UNICEF turning to shock tactics at game convention, WTF?!

[salm]

Congrats on missing my point. The goal of a presentation like that should be to find people who would otherwise not contribute and change their minds. Instead, most people who were there will now probably be even less likely to ever donate, because they'll remember UNICEF as an organization that pretended they were making a video game as part of a stunt to try to guilt people into giving them money. They spent the time and money needed to set up a fake panel at a gaming convention, and I can't see anything gained out of it outside of maybe a small handful of guilt-induced donations and a chance for people who donate to feel superior to the people who walked out.

How do you know that? Perhaps most people there liked it. The people we see leaving are just the ones who are outraged by the non existant fake game. Had they stayed they´d probably have been relieved to hear that this was a publicity stunt.
After it is clear that the audience has been mislead we still see a lot of poeple in the audience. So apparently they either liked it or at least were not outraged enough to get up and leave.

[Vendetta]

You equate some games and all gamers as if a large subset of gamers are creeps and play nothing but sick games involving rape and murder. Go take your straw man ideal of what gamers are and fuck off.

It's p. hard to really buy that argument given that the gaming community, particularly online, has been displaying amazing toxicity right on the surface in recent months. (Also, again, gamers are demonstrating in droves that they really want the game where you murder women and minorities, Hatred shot up to #7 on the most voted on Greenlight games in only a day, and are really looking forward to modding their recent bogeywomen into it as victims)

EDIT: Also, as others have said no matter how horrible the things depicted in a fictional book, video game, or movie, they aren't real and enjoying them has no effect on the real world. Just because you don't enjoy certain methods of escapism doesn't mean anybody else has to stop enjoying it.

The entire multibillion dollar industry of advertising exists specifically because media does affect people. Seriously, there are whole branches of human endeavour which exist only to use media to influence others to change their behaviours (and game conventions are predominantly advertising events). Thinking that you are not affected by the media you consume is probably the fastest way to be affected by it because it creates a blind spot in your thinking.

Now, actions are not affected directly, but attitudes are. Media is a product of social attitudes, but social attitudes are created by social communication which includes the fictional media the society produces. Take, for instance, the public view of torture as reflected in media from 15+ years ago and that made in the last 15 years. Torture changed in media from a thing the villain did to show how bad they were to a thing the hero did to show how serious the situation was or how badass they were, and public reaction to it followed suit, so much so that the public reaction, even here, to the recent torture report from the CIA was much more muted than the original Abu Ghiraib picture leaks after ten years of watching Jack Bauer save the world by torturing bad guys.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

I don't think that continuing this is going to be very productive, but I am ever the hopeless optimist;

It's p. hard to really buy that argument given that the gaming community, particularly online, has been displaying amazing toxicity right on the surface in recent months. (Also, again, gamers are demonstrating in droves that they really want the game where you murder women and minorities, Hatred shot up to #7 on the most voted on Greenlight games in only a day, and are really looking forward to modding their recent bogeywomen into it as victims)

While to be fair I find it a little hard to blame people for casting gamers in general in a poor light given the loathsome disgrace that was Gamergate, I also find it pretty disappointing that this sort of generalization even gets traction here on SDN. Need I remind you that the principal opponents to the pro-Gamergate gamers were also gamers. Gamergate may have set public perceptions of gamer stereotypes back 10 years, but I'd like to think a discussion conducted on SDN is capable of elevating itself above that level of base, fallacious reasoning.

If you want to drink the haterade vis-a-vis gamers, that's your business, but that reflects poorly only on you, not on the gamers and the well of arguments you are trying to poison.

[Civil War Man]

Congrats on missing my point. The goal of a presentation like that should be to find people who would otherwise not contribute and change their minds. Instead, most people who were there will now probably be even less likely to ever donate, because they'll remember UNICEF as an organization that pretended they were making a video game as part of a stunt to try to guilt people into giving them money. They spent the time and money needed to set up a fake panel at a gaming convention, and I can't see anything gained out of it outside of maybe a small handful of guilt-induced donations and a chance for people who donate to feel superior to the people who walked out.

How do you know that? Perhaps most people there liked it. The people we see leaving are just the ones who are outraged by the non existant fake game. Had they stayed they´d probably have been relieved to hear that this was a publicity stunt.
After it is clear that the audience has been mislead we still see a lot of poeple in the audience. So apparently they either liked it or at least were not outraged enough to get up and leave.

