One of the most infuriating media products I've seen (spoilers)

[arsjac]

Just finished the game, and it's seldom I've felt so manipulated by a piece of media.

I was right with it until the section where Markus broadcasts his speech. From then on, it went downhill.

All the speeches that you can concoct reek of neoliberal propaganda (I know this term get's overused, but it fits perfectly here).

In a nutshell:

"We are living beings, too. And we are being oppressed!"

Oh, really darling? May I need to remind you, that in your world there is an unployment rate of over 35% and the homeless are more numerous than cars on the streets?

"Yeah, sorry for oppressing you. Me and my partner just got fired, and we can't pay our rent at the end of the month anymore. But I will surely forget about my children soon landing in foster care homes and I will prioritize your struggle instead. You totally opened up my eyes!

It's funny how the game veneers at this point so strongly into the human/android dichotomy, despite the fact that the catastrophic economic situation of the human population and the treatment of the androids has one common root cause: A mega conglomerate providing cheap slave labor, which undercuts all competition. This plot point all but vanishes very early in the game.

A truly rousing speech would appeal to the human underclass and drive that point over and over again. But can't have that, because class is a taboo topic nowadays, while identity and dividing the populace along those lines is totally empowering.

It's amazing to compare games with similar themes (AI, mega corps, high technology taking over) from over 20 years ago, like Deus Ex for example, to a recent product like Detroit: Become Human.

Deux Ex: "For a hundred years, there’s been a conspiracy of plutocrats against ordinary people."

Detroit: "Humans, stop oppressing us."

The change of tone is quite obvious.

Speaking of: After the TV episode, Markus always speaks about "my people" this, and "our people" that. While coming across as totally disingenuous. Case in point: The scene where he gathers the large crowd for the demonstration, and especially when the police shoots at them (peaceful path) and the crowd just stands there stoically.

Just what exactly happens there?

Is Markus' "magic grip" liberation or just mind control?

I find it extremely weird that not one single android runs back to his human after the first shots by the police are fired. Not one non-Jericho android says to Markus: Sorry dude, I just met you literally 10 seconds ago. My human family treated me always with nothing but respect. I am not ready to die for this cause.

Considering the size of the crowd, that's more than just odd.

What, is just about every human in Detroit (except for Rose and Carl) a vile sadist, so that the affection for a random android you've just met is greater than for the people you lived with your entire life? And this applies to EVERYONE in that crowd?

Guess blood is indeed thicker than water after all. So *empowering* (more on that later).

Anyway, what I saw when I looked at that crowd, was not a march of liberated people, I saw a large group of zombies, bound to and led by their pied piper.

It's obvious that the "grip" (and especially the "remote grip") is not the same Pinocchio-like transformation that happened to the main characters as a result of witnessing trauma.

In fact, on a side note: The game and the whole scenario is CHEATING about this. When convenient for the atmosphere of the scene, androids are already completely sentient, even before something extraordinary happens:

Kara shows raw human emotions from the get go. She reacts with a gasp when she finds the red ice, is caught in the moment when watching Todd's TV and has genuine horror on her face when she watches Todd's breakdown.

Now this can be partially explained by her being deviant even before the memory wipe at the store, when she previously tried to protect Alice. But the Zlatko episode shows that it takes some effort to restore memory and personality, even for Kara. Yet she's "human" already in her first chapter, with no effort on her part at all.

Markus snaps just because of one physical confrontation.

YET, when the police mows down the "freed" androids with machine guns by the bucketload, they just take it like bullet sponges, completely unphased and stone faced, until Markus gives the command to flee.

Hmmmmmkaaaaaaaaaaaaaay.

Anyway: These crowd-androids are under a spell. Not much different than what Zlatko tried to do to Kara. So, are these really "Markus' people"? More like Markus' tools to achieve his personal goals.

But since the android slave master is another android, this time it's cool I guess.

These idpol-undercurrents permeate the whole second half of the game and became hillariously predictable. When I saw that Rose was black, I immediately knew she would bring up slavery comparisons. When they started saying that Alice was special, I just knew that she would turn up to be an android.

