Buyer Beware, Borderlands Pre-Sequel Season Pass

The people who have bought it are screwed as is, but here’s a buyer’s beware for anyone looking to buy the Borderlands PS Season Pass, don’t.

With Borderlands 2 Season Pass you got four story oriented DLC packages.  When more came afterwards people were upset they weren’t included, but not nearly as upset as this season pass.

This season pass includes only the first four DLC, of which only one is a story oriented.  The new Jack’s Doppleganger DLC will be part of the season pass.

There is going to be tonnes of DLC for this game in terms of story content, but only one will be included.

So if you’re looking at a Steam sale, there is no Borderlands Pre Sequel Game of the Year edition, and you’re thinking of picking up the season pass on sale?  Don’t.  It’s simply not worth it one way or the other.

Is Borderlands Feminist Tumblr Fluff?

When a feminist writer joined the staff of Borderlands people were very skeptical and began pointing out every single thing they felt might be influenced by it.  It was felt that the game had simply become “Tumblr The Game.”  I’m here to actually say it went the opposite direction by debunking some parts of the game “Borderlands The Pre-Sequel” that people have brought into question.

#1: Strong Females Dumb Males

If you are part of the Male Rights Activist (MRA) movement you’ve probably heard the claim that media likes to portray men as being idiots so that they can have strong females.

In a show like Everybody Loves Raymond, you have Raymond and his father who are the breadwinners of the family who are bozos and idiots.  And then you have their respective wives who have little to nothing to call to their name.  But in order to make the wife of Raymond (Rebecca) into a strong role, they make Raymond into an idiot who is reliant on his wife for answers.

There’s a lot wrong with this dynamic.  In Borderlands you have two female characters who are smart strong independent women.  On the other hand you have the one male character who is a slave to addiction (in this case cyber implant addiction) and a male robot who represents the least capable of the adventurers.  The claim is made that the men are made purposely stupid and the women are made purposely perfect in order to create strong female role models.

The thing, is… that’s just really backwards.  By portraying it this way it means that the only way a woman can ever be strong is if she is competing against an underachiever.  In that dichotomy when you get to med school you have men who sit at the top and get all the scholarships and women who underperform and don’t put in the same sort of effort.  Yet when you look at a field like psychology, a field associated with mediocrity and mass enrollment, you have women at the top.

It’s really not a surprise really with a full generation of media portraying women as only better than men in the light that men have to suck in order for them to be worth anything.

In the end dumbing down males hurts bottom rung males as they learn to see themselves as clowns instead of respectable adults, and it also hurts women who only feel they can compete against someone who is clearly their lesser.

#2: Lesbians and Gays

There is no shortage of homosexual characters in Borderlands.  Sir Hammerlock is the carry forward from Borderlands 2, who “barely seems gay” if you can call that a thing.  Then there is the villain Belly who is desperately in love with his child-aged friend Red.  You have Janie Springs who is the youngest lesbian cougar on the planet.

Other than Sir Hammerlock the game actually doesn’t paint a very nice world for being a lesbian.  A true “Tumblr the game” type comparison would have lesbians and gays being scorned by everyone and being victims in society.  Instead they’re all mostly accepted members of society who are just living their lives.

Belly is a gay pedophile but clearly knows that sort of relationship is wrong… so he never brings it up.  He is however a villain and their relationship is always made to be a bit of a joke.  Belly himself is an imbicle and possibly mentally handicapped and unable to truly understand what his feelings mean.  His character ends up being one of the deeper ones put in the game but is also one they choose not to explore because of the morally contentious topic involved.

Janie Springs is someone who is quirky and weird.  Her sexual leanings are pushed on you very heavily from the very start.  The thing is, she is nothing but a cartoon of a lesbian.  I have known many gay men and women in my life and I can say with some sort of certainty…. she’s weird.

