It's an amusing thought, but I imagine that most of these people realise homelessness isn't really a problem you can simply fix by following some set of procedures. Ultimately it's a game to be played for entertainment, and if you can get some people to think about social issues as they play it that's wonderful, but it's still supposed to be enjoyable. Clearly homeless people in the game are impeding some peoples enjoyment and it's a problem that is not obvious to solve.
Some games that offer more freedom let you solve problems like these in more interesting ways, for example when I played Dwarf Fortress (years ago now), a common strategy was to make the nobledwarfs accommodation floodable with lava, so if they got too uppity with their demands (sometimes nobles would insist that you make certain items or not sell a certain items or they'd get furious and make everybody else unhappy) they could be dispatched. I think it'd be funny if Sim City offered a similar option.
To paraphrase from around 19:10 of [0] - readings of games throughout the ages have flip flopped between two moralistic binaries; between a wholesome pastime for young children, and a depraved and immoral one suited for soldiers, gamblers, or angry youth.
In saying the game is "supposed to be" something one elides the nature of play: As players interact with the game's systems, they reify what the systems allow and encourage, not any particular targeted messages.
Simcity's presentation of homelessness is intentional. It could easily design this out and immediately disappear people who no longer have a home; it makes this exact kind of assumption in making Sims gender and race-blind. Neither does it present homelessness within a simplified framework where you just push a button to make it go away. It molds the issue into a front-and-center strategic consideration, one balanced against others.
Now, not every game can tackle every issue. What is presented in Simcity is a popularized conception of "problems a city planner must deal with." Different versions of Simcity have emphasized different parts of the city. Although more detail and more simulation can always be added, there's ultimately some pivotal focus it tends to revolve around, one which tells us the sensibilities of its maker(s). This is true even of Dwarf Fortress; the point of the simulation there is to deepen the storytelling and provide believable details about its fantasy world.
So, complaints about homelessness as it's experienced in Simcity are very much a part of the discourse - whether we say "it's not really like that" or "I have a better solution," the game is prompting a kind of criticism that doesn't appear within the typical news-reaction cycle.
None of that requires "psychology, anthropology, philosophy", as the book author claims, since (as you noted), it tells us the sensibilities of its makers.
Bittani could build a city simulation with blackjack an...erm psychology, anthropology, philosophy, and see if who is interested in that - and if it's not just another reflection of the maker's opinions (just one that Bittani happens to prefer).
The 'final solution' option? It's been done in real life of course many times in many countries, but I don't think adding an option to Sim City to round them all up and shoot/gas/incinerate them, or build a 'killing fields' facility is really what people are looking for in that game. In DF we can get some distance from it because it's explicitly a fantasy world, but Sim City is a bit too close to emulating real life for something like that to be a reasonable option.
There's value in giving people choice and making them uncomfortable with the consequences of easy options. The Witcher series is famous for that, and I'd like to see more games took that approach (show what can be done, even give in-game bonuses for evil behaviour, don't judge but show consequences).
DF skips over this problem because it's more abstract, and it's just not this kinds of game. Another example - Crusader Kingdoms 2 - this game is all about incests, backstabbing and assasination, but somehow it's funny not deep.
I agree it's probably not good idea for games targeted at children.
Bioshock was the first to make me uncomfortable with a choice. Do I harvest the Little Sister, and get more powerful? Or do I "rescue her", which itself looks a bit like torture at first, and send her off in a place that is filled with psychopaths who'd want to kill her anyway.
Later in the series, when I experienced what it's like to BE a Little Sister, it almost made me regret "rescuing them" before, because the way they see the world as a Little Sister is quite beautiful, and they did serve a profound purpose.
The final choice seems to be a moral absolute, but it was a deeply unsettling choice, for me, to make, and to revisit again later.
It's not really a choice, because in the end you get more powerful by not harvesting the Little Sisters. The only reason to do it is to see the evil ending cut scene.
