Regardless of what I think of their work, I try not to criticize other outlets, insult other journalists or anything tacky like that. After all, we're all on the same side here, everyone's fallible and I certainly don't claim to be Captain Queen Awesome or anything, to say the least.
But when IGN does something like this, I can't help it. What the fuck were you guys thinking? Do you really think so little of your audience? Worse, do you really think so little of the industry?
I don't care if people look down on me when I don't do well or if I sell myself short. I make plenty of mistakes and I can give you a laundry list of things I feel I should be doing better. But if people look down on my work and my field and my industry and the things I believe in because you do this kind of crap, then that's another issue.
Lots of us really, really care about treating games and gamers with respect, and it's like you just spit in our face. Are you really as stupid as this makes you look, or do you just totally not give a shit? Are you that desperate for traffic, or were you just angling to set up a new "horrors of GTA" story for your Fox parent? I completely cannot understand this.
And since I'm already on the soapbox, hey, what the hell: you guys should maybe write a little better, too. Like I said, I usually don't see it as my place to insult my peers, but the bad PR stuff like this gives game journalism is an insult to all of us.
Props to Totilo for actually asking them the all-important WTF, with much more polite composure than I.
[UPDATE: A friend has pointed out to me that IGN's "citizenmike" has a rather flippantly defensive response, including the statement: "It is exactly that kind of subversive, amoral behavior that GTA has been designed to celebrate." Really? I don't find the tone of the series celebratory, and if I had to guess, I'd say it's a statement of shock at the excesses of America. But given that the Housers so rarely discuss it (wonder why?) how on earth would you know?]
38 comments:
Wow. That was astonishing.
It reminds me of a professor I had who bemoaned people always using the first two lines of Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" poem out of context of the entire poem.
While this can be argued for any trailer or movie made of a video game, this one just screams at taking one portion of the game, that seems optional (I've only briefly watched GTA being played, not interested in the franchise myself, but not harboring anything negative for it either), and making it a pundit for politicians and lobbyist groups to use as how the video game industry is depraved.
I am actually friends with sex workers, and while I condone freedom of expression and don't mind that this can happen in the game, the video is tasteless.
It's like IGN said to themselves, "GTA4 isn't getting as much controversy as we expected. Let's make some!"
I think because of Manhunt 2 I was expecting GTA4 to have a much harsher spotlight shined on it. So far at least, that doesn't seem to be happening. I'm hoping this video doesn't lead to it. It's a large entertainment release that's getting lots of coverage in the mainstream, but the hysteria so far has been minimal. Hopefully it stays that way.
Stay classy, IGN...
I agree that IGN is pretty much awful - I don't even remember the last time I visited the site - and the video was absolutely in poor taste. I'm sure somebody thought it would bring in lots of web traffic. Having said that, making games look good for Fox parents is not a journalist's job. If we're going to use that as a benchmark for gaming journos, we're in trouble. If it's in-game content, it should be fair game for analysis and discussion by the press. Games writing has a hard enough time with legitimacy - let's save the image management for the PR department.
I don't think she's suggesting that it's game journalists' job to make games look good for the Fox-watching public, just that game journalists maybe shouldn't be handing Fox a smoking gun on a silver platter.
Okay, devil's advocate (and GTA fan) here. Yes, it's probably unwise for IGN to stitch together all the particularly naughty and nasty content in the game in a convenient package for critics to digest. But then, this IS all straight from the game. The Mass Effect sex-video controversy was one thing; in that case it was a particular scene out of a 20-hour story arc which, taken out of context and fluffed by a lazy news media, made the game look like an orgy factory. In GTA4's case, though, is there really that much context missing from IGN's excerpts?
"Ladies of Liberty City" presents the game as resolutely adult-oriented and amoral. You're allowed to do pretty vile things in the game, and when I get around to playing this game, I probably will. Because in the game (unlike in life), it's fun. But I don't see why we should sugarcoat the game or pretend you can't watch lap dances or murder hookers in it. This is, at least in part, what the game is about.
@Justin
A agree... I was going to say pretty much the same thing. That's what gets me the most about that video, it is just screaming for Faux News to pick it up and show the horrors of the game... you know, the parts that actually have nothing to do with the story but are possible anyway.
Oh, whats that? Can it be? I think it is...
Yes, it is. It's an EPIC AGREE!
I remember watching that video when Kotaku first linked to it.
Who signed off on this video? Who in their right mind thought this would be a good idea? I honestly want to read a transcript or hear that meeting.
"Do you know what we need? We need a video that shows you all the fun you can have killing hookers and getting lap dances. Cause that's a tasteful exhibition of the finer points of GTA IV's gameplay."
