The only reason any gaming website writes any kind of review is to manufacture clicks and pad their website's bottom line. The days of 'honest' video game reviews are over, if they ever even...
That Reddit post, and the comments of that post, also seem to be convinced that this was written by PC Gamer in order to manufacture outrage and drive up their traffic.
The only reason any gaming website writes any kind of review is to manufacture clicks and pad their website's bottom line. The days of 'honest' video game reviews are over, if they ever even existed in the first place. I thought we all learned that lesson from early gamergate, when they exposed a dozen of the top gaming websites acting as one corrupt unit colluding to control perception of the entire industry - taking the same payouts, running the same narratives, and protecting or attacking the same groups.
Perhaps my fond memories of EGM's integrity during the golden age of gaming are a lie. We'll have to stick to regular reviews from regular people for honest takes, at least until the company that made the game hits their reviews on youtube with multiple takedown notices for exposing the lemons.
Of course this is an intentionally 'bad' review. That's what you do if you want to score clicks - you shit on the highest rated game steam has ever seen, sit back, and wait for the rage traffic. Would we even be talking about this review if it had been positive? I doubt it.
Y'all been trolled by pcgamer yet again. Stop taking the bait. :P
It's a generally positive review that makes a pretty reserved and moderate point about how the implementation of character traits is shallow and some issues that come up as a result of that / how...
It's a generally positive review that makes a pretty reserved and moderate point about how the implementation of character traits is shallow and some issues that come up as a result of that / how that's boring. I don't even disagree, and I'm also positive about Rimworld. The game on its face presents things like these and drives your imagination wild with the different directions this could all go, but very quickly it becomes apparent that it doesn't go very far and unless you're the kind of person that spent hundreds of hours in The Sims trapping people in boxes (which is cool, not hating) or are satisfied with a passable building system, it gets boring quickly.
I don't like assuming that a (still positive!) review that ever-so-slightly challenges the average opinion is a totally manufactured troll. While I don't think the gaming review world is a totally wonderful place, making every positive review out to be shilling and every negative review out to be rage-bait is a narative that's just custom-built to affirm itself no matter what you're looking at. If a review this positive about a well-loved thing raises red flags, I would hate to be in this business with the hot takes I've got. We need some diversity of opinions, gaming is SO homogenous in that way.
If the review is on a major gaming site, I have a simple metric. If the review is good, someone paid for it. If the review wasn't paid for, the site is free to do whatever makes them the most...
If the review is on a major gaming site, I have a simple metric. If the review is good, someone paid for it. If the review wasn't paid for, the site is free to do whatever makes them the most clicks - and that's typically putting together a condescending slice of crap. That mild air of condescension is critical for good trolling. Overtly negative doesn't get it done. The dead giveaway here is the fact that they are bringing up gender roles in rimworld yet again and are somehow ignorant of rimworld's history with that very topic. No journalist worth their salt is that stupid - it's blatant.
You can tell me this is a simplistic view and that's fair. I see it as a view that correctly focuses on the financial motives, because for these sites, there is no other motive, period. Modern gaming is that simple to me - it's all about the money, especially in an age when most (formerly) AAA studios are ramming microtransactions and bug-ridden sequels down our throats. I will never expect or look for honesty on any site that displays advertisements. The ads themselves are proof of corruption as far as I'm concerned. /shrug
I really dislike this attitude. Someone should be able to legitimately dislike something that others love and not be accused of manufacturing their opinions.
I really dislike this attitude. Someone should be able to legitimately dislike something that others love and not be accused of manufacturing their opinions.
Of course. That's not the issue. Lots of contrarians in the steam reviews, and no one bats an eye. The issue is that since games media have a financial stake, they can not be trusted to be a...
Of course. That's not the issue. Lots of contrarians in the steam reviews, and no one bats an eye. The issue is that since games media have a financial stake, they can not be trusted to be a contrarian in good faith.
If this weren't on PCGamer I wouldn't second guess it. My criticism is of the site and this advertising-driven business model for games journalism, not the specific reviewer or their opinion.