I'm amused by the joke, but I don't consider it a spoiler to explain how one bad act ever leads to the uber-evil ending that has no connection to the rest of the game. It's just pointing out that the claimed 'moral choices with consequences' feature is a farce.
Is Sim City really closer to real life than GTA? I am no more the near-omnipotent mayor of a new town than I am a crook for hire with a penchant for running over ISKCon members.
I don't know about GTA, but Sim City is certainly closer to real life than Dwarf Fortress.
I agree with the person you're replying to: having the "final solution" in a city management game would be extremely unpalatable to say the least. We do not expect mayors and city planners to behave like that.
I'd actually love to see a game going in that direction. If you try to set up some evil scheme for dealing with homeless, you'd have riots on your hand and citizens storming with guns into your office.
Or say, you decide to create a police state, with full surveillance and all the like. You see everyone is happy... unitl the whole thing goes to hell - because people weren't actually happy, your metrics just were wrong.
I don't think this is possible in a mainstream management game, for the same reason a mainstream extermination camp simulator is not feasible. Just imagine the outrage if Maxis did this.
Edit: I realize making feeding homeless illegal and outright killing them is different -- But the tragedy of these laws is palpable. Those that vote for them either grossly misunderstand the issue, or would simply do whatever they can to get rid of homeless, or both.
Mass murder isn't a real life option/goal of very many mayors so in that respect yes it would be dissimilar, whereas very nasty guns for hire occasionally do very nasty things?
There's an implied benevolence to being a sim mayor - keeping people happy and employed while keeping the city clean and profitable is "success" as defined by the game. I mean, feel free to play it however you want but that's the stated metric for the game.
In FallOut 3 I was given a choice between blowing up a town and saving it. I went with the evil option, as that seemed to offer a greater reward. Later I went back to the town, and I saw the used-to-be-good-looking NPCs now disfigured, but some still alive. That made me feel really bad about what I did. Also, later I also heard about it on the in-game radio multiple times, which really felt weird, and made me feel bad about what I did even more. At that point I felt that my actions in this game have consequences, and after that I made my choices more carefully. But the game did not let up, it kept me remembering what I did by putting some of these disfigured NPCs into quests later on.
(It might have been only one NPC that survived, details are fuzzy.)
The one NPC that survives is the one who gives you the series of "survival guide" sidequests which are meant to help encourage you to explore the game. What's interesting about that to me is that her quests are pretty much the only valuable (in game mechanics) thing about Megaton after the nuke quest is resolved -- and they end up letting you do them either way. It's actually cited by people as an example of the game not following through on the consequences of an evil act. But your interpretation makes more sense to me; the idea that a game has to 'punish' in-game evil by means of a mechanical penalty is itself kind of discomfiting.
In Fo:nv I have taken out the NCR's Camp Forlorn Hope but not become a full enemy. Everywhere I go, NPC's tell me how terrible it was that someone did it. "Yeah, that was me".
All of them. It is a common accepted reality in game design that players will take any shortcut offered. Players will go so far as skipping content just to "solve" a challenge with the fastest method.
Players would jump at genocide if it solved their problem. It would be an interesting result if it was not so predictable.
Unless the outcome is not clear. Killing off all homeless people would get rid of homelessness(obviously) but it might have a long term negatives, so not everyone will elect to do it.
Just like in many RPG games you can make "evil" and "good" choices. In many instances, going with "evil" makes the game much easier - instead of doing a 2 hour long quest to find someone's lost ring, you can just kill the person and take their money you would get as a reward, so the immediate outcome is the same. But people like to roleplay and people don't make decisions just because they make the game easier.
> In many instances, going with "evil" makes the game much easier
I agree. I find that many games present the moral choices in a way that become a "what possible reward do I want" choice.
