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Biases in Simulation Video Games
Orsonwarcry writes "Kieron Gillen went to Prague to speak to Bohemia Interactive, known best for Operation Flashpoint. He goes on to discuss the effects of bias on simulation games. 'In other words, a simulation is never just a simulation. Equally, freedom is rarely actually free of designer- imposed desires. Even in games with the most self-expressed mandates of "choice" for the gamer, it doesn't mean that there isn't a message. In Deus Ex, the generally politically liberal Ion Storm Austin created a world where you could choose between violence and pacifistic approaches, but the charismatic characters urged you towards peace while the monsters suggested violence.'" Some interesting stuff in there.
It is impossible to do almost anything without betraying some part of ones world view. This is true in every day life, doubly so in things that people create.
Novels, movies, music, painting.... They all reflect some of the creators presuppositions. In a simulation it is the same. A person or group of persons has complete control over what exists, what does not exist and how it interacts. How could it not reflect their view of reality?
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
I don't think we should expect games to be perfect simulations. The designers are dealing with fixed resources and obviously need to make limits in places. We shouldnt expect game simulations to be on par with academic or scientific ones. Games are for fun, not perfection.
Voice your opinion!
Surely there must be bias in the player too for this to become an issue. The article example of "mosters" urging violence, for example, assumes that every player will assume monsters are bad. Clearly these folks did not watch enough Sesame Street.
Now go turn on PBS while I fire up a MUD, no biased graphics to distract me from good and evil there!
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
Games are biased towards female characters with very strong spines.
[% slash_sig_val.text %]
Games have themes which are used to give them depth!
See that and more on the Coca-Cola (tm) eleven o'clock news!
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
it would be impossible for the game creators to create a totally bias free game as everyone has a bias trowards somthing, and it can unconciously move into the game, such as a tree you always imagined as a certain color, that somone else views different. though that may be an insignifigant example, you get teh idea
Games are just simulators, virtually identical to the ones we use to train our soldiers. No one's saying anything through them.
Hmm.
Let's put aside the question, exactly in which imminent conflict the armed forces expect to utilize their finely-honed gold-coin-collecting skills.
I look forward to watching the conflict in which the military takes a ball of junk and starts rolling people up in it, or carries ridiculous-sized swords and rides around on giant chickens (Wark!).
"It felt almost as good as stealing cars from grandma." -- Margaret Thatcher, probably.
I prefer having to make the moral choice between the rocket launcher and the land-shark gun.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
If I recall correct, Deus Ex was about breast augmentations.
Game designers are clearly going to put more work into certain aspects and create certain bias. They are going to try to direct you towards what they think is "most fun".
Voice your opinion!
Everybody is 'biased'. In fact a better word might be that everyone has a perspective. (A little less pejorative) The creator and the player both bring things to the game, conciously or uncounciously. This is why interaction with others is so valuable. It allows you to gain access to other perspectives.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
However, with exception of when we deliberately seek out bias, it is pretty much irrelevant. We play games because they are fun. Whether the game designer has some ulterior motive or not is only important as far as it affects the playability of the game. Good games succeed, bad games fail.
To argue that bias somehow affects the player subliminally, influencing the player towards the bias of the game designer, is to say that people are influenced significantly by what they play or see. However, I have to reject this, from my own experience. I have known many people who play violent video games such as Grand Theft Auto and its ilk who have no inclination to go out and commit those crimes shown in the game.
Bias is inherent in any human action. To make it a central pillar of a video game is foolish because it is uninteresting to anyone not interested in it. Game makers, for the most part, sublimate their biases and focus on gameplay. Whether they succeed or not is debatable, of course.
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
Sometimes this means more balanced opponents where the real world is mostly imbalanced. The real world is mostly boring, unjust, and ultimately pointless. Very accurate simulations would not make good gaming. Save the pacifism for the real world, I doubt it would make for good gaming. Good vs evil, Cowboys vs Indians, all the war games we played as kids before computers are simulations of a real world tweaked towards having a little fun, not enlightening or about changing the real world.
in that your adventurer, even though at a place with male and female apprentices, is only allowed to be male.
In Black & White, another Lionhead game, even though it's supposed to be balanced, it feels like the dark side tries to get you to behave badly, as you can't pick up people and place them gently down on a pile of grain - which when I was little was really fun to slide down on - but are assumed to toss them over the building no matter how gently you do it.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Bias introduces conflict and can be a source of tension and involvement with the game. A perfectly unbiased game would be perfectly boring. A game needs a challenge and motivation, which means a biased view.
I am not in anyway affiliated with Max Cannon
I'm not that sure Deus Ex is that great of an example. I thought all sides of the spectrum in that game made compelling arguments. Even the ones considered by the article to be "monsters." They weren't monsters, though, but real people. Far more real than the pure-evil supervillians of most games. It would be interesting, though, to have them portrayed a bit more realistically, though. Usually, it is those pushing for violence that are the most charismatic, and the easiest to follow. Finding the peaceful route is always the hardest, and usually least popular. Think of all the charismatic leaders that have inspired violence: hundreds, thousands. Now how many can you think of that have inspired people towards true peace? Can probably count them on your fingers; Ghandi, MLK Jr., Jesus Christ, Laozi, Buddha, etc. Would really like to see a game where it was harder to find, not just harder to follow, the peaceful path (where as in Deus Ex you just had to not kill people, though it was much harder, gameplay-wise).
So conservatives are pro-violence?
I was always deeply offended by the SimCity series' bias towards Llamas. There are few animals more evil and mean-spirited than a llama, and Maxis' emphasis on this animal is suggestive of their cold-hearted capitalist aims!
Why is it that liberal is being demonized by people who claim to worship Jesus Christ who was perhaps the biggest most passive liberal who ever lived. He was so passive that he let himself be killed. Most liberals today arent nearly that liberal.
So the cultural bias starts at the bible and ends up in the video games. This is assuming that passive and peace are exclusively liberal ideas (which I doubt).
Artists paint what they feel like painting and people buy it, People speak and people pay to hear it, and people write books and people buy it.
Is it newsworthy to say what we already know?
If you would call it a problem at all is that you can't really have people write a script for just about anything that is truly unbiased. Most everybody is incapable of completely detaching themselves from something to the point of having no bias when creating it.