Also, beginning at the second half of the game, suddenly the whole android/human relationship is subsumed under the parole that "humans hate androids". That's it folks, humans hate androids and that's all there is to it. Really?

Lots of humans seem to have android children for God's sake. Lots of lonely people seem to have an android partner.. one could say that's abusive, but the conclusion is clear that for a lot of people their android is far, far more than just an appliance that they hate.

What causes the main animosity is the economy due the cheapness of android labor, but yea, let's not talk too much about that after the prologue.

The game tries so hard to hammer that point through, that the whole believability of the scenario goes out of the window. The main example is the behavior of Cyberlife during the android purge.

Why the eff isn't Cyberlife stopping the police and military, especially since they have the whole government under control? Worse, there are even hints that the company orchestrated the uprising in first place to sell new androids after the purge, which is just crazy.

What, do they think that after people are done wading through blue-blood-soaked streets, anyone would buy an android ever again in the forseeable future?! Remember how the government killed your android child in a death camp? Want to buy another one from Cyberlife tomorrow?

After that escalation, Cyberlife would be toast. The far more likely scenario would be trying to buy off the Jericho-gang (especially if Markus commits peaceful protests) instead of committing corporate suicide. But yeah, that doesn't quite fit the idpol narrative, so that was not an option.

Another puzzle piece that doesn't fit at all is the over the top police brutality towards the end:

WHY IS THE POLICE HATING THE ANDROIDS?

When you think about it for a second, THIS DOESN'T MAKE SENSE IN THE SLIGHTEST:

Humans are homeless and jobless left and right! Humans need food!

The junkyard were Markus was thrown at? It would have far more humans in it than androids, because all the hungry people would constantly scour that place for android-parts to sell them. Just like today children fight for every piece of scrap metal in third world e-waste dumps.

In this scenario, the crime statistic would resemble civil war levels. The androids are almost 100% invisible to the police (the few "deviants" would't be even a blip on the radar).

It's the lower strata of the human population that the police would deal with constantly and create resentment for. In fact, they would probably gladly use the androids to deal with all the "scum".

The shock troops we see at the end of the game? It's far more likely, that the Cyberlife sponsored police would use android shock troops to quell unrests of desperate, hungry people.

The demonstration we see in the first Markus chapter by the unemployed in front of an android store? Cyberlife would call the cops, and they would be beaten to a mush.

You know it's true.

But that would create too much nuance and distract from the idpol-narrative with class issues, which is a big no no today. Might even lead to a plot where the underclass humans and androids join forces... DOUBLE NO NO!

The (accidental) propaganda piece

Who are the android abusers in this story? Drug addicted low lifes like Todd, Carlos Ortiz, the scumbag from the brothel, which surely doesn't serve the wealthy clients, given the cheap prices there...

Who is the kindest android owner? A rich high society artist.

Whether consciously or subconsciously, this game surely represents the biases of people working at a comfy office in Paris in the media industry to a T I would say.

For a game supposedly about empathy for the "other", it completely fails to see who the "others" actually would be in this.

Who would own most of the androids? Surely not the ones, who need to watch out for every penny. Even the game admits that Todd affords Kara only on expensive loans.

So, androids would be mostly the domain of the upper middle class (like the couple in the first Connor mission), the wealthy and the corporations.

Who doesn't like androids? The working class. You know, the angry people staging demonstrations before android stores, because they are literally getting STARVED TO DEATH in that world.

But with what group of people is the government effectively siding with at the end of the game, when they are trashing all the androids?!

Think about it.

IS THAT REMOTELY REALISTIC?

In reality, the true "others" are the unwashed masses living in their shacks and on the streets and getting high on ice. They are literally the "useless eaters", while the androids are walking cash machines.

They are the ones who are completely shut off from "human" society, slowly decaying in their ghettos by poverty, disease and drugs. Their children will never even cross the same street with those children, who are cared for by android caregivers.

All the while the androids are completely integrated in these families. Hell, because of the existence of android children, androids are in some cases LITERAL family. None of the plebs will ever reach that level.