One of the best ways moral choices were presented were in Skyrim, with the Deadric Princes' quests. You usully had to do some horrible thing (murder, cannibalism, torture, etc.) and you would be rewarded with a cool magical item. The moral choice is glarangly present while not being explicitly stated. You either do the quest or you don't. And that resonated with me because I believe that while there are many motivations for being evil (selfishness, greed, desire of power, sadism), the motivation and reward for being good is itself.
People kill game characters all the time, even when it's not part of the game. See RollerCoasters being ploughed into waiting crowds for one example. Or not being able to kill the child characters in FallOut3 for another.
Because many, many people, myself included, would be horribly offended if you could build gas chambers and ovens, round up all the poor, and kill them. There is also, along with the "video games don't cause violence" literature some literature on morality in video games. In fact, there are entire games that are built around forcing the player to make difficult emotional decisions. So it is perfectly understandable that people might not want to play a game where the best / only / easiest way to win is to commit genocide. My point is that the game I think you are describing probably wouldn't sell very well. GTA does well because horrific violence is what the franchise is known for, it is what people expect when they buy the game (GTA also doesn't feature a way to literally commit genocide either, AFAIK).
> it's still supposed to be enjoyable. Clearly homeless people in the game are impeding some peoples enjoyment and it's a problem that is not obvious to solve.
This tough boss is impeding my enjoyment of this RPG because I can't mindlessly beat it.
This tough level in an FPS is impeding my enjoyment of later levels because I can't beat it.
I can't place first in this tough racing track and that is impeding my ability to enjoy it.
Homelessness is a challenge to approach however you want. It only becomes a problem in huge cities with rapid middle and upper class expansion, ie, the late game. So if you get stuck and have a skill wall in front of you to overcome but can't, that is not a deficit of the game, that is the whole reason the game exists, to impose challenge and difficulty to overcome.
I basically agree, it's more of a problem if the rampant homelessness is due to bad code that makes it too common (as opposed to imperfect design of your city), which given the history of the game isn't beyond the realms of possibility, eg: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g418BSF6XBQ
Your statements could be totally reasonable. Difficulty in a game can be good or bad, it all depends on why and how it's difficult. If that tough level is hard because it's well designed as an interesting challenge and you can get past it with practice and thought and it remains interesting while you do that, it's good design. If that tough level is hard because it's unpredictable and requires excessive luck to get past and forces you to go through lots of tedious replays when you fail, it's bad design.
I have no idea which category this falls into, just pointing out that your examples can be legitimate.
The Sims let me have neighbors over to swim in the pool, and then I could delete the ladder leading into it.
Like in most video games, characters don't know how to climb, so the poor saps died in the 4' deep pool.
It was surprisingly easy to be evil in Sims, I don't see why one can't be evil in Sim City. It can be cathartic, and nearly everyone has those "dark thoughts", even if they don't care to admit it.
> a common strategy was to make the nobledwarfs accommodation floodable with lava
I've not played Dwarf Fortress for a while, but were there any consequences to killing the nobledwarfs like that? The game is so comprehensive I'm wondering if the creators considered that strategy.
As far as I remember it just makes his family and friends upset, and anybody who witnesses the death, which is usually always preferable to him going mental and sentencing your master metalworker to death because he refused to make -=* platinum trumpets*=-
He gets sentenced to prison, which is inconvenient, unless you don't have any space for him, then he gets sentenced to hammering (exactly what it sounds like), which is what kills or maims him, but it is possible to survive. Giving important dwarves (or just-sentenced ones) armour, removing Urist McHammerer's hammer or replacing it with a nonlethal one, or just walling him up somewhere are all viable strategies to keep important dwarves alive, but kill^H^H^H^H arranging an Unfortunate Accident[1] for troublesome nobles is arguably easiest.
I think this is one of the few areas of DF where players don't actually choose the most optimal path, but instead choose the most amusing, or dwarfiest, path.
I mean, you see countless arguments about stair shaft vs single floors, trap paths vs artillery paths, optimal pumps, delegation of jobs, etc, but everyone agrees that nobles should go in the lava.
