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[The Albatross]

To me the article reads into much more than what the developers intended or did intentionally. Even with the fact that this is a Tom Clancy game, it's not like Clancy has any control in the direction of the game, especially given that he's been dead for three years and he just lends his name as a recognizable brand to these games.

Not that it can't be critiqued, and it's nice to see that, but it just strikes of a college-aged person who's filled with righteous fervor snipping a random sentence from Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone and then expounding for 10 paragraphs on how JK Rowling is promoting a Kantian vision of international relations, and therefore Rowling sucks because everybody knows that Shopenhaur is right and Kant is a dum dum. Maybe the writers or producers of The Division intended this to be a sweeping statement on the righteousness of executive authority, but given Ubisoft's history and given how it's just a very unlikely medium for promoting that idea ... I doubt it.

Videogames are incredibly simplistic. In Rainbow Six: Vegas, the President wants you to save the city of Las Vegas because of a nuclear attack. You do so. The president thanks you. The game is not an homage to executive authority, the setting isn't making a statement about materialism and decline of civilization in America's most capitalistic, extravagant city. It's a stupid story that people who focus more on videogame development than story writing decided to use as the basis for a military-based shooter. Likewise, critiquing Assassins Creed gives hundreds of hours of anti-Catholic, anti-historic claptrap nonsense and re-envisions much of Western (and now non-western) history though an incorrect lens. The writers of the game just don't put much time into what they're saying. The Pope is bad, he wants to take over the world, he has bad Catholic henchmen that he is using; You are good, you want to prevent the bad Pope and bad Catholics from taking over the world. End. Assassins Creed is making commentaries on events that actually existed and then loosely repainting them in an Anti-Catholic, typically anti-European or anti-Western way, but it's done because it makes a simple world to understand and launch a story out of. Having only played the BETA of the Division, I'm thinking that it's the same but even less of a focus.

 

[Mr Git]

Thank you OP, very interesting read.

"Tom Clancy's _______" on a game title is basically advance warning you're about to play a game with weird fascistic undertones and a celebration of the military industrial complex

Yup. Very true. His avid readers were erstwhile Presidents Reagan, both Bushes and uhh Colin Powell. He had pretty strong ties to government and the military - even lectured on security. The scary thing is that his writing probably encouraged policy.

 

[Andrew J.]

Good article. I'd heard people talking about this game's repugnant class and race politics before, but I didn't know it was quite that bad. This genre's not really my thing to begin with, but any remote chance that I would have tried it out is pretty much gone now.

 

[Andodalf]

I have definitely seen black rioters in the game.

 

[MickeyKnox]

I just want to take this moment to plug DMZ, an interesting take on NYC as ground zero for a different kind of conflict involving bands "opportunists" with (more) complex motivations and character development.

I feel like conversations about The Division benefit from being able to contrast it alongside something like DMZ.

In DMZ, the main character's motivations and alignment with certain factions often shift over the course of the story, and the regular people caught in the middle of the conflict there are depicted as capable and multi-dimensional. It's hard to depict something like this in games (I work in games) but I really wish the character in The Division had a chance to see and interact with the human element in The Division in more meaningful ways than just purchasing upgrades and seeing the implied result of their efforts (more civilians amassing) back in the HQ.

DMZ is fucking great, more people should read it.

 

[Lord of Ostia]

Thanks for these. I am surprised how people are actually buying into this article if they even played a decent amount of the game.

You're welcome, the article just seemed to ignore large parts of the game. Honestly I think the idea that you are the 'savior of New York' is stupid; you're not, you're just someone the government sent in to clean up the mess they couldn't contain. But that doesn't mean the Division's actions are focused on securing the property of the rich and to indiscriminately kill the poor. There is nothing in the game to support that perspective, and some of the enemy groups actually do have that ideology.

 

[Mossybrew]

game is still fun and enjoyable but it's also good to talk about it. i seriously hate comments like "not everything is a political statement" or "just let me play muh games", nobody is telling you you're a bad person for playing it or trying to actively change the game as it is, just having a discussion about it and thinking about how future games could be more intelligently written.

Pretty much how I feel. I enjoyed the article and it makes some good points, it's the kind of thing I visit killscreen to read, analysis that goes beyond the surface level game descriptions and "is it fun?" reviews that are a dime a dozen. It's at least thought-provoking even if you disagree with some or all of it. At the same time I'm having a great time playing the game.

