Review: "Never Alone and the Need for American Indian Narratives in Games" by Daniel Starkey, Polygon

Original article here.

This is a particularly difficult article for me, since I'm Alaskan Native. As the author says, it's often up to Natives to prove they are what they claim to be, but suffice it to say I get money from my regional corporation. So, there, I guess that works?

Here's the thing: I get the point of this article. I really do. When I saw Never Alone I sort of felt obligated to buy it as a form of showing support to my heritage or something.

Well, on to the article. After his introduction, which I didn't really see much issue with, he says this:

And that brings us, somewhat laboriously, to Never Alone. I reviewed the game for Eurogamer last year, awarding it a 10/10. This was before that publication dropped scores altogether. At the time, my choice was somewhat controversial. I caught flak on Twitter and other social networks; people thought that it wasn't fair for me to praise a game that had some admitted technical issues so highly.

Okay. If the game has highly publicized flaws and issues with the game, why in God's name would you award it a 10/10? You have a responsibility when reviewing to let your readers/audience know the quality of the game, and clearly this game is good, great even, but hardly perfect. So, let's see how he defends this.

But that choice came from my experiences as someone that constantly struggles to balance the traditional and the new. I've always loved technology and the distractions that they provide. One of my Elders, before she passed away, often chastised me for texting when I should "be still," for spending too much time on the internet, and not enough time "walking the land."

He didn't defend it at all, instead tossing out a Red Herring in the form of his Elder passing away. Why did he award a perfect score to a flawed game? He tries to explain after a long and heart-felt story about his experiences with an elder who passed away.

While I was writing my Never Alone review, I was struggling with my own past. I was grappling with my own loss, and desperately searching for some way forward, some kind of peace that I could hold onto and walk with. Balancing that fatalism, against the optimism that a game like Never Alone demands from its audience, took time for me to internalize and understand.

But still, no explanation. He had issues and it resonated with him, I suppose, but that doesn't excuse giving a very flawed title a perfect score.

I had the opportunity to speak with a few of the folks on the team for a bit in person a couple months ago. They said they were grateful for my review. Not for the high score I gave their game, but for the way in which my words touched and inspired the team. Knowing that they could have such a strong impact on someone else's life gave them their own hope to keep making these sorts of games.

Then give it an 8 or 9 out of 10, but include those wonderful praises. Giving it a high score is worse than buying it out of "obligation" like I felt I had to. I'm not informing my readers that the game is perfect, because it isn't. Instead I'm just playing it on my own and supporting the developers in that way. I get that you want people to play it. That's fine, I do as well. But don't pretend like it doesn't have flaws.

What I took from Never Alone is my own experience. It meant more to me than just about any game I've ever played. Nothing had ever spoken to me like that, or tapped the struggles of modern Native life.

Yeah, I get that. It meant a lot to you to see something similar to your culture expressed on screen. Only it's closer to my culture, but even then not exactly. I can feel an obligation to play it because they're fellow Alaskan Natives, but the Inupiat differ from my own Athabaskan roots. I can feel a connection to them and an obligation to play and purchase their game, but the culture is their own and I'm just an observer. I can share it and share in it, but it doesn't have the same meaning to me as it does them. To them, it's a very personal thing, but to me I can only tell that it's personal.

He speaks to a developer named Renee Nejo about the game, and it's very interesting. If you don't know much about native history, I would check it out. But then he says this:

Never Alone was never intended to be purely an act of preservation, but to give hope to a people in the face of centuries of oppression and colonialism.

Okay. You lost me. Is it stupid that Russians can pass off the land that doesn't belong to them to the United States, who it also doesn't belong to? Sure. But why would you mention colonialism and oppression? Is it to bolster an otherwise meaningless article that had given me no reason to read it until that line? Tommy Wiseau gives readers/audiences more reason to care. Tossing in a reminder to the white readers that they should care because we've had crappy stuff happen to our ancestors does nothing to help your article.

For the most part, the conversation about Never Alone has been dominated by non-Natives that have misinterpreted the game as a sort of digital museum piece, instead of what it is — a clarion call for Natives to stand up and be proud of who they are.