IMHO, the biggest benefit from playing games like SimCity is the practical introduction to systems thinking: the obvious solution may not be the obvious solution. I often wonder if these games are giving this generation an intuitive grasp of systems dynamics that older generations simply don't get.
The meta-game of effective systems design is fascinating in its own right, because the skills learned apply to real-world systems as well.
> Ultimately it's a game to be played for entertainment, and if you can get some people to think about social issues as they play it that's wonderful, but it's still supposed to be enjoyable.
I have not played SimCity for a long, long time, but IIRC it's meant to be less a "game" and more of a "interactive simulation". In that context, whether the emergent behavior is fun or not would not be the main point.
Or maybe the new SimCitys (SimCities?) are not like that anymore.
The main focus of these kinds of toy boxes was always less on accuracy and more on making playing with the toys enjoyable. I really don’t see the contradiction in that and Sim City being an simulation. It’s practically always only accurate when that serves it being enjoyable. That’s how it should be.
Do you really believe it was ever a serious simulation?!
I suggest changing "it" to "SimCity" in the second sentence:
> Ultimately it's a game to be played for entertainment, and if you can get some people to think about social issues as they play it that's wonderful, but it's still supposed to be enjoyable.
Right now "it" seems to refer to "homelessness" from the previous sentence, which confused me a bit.
>How to get rid of homeless reproduces dozens of threads concerning "homelessness" that appeared in Electronic Arts' online forum between 2012 and 2013.
Would you know how to go about convincing a large number of people to buy 438 pages worth of forum posts for $150? If so, how much time and effort do you think it would take? What do you think your hourly wage would work out to be once you combine that time with the time taken to collect and the data and actually make the book.
It is amusing what happens when you make games that are "realistic" in a way which isn't fun for players but is like real life, and get to see how the player base reacts.
Depression Quest springs to mind. Or way the book the protagonist of The Fault In Our Stars loves cuts off abruptly once the main character dies, which upsets her to no end.
Seems this isn't intended "realism", but rather game engine's emergent behavior that just happens to mimic real life. Only very small percent of such unintended effects happen to make sense, so don't overestimate it's significance.
My main strategy for quite a while was to race toward Statue of Liberty, then use it to immediately switch to communism; I'm pretty heavily on the side of 'be careful about using games as a metaphor for life' re the OP.
Yeah, on the other hand they do indoctrinate, whether this is intended or not. Everybody talks about brutal games and how a twelve year may go on a shooting spree having played too much of Call of Duty or whatever. Causation never proven, given the number of players vs. rampage killers.
Now isn't planting an idea such as that Democracy is inherently Coruption-free (or something equally nonsensical) much worse brainwashing in broader scheme of things?
But it generally is, relative to the other forms of government. Democracy is the only form of government where you can prosecute corruption or end corrupt regimes without violence, and in my book that's close enough. For a simplified game mechanic, this is intuitive and makes sense. Anything more nuanced, and it isn't a game anymore.
It is though a very simplified mechanic, as @pherocity_ says (though FWIW the effects were made much more subtle in the later games). And it's fun to roleplay, but the more you play, the more it's a just a case of how quickly you can read and manipulate the underlying patterns, as with all games. Brainwashing is a bit strong, though I do sympathise with your position somewhat.
And on a lighter note, regarding video games and real life, Football Manager is possibly the most realistic-feeling game I (and a hell of a lot of other people) have played - here's Steve Gibson's response to an application for the vacant manager's position at Middlesbrough, the club he's chairman of: http://www.lettersofnote.com/2011/02/you-were-of-course-outs...
NB: My Civ tactic of shooting for communism was simply to allow military units to be stacked in cities to reduce unhappiness, allowing massive military buildup to defend my civ while I poured money into science research. I did always feel for the poor sods in my cities, forced to either contribute to an all conquering soviet war machine or to work as research scientists and generate discoveries fast as possible (no, I am not building you a coliseum), but hell, I needed to win the space race/wipe out the Aztecs. I suppose it's easy to draw parallels with real life.
