

Assassin's Creed: Unity is re-igniting an historic debate - samclemens
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/11/let-them-play-assassins-creed/382818/?single_page=true

======
swang
I smell a paid placed article. Assassin's Creed has been getting killed in the
press for its numerous bugs, graphical glitches and its slowness and lag even
on the beefiest of PC machines. Then all of a sudden this article but the
game's "rich history" pops up?

P.S. The Atlantic has no articles written about the numerous bugs from the
game, even though it made it into several websites that usually don't cover
video games. P.S. #2, The Atlantic is the website that produced that awful
Scientology Paid Content Article[0]

0: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-
wemple/wp/2013/01/1...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-
wemple/wp/2013/01/15/the-atlantics-scientology-problem-start-to-finish/)

~~~
rverghes
So Ubisoft is also paying off the French politicians complaining about this?
There are numerous links in the article.

(If they are, that's pretty impressive work by the Ubisoft PR department.)

The simpler explanation that someone at the Atlantic pays attention to French
politics, saw these complaints, and spun it into an article for their American
audience.

~~~
Zikes
They must have used all the money they saved by not doing any QA.

------
ekianjo
> The former leftist French presidential candidate, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, called
> it “propaganda against the people, the people who are [portrayed as]
> barbarians, bloodthirsty savages,” while the “cretin” that is Marie-
> Antoinette and the “treacherous” Louis XVI are portrayed as noble victims.
> “The denigration of the great Revolution is a dirty job to instill more
> self-loathing and déclinisme in the French,” he told Le Figaro (link in
> French).

Melenchon, for those who do not know him, is an utter moron in French
politics. Now we know he is also ignorant about History, because there's ample
evidence that the age of Terror was barbaric and without mercy against anyone
who may have shown any kind of sympathy for the nobility or the king, no
matter their status. And with bloodthirsty guys like St Just, "Sympathy" could
be defined as not being a fanatic for the revolutionary cause. And let's not
forget the genocide in Vendee against masses of civilians still in favor of
the King. The problem is that the Revolution did not stop at killing the King
and its supporters, it basically turned into a massive genocide where everyone
could become the next target. Hell, even Danton and Desmoulins were convicted
to betray the Revolution ideals.

On a side note, Melenchon is known soviet Russia supporter and he probably has
the same reading of the Gulags.

~~~
tjradcliffe
> The problem is that the Revolution did not stop at killing the King and its
> supporters, it basically turned into a massive genocide where everyone could
> become the next target

So, just like almost every other revolution in history, eh? (The American
Rebellion and the English Civil War are arguably two exceptions, both enabled
by extremely special circumstances.)

The curious thing is that that anyone bothers with revolutionary change any
more. "I know! Let's have a revolution! That's hardly ever worked before so
it's bound to work this time!"

Admittedly, revolutions do happen in part because of the breakdown of
tyrannical regimes, but incrementalism, even in the face of tyranny, is
historically far more likely to produce better outcomes. It is what freed most
of Eastern Europe from the Soviets, for example.

Unfortunately incrementalism takes patience, and humans are far too willing to
pursue quick fixes that don't work over long games that do. It's a very
curious thing.

~~~
dragonwriter
> So, just like almost every other revolution in history, eh? (The American
> Rebellion and the English Civil War are arguably two exceptions, both
> enabled by extremely special circumstances.)

There's actually _lots_ of examples from regional separatist movements that
had strong buy-in from the local elites, like the American Revolution (to use
its popular local name, though it really wasn't really a revolution.)

> Admittedly, revolutions do happen in part because of the breakdown of
> tyrannical regimes, but incrementalism, even in the face of tyranny, is
> historically far more likely to produce better outcomes.

Tyrannies violently purge even incrementalists, and revolutionaries (because
they start out with stronger boundaries and an expectation that they'll be
hunted whereas incrementalists are more open expecting to be able to work
within the system) are, on average, more prepared to deal with that kind of
effort.

> It is what freed most of Eastern Europe from the Soviets, for example.

It may be what freed most of Eastern Europe from Soviet-style local tyrannies,
but what freed them from the USSR was the economic collapse of the USSR after
a protracted spending war with the most developed economies in the world (no
small part of which involved the more developed countries backing
revolutionary groups in places that were within the Soviet sphere of
influence, so in a very real sense revolutionaries were quite instrumental.)