Besides, the example of a video game having bias despite free choice is sort of a backwards one. Without some slant to it, there wouldn't be any real esacape element to playing the game. Do players want to be presented with a mulitude of choices from different characters who seem completely abivalent as to the outcome? Bias (while being unhealthy in gargantuan quantities) is what provides flavor in a lot of these simulation games. Otherwise, with no bias, you would have an online chatroom because the majority of people wouldn't know what do to with the simulation in question.
It really depends on what you're trying to simulate.
Perfecting Discordia
www.stevenvansickle.com
I don't see why the PC has to stand for "politically correct". That is: it is unreasonable to demand that games are free of any bias with regard to strategy. Most comparisons for games that have been going around are the convergence of games and movies... that is: you are "in" a movie. It can hardly be argued that movies lack any bias in terms of the strategy to handle trouble.
The only situation in which bias is obviously a bad thing is when bias is labeled as fact.
see a Text Widget
The article alleges that violent approaches are suggested by characters meant to be seen as "monsters" while pacifistic approaches are suggested by characters meant to be seen as "charismatic," but is this a case of character actions coloring your perception of the character?
Would the "monsters" be seen as monsters if they did not encourage violence, and would the "charismatic" ones be thought of so well if they did not work towards non-violence? If the characters switched goals, then wouldn't they also switch descriptions applied to them?
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
don't knock Llamas until you've ridden around on Camels ... SimCity may have a bias towards Llamas per se, but you don't see people dissing Zebras for their ornery tendancies either.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
It is much easier to win a game of Civilization using diplomacy or doing the space race than it is to conquer the world. Does this mean that Sid has been pushing his pacifist ideals on us for the past decade? The game also has pretty severe penalties for using nuclear weapons. I suppose that is part of a liberal agenda too. And don't get me started on how you absolutely have to put resources into science research to have a remote chance to win the game.
Gillen seems to be suggesting that linking pacifism with good guys and violence with monsters is somehow "liberal." The corrollary, I suppose, is that in a game shop that could be characterized as "conservative," the monsters would be suggesting peace and the good ol' boys would be advocating random and terrible acts of violence.
On the one hand, I'm not convinced that a world view with "violent monsters" is inherently "liberal," and on the other hand I'm a little dismayed that anyone (whichever meaningless dogmatic label they choose) would argue that "conservatives" would make nice cheerful, peaceful monsters.
I think we have a case here of a valid point (developers' opinions and world views inevitably appearing in their work) being stretched to a rather ridiculous degree.
Cheers
-b
If I wanted a sig I would have filled in that stupid box.
Even if a game were unbiased, the author (or almost anyone else) would see bias, based on their own biases.
"Bias" is a word often used in place of, "thinks differently than me."
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Still fighting like hell trying to force the core demographic away from the industry, eh? As if TV and radio wasn't a big enough hint itself.
If you want to eliminate violence, please kill yourself (or give one of us the theriputic value of doing it for you)
For many ppl a very realistic simulation can be fun by itself. Many ppl I know play FPS games with hacks like "god mode" just to walk by de scnenarios, just to see the stuff not actualy to frag whatever moves.
Take NFS games for example, the more realistic the look and feel is the better (at least for a lot of ppl). Getting realism and game play togeather is the key to a great game.
In my training as a reading teacher, I am constantly told that Meaning is created by the reader by reconciling the author's intent with the reader's existing knowledge. It is not difficult, in an engaging story, to figure out what the author's worldview is and to be influenced by it. In fact, in all of my literature classes, we were told to try to learn the author's worldview. When I played Knights of the Old Republic, I constantly told my friends that it was like "reading a good book." I actually became emotionally involved in the characters along the same lines of becoming involved with Sam and Frodo. This is not a mere simulation any more than a book is a mere simulation.
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.
You merely affirm your view that a pure simulation is best. Nothing is ever devoid of higher meaning.
The day that the social Nazis start imposing political correctness (in other words, their opinions, their will) is the day that the final nail goes in the coffin of commercially produced games. This is just crap, games are built by people, why wouldn't they have an opinion, a view? Or would you like some bland politically correct pabulum instead?
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Parent is right. A fictional story does not represent history, it is a story that might contain historical facts.
A game is a story that run in a type of simulator. Remove the bias by removing the story. If you want a true simulation, try running a flight simulator.
(or that one they had on Demolition Man!)
So, aside from the fact that the article author wasn't upset at Ion Storm or anything, and only brought this point in to make a point about the impossibility of value neutrality in video games...
Deus Ex?
Isn't that the game series where no matter whether you choose the pacifist or violent options, the world ends in a horrible and dystopian fashion by the end of the game, and the most choice you have is that you get to choose which dystopian fashion it ends in?
Some "bias".
I'm just finding it interesting... if we're in a situation where people are slinging around labels like "politically liberal" just because somebody made nonviolent problem resolution look in some way "nicer" than violent problem resolution, I think maybe this indicates some.. odd things about where our culture is at. Will we next have the American Arbitration Association denounced as "politically liberal" because they advocate nonviolent resolutions to corporate disputes, as opposed to IBM and Bechtel hiring gunslinging corporate mercenaries like the one you role-play as in Deus Ex?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Ok, before I begin writing a comment about bias in games, I should put my own cards on the table. I'm a conservative; pro-Iraq war, anti-abortion, deeply suspicious of the UN and even though I'm British, I like George Bush.
However, that said, I actually found a lot to like about Deus Ex, contrary to what the article seems to imply. First of all, it was a great game. That's the most important thing, regardless of any political messages. However, the political messages in Deus Ex could certainly be seen has having a conservative slant. The United Nations were very much the bad-guys. One of the three possible endings, the Illuminati ending, essentially let you choose to embrace 20th-century capitalism. The guys who led you down the path were shady at times, but their heart seemed to be in the right place. Now, the sequel (Invisible War) on the other hand, seemed a bit more didactic in its approach. Then again, the writing in the sequel, much like the gameplay, seemed vastly less intelligent overall.
Looking elsewhere in games, political messages seem to be fairly broadly spread. There are plenty of games out there, such as the original Command & Conquer and Red Alert, which aren't afraid to paint the West as the good guys and terrorists/the Soviets as the baddies. Similarly, you get games like KOTOR and Jade Empire, which tend to present the pacifist, left-wing choices as "good". Of course, I enjoyed KOTOR and Jade Empire immensely, despite their politics, because they're both good games. (KOTOR 2, on the other hand, I can live without, because it was just too enmeshed in the hack-author love-fest that is the Star Wars expanded universe to have a coherent or interesting plot).