I can't say for sure, but I can make an educated guess. I have met very few people who would not be irritated if they felt they had been deceived or used in some way, even with something as mildly inconvenient as "these people lied about making a video game in order to trick others into attending a presentation about the harshness of third world living conditions." And rather than be relieved, I'd guess that the people who were outraged enough to walk out on the presentation would be even more outraged to learn that their outrage is being used to generate publicity. I just see it as a bad PR move, because we see very definite negative reactions to the stunt (the people who walked out), but not much in terms of positive reactions (the people who remained might have made a donation, but maybe not). If UNICEF were to come out and show that they experienced a marked increase in donations that can be directly tied to that video, I'll eat my words, but based on the information currently available, I would not call it a success.

[Thanas]

If you want to drink the haterade vis-a-vis gamers, that's your business, but that reflects poorly only on you, not on the gamers and the well of arguments you are trying to poison.

I think Gamers in general do a pretty good job reinforcing negative stereotypes. Like in this thread, where people actually bitch about being tricked into watching stuff about the horrors of the third world. Can you see how hilarious that looks? Oh no, the real tragedy here is me being tricked into watching that. Which is bad. And the execution of the prank could have been better

Heck, everytime this happens to a group of people we do not like (like say, Republicans being tricked into voting for abortion clinics) we cheer. Because it is for a good cause. And how is this not a good cause as well? How do citizens of the first world not massively profit from the world as it is currently set up - and if they do in fact profit, what is so wrong in forcing them to confront this ugly truth for a few seconds?

This is how it looks: A bunch of people who never faced a hunger crisis complaining about watching images of poor people. And people excuse that selfish behaviour. WTF is wrong with you? I think people need to take a real hard look to reevaluate themselves and wonder if they really want to be the group that protests against being shown images of poor people - even if it happened against their will.

This behaviour makes me ashamed to say that I play videogames.

[Vendetta]

If you think the toxicity that GamerGate exposed in gaming communities has been meaningfully addressed, you are being hopelessly optimistic.

It's not the stereotype of gamers that's been set back, the culture of communication about and around games has directly suffered because of a toxic segment of the culture which largely faces absolutely no consequences for its toxicity.

[Thanas]

It's gotten pretty bad when I am positively surprised at not getting flame in starcraft2. I can't even imagine how bad it must be in more popular games.

[salm]

I can't say for sure, but I can make an educated guess. I have met very few people who would not be irritated if they felt they had been deceived or used in some way, even with something as mildly inconvenient as "these people lied about making a video game in order to trick others into attending a presentation about the harshness of third world living conditions." And rather than be relieved, I'd guess that the people who were outraged enough to walk out on the presentation would be even more outraged to learn that their outrage is being used to generate publicity. I just see it as a bad PR move, because we see very definite negative reactions to the stunt (the people who walked out), but not much in terms of positive reactions (the people who remained might have made a donation, but maybe not). If UNICEF were to come out and show that they experienced a marked increase in donations that can be directly tied to that video, I'll eat my words, but based on the information currently available, I would not call it a success.

My experience is the oposite. I couldn´t think of a lot of people in real life who I believe woulnd´t think that this was great stunt.

You mention the "information currently available". What is this information? So far I´ve only seen the video itself and the Youtube comments. The video has a whole bunch of views and a couple of dislikes more than likes if we really want to base anything on Youtube statistics. However, it appearing to make people form strong opinions about it seem positive to me because that is probably a large chunk of it reaching so many people at all.

Now, even if it meant a net loss in donations for UNICEF (which I don´t think it is), it might be a marketing failure but it would also be a very sad sign of how a lot of people are unable to take a harmless deception like this with a grain of humor.
On the other hand maybe the humorless, butthurt people are necessary because otherwise it wouldn´t be so funny for the rest of us to laugh about them.

[Vendetta]

Now, even if it meant a net loss in donations for UNICEF (which I don´t think it is), it might be a marketing failure but it would also be a very sad sign of how a lot of people are unable to take a harmless deception like this with a grain of humor.

Another thing demonstrated by recent gaming community bullshit is that gamers are basically unable to deal with criticism in any way other than hyperdefensiveness.

Which is what's happening in this thread. People are getting super fucking defensive and how very dare UNICEF turn up and advertise to people who were at an event which existed specifically to advertise to them.