I'm not sure it's amusing to make a game that is unfun because it reflects an unappealing part of life. In this case it was just amusing because reading the comments made it seem like they were talking about real homeless people, especially when the article slaps you in the face with the relationship to real homelessness over and over and over and over.
I'm going to earn my downvotes today. It was more interesting reading the comments than the article, especially when one of the threads devolved into saying the article is political.
The other entertaining point is the offense at the notion that America is it's entertainment. The fact that some took offense at that is interesting from both a technology standpoint and a startup standpoint. It is an imperfect mirror, reflecting why we do things and why some businesses fail and others succeed, from a certain point of view. In other words, perhaps part of why a given venture gains customers in not just need, but need coupled with entertainment used to market and sell.
> By removing the aesthetic markers of online forums—author’s signatures, side banners, avatar pictures, and so on—Bittanti's book recontextualizes the discussion to reveal what players and the game are saying about homelessness.
Except the players were talking about beating the game, not the homeless/real-life homelessness. Not amused.
My favorite part of this article (and in general discussions about SF) is that asking the homeless to move to Oakland is considered so inhumane it's unmentionable.
> "To me video games are the so-called 'real America,'" he said. "The real America operates according to a video game logic, and that game logic is neo-liberalism
Homelessness is a real problem, but, uh... yeah. I'm going to flag this as essentially a political article (most everything vice.com publishes is).
Maybe for his next book he can chronicle how Quake is the real America too, with the mutant monsters representing ... well... whatever the hell you want since you're willing to make such huge non-sequiturs.
I don't think this is essentially a political article. I think the article is interesting in its subject matter alone, regardless of the author's blatant political shoe-horning.
Well, I haven't played SimCity (or any games, for that matter) for a while now, but if I recall, this type of games was always more akin to central planning model than laissez-faire; or else they wouldn't be that playable.
From my European perspective SimCity actually misses several city planning tools to reduce homelessness. The most important being the ability to build public housing and set up social services.
Simcity 2000 used to have subsidised housing and homeless shelter ordinances, which reduced crime, though you never actually _saw_ anything. It is weird that they've never tried adding a public housing mechanic; it could be quite interesting.
Yeah, building a new housing complex would take years to attempt and would likely be shot down by some lobbying group either because it didn't have enough low income housing or neighbors were concerned about the bad energy it would give off.
1. It's not a political article. It's an article which includes some content from someone possibly making a political point.
2. Even if it is political, that's not a problem. It's about an interesting intersection between video game technology and politics, and with some focus on an area with a heavy tech presence (the bay). That's relevant.
"Including some content" and making a political point based on it pretty much fullfils the definition of "political" to me ;) Even candidate speeches do exactly that. They're hardly ever "purely political". While I don't downvote nor dismiss the article, you seem to be hairsplitting to me (as for point 1).
Let's rewrite it. Say it's some conservative commentator like Bill O'Reilly:
"To me video games are the so-called 'real France,'" he said. "The real France operates according to a video game logic, and that game logic is socialism"
That doesn't strike you as overtly and primarily political in nature? Beyond that, it's simply inane.
There is a tendancy to treat real world problems in an overly abstract way. That you pursue an argument because of a particular dogma rather than actual empathy for the victims of a problem. For example people love to debate funding of healthcare (which we can all disagree on) whilst loosing site of its actual purpose (which we mostly agree about).
The same is true of homelessness where it is easy to discuss it in broad economic terms that can be dogmatic. But actually it is a social problem which means that it is caused by people breaking the agreed rules of the game. If a family member has no home you are supposed to let them sleep on the couch until they get back on their feet. When these basic societal rules break down we are only left with the state which is not a good replacment for family and friends.