More interesting than the issue of political bias, I think, is the issue of cultural assumptions in games. Full Spectrum Warrior is a good example of this. As is pretty widely known, this game is essentially an adapted version of a tactical training simulator used by the US military. What surprised me about the game was how casualty-averse it is. If a single member of your squad dies, you fail a mission. Moreover, the missions essentially resembled a puzzle game. The bad guys could be counted on to react predictably in any given situation, with surprises coming only if they had been specifically included by the people designing the mission. Now, I guess in the context of a story-based game, with continuity of characters, this makes sense. However, it did make me wonder about the assumptions this would impart if the actual military simulator uses the same parameters. Is it only preparing soldiers for success? Would it result in panic or a loss of momentum in a situation where members of a squad were killed by something unexpected? If the AI in the game isn't programmed to make a banzai charge if cornered, is this going to lead to a blind spot in the field if a real, unpredictable, human opponent tries this? To what extent do we pick up assumptions from games (or films, books etc) that influence how we react in real life?
I havent' RTFA yet and I will after my meeting, but I had to comment:
When I wrote my master's thesis, "Virtual Historiography: How History Is Presented in Games Designed for Entertainment," one of the problems I had was that many history "simulations" were written by non-historians. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing because they were, of course, designed for entertainment! Playing a game is a two way street: you'll get as much history out of it as you want in order to be entertained, and it's limited by how much history the game designer puts into it. "History" in this context is an elastic quantity, but a quantity nonetheless because of there sheer logical/compuational limitations of digital technology. The "bias" found in most games sometimes do reflect ideological biases (for example, Wil Wright's emphasis on public transportation in the SimCity series), but more often than not, it's an editorial process that's bound by the limits of the machine and development time. Bias is unavoidable. You leave certain things in because it adds to the verisimilitude of reality yet at the same time, you leave things out that take away from the entertainment factor of the game (most aspects of reality are BORING!). When it comes down to it, in terms of my research, historical bias is unavoidable, and for games designed for entertainment, the bias goes towards entertainment/gameplay first, verisimilitude of reality second, and then education. Bottomline: It's plain commonsense: you can't learn history from a computer game that sucks.
- Humans are biased
- Humans make video games
- Games are unrealistic, biased and immersive
Honestly, who knew?It's interesting that he only mentions one real sim in his entire article (Operation Flashpoint).
It is only a sign of the times that professing violence is considered 'conservative' and pushing for peace is 'liberal'. Each course of action depends on the circumstances- but devoid of any circumstances, wouldn't one always think of peace as good and violence as bad? Isn't this what people teach their children? Attaching labels only polarizes the issue.
Even with this one article that's quoted, most of the other articles are just as interesting. Most notably are Jennifer Buckendorff's "Gamer Like Me" and Tycho Brahe's "The Mainstream is Coming".
A) Bohemia Interactive and Operation Flashpoint. Doing war games, just like doing war movies, is never neutral. But the internet communities built around those games make it all the more vocal. Look at any WW2 simulation forum, and you'll find fans of german equipment whining about something or other (okay, just so I don't get modded troll, fans of every other country do the same thing). Look at BIS's forum from when Flashpoint:Resistance came out, and you'll find quite a few posts from Russians upset with the fictional depiction of 1984 renegade Russian troops. Even simulated atrocities have a real-world impact here.
oh yeah, and the moral impact of destructible buildings is questionable. I remember a friend who used to play Falcon 2.0 at college with a buddy. There was a church along the departure path. They'd always bomb it "For Good Luck" on the way out and do a low fly-by on the way back. I know I'm looking forward to a BIS sim with destructable buildings so I can make some virtual rubble. I put the "moral impact" of it right in the same bag as someone trying to convince me that it was important to simulate artillery accurately, so "people would understand the severity of civilian casualties". Reality check folks -- go talk to anyone who's seen the shiny DPICM objects all over Iraq, and tell me how we're going to simulate years of nastiness for civilians, especially following the dud rate given in the unclassified field manuals. We can build a virtual world, but our simulations are only as good as the data we give it, and that inevitably follows what we believe to be the case.
B) World View: Continuing that thought, far more powerful than the explicit choices made are the implicit ones. Did Will Wright study urban planning before the original Sim City? If he did, would he have changed the model from one based on city blocks (never a functional form, even if most of the US is laid out that way)? You could say the same thing about his urban model. Sim City is a "toy" more than a "game", but most people when they play the "game", at least the original, seemed to play to get the highest "score": Wealthiest neighborhoods, rich city, low crime, no pollution. That's wonderful, but it makes you wonder whether the sequel shoulda been called Shaker Heights 2000.
C) Poetics: acceptable pompous references to Aristotle are "The Philosopher" (scholastic/medieval) and (classicizing) "The Stagirite". Geeky nerd reference is "Harry" (for "Harry Stotle"). "Ari" would be acceptable if the dude were dutch. Anyway, I think the point is made that games don't communicate emotions. So at the end of all this, what is it they do?
'Liberal' has been redefined to mean socialist/communist/hippy. 'Conservative' has been redefined to mean religious fundamentalist. In other words the vocal fringe minorities of both political extremes are portrayed as the typical liberals and conservatives. Neither is accurate.
For a demonstration of how this happens watch the ignorant followups roll in complaining that I am right about "liberal" being erroneously applied but I am wrong about "conservative". Many people can not help but demonize their "enemy".
And for the record, JC will probably be smacking a lot of people on both sides of the political fence upside the head. A lot of liberals and conservatives, and I user those labels in the true sense, are cherry picking his teachings. Following some, ignoring other, trying to blend his teachings with their personal politics or philosophies.
Games shouldn't have "right vs. wrong" or "good vs. evil". They should provide an environment where the bad guys and good guys could work out thier differences peacfully, while teaching the player of the game conflict resolution skills.
BARF!
...or maybe not.
Journalism is an excellent analogy to simulations. The goal of both is to deliver a perfect copy of the actual event or situation. It is impossible to achieve this goal since both simulations and journalistic endeavors (such as newspaper articles and TV segments) must contain less info than the original event or situation. Reporters bias their output by deciding which facts are most important to their audience. Simulators bias their output similarly, by weighting factors that seem most relevant to their audience. Objectivity is only important if its appearance is a factor to the audience.
In the easter egg in GTA3, they show a clear bias toward badly filmed porn flicks and old-school arcade game graphics.
...that being biased is so totally wrong.
Knowledge recapitulates bias.
i.e. you can not separate the information you
possess from your attitude toward that information.
