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Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and the Unfortunate Implications

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Re: Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and the Unfortunate Implications

#91

Post by Shmebulock »

himinlomax wrote: post #55
Shmebulock wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most people that waste their lives with video games and "make you feel good" fantasies of this kind don't care about historical accuracy; it's not about understanding reality but about feeling good and "engaged". That's what sells. And yeah, the makers of samurai games definitely consider the marketability of their games with regards to races portrayed. Consider the samurai game "Nioh" which takes place in fe…

The question is not whether someone did in fact include black samurais, but whether not doing so would negatively impact the market for the game. > "make you feel good" fantasies of this kind don't care about historical accuracy; Similarly irrelevant.

The example I provided shows that people with actual skin in the game think that it impacts the market which to me is one of the best indicators that it actually does.

The impression that I have of people that play such games makes it seem plausible to me.

What would be a comment to your question that you wouldn't consider irrelevant? Should I conduct an experiment and let it be peer reviewed?

Re: Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and the Unfortunate Implications

#92

Post by enkid »

quietbritishjim wrote: post #6

> > Inspired by historical events and characters, this work of fiction was designed, developed, and produced by a multicultural team of various beliefs, sexual orientations and gender identities. > This statement is making ... implicit [claims] (our diverse team means this game was produced in a careful, sensitive way) Ah, I think that's a misunderstanding of why the statement is there. It's not to claim that the gam…

Having someone with an ethnicity present while making something offensive isn't a great defense for the offensive thing.

Re: Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and the Unfortunate Implications

#93

Post by TremendousJudge »

mam2 wrote: post #44
xalava wrote: post #38

The most relevant point of this article is not about historical accuracy, but on the contradiction of claiming cultural sensitivity by including gender and origin diversity while totally missing the point on deeper issues. I've grown up in a period when pop culture didn't care much about cultural sensitivity. With proper education anyone can compensate and treat them as pure simplistic fiction, but I do think that th…

> I've grown up in a period when pop culture didn't care much about cultural sensitivity. Same, and as unpopular it may be, i firmly believe it's kind of better to not care. Because the opposite is precisely what happens here, which is caring only about a specific set of 'aspects' that are currently fashionable in the society, while failing to cover for the large majority of inequalities that are not "visible". It's…

Quoting the article:

>Does all of that matter? Yes, I think it does. As I have argued here many times, fiction is often how the public conceptualizes the past and that concept of the past shapes the decisions we make in the present. Is one video game going to lead to a return to colonialist thinking? Of course not. But a culture in which such sanitized narratives are common is a culture far more willing to make those decisions; these stories matter in the aggregate. And so it is incumbent on designers and developers to construct their stories and their worlds with care, especially when they are set in the very real past.

Re: Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and the Unfortunate Implications

#94

Post by Strom »

shusson wrote: post #70

> I think the problem can be neatly summed up in just one thing about the game: the game will ‘desyncronize’ you (meaning produce a game over) if your character kills civilians While I agree this broke immersion completely for me, I don't think you want 10 year olds killing civilians.

The game is rated M for mature / PEGI-18. It's not meant to be played by 10 year olds.

Re: Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and the Unfortunate Implications

#95

Post by klmadfejno »

I have no interest in these games, nor do I expect them to have any historical merit. My only observation is that the hard points of this article appear to be that the game aggressively asserts cultural superiority of the Norse over the evil, or, much worse, weak willed Christians who appreciate being shown non-Christian views; as well as as vaguely racist depictions of weak Saxony. Whatever your views on Christian (or Saxons?) this feels like a bad take. They want to make a story about how Vikings were unilaterally the good guys rather than a group of nomads who like all other humans wanted to take prosperity and geopolitical power, but only had a bunch of weapons, boats, and muscles (no need to prove me wrong on many technicalities here).

Yet contrarians here seem to anchor on the inclusion of other races and women as the "bad pc" to be debated.

Re: Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and the Unfortunate Implications

#96

Post by goatinaboat »

torginus wrote: post #37

Vikings invade England, pillage and massacre the English, yet they are still seen as the good guys. I wonder if the people who made this game have some historical resentment towards the English.

Vikings invade England, pillage and massacre the English, yet they are still seen as the good guys.

It's curious that what is now Britain has been invaded and its people enslaved many times over the centuries but no modern day British person harbours any resentment for it towards present day Italians, Scandinavians, French, Moroccans...

Re: Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and the Unfortunate Implications

#97

Post by konjin »

boudewijnrempt wrote: post #18
raxxorrax wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with this conclusion because it disregards agency of players. I see more similarities to warnings about the dangers of books in contrast to how it might display historic events too critically or too uncritically. One mistake might be that we try to patronize people too much and that enlightenment might favor a relaxed approach. I am sure if historic depictions nurture interest in an era, people would searc…

As a player you cannot do _anything whatsoever_ to change the setting and rules of the game: you cannot be nicer or less nice to the indigenous people, you have to loot and destroy their religious centers, you have endure having their religion mocked by your compatriots, you cannot convert to the local religion... You have to play a Aryan colonial invader who disdains the local culture and religion because your own c…

The Norse are not Aryans. The Aryans were nomadic horse tribes who lived some 3000 years before the game started and were closer to the Mongols than anyone of recent memory.

Re: Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and the Unfortunate Implications

#98

Post by tdsamardzhiev »

You're supposed to see the world through the memories of a 9th century Viking (who also happens to be a great figure of the Nordic mythology), of course the invasion of England will be portrayed in a positive light and Anglo-Saxons would be seen as inferior people. It's a Triple-A game featuring gods, diverse Vikings, and a dude with an axe in his head; if one takes it as a reputable historical source, I say the problem is them, not the game (although IMHO there's many things wrong with the game in general).

Anyway, perhaps it's a fair point to make if your blog is called "A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry"...

Re: Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and the Unfortunate Implications

#99

Post by enkid »

seer wrote: post #84

I think what people are missing is that this is a work of fiction. Any work of fiction is entitled to do whatever it wants really. So what if it white washes stuff for the masses, maybe thats a good thing. If people experience the past only as a fictional place where people are gentle and sensitive, if there is wide acknowledgment of race and gender, in the way that we actually want from our society today, isn’t that…

This is dangerous stuff. What if there was an Assassin's Creed that showed slavery in a positive light? Or the glory of killing Rightists in China in the 50s? Or Turks killing Armenians in 1918? People might look into it, but a lot of people are going to take it at face value and even if they do look it up, there initial exposure is going to color their expectations.

Re: Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and the Unfortunate Implications

#100

Post by MatekCopatek »

himinlomax wrote: post #21
MatekCopatek wrote: post #11

Lovely article. The conflict between making a videogame (or any bit of popculture really) enjoyable and inclusive vs. historically accurate often comes up and both sides have a fair point. My personal solution is to both enjoy the content and then try to educate myself through articles like this one.

Why do they need to be inclusive? Do samurai games need to include red-haired Celts and curly-haired Bantus, you know, for diversity? What's the point of this? Lying about history to make some people feel better?

No, not at all, IMHO it's purely about empathizing with the character, feeling more immersed and consequently improving your overall experience of the game. For some people, it's about how well the character is written, for some it's about being able to affect moral decisions, for some it's about deciding how they look and sound.

I think playing the historical accuracy card here is pointless as games (and popculture in general) always sacrifice accurracy to increase fun - no point in getting upset over this one specific thing.

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