No, that's one interpretation, which is just as valid as mine that it was an attempt to share a culture with people who know nothing about it.

(Oh and to the non-native moron in the comments complaining about the term "Indians"... just stop. It makes you look ignorant. Most natives who count as "American Indians" don't mind the term.)

Is Never Alone a good game? If you don't mind slow pacing and a somewhat empty environment. But this isn't my review of the game, this is my review of the article. All in all, Starkey doesn't do a bad job at Polygon, but he never fully explains the reason for the perfect score. It seems like he gave Never Alone a 10/10 because he's a native and it's a native game. If that's the case it's an injustice to Eurogamer's readership. But, I suspect it was more innocent than that. I suspect he gave it a perfect score because he genuinely liked the game, and if that's the case it should be fine.

I may have been a bit hard on him. I think it's because his article touched a nerve with me, and it's that my kin hardly ever get recognized outside of Alaska (where many a redneck treats natives like crap). The culture is unique and something so interesting. Maybe I just get jealous that so many other Americans seem to love Japanese culture and foods, but pays no attention to the natives in their own land? I'm not sure.

Five So-called Internet Laws to Remember

Dealing with game journalism is not an easy task. The medium is so diluted that the previously deep journalism in even the shallow enthusiast press has devolved into a cesspool of clickbait articles and Buzzfeed lists.

With that in mind, it's important not just for journalists but readers to remember these five internet "laws" that will inform how you view argumentation on the internet.


1. Cohen's Law - This was framed originally by Brian Cohen, and is phrased like this:

Whoever resorts to the argument "whoever resorts to the argument that... has automatically lost the debate" has automatically lost the debate.

It is generally accepted that claiming this argument only insists that you are correct and your opponent is wrong, and is obviously not a good argument to make.


2. Poe's Law - Originally phrased by Nathan Poe. This law is an interesting one, especially in light of Godfrey Elfwick, the notorious Twitter hoaxer who has appeared to actually hold transracial and highly radical feminist views. He was so good at it that the BBC had him on one of their programs to describe how Star Wars was anti-woman and racist. Poe's Law is in full effect. This was previously mentioned in 1983 by Jerry Schwarz. He wrote:

Avoid sarcasm and facetious remarks.

Without the voice inflection and body language of personal communication these are easily misinterpreted. A sideways smile, :-), has become widely accepted on the net as an indication that "I'm only kidding". If you submit a satiric item without this symbol, no matter how obvious the satire is to you, do not be surprised if people take it seriously.

People can not distinguish satire, parody, and sarcasm on the internet without some indication of it. The modern usage is (sarcasm) or /sarcasm.

Generally, Poe's Law is written as:

Without a clear indicator of the author's intent, parodies of extremism are indistinguishable from sincere expressions of extremism

3. Godwin's Law - Originally phrased by Mike Godwin. This one is particularly poignant given recent events in gaming. Generally, it is used in internet debates to acknowledge the desire by people to compare their enemies or people they disagree with Hitler or Nazis:

As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1

As internet "controversies" rage, the internet press machine has resorted to this time and again in regards to gamers. It never makes your argument look good to compare a group to Nazis, it only makes your position look weak.


4. Shank's Law - This one is rather obscure, but it nonetheless important. Having been in academia myself, I can verify it's claims:

The imaginative powers of the human mind have yet to rise to the challenge of concocting a conspiracy theory so batshit insane that one cannot find at least one Ph.D holding scientist to support it.

Many sites use it as a form of an appeal to authority fallacy, which is accurate.


5. Danth's Law - This law is one that fascinates me. Apparently the users of RPG.net had a user named Danth who got into arguments and one such argument led to the creation of this law.

If a person has to insist they won the argument, they have probably lost it.

This one is particularly telling given the nature of online discussion. As these gaming controversies rage people insist they're "winning" and "have won". Never announce your own victory, it looks foolish when you do it.

So there you have it. Five internet laws that are helpful to understand not only human nature but the modern climate in gaming.