(which in the end, leads to its acceptance or dismissal)
Actually if you activate the cheat codes you can end the game with a dance party. Well, I guess that could be considered a dystopian ending too. Forever stuck on the dance floor... definite bias against old time Baptists.
I tell them I belong to the "Moderate Party" and they give a odd stare since such a thing does not exist, but I wish it did so thats what I keep saying.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
I agree, it is a shame that a simulation like Deus Ex is crippled with designer bias.
Everything that was once directly lived has receded into a representation. -debord
I think the words of the master will show there is no sort of bias in video games. From Acts of Gord: The Book of Annoyances, Chapter 23, Verse Quotation:
"We would like a quote for the front page of the newspaper talking about videogame violence, and it's possible impact on society."
"Video games don't make people more violent, and I'll kill anyone who disagrees."
<dramatic pause>
"I don't think we can print that."
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
I'm sure that Stalin and Mao are spinning in their graves at being called "liberals". They were opportunistic leaders in the totalitarian tradition, none of their followers were liberals either, and each of them caused as much destruction as possible of liberals, who were frequently labeled "intellectuals" and "counter-revolutionaries". The previously honorable name of "conservative" is also currently being besmirched by cynical thieves and religious fanatics, who want theirs now and to hell with the future of our country. Monsters indeed! Just keep cutting those veterans' benefits, guys; Ayn Rand loves you!
We've had this debate in the driving simulator community for years. How do you know if the car is behaving as it should if you can't see the code? Hence stuff like this. /shameless plug
What if Digg added local news and a Slashdot inspired comment karma system? ---
http://houndwire.com
Perhaps a better choice in Deus Ex (excepting certain areas of the game, of course) is the choice between violence, sneaky violence, minimal violence, and avoiding violence but still accomplishing your objectives.
As for the "Liberal" bit--I think the original post is referring to the game creators. Not necessarily to any approaches. But current events certainly dictate a connection between avowed conservatives and a overly simplistic black-and-white confrontational worldview.
Gandhi wasn't a pacifist. He advocated nonviolent resistance. He even said that if you were not brave enough to put yourself in danger by resisting without violence, then you might as well violently resist rather than to be a coward. This fits the game too: You put yourself in danger (by sneaking, bribing, taking alternate routes) in order to accomplish a goal with minimal killing.
By the way, in the original Splinter Cell for PC, you can go through the WHOLE game (on Hard) without killing anyone but Nikoladze. (Omitting environmental explosions, etc.)
Isn't that cool? But now I have no meaning in my life... Except Pandora Tomorrow!
In other news, police, firefighters, the pope and natalie portman came out against senseless machete rampages against 2 year-old children today.
We are a society that encourages people to act in ways most beneficial to society. For the same reason our newscasters don't tell everyone to eat babies every night for the sweet, tender protein (drool), we all consciously or unconsciously encourage the values we identify as important to our culture. These values differ from country to country, and personally I judge the more pacifistic to be more civilized than those that encourage violence as a solution.
Neither is actually wrong, but different points of view, 3000 years ago, if someone stole your cow/goat and you didn't chase him down and brutally kill him you would be considered an idiot and a coward, and become a target for anyone else who wanted to take your property or life. Now we have police to perform that service independently, using widely accepted moral standards, and personal violence is frowned upon. Same result, but much more consistent and it allows society to function more smoothly.
We live in a much better world than our ancestors, and while they might have needed to perform violence on a daily basis to survive, for most of us, we can do better without. The cost of this better world is not being able to act as arbitrarily or intuitively as our ancestors, and needed to restrain our natural impulses. Imagine wall street if every time someone lost money they attacked the person they lost it to.
Course if someone fucks with you you can still kick their ass, which is cool.
The first rule of USENET is you do not talk about USENET.
From what I understand the giant chickens are sat safely at home giving the orders, not being ridden into battle.
Of course. Nothing can be an objective simulation, because no person is objective. Anyone who claims to be is deluding himself or herself. We all have a limited set of knowledge and from that limited set, we make interpretations and extrapolations. These are necessary for us to function as human beings. True objectivity would require omniscience.
Try Right on Games.
One of my favorite examples of this is SimCity, where you are supposedly free to create a city after your own vision. But somehow, all the cities end up looking like Los Angeles, because the game adopts the modern view of urban design that attractive cities can be built by laying out swaths of color and massive collector roads. Is it any wonder it was so hard to get mass transit to work effectively?
In the real world, conflict exists. Ergo, a simulation of the real world is not necessarily conflict-free and boring. That's not to say that creating a realistic simulation is easy. Particularly when you're simulating, say, a war between Orcs and Elves.
So, the point of thinking about bias in games is not to eliminate the fun and escapism. It's to consciously decide what will be realistic and what will reflect the artists' creativity.
I don't remember if it came out before battlefield or not, but it had great vehicles and very convincing long range rifle firing. Battlefield 2's iron sighting is a joke compared to what this game had. I think it was probably the most realistic FPS game I've played, and it was fun too.
..Are Belong To Us.
/. spaztech
The article is complaining that the ugly monsters are the ones that will direct you to being evil. However, in a game where there is a good looking anti-hero and the charismatic crime boss they complain that it is trying to lure people to violent behaviour and is therefor bad for our youth.
I think people just like to complain.
Seriously, the amount of b.s. in this game really spoiled the series for me. By the end of the game i was just like "for the love of pete, STFU with your proseletyzing already"
- 30&res=l
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php?date=2001-11
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
It becomes really hard to be truthful about the past, when the parts of the past were so sad.
My father-in-law likes to call them the "bad ol' days", because they really weren't all that good.
GTA might be able to pull off a 1940's that was believably realistic, but that's because Rockstar already has a rep for pushing the envelope.
"Hmm. I am to metaphor cheese as metaphor cheese is to transitive verb crackers!"
My question is, how far does this go? Does this apply to games like chess, poker, minesweeper? I feel like the logical conclusion of the author's argument is that we should restrict games based not entirely on their content, but on the sorts of actions such games promote in the real world. Doesn't this then allow restriction old-style non-computer games which promote undesirable behaviors (excessively aggressive play is very necessary for some forms of poker)? Can we find games which promote desirable behavior?
What is the argument for bias in second life? The foundation of the engine, how it works, and what the "world" is seems to be about nothing more than scaffolding holding together whatever the users build. It has NO bias, unless the scarcity of resources in a simulation (like real estate) is itself some bias towards a simulation.
