Eurogamer's hostile interview with David Cage over depiction of domestic violence

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PostRe: Eurogamer's hostile interview with David Cage over depiction of domestic violence
by Fade » Tue Oct 31, 2017 10:34 pm

Cuttooth wrote:
Fade wrote:
Gemini73 wrote:Ah yes this particular tweet is a beauty...

"The trailer for Detroit: Become Human is beyond appalling. Domestic violence is game entertainment now huh?"

...but no doubt this same individual, along with millions of others, has been mowing down innocent civilians in GTA for years in the name of entertainment, but that's okay because that's fun and allowed.

That's my exact point.

Some people are so deluded, protective and patronising of women that they view domestic violence as more appalling than death.

Like, there's a whole game profiting off of the back of the worst war in human history dude, as an arcadey power fantasy.

People are stupid, and a lot more sexist than they realise.

The only way games will get better at tackling these issues is if we let them try.


Considering the message of the trailer can be explicitly read as the positive solution to a domestic abuse situation always being only a handful of choices away (distilled by a few button presses/actions by a player on the sofa), I don’t really hold out much hope that it’s going to truly handle the themes with the sensitivity required.

I have no doubt video games can tackle these kinds of issues, I don’t think this one can in the way it’s suggesting it will.

It's a game about androids.

Have you seen Ex Machina?

Spoilers: an Android is locked in a room, she escapes, kills her abusive creator and imprisons the man who helps her inside the house.

Fiction doesn't always have to relate to real life. It's fiction.

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PostRe: Eurogamer's hostile interview with David Cage over depiction of domestic violence
by Cuttooth » Tue Oct 31, 2017 11:06 pm

Fade wrote:The only way games will get better at tackling these issues is if we let them try.


Fade wrote:Fiction doesn't always have to relate to real life. It's fiction.


Bloody hell, why even bother trying then with such an easy out if they screw it up?! It suggests creators have no real responsibility to tackle heavy, real world everyday social problems they choose to frame their fiction with sensitivity and thought, because they aren't creating some non-fiction narrative.

They absolutely do in my view, especially for something that'll be treated as a pretty big release with a large marketing budget.

I do not think treating domestic abuse as a series of right/wrong escape choices is a very good way of handling the issue. In fact I think it's counter to how so many domestic abuse victims see themselves having a lack of choice in the situation they're in. A very common point of view is to wonder how victims stay with their abuser and this does nothing to help with potentially understanding that.

I mean no offense with this, but a large part of people wanting video games to be treated as a serious, mature art form but without letting 'politics' or heavy criticism get involved in it smacks of not wanting their hobby and way they spend their time to not be treated as a some joke. Treat it as a serious art form. Then realise what that requires.

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PostRe: Eurogamer's hostile interview with David Cage over depiction of domestic violence
by Knoyleo » Tue Oct 31, 2017 11:14 pm









I can't wait for the innevitable "All failures to prevent child abuse montage" videos, so people can finally see that video games are the perfect medium for tackling difficult subjects.

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PostRe: Eurogamer's hostile interview with David Cage over depiction of domestic violence
by KK » Tue Oct 31, 2017 11:19 pm

With that freeze frame, what was Lara's death from, an orgasm?

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PostRe: Eurogamer's hostile interview with David Cage over depiction of domestic violence
by Squinty » Wed Nov 01, 2017 7:31 am

I think it's fair enough asking these questions of Cage.

I think we do need to see this scene in context before judging it.

I doubt Cage will be able to do pull this off effectively though, given his incredible awkwardness in the past.

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PostRe: Eurogamer's hostile interview with David Cage over depiction of domestic violence
by Fade » Wed Nov 01, 2017 8:48 am

Cuttooth wrote:
Fade wrote:The only way games will get better at tackling these issues is if we let them try.


Fade wrote:Fiction doesn't always have to relate to real life. It's fiction.


Bloody hell, why even bother trying then with such an easy out if they screw it up?! It suggests creators have no real responsibility to tackle heavy, real world everyday social problems they choose to frame their fiction with sensitivity and thought, because they aren't creating some non-fiction narrative.

They absolutely do in my view, especially for something that'll be treated as a pretty big release with a large marketing budget.

I do not think treating domestic abuse as a series of right/wrong escape choices is a very good way of handling the issue. In fact I think it's counter to how so many domestic abuse victims see themselves having a lack of choice in the situation they're in. A very common point of view is to wonder how victims stay with their abuser and this does nothing to help with potentially understanding that.

I mean no offense with this, but a large part of people wanting video games to be treated as a serious, mature art form but without letting 'politics' or heavy criticism get involved in it smacks of not wanting their hobby and way they spend their time to not be treated as a some joke. Treat it as a serious art form. Then realise what that requires.

But she is an android who has had her memory wiped.
Not a real person. Yeah real domestic abuse victims don't have real choices a lot of the time, but they also aren't androids from the future.

