still I'm free to buy it

The public shouldn't tell me what offensive or what not offensive I already have one mother.

I don't see the difference in what you re killing....nationality...colour...gender...

Isn't the issue more with games about killing, rather than the colour and history of what you are killing?

what I am surmising from the responses in this thread is that it's okay to kill white people in games...but not brown ones...

That's kind of screwed up thinking to me.

a reply to: selfharmonise

Oh, but it gets even more convoluted than that. In a game like Grand Theft Auto, you have the usual mix of ethnicities you would expect to be involved in what is essentially the thug life. I haven't heard anyone fire off about how those games are racist in any way despite the level of violence.

However, a popular zombie horror game once made the decision to set one of their installments in Africa and the PC brigade got horribly upset because the zombies were ... wait for it ... black. Well, uh, what color would they be if the game is set in Africa this time around? But that was racist, so the company had to change the ethnicity of the zombies or something ... It was several years ago, so I forget exactly how they resolved that.

originally posted by: GOrwell
a reply to: Chadwickus

In case you guys haven't noticed, white people are pretty evil. They are xenophobic and racist and mean to women. We can't have video games where whites can choose to be mean, this could give them ideas and they will hurt more people. I mean c'mon, they are already oppressing everyone on the Planet.

And those from the Levant are not?

Yeah sure, don't ban the game, put personally I find these types of games abhorrent, so you surely won't catch me buying them.

Maybe they could put out a game called Kill the Kiddos that is a virtual Sandy Hook Elementary - BANG BANG!

originally posted by: kaylaluv
Yeah sure, don't ban the game, put personally I find these types of games abhorrent, so you surely won't catch me buying them.

Maybe they could put out a game called Kill the Kiddos that is a virtual Sandy Hook Elementary - BANG BANG!

And that's your choice.

But you are drawing a false equivalence. If you read the description, the game in question is an open world sandbox survival game. It gives you the free choice to interact with everything in your environment in either positive or negative ways. You can work with the natives in the game as easily as you can work against them.

So if the natives in the game wind up getting massacred, it is because the player chooses to do it.

It would be different if the game was something where the whole object was to go out and massacre every single native you see, but that is not the case.

And there are plenty of these games on the market that give you the same choice - interact with any other player or NPC in positive or negative ways that no one cares about and wants to ban. Apparently, this one is only special because it had a specific setting and the NPCs therefore have a defined ethnicity. So the ones calling for its banning are being intellectually inconsistent if they aren't calling for the ban of every other similar game.

And the beauty of the market is that no one is forcing you to buy any of them, so don't.

a reply to: ketsuko

I'm not calling for the banning of any game - just expressing my personal disgust for them.

In my Kill the Kiddos game, you could either be a teacher who tries to keep as many kids from getting shot as possible - say, as many kids as you can get out of the school without Adam getting to them first, or you could be a LEO who goes into the school and tries to find Adam. Of course once a LEO gets in the same room as Adam, game's over, because the Adam character will automatically put a gun to his head. So ya, you could be one of the good guys, or you could be the bad guy. Same principle - still disgusting to me.

originally posted by: kaylaluv
a reply to: ketsuko

I'm not calling for the banning of any game - just expressing my personal disgust for them.

In my Kill the Kiddos game, you could either be a teacher who tries to keep as many kids from getting shot as possible - say, as many kids as you can get out of the school without Adam getting to them first, or you could be a LEO who goes into the school and tries to find Adam. Of course once a LEO gets in the same room as Adam, game's over, because the Adam character will automatically put a gun to his head. So ya, you could be one of the good guys, or you could be the bad guy. Same principle - still disgusting to me.

Yawn, you're stretching really hard.

You should have just dug up Hatred. It's what you're looking for and then you wouldn't have made a false equivalence that you would have had to try to defend.

Look, the simple answer here is just to not buy what you find disgusting. It's what I do.