If this weren't on PCGamer I wouldn't second guess it. My criticism is of the site and this advertising-driven business model for games journalism, not the specific reviewer or their opinion.
It's definitely worth talking about. Part of me can't help wonder if there's more to this than just advertising as well. Indie games are a disruption to the business model of major publishers....
It's definitely worth talking about. Part of me can't help wonder if there's more to this than just advertising as well. Indie games are a disruption to the business model of major publishers. Time was, going through one of those publishers was the only practical way to get the game out there. Now, anyone with the talent can develop and publish their own game. When it turns out that a lot of these indie games are much better and more fun than their AAA contemporaries, it's embarrassing to those publishers and major studios. When a bugfest like assassin's creed's catastrophe happens, it makes people wonder why they are supporting these studios. It makes people wonder why all the major game sites gave that game (which was a milestone objective failure) such glowing reviews.
Honestly I'm not worried about gaming's future. The developer tools to build one are out there and easier to use all the time, more powerful year over year. Indie studios are everywhere now making excellent games. Even Rimworld here (largely done by a single person) is a prime example. An indie game outside the normal channels that grabs the ultimate crown from steam - the highest positive user reviews any game on steam has ever achieved, and not a record likely to fall to another game in the near future. I don't expect the 'games industry' to swallow that pill without kicking up some fuss. I expect to see rimworld panned on all the major gaming sites. I also expect those sites to lose relevance until they go out of business, as several have in the last two years.
Meanwhile, great games critics are all over twitch and youtube giving honest reviews with a depth an intimacy that text alone can't match. These people love playing games, and getting paid to play games is a dream job. That's a better motive than I expect to see from advertising-driven platforms. It's why so many people follow these channels. Gaming is stepping out from the shadow of the 'industry' that was the center of it for so long. That's progress - more games, better games, better gaming information.
My impression is that the author feels it's hurtful to have bad traits like "psychopath" or "misogyny" on the same tier as good traits like "hard-working", or subjective-bad traits like "ugly" --...
This part really confuses me. If someone else has some thoughts on it, I would love to hear them. I think I am just having trouble really figuring out what the author meant by this part of the article.
My impression is that the author feels it's hurtful to have bad traits like "psychopath" or "misogyny" on the same tier as good traits like "hard-working", or subjective-bad traits like "ugly" -- making implicit connections between "ugly" and "misogynist".
I don't agree with the author, but I can sort of see where they're coming from if the intersection of two traits, one of which could describe the player, managed to touch on a common stereotype. But that just seems like a) ascribing a lot of judgment to what's basically RNG, and/or b) an invitation to drastically over-complicate the trait system.
Rimworld randomly assigns traits as well, sometimes they are in direct conflict (someone who has bloodlust and kind for example). Rimworld's character generator is less interested in making sure...
Rimworld randomly assigns traits as well, sometimes they are in direct conflict (someone who has bloodlust and kind for example). Rimworld's character generator is less interested in making sure the traits measure up to any kind of standard than it is slapping 2500 randomly generated traits on new raiders in the half-second it decides to spawn a raiding party to come and cook/eat your own colonists.
Mods like psychology replace and enhance that well beyond the base system which is intentionally fast/simplistic. They also lag the game a bit doing all of that extra computation. At some point sim has to give way to shortcuts, or the game will burn a hole in the CPU. Reading that trait complaint in the review makes it seem like nitpicking, especially when mods solve the problem. You can't know about rimworld's mods without coming across psychology at some point, it's been one of the top ten mods for years.
Why should we be concerned about "wasting" a trait?
I mean, had "straight" been included as a trait for characters alongside "gay" then most characters would essentially have a trait slot be wasted on a sexual identifier that did what?
Why should we be concerned about "wasting" a trait?
This is a great explanation, thank you. As you've outlined it, the mechanic in question does seem poorly implemented from a gameplay perspective. What concerns me though, is seeing people...