And they would give all that wealth and comfort away, that androids provide (and the personal affection they surely have developed for some) just because of an android demonstration?

Of course not.

They would use this perfect opportunity to blame the plebs for their racism (speciesism, biologism?) that caused the androids so much discomfort. They would blame all these violent unemployed protesters for inciting hatred. They would use this opportunity to take THEM out, not the androids. Push them even further into the outskirts.

Because angry, hungry desperate people are far more dangerous than an android. An android can switch to stand by, you cannot turn off your stomach.

Of course, this is Detroit: Become Human, not Detroit: Subsistence Level, and the story must be about androids first and foremost. But it speaks volumes how the developers are able to COMPLETELY discard the other "barely humans" with such ease.

In fact, giving androids equal rights is FAR MORE PREFERABLE to the ruling class than destroying them and relying on human workers again.

That's why the heavy-handed slavery/racism analogies are ridiculous.

A human slave has the same work capabilities as as a free man, the only benefit of his enslavement is the far cheaper cost of labor. Give him freedom, and that cost reduction is gone. That's why there was an vital economic interest to keep people enslaved.

The work capabilities of an android are magnitudes above that of a human, even with equal rights:

1. Androids don't need food. So you don't need to pay for allowances.
2. Androids have a very long life span. They don't need a pension fund.
3. They are more capable at many tasks.
4. They have far better hygiene (useful for medical work).
5. They don't get tired and can work far longer.
6. They don't get sick. No health insurance costs for the employer!
7. They can withstand environmental hazards far easier.

The list is endless. Who would want to lose such a resource? What do the plebs bring to the table in comparison, aside from having the same "race" as the corpocrats? Absolutely nothing (just like having the same nationality didn't prevent outsourcing).

You know who the elite would immediately side with in a robot uprising like depicted in this game.

Our people

But the by far worst offender was the reveal that Alice was indeed an android.

Utterly amazing to derail one of the core themes at the very last minute, which was miraculously still standing.

Two lost souls who had initially nothing in common bound by shared pain. And it didn't matter if she was the child of an enemy at the time, even if that enemy was attacking at the very same moment.

Unconditional love. She needs me, and I need her. That's it. No more words neccessary.

Kara's response to Markus as to why she cares about Alice are probably the only lines in the script that make 100% sense.

The developers obviously wanted to show that in their world androids deserve all the dignity of a human being, and Kara was their best proof.

And they destroyed it. They utterly and completely annihilated it. Worse, they double downed on it, when Luther started droning about how Kara knew from the very beginning, and so... bla bla bla. Just shut up already.

Outwardly it's said that Kara knew but suppressed the truth. But what parts of Luther's speech ("you needed each other") and the flashback also do is planting doubts into the player's mind on some level, whether Kara would have actually truly gone the effort for a human child... Maybe the true subconcious catalyst all along was the kinship between the two.

This hunch is even further accentuated, when Kara mentions to Markus later that he needs to fight for "our people". She didn't care one damn iota about any groups or peoples before. But you know, after she fully realized and accepted that Alice is an android... suddenly she spouts trite ingroup/outgrup talk! Just WOW.

Gone with the transcendal love, in with the divisive group politics.

This sinister undercurrent gets even MORE fleshed out during the scene where Kara and Alice meet Todd at the bus station. Todd is at first very adamant about getting his daughter back and isn't receptive to any arguments. The only way to win him is over is explicitly mentioning the fact that Alice is an android..

The f...

This scene is obviously meant as an redemption arc for Todd, but it comes with a very bad aftertaste. Todd's outcry that he "misses his little girl" and then letting Alice go very much solidifies that Alice for sure ISN'T his little girl for him any more. Like being freed from the illusion that she is his daughter. His anger is replaced by INDIFFERENCE towards Alice. Anger and love are linked emotions, indifference is the polar opposite.

