
Gamers Launch Harassment Campaign Against BioWare Writer - Lazare
http://borderhouseblog.com/?p=7832
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electromagnetic
Personally, being a writer, I can see where she's coming from. Bioware is
lauded for its story telling and despite being an avid FPS player, I'm not
playing Mass Effect or Dragon Age solely for the combat. If I was forced to
choose I'd take a story only game for these, because brain-dead "these are bad
guys, shoot them" are a dime a dozen.

I bought Mass Effect 2 almost six months before it got into my list of games I
was playing, _because I love the story_. I play the Halo series over any other
FPS because I love the story. I don't play CoD anymore because it voided the
use of story almost a decade ago.

What I hate is seeing moronic, misogynistic, homophobic, redditards do this to
a woman who's likely being part of the driving force for making Biowares
female characters "real".

~~~
Argorak
* WARNING: MAJOR SPOILER *

I loved Mass Effect I & II as well, but lets name their problem: they are
padded with boring gameplay. Most of the fights are utterly forgettable
(corridor, enemies, your gun, their gun, repeat, end dialogue), the Mako was
the worst vehicle ever driven in a game and firing probes on planets - no word
about that. When the gameplay actually worked and was interweaved with the
storytelling (for example the possibility to skip parts of the boss fight by
Mass Effect I by convincing Saren of his evil), it was truly great. I think
its time that Bioware managed to cut back on meaningless fights and only
allowed interesting battle situations (for example, the ascend to the final
fight in Mass Effect I - it was quick, great layout and it had a story to
tell: our heroes climbing the final mountain). I wouldn't want to skip them,
but often it felt like "and now kill 20 enemies, because its a shooter we
play, here!". Especially in Mass Effect 2, where sidestories all followed the
same scheme.

Oh, about the female/male stuff: I think Mass Effect and Dragon Age are the
only franchises that take relationships and gender seriously. I never played
the romances in Mass Effect II because I didn't want to break my promise from
the first game and the game took note of it - now, thats decision making.

~~~
twiceaday
Dragon Age 1 stands alone in quality writing. It's not fair to compare DA2 or
the ME games to it.

~~~
Argorak
Actually, I got bored by Dragon Age I really quick. The writing was okay, but
the characters were (visually) stiff and off-putting. Also if I have to play
another RPG where I have to micromanage my inventory of a group of six
characters, I'll start a career in accounting.

Also, I think that any story involving dragons has been told to death.

~~~
electromagnetic
I have to agree with the inventory, better weapons and armour should auto-
equip. Select weapon class (axe vs dual-wield vs bow) and let them auto-equip
up in one weapon or armour class.

> Also, I think that any story involving dragons has been told to death.

Agreed, but so has every film plot involving racing cars or stealing cars but
people still go to see them. I think the problem is that when you appeal to
90% of people, you're stuck eternally trying to appeal to the same people.

~~~
Argorak
Well, I also haven't seen any films involving car theft and racing for ages
:). Taste, taste, taste. I didn't enjoy DA, because it was wasting my time
even more than ME, which at least had the inventory cruft cut. I agree that DA
should be mentioned in one breath with others when it comes to careful
storytelling.

~~~
electromagnetic
I think DA did so well because there's a huge hesitation in people to play a
"sci-fi" game. I have no clue why though. My wife even said "that [ME} is too
sci-fi, but that [DA} looks interesting".

I don't get what the difference is between a Krogan and an Orc.

Being a writer, I know I could write a story where I could literally switch
terminology and it be either a sci-fi or fantasy.