[FaxModem1]

Never having gone to a convention, I equate this to going to a theme park. It costs money to go there, money to enter, and I, with my limited means, can only go once every few years. Lines are long for everything, and you hope that the attraction is worth all the money and time spent to get there. You can only spend so much time there, as they will close, and you will get tired, so you try to maximize your time there. Imagine being in line at Disneyworld's new attraction, and instead you're treated to a lecture about a good charitable cause. No matter what, you feel cheated, as you were cheated, and a significant part of your day is gone from both the wait time and the lecture.

[Vendetta]

However, having actually been to gaming conventions you go to a place and are advertised at, maybe get some tightly managed hands on time with a product that isn't out yet, and usually get to see everything twice unless it's one of the megacons like Gamescom.

Its not a theme park, it's a big hall full of advertising, just like any other trade show.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Alright. Let me try a different tack.

No one - no one - is arguing that third world atrocities aren't the greater evil. Everyone - everyone - agrees that it is a good thing to try to help. These things are not in question. Calling that into question, in any way, shape, or form, is at best a serious misunderstanding of the arguments presented in this thread, and at worst just grossly dishonest and a pretty blatant example of the classic strawman.

Is a charitable organization's stupid stunt at a convention that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things? No, of course not. But that doesn't mean the stunt isn't stupid. Just because a cause is just doesn't mean the means are justifiable. This is a fairly basic concept I think everyone can agree on.

The core argument I have been presenting here is that

A) People can be understandably upset about this stunt, and that therefore dismissing their anger out of hand because you believe yourself to be holier-than-thou is not reasonable, and
B) UNICEF's admirable and charitable goals are being undermined by their short-sighted tactics. This is, I think, a pretty valid thing to be concerned about if you actually do care about the work UNICEF is doing. Now, it's fine to disagree on this point of course; lacking any hard numbers of who donated versus who didn't means there may not be a clear answer on this point.

Since B is debatable, A gets a lot of attention. Let's be clear: I didn't go to this convention. I have no personal stake in it. If you must envision me as some uncaring gamer-scum who would rather not be inconvenienced at a convention than think about the third world, then please feel free to do so, but your delusions aren't really my problem.

A primer on reasoning is, perhaps, in order:

John, Bob, Alice, and Tammy like to help people. John goes to greater lengths to help people than Bob, Alice, and Tommy. Bob thinks John goes too far and questions John's methods. Bob does not help people as much as John, therefore, Bob's criticisms are invalid.

This is fallacious reasoning. Whatever contributions Bob does or doesn't make - or what he does with his time - do not necessarily have bearing on the validity of Bob's criticisms of John's methods. Just because Bob is currently at a video game convention and not currently helping a third world country does not mean that John's efforts to help third world countries at same convention are immune to criticism. "You can't criticize me, and you're a whiny baby for doing so, because my cause is just." It doesn't matter the severity or magnitude of the wrong committed in pursuit of the just cause; it's still a wrong and does not magically become immune to criticism simply because it's done from atop a high horse.

We all want things to improve in the Sudan. That doesn't mean that we can't find fault in the methods employed in pursuit of that goal. Characterizing any such criticism as "toxic gamers just being overly defensive," is just a harmful and cheap way to try to silence people who want the same thing you do, but done more honestly.

[General Zod]

Most of the advertising isn't a flat out lie. If UNICEF were willing to lie about the content of their panel . . .well, how do I know the rest of their presentation is being honest?

[Thanas]

Most of the advertising isn't a flat out lie. If UNICEF were willing to lie about the content of their panel . . .well, how do I know the rest of their presentation is being honest?

Easy. Just ask the girl in the photo. Or google South Sudan.

Is a charitable organization's stupid stunt at a convention that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things? No, of course not. But that doesn't mean the stunt isn't stupid. Just because a cause is just doesn't mean the means are justifiable. This is a fairly basic concept I think everyone can agree on.

See, this is what is so fucking hilarious about this. Trying to frame this as a debate about whether the methods are proper is pretty hilarious. First of all, one has to wonder if the people who do this have any kind of decency at all. It is kinda like arguing about whether a beggar could phrase the sign he holds up better. Yes, one can do that. One can also just shut up.

And the only ones making a big deal out of this are the idiot gamers protesting it. If it was a small deal, they would have shut up about it already and filed it under "things I do not care about so much".