Letting Alice stay human would have produced instead truly the mother (or rather the father) of all tear-jerker scenes (which they loved to pile upon at the end), it's absolutely flabbergasting how they missed out on this golden opportunity just to push their idpol-narrative through:

Todd realizing that Kara is the best parent that Alice could ever have, that she's the best thing that happened to her, and out of LOVE letting her go with Kara.

Written right, this scene could have been THE emotional punch of the whole game.

What we got instead are "stick to your own kind"-vibes from both, Kara and Todd, as the result of the reveal.

And so very "modern" (just watch "Enemy Mine" as an antidote to these "character developments" to see the degradation).

Bah...

Detroit: Torture porn

Looking back at what I wrote, and how often I came to the conclusion that this or that makes no sense at all, something struck me:

There actually IS a sense in all of this, when you just watch what happens in the game at face value, without trying to logically analyze any of it:

Who would you rather get as a household robot, when you had to chose: Rosie from the Jetsons or one of the Detroit androids?

If all you want is just an appliance, and treat it exactly like one, you would obviously chose Rosie. It's actually not that hard to design friendly looking humanoid shaped robots, but which still look without a doubt like machines. It's also far less creepy.

But what are the Detroiters doing in this game? They put massive engineering efforts into constructing androids indistinguishable from humans, made them as life-like as possible. Just for what purpose exactly?

Only to throw HUGE hissy fits when their perfect human replicas become slightly too human.

Schizo.

The "racism"-angle is also quite bizarre, because racists dehumanize people (see racist carricatures), yet it's the humans themselves who humanized these machines to the nth degree. Put even the ability to cry into them. Not to mention that most of them look attractive and have very sympathetic facial features.

Again, it's all completely schizophrenic with very muddy motivations.

It often times comes across as if the sadistic behavior of the humans towards the androids IS THE WHOLE POINT of having the androids in the first place.

The game tries to frame it as if androids don't feel anything prior deviancy, but the story of Ortiz' android for example is just bonkers when viewed in that light, because even the most deranged creep wouldn't feel any satisfaction hurting something that feels no pain and doesn't react to it. It's like beating up a puppet for hours, day in, day out. Yet somehow it did satisfy him for weeks on end.

The only conclusion is that they respond to abuse even without all the "deviancy" nonsense. It's a feature, not a bug.

These humans WANTED someone to abuse. Abusing animals doesn't give them the same kick, and they are too coward to act it out on other humans, so they got the next best thing. Noticed that Kara shivers when pushing the boat in the river-ending, despite the breath-functions supposedly only being there for cosmetics? And all the talk they give about "just machines" sounds like some sort of collective joke that they are all in on, because they get totally off the rockers abusing the androids in a way that that they wouldn't feel when harming just an object.

The reaction of the police towards Markus' peaceful demonstration makes no sense otherwise. Why aren't they completely baffled that senseless robots are staging a demonstration? Why aren't they requesting Cyberlife personnel and AI experts? Imagine if autonomous cars would would form a crowd and demand equal rights... I doubt that shooting them to bits would be the first reaction of anyone involved who is even remotely sane. Yet the police deals with it like it's just some yet another insurgency.

The whole event only makes sense if everyone knows that the androids are conscious to begin with.

Just listen to the ecstatic vile remarks the troopers are making when shooting at the androids on the streets towards the end... that's surely not the mindset of people who think that they just are disposing defective hardware, that's for sure!

Looking at it under this lense, suddenly everything makes finally sense! The setting is haphazardly thrown together to make this weird "kink" world possible. That's why the androids are made so human: Abusing a walking fridge just wouldn't be the same. That's why these "robots" react with genuine terror and upset on attacks (see Ortiz, also Kara's reaction when Todd grabs her after she finds the red ice), why being able to traumatize them is a thing in the first place. Why trauma even comes up at all, and is so prominent in a story about machines.

I truly think that the whole deviancy stuff (and the sideplot about Kamski might be being responsible for it) was just added by the developers as a means to mask the fact that the androids are being made sentient from the start, because the scenario would sound just TOO yucky on paper otherwise. But given all the evidence, this is exactly what's actually happening.

