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Amazing political game

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Philos

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Hi,

The international (France based) software developer Ubisoft has a new shooter game coming out, in which the target for the player is to hunt down and kill American Christian Republicans!

The controversy is already around the web, unsurprisingly. An amusing feature of the game is the ability to call out characters as racist and ‘hurt their feelings’ as part of gameplay. I kid you not.

http://uproxx.com/gaming/far-cry-5-white-genocide-controversy/

http://www.gq.com/story/far-cry-5-video-game-controversy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZzobujt344

A.
 
Philos said:
Hi,

The international (France based) software developer Ubisoft has a new shooter game coming out, in which the target for the player is to hunt down and kill American Christian Republicans!

The controversy is already around the web, unsurprisingly. An amusing feature of the game is the ability to call out characters as racist and ‘hurt their feelings’ as part of gameplay. I kid you not.

http://uproxx.com/gaming/far-cry-5-white-genocide-controversy/

http://www.gq.com/story/far-cry-5-video-game-controversy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZzobujt344

A.
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I think you're being disengenious. The game is about hunting down a violent cooky far right Christian extremists cult, using terror to control a community. It's not about just killing Republicans or any Christians. This is nothing new in the series. They've had a go at African extremist Christians. The series also features space aliens. The series only features the most extreme stereotypes of "bad people". Nobody is going to get their feelings hurt by this game.

You could just as well make the case that the game is about killing those abusing religion for their own ends. Or those abusing patriotism.

The fact that Christian groups is up in arms about this doesn't have to mean anything either. They often protest games they know nothing about. This is a tradition that goes back to the dawn of computer games, or even the dawn of popular culture. Christians often feel threatened by anything that's new and unfamiliar. Christian groups protesting a game just means that "somebody I know, said to a person that I've heard of, that his cousins room-mate was pretty sure that..."
 
DrZoidberg said:
You could just as well make the case that the game is about killing those abusing religion for their own ends.
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Hi Dr Z,

My point exactly. :) Maybe you are suggesting that American Christian Republicans don't abuse religion for their own ends? :eeka:

The creator of this game was asked in interview how he knew American politics was going to dovetail with his game, given the long lead time in development. He said that he had a feeling of 'doom' after seeing a placard carrier in the street. A sense of the zeitgeist, which has always been in the US but is now reaching fever pitch, as we all know.

A.
 
Philos said:
My point exactly. :) Maybe you are suggesting that American Christian Republicans don't abuse religion for their own ends? :eeka:
Click to expand...

I'm suggesting that Americans Christian Republicans don't abuse religion in the way that the Christian extremists in the game does. I don't think anybody will feel that this game targets them specifically.

Philos said:
The creator of this game was asked in interview how he knew American politics was going to dovetail with his game, given the long lead time in development. He said that he had a feeling of 'doom' after seeing a placard carrier in the street. A sense of the zeitgeist, which has always been in the US but is now reaching fever pitch, as we all know.
Click to expand...

Producing an A-list computer game costs billions of dollars. It's a high-risk high-stakes investment. They don't take chances when that much money is on the line.

I'm willing to bet my house on that that statement is part of a marketing campaign strategy. A marketing strategy produced by some very slick talented people. Making marketing statements come across as intimate admissions, is part of the marketing trickery.

Creators behind games typically aren't allowed to speak freely about games they've produced until well after the game-cycle is over, ie in 3-5 years after release.

That's what I think

/Cynic
 
DrZoidberg said:
Nobody is going to get their feelings hurt by this game.
Click to expand...
My countrymen have gotten their feelings hurt by someone using 'niggardly' correctly in conversation.

My countrymen have gotten their feelings hurt by someone saying 'white supremacists will die before changing their mind' and interpreted it as a personal death threat.

My countrymen will not take too long or deep a look into the facts of the matter before deciding that certain trigger words mean something and reacting according to the write-up in their head, rather than the actual story.

Like 'The Last Temptation Of Christ.' Most of the things in that movie that offended the protesters in the parking lot were not even IN the movie when I got in to see it.
 
Creating video game bad guys can be tricky. That is partially why so many use zombies and nazis, as there is not much of a reason not to kill them.

The Resident Evil series set themselves up for problems when they did a setting in remote mountain village in Europe. The infected people didn't look like zombies, just crazy people, until later in the game when they started mutating. There was no outcry then, but the next game was set in Africa, so you were essentially going around killing all black people that did not have the appearance of being the 'zombies' they were.

Didn't hear much about the first Bioshock, which was set in a Libertarian dream city that went seriously wrong. A sequel was set in a 19th century flying US city that combined jingoistic worship of the founding fathers, extremist religions, and blatant racism, that I think got a bit of an outcry from the alt-right.

Back in 2006 there was the game Left Behind: Eternal Forces, which took place in the end of days. Where True Christians (tm) would fight against atheists, false christians, pagans, and the forces of Satan. Now with this one I think the criticism is justified. Far Cry is using a divergent sect in the mountains, which while resembling a number of extreme religious groups, is not specifically naming/targeting any of them. The Left Behind game makes anyone who doesn't follow their brand of Christianity an enemy.
 