B) UNICEF's admirable and charitable goals are being undermined by their short-sighted tactics. This is, I think, a pretty valid thing to be concerned about if you actually do care about the work UNICEF is doing. Now, it's fine to disagree on this point of course; lacking any hard numbers of who donated versus who didn't means there may not be a clear answer on this point.

Oh please, let us not try to prevent that you were in any case concerned about the charitable work UNICEF was doing. Let me just quote your original post:

Manipulative bullshit.

This War of Mine pushes it in terms of morality preaching, but ultimately gets a pass because it's actually a fun game. It presents different conditions, you can build and upgrade, and you can take action to succeed and risk failure. That it comes packaged with a "war is bad, m'kay?" morality skin doesn't really detract from the underlying game, and thus the game is an effective one both in being fun to play and at least to some degree in delivering its message.

The "game" in this stunt, however, is a blatant example of someone spending 5 minutes sprinkling an "Africa sucks" story with gaming terminology over top of it. They couldn't even be arsed to at least put effort into it with "real" gameplay footage; it's just a bunch of concept scribbles slapped together in a shitty Powerpoint. That, I think, is a significant part of the offense: it's not just that they ambushed a gaming convention with a manipulative guilt trip, it's a goddamn lazy manipulative guilt trip, with an insultingly thin "gaming" clown suit thrown on top of it. And then to tie a goddamn bow on it they have one of the real-world victims come out to pontificate at you, so you can't even protest without looking like a complete asshole.

It's clear the people at UNICEF involved have no understanding of the video game medium, nor did they ever have any intention of seriously trying to use the platform to express UNICEF's ideals - they just saw an opportunity for a cheap shot and took it. Imagine buying a Thanksgiving turkey and sitting down with your family to eat it, only to discover upon carving the turkey that it's made of plaster: inside is a note saying "What's wrong? Why aren't you eating this? It's all the homeless have to eat this Thanksgiving," then meticulously signed by a roster of the city's homeless people. I try to give canned food to holiday homeless charities every year, so you can fuck off if this is your response.

People - human beings - only have a finite reserve of charity and good will to spend on the world. It's a fine and noble thing to give and have empathy for people who aren't us, and it's a good thing to try to encourage, stimulate, and expand that empathy as much as possible. But if your means of attempting that are to short-change and manipulate well-off-but-innocent people, fuck off. If you want to fuck with not-so-innocent people (say, doing the above turkey stunt to the land development board members who directly rendered those people homeless), I won't shed too many tears, but indiscriminately poaching on anyone who can be squeezed of more charity for your pet cause is pretty goddamn sleazy and insulting. There's a lot of causes to be charitable about, and most decent people usually give to a few. Don't badger them with bullshit.

No no, see, what you were concerned about was poor innocent gamers getting ambushed and guilt-tripped by manipulative bullshit, whereas all the people at UNICEF were concerned about was laying a goddamn lazy guilt trip on the poor gamers.

[AniThyng]

It's p. hard to really buy that argument given that the gaming community, particularly online, has been displaying amazing toxicity right on the surface in recent months. (Also, again, gamers are demonstrating in droves that they really want the game where you murder women and minorities, Hatred shot up to #7 on the most voted on Greenlight games in only a day, and are really looking forward to modding their recent bogeywomen into it as victims)

The entire multibillion dollar industry of advertising exists specifically because media does affect people. Seriously, there are whole branches of human endeavour which exist only to use media to influence others to change their behaviours (and game conventions are predominantly advertising events). Thinking that you are not affected by the media you consume is probably the fastest way to be affected by it because it creates a blind spot in your thinking.

Now, actions are not affected directly, but attitudes are. Media is a product of social attitudes, but social attitudes are created by social communication which includes the fictional media the society produces. Take, for instance, the public view of torture as reflected in media from 15+ years ago and that made in the last 15 years. Torture changed in media from a thing the villain did to show how bad they were to a thing the hero did to show how serious the situation was or how badass they were, and public reaction to it followed suit, so much so that the public reaction, even here, to the recent torture report from the CIA was much more muted than the original Abu Ghiraib picture leaks after ten years of watching Jack Bauer save the world by torturing bad guys.