You can criticise it. The problem is that people are trying to treat it like a biographic novel. It's like blaming Bioshock for portraying drug addiction poorly :lol:

Lift is strange treated suicide as a bunch of right and wrong choices essentially, why is that okay but this isn't? Oh right because David Cage didn't make it, and we're all meant to hate David Cage.

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PostRe: Eurogamer's hostile interview with David Cage over depiction of domestic violence
by Moggy » Wed Nov 01, 2017 8:52 am

Fade wrote:People want video games to be art, or be taken more seriously


Do we? Personally I just want games to be fun. I don’t mind them being “adult” themed but I couldn’t really give a gooseberry fool if they are art.

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PostRe: Eurogamer's hostile interview with David Cage over depiction of domestic violence
by Tafdolphin » Wed Nov 01, 2017 9:05 am

Great response to this trailer. It's a thread, obvs.

twitter.com/bombsfall/status/925587756167979008


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PostRe: Eurogamer's hostile interview with David Cage over depiction of domestic violence
by Knoyleo » Wed Nov 01, 2017 9:17 am

That's a long thread, do you think you could sum it up in 140 characters or less?

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PostRe: Eurogamer's hostile interview with David Cage over depiction of domestic violence
by Frank » Wed Nov 01, 2017 9:18 am

tl;dr - Context is everything.

Basically.

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PostRe: Eurogamer's hostile interview with David Cage over depiction of domestic violence
by Tafdolphin » Wed Nov 01, 2017 9:18 am

Cage is a hack, distressing situations aren't back-of-box selling points.

EDIT: and yes, context is important

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PostRe: Eurogamer's hostile interview with David Cage over depiction of domestic violence
by <]:^D » Wed Nov 01, 2017 9:31 am

Brerlappin wrote:
Saint of Killers wrote:No idea. But my Twitter feed is filled with people dreading how Cage will handle the child abuse angle / other sensitive elements of the game.


Press X to scream "UNCLE NO!!!!"


:lol:

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PostRe: Eurogamer's hostile interview with David Cage over depiction of domestic violence
by more heat than light » Wed Nov 01, 2017 6:01 pm

The problem with videogames attempting to do something like this is that a series of inputs on a controller are never going to properly represent choices in these situations, so it's always going to boil down to binary decision making. That, unfortunately is always going to come across as crass when dealing with a heavy subject matter like this. The alternative is to go the Telltale route and just have it an interactive story, but then you may as well just be watching a film.

I'm all for challenging subject matter being the backdrop to an excellent game, but it needs to be a videogame first and foremost. That's just how this medium works. Character development and storytelling during cutscenes is fine, but you can't 'play' an abuse sequence, it's utterly tasteless.

Obviously I've only watched the trailer, so this is all subject to change.

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PostRe: Eurogamer's hostile interview with David Cage over depiction of domestic violence
by That » Wed Nov 01, 2017 8:55 pm

I think it's theoretically possible to 'play' an abuse situation in a way that is nuanced, interesting, and respectful, but however that works it's not going to be a "waggle controller to not get abused" quick time event.

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PostRe: Eurogamer's hostile interview with David Cage over depiction of domestic violence
by Skarjo » Thu Nov 02, 2017 2:04 am

Yea, I think 'can' games tackle abuse and such effectively? In theory, absolutely, but do I think that this will be the game that does it? No.

I don't think there are any topics that are fundamentally off the table when it comes to storytelling, but certain things need to be handled with care and I don't think that the Games 'Press F to pay respects' Industry has even got close to demonstrating that it can. It's quite possible that some little indie darling might have a half decent stab at it, but this will be a train wreck.

Don't really want to QTE my way through being beaten in the kitchen because I burnt the toast.

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PostRe: Eurogamer's hostile interview with David Cage over depiction of domestic violence
by Trelliz » Thu Nov 02, 2017 6:58 am

Wasn't Papa and Yo a beautiful action platformer which was also an allegory to an abusive relationship?

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PostRe: Eurogamer's hostile interview with David Cage over depiction of domestic violence
by Skarjo » Thu Nov 02, 2017 7:47 am

Karl wrote:I think it's theoretically possible to 'play' an abuse situation in a way that is nuanced, interesting, and respectful, but however that works it's not going to be a "waggle controller to not get abused" quick time event.


I'm sure I remember someone talking once about a game where you had to do all these meaningless chores, like making a cup of tea or changing the bedsheets or whatever and the interface was like a sports game where there's an oscillating gauge and you had to press the button in the 'green' bit of the bar to do the action.

Turns out you're a housewife, and level 1 green section is huge and the husband comes home sober and the whole thing is fine. But as the levels progress, the 'green' bit of the bar got smaller and smaller and the husband came home drunker and drunker until eventually it was basically impossible to get all the tasks done in green in the time limit and when the drunk husband returned he beat the gooseberry fool out of you.