Seriously though, if it weren't bad enough that people will try to pigeonhole others with these terms, so many people pigeonhole themselves too! "Well, I'm against the war in Iraq. That would make me a liberal. Does that really mean that I have to consider "Piss Christ" to be a work of art?" Great googly-moogly, people! Find where you stand. Stand there. Don't call names, whether it's at yourself or others.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
In Sid Meier's Civilization simulations, as we all remember, the Democracy government raised happiness and productivity in the population. I'm sure that claim demands a certain amount of biased opinion, especially since the author lived in a democracatic society. I imagine that the pros and cons of the Civilization government systems would be slightly different had the game been developed in soviet russia at the height of Stalin's rule.
perl -e "eval pack(q{H*},join q{},qw{70 72696e74207061636b28717b482a7d2c717b343 637323635363534323533343430617d293b})"
"Reporters bias their output by deciding which facts are most important to their audience"
That is false, since the reporter cant get into anyone's heads to actually know for sure what we want from the news, so he makes a choice for the viewer based on his views and mostly what his boss wants to air.
True objectivity is like neutrality, it doesnt exist because by deciding to show or not show or posing an action or not posing an action will give a different outcome, thus making even your inaction a direct action.
-- confused i'm getting. so writing i'll stop--
Games have stories, stories should have an opinion, a guiding principle and a message or they are by definition crap and a waste of time. Stories are supposed to make people think, I know alot of you probably go run out and see the latest block buster crapfest holly wood is pumping out this week, though I doubt the fantastic four is actually very fantastic at all, though there probably are four of them so its not totally false advertising. Believe it or not, good film, literature and art make you question your own beliefs, why shouldnt a story in a video game do the same?
Just because a story has a moral or political polition doesnt mean its going to pervert your own sense of moral or political identity unless your are a completely weak minded fool. People who are against political and moral free speech are exactly the type of people who should be exposed to it the most, they are for the most part thoughtless and indifferent to the opinions of others, and when they see something that makes them quesiton their beliefs it makes them uncomfortable because they experience a sensation they rarely feel actual thought, not just ideas drilled into their heads by dogmatically.
Games can tell a store, games can have an opinion and games can make people question issues. Though they rarely do, and from a gameplay perspective that may be a good thing. But every world war II game has a politcal slant if you get down to it, facism is bad, freedom is good...that may sound basic but if the nazi party made world war II games I am sure they would play a little bit differently. Just look at the genres that are very popular in Japan, such as historical simulations that are only a niche market over here because the Japanese have a great interest in their long history and heritage, or in America we get many more war themed releases than other nations. What you purchase is also a political decision, if you dont like a games politics, either pro or against war, either liberal or conservative you can choose not to buy it, but want to stop games from having an opinion goes against not only the free market but against freedom of expression.
ALSO: Deus ex is a simulation?
Having studied economics a wee bit, the portrayal of economics in simulations games has always bugged me. Whether it's SimCity or Civilization, the economics are grossly wrong.
To be fair, modelling a somewhat accurate economic system in a game would take way too much processing power for the purposes of a game. You need to simplify stuff. But in most cases the simplification is towards a single actor model. Which is so completely wrong it's ludicrous.
The prime effect of this is the assumption that a autocratic government (e.i. the player) can completely and successfully control all aspects of an economy. Hah! In real life government is always a hindrance and impediment to the economy, because the government interfers in the most basic economic units: the voluntary and spontaneous transactions between individuals. These games can't even distribute resources without the autocrat's (your) help!
To be fair (again), a military game with a reasonable economic model would be bloody boring. All the player would be able to do would be to issue policies and hope that people paid attention.
What I think would be an interesting game would be to have the economy happen "underneath" the player's control. The actual economics happens despite the player, with national prosperity (and government revenues) dependent upon how well you manage to keep your hands out of the works. You don't get to set up trade rates or dictate production or any other hands-on economic activities that most games give you. Instead all you can do is tax/borrow to fund your expansionist military, and hope to heck production doesn't plummet because of it.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
From what little I've seen of Halo 2 (not much), it also looks like religion plays a driving role for the enemy.
Religion is a factor for good in many people's lives. Yet I can't think of any time it's presented that way in games. It's either absent or evil.
Interestingly, part of my wife's Masters project at library school was to analyze the presentation of religion in fiction, and it's often the same: either religion isn't mentioned or it's bad. Granted, there seem to be improvements recently (last 10 years), so maybe there's hope for video games as well.
Are you sure?
I think he'd be labeled a Hate-America pansy for dwelling on and highlighting past wrongs.
It billed itself as an impartial and realistic hell-invades-military-outpost simulator, but I'm beginning to notice a distinct anti-demonic-zombie bias. Also, the game is blatantly pro-shotgun.
You had to sit at your console and meditate for hours. The authors put in some kind of question system so you couldn't automate it. You actually had to sit there and do nothing. So I hear. I never actually "played" it.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
In Deus Ex, the generally politically liberal Ion Storm Austin created a world where you could choose between violence and pacifistic approaches, but the charismatic characters urged you towards peace while the monsters suggested violence.
Okay, why did the author of the article find some characters "charismatic", while others struck him as "monsters"? Doesn't that reaction say as much about his bias as it does about the game itself?
It's the land of the brave, and the home of the free
Where the less you know, the better off you'll be.
The AAA is as politically liberal as they come. We should do away the whole arbitration and legal system and bring back trial by combat. Put the disputants in a ring with the best armor and weapons they can each afford. Otherwise, were just breeding for the best whining and complaining ability. We humans need to be tough so we can kick all the other animals asses and take this planet for the strong, namely us.
...We'll get back to you.
First, we've got to find a way to stop ourselves from turning blue
"Choices? I got choices, bub. Smith.... or Wesson?"
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
the charismatic characters urged you towards peace while the monsters suggested violence.
You mean that people actually consider violence to be monstrous instead of charasmatic? Damn! How, uh... correct. Somehow without the capacity for violence monsters aren't so scary.
Why is it the "Piss Christ" is seen as art (crucifix in urine). But, I can't make art of out other religious items such as the Koran?
;P
Riddle me that Batman
Life is not for the lazy.
Go back and look at the former Soviet Union... past or present, it doesn't matter too much.
Russia is extremely socially conservative. Try getting a gay marriage in Russia and you'll get less of a warm welcome than you'd see in Texas.