What really gets me is I can never get my wife to sit down and watch more than
an episode of BSG, Stargate or something else, but over 3/4 of the movies she
picks to see are sci-fi. So I spend a lot of time pulling my hair out on TV
choices but for a film I don't even have to ask what it is (although I should
keep track of when the damn twilight movies come out as I get sidelined every
time).

~~~
Argorak
Actually, I managed to change my girlfriend a bit in that respect. I think the
biggest problem of SciFi is that its mostly associated with Star Wars and Star
Trek, the first is a geekfest for nerds and the second is a very special facet
(both not bad, but hey) and also associated as "boy things" already.

We actually watched more thoughtful things like Blade Runner and discussed the
film afterwards. Half-SciFIs like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind which
have a more subtle use of SciFI-topics are also good. Its best if you can say
"hey, you just watched a SciFI movie" without her realizing that at first.
Firefly is also good, because there is not spaceship-shooting-at-things stuff.
As my girlfriend is a suspense fan, Alien will be up next :).

And yes, I know half of the story of DA because my girlfriend is far ahead of
me :).

------
f4stjack
Wow... I am astounded. In an age where computer games nearly rival, or
surpass, movies in terms of storytelling; a game developer gets harassed
because she prefers storytelling aspect over combat.

But seriously, we deserve it. For some people gameplay = combat; not the
experience lived with it and at the core of this problem lies fps-ification of
everything. Gone the days of Monkey Island and Beneath a Steel Sky. We need
oodles of guns and/or breasts in our games. No need to think or read, we need
blamming! If it's medieval we need badass swords and breasts; if it's modern
we need guns and ammo and breasts! Story? What do you mean "story"? Who needs
story when you have enemies to turn into offal.

It is sad to see this train of thought is dominant in gamers nowadays.

~~~
kevingadd
It's unfair to say it's dominant. The problem is that EA management forces
BioWare to aim for the (admittedly, quite large) segment of the gaming
population that loves playing a big burly man who shoots other big burly men,
because those games make an absolute truckload of money.

It may be true that Modern Warfare and Gears of War are absurdly profitable
franchises - that's why BioWare is slowly turning Mass Effect into those games
- but that doesn't mean that other types of games aren't popular, or that the
average gamer only wants to play those games. You need only look at the most
popular games on Steam to see evidence otherwise.

An important thing to consider, though, is whether Hepler's agenda - admirable
though it may be - is actually right for Mass Effect or any of BioWare's
games. If BioWare's customers want games that are heavy on gameplay and not
story, trying to build a pure story game is probably unwise, unless your goal
is to drive away all your existing customers and try to find new ones. You can
do that, but it's usually not a good business strategy, and my wager is that
EA shareholders wouldn't approve of it.

If you look at the trajectory of BioWare's games, over time, they've shed
their gameplay sophistication, branching paths, and depth in favor of
accessibility, action, and high production values. The emphasis on shooting
men with guns (or, in the case of Dragon Age, stabbing men with swords) came
along with that because those themes are wildly successful in modern sci-
fi/fantasy films and test well with focus groups. When BioWare's remaining
fans (not to mention former fans who were driven away by the new focus) hear a
BioWare staffer calling for the games to have _less_ gameplay, they're going
to see that as someone driving their games further away from the classics that
many people remember BioWare for - like Baldur's Gate. And it's no surprise to
see a negative response for that.

As far as the content of the actual community response, I don't think it even
bears mentioning that the sexism is unacceptable. Unfortunately, the community
as a whole will likely never move past this, because games are popular with
youth and the emotionally immature instead of just with adults.

~~~
scott_s
You're assuming that BioWare's change of direction is because of EA. That is,
you're assuming it's not what BioWare _wants_ to do of their own accord. Is
that your assumption, or have you heard either EA or BioWare say that is the
case?

------
upthedale
A more in-depth article was previously posted on HN:
[http://www.themarysue.com/inclusion-what-jennifer-heplers-
st...](http://www.themarysue.com/inclusion-what-jennifer-heplers-story-is-all-
about/)

HN discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3618301>

------
koningrobot
From the "About Us" blurb: _The Border House is a blog for gamers. It's a blog
for those who are feminist, queer, disabled, people of color, transgender,
poor, gay, lesbian, and others who belong to marginalized groups, as well as
allies._

From the article: _But more importantly, she’s talking about making games more
inclusive and suggesting that people play games for different reasons and in
different ways. This is at the heart of why the misogynerds are so angry: the
industry is changing, it’s been changing for a long time, and it’s no longer
the sole domain of misogynist nerds like them._

~~~
rmc
… and? I don't understand what you're trying to say?

~~~
koningrobot
That first they get on the high horse of respecting everyone, and then they
slam a particular minority. They even came up with a condescending word for
it: misogynerds.