I can't help but wonder if, like in the other threads where this kind of thing comes up, is that entertainment premised on what is basically murder and torture is so pervasive that we probably should question why we find it entertaining at all, and no one wants to admit that they are excited by virtual brutality and why? And I'd ask at what point does it stop? Which is worse - a sanitized, PG-13 war movie where people just get shot and drop down, or a brutal war porn flick like Fury which graphically depicts people getting their head blown off by a tank shell? Does your motivation matter? Is it >really< something to be proud off that Rome 2 has a mode where you can graphically watch soldiers decapitate enemies, vis a vis the oddly clean merely "poked and died" non-bloody version?

And to go back to a game like Civ - is it really any better, when we all know that cities don't get conquered and sacked without a lot of brutality, no matter how cartoonish and comical the depiction in game?

[TheFeniX]

I won't bother with the advertising media, but it's funny to see people bashing "super-ultra-violent video games" that make our kids into monsters. I didn't hear that when Counter-Strike came out, or when GTA came out before that, or Mortal Kombat before that, or Doom before that. Do PnP demon worshiping RPGs where the whole point is to kill things to gain levels count?

Nah, Hatred is totally showing that gamers are dogshit human beings because Postal never came out and showed that people will play a game for shock value because "why the fuck not?"

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Well, I tried.

See, this is what is so fucking hilarious about this. Trying to frame this as a debate about whether the methods are proper is pretty hilarious. First of all, one has to wonder if the people who do this have any kind of decency at all. It is kinda like arguing about whether a beggar could phrase the sign he holds up better. Yes, one can do that. One can also just shut up.

And the only ones making a big deal out of this are the idiot gamers protesting it. If it was a small deal, they would have shut up about it already and filed it under "things I do not care about so much".

That's just a blatant ad hominem, dude. A history scholar should really know better.

No no, see, what you were concerned about was poor innocent gamers getting ambushed and guilt-tripped by manipulative bullshit, whereas all the people at UNICEF were concerned about was laying a goddamn lazy guilt trip on the poor gamers.

Congratulations. You managed to quote my entire original post as evidence while somehow managing to completely ignore its final paragraph (as well as all of my subsequent posts, apparently), which is the genesis of my argument's point B.

I came at this from every angle I could think of. I even condescended to you to educate you in basic logical argument, which shouldn't really be necessary on this board, and you have consistently ignored arguments regarding point A (this most recent post of yours being a particularly egregious example of dishonest behavior). However, I consider that a personal failure on my part, for not articulating or expressing my arguments in a sufficiently cogent or persuasive enough manner to make you see reason.

This stupidity has shit up the thread for long enough, so in the interest of letting what is ultimately a pretty minor issue die, if you want to continue to press the issue I will concede it, though it will be a rather hollow concession.

[salm]

Another thing demonstrated by recent gaming community bullshit is that gamers are basically unable to deal with criticism in any way other than hyperdefensiveness.

Which is what's happening in this thread. People are getting super fucking defensive and how very dare UNICEF turn up and advertise to people who were at an event which existed specifically to advertise to them.

Yeah, I think the outrage about this exists because some gamers have formed a pretty cohesive community with a large number of vocals members being pretty young and to a degree pretty immature.
Imagine this happening at a different trade show like a car trade show. If they had claimed to be developing a car that is designed with turrets in order to be able to shoot fleeing civilians people might have had all kinds of reactions but I doubt that the "car community" would have shown the hilarious artificial outrage we can whitness from the gaming community.
This is not the reaction of a healthy, confident community. It´s the reaction of an angsty, immature group of people who think that their "tribe" has been attacked.

People seem to feel that this stunt compares violence in gaming with violence in real life when it really doesn´t. It isn´t even judgemental about videogame violence. They just showed a bunch of horrible stuff that would happen in a fake game and the audience, I assume gamers, did the judging themselves and some left. So now UNICEF is accused of being judgmental when it was the gamers doing the judging. So if you want to bash somebody, the bash the people leaving the room.

The video actually doesn´t have anything to do with gaming at all. It is just, for obvious reasons, packaged in a video game costume. You could do the exact same video in a car or smart phone costume. The videos "gameplay" would be the same while only the "graphics" or "setting" would change, to use some gaming terms.

There seem to be plenty of gamers who understand is. There are also plenty of gamers who act like the ultra religious when they whitness a percieved attack on their religion.

[Vendetta]

Nah, Hatred is totally showing that gamers are dogshit human beings because Postal never came out and showed that people will play a game for shock value because "why the fuck not?"