Russia hates the environment. I mean literally, they think Finlanders are idiots for replanting forests after harvesting the trees. "HA! you fools! Don't you know trees grow on trees!" There's no environmental protection, because it's a fundamental waste of money, in their view.
And when the country was Communist, hell they didn't even need to put protection on Nuclear reactor plants cause really whose going to complain if it blows up and kills everybody? What!? you're going to complain? Off to the gulag! No Tort for you!
I could just keep going... The similarities between the Republicans and the Russian Communists are incredibly striking. Yeah, sure Republicans aren't quite as bad, but who ever uses that as a campaign slogan? "Vote for me! I'm not as bad as Stalin!"
So why is it then that say advocating for universal healthcare makes you a commie, but suggesting we not re-plant trees after harvesting a forest makes you a capitalist?
Just interesting...
Civilization plays you !
(as a cannon fodder)
Odd, most people say that SimCity is too unrealistic in the other direction. That is, to have a successful city you must have an unrealistic level of mass transit coverage.
A "yes,but" statement? The liberal ideal does not include murder or mayhem. Liberals are the folks who were associated with antiwar, remember? The common people of these countries, like common people everywhere, continued to try to make a living and stay out of the way. Stalin and Mao were merely the latest of the despots; millennia of czars and emperors had preceded them. The "leaders" working for the despots were the usual gang members you find whenever there is an opportunity for gangsters.
The Taliban in Afghanistan are a more recent example; their leaders pretended they were murdering in the name of their religion, but it was just a power thing as usual. The rest of the Taliban were tempted or coerced or both to join the gang; not so different from any other gang. The common people of Afghanistan tried to dodge the bullets, and having no organization, were at the mercy of gangsters. I'm not picking on Afghanistan -- you can choose your favorite from among African, Asian, European, Latin American, and local. In no case is the motivation any sort of "liberal ideal". The American rightists have been sticking the "liberal" label on anything they don't like; but it does have a meaning. Just as "Christian" once did!
I remember nearly a decade ago playing SimCity2000 quite often. Always, whenever I would install a nuclear fission plant, the damned thing would blow sky high. ALWAYS. Honestly, how often do nuclear plants actually blow up? Only one has actually had an explosion (not counting the few occurrences where some radiation was released, but the physical structure was intact) out of the hundreds of plants running for the past 50+ years. It's not a reflection of reality, but more likely of the designer's bias against nuclear energy. One could also argue that FPS games have a bias against small arms. Bias in a game isn't necessarily a bad thing, especially if we're positing that games are a form of expression.
Pro-life - I'm pro-life too. I would like it if 1,752 Americans hadn't died in Iraq as of today because a conservative supposedly "pro-life" retard is running the country. Didn't Bush's buddy GOD say "Thou shalt not kill"? I guess that doesn't apply to presidents.
Separation of church and state - You counter this with a quote from the Constitution. If conservatives value the Constitution so much, why do so many of them want to amend it to take away CITIZENS' rights, such as the gay marriage amendment? Doesn't the majority of the disapproval of homosexuality arise out of it being a 'sin' in organized religion? So they believe in separation of church and state, but want to amend a religion-based idea to the Constitution? They call it "protecting the sanctity of marriage." How does two other people getting married affect YOUR marriage? It's only as protected as you make it yourselves, and with the divorce rate here in the US, it looks like the majority of Americans don't value the sanctity of marriage much. Unless of course, if a HOMO wants to get married...
Pro-corporate - as in letting corporations do whatever the hell they like as long as they're lining the pockets of politicians. Note that this doesn't only apply to conservatives.
Anti-stem cell research - they're not just against federal funding for it, they're against it entirely as if it were abortion - they want to outlaw it. Look people, if you don't want to cure Parkinson's because you love Jesus so much, that's pretty fucked up. You do realize that in ancient Greece they believed in all these 'gods' and if you didn't believe in it you got your ass killed? But now we 'know' that that was just a silly little idea created by a bunch of neanderthals. But Jesus is real and he loves you.
Against environmental regulations - You do realize that Bush is the only one that opposed the Kyoto accord and then had the nerve to show up to G8 - where every other country accepted it - and talk about how we need to address environmental concerns. They're pro-environment so long as it doesn't interfere with pro-corporate.
Anti-UN - hmmmmm Anti-Americanism is your argument here. So it's "if they don't like us, then we don't like them" huh? Well, fuck it I guess, blow em up. Or could it be that they don't like us for a good reason? (reread sentence about blowing shit up) And just because we're not the most popular nation we shouldn't participate in global diplomacy for the better of every nation?
Anti-taxes - how can they be anti-taxes and still pay for that military? Great idea and all, but try putting the whole 'reduced taxes' thing into practice and maybe I'll agree with you. Reducing billionaires' and corporations' taxes doesn't count - I'm neither.
Euthanasia - don't you have something better to scream about? How about actually fixing education, social security, healthcare, welfare and pretty much everything else INSIDE this country instead of running off across the globe playing policeman, whining about homosexuals, or trying to create a federal religion? Of course, this also applies not just to conservatives - except for the homo and religion part... and policeman...
Those who argue 'the good side' of religion are ALWAYS thinking through severe myopia. Look around you; World War III is currently igniting on a global scale entirely because of religion. Geek game designers, despite their own over-reactionary limiting biases, (against spirituality), are smart enough to recognize the tom-fool sham that religion is.
So YES, it's going to appear in the media they create.
I find it interesting that fiction writers, (that is, people who have learned how to think effectively enough to be able to write a book), are also generally aware that religion is for chumps.
I hope that doesn't sound too harsh, but honestly, religion takes a few good points from spiritual philosophy and warps them into mind-numbing brain poison designed to enslave and limit.
-FL
Of COURSE a piece of media is going reflect the viewpoints of the person/people that created it!
Anybody who truly believes that a 'simulation' is actually representational of the real world is going to get a rude shock.
The problem, is that on some level, people really do believe that games are representational of reality. --Just look at all the people who think war is fun, and who watched eagerly as American troops rolled into Bagdhad, all with little images of Command & Conquer dancing before their eyes.
-FL
And how many years after Christ's death did this start occurring? (hint: long enough for His teachings to be perverted)
Are they still perverted? If the answer is yes, what are Christ's churches doing to stop it? Are each of these efforts in line with His teachings?
This is the conundrum facing Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Without their respective charismatic leaders the reins have fallen to the hands of men. Alas, we are not perfect, and the way has been perverted to coincide with our own agendas and feeble, human interpretations of God's will.
--Rob
Towards the Singularity.
