Great–we agree! Let’s stop talking about irrelevant stuff, then.
Just when I think I might be playing a game too much, I read shit like this and realize my obsession is NOTHING compared to all this drama.
As much as I’ve come across postings and blogs that kvetch about how disruptive and corrosive 4chan is, I can’t think of anything they’ve done that’s impacted real life. They don’t bankrupt economies, they don’t physically attack anybody, and they don’t pull any strings in Washington.
In short, I can’t bring myself to care about anything that goes on in the gaming industry, because IT’S ONLY A GAME.
People on the internet are real. Harassment is a real problem that causes people real distress, and occasionally real health problems. TotalBiscuit went into a little bit when he announced he would no longer read any comments from his fanbase.
Blindboyard, speaking as a lifelong hardcore gamer by any definition of the term, you and others like you are an embarrassment to the gaming community. Please go back to screaming racial slurs at each other on Xbox LIVE and stop claiming to speak for anyone but your own knuckle-dragging fucktarded ilk. The underlying motivations of “gamergate” are transparent to anyone with an emotional age higher than his or her shoe size. You shitwits have accomplished nothing but showing the world how ugly, stunted, and pathetic you are, while shaming all non-retarded gamers with your actions. The fact that none of you seem to realize that only further demonstrates your complete and utter fuckwittery.
If rape threats, gamergate, and Vivian James are your idea of good ways to contribute to gaming, please shut the fuck up and consider never expressing yourselves further on this, or any other, topic.
Assuming it’s this “game”
A) It’s not a game. It’s an incredibly tedious, lead you by the nose, semi-didactic educational experience. For some value of the word “educational”
B) It doesn’t matter if it’s realistic or not, it’s boring. You have super limited choices, the choices don’t lead to any other choices and there’s no consequences to any behavior except to make things worse. And no matter what you do, things get worse.
It’s as if the game said “You are in a hallway. There is a door on the left or right–which do you choose?” and regardless of your choice, the result is “You are eaten by a grue*.”
*Gamer joke
Yup. Pretty much Major Depressive Disorder.
Not really.
Or are you agreeing with the game author (Zoe whatshername) that therapy of any sort (pharmacological, talking, rational-emotive, behavioral, a combination of some or all of them), attempts to train new behavior*, having friends who you share with who can give you external notice that you’re having a problem, trying to distract yourself, exercise, getting a pet…they all do absolutely nothing and you might as well just eat a gun?
Because that’s what the “game” says. Perhaps the woman who wrote this can’t manage to find anything to help with her depression or isn’t depressed herself but read about it in a pamphlet or something, but for many of us, there are ways to mitigate it, to learn to identify when it’s happening, to develop some coping mechanisms to help manage it–it may not go away, but (unlike what this “game” teaches) it can get better.
I’ve been through the game twice now, seeing if any choices you make lead to any other results–and they don’t. It’s not a game if every choice leads to to the same place and it’s not a teaching tool when even choosing the obviously least-unhealthy option (she won’t let you choose a healthy one…ever) makes you lose, no matter what you do. Choose the “See a therapist” option? You chicken out and it doesn’t happen. Talk to a friend? Doesn’t get it or you won’t listen. So she’s telling people “People who are depressed should just kill themselves because no matter what they do, they can’t ever get out of it”. And that is simply a repulsive message.
*Which doesn’t change the depression, but can teach one how to mitigate it a bit.
So wait, are we having the “I don’t like conceptual art, and nobody else should, either” thread? Because I thought that one was about John Cage.
If we see having that conversation, why are we focusing on this game and not the literally thousands of low quality self-published art games that bloggers occasionally spill a few words over? What makes this one special besides a bizarre interest in the designers sex life?
I have no real interest in the gamer culture, if Zoe whatsername slept around (which is irrelevant), conceptual art (isn’t that the crap Yoko did? If so, this “game” isn’t that either), etc.
The reason I’m commenting on this game is the implication made upthread that it didn’t get noticed because either “misogny” or “boy’s club culture”.
The third option is that regardless of whether her boyfriend was a douche*, or if she was a bitch for sleeping around behind his back if they were in a committed relationship**, or if the gamer community, whatever that is has the maturity of a bunch of poorly socialized 10 year old boys who have a “NO GIRLS ALLOWD” sign on their tree-house***…her specific game issues (not getting reviewed, etc) are almost certainly because her “game”
A) Isn’t a game (in any game, player choice…or luck, I suppose has to matter. It’s not a game if you always end up in the same place, regardless.)
and
B) Sucks and sends a terrible message.
All of the “He Said”/“She Said” stuff is interesting, but her main complaint (as I understand it) is that male dominated reviewers won’t give her the time of day because…misogyny! The problem is, that if there is a boy’s club attitude (and I think that it’s likely there is) it likely has nothing to do with her “game” being ignored and to pretend that it’s misogyny rather than “her “game” sucks” diminishes the apparently real problem with women not being treated fairly in the gaming industry.
*he was
**IF they were, she was.
***And based on this thread, they seem to
Are you being deliberately obtuse?
Think about it. If the game let you weigh the options and then seek proven interventions that have a quick positive effect, it wouldn’t be about being depressed. It’d be about a healthy person having a bad week.