 

[T.O.P]

Good article. I'd heard people talking about this game's repugnant class and race politics before, but I didn't know it was quite that bad. This genre's not really my thing to begin with, but any remote chance that I would have tried it out is pretty much gone now.

...it's kinda weird how so many people are taking what this dude's words like it's gospel

 

[Dance Inferno]

That's why this game just needed zombies and other beasties as the bad guys. At least we wouldn't be shooting at U.S. citizens all day long.

Right, shooting US citizens in games is very bad. Much better to shoot zombies or Arabs or Russians. You know, the "accepted" bad guys.

/s

I think the game could have handled the back story for these gangs better. Make them some organised American terrorist group or something. Assuming all prisoners are worth killing is bullshit, especially given the backwards criminal justice system in the US. Making an entire enemy faction black and calling them Rioters is just the laziest form of racist stereotyping.

Yeah yeah, it's just a game, blah blah. Doesn't mean we can't criticize its treatment of racial issues, especially when this is a product that millions of people are going to interact with.

 

[valkyre]

Good article. I'd heard people talking about this game's repugnant class and race politics before, but I didn't know it was quite that bad. This genre's not really my thing to begin with, but any remote chance that I would have tried it out is pretty much gone now.

The author didnt play the game for long man... he "forgot" to mention the LMB faction, that pretty much throws all of his pretentious philosophical bullshit about "criminalizing the poor" as well as the racial stuff, to the drain.

 

[pineapplepizza]

The part about the dark zone and rogue agents.

Shit, it's early. You're right. I think I meant player agents can go rogue only in dark zone and that the majority of the game is not based around division agents terrorizing. Most of it is around the groups (cleaners, rikers, rioters and lmb). The bad agents going rogue felt so miniscule compared to these groups. Ie. when you go to each major mission they are not centralized around rogue agents, you have to kill a whole bunch of baddies. Maybe I just flew through most of the echo beacon points and I don't care about the recordings? So in this sense, the game was just kill anything that lights up with a red indicator (similar to any other MMO or RPG).

 

[Haruko]

He also left out the

Spoiler

entire first wave that went rogue

Spoiler

They didn't ALL go rogue. The ones that didn't all seemed to have died at the hands of gangs/rogues/virus though.

#NeverForgetNobleSquad

 

[pineapplepizza]

Protect whose property? 95% of the residents are dead

United States of Murica

 

[Darkstorne]

I am going to disagree with this article, mainly because it is making the argument that all your actions as a Division agent are focused on securing property rather than saving human life. That is flat out wrong, and ignores a lot of the context that the game provides. Most side missions involve saving lives. For example, lots of the medical and security encounters are to rescue kidnapped civilians, or to assist JTF officers being target by the violent groups that plague the city. These are both focused on saving innocent people that are being unfairly targeted by rogue groups. In addition, the entire medical series of missions is dedicated to finding a cure for the dollar flu, the main goal of which is to save lives. Even walking around the world, most random encounters with enemies will center around saving innocent bystanders. 9 times out of ten, when you walk up to a group of rioters on the street, they will be mugging or executing or extorting an innocent civilian, and if you choose to engage them, it is for the purpose of stopping them from taking advantage of or killing a civilian. They also attack you in site, so even if they are just looting, you can't walk passed them without being forced to engage. The only missions that revolve around property are the tech supply acquisition missions, but those are understandable given that literally everyone in the scenario is fighting over supplies, and the Division would obviously need them too. It is important to note that the supplies are usually meant for civilians or the JTF and contain food, medicine, etc in addition to arms and ammunition, and that the enemy groups typically just seek to destroy the supplies.

Finally, you are not killing to prevent looting and secure property, as all of the civilians are constantly looting and you never (you literally can't) shoot them. If that was your chief concern, then the game would allow you to prevent the civilians looting as well as the rioters and such. However, the game does not cast a bad light on the normal civilians for looting, and even encourages you to pass along supplies to them. The game does not demonize people doing what they have to to survive in a harsh world; it demonizes those who take advantage of a void of power and capitalize on that void to take advantage of others.

Right, so... that all seems to validate exactly what the article is saying. The issue here isn't that people are looting, but that the groups portrayed as "the bad guys" are so ridiculously stereotyped. ESPECIALLY damning is your second paragraph, which seems to suggest your agent sees a group looting and either thinks "It's okay, they're friendly looking people looting to get by. I should let them live." Or alternatively "Woah, those are black dudes in hoodies looting this store! Definitely going to have to kill them!" In other words there's no variance in lifestyle and morals among class types. Your character is literally told by the game who the bad guys are depending on their societal class and dress code, and those societal classes and dress codes are exaggerated to the extreme. Presumably for the benefit of snap-decision gameplay, but that's not much of an excuse.