Deus Ex was the most fun I ever had with any game, hands down.
One of the lessons of Chaos Theory is that teeny deltas can goof the best simulations. Mindful of this, any scientist with an axe to grind can tweak the parameterization of his simulation to get any result he wants.
This is a limitation of Scientific Method. Modernity had this ideal of the disinterested scientist who went whereever the data led. Post-modernity recognizes the biases of the researcher slants the research.
In the old Soviet Union, you had Lysenko sending competing scientists to the gulag. Here and now you have to get funding. Let's suppose you had a cool simulation that showed that global warming would do nothing at all. How in the world would you get your grant-requests funded?
With a grant from the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy? OK. You're right. But that makes my point.
I just took a look at the Communist Manifesto-- haven't read it since college. The first chapter is quite prescient in its discussion of what is now globalism. There isn't anything in it about murder, nor about mayhem. It is an idealistic 19th Century document.
Definitely, the Communist Party are "now not liberals". The early Marxists desired to reduce suffering among women, children, and the working classes; so did the Christians of that period. The working out of Stalinist Russia and Maoist China had little to do with that idealism, and much to do with traditional power. Neither liberal nor conservative, these regimes carried out policies that were calculated to suppress criticism of all kinds, including liberal criticism.
Consider that the Romans felt the same way about Jesus, who was the quintessential liberal of his time. Without mayhem and murder, he cast out the moneylenders from the temple. Without mayhem and murder, he supported the poor and helpless, ate with undesirables, and defied authority. How many Christian liberals are inspired by this example! And how many "Christian" fanatics (not conservatives) completely ignore it!
A video game is something that involves the contribution of several people that do have a direct influence on the overall game experience (artists, 3d modelers, AI programmers, etc)
Find a job you like and you will never work a day in your life.
I find it funny that people have such issues with the way sexual orientation is handled in the Sims, but no one questions that in the game sleeping on a more expensive bed cuts the time you need to sleep in half, that eating more expensive food fills you up quicker, or that bathing in a more expensive tub keeps you clean for longer. Or for that matter, that the only real purpose of friends (at least in the Sims 1) was to further your career. I'm not going to use the term "bias", as it has become a pejorative (like someone else pointed out), but there is definately an implicit ideology: Happiness is a function of the things you own.
The bias in most games is towards being one of the good guys. Personally I find this annoying as I'm generally one of the good guys in real life and the last thing I want to when I play games is extend this behavior into my entertainment time.
No, what I really want in my games is the chance to be bad. Really, really bad. Downright evil, sometimes. On occasion I even want to go around slaughtering every innocent in sight. Carnage, blood, death, destruction - here I come!
But in 99% of the games out there the game is deliberately designed to punish non-good behavior. Being 'good' almost always has a much higher payoff than being 'evil'. So the game itself, via the prejudices of the designers, rewards and punishes based on a trite moral philosophy (trite for games, that is) even if the option exists to be evil. A rational player ignores the 'evil' options because the rational player knows that the penalty will almost always outweigh the benefit.
There's definitely a message being pushed, and a pretty moronic one at that. Games are just that - games. They aren't soapboxes. And when I come home after a day of dealing with annoying, obnoxious pricks I don't want to save the world, I want to wreak havoc and doom upon the virtual inhabitants, preferably while imagining that some of my victims are the said pricks I had to put up with in a more civilized fashion in the real world.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
If you want to play a game that really shows the authors' bias, go play Sim City. Build a nuclear powerplant in your city and observe that it melts down in a period of time much faster than real power plants do.
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
"Why do we have to resort to non-violence, couldn't we just kick their asses"
Then he said to them, 'Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor's, and to God the things that are God's.' (Matt 22:21, NRSV)
I mean another unrealistic aspect is that in a game like Civilization, you'll rule an empire for thousands of years. That's not how it works in real life of course but I don't play civ because it's liek real life, I play it because it's fun (and because I can invade France).
However if you want a game with a more interesting economic and political take, try Tropico. You are the ruler of a small South American nations. How you choose to do it is your bit. You can be a dictator, or you can hold free elections. You can have a communism or a capatalism, etc. Your different political groups, and the two major powers (US and USSR) react to your decisions.
Give it a try, it's in the bargain bin these days.
You ought to go look up a few facts before you go spouting partisan nonsense.
... You did not make the naive assemption that all scientific reports are free of politics and agendas did you? I know people at the EPA, things are far more complicated than you suggest.
Sorry but the facts are Republican Teddy Roosevelt created the National Park system and Republican Richard Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency.
I think it's interesting that you lament about labels, but then label anybody who makes a point as being partisan instead of educated on the subject.
I labeled one person, the author of the GP whose post went far beyond partisan and borders on lunacy. Do you really think Republicans want to poison their children? Get real, there is partisanship and there is delusional.
Frankly, IMHO, when you've got lobbyists working for the Whitehouse actively rewriting scientific reports to downplay evidence... we're no longer talking about balance.
Actually we are. One administration overstates, another understates, one is pessimistic, another optimistic, one brings in lobbyists from one camp, another lobbyists from the other camp, one scientific report is biased in one direction due to politics or philosophy, another is biased in the other direction,
He's not arguing against bias in games, as is implied in this
That seemed to me to be the point of the article.
-Vendal Thornheart
Thats basicaly what he said, in alot fewer words.
Ummm, the Poles fought, just not the right people at the right time. Hitler wanted half of Czechoslovakia? Fine with the Polish generals running the country as long as they got the other half, the flat, hard to defend half... The Nazis got the Czech tank factories and used them to build the force that invaded Poland.
Poland fought once they were invaded but that was much too late, and they did not have much to fight with anyway.
The French and British guaranteed the Poles freedom and threatened to invade Czechoslovakia if they did not surrender the mountainous territory Hitler's generals had no idea how to take by force. Sigh.
International stupidity was around long before Bush II.
You got me into this! You were the ideologue! I'm only a poor assassin! - Twenty evocations, Bruce Sterling
Just because someone doesn't like your point of view and your lifestyle doesn't mean they are afraid of it.
The real reason for the backlash against a fringe lifestyle that has been with society pretty much throught history is that this is the first time that fringe lifestyle is trying to shove their agenda down everyone else's throat and telling us to like it.
-
SK
I read this article back when it was called Nick Broomfield. Then the sequel which was called Michael Moore. There is no objective editing, only proving your opinions in the scientific manner Feynmann called "bending over backwards" to answer criticism, and being a windbag.
you can have my violent video games when you pry them from my cold, dead hands.