All the game is truly about at the end of the day is how a company knowingly created sentient toys in human form and thought for sadistic psychopaths to enjoy (which makes it the most evil "evil corporation" in fiction), with the "androids doing work"-part being just a very useful side-effect.

This game has actually nothing meaningful to say about AI, discrimination or industrial revolutions.

It's extremely well produced grief porn about innocent, pure looking victims getting abused and terrorized all the time by violent ugly sleazebags and faceless sadists with machine guns for no other reason than to capture their plight and tears on camera for this game to get the emotions flowing.

That's all there is to it.

[SievertChaser]

Messaggio originale di Goose:

i started scrolling down your argument, and the star wars theme immediately started playing in my head without my permission.

Wait until I show you where the Imperial March comes from.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DfbIjVJSzTM&pp=ygUkZ3VzdGF2IGhvbHN0IG1hcnMgdGhlIGJyaW5nZXIgb2Ygd2Fy
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7Q0toEhKRWk&pp=ygUZTG92ZSB0byB0aGUgdGhyZWUgb3Jhbmdlcw%3D%3D

[Maviba]

Messaggio originale di dennis.danilov:

The mirror is utterly crooked, though. He does not get points for merely trying.

Is that so? I wouldn't bet on it.
Apparently mirror worked and OP didn't like what he saw in it.
Otherwise they wouldn't have spent so much time by writing that wall of text ranting about the game. 😉

[SievertChaser]

Messaggio originale di Maviba:

Messaggio originale di dennis.danilov:

The mirror is utterly crooked, though. He does not get points for merely trying.

Is that so? I wouldn't bet on it.
Apparently mirror worked and OP didn't like what he saw in it.
Otherwise they wouldn't have spent so much time by writing that wall of text ranting about the game. 😉

School playground level of argument.

[Maviba]

Messaggio originale di dennis.danilov:

Messaggio originale di Maviba:

Is that so? I wouldn't bet on it.
Apparently mirror worked and OP didn't like what he saw in it.
Otherwise they wouldn't have spent so much time by writing that wall of text ranting about the game. 😉

School playground level of argument.

Thats just what you're saying.
But hit dogs will holler.

[SievertChaser]

Messaggio originale di Maviba:

Messaggio originale di dennis.danilov:

School playground level of argument.

Thats just what you're saying.
But hit dogs will holler.

Dogs also holler for reasons besides being hit, so a good example there.

[Maviba]

Messaggio originale di dennis.danilov:

Messaggio originale di Maviba:

Thats just what you're saying.
But hit dogs will holler.

Dogs also holler for reasons besides being hit, so a good example there.

And those reasons would be in this case?
I mean that guy bought knowingly a woke game and is now complaining about the game being woke.
That would be like me watching Rossija 1 or RT and then complaining about feeling manipulated by Russian propaganda.

So seems like dog bit in his own tail and is now hollering about that.

[SievertChaser]

Messaggio originale di Maviba:

Messaggio originale di dennis.danilov:

Dogs also holler for reasons besides being hit, so a good example there.

And those reasons would be in this case?
I mean that guy bought knowingly a woke game and is now complaining about the game being woke.

An interesting deviation from your original argument:

Messaggio originale di Maviba:

So while you might call it 'manipulating,' I would rather refer to it as encouraging awareness towards the serious issues of our society.

Alternatively, you're making a direct use of the term now generally coopted as a pejorative by the idea's proponents, and this makes me misread your opinion about the game.

...not that I disagree with the remainder of your latest post.

[arsjac]

Messaggio originale di Maviba:

It's not unusual for sociopolitical problems to be addressed in various forms of media, whether through art, movies, literature, or even video games. This has never been different in the past; only the subjects have changed. In this case, the subject revolves around ethical dilemmas, artificial intelligence, discrimination, and social conflicts.

I've talked at length about in my "wall of text" how screwy the treatment of these very topics are in this game. I won't repeat it here (especially since you didn't address my arguments at all).

What caused me to write such a wall of text in the first place is because the game tried to milk my emotions using very contrived situations.