This is a great explanation, thank you. As you've outlined it, the mechanic in question does seem poorly implemented from a gameplay perspective. What concerns me though, is seeing people attribute the feature to malice or homophobia.
Also, I'm still not sure I fully understand PC Gamer's critique of the trait as "painfully heteronormative." Isn't heterosexuality technically... normative? In comparison to your argument about character limitations, PC Gamer's beef about heterosexuality being a default setting comes across as unnecessarily nit-picky and skewed—considering the game's goal of simulating society.
I mean, one can clearly do bigoted actions without intending to, no? Purely in the sense that there is a statistical majority of heterosexual people. Heteronormativity is not a term describing...
What concerns me though, is seeing people attribute the feature to malice or homophobia.
I mean, one can clearly do bigoted actions without intending to, no?
Isn't heterosexuality technically... normative?
Purely in the sense that there is a statistical majority of heterosexual people. Heteronormativity is not a term describing that simple stat, it's representing the action of showing straight people as the default and gay people as outliers which furthers the view that gay people are not normal at least on an inconcious level.
considering the game's goal of simulating society
Well, if that's the game intended goal I'd say it is even more important to get the basics right !
That makes sense, and I can see how such a mindset could be harmful in society. But I don't see how the game's implementation of homosexuality fits your description. If you're going to depict gay...
Heteronormativity is not a term describing that simple stat, it's representing the action of showing straight people as the default and gay people as outliers which furthers the view that gay people are not normal at least on an unconscious level.
That makes sense, and I can see how such a mindset could be harmful in society. But I don't see how the game's implementation of homosexuality fits your description. If you're going to depict gay people within the scope of a society, I don't think it's all that crazy to suggest that people are less likely to be gay—isn't that all this game is really doing? I understand the critique of trait limitations, but I'm still not seeing why this mechanic is A) bigoted or B) heteronormative as you've described it.
Seems like the worst crime is just not thinking the mechanic out in a way that gives gay characters a full amount of traits.
I mean, one can clearly do bigoted actions without intending to, no?
Not to derail the topic at hand, but I agree—I just don't think that necessarily makes someone a bigot. I see a lot of people presume bigoted intentions in judging things like this and it doesn't feel right.
It's a form of baiting. The phrase 'painfully heteronormative' is like saying 'fite me' to what's left of the gamergate crowd. That entire movement got sucked into the right wing agenda somehow,...
It's a form of baiting. The phrase 'painfully heteronormative' is like saying 'fite me' to what's left of the gamergate crowd. That entire movement got sucked into the right wing agenda somehow, and it's sitting there like a pack of crazy wolves waiting to deride and derail any game-related topics that end up on their radar. If you're looking for traffic, they are a blessing in much the same way the_donald is to reddit. If you're looking for sanity and an intelligent discussion about video games, they are a very noisy distraction. A movement that was about integrity in gaming journalism has now become a useful tool for sabotaging that very discussion.
Edit: If you care to go down that rabbit hole, they've noticed.
Alright, I just don't seem to see how the dev is not at fault then. If the final argument is that the dev had too much important work to implement sexual orientation correctly, why implement it at...
Alright, I just don't seem to see how the dev is not at fault then. If the final argument is that the dev had too much important work to implement sexual orientation correctly, why implement it at all? There could have been mods to fill that gap just like you said there are. By botching it, criticism about that mechanic was bound to happen (and rightly so IMO).
That's why I'm not running Psychology myself at the moment - the performance cost. When a Dire Raid spawns in my game the entire game becomes unresponsive/frozen for almost a full minute because...
That's why I'm not running Psychology myself at the moment - the performance cost. When a Dire Raid spawns in my game the entire game becomes unresponsive/frozen for almost a full minute because of all the mods I've added. It takes that long to generate that many individuals, presonalities, family relationships, skills, and gear for several dozen new NPCs. Psychology would compound that. Besides, this playthrough my colonists are all psychopathic clones of the same individual bent on creating the master race and subjugating all others. When slave- er, I mean, potential recruits have problematic traits I just lock them into the neural programming pods and leave them there until they are all removed, then lock in the new traits with neural cement.
