Advertisement
Advertisement
Bain subsequently explained that he wasn't intentionally looking to provoke, to actively troll Twine fans and more besides. But a couple of weeks later he put his curiosity into practice by releasing a Twine-built "ethics adventure," an entirely pointless project as a game but nonetheless a politically charged comment on the persistent Gamergate agenda of corruption in the gaming press. He stands as a vanguard in this "consumer movement" and is, in his own way, a white knight to the vocal minority.There are those who would call for politics to have no place in gaming, but games can do so much more than simply entertain, and we've seen this for years. There is nothing pleasant about playing through the later stages of 2012's Spec Ops: The Line, for example, as paranoia and personal pain pervades and twists the typical trappings of the third-person shooter genre. Pregnancy is not marketed as "fun," something to pass the time with a smile, and it arrives with rape in the news for a number of reasons.From Indian public transport to US college campuses and right here in Great Britain, rape is a shockingly common crime that requires combating wherever it happens, however possible. And video games offer a way to experience things that, if we encountered them for real, would leave us irreversibly scarred. One in six American women will experience rape in their lifetime, and more than 22,000 Brits were raped in a 12-month period from June 2013. Who knows: Games like Pregnancy might just help more women, more girls, come forward and report such attacks.I should check out this new version of Twine. The idea of being able to make a game of sorts without any talent or skills is tempting.
— TotalBiscuit (@Totalbiscuit) December 23, 2014
Advertisement
"This guy wants to make a quick buck off rape."
"Getting tired of these games that are more about force feeding you a message and less about fun."
"I see now everyone can call himself a developer if the bar is this low."There's more on Kotaku's Facebook, where such gems as these have been posted for public consumption: "im sorry if im being mean but This is fuckin retarded;" "this is a cash grab for the shock value and will appeal to SJWs;" and "The people who buy this game will already be aware that rape is bad, and only buy it to jerk off about how they are holier than the rest of us." It's OK to criticize any game, even one with morally sound intentions—and Pregnancy sure isn't The Walking Dead. But these predictable, puerile responses are just depressing. Anyone who wants gaming to be appreciated as a medium for thought-provoking narratives and genuine cultural resonance will read such words and just sigh. In the words of one indie developer, Gamergate already pushed the reputation of gamers back a decade. We can do better than this.And if you can't, and you seriously think that someone trying to raise awareness of rape is "retarded," it might just be you who's got the real problem.Follow Mike Diver on Twitter.