Question:
Gametrailers has two similar videos, one with nothing but strippers and another of Niko picking up a hooker and later shooting her dead. Being that it's regular gameplay and not post-edited, does that mean it's okay?
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/33332.html
Link is to the hooker video. I just wonder if Totilo should look in his own yard as well.
@Shih Tzu:
I don't think it is about hiding these actions behind closed doors..while you are allowed to do these things, are these activities done while actually playing GTA IV or things you do while playing IN the GTA IV world. Are you required to go to the strip club? Pick up hookers? I don't have GTA IV so I don't know, just putting it out there.
Are you advancing in the game or just having fun? I understand that this is part of the experience, but is it a necessary part of the experience to beat the game? Or just another level of gritty realism thrown in to the delight of those who want to take some time away from the story just to be bad.
The IGN video makes it look like this is all you do in GTA IV to someone who knows nothing about the game. Drive, kill, go to strip club, get lap dance, drive, pick up hooker, get herpes, pick up another hooker, trade STDs, and then back to the strip club. While these can all be fun things, and I have no problem with them being in there, it is not the focus of the game. I like to think that such a highly praised game is about more than that, at least.
I think I'm on the "devil's advocate's" side, here.
I remember, a while back, my little brother and his friend were playing Halo multiplayer, and they were just glitching around. Flying with the sword, jumping on each other's heads and trying to get off the level, etc.
My reaction was "That's stupid. That's not what the game's about at all."
Ditto when my roommates booted up The Sims and immediately began trapping their hapless creations inside windowless, doorless death boxes. I thought it was stupid, and The Sims is clearly not a game about sadism. I thought it was stupid, but they were having fun.
And some people are going to look at GTA4 and think "Dude. Check this out. I'm getting laid, and then I can kill her!" Arguably more mature people are looking at the detailed, living world - but hooker killing does manifest itself as a significant portion of the game's entertainment value.
Should games journalists probably be acting more like adults, and trying to engender a more mature and intelligent view of video games? Probably. (You're doing a very good job of it, by the way.)
But are "gamers," not as a demographic, but simply as the potential market for video games, all looking for mature and intelligent games? Apparently not. And while I might think it's stupid, and would much rather have my own tastes pandered to, I can't very well pretend that the other side doesn't exist. I might even go as far as to say that immaturity in video games is fascinating, and would prefer to examine rather than ignore it.
So was the IGN video both immature and irresponsible? Yes. Definitely. But we can't very well pretend, even if we don't like it, that there aren't immature and irresponsible gamers, and that they don't comprise a significant share of the market.
Totally unacceptable.
I've played all of the GTA games on PC and not once has what was depicted in the video been a part of my gameplay experience... in any version, including III, Vice City and San Andreas. I didn't feel robbed of anything and I've always wondered what people have been going on about.
After watching the video, now I know.
GTA is about so much more and I'm glad I wasn't subject to the other content. I haven't played IV yet, but I'm sure it isn't vital to the game to kill *anyone* not linked to the story, just like in any previous version.
IGN have done the entire games industry a disservice by making it seem as though that is mostly what goes in the game, when that part of the game doesn't *have* to happen *at all*.
This is how they represent the premiere game of the year - the one game we can hold up this year to show the rest of the world what we have achieved thus far, as a medium, and be proud of our work.
Hopefully they don't butcher MGS4 in a similar way.
How come there isn't a GTA game where I can help little old ladies cross the street and rescue kittens from trees?
@Noc:
That's somewhat the point there though, what they did was tasteless and stupid. If they had put up a video that was solely Sims being boxed up in doorless rooms, and representing that as the whole of the game, I would dislike it. Perhaps not as much as this video, but that's mostly because this video is much more tasteless and rude, both to gamers and Rockstar.
Yeah, they made a game with hookers and strippers in it. It doesn't mean it's okay to represent that as the whole of the game, or try to make a video out of it, seemingly for the sake of more hits. It's like essentially cutting out the more controversial parts of a WW2 movie, such as jewish people being burned/gassed, and broadcasting it on cable as "The Jewish People of This WW2 Movie".
filtered reality:
I understand the viewpoint that it doesn't represent the entirety or even the primary focus of the game. I do think, though, that actions and content that are possible but optional in a game should still be taken into account when engaging the game critically. While there's a wide gray area involving designer intentions vs. emergent gameplay (I suspect the chucking-Baby-Moses-in-the-river minigame was not in the original spec for Bible Adventures), part of the art that is games involves designers managing what is possible for a player and what is not. Many driving games have been made that explicitly forbid murdering pedestrians; Rockstar's decision to allow it in the GTA series is a conscious choice and, I think, should be viewed as a vital element of the game, regardless of whether every player will choose to take that option, or if they will enjoy it when they do so.