Reading this brought to mind a Reagan speech. Found it (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUKC9E04Sck), complete with propaganda slides. The final example he gives goes right to it.
Social democracy is the mainstream worldview at the moment in educated debate. Even the US moves in that direction. A social democrat will look at opposition to public healthcare with disbelief, "can anyone really be so mean?" Or disbelieve it altogether as you do.
Well-funded public healthcare is central to the socal democrat worldview. It's easy to argue towards at the moment, because it aligns with the momentum of public policy.
For freedom-centric people, it's uncomfortable. The person opposing it will often be inarticulate, to the point of appearing to be crazy. Their task is hard: they are not merely opposing one policy, but the whole momentum of worldview that's driving it. That's hard to do well. But beneath the rambling, there's probably a legitimate philosophical position that's not understood properly even by the speaker.
You got it. I have relatives who work with the homeless, and one of the striking things is the population that is growing now: veterans.
Politicians love waving flags and "supporting the troops". But when some if these men come home and can't adjust, the flags get out away. Many turn to alcohol and start a spiral the ends on a street somewhere.
In Boston goes around to pick up the homeless and bring them to Pine Street or another shelter but you cannot force them to get into the van and they still die on the street. I don't know what the solution is but you will never be able to pass a law forcing them into the van.
Totally. Those labels are instant mind-killers and in my book they are tools of the Dark Arts. When someone calls you a "socialist" or "neoliberal" or whatever, they imply you believe everything some ideology has to say, so they can go ahead, point any random weak point (every political ideology has some) and call you a moron.
This is so totally dumb behaviour, that I can't even begin to describe it. What's equally dumb is assuming that if you agree with some group on one thing, then you should also agree on everything else.
Basically - for me, giving yourself a political label is a sign of subpar thinking. Giving others political labels is disingenuous.
"mind-killers" and "Dark Arts" are self-describing labels, though. They don't avoid being political rhetoric just because they were coined by a guy who purports to be opposed to political rhetoric.
I don't think it is inane at all. Lots of games since Monopoly, Elite and running through Civilisation and SimCity have model economics, free trade, and free thinking ideas in-built into the game mechanics. And a lot of economics and free trade ideas seem to be justified by game theory and the naturalistic fallacy.
And a lot of chasing GDP or national wealth or Educational policy sometimes seem to be maximising some goal - like a game- rather than just running countries for the benefit of people.
I think its actually a very telling analogy if you think a little more deeply about it.
It's a totally made-up analogy with no supporting facts. What does it even mean that "the real America operates according to a video game logic"? Does France operate that way? How about Morocco or Mongolia? It's nonsense.
Actually at first you used the word "communism", which is why I downvoted you and flagged your comment. You are just using inaccurate emotive language to rage wildly against a line in the article that offended your zealous patriotic/conservative sensibilities. You loudly complain about pretty much any article that contains a hint of politics you dislike. It just fills the comments with useless noise (I know I'm adding to it, but after seeing you do the same thing dozens of times it's getting pretty tiresome). If you don't like a submission, move on, don't post dozens of whining comments about how it hurt your feelings and how such submissions need to be banned from the site.
If no one explains that something is off-topic, how are we supposed to propagate that information, and the culture of what is on-topic to new users of this site?
That's an honest question, by the way. Since there is no barrier to entry to joining this site, there's nothing preventing masses of people arriving and crowding out the good content, which is of interest to far fewer people than politics are.
I'm more than happy to sacrifice otherwise useless karma in order to call stuff out, as the karma points serve no other purpose.
Some games that offer more freedom let you solve problems like these in more interesting ways, for example when I played Dwarf Fortress (years ago now), a common strategy was to make the nobledwarfs accommodation floodable with lava, so if they got too uppity with their demands (sometimes nobles would insist that you make certain items or not sell a certain items or they'd get furious and make everybody else unhappy) they could be dispatched. I think it'd be funny if Sim City offered a similar option.