Review: "'Batman: Arkham Knight' May Be Game Of The Year -- But There's One Big Problem" by Damon Beres, Huffington Post

Original article found here.

I have no problem with the Huffington Post. Politically, I like a lot of their content, but this review highlights a serious problem in video game reviews: modern prudishness. This is by far one of the worst articles I've read online. It's supposed to be a game review but amounts to an undergraduate gender studies pop culture critique.

Let's begin with the first line of the piece, which is by far the most pandering, click-baity attempts to drive traffic I've ever seen:

Months after GamerGate first set video game culture ablaze with unbelievable resistance to the idea of feminist perspectives in the gaming industry, we have a new title that features some of the most compelling female characters in pop culture.

Yes, he mentions GamerGate. In a review of Arkham Knight. Why is this relevant? It has nothing to do with the rest of the article, and he links it by hand-waving and saying "feminist perspectives", which is not even something opponents of GamerGate attribute it as being about, and obviously supporters of GamerGate don't see themselves as being about any of that.

But I digress. The real issue here is the next section and then his complete breakdown in the middle of an article:

"Batman: Arkham Knight," which came out Tuesday, spotlights Poison Ivy, Catwoman, Oracle and Harley Quinn in major roles. But while these women are often represented as strong, independent and able in other media, their featured roles here often tell a different story: They are damsels in distress.

Right, because damsels in distress always kick the bad guys' faces in. No, I'm sorry. This is misrepresenting what the characters are about. Oh, but it gets worse. He adds this tid-bit below a picture of Poison Ivy:

Poison Ivy appears in "Arkham Knight" with a barely-there shirt and a mossy crotch.

What!? Are you trying to lecture everyone on sexuality in games? There's nothing wrong with a seductive character like Ivy being comfortable with her sexuality! It's madness to think that you'd actually complain about this.

It's really no big secret that gaming and tech are male-dominated industries, even if consumers are split basically down the middle in terms of gender. 

No, no, no. You're clearly misrepresenting everything in any of those statistics. The over all consumers are split between male and female, which includes the mobile gaming and casual markets. Arkham Knight is not a game designed for the mobile market or casual gamers, where overwhelmingly women are represented in those numbers.

Plenty of people will play "Arkham Knight" and probably ignore its oftentimes troubling presentation of women -- perhaps that's simply because the game is exciting, and as soon as you settle into a moment, something explodes and you're off to something else.

What is he talking about? You can't just say something is "troubling" without explaining why! What's wrong with the presentation of women? Because so far he's simply complained about the strong female characters being "damsels in distress" (which isn't true) and Poison Ivy's skirt being too short.

But others will play the game and feel offended. Or disgusted. Or threatened. Or simply unwelcome. Even if those people were outnumbered 100 to 1 in a population of 5 million customers, it would be worthwhile to examine why and do better next time. Because here's the trouble with "Arkham Knight": It is a great game tarnished by its dreadful depictions of certain characters and situations.

Once again: saying something does not make it true. He needs to provide evidence, and he still haven't done that. He hasn't linked to people being offended or offered evidence of "dreadful depictions of certain characters or situations" in Arkham Knight. Neither of those things are proven in the article itself.

The most he does is show a picture of one time in the game where Poison Ivy is held hostage. Because that makes her a damsel in distress now. Forget that Robin is constantly captured and held hostage, he's a man so it doesn't matter. Forget that many storyline show Batman as being held hostage, and someone else having to help him. Forget that the game literally has Batman's colleagues supporting him because he can't do it all alone.

Catwoman, often portrayed as Batman's equal, fares no better. Like Ivy, her storyline begins in custody. Her outfit is unzipped enough to show a massive slice of cleavage. Why? Because Catwoman is "sexy" and it's apparently hard to portray sexiness without showing boob?

There's nothing here! He is literally spouting puritanical nonsense about breasts being bad and "sexy" being troubling. Is he going to put a ruler up to Supergirl's skirt from the TV show to determine if it's appropriate or not?

The gameplay sometimes has Batman and Catwoman working together -- you can switch between them at points -- but the pattern almost invariably requires Batman to complete some feat of cunning, force and reflexes while Catwoman bums around in a locked chamber. Her liberation is essentially a prize for you, the player.