Gamers showing how classy they are on Hatred's steam forum

Hatred is not being made just for shock value, it is being made as right wing propaganda by the sort of person who thinks that all the darkies should be sent home (or beaten up for looking at our wimmins) and women should shut up and get back in the kitchen. (The CEO of the company making it has publicly endorsed the Polish Defence League, a borderline fascist right wing party with a particular hate on for muslims who "patrol" bars and clubs to keep good catholic women out of the hands of dirty foreigners).

This is the sort of mindless defensiveness I'm talking about, you're not even able to think critically about gaming as entertainment and consider its content and why the designers chose that content any more, you're too used to defending it from criticism and so you defend everything, no matter how indefensible.

[Jub]

Gamers showing how classy they are on Hatred's steam forum

Hatred is not being made just for shock value, it is being made as right wing propaganda by the sort of person who thinks that all the darkies should be sent home (or beaten up for looking at our wimmins) and women should shut up and get back in the kitchen. (The CEO of the company making it has publicly endorsed the Polish Defence League, a borderline fascist right wing party with a particular hate on for muslims who "patrol" bars and clubs to keep good catholic women out of the hands of dirty foreigners).

This is the sort of mindless defensiveness I'm talking about, you're not even able to think critically about gaming as entertainment and consider its content and why the designers chose that content any more, you're too used to defending it from criticism and so you defend everything, no matter how indefensible.

Hey Vendetta, if I say that I think Steam should go ahead and put Hatred up for sale because to do otherwise is to use your position as a monopoly to censor ideas you dislike, would that cause you to classify me as a scumbag who supports the content of the game? I don't think the game is going to be great, in fact it looks like bland shit and the subject matter is passe shock value shit at best, but that doesn't mean that it shouldn't be published any more or less than any other game. So yeah, I want Hatred for sale on Steam, does that mean I'm getting lumped in with the easy targets and internet trolls now for being anti-censorship and sticking up for a game I'll never buy or play?

Yeah, I think the outrage about this exists because some gamers have formed a pretty cohesive community with a large number of vocals members being pretty young and to a degree pretty immature.

Some gamers, at least you admit that this is a vocal subset of gamers.

Imagine this happening at a different trade show like a car trade show. If they had claimed to be developing a car that is designed with turrets in order to be able to shoot fleeing civilians people might have had all kinds of reactions but I doubt that the "car community" would have shown the hilarious artificial outrage we can whitness from the gaming community.

This is not the reaction of a healthy, confident community. It´s the reaction of an angsty, immature group of people who think that their "tribe" has been attacked.

How about if companies were banning cars before they hit the market and cars were being blamed for the social ills of the modern youth? How about if some countries are still having to fight just to get games because of overly restrictive laws that seek to remove free choice as to which games an adult can legally purchase? People have every right to be defensive when their hobby is attacked. Games are a multi-billion dollar industry with some very well done stories and some games that deserve to be looked back upon as great art. Yet the industry as a whole gets looked at in a far harsher light than movies and books are and dismissed as either shit you get for your kids, or as shit that only fatty nerds waste time on. They're at best seen as a waste of time by those outside of the gaming community and at worst people are still fighting actively to get them banned.

People seem to feel that this stunt compares violence in gaming with violence in real life when it really doesn´t. It isn´t even judgemental about videogame violence. They just showed a bunch of horrible stuff that would happen in a fake game and the audience, I assume gamers, did the judging themselves and some left. So now UNICEF is accused of being judgmental when it was the gamers doing the judging. So if you want to bash somebody, the bash the people leaving the room.

They lured people into a room under false pretenses and used the fact that people left to try and send a message about gamers. They never interviewed the people leaving about why they left, they just made the assumption that they were too shocked to stay rather than assuming that people left to go find something not wasting their time.

To go back to the car show example, imagine if you attend a panel that is supposed to talk about a new super car from a hithro unknown manufacturer, but when you get there all they do is beat you over the head with messages about how instead of buying a new car you could be sponsoring dozens of children in Africa? People would rightly be upset that their time was wasted, auto publications would debate the merits of doing this sort of stunt at a car show, and you'd get this exact same debate. This one only seems overblown to you because you're more exposed to it.

The video actually doesn´t have anything to do with gaming at all. It is just, for obvious reasons, packaged in a video game costume. You could do the exact same video in a car or smart phone costume. The videos "gameplay" would be the same while only the "graphics" or "setting" would change, to use some gaming terms.

