The Origin Hackshack

Talk about LRR's gaming news show on PATV.
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Paul
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The Origin Hackshack

Postby Paul » 25 Mar 2013, 08:31

http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/th ... -hackshack

Origin security problems and publishers that don't like female protagonists.
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Re: The Origin Hackshack

Postby Drecon » 25 Mar 2013, 12:36

Wow! Weren't we supposed to be beyond this?!

I mean, I understand that 10% (blind guess, I don't actually have any data) of gamers might be pubescent boys who think girls are icky.... but what about the rest of the world? You know, normal people. They might think having a female protagonist is... I don't know... NORMAL? COOL? ANYTHING?

I just can't believe it, really.
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Re: The Origin Hackshack

Postby Dominic Appleguard » 25 Mar 2013, 13:13

You know, I thought that I really enjoyed Beyond Good and Evil, but I guess I was wrong because Jade has boobs and I don't.
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Re: The Origin Hackshack

Postby JackSlack » 25 Mar 2013, 13:41

That Remember Me news story is pretty much the only thing worth talking about this week;Jim Sterling was all over it too. My take on it is a somewhat similar to his: I actually believe the marketing executives when they say games with female protagonists don't sell as well, and I don't fucking accept this as a reason to not make games with female protagonists. Contra Sterling, I think Bioshock Infinite's refusal to put Elizabeth on the cover of Bioshock Infinite is appalling.
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Re: The Origin Hackshack

Postby Geoff_B » 25 Mar 2013, 15:01

Games with female protagonists don't sell as well? Tomb Raider, Mirror's Edge, Silent Hill III, Bayonetta, um, more that I can't think of...
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Re: The Origin Hackshack

Postby Bergie » 25 Mar 2013, 15:53

Geoff_B wrote:Tomb Raider, Mirror's Edge, Silent Hill III, Bayonetta


Note in regards to those games:

Tomb Raider - Lara Croft is a hyper sexualized character with very little 'real' interaction with her NPC's.

Mirror's Edge - Haven't played it, but it is a First-person game, so you could probably be controlling a camera on a segway for all the difference it makes.

Silent Hill III - Also haven't played it.

Bayonetta - Bayonetta is a hyper sexualized character with very little 'real' interaction with her NPC's.
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Re: The Origin Hackshack

Postby Drecon » 25 Mar 2013, 16:15

Metroid probably doesn't count either right?
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Re: The Origin Hackshack

Postby Geoff_B » 25 Mar 2013, 16:29

Did they not sell well then?
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Re: The Origin Hackshack

Postby iamafish » 25 Mar 2013, 17:21

yeah, no-one said they were good female characters, but bad females are better than no females.

Generally, and unsurprisingly, there seem to be very few female protagonists in games. I am surprised by this story though, both as a commentary on the games industry and the gaming community (or least the perception of the gaming community)
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Re: The Origin Hackshack

Postby JayBlanc » 25 Mar 2013, 17:36

What was that little puzzle game based around the interaction between two female characters?

Doorway? Egress? Pothole?

Can't have sold a lot I guess.
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Re: The Origin Hackshack

Postby Dominic Appleguard » 25 Mar 2013, 18:32

Portal is a weird case. On the one hand, the whole game has two characters, both of whom are female.
But, one of them is mute and the other is an AI.

In the interest of playing devil's advocate, there really aren't a lot of top-selling games with fully fleshed out female protagonists that serve a purpose other than titillation.
But then again, there aren't a lot of top selling games with fully fleshed out male protagonists either! Game writing!

As to Bayonetta: she's actually got a personality. So she has that going for her.
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Re: The Origin Hackshack

Postby Jamfalcon » 25 Mar 2013, 18:38

I think the main issue is not that there are no good female protagonists, but that there are relatively few compared to the number of males. Naming a dozen or so good (or at least decent) female protagonists is all well and good, but how many games can you think of with equivalent quality male protagonists? Too many to even bother trying to list.
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Re: The Origin Hackshack

Postby JackSlack » 25 Mar 2013, 22:57

Geoff_B wrote:Games with female protagonists don't sell as well? Tomb Raider, Mirror's Edge, Silent Hill III, Bayonetta, um, more that I can't think of...


Tomb Raider: Franchise game. Sells well now because of legacy. Good that original game sold well, but continued success is mostly due to past success.

Mirror's Edge: Sold poorly.

Silent Hill 3: Legacy franchise.

Bayonetta: An admitted exception to the rule.