#3: Nurse Nina

Nurse Nina replaces a male doctor.  Some might look at this and see it as diversity in the work place.  Nurse Nina, although the name nurse, is a fully capable surgeon.  She is able to heal all wounds, just like a man.  She is even a dominant personality.  When trying to find a mate she actually straps him up in some sort of wonky medical apparatus to show her dominance of him.  Worst yet she only chooses the most dominant male from the pack so that she gets the one she can most powerfully dominate.

So why is Nurse Nina not an example of a Tumblr feminist conspiracy?  Well, simply put, Nurse Nina fits into the typical role that a woman would fit in real life.

Nina is a nurse. A nurse is nothing more than a doctor’s servant.  In some parts of the world nurses were fully capable doctors capable of treating minor wounds and delivering babies.  That’s the kind of nurse that Nina is.  However with just the nurses’s training she wouldn’t handle the major emergencies that a male surgeon or male doctor would handle.

I mean, at the end of the day when you really need help, it’s a Dahl Male voice that thanks you for your purchase.

Nina also romantically represents a commonly held stereotype, professional women cannot have intimate relationships.  So like the stereotype implies without having had any love in her life until she’s much older (age 30ish) she is now out hunting down men and can’t find anyone worthy of her.

A lot of Tumblr feminists argue that there are just no good men out there.  The real reason of course is the standards of professional women are too high compared to what they can offer a potential mate.

In this particular Tumblr blog the author claims she needs this:

1) Funny and can make me laugh and smile as much as possible. That’s non-negotiable. My levels of happiness are connected directly to my funny bone.
2) Chemistry. Think of a car ride together. You want the comfortable silences and relaxed feeling in the air, not the urge to throw open the car door and roll on out on the 101 freeway instead because that would be less painful and awkward.
3) Well read. Aware of pop culture and cultural events globally. We should be able to sit together for 5+ hours at the bookstore and not feel like we need to be anywhere else.
4) Established. This is a tricky one because I feel like it automatically translates to “having money.” Money is a very fluid thing that comes and goes, but the idea is that the guy would have a good career or a career in the works. I am not on board with the Peter Pans of the world.
5) You need nice grown man clothes. They don’t have to cost a fortune. I can help with this.
6) Optimism.
7) Feeling beautiful around you, even if I’m in my yoga pants without any makeup on. (Does that not look like a Taylor Swift song lyric or what? But it’s true. And knowing that you’ll be beautiful to me no matter what also.)
8) Patience, trust, kindness, spontaneity (of the flower bringing kind, not “hey we’re going kayaking today – take the afternoon off of work!”), comfort in tough times, and love at arm’s length where you can be close but not to a smothering point.

However if a man in a similar position made a list of what they are looking for in a woman, it would be a lot more simple.

Nina is in this particular situation, she knows what she wants in a man so she’s willing to throw out all sorts of potential mates in favor of the one that meets her standards.

It portrays the problem of society, women are expected to marry younger rather than older and perpetrates that pattern.  Nina isn’t a Tumblr inserted character, she’s what they hate the most.  But Nina is a lovable character.  So clearly she can’t be a “hit agent” from Tumblr.

#4. Lilyth is the Good Guy, Jack is the Bad Guy

So at the end of the day the hero is a woman and the villain is a man.

Is this evidence of feminist inserted literature?  Probably not.

At the end of the day someone has to be the bad guy…. or maybe I should say bad person.  Generally speaking the powerful evil heroes of every game are usually male.  The reason for this is the widespread perception that women are not intimidating enough or impure enough to be villains.  Actually having a female villain would have been more refreshing in the end because it would have been something new.

However to make it even less of femme conspiracy, Lylith isn’t even a likable character.  It’s not all that clear that what she is fighting for is all that good.

Borderlands at the end of the day is a universe full of evil and full of bad guys.  There’s no emotional relationship we can have with any of these characters that will make them close to us.