I wonder how all these 'outraged' people would feel about it if they knew that you could forcefully recondition gayness out of all of your colonists, if you wanted to. :P
I agree with the criticism in the review but for me the most disappointing thing about RimWorld is the flat grid you have to build on. In 2018, years after dwarf fortress, minecraft, countless...
I agree with the criticism in the review but for me the most disappointing thing about RimWorld is the flat grid you have to build on. In 2018, years after dwarf fortress, minecraft, countless city builders, etc. it's a bit of a let down to have such a simplistic geometry.
I've been waiting for a game like this to support at least a couple levels of 'height' as more than just 'roof' and 'floor'. Seems like it'd open up new frontiers. I'd love to see that make an...
I've been waiting for a game like this to support at least a couple levels of 'height' as more than just 'roof' and 'floor'. Seems like it'd open up new frontiers. I'd love to see that make an appearance in a game like rimworld or dungeon keeper/war for the overworld.
Rimworld's future development probably lies along the lines of supporting multiple bases, perhaps things in orbit, and more to do on the world map. The core engine can't handle more than a single large map at a time very well, though. The lag is compounded, greatly slowing things down, and the AI doesn't behave properly on huge maps, making very stupid decisions about how to attack/move. Seems like the colonist job scheduler is the chief bottleneck, trying to keep all the pawns busy. It got a lot better from A17 to 1.0 but it's still a bit slow with large numbers of pawns on the map.
I think Rimworld is still a 32bit app. Converting it to 64bit and getting some multithreading action in the brains of the pawns (and other systems) seems to me like it'd really take the gloves off the engine.
The only reason any gaming website writes any kind of review is to manufacture clicks and pad their website's bottom line. The days of 'honest' video game reviews are over, if they ever even existed in the first place. I thought we all learned that lesson from early gamergate, when they exposed a dozen of the top gaming websites acting as one corrupt unit colluding to control perception of the entire industry - taking the same payouts, running the same narratives, and protecting or attacking the same groups.
Perhaps my fond memories of EGM's integrity during the golden age of gaming are a lie. We'll have to stick to regular reviews from regular people for honest takes, at least until the company that made the game hits their reviews on youtube with multiple takedown notices for exposing the lemons.
Of course this is an intentionally 'bad' review. That's what you do if you want to score clicks - you shit on the highest rated game steam has ever seen, sit back, and wait for the rage traffic. Would we even be talking about this review if it had been positive? I doubt it.
Y'all been trolled by pcgamer yet again. Stop taking the bait. :P
Edit: I also have a more conservative modlist.
It's a generally positive review that makes a pretty reserved and moderate point about how the implementation of character traits is shallow and some issues that come up as a result of that / how that's boring. I don't even disagree, and I'm also positive about Rimworld. The game on its face presents things like these and drives your imagination wild with the different directions this could all go, but very quickly it becomes apparent that it doesn't go very far and unless you're the kind of person that spent hundreds of hours in The Sims trapping people in boxes (which is cool, not hating) or are satisfied with a passable building system, it gets boring quickly.
I don't like assuming that a (still positive!) review that ever-so-slightly challenges the average opinion is a totally manufactured troll. While I don't think the gaming review world is a totally wonderful place, making every positive review out to be shilling and every negative review out to be rage-bait is a narative that's just custom-built to affirm itself no matter what you're looking at. If a review this positive about a well-loved thing raises red flags, I would hate to be in this business with the hot takes I've got. We need some diversity of opinions, gaming is SO homogenous in that way.
If the review is on a major gaming site, I have a simple metric. If the review is good, someone paid for it. If the review wasn't paid for, the site is free to do whatever makes them the most clicks - and that's typically putting together a condescending slice of crap. That mild air of condescension is critical for good trolling. Overtly negative doesn't get it done. The dead giveaway here is the fact that they are bringing up gender roles in rimworld yet again and are somehow ignorant of rimworld's history with that very topic. No journalist worth their salt is that stupid - it's blatant.