Portal: The first game was amazingly feminist, yes. But note how little the main female character is used in the marketing; she has never adorned a cover.

The cover test is a good one, actually. Go check out the top scoring games on Metacritic. I count ONE cover which stars a female character most prominently.
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Re: The Origin Hackshack

Postby Graham » 26 Mar 2013, 11:18

Bergie wrote:Mirror's Edge - Haven't played it, but it is a First-person game, so you could probably be controlling a camera on a segway for all the difference it makes.
That's exactly the point.
If it doesn't matter, then it CAN be a woman.
And if it CAN be a woman, why isn't it more often?
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Re: The Origin Hackshack

Postby Foxmar » 26 Mar 2013, 11:40

I dont care if the main character is a man or woman as long as the game is good. It doesn't change my opinion of the game at all. That being said I would like to play more games with female characters in staring roles.
Bayonetta and Assassins Creed 3: Liberation both have female characters in leading roles. Women should be able to star on the front of a box just as much as a man should, and with both of these games a woman did.
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Re: The Origin Hackshack

Postby Geoff_B » 26 Mar 2013, 11:52

Graham wrote:
Bergie wrote:
Geoff_B wrote:Mirror's Edge - Haven't played it, but it is a First-person game, so you could probably be controlling a camera on a segway for all the difference it makes.
That's exactly the point.
If it doesn't matter, then it CAN be a woman.
And if it CAN be a woman, why isn't it more often?


I think you got your quotes mixed up there a bit :P Just sayin :D
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Re: The Origin Hackshack

Postby JackSlack » 26 Mar 2013, 21:06

What just gets me is the cover thing. Of the top 100 rated games on Metacritic, only one, SSX3, most prominently features a female character. That's pretty shocking.
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Re: The Origin Hackshack

Postby JackSlack » 26 Mar 2013, 21:07

What just gets me is the cover thing. Of the top 100 rated games on Metacritic, only one, SSX3, most prominently features a female character. That's pretty shocking.
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Re: The Origin Hackshack

Postby Graham » 27 Mar 2013, 00:30

I DID get my quotes mixed up. Editing.
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Re: The Origin Hackshack

Postby Zellyn » 29 Mar 2013, 02:56

Are you also aware that Origin had a hotfix beta available less than three days after the exploit was found (I downloaded it on the 21st)? I know the video came out on the 25th, which was the same day that the hotfix was pushed out (http://venturebeat.com/2013/03/25/ea-squashes-potential-origin-exploit/) to all users, but come on.

Second, the 'massive security hole' required a whole slew of very specific things to happen, not just 'browsing Origin' (you wouldn't require a URI if you were already in the program), but rather you would have to be in an external browser and go to a malicious website and click a link to launch Crysis 3. Further, the issue wasn't even as simple as just running Crysis 3, but rather with Crysis 3 making use of NVIDIA's OpenAutomate (https://developer.nvidia.com/openautomate) for their benchmarking tools.

Does that make it alright? No, but then this is exact same story as the Steam issue. Steam still has support for steam:// URIs (https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Steam_browser_protocol), but their 'fix' was actually for the affected games (namely all Source engine games, TF2 most prominently because it was the only one where external game-launching URIs were used at all) and not technically a Steam fix.

So yeah, if Origin is Crazy John's, then by your own logic Steam would be Insane Earl's.
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Re: The Origin Hackshack

Postby JackSlack » 02 Apr 2013, 19:30

Zellyn wrote:Are you also aware that Origin had a hotfix beta available less than three days after the exploit was found (I downloaded it on the 21st)?


You signed up to say this? You're not wrong, but that's some surprising passion for Origin there.
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Re: The Origin Hackshack

Postby phlip » 02 Apr 2013, 22:00

Zellyn wrote:So yeah, if Origin is Crazy John's, then by your own logic Steam would be Insane Earl's.

Well, you'll note that the comparison they make in the video isn't "if your choices are Origin and Crazy John's...", but rather "if your choices are digital distribution and Crazy John's...". Bringing up the "but Steam has some problems too" point isn't really an argument against that line.

Also, as I understand it there's a pretty significant time between CPt being filmed and being released... I wouldn't be surprised if that release date you mentioned is in the middle somewhere.
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Re: The Origin Hackshack

Postby AlexanderDitto » 04 Apr 2013, 21:58

OH MY GOODNESS OH MY GOODNESS LOOK AT THIS PERFECTION

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