Quote:
Originally Posted by iruinedyourday
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I have little doubt that if you wrote a deep and real story that takes place in a strip club or den of sexual deviance Anita Sarkeesian would stand behind you.
If you made a game about shooting people in the mall, and going to the strip club and pressing triangle over and over again to listen to girls moan and dance around doing nothing to move the story forward, she would call you out as being a bad game designer/writer [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] |
I don't want to assume what game you're talking about here. But if you're talking about the Grand Theft Auto series then we've got a slight issue. Lets use the most complex Grand Theft Auto game from a story standpoint if that's okay with you, GTA 5, because of the multiple protagonists has, by far, the most complex story that I've seen from a GTA game. If you look at the protagonists they are all meant to be hated from one direction or another, none of them are good people, they're robbers, murderers, thugs, misogynists, assholes, druggies, etc.
They all have good sides as well, Michael is a family man trying to do what is best to keep his family together while breaking it apart. Franklin is trying to make money to get out of the hood, he doesn't want to be dragged down by his past. Trevor really believes in loyalty and friendship, and he would do anything for his crew.
So the issue I have with the strip club being toted as shallow is because these men are all deviants. You're meant to try and live a life in their shoes and really you direct them from place to place. The designers are giving you a choice to see how those characters react while getting a lap dance etc and it's supposed to be uncomfortable. In some cases, the strip club is the only way they can get away from the daily routine of their lives and experience something that isn't robbing or killing. And I'd say for Michael it's the only way to get away from the family that he is both running from and trying to keep together.
I'm not saying that you couldn't have a character walk into a strip club, have the camera go high and let us imply all of this, but putting us in the seat of the character makes more of an impact.
I would like to state though that it's all up to interpretation, you could say that the developers wanted us to get off to pixelated boobs and to make us aroused to keep playing the game longer. Heck, there are strip clubs in the multiplayer where you can yell into a mic, and I am sure that relegating those women to a minigame is pretty offensive to some. But for me I find all of those scenes really uncomfortable, and it just brings it home how lonely and sad the characters I am playing are.