You can tell me this is a simplistic view and that's fair. I see it as a view that correctly focuses on the financial motives, because for these sites, there is no other motive, period. Modern gaming is that simple to me - it's all about the money, especially in an age when most (formerly) AAA studios are ramming microtransactions and bug-ridden sequels down our throats. I will never expect or look for honesty on any site that displays advertisements. The ads themselves are proof of corruption as far as I'm concerned. /shrug
I really dislike this attitude. Someone should be able to legitimately dislike something that others love and not be accused of manufacturing their opinions.
Of course. That's not the issue. Lots of contrarians in the steam reviews, and no one bats an eye. The issue is that since games media have a financial stake, they can not be trusted to be a contrarian in good faith.
If this weren't on PCGamer I wouldn't second guess it. My criticism is of the site and this advertising-driven business model for games journalism, not the specific reviewer or their opinion.
It's definitely worth talking about. Part of me can't help wonder if there's more to this than just advertising as well. Indie games are a disruption to the business model of major publishers. Time was, going through one of those publishers was the only practical way to get the game out there. Now, anyone with the talent can develop and publish their own game. When it turns out that a lot of these indie games are much better and more fun than their AAA contemporaries, it's embarrassing to those publishers and major studios. When a bugfest like assassin's creed's catastrophe happens, it makes people wonder why they are supporting these studios. It makes people wonder why all the major game sites gave that game (which was a milestone objective failure) such glowing reviews.
Honestly I'm not worried about gaming's future. The developer tools to build one are out there and easier to use all the time, more powerful year over year. Indie studios are everywhere now making excellent games. Even Rimworld here (largely done by a single person) is a prime example. An indie game outside the normal channels that grabs the ultimate crown from steam - the highest positive user reviews any game on steam has ever achieved, and not a record likely to fall to another game in the near future. I don't expect the 'games industry' to swallow that pill without kicking up some fuss. I expect to see rimworld panned on all the major gaming sites. I also expect those sites to lose relevance until they go out of business, as several have in the last two years.
Meanwhile, great games critics are all over twitch and youtube giving honest reviews with a depth an intimacy that text alone can't match. These people love playing games, and getting paid to play games is a dream job. That's a better motive than I expect to see from advertising-driven platforms. It's why so many people follow these channels. Gaming is stepping out from the shadow of the 'industry' that was the center of it for so long. That's progress - more games, better games, better gaming information.
My impression is that the author feels it's hurtful to have bad traits like "psychopath" or "misogyny" on the same tier as good traits like "hard-working", or subjective-bad traits like "ugly" -- making implicit connections between "ugly" and "misogynist".
I don't agree with the author, but I can sort of see where they're coming from if the intersection of two traits, one of which could describe the player, managed to touch on a common stereotype. But that just seems like a) ascribing a lot of judgment to what's basically RNG, and/or b) an invitation to drastically over-complicate the trait system.
Rimworld randomly assigns traits as well, sometimes they are in direct conflict (someone who has bloodlust and kind for example). Rimworld's character generator is less interested in making sure the traits measure up to any kind of standard than it is slapping 2500 randomly generated traits on new raiders in the half-second it decides to spawn a raiding party to come and cook/eat your own colonists.
Mods like psychology replace and enhance that well beyond the base system which is intentionally fast/simplistic. They also lag the game a bit doing all of that extra computation. At some point sim has to give way to shortcuts, or the game will burn a hole in the CPU. Reading that trait complaint in the review makes it seem like nitpicking, especially when mods solve the problem. You can't know about rimworld's mods without coming across psychology at some point, it's been one of the top ten mods for years.
Why should we be concerned about "wasting" a trait?
This is a great explanation, thank you. As you've outlined it, the mechanic in question does seem poorly implemented from a gameplay perspective. What concerns me though, is seeing people attribute the feature to malice or homophobia.