Did I miss the part where IGN said "This video represents the entirety of GTA IV"? Because I'm pretty sure that never happened.
No jeffk, you didn't miss that part, but you are kind of missing the point. For years now, the mainstream media's most powerful ammunition against Grand Theft Auto has been to focus on the fact that you can murder prostitutes. And for as many years, the gaming community (journalists included) has fought back by stating that it's unfair to judge these games based solely on one small aspect of them. And then IGN comes along, and posts a video that specifically highlights that aspect, in the crudest, most juvenile way possible. It wasn't put up for analysis, or as a discussion piece. IGN didn't imbed it in an article that read "The Darker Side of GTA". They simply, and misleadingly called it the "ladies of GTAIV".
Justin, I don't think I'm missing the point at all - I just have a different one. IGN never said that video represented the entirety of GTA for, and everything in it was taken from the game itself. Anyone who buys an off-the-shelf copy of the game can see all those things.
It's not IGN's job to shelter GTA from media criticism or to defend gaming against mainstream criticism. You say that killing prostitutes is one small aspect of the game, but it's still a part of the game - or a potential part of the game - and denying that is more dishonest than anything IGN has done here. It was crude and juvenile, yes, and it was probably a cheap stunt to increase traffic to their crappy site. But were they lying? Can you not do and see those things in the game?
I'm not a hater (I have the game, and it's paused right now), but I do think people need to realize that journalism and advocacy are two different things - or at least they should be, if the journalist is worth a shit. If you're going to judge IGN, judge them on the totality of their GTA coverage. If you can't do that, you're no better than the people who think GTA is a hooker-killing simulator. IGN sucks, but that's got very little to do with this stupid video.
Shih Tzu:
I completely agree that this optional way of playing should still be taken into account when engaging the game critically, and I fully welcome the level of detail to make this game more realistic - not just in how it looks but what your character is allowed to do, even (especially) if it is not something that we need to do, or it even tells us to do.
But showcasing just these scenes in a way that is out of context with the game itself can be misleading for people who have never played a GTA, it gives GTA a bad name. I realize that this video wasn't supposed to give you the whole picture of GTA but some people will take it that way. Not that bad press is really going to hurt GTA, but it would be real nice if people would stop assuming that it is just a sex/crime sim and nothing more.
I know the content is in there and when I get GTA IV I will be right next to you getting a lap dance (but far enough away so it isn't creepy..), but if IGN is going to put out a video like this then at least try to make it funny. I guess what annoyed me the most is it was so freaking slow and boring, so completely the opposite of entertaining. They made sex boring...and you know what, that's not cool.
While Leigh is correct that it was a bad idea for the image of the genre, I don't see it as that big a deal. A big wag of the finger to IGN, now if you will excuse me, I have some cars to steal and ambulances to explode.
I don't think the issue at hand is whether or not this is a (relatively) accurate representation.
Commenters are correct about all of this being in GTA4. It's there, you can do it, if you have the game you can see all of this on your own whether you like it or not, and you can film it and host it on Youtube to have a laugh with your friends. That's fair.
But for a professional journalist to host this on a professional news site? Really?
I mean, that's nearly the equivalent of an ammunitions magazine showing videos of "The Most EXTREME Headshots!" Or a forensics mag doing "Top 10 Sensational Rape Cases!" Sure it's an accurate though ugly part of the content, but it's not appropriate or even relevant reporting. It's just stupid.
"It's not IGN's job to shelter GTA from media criticism or to defend gaming against mainstream criticism."
I'm sorry, but that's completely wrong. As a professional gaming news site, where they SHOULD have journalism... *coughs* they have a responsibility to gaming, its culture, and pretty much just journalism integrity.
They have a social responsibility to understand that their content should be tasteful and not, as was said earlier, "handing Fox a smoking gun on a silver platter."
Even a comedian like Dave Chapelle can understand this, that's why he stopped doing his show, because of racial issues and the fact that some people were only picking controversial parts of his show to remember, and worsening issues. If Dave Chapelle can understand this, IGN, a professional site (or at least they aspire to be) should be able to.
I don't think game journalism has an obligation to "protect the industry". Respect's the operative word, for both audience and subject matter.
It's true that the scenes portrayed were the facts of the game. But any set of facts taken out of context is unfair -- and it's even worse when they're assembled in such a way specifically designed to inflame people.
@Leigh: I wasn't saying they should protect the industry, just that they had a responsibility to gaming and its' culture, which is somewhat separate from the industry. Not sure if you meant me or someone else, though.
Not you specifically, just weighing in on the general debate :D
A blog author actually weighting in? UNTHINKABLE.
