Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and the Unfortunate Implications • Hacker News Board

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

#161

Post by throwaway0a5e » Fri, Nov 20, 2020, 2:33 PM UTC

chungus_khan wrote: post #141

Fnoord wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've grown up in a period when pop culture didn't care much about cultural sensitivity. I wonder when that was, cause pop culture has always cared about that in one way or another. I believe you are projecting. > 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…

> I wonder when that was, cause pop culture has always cared about that in one way or another. I believe you are projecting. I see people pining for this forgotten past time a lot, and it makes me realize that none of them remember or think the same way of things like the satanic panic, moral majority, etc, let alone remember the times when people got offended over the mere suggestion of an interracial couple or a wo…

I think that the complaint is that the goalposts have moved when they should have expanded (isn't creating a broader range of what's acceptable the point of "diversity" and similar goals?).

In those days you couldn't have (on your professionally produced, mainstream, mass market TV show) a woman who didn't want to be a housewife as a main character on your show unless that was portrayed negatively or being used for comedy. These days you can't have a woman who wants to be a housewife as a main character on your show unless that's being portrayed negatively or being poked fun at.

Por qué no los todos?

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

#162

Post by throwaway894345 » Fri, Nov 20, 2020, 2:35 PM UTC

julianmarq wrote: post #155

WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #121

> > 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) For everyone who isn't aware of the history of this statement, it was a way for the game to include…

I fail to see how that in any way justifies the decision. Seems like the implication is that christians (specifically catholics) should just be okay with having their religion insulted if the decision was made by someone of a different cultural background. If anything, that just makes it more offensive instead of less, IMO.

I think the idea was that the team had Christians and they were okay with the depiction (or perhaps didn’t feel safe objecting), not that the decision was expressly made by non-Christians.

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

#163

Post by throwaway894345 » Fri, Nov 20, 2020, 2:38 PM UTC

narrator wrote: post #76

sergj wrote: post #3

This is the problem with historic games. Either you acknowledge the bad and good things, or you white wash the past. As the author notes at the end: „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.“

"Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present, controls the past… The mutability of the past is the central tenet of Ingsoc. Past events, it is argued, have no objective existence, but survive only in written records and in human memories. The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon. And since the Party is in full control of all records, and in equally full control of the mind…

It has been often observed that 1984 was a cautionary tale, but some have mistaken it for a playbook.

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

#164

Post by phy6 » Fri, Nov 20, 2020, 2:41 PM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #49

Ialdaboth wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's Ubisoft's fault, really - in 2020, you just can't produce a game where migrating people are presented as the bad guys who kill, rape and loot the locals indiscriminately. I'm more frustrated by the lack of diverse body types... there is no way malnutrition, lack of modern-day medicine and violence can produce as many healthy bodies as what we see in Ubisoft titles.

Unfortunately in 2020 it looks like even acknowladging the existance of things like slavery is somehow equated with approval of those things. There was a case where someone got upset(on twitter, of course) that there is a character in Valhalla who is described as "disfigured" - apparently that's ableism. So Ubisoft apologized, don't know if that description got changed or not in the end, but even if such small things…

Just make sure the slaves are Slavs, that's probably the only way to include it in the game.

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

#165

Post by ceilingcorner » Fri, Nov 20, 2020, 2:42 PM UTC

galangalalgol wrote: post #149

ceilingcorner wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then don’t take your ethical values from video games? This Puritanization of all art and entertainment is disturbing.

I think the precise criticism is that it was already puritanized. I don't think the argument was thay they set out to make mysogynist nazi propaganda, but that the cliche reorganizing machine that is a AAA gamehouse looked around at society, gears whirled, and the resulting thing that would sell the best that came flying out was a combination of white supremacist mythology, mockery of christianity, and the devaluatio…

If you are judging a piece of artwork by how much it conforms to your moral code, you’ve already lost. That isn’t what art is or should be about.

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

#166

Post by chungus_khan » Fri, Nov 20, 2020, 2:46 PM UTC

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #161

chungus_khan wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder when that was, cause pop culture has always cared about that in one way or another. I believe you are projecting. I see people pining for this forgotten past time a lot, and it makes me realize that none of them remember or think the same way of things like the satanic panic, moral majority, etc, let alone remember the times when people got offended over the mere suggestion of an interracial couple or a wo…

I think that the complaint is that the goalposts have moved when they should have expanded (isn't creating a broader range of what's acceptable the point of "diversity" and similar goals?). In those days you couldn't have (on your professionally produced, mainstream, mass market TV show) a woman who didn't want to be a housewife as a main character on your show unless that was portrayed negatively or being used for c…

> These days you can't have a woman who wants to be a housewife on your show unless that's being portrayed negatively or being poked fun at.

Is that really true though? If you mean that you can't have a houswife as a character on your show that very obviously isn't true. If you mean you can't make a show where a character aspires to be a housewife, I'm not sure I understand what the narrative purpose of such a story would be. Becoming a housewife isn't really an aspirational achievement in the way having a prestigious career is, and I don't think it's a story many are really interested in, nor one that would be easy to tell in a manner that doesn't seem forced. There is certainly a lot of media (both in the past and today) where a woman aspires to romance or marry someone, and domestic fantasy is a common element in those, but that isn't really specific to becoming a housewife, and the romance is the key aspiration in those.

It also doesn't help that maintaining a family on a single income is not economically viable for most people anymore. People want stories that relate to their own fantasies.

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

#167

Post by quietbritishjim » Fri, Nov 20, 2020, 2:49 PM UTC

enkid wrote: post #92

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.

I absolutely agree with that! I was just presenting what I presume was the company's defense.

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

#168

Post by throwaway894345 » Fri, Nov 20, 2020, 2:52 PM UTC

imdsm wrote: post #39

boudewijnrempt wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Surely people are aware of this before they buy a game? And I mean, at the end of the day, it's a video game. There are also video games about killing aliens, killing other players, killing monsters, capturing animals and making them fight other animals, and more. You could likely pick any game created and find someone that it upsets. Nobody plays a game and suddenly becomes the character in the game, no more than an…

It sounds like this game is vilifying one religious/cultural group as a whole while glorifying another. I’m not familiar with many games that do this (at least not for real/nonfictional, extant groups at any rate). Some might argue that this is the same things as having Muslim terrorist villains, but the distinction is that these games don’t vilify Muslims in general but rather terrorists.

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

#169

Post by bhaak » Fri, Nov 20, 2020, 2:53 PM UTC

friendlybus wrote: post #63

A slave raiding realistically violent viking game would be R18+ easily and lose most of its paying audience. There was a resurgence of neo-nazis a few years ago, all of this is trapped in a cultural time bubble, along with the concern?

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is already rated PEGI 18.

The ESRB rating is "Mature". There are hardly any games besides pornographic games that get "Adults Only". Even the Witcher 3 is only "Mature".

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

#170

Post by julianmarq » Fri, Nov 20, 2020, 2:55 PM UTC

throwaway894345 wrote: post #162

julianmarq wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fail to see how that in any way justifies the decision. Seems like the implication is that christians (specifically catholics) should just be okay with having their religion insulted if the decision was made by someone of a different cultural background. If anything, that just makes it more offensive instead of less, IMO.

I think the idea was that the team had Christians and they were okay with the depiction (or perhaps didn’t feel safe objecting), not that the decision was expressly made by non-Christians.

Again, that doesn't justify it, in fact, if your interpretation is correct, it no longer even explains it. The implication still remains that "hey, we're insulting your religion, but there are people of multiple backgrounds here so it should be okay"... which really doesn't follow at all.

And I didn't say that the decision was expressly made by non-christians.