Here's the thing though. I haven't played The Division outside of the beta. I HAVE played another game that used ludicrous levels of snap-decision "no thinking allowed! Shoot the bad guys! Even if it doesn't make sense just murder them all without thinking!" And that game ended up handling the whole situation incredibly well. Any indication that the Division is taking the same route and deliberately trying to get players to question their actions and the moral code and motivations of their characters?

 

[PBY]

Not that it can't be critiqued, and it's nice to see that, but it just strikes of a college-aged person who's filled with righteous fervor snipping a random sentence from Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone and then expounding for 10 paragraphs on how JK Rowling is promoting a Kantian vision of international relations, and therefore Rowling sucks because everybody knows that Shopenhaur is right and Kant is a dum dum. Maybe the writers or producers of The Division intended this to be a sweeping statement on the righteousness of executive authority, but given Ubisoft's history and given how it's just a very unlikely medium for promoting that idea ... I doubt it.

Videogames are incredibly simplistic. In Rainbow Six: Vegas, the President wants you to save the city of Las Vegas because of a nuclear attack. You do so. The president thanks you. The game is not an homage to executive authority, the setting isn't making a statement about materialism and decline of civilization in America's most capitalistic, extravagant city. It's a stupid story that people who focus more on videogame development than story writing decided to use as the basis for a military-based shooter. Likewise, critiquing Assassins Creed gives hundreds of hours of anti-Catholic, anti-historic claptrap nonsense and re-envisions much of Western (and now non-western) history though an incorrect lens. The writers of the game just don't put much time into what they're saying. The Pope is bad, he wants to take over the world, he has bad Catholic henchmen that he is using; You are good, you want to prevent the bad Pope and bad Catholics from taking over the world. End. Assassins Creed is making commentaries on events that actually existed and then loosely repainting them in an Anti-Catholic, typically anti-European or anti-Western way, but it's done because it makes a simple world to understand and launch a story out of. Having only played the BETA of the Division, I'm thinking that it's the same but even less of a focus.

Youre handwaving away things by basically saying "its not that serious." And it isn't - but why is it a bad thing to take our popular culture, which reflects us as humanity, and analyze what it says about us?

 

[Shane]

Good article. I'd heard people talking about this game's repugnant class and race politics before, but I didn't know it was quite that bad. This genre's not really my thing to begin with, but any remote chance that I would have tried it out is pretty much gone now.

...it's kinda weird how so many people are taking what this dude's words like it's gospel

I agree with a lot of what the writer is saying - and the article was an enjoyable read - but I will state I have 40+ hours into the game and am having a great time.

The writers do try to put counterpoints throughout but it struggles and ultimately fails to succeed against the game design they have put in place. 20 hours shooting hoodies vs one 30 second optional dialogue recording doesn't balance.

So, yes, the writer has many valid points. But the game does remain enjoyable if narratively flawed. I'd advise that you watch some gameplay videos before making any final judgement.

 

[Disheveled_Zen]

You're welcome, the article just seemed to ignore large parts of the game. Honestly I think the idea that you are the 'savior of New York' is stupid; you're not, you're just someone the government sent in to clean up the mess they couldn't contain. But that doesn't mean the Division's actions are focused on securing the property of the rich and to indiscriminately kill the poor. There is nothing in the game to support that perspective, and some of the enemy groups actually do have that ideology.

Yea the savior of New York thing doesn't fit either.

Spoiler

You weren't even part of the first wave, who were supposed to be the best. You are second wave who gets sent in after the first wave goes missing.

 

[aerogod 2.0]

You know what, I am calling it. This article is bullshit. I believe it tries very hard to sound sophisticated and flashy, when this is a shooter videogame.

And the author like I said before hasnt mentioned the LMB , the faction the rich guys employed to save their asses and then abandonned them there. So the fact that he "sells" the article under the notion that the game "criminalizes the poor" is not only exposing the fact that he did not play the game through to the end, but that he also failed to contextualize the game properly.