Also, I'm still not sure I fully understand PC Gamer's critique of the trait as "painfully heteronormative." Isn't heterosexuality technically... normative? In comparison to your argument about character limitations, PC Gamer's beef about heterosexuality being a default setting comes across as unnecessarily nit-picky and skewed—considering the game's goal of simulating society.
I mean, one can clearly do bigoted actions without intending to, no?
Purely in the sense that there is a statistical majority of heterosexual people. Heteronormativity is not a term describing that simple stat, it's representing the action of showing straight people as the default and gay people as outliers which furthers the view that gay people are not normal at least on an inconcious level.
Well, if that's the game intended goal I'd say it is even more important to get the basics right !
That makes sense, and I can see how such a mindset could be harmful in society. But I don't see how the game's implementation of homosexuality fits your description. If you're going to depict gay people within the scope of a society, I don't think it's all that crazy to suggest that people are less likely to be gay—isn't that all this game is really doing? I understand the critique of trait limitations, but I'm still not seeing why this mechanic is A) bigoted or B) heteronormative as you've described it.
Seems like the worst crime is just not thinking the mechanic out in a way that gives gay characters a full amount of traits.
Not to derail the topic at hand, but I agree—I just don't think that necessarily makes someone a bigot. I see a lot of people presume bigoted intentions in judging things like this and it doesn't feel right.
It's a form of baiting. The phrase 'painfully heteronormative' is like saying 'fite me' to what's left of the gamergate crowd. That entire movement got sucked into the right wing agenda somehow, and it's sitting there like a pack of crazy wolves waiting to deride and derail any game-related topics that end up on their radar. If you're looking for traffic, they are a blessing in much the same way the_donald is to reddit. If you're looking for sanity and an intelligent discussion about video games, they are a very noisy distraction. A movement that was about integrity in gaming journalism has now become a useful tool for sabotaging that very discussion.
Edit: If you care to go down that rabbit hole, they've noticed.
Alright, I just don't seem to see how the dev is not at fault then. If the final argument is that the dev had too much important work to implement sexual orientation correctly, why implement it at all? There could have been mods to fill that gap just like you said there are. By botching it, criticism about that mechanic was bound to happen (and rightly so IMO).
That's why I'm not running Psychology myself at the moment - the performance cost. When a Dire Raid spawns in my game the entire game becomes unresponsive/frozen for almost a full minute because of all the mods I've added. It takes that long to generate that many individuals, presonalities, family relationships, skills, and gear for several dozen new NPCs. Psychology would compound that. Besides, this playthrough my colonists are all psychopathic clones of the same individual bent on creating the master race and subjugating all others. When slave- er, I mean, potential recruits have problematic traits I just lock them into the neural programming pods and leave them there until they are all removed, then lock in the new traits with neural cement.
I wonder how all these 'outraged' people would feel about it if they knew that you could forcefully recondition gayness out of all of your colonists, if you wanted to. :P
Hmmm. I'm just sad it's set on "rim world" and not Niven's "Ring World"
I agree with the criticism in the review but for me the most disappointing thing about RimWorld is the flat grid you have to build on. In 2018, years after dwarf fortress, minecraft, countless city builders, etc. it's a bit of a let down to have such a simplistic geometry.
I've been waiting for a game like this to support at least a couple levels of 'height' as more than just 'roof' and 'floor'. Seems like it'd open up new frontiers. I'd love to see that make an appearance in a game like rimworld or dungeon keeper/war for the overworld.
Rimworld's future development probably lies along the lines of supporting multiple bases, perhaps things in orbit, and more to do on the world map. The core engine can't handle more than a single large map at a time very well, though. The lag is compounded, greatly slowing things down, and the AI doesn't behave properly on huge maps, making very stupid decisions about how to attack/move. Seems like the colonist job scheduler is the chief bottleneck, trying to keep all the pawns busy. It got a lot better from A17 to 1.0 but it's still a bit slow with large numbers of pawns on the map.
I think Rimworld is still a 32bit app. Converting it to 64bit and getting some multithreading action in the brains of the pawns (and other systems) seems to me like it'd really take the gloves off the engine.