If anything we are more drawn to the evil boss Jack, because he in least represents an attempt to be progressive and implement change.  The vault hunters however are just a bunch of losers who were lured in at the chance of stealing a vault and getting rich but instead were brought into a civil war.  The goal of said civil war… is to implement everything as was…. which isn’t exactly all that good in the first place.

Testing Logic: No Jim, It’s Not a Video Game

JimQuisition is a little program in which a guy rants about something in video games.

Jim Sterling holds the position that games like The Walking Dead (from Telltale Games), Stanley’s Parable and the such are video games and that our standards of what constitutes a video game is too narrow.  He argues that if video games are to survive as a genre what we consider a video game cannot be limited.

Jim makes a very simple logical mis-step, a category mistake.

A category mistake is when you inadvertently place something in one category when it actually belongs in another.

A good example of this would be to say that a basketball court is a game.  No, the basketball court is actually just a location where games are played.   The game that is played there, is basketball.

This is the exact same mistake that Jim Sterling makes.  A lot of these things may be “game” like, but they are not games.

A game is structured play with rules.  So not everyone who is playing is playing a game, but everyone who is playing a game is playing.

Jim quotes the most common definition of a video game:

“A game played by electronically manipulating images produced by a computer program on a television screen or other display screen.”

Note that this definition includes our “game” which in order for it to be a game requires it to have rules and be structured play.

Games like Mario he rightly identifies as most definitely being games because they have rules, scores and objectives.

But “interactive games” are not really games in the same way that a person with homophobia isn’t literally terrified of gay people.  Game in that sense is being used metaphorically to indicate it is game-like, but it is not a game.

So what are these interactive games exactly?  Well, they’re the basketball courts while games are basketball.  They give you the place to play a game, but do not offer up any game for you to play.  When you get there you can either make your own game out of it… or if it lacks enough capability it becomes just an interactive movie or movie set.

No one would argue that an Audio Book is a game.  No one would argue that a television show is a game.  No one would argue that a blender is a game.

So why exactly is it that people are coming to the defense of these game-like video games?

Well simple fact, they’re available on consoles and computers and some people may in the future find them fun or enjoyable.

That however does not stop them from being sold in any market place or gaining distribution.  Games weren’t always popular but they were sold and we had methods of praising them.  All that really needs to happen is change the way in which we label these non-game products.

As a final thought here is a review of The Stanley Parable to illustrate how badly people want these non-games to be games:

“This is one of the best walking simulators I have ever played. You get to walk around and look at things while a man with a beautiful voice narrates your actions. Sometimes you get to click on things and he calls you an idiot. It reminds me of my mother.“

Playing a Motorized Eastern Block Deck

Whether you want to spell it Bloc or Block, I don’t care.

Motorized decks are quick reaction groups.  They’re design to have a decent amount of equipment to be deployed very quickly for a large number of situations.

So Troublmaker makes an Eastern Block Motorized Deck and takes it for a spin

Why Early Access Games Leads to Failure

Early access games are highly problematic.  They are riddled with flaws, and we still buy them.  There are many great successes in the Early Access games market.  Minecraft is the biggest success.  DOTA 2 is another success. Day Z, yet a third success.

Every single time an early access game is a success it is marked as evidence that the model works and is not in fact highly problematic.

In this article I’d like to explain the problems with early access games.

1. Selling an Idea

So it all starts off as an idea.  A developer has worked on some of the most basic parts of the game and is now selling you a bag of promises.

So you get a game that is completely empty but some sort of first person mode.  The page on Steam will indicate what is coming, but nothing really about what is actually there.  You open the game and it is of course, mostly empty.

Now a game like Day Z that has all of the funding of Arma 2 and Arma 3 behind it will be made regardless of sales.

But games that are using early access as a way to fund their game, have a problem.  They can only put in the features they have the funding to put in.  So they make a list of things that are coming, but currently only have the funding for one or two.

As you invest and others invest into the early access model they can add more to the game.  But if sales don’t stay consistent and they run out of money they stop being able to develop their ideas, instead they have to find new ways to make money.