Thank you for saying this. I couldn't agree more. You don't "forget" about the LMB. Regardless of any of this or if its truthful or not I'm sick of reviewers not finishing the full game and putting the work in before putting their opinions into the world, especially when they are trying to push agendas like these

 

[Shane]

...Any indication that the Division is taking the same route and deliberately trying to get players to question their actions and the moral code and motivations of their characters?

It tries. It doesn't pull it off. Then you go shoot loads more people for loot.

 

[valkyre]

LMB FACTION:

The Last Man Battalion (LMB) is formed primarily of ex-soldiers of a private military company and led by Lieutenant Colonel Charles Bliss. Prestigious Wall street companies hired them to protect high value assets during the virus outbreak. Unfortunately their contractors refused to pull them out when the crisis worsened, so the LMB was stranded on the island and took advantage of their superior weaponry and training to take control of New York City.

Does that sound like criminalizing the poor? Because to me it sounds that rich dudes were equally scumbags and cared about nothing but their own asses and money in the Division's universe.

 

[FriedConsole]

The author didnt play the game for long man... he "forgot" to mention the LMB faction, that pretty much throws all of his pretentious philosophical bullshit about "criminalizing the poor" as well as the racial stuff, to the drain.

Yeah the article cherry picks what they want. The game is vague, broad and sometimes contradictory. You could write an article saying the game is liberal propaganda if your wanted to. The fact the game has Tom Clancy in the title predisposes people to assume it is conservative messaging when in actually it was created broadly to appeal to everyone without any real messages about anything because it was created in a committee that way.

 

[T.O.P]

Making an entire enemy faction black and calling them Rioters is just the laziest form of racist stereotyping.

Goddamn it, THEY ARE NOT ALL BLACK, THEY ARE WEARING MASKS

 

[ooobazinga]

People want video games be seen as art but then they say this when it is criticized like art is.

I don't particularly want video games to be seen as art though.

They are pieces of entertainment produced for an interactive audience.

 

[Shane]

LMB FACTION:

Does that sound like criminalizing the poor? Because to me it sounds that rich dudes were equally scumbags and cared about nothing but their own asses and money in the Division's universe.

Not sure who you're referencing here. The article doesn't say the LMB faction represents the poor.

Although, to be fair, rich people brought them in. Rich people left. Rich people send you in to kill them.

As for money, the article does talk about how it comes close to a commentary on capitalism.

 

[FriedConsole]

People want video games be seen as art but then they say this when it is criticized like art is.

I enjoy The Division but I wouldn't call it art that should be analyzed. This article is like if somebody identified the politics of The Smurfs 2.

 

[Scientist Supreme!]

Don't see how LMB faction changes this article.
Most bad guys are still the same.

 

[Shane]

I don't particularly want video games to be seen as art though.

They are pieces of entertainment produced for an interactive audience.

Entertainment can (and should) be analysed and written about.

You analyse it internally whilst consuming it to make a decision as to whether you like it or not.

 

[pineapplepizza]

Sure lets have us question every Enemy NPC! What's your point? The game has a disgusting toxic ideology taht should be banned but, the gameplay is fun and that's all that matters. Why should it matter if I'm killing NPCs in game? You can't talk to them, and they don't surrender.

I'm poorly saying that if anyone wants to analyze morality or apply any sense of realism to this game the only winning move is to not play it all. Otherwise I'm facetiously saying turn your brain off and pull the trigger! Consume, fuck, kill and pick up purplez and yellow drops! The Division needs Trump to make New York great again!

 

[AuthenticM]

hmmm i get what youre saying.

so heres another one i find interesting: how does the authors intent factor into it when we're talking about a game? do we criticize story and game play separately? i think this is the "new problem" with telling a story. games have game play. i think its silly to count them as separate and games that use gameplay in conjunction with a story have used it to amazing effect.

but i think its something worth thinking about: i could write a deep, interesting, theme ridden story for a game. the best youve ever read. but then the game play might completely undermine it.

its the nathan drake problem right? how can the plucky hero also be a mass murderer? a ton of games have this problem. that what youre doing isnt exactly in line with the story being told.

Indeed, you cannot separate the gameplay from the story; the two are intertwined.

There is a bit of ludonarrative dissonance in Uncharted, yes, although I think it's pretty minor because everyone you kill is a cold-blooded mercenary or murderer trying to kill you. I think a better example for what you are describing is GTA IV. You have this story that keeps pushing Niko as this immigrant having left his criminal past behind so he can build himself a new life, but every time the player controls the character, he can go out and murder civilians, prostitutes and cops. Yet the game's story never acknowledges that. So whatever story about redemption the writers wanted to tell simply and completely fell apart. And if the writers came out and said "No, you are playing it wrong, Niko is not a sociopathic murderer, he's not intended to be that guy", well, tough shit, I say.