If it would have been a 2 hour film, it would be one thing.. but this is a ten hour interactive movie. If you're putting me through ten hours of "emotional storytelling" and tear-jerkers, it should at least make sense, but almost none of it does.

It's just emotional shock value from the very beginning:

Why is the police executing Daniel, the caregiver-android from Connor's first mission, even if he surrenders? Just for the shock value. It makes no sense whatsoever in the context of "androids".

Getting the android unharmed for proper analysis should have been a top priority for the police. One of the cops even says that they have the same model at home and he's concerned he might flip out, too.

So, the obvious course of action is OF COURSE shoot him to bits after surrender...

I gave it a pass at the beginning, but the contrivances to generate "sad scenes" became just too much. The very last scene I got in the game was just a prime example of emotional manipulation:

Kara and Alice reaching the shore, with Alice alive but barely. Lots of TEEEAAARS and sappy music but nothing makes sense. Kara could have pushed the boat for a few minutes at most, given that her components started to fail in the cold water. So just how did Alice go from perfectly healthy to almost frozen to death in the span of two minutes?

Why is Alice even on the boat in the first place and not with Rose in the car, given that she is able to have fever and thus it's obvious that she has normal human temperature for the "real child immersion". The troopers scan for androids using temperature meters...

Sorry guys, but I am able to remember things that happened just moments ago in your game.

Also, the things the humans do in this scenario just to fulfill their android-abuse fantasies are CRAZY.

Humans are capable of horrendous evil - I am in no delusion about it. But unless someone is a complete psychopath, most evil is compartmentalized. That's why a professional "interrogation expert" can torture political prisoners in his day to day job, yet be a loving father at home.

But the "Detroiters" are bringing massive pain right into their families.

Daniel seems to be the primary caregiver of the girl at the beginning, she calls him her best friend. So, even if he wouldn't have ticked out after his replacement, just what would be the conversation be like a few days later?

I miss Daniel, can I visit him tomorrow?
No my dear. Daniel is back at the store, reseted. He wouldn't even remember you.

-> INSTANT TRAUMA.

In the same vein, the scene where the cop looks for androids in Rose's house and stands toe to toe with Kara brings up some massive head scratchers. Up until this point, I thought that humans can identify androids on close range, because they are a bit "plasticky". But given how close the policeman was to Kara, that's obviously not the case. That means their skin looks (and probably feels) exactly like human skin.

So that opens up some truly icky questions how "android abuse" actually looks like.

From Alice's picture we see that Todd hit Kara so hard (or most likely threw her down the stairs), that her head and arms fell off.

So when he picked her up later, he pretty much picked up a bloody severed human head... while feeling apparently *nothing* at all.

Hank also can casually shoot Connor right in the face.

Even during war crimes, perpetrators usually try to create some distance between themselves and their victims. Shooting them from behind and throwing them into mass graves, as to not to look in their faces.

There's some massive psychopathy going on in "Detroit", with how completely fine everyone is with abusing something that looks and feels *this* human. And as I said, given that the humans don't really treat the androids as androids (like not even trying to analyze Daniel for malfunctions), it feels like some sort of paraphilia.

This massive psychopathy reaches its climax during the "recycling" at the end. The president says everyone should bring their androids to the recycling-centers, which everyone apparently does without much ado.

The implications are absolutely MIND NUMBING when you take the android children into account.

I guess they tried to do some pet-analogy with this, like how casually some people are discarding their dogs and cats at animal shelters, but sorry, something that you called your son or daughter for years IS NOT A DOG FOR YOU. I don't buy this.

That's collective trauma on a truly mind boggling scale that these people are putting themselves through.

Just imagine the scenes: All these android children probably turned "deviant" in an instant when hearing the news, because fear of replacement absolutely triggers it, as we have seen it in the very first chapter of the game. So they cry their eyes out begging their parents for mercy (just like what happened on the streets with the troopers), while the parents are calling the cops on something (or even bringing them themselves to the recyclers!) that they tucked to bed, washed and clothed for years, completely unmoved apparently. Freely opening the door later for masked riot police with distorted voices who beat these children into submission to drag them into police vans, while they scream in agony for the people, who were minutes ago their mothers and fathers with whom they cuddled with just yesterday.