This brings in somewhat of a pyramid model of social networking.  After so long the developers might just start asking you to tell your friends… because they need more money.  After a while an early access game that hasn’t quite gotten the funding it needs is going to turn into a full blown pyramid scheme that never gives you the product advertised… just an idea to try and sell to someone else.

2. No Guarantee

Every single product on the face of the Earth has a guarantee.  If the product is advertised falsely, if it’s broken or if it doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do, you get to return the product and bring it back as is.

With the early access games it is, working as intended.  You are buying a game that is broken which means there is absolutely no possible way that you cannot have succeeded in getting your agreement because on paper you are buying… nothing at all.

Now some might say you are buying a promise, like an investment.

But that’s not exactly the case.  With a share you purchase a portion of the company.  You are not purchasing the potential for profits, you are physically purchasing a thing.  When profits are made you will get your share of it.  But since you physically own that thing you can sell it to someone else.

With early access games on Steam you own the license to access it.  It cannot be returned and cannot be traded or re-sold.  Once you purchase this license it is useless to you.  The only way it becomes useful is if the game actually is made… of which there is no guarantee that it will actually be made.

This can be compared with investment in which purchasing shares purchases something.  The big money investors are certainly playing more risky… but the people looking for retirement and retirement savings plans… it’s a lot more stable and there’s a guarantee of results.

The actual product you are buying is a giant if statement.  If the game is completed, you will own it.  If it isn’t completed, you just continue to have access to a broken incomplete game.

3. There Are Games on the Market

There are literally no early access games out there that are not already on the market.

Generally speaking if you’re going to invest in an idea you will only invest in one you already know you’ll like.  But if you’ve never seen a game like what they’re offering, you will have no idea as to whether or not you like it.

So an early access game shows up and promises that they’re going to give you a shooter that is tactical, you know unlike Call of Duty… which isn’t that tactical.

But wait, there’s already a tactical shooter on the market…. it’s called Battlefield 4.  You can already play this game and its full and complete.

So an early access game has to convince you to support them instead of playing an existing game that already does what they’re trying to do.  So they have to make ridiculous promises that they simply cannot meet…. unless you were to pay them even more.

There’s this odd belief that anything that is big corporate and common is bad and something that is small, personal and indie is good.  It’s just not the case.  There are tones of great indie titles… but there are far more terrible ones.

There’s this great game called Minecraft… never played it.  But there are still people trying to make it and early access the exact same concept.

4. Tester’s Fatigue

As a final point of order there is a huge problem in free betas to keep people around.  Free to play games that have early access beta for free can hardly keep the game populated.

However the solution to this was to charge them an up front fee in hopes that by giving it an upfront value the tester might value it more.

It will make them play it more… but it won’t make them value it more.

The most successful early access games end up being the ones that give people tonnes of things to do when they launch.  The ones that have a lot of work to be done, lose people.

Free games have this sort of weird problem where they have to actively advertise to get more people to test their game.

The free ones have to pay people to keep going.  The ones that charge are unlikely able to survive and thus cannot promote their game in order to attract more people to test it.

So there’s going to be a reduced quality problem.  Initially the development team is going to get tonnes of feedback.  But over time the amount of feedback is going to be heavily reduced.  I mean on the first you will have less bugs, but you will also have less people reporting on bugs.

A game like Minecraft was successful because it was able to successful get its testers to convince their friends to play it… because it was a fun game.  But a game that simply doesn’t have anything fun to do at the time will just fall apart and die.

It can only expect to have so much success.

5. And The Logical Conclusion

Early access games will make more money when they are in early access than they would launched.

The proof is in the pudding.  DOTA 2 when early access was out profiting Team Fortress 2.  Once it went live and became a totally free to play title, it started making less than Team Fortress 2.

In order for early access games to keep testers in play they have to keep micro transactions to a minimal and make their game highly playable by the public.  But once you get past that initial surge of investment and you launch the game… well you simply just don’t make as much money.