The game lets me murder these people. You cannot disregard that. You just can't.

 

[Darkstorne]

It tries. It doesn't pull it off. Then you go shoot loads more people for loot.

Shame, but then I guess they can't have an ending quite as... terminal, as Spec Ops' in an MMO. Still seems like a missed opportunity not to call out the class-focused warfare heavily though, and get their players seriously thinking about things.

I don't particularly want video games to be seen as art though.

They are pieces of entertainment produced for an interactive audience.

That's a completely different discussion. Art is subjective by nature, so no-one can determine what is and isn't art. And even if you don't think entertainment should be considered art, that doesn't excuse it from sloppy narrative and derogatory stereotyping.

 

[valkyre]

Not sure who you're referencing here. The article doesn't say the LMB faction represents the poor.

Although, to be fair, rich people brought them in. Rich people left. Rich people send you in to kill them.

As for money, the article does talk about how it comes close to a commentary on capitalism.

You did not get my point at all... the article never describes the 4th faction, LMB. Which -apart from the fact that shows they did not play the game through to the end- pretty much contradicts most of the things the article tries to point out, like how the game seems to criminalize the poor etc etc.

Don't see how LMB faction changes this article.
Most bad guys are still the same.

Ofc and it changes the article... what did the rich do when shit hit the fan in the Division? What was their response to this? They hired mercenaries to get their buts out safely and to protect their fortunes. And then, after they (rich) got out, they even abandoned them there, never pulled them out.

Does that sound like criminalizing JUST the poor? From my perspective, the worst offenders of humanity, based on the Division events, are the rich dudes...

 

[Shane]

Goddamn it, THEY ARE NOT ALL BLACK, THEY ARE WEARING MASKS

For me it is their attire that fully uses and adopts (dangerous) stereotypes to demonise and allow quick visual identification for the player to shoot something.

It is unfortunate and ultimately narratively flat.

Whether that stereotype attaches race and visually confuses its audience is up to each individual person.

 

[staticneuron]

To me the article reads into much more than what the developers intended or did intentionally. Even with the fact that this is a Tom Clancy game, it's not like Clancy has any control in the direction of the game, especially given that he's been dead for three years and he just lends his name as a recognizable brand to these games.

Not that it can't be critiqued, and it's nice to see that, but it just strikes of a college-aged person who's filled with righteous fervor snipping a random sentence from Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone and then expounding for 10 paragraphs on how JK Rowling is promoting a Kantian vision of international relations, and therefore Rowling sucks because everybody knows that Shopenhaur is right and Kant is a dum dum. Maybe the writers or producers of The Division intended this to be a sweeping statement on the righteousness of executive authority, but given Ubisoft's history and given how it's just a very unlikely medium for promoting that idea ... I doubt it.

Videogames are incredibly simplistic. In Rainbow Six: Vegas, the President wants you to save the city of Las Vegas because of a nuclear attack. You do so. The president thanks you. The game is not an homage to executive authority, the setting isn't making a statement about materialism and decline of civilization in America's most capitalistic, extravagant city. It's a stupid story that people who focus more on videogame development than story writing decided to use as the basis for a military-based shooter. Likewise, critiquing Assassins Creed gives hundreds of hours of anti-Catholic, anti-historic claptrap nonsense and re-envisions much of Western (and now non-western) history though an incorrect lens. The writers of the game just don't put much time into what they're saying. The Pope is bad, he wants to take over the world, he has bad Catholic henchmen that he is using; You are good, you want to prevent the bad Pope and bad Catholics from taking over the world. End. Assassins Creed is making commentaries on events that actually existed and then loosely repainting them in an Anti-Catholic, typically anti-European or anti-Western way, but it's done because it makes a simple world to understand and launch a story out of. Having only played the BETA of the Division, I'm thinking that it's the same but even less of a focus.