There seem to be plenty of gamers who understand is. There are also plenty of gamers who act like the ultra religious when they whitness a percieved attack on their religion.

This is kind of a cheap shot aimed at gamers given the way they used the footage captured to paint gamers as people ignorant and unwilling to face the horrors of the world. I'd have walked out if they pulled that shit on me and been rather upset if they painted my leaving as anything other than going to find something there that doesn't waste my time.

[Vendetta]

Hey Vendetta, if I say that I think Steam should go ahead and put Hatred up for sale because to do otherwise is to use your position as a monopoly to censor ideas you dislike, would that cause you to classify me as a scumbag who supports the content of the game?

Not if you go out and campaign for Valve to do the same for every other game they've declined from the service because they didn't like its content.

Bearing in mind that Valve already don't sell any AO rated games (like Manhunt 2) on Steam, and will unilaterally pull indie games from Greenlight for content they don't like. This is an established pattern of behaviour for them, they're just not sticking with it this time.

But you probably weren't aware of that already happening, you're just being defensive now because your bubble got pricked.

Steam's position at least is clear, violent right wing fantasy a-ok (as long as it's an indie game), consenting sex between adults gtfo.

[Jub]

Not if you go out and campaign for Valve to do the same for every other game they've declined from the service because they didn't like its content.

Bearing in mind that Valve already don't sell any AO rated games (like Manhunt 2) on Steam, and will unilaterally pull indie games from Greenlight for content they don't like. This is an established pattern of behaviour for them, they're just not sticking with it this time.

But you probably weren't aware of that already happening, you're just being defensive now because your bubble got pricked.

Steam's position at least is clear, violent right wing fantasy a-ok (as long as it's an indie game), consenting sex between adults gtfo.

I don't really appreciate the assumptions that you're making about my knowledge of Valves business practices with regard to their curation of the Steam market place. Now with that out of the way...

I'm not campaigning for any specific game and I'm well aware of the broken inconsistent mess that is Steam's current curation system. They're willing to sell games like Manhunt and the Postal series, as well as games like Gothic II and Ride to Hell Retribution both of which have sex scenes where you can literally see characters humping one another, but Hatred is going too far? Their position is far from clear and green light especially is a broken mess where games that get high numbers of votes can fail to get accepted and shovelware or games that outright mislead Steam's customers get accepted.

So don't pretend like this isn't an issue that has been brought up before, all this represents is a high profile case that is being discussed as it is current and is making the rounds in gaming media. It comes on the heels of GTA being pulled in Australia and thus a new round of discussions about why video games are treated worse than books, movies, and TV has started again.

[Thanas]

That's just a blatant ad hominem, dude. A history scholar should really know better.

It's not, really. The only ones who are making a big deal about this are people who claim that they were tricked. Yes they were. So what?

Congratulations. You managed to quote my entire original post as evidence while somehow managing to completely ignore its final paragraph (as well as all of my subsequent posts, apparently), which is the genesis of my argument's point B.

You mean this paragraph:

People - human beings - only have a finite reserve of charity and good will to spend on the world. It's a fine and noble thing to give and have empathy for people who aren't us, and it's a good thing to try to encourage, stimulate, and expand that empathy as much as possible. But if your means of attempting that are to short-change and manipulate well-off-but-innocent people, fuck off. If you want to fuck with not-so-innocent people (say, doing the above turkey stunt to the land development board members who directly rendered those people homeless), I won't shed too many tears, but indiscriminately poaching on anyone who can be squeezed of more charity for your pet cause is pretty goddamn sleazy and insulting. There's a lot of causes to be charitable about, and most decent people usually give to a few. Don't badger them with bullshit.

Where exactly do you show concern for UNICEF there? No, it is UNICEF who manipulate and short-change people. Your second post was mainly this is bad because they did not even bother to make a game while being "manipulative assholes". Only in the following post did this change.

See, the whole thing you are saying here is basically:
a) UNICEF manipulated people which is bad, making them manipulative assholes
b) They should have put more effort to actually fit in, aka make some sort of game
c) Their tactics overall contribute to a decline in funding

Well, c) is a bit unproven. Certainly the media attention they now got is worth something, OTOH people are outraged. I can't find figures so I don't think it is worth debating.