Sounded blunt, to say the least.

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PostRe: Eurogamer's hostile interview with David Cage over depiction of domestic violence
by Tafdolphin » Thu Nov 02, 2017 9:07 am

Skarjo wrote:
Karl wrote:I think it's theoretically possible to 'play' an abuse situation in a way that is nuanced, interesting, and respectful, but however that works it's not going to be a "waggle controller to not get abused" quick time event.


I'm sure I remember someone talking once about a game where you had to do all these meaningless chores, like making a cup of tea or changing the bedsheets or whatever and the interface was like a sports game where there's an oscillating gauge and you had to press the button in the 'green' bit of the bar to do the action.

Turns out you're a housewife, and level 1 green section is huge and the husband comes home sober and the whole thing is fine. But as the levels progress, the 'green' bit of the bar got smaller and smaller and the husband came home drunker and drunker until eventually it was basically impossible to get all the tasks done in green in the time limit and when the drunk husband returned he beat the gooseberry fool out of you.

Sounded blunt, to say the least.


That sounds....really strawberry floating interesting. Not a game I'd ever want to play, but one that at least fuses its mechanics with the subject matter to create an empathy with victims of abuse.

I obviously agree on the point being dicussed: if handled well I don't think anything is off topic for games, just like movies or books. It all about the way the subjects are treated. As that twitter thread I posted posits, for Cage abuse is another back-of-box selling point, an arbitrary way for his jumped up interactive movies to sound 'mature.' The fact that the gameplay is the same as it's always been, and that the outcomes are as black and white, show that this is a man who is completely unfit to deal with such topics.

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PostRe: Eurogamer's hostile interview with David Cage over depiction of domestic violence
by Jenuall » Thu Nov 02, 2017 11:13 am

Whilst I absolutely agree that it would be nice to see more games tackle these subjects in a meaningful way, we also have to be mindful as to whether we are judging all media by the same standards.

There are plenty of films, TV shows and books that feature violence and abuse but do very little to actually understand or explore these topics - the impact they have on the victims, the reasoning behind why someone is an abuser, the factors that often prevent the abused from escaping the situation (or often even admitting that they are in an abusive relationship) etc. If society in general deems it okay for Hollywood and the like to often use these scenarios in this way then surely we can't take offense at games doing the same? So long as they are not pretending to do anything more complex than that?

That said I think we definitely should be pushing for designers and developers to do more in this area - gaming is in such a unique position to explore scenarios such as this in some really interesting, and hopefully powerful and educating, ways. Terrible situations like domestic violence and abuse are so entwined in the act of the experience itself that cinema and TV can only do so much - effectively showing the act and using the usual tools of direction, acting, music/audio etc. to attempt to get the audience to feel something about the situation. With games we have the unique advantage of control and interactivity which can potentially offer so much more to how these experiences can be shared and understood. Like the example given above gaming tools can be used to demonstrate in very clear terms the impossible situation the abuse victim finds themselves in. Games are obviously often set up as power fantasies - giving the player lots of tools and abilities with which to control their character and overcome obstacles, this in itself could potentially be subverted as a mechanism to communicate something about abuse - the slow stripping away of control and power that the abused feels as they become trapped in an abusive situation. Similarly games are becoming increasingly about choice and "play your own way" with open challenges designed to promote exploration and experimentation - again this kind of mechanism is something that could be used as as a tool to demonstrate how the victim feels that choices are removed in their situation and they are left with only one path to walk - that which continues to further abuse.

I'm not saying these are good examples - or that building something that uses interactive mechanics to say something powerful about abuse is easy, but as I say it does feel like there is a huge opportunity here to explore something in a way that "passive" media never could.

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PostRe: Eurogamer's hostile interview with David Cage over depiction of domestic violence
by Lotus » Thu Nov 02, 2017 3:09 pm

jawafour wrote:I now visit Eurogamer far less frequently than I used to. It was my number one place for discovering videogame news but, personally, I feel it has lowered its standards and now often publishes stuff with the sole intent of creating controversy and seeking attention. I guess, as it is a news and reviews outlet, there is nothing wrong with it taking that line if it wants to.

The quality of Eurogamer's fallen off a cliff pretty much since Tom left. Some of the reviews/reviewers really aren't good, and combined with other editorial and design decisions, it's somewhere I also visit less and less.

Anyway, as for this, I watched the trailer I didn't see anything wrong. It's not like it's Child Abuse Simulator and you're going around beating children - you're just seeing the events happen and reacting accordingly (from what I can see). It's pretty heavy subject matter, but I don't see why it should be ignored from a videogame perspective, and I don't think we know enough about the game and how it's actually dealt with to be able to write this off as inappropriate and badly handled. I've never played any of David Cage's games, and don't really have any desire to play this either, but I'll be interested to see how this aspect of the story unfolds in the final game.


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