#take-two interactive

Space Station Silicon Valley

The Gaming Blews – August 2021

Rockstar is rumored to be remastering all three ps2 era Grand Theft Auto games and I’m fucking sick of it. “Currently, the idea is to release the remasters in late October or early November, for literally every format possible, including Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, PC, Stadia, and…

This year, GTA publisher Take-Two interactive made the bold move to host a discussion about inclusivity and equity at their E3 panel.

While I am glad that this discussion is happening and I agree with most of what they said, I think that E3 was probably the absolute worst time to talk about this.

To be honest, I didn’t know that this is was a thing until just an hour or so ago. I only planned to watch Nintendo’s E3 presentation and I only learned about Take-Two’s inclusivity discussion through a meme on Discord. After that, I watched the stream and did some research, and I can definitely understand why this panel got the reaction that it did.

That reaction being this:

That like/dislike ratio should speak volumes. Many of the comments are similarly negative.

Who was this panel even meant for? Were they seeking brownie points from left-leaning gamers by claiming that “most of the industry doesn’t care about inclusivity, but we do. Buy our games!” Or maybe even some form of damage control, given that GTA doesn’t generally have the best depiction of women? I seriously doubt that’s the case since the panel focused more on the behind the scenes work rather than representation in games themselves. Not to mention that I doubt that many of those folks would tune into Take-Two’s panel in the first place, and if they did it was for the games.

Which leads me to the other option, and why I think that E3 was the worst place to host this panel: they wanted to educate intolerant people on why inclusivity is important.

You know the ones: people with radicalized alt-right agendas who think that SJWs are ruining society with their “liberal agenda” Without a doubt, these types of people are the ones who need to hear this type of discussion the most. But having it at E3 presents a problem.

Imagine a kid on their birthday. Birthday parties have expected traditions associated with them: you have cake, you open presents, that kind of thing. Now when that kid expects to have cake after dinner, their mom comes out from the kitchen with a plate of broccoli instead. Yes, it is important for kids to eat their vegetables and while some kids may come to the conclusion that broccoli is actually very tasty, I think that a majority of kids would go beyond feeling upset. Rather, they’d get mad at their mom for giving them broccoli when they should have gotten cake and get mad at the broccoli itself for not being cake.

I think that a majority of people had this type of reaction when they saw the panel and I’m not saying that everyone who had this reaction is a filthy alt-righter, but this is especially a problem if the goal was to educate those types of people about these types of issues. That’s not what this achieves, it’s just going to further cement their deluded fantasies that the “liberal agenda” is taking over and robbing them of what they once had. It makes them think that minorities are the enemy rather than sympathizing and allying with them.

‘Aironauts’

[PS1] [FRANCE] [MAGAZINE] [1999]

Total Play, October 1999 (#21)

via Abandonware Magazines

All New Red Dead Redemption 2 Screenshots in 4K – 2nd October 2018 (rockstarintel.com)