Dude are you being serious? Your targets in the first game were both christian and Muslim. And do you remember the enemy of the first game? In AC the assassins and the Templar are separate factions and are not inherently tied to one religion or region of the world. It is as if all you did was played AC2 and then judged the rest of the series and then judged the other 8 mainline games on very faulty logic. The POPE wasn't bad, a PERSON was considered bad and that was established before he became the pope and in all honest if you study history the borgia family was not portrayed in a positive light to begin with. Hell even wiki them....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Borgia

Especially during the reign of Alexander VI, they were suspected of many crimes, including adultery, incest, simony, theft, bribery, and murder (especially murder by arsenic poisoning). Because of their grasping for power, they made enemies of the Medici, the Sforza, and the Dominican friar Savonarola, among others.

I assure you, this entry wasn't created because if the video game.

Shit, it's early. You're right. I think I meant player agents can go rogue only in dark zone and that the majority of the game is not based around division agents terrorizing. Most of it is around the groups (cleaners, rikers, rioters and lmb). The bad agents going rogue felt so miniscule compared to these groups. Ie. when you go to each major mission they are not centralized around rogue agents, you have to kill a whole bunch of baddies. Maybe I just flew through most of the echo beacon points and I don't care about the recordings? So in this sense, the game was just kill anything that lights up with a red indicator (similar to any other MMO or RPG).

If you weren't paying attention to the story at all, (I mean seriously, they way you are talking about the game you would serious have to ignore and gloss over alot), then why do you feel you are correct in giving out such a simplistic heavy handed opinion of the story of the game.

Spoiler

BTW, the rogue first waves empower the LMB and they were the ones who took down the helicopter at the start of the game, so they are actually one of the first enemies you encounter in the game.

Indeed, you cannot separate the gameplay from the story; the two are intertwined.

There is a bit of ludonarrative dissonance in Uncharted, yes, although I think it's pretty minor because everyone you kill is a cold-blooded mercenary or murderer trying to kill you. I think a better example for what you are describing is GTA IV. You have this story that keeps pushing Niko as this immigrant having left his criminal past behind so he can build himself a new life, but every time the player controls the character, he can go out and murder civilians, prostitutes and cops. Yet the game's story never acknowledges that. So whatever story about redemption the writers wanted to tell simply and completely fell apart. And if the writers came out and said "No, you are playing it wrong, Niko is not a sociopathic murderer, he's not intended to be that guy", well, tough shit, I say.

The game lets me murder these people. You cannot disregard that. You just can't.

If you ignore context then every game makes you a murderer. Even Mario. Every game that allows you take the life of another (which is a large amount) you can consider murder, but since in most civilizations murder has context within legal and public perception, then even this simplistic view of the matters ring hollow.

 

[Shane]

You did not get my point at all... the article never describes the 4th faction, LMB. Which -apart from the fact that shows they did not play the game through to the end- pretty much contradicts most of the things the article tries to point out, like how the game seems to criminalize the poor etc etc.

How does the existence of the LMB faction make the game immune to the criticism that it criminalizes the poor as part of a lazy design choice?

 

[Krugerrandman]

Oh my gawd you guys a piece of entertainment was incapable of expressing the nuances of real life!?

 

[Screaming Meat]

its a loot and shoot game, its not trying to make a statement, its trying to present a cool idea as a setup to create an interesting environment to....shoot and loot things.

if it was claiming to be a story heavy game or even leaning in that direction i guess this stuff is warranted but as it is i feel like its equivelent to looking for heavy political themes inside 'blues clues'

"Hes blue, like democrats. behold the face of socialism"

its not that the article is wrong, it just feels like if youre looking for heavy political commentary inside this game youd look for it inside the types of happy meal toys mcdonalds gives out too. youre not wrong for doing that and finding some themes....but....why are you doing it in the first place?

Everything is political, even children's toys. A Tom Clancy game is naturally going to be overtly political.

 

[T.O.P]

For me it is their attire that fully uses and adopts (dangerous) stereotypes to demonise and allow quick visual identification for the player to shoot something.

It is unfortunate and ultimately narratively flat.

Whether that stereotype attaches race and visually confuses its audience is up to each individual person.

For you, ok, but the author states

The third gang are the “Rioters,” a majority black, generic street gang.

Where did he get that the majority of them is black? or is it because it helped what he was trying to say?

 

[Vice]

I enjoy The Division but I wouldn't call it art that should be analyzed. This article is like if somebody identified the politics of The Smurfs 2.

It will be one of the best selling games of the year. Even fluffy blockbusters get analyzed and they should since they'll have a lot more influence on people than some arthouse film. Same as analyzing pop music or commercials.

And, Tom Clancy made his career on political thrillers. It's what he's known for.

 

[ooobazinga]

Entertainment can (and should) be analysed and written about.