You seriously can't win with this guy. If Batman was the only playable character, he'd complain about sexism and a lack of a female protagonist. Give him a female protagonist and he's complaining about how Batman is the star of the Batman game.

Things are absolutely worst for Oracle, a hero in a wheelchair who assists Batman remotely. To detail her storyline would reveal much about the largest plot points in "Arkham Knight," but things do not go well for her. An incredibly problematic storyline from the comic books is retread in vivid detail: She is abducted and maimed and exists almost entirely in this context to stir angst in the featured male characters.

Are you kidding me!? Is this guy for real!? I can't... I can't even begin to dismantle how bad this is. How convoluted and backwards this reasoning is. This person has no idea what he's talking about. In the story from the comics, Barbara Gordon is paralyzed as a result of The Joker. But she is able to overcome it and still use her mind for good even if she can't fight crime the same as before. The fact that the author's focusing so much on gender is telling. The characters like the Oracle, whose gender is not as important as her drive and intelligence, is a great character who in his mind is marginalized into a male-focused event of emotional impact. This is a huge misunderstanding of the character, and I think it was intentional.

This game does not exist in a vacuum. It arrives at a moment when women are still being shut out of the gaming and tech industries to the point where many are even looking for work elsewhere. It is bizarre that "Arkham Knight" both includes many women and diminishes them so plainly.

Oh dear God. Explain it one more time: what does this have to do with a game review? This is incredible. It's obvious that the point of this review wasn't the game itself, but making a political statement. Which is not how a game review should be. I say this as someone who has reviewed games in the past. If you want to talk about your politics, do it in the latter part of the review, don't put it all throughout, and ignore the game itself in favor of the political message you want to teach.

All of that said, there are some important caveats. First: Harley Quinn -- Joker's deranged on-again, off-again girlfriend -- is actually kind of cool this time around. Her character design in "Arkham City" (NSFW) was incredibly sexualized and seemingly intended purely for the male gaze.

I knew it. I knew he would use "male gaze" at least once. Look, I've read through feminist perspectives on movies and film, and I get the idea of male gaze. I understand it. It used to be more relevant in times when men made all the decisions, but that's not the case anymore.

But he still hasn't proven that it is geared towards the male gaze anyways. He only showed some sexy women and said "ew, men like this." There was no connection made to Rocksteady's intentions or goals at all.

This is ridiculous from any perspective, because on the other side of this, nothing about it fitting the male gaze makes it wrong. Is it because it excludes women? Friend, that's marketing. Women don't generally play the Arkham series, so Rocksteady is targeting the demographic who does: men. And they're fully within their rights to do so.

Oh, also I want to point out that he puts a NSFW warning on that link, but it's just Harley wearing tight clothing. It's not NSFW at all. He's just putting that because he doesn't like it for some misguided reason.

Here, Harley Quinn's decked out in a pretty serious tutu and barks orders at a bunch of armed dudes. She's more covered than not. The whole thing struck me as fairly whimsical and a step in the right direction, even if it's not a perfect representation.

No, she's as covered up as Catwoman is, maybe even less. This is cherry-picking at its finest. Because he likes what Harley does as a character, he overlooks her outfit, which is almost exactly as tight and cleavage revealing as Catwoman's. But because Catwoman need Batman's help at times, her outfit is "problematic".

And here's the last bit:

But there's a major difference between this comic and something like "Arkham Knight" -- something that maybe isn't so obvious. This Poison Ivy could be appealing to men and women alike. The entire miniseries is devoted to Harley and Ivy wreaking havoc on their own terms -- it's "sexy" more than "sexist." They actively and successfully strike back against the forces that oppress them. They aren't seeking the approval of men, and they certainly don't need a player to rescue them.

I'm sure if Rocksteady had made the game all about Poison Ivy and Harley wreaking havoc he wouldn't possibly complain about the male gaze sexualizing perceived lesbian interactions between the two.

I'm kidding. Of course he would.

To summarize this article:

The author's measurement system for Catwoman and Poison Ivy.