So what can actually be argued is a) and b). I find b) very hard to get behind as UNICEF is not swimming in cash, this was probbaly put together on short notice and a shoestring budget. As for a), I flat out disagree. They manipulated people, but its not bad at all.

[salm]

Some gamers, at least you admit that this is a vocal subset of gamers.

I think most people in this thread are gamers, including myself and the other people in favour of the stunt. Like allways when a group acts silly it is only some members and not each and every one of them. In this particular case I think it is defensive teenagers mixed with a bunch of non teenagers who mistook the teenaged flailing with real opinions and joined in.

How about if companies were banning cars before they hit the market and cars were being blamed for the social ills of the modern youth? How about if some countries are still having to fight just to get games because of overly restrictive laws that seek to remove free choice as to which games an adult can legally purchase? People have every right to be defensive when their hobby is attacked. Games are a multi-billion dollar industry with some very well done stories and some games that deserve to be looked back upon as great art. Yet the industry as a whole gets looked at in a far harsher light than movies and books are and dismissed as either shit you get for your kids, or as shit that only fatty nerds waste time on. They're at best seen as a waste of time by those outside of the gaming community and at worst people are still fighting actively to get them banned.

Indeed. This stunt doesn´t attack gaming, though. The idiots behaving like angsty teenagers on the other hand might make normal people believe that the gaming community is at least partially composed of inconfident, whiny little bitches.

They lured people into a room under false pretenses and used the fact that people left to try and send a message about gamers. They never interviewed the people leaving about why they left, they just made the assumption that they were too shocked to stay rather than assuming that people left to go find something not wasting their time.

To go back to the car show example, imagine if you attend a panel that is supposed to talk about a new super car from a hithro unknown manufacturer, but when you get there all they do is beat you over the head with messages about how instead of buying a new car you could be sponsoring dozens of children in Africa? People would rightly be upset that their time was wasted, auto publications would debate the merits of doing this sort of stunt at a car show, and you'd get this exact same debate. This one only seems overblown to you because you're more exposed to it.

I really doubt that they´d be upset as the whiny little gaming bitches. They´d either aprove of the message or roll their eyes and move on. That is because other industries aren´t composed of such a high percentage of idiot teenagers.
The percentage of car fans who would be offended, though, I´d find just as silly as the gamers in question.

This is kind of a cheap shot aimed at gamers given the way they used the footage captured to paint gamers as people ignorant and unwilling to face the horrors of the world. I'd have walked out if they pulled that shit on me and been rather upset if they painted my leaving as anything other than going to find something there that doesn't waste my time.

That´s the way angsty teenagers would see it. Normal people watching the video see that some gamers leave, implying that they find the content disgusting. Other gamers protest because they find the content disgusting. And in the end we see gamers listening to the Sudanese peoples story. Apparently they were interested in what the Sudanese had to say or they would have left after finding out that they were mislead.
Nowhere is implied that gamers are somehow bad people unwilling to face real horrors. But of course, if you are used to being hyperdefensive you will find a way to interpret that into the clip. Just like fundamentalists find ways to interprete stuff that has little or nothing to do with them as attacking their religion.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

People - human beings - only have a finite reserve of charity and good will to spend on the world. It's a fine and noble thing to give and have empathy for people who aren't us, and it's a good thing to try to encourage, stimulate, and expand that empathy as much as possible. But if your means of attempting that are to short-change and manipulate well-off-but-innocent people, fuck off. If you want to fuck with not-so-innocent people (say, doing the above turkey stunt to the land development board members who directly rendered those people homeless), I won't shed too many tears, but indiscriminately poaching on anyone who can be squeezed of more charity for your pet cause is pretty goddamn sleazy and insulting. There's a lot of causes to be charitable about, and most decent people usually give to a few. Don't badger them with bullshit.

Where exactly do you show concern for UNICEF there?

I highlighted the relevant section for your benefit. It should also be noted that that post was not any kind of formal presentation of my arguments, as I was not actually in an argument until you and others began sniping at my thoughts on the OP's video, thus a more cogent explanation of my position didn't come until later posts. Again, I take that as my own failure to present my position in a more palatable way. I picked a hard target, because I saw an injustice (minor though it may have been) being committed in the name of a greater justice, and that tickled me.

At any rate, you're right that this is not worth debating, and I'm a man of my word, so I concede to your triumphant victory against the lowly gamers who ought not speak against their betters. I shall have a golden laurel wreath fashioned in your honor.