I am actually surprised we haven't seen a film about a radical Christian terrorist organization in the US, modeled after Isis and using all the same talking points we see about Islamism.

"Why won't you call them what they are? Christian terrorists!"

"Not all Christians... It is just a small fringe group"

"Christianity is a religion of peace"

"It isn't the Christian religion. Its what we've done to the rednecks!"

"This group bases their view on a coherent reading of the Bible"

"You are a Christianophobe!"
 
repoman said:
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The cult leader looks more like a Brooklyn hipster.

I'm guessing that pie on the left is apple.

I must say, although apple is not among my top pies, no other country comes close the US when it comes to the wonderfulness that is desert pie. Oddly, the UK has amazing savory meat pies with great flakey crusts, but they never adapted it to fruit pies.
 
marc said:
Creating video game bad guys can be tricky. That is partially why so many use zombies and nazis, as there is not much of a reason not to kill them.

The Resident Evil series set themselves up for problems when they did a setting in remote mountain village in Europe. The infected people didn't look like zombies, just crazy people, until later in the game when they started mutating. There was no outcry then, but the next game was set in Africa, so you were essentially going around killing all black people that did not have the appearance of being the 'zombies' they were.

Didn't hear much about the first Bioshock, which was set in a Libertarian dream city that went seriously wrong. A sequel was set in a 19th century flying US city that combined jingoistic worship of the founding fathers, extremist religions, and blatant racism, that I think got a bit of an outcry from the alt-right.

Back in 2006 there was the game Left Behind: Eternal Forces, which took place in the end of days. Where True Christians (tm) would fight against atheists, false christians, pagans, and the forces of Satan. Now with this one I think the criticism is justified. Far Cry is using a divergent sect in the mountains, which while resembling a number of extreme religious groups, is not specifically naming/targeting any of them. The Left Behind game makes anyone who doesn't follow their brand of Christianity an enemy.
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Marc,

As a keen gamer I have used the 'zombie' excuse quite often. Who minds killing a zombie, when they are already dead? Nazis and nazi/zombies are also easy meat.

What worries me about the Far Cry 5 antagonists is that I might enjoy the virtual experience a little too much. As a red blooded liberal I don't even pick the wings off real butterflies but the targets in this new game do present a certain guilty frissance.

Agreed about Bioshock infinite. Heavy politics in that one and some cognitive dissonance for Booker. Loved the game though and fell head over heels for Elizabeth, even to the point of my wife getting jealous. I said "But its a cartoon character" - didn't help.

A.
 
Philos said:
ronburgundy said:
The cult leader looks more like a Brooklyn hipster.
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ron,

I protest!! We can't be going around virtually killing off Brooklyn hipsters. Where would it all end? :thinking:

A.

PS - I enjoyed the link, especially the bit about "dangerous villains" coming from a guy who looks like a social justice lawyer.:)
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That is Ramzpaul who is a White Nationalist.
 
So is the box art an intentional homage to The Last Supper or am I just seeing things?
 
So would you all support this game if it was about killing ecoterrorists, or radical #BLM activists or some other group the Left likes?
 
Derec said:
So would you all support this game if it was about killing ecoterrorists, or radical #BLM activists or some other group the Left likes?
Click to expand...

You have weird ideas of what passes as 'Support'. Or have you spent so much of your life in a drama-llama frenzy that you don't even recognize when you're using inappropriately dramatic and overly evocative language?
 
Keith&Co. said:
My countrymen have gotten their feelings hurt by someone saying 'white supremacists will die before changing their mind' and interpreted it as a personal death threat.
Click to expand...
No, that guy was not saying that, and you know it. But anything to defend black supremacist types, right?

And as to the Frogs taking aim at their impression of US politics - perhaps they should have made something more relevant to France, like one about fighting Muslim invaders and terrorists. You have to enter Muslim area in Paris or Marseilles and hunt down terrorists. They would not even have to change the art much - Islamists love beards too, but the woman would have to wear a burqa.
But in France (and most of the rest of Europe) you can be prosecuted just for saying anything against Muslims, so a game where you get to kill Muslim invaders is not possible.
Brigitte Bardot on trial for Muslim slur
Dutch politician Wilders convicted of discrimination against Moroccans
 
LordKiran said:
You have weird ideas of what passes as 'Support'. Or have you spent so much of your life in a drama-llama frenzy that you don't even recognize when you're using inappropriately dramatic and overly evocative language?
Click to expand...
Call it "support" or not, my point was about the double standard. If it was left wing radicals being hunted in the game, we would have seen a lot more "inappropriately dramatic" response. Berkeley students would have probably rioted by now!
 
I think some good could come of this game if young people playing learn to detach themselves from their dumb religion. Also. It would be cool if the terrorists said things like "liberals are just as bad," etc.
 
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