~~~
ugh
Those people are not a minority. They are the clear majority and until a few
years ago dominated everything.

------
true_religion
Granted what the players are doing to harass her in her personal life is
ridiculous and ought to be stopped, but lets consider what she said.

We have a writer with a high degree of influence on a game development staff,
claiming that she does not enjoy playing games.

This to me is a PR failure. Some industries can get away with being
indifferent to their work (e.g. no one cares if you love making widgets so
long as they're good widgets), but entertainment products such as books,
movies, and games are naturally expected to be "labors of love".

Can you imagine a studio director coming out to say that he doesn't watch
movies? If she or anyone else on her team doesn't like their product, they
ought to keep it to themselves for PR value alone.

~~~
dagw
Let's look at the thing in context. First of all the claim was made 5 years
ago when she was fairly new to the computer games industry (she'd worked on tv
shows and written for table top games before). Who know how she feels about
games today.

Also she didn't simply say she hated games she actually said "...While I enjoy
the interactive aspects of gaming, if a game doesn’t have a good story, it’s
very hard for me to get interested in playing it. Similarly, I’m really
terrible at so many things which most games use incessantly — I have awful
hand-eye coordination, I don’t like tactics, I don’t like fighting, I don’t
like keeping track of inventory, and I can’t read a game map to save my life.
This makes it very difficult for me to play to the myriad games I really
should be keeping up on as our competition."

Finally her comment about wanting to skip combat was made in the context of
her having a baby and simply not having the time needed to get through an RPG.
She just wanted an option to follow the story of the game without having to
dedicate month of her life (time she no longer had) to do so.

~~~
true_religion
I actually didn't realize till now that it was something she posted in 2006.
It's still not good to have it come up now but to me it makes it less
relevant.

However, PR is like politics and if you remember the Obama campaign--opponents
can make impact by dredging up old dirt about you from even 30 years ago.

------
hengli
I haven't played video games in a long time. Exactly as that writer says I
find combat dreadfully dull. I wouldn't play any bioware games unless a no-
combat mode is possible. But there is a genre of entertainment that's perfect
for me. It's called Visual Novels. It combines all the best parts of multiple
media with the interactivity of gaming. A popular visual novel you might've
heard of is Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney. There's a ton more in that genre.

Here's a HTML5 example:

<http://visualnoveldai.com/visualnovels/narcissu>

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voidr
If you don't have to actually play a game like Dragon Age(by being able to
skip combat), it just becomes an interactive movie.

I think having really low difficulty levels is lot better than taking the
gameplay out of the game, of course you can do that too but you can't really
call it a game then.

I really love Dragon Age Origins for it's synergy between interesting gameplay
and story telling.

~~~
dagw
_If you don't have to actually play a game like Dragon Age(by being able to
skip combat), it just becomes an interactive movie._

And why would that be a bad thing? No one would be forcing you to skip combat.
Personally I'd love a feature like that. I obviously wouldn't use it on every
level, but being able to skip that dull, tedious level I just can't get past,
so that I can get on with the rest of the game (and story) would be great.

------
cabalamat
If people don't like BioWare, they should simply _play other games_. There are
different games that appeal to people with different tastes, and that's a good
thing.

Their attitude seems to be like someone who complains that a particular novel
or TV program doesn't appeal to them, as if the writers had some sort of moral
obligation to appeal to that particular person.