Which part do you find distasteful?
1) That a relatively minor portion of the game is given this sort of attention? Making it look as if that's what the game is about? It makes it look like a porn game, which it isn't but it has that in it.
2) That the girls are treated so badly afterwards, gunning down or running over. (this is the part that bugs me)
3) That you detect some ulterior motive? (you mentioned Fox ramping up for a GTA thrashing)
4) That they are being attention whores? Whatever draws the page views is what they put up?
5) That it represents sex, maybe even love, in such a [Fill in blank] way? I'm really not sure how to classify this point because there's so much that could be added or taken away from it and it's still in the same category.
Considering you review games that represent love and lust in various degrees of depravity (and just what that means of us as an audience) I wonder just which part of this clip you found reprehensible.
Not to flame you, I love your reviews and your thoughtful analysis of why people like sex games, but I'm wondering why this video clip gives you the shivers. What separates this clip from... say 'Maid's story'? What would turn what IGN did from something to decry in your post, to something that you would write thoughtful articles about?
No, I'm not offended by the content. I'm offended that a media outlet would distill out of a very large and complex games only the most deliberately distasteful portions and then publish it.
If a user made a video like that on their own blog, I'd find it in poor taste, but still interesting and expressive. But the media, I think, should be more responsible about taking things out of context to drive traffic and to be inflammatory.
And re: the Fox link -- I'm not suggesting that it was an intentional wink-nudge, but still, it's an odd correlation, I think.
I wasn't going to respond to this, because yes, IGN is terrible and retarded, and while this is a new low for them it does not shock or even particularly upset me at this point...
but after reading citizenmike's defense, this quote stands out to me:
". Go get Nico worked up at a strip club, then find a hooker to relieve Nico’s pent-up excitement, and then shoot the hooker afterwards because GTA games, ultimately, want players to shoot innocent people. It’s one of the core tenants of the game design. In fact, GTA games fail in entirety if you try to play them without some degree of moral depravity. If you don’t want to steal cars, shoot strangers, and get videogame sex from hookers, there’s nothing in GTA for you." (emphasis added)
Where they dig these people up?
For what it's worth, I've been making a point of my playthrough to commit as few crimes as possible... the level of detail and control in GTAIV is such that it's not terribly difficult to obey traffic laws and drive at a reasonable speed. The only time I'll commit a crime if it's in the context of the story, i.e., for a mission.
And I'm having a great time so far! The game has plenty to offer for the peaceful-minded player. Exploring the city on foot, going people watching, witnessing fights and accidents break out and resolve themselves... If there's one thing I enjoy about this game is that it's even MORE accommodating for creative role-playing than previous installations. And Nico's role in the story seems to enforce this. More so than in any other game, he's just an ordinary guy who gets mixed up in bad business.
So... I guess all this citizenmike guy has done is prove the IGN hivemind to be even more boorish and bankrupt of imagination than we all already suspected.
So it's mostly category 1 with a little 3 and 4 thrown in?
How do you feel about the pantie shots from SSBB?
Hopefully someday I'll get around to playing GTAIV
Go Go Super Leigh!
I am disappointed and frustrated that a site like IGN creates this compilation and put it out on their site... playing GTA in the sandbox-mode and creating this immature compilation is like scribbling penises on a paper and putting that on IGN... well, you can blame the pen and the paper for your immaturity - if you want.
But I am more dissapointed by the defenders of IGN here...
regards
Reading "citizenmikes" entire post was a very depressing experience.
"Go get Nico worked up at a strip club, then find a hooker to relieve Nico’s pent-up excitement, and then shoot the hooker afterwards because GTA games, ultimately, want players to shoot innocent people."
Hmmm....I think that says more about himself than it does about the game. Yes, in GTA you are going to end up killing a lot of people (mostly because they get in the way when I'm driving!) But to think that is the point of the game? Is that the ultimate thrill one is supposed to get from it? I encourage more discussion about this topic absolutely and maybe the fact that IGN posted that video at all is "good" in that it gets people talking more about what the game is to different people.
I know this was before your time at Kotaku, but still:
http://kotaku.com/357538/this-is-it-no-more-princess-peach-upskirts-after-this
...
Dammit, IGN. I just can't avoid you, can I?
Oh, I forgot, the response. I suggest we head to tell this guy to grow up. "Games don't have messages."
"Go get Nico worked up at a strip club, then find a hooker to relieve Nico’s pent-up excitement, and then shoot the hooker afterwards because GTA games, ultimately, want players to shoot innocent people."
Really? I didn't see a flashing arrow saying kill hookers. If it's that hard to find meaning, maybe he should wonder why he's spending game time having virtual sex and then committing virtual murder.
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