You analyse it internally whilst consuming it to make a decision as to whether you like it or not.

Agreed. But it should be analysed for it's quality as a piece of entertainment, not stretching to try and assign some fairly arbitrary political or social or moral point to a piece of work that did not have that intention.

If someone seriously thinks the division was made in order to subtly subvert people's political views then fine. But that is just absolutely ridiculous.

It is akin to arguing that sonic the hedgehog was an advertisement for driving beyond the legal speed limit and not worrying about the consequences.....

 

[valkyre]

How does the existence of the LMB faction make the game immune to the criticism that it criminalizes the poor as part of a lazy design choice?

i edited my post a few posts above, check and you will see.

Game criminalizes both poor and rich. Just because the "poor" (not all of them are poor because the article lieks to say so, for example not all cleaners are poor, there are rich among them, same with rioters there are phone and other collectibles where you learn that) are the ones you eventually shoot, that doesnt mean that rich arent criticized within the game as well. Like I said, to me rich are the worst offenders in the Division. I dont have to actually shoot at them to understand that. How can I shoot at them, since they used the poor to get the fuck out and then abandoned them as well.

 

[Lo_Fi]

Where does this shit come from? Every time someone takes a stab at actually examining the underlying assumptions of games and the worlds that they present people come crawling out of the woodwork bleating "it's just a game!"

Decades of games marketing convincing people that if they aren't fully on the hype train for the next hot new game then they are worthless. Any amount of critical analysis is perceived by some as a personal attack because they are so invested in buying and playing games as a core part of their identity. It's exactly what the marketers aimed to do.

 

[Zyae]

My only point in this is that Sanitation work in NYC is actually a pretty highly sought after and competitive job. You make very good money after some years and get great benefits.

 

[Horp]

Great article. I am too quite disgusted with the "lore" aspects of The Division. Solid game gameplay wise but I would have preferred a different setting, with an actual "enemy". Or just all out anarchy where the guys at "the division" would be just another gang, fighting other gangs.

 

[fabricated backlash]

It's a Tom Clancy game. Tom Clancy.
That makes it right wing fascist military porn by default.
That is the whole underlying premise of this brand since the first game. At least some of the games developed with that brand are actually decent to play as though.

 

[pineapplepizza]

If you weren't paying attention to the story at all, (I mean seriously, they way you are talking about the game you would serious have to ignore and gloss over alot), then why do you feel you are correct in giving out such a simplistic heavy handed opinion of the story of the game.

Spoiler

BTW, the rogue first waves empower the LMB and they were the ones who took down the helicopter at the start of the game, so they are actually one of the first enemies you encounter in the game.

Am I wrong that majority of the game's content and missions are centered around the 4 groups? Did you feel that agents going bad had way more potent impact on the typical gameplay than what I described? The majority of gameplay in my eyes involves roaming NYC, DZ and missions that involve encounters with the 4 groups. The rogue npc agents portion of the gameplay (regardless of story impact) is so minor in comparison. Do you agree?

 

[Keasar]

It will be one of the best selling games of the year. Even fluffy blockbusters get analyzed and they should since they'll have a lot more influence on people than some arthouse film. Same as analyzing pop music or commercials.

And, Tom Clancy made his career on political thrillers. It's what he's known for.

Was known for, he's been dead for 2 years.

 

[pantsmith]

The author even admits that this whole dangerous ideology he's sniffed out is likely to be ignored by players. This is just another variant of "video games cause violence", except now we're talking about regressive political ideas swapped in. This game isn't going to turn people into Trump supporters, anymore than Nolan's Batman did.

I hazard to compare "video games cause violence" to "this particular game subconsciously reinforces dangerously biased social language and ideas". That a gross simplification of what the article was getting at.

 

[T.O.P]

I hazard to compare "video games cause violence" to "this particular game subconsciously reinforces dangerously biased social language and ideas". That a gross simplification of what the article was getting at.

The author makes some big ass implications himself

 

[Muskieratboi]

The game both calls out and justifies the player's actions at every damn turn.

I really don't see the issue here, especially given the whole, y'know, death of 90% of the world population and all.

You're simply playing as the unwitting agents of the New World Order. *shrug*

 

[Fuu]

Wasn't familiar with Killscreen's articles, but the one in the OP made me add the site to my feed. I dig it when pieces try to go in-depth with games this way and I wish people wouldn't be so dismissive about it, regardless if they agree with the premise or not.