What is being simulated is the self-sabotage, lack of energy, repetitive thought patterns and negative feedback cycles that are precisely the reason why depression is so difficult to manage. The whole point is that depressed people often can’t just up and do the things that would make them feel better, because depression distorts your thoughts and messes with your ability to seek help.
I agree the game is probably not great therapy for a depressed person, so thank god it’s not being prescribed in liu of Prozac. It may be helpful to a friend or family member seeking insight on to what their lived one is experiencing and why they can’t just approach it as a healthy person would.
Or, it may be of interest to people like me who are fascinated with games that use their structure to tell the story by evoking narrative and emotional states through structure rather than straight storyline. I love games and consider myself a gamer, but mostly because I love how they create new forms of storytelling. I have basically zero interest in “good” games. I really only enjoy simulation type games that do interesting things with storytelling via game mechanics affecting your emotions. And the quality isn’t an issue with me, I just want to poke around and see how it works, and compare it mentally to a more linear form of storytelling.
As much as you’re being intentionally pretentious and condescending.
Yes. I understand that.
Yes. I understand that too. But unless the message is “no way out”, it’s stupid to not also show that changing things can make a difference. Want to make it an actual game AND a better simulation? Let the players try to make less-bad choices, and let a weighted random number generator decide whether you can manage to actually follow through. Enough good choices and the random numbers get slightly more weighted in your favor. See, this would make the simulation a lot less like the didactic “no hope, no escape, eat a gun” bore-fest that the “game” is now and more like what depression actually is. It wou would also give a better lesson to people who need to learn about depression (that it’s really hard for people suffering from depression to make good choices…but they can and there is some hope.
Except it’s NOT what a depressed person experiences. In the real world, choices matter. There’s an option at one point to go out and do something or stay home and drink (I don’t remember the third option). Neither option matters. You end up in the same place. You don’t think a person who’s “severely depressed…motivation levels are nonexistent. Who’s alternating between feeling totally apathetic to panicking about things out of their control. Someone who lacks energy to do much more than sleep the days away, yet has constant feelings of worthlessness which prevent them from actually getting any rest. Who feels like dying but ironically is too drained to actually act on these feelings.” would have no different result between getting drunk alone in a dark room, late at night with extreme suicidal thoughts vs being with a friend?
In all seriousness-have you played this? Even simulations allow choices which change outcomes. This will always lead you back to the same ending: utter despair. Which isn’t a good message to give loved ones who need to understand their depressed relative (do you really want to teach loved ones that “You can’t help them, so why bother trying?”) or a depressed person.
…and what exactly is incorrect or puzzling about that?
Uh. No.
Her main complaint is that for the last three weeks she’s been the victim of an aggressive campaign of online harassment that has included death threats, rape threats, and hacking of personal information. She’s not complaining that male reviewers haven’t given her game enough attention. Her HARASSERS are complaining that she’s gotten TOO MUCH attention from male reviewers who have been bewitched by her sexy, slutty charms.
And again, whether you think Depression Quest or genius or crap, no one deserves that sort of harassment.
God forbid we talk about Depression Quest in this thread but I will state that, contrary to the experience Fenris had, I had little trouble raising myself up out of my depression. Just picked every choice that seemed like it would lead me down the right path and, before I knew it, someone had given me the name of a shrink, I was forging a bond with my brother who was helping me, started taking my meds and made plans to move in with my girlfriend and work on my “special project”. The game ended with me telling my mother at dinner that “I’m fine” and feeling like I meant it.
…indeed. If you want to know what her complaint is about, then read the OP. Now imagine hundreds of people like the OP dominating message boards and spamming her twitter and sending death threats. There are true believers like blindboyard who actually really believe the crap they are spouting, believe that she is at the centre of a corruption scandal and are doing things like organising boycotts of advertisers of mainstream gaming sites who “support” Zoe because they “censor them” and don’t cover the story because “everyone is in on it”.
It really is madness.
If that’s the case, I withdraw my complaint about the game. And I’m a little embarrassed since obviously I was 100% wrong in my criticism. 
But if I hadn’t been totally wrong, my points would have been valid! 
Ok–now I’m horribly embarrassed. I played it through twice and ended up with exactly the same results both times all the way through.
After your post and my response I played it again and made totally different choices and ended up more-or-less in the same place you did.
So:
A) It is a game–choices matter.
and
B) It does not send the horrible message (“You can’t get out of depression no matter what”) I thought it did.
So…mea culpa and thanks for setting me straight Jophiel!
I clicked on it. Damn you, I clicked on your link*. Now I’m on 500mg of Celexa four times a day and have a live in therapist to keep from strangling myself with a python!
Mind you, I didn’t try to play the “game”, I just went to the first page and the grainy video of a cup of coffee and the sad piano as the restaurant shuts down music made me run in search of an implement to end it all with. Luckily, I found an egg beater. So now I live with my therapist and snort anti-depressants.
Thanks, Fenris! :mad:
Regards,
-Bouncer-
PS: In the spirit of this game I now explain that the “Thanks” part of “Thanks, Frenris!” was sarcastic. Was it condescending to do so? Yeah, the intro to the game is about like that.
*: (There’s nothing actually wrong with the link).
Jim Sterling weighs in and, let’s be honest, it’s Jim Sterling (thank Jim for him). I feel kinda nasty about getting caught up in this.