Prime UID Club
I agree; if you put in plenty of subway and bus stations (I never bothered with rail (why waste tiles on tracks?)) you wouldn't get many heavily trafficked roads even in the largest cities.
Waiiii!!!!!! I have bad karma!
What part of TR left the republican party because he didn't agree with them and then ran for president again don't you understand?
None of it, because that was not what happened. TR ran for the Republican nomination, lost it, and created a third party because the thought that he was "robbed" by the party bosses who gave the nomination to Taft. It had nothing to do with issues.
That AC is a hell of a lot more insightful than your lying ass.
Only to those more ignorant than him.
TR wasn't a Republican in the sense your lying partisan ass is AT ANY POINT IN HIS ENTIRE LIFE EVEN WHEN HE WAS A MEMBER OF THAT PARTY. TR was a decent human being, you are just dumb.
Well I am not a Republican but TR was an awesome one. Folks refer to Reagan and Bush Jr as cowboys but TR was the real thing, Reagan and Bush were posers in comparison. TR loved target shooting, he loved hunting, matter of fact the national parks were created in part to ensure some place to hunt would persist. He believed in exploiting the land for commercial gain, the panama canal. He believed in violating sovereign nations and gratuitous nation building to promote US business interests, again the canal. He practiced gunboat diplomacy. He was a realist, he knew if we didn't do it someone else would.
No gang leader kills by himself; he always has accomplices, and they don't join his gang "for the common good" no matter what they say. They are in it for power and money. They never have good intentions. If they pretend to support the ideas of liberals, perhaps it is because these ideas make sense to the general public, thus serving as a good disguise. (Of course, there are gangsters who pretend to support the ideas of conservatives -- they are not any better.)
Liberals who espouse ideas such as universal health care OBVIOUSLY are concerned with the common good. Most advanced countries have some sort of universal health care, not attained through murder. However imperfect it may be, it is better than the economic rationing we have here. We have Medicare for elders, and it would be perfectly rational to extend it to everyone. It would not require killing millions, not even a few "conservatives", although they would likely not be missed by the rest of us. It would piss off a few insurance companies who are financially influential. They always have been; they have been lying about health care since at least the Truman administration!
Mary Magdeline was not a prostitute. Nowhere in the bible is she called a prostitute, instead it was just common tradition dating back to the early Catholic church when they began their demonisation of woman and sex. Back in the 60s I believe it was the common tradition was official revoked by the Pope.
So according to the bible and the modern Catholic church Mary Magdeline was not a prostitute.
Very well done!
One of the most glaring evidences of bias in Civilization is the absence of the Slavery advancement. Slavery played such a HUGE part in the History of the world, it must have been left out on purpose. But how could you put the concept into the game and portray it's true value to civilizations without making it seem like possibly a good thing? How could something so abhorrent have ever had any kind of value? Probably they were wise in leaving it out.
Interesting. I've never bothered with this particular debate before and so I've never heard the responses the other side has developed. I guess I'd have to say this; Religion is a choice, whereas all those systems of government you mentioned are inevitabilities; that is even if you (or your society) chooses against one, you automatically find yourself participating in another; even the far extreme, anarchism, ends up being a default ideology.
That being the case, even if all of those systems of government are fool's games, they are not something you can hold against the participants in quite the same way you can point at religion and say, "You might want to reconsider that."
In essence, religion is a poor excuse for war, but just because some folks believe it is, does not mean that religion itself is a sham or inherently wrong.
Actually, I disagree with this on a fundamental level. Is a dormant virus which can infect and cause illness in another good or bad?
I believe that all the major religions are falsehoods designed to enslave and proliferate themselves. Everybody who follows a lie is pouring the energy of their collective belief down a black hole, which contributes to the continued enslavement of humanity.
See, I consider all religions to have been deliberately planted by malevolent beings with the purpose of harvesting humanity. (That's the pulp sci-fi version, but in essence it's also the core of what I currently think is the case.)
Works like this. .
The crucifixion of Christ, (for one of many instances), was an act. A falsehood designed to perpetuate a certain train of thinking; "Christ was a really cool teacher, and he suffered and died for some ephemeral reason. Therefore, since he was my really cool teacher, I should attempt follow his example. So now when the psychopaths of the world come to torment me, rather than say, "NO!" I will instead 'turn the other cheek' 'forgive and forget' and 'love thine enemy'.
I consider these little phrases to be psychological conditioning designed to enable the feeding of higher beings, whose food is the thought energy of misery and suffering.
Pretty way-out, I realize, but not without its supporting evidence by way of UFO encounters and the various probings into the spiritual realm. There's a whole lot of aware entities out there and a whole lot of them are hungry and nasty. Pretending that they're not there is stupid, (sticking your head in the sand only makes your bottom half an easy target), and hoping that a false savior is going to help out is a misnomer. Christ is still a powerful entity unto himself, and he will help when asked, but he isn't going to save anybody. You have to do that yourself. And the foolish religion surrounding Christ is a giant trap designed to lock people down like cattle. If Christ was a spiritual teacher of any weight whatsoever, one of his most important messages was almost certainly, "Do Not Follow Me! Not following is a key. The path to enlightenment is unique to each individual. I am just here to show that it is possible. Be true to yourself! YOU must do the work! Blindly following instructions is worse than doing nothing." (Or something to that effect.)
Typically, if everybody is doing something without having first critically examined it, (ie, organized religion), it's probably a good idea to not do it yourself.
Christ was NOT a shepherd. --Sheep are sheared and then eaten. No thank-you.
-FL
I disagree with your idea of Deus Ex having a conservative slant.
For example, in the game, an evil, giant corporation takes control of the world by creating a virus and restricting the distribution of its cure. In this scenario, big business combines with high technology and state military power to create a neo-fascist kind of social arrangement where movement and freedom is heavily restricted. This suggests that business itself can be extremely immoral, refuting the conservative (and capitalist) idea that business is beyond ethical consideration, that markets demand moral behavior and can self-regulate.
The only way to prevent a Bob Page from taking this kind of power is through a state regulation of industry, (as business needs to have its immoral behavior checked for the good of the people) typically a leftist idea.
Also, consider the separatist group in the game, the NSF. To me, this group is like the green party mixed with rural militias and libertarian social policy.
As for the UN, it isn't criticized for merely existing, but for becoming an instrument of America and corporate elites.
Just my two cents.
-Mark