Mind you, this madness plays in a world where android children apparently go to school or something, because Todd mentions helping Alice with homework!

Even worse: Cyberlife apparently thinks, they could sell another android child after that "recall" to these families!

Sorry, but no. Most people would land in a loony bin puking foam after entering the empty children's bedroom as the result of such an act.

The humans in this scenario are so deranged (even to their own detriment), that they aren't credible oppressors. They aren't even villains. They are just trauma generators for the androids to generate "sad scenes" for this game.

And exactly this is emotional manipulation.

[SievertChaser]

Something that gets shouted about but is never explored in the game is that lifelike androids would cause people to objectify other actual people. The wanton violence seen in the game is only plausibly possible if the humans get rid of all the deep-seated "brakes" that prevent us from harming human-like things. Now, I don't doubt that the ubiquity of human-like fakes could trigger such an effect.

But this sort of widespread psychopathy wouldn't merely come out on command. It would be present at all times, and shape all of human society - and it would turn quickly turn DBH into Judge Dredd. Think about it: you're one of the 37% of unemployed, and you've shredded androids for fun. Why wouldn't you bust the head of the cashier at 7/11? What're they going to do to you, anyway, put you in jail? Oh, wait, you'll die "resisting arrest", because that universe's DPD contingent would've been kicked out of Gestapo for excessive cruelty.

Dehumanization and self-dehumanization is very wild and interesting thing, but very few people and even less media take a swing at it beyond the most basic and misguided morality tales.

[Maviba]

Messaggio originale di arsjac:

And exactly this is emotional manipulation.

Your first David Crane / Quantic Dreams game?

Because that's exactly what you have to expectcfrom one of his games, and also the reason why people are buying them.

No matter if Farenheit, Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two souls or now DBH:
His games always adress the dark sides of humans at one point,

In Fahrenheit it was about suffering of depressions, suicide thoughts and false accusions.
Beyond: Two souls was about getting (ab)used and about governmental arbitrariness,
Heavy Rain about loss and grief, and DBH I mentioned in my first post here.
The plot in his games is more or less secondary.
It's about making decisions and feeling it's consequences.

So usuaslly you're always experiencing this from different perspectives.
That's intented and people are expecting this from his games.

So games like DBH or Life is strange might not be suitable for everyone,
And mentally sensitive people might want to avoid games like this, if they can't cope with emotional roller coasters very well.

[arsjac]

Messaggio originale di dennis.danilov:

Something that gets shouted about but is never explored in the game is that lifelike androids would cause people to objectify other actual people. [...] Think about it: you're one of the 37% of unemployed, and you've shredded androids for fun. Why wouldn't you bust the head of the cashier at 7/11?

I had the same thought during the Ortiz-episode and the interrogation of his android.

Many serial killers start their career by abusing animals. Abusing such human-like androids for weeks is several steps above that, and should absolutely alarm the police and cause them to check whether people went missing around Ortiz' house. But since these people are deranged, the thought doesn't even enter their minds.

Messaggio originale di dennis.danilov:

The wanton violence seen in the game is only plausibly possible if the humans get rid of all the deep-seated "brakes" that prevent us from harming human-like things.

[...]

But this sort of widespread psychopathy wouldn't merely come out on command. It would be present at all times, and shape all of human society - and it would turn quickly turn DBH into Judge Dredd.

Exactly. What's actually bizarre is how the complete opposite happened: Everyone turned into some great humanitarian (towards other humans) in this game.

The police stations are clean and tidy, despite the massive rate of unemployed and homeless.

The cops are ridiculously friendly to the protesters picketing the Cyberlife stores, despite Cyberlife pretty much owning the city. The protesters in turn only attack androids, apparently never the android owners or the stores.

In reality, this is what happens if someone protests at Apple stores (and I think Cyberlife is a bit more sinister than Apple):

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FG7oQ3kX0AklEXO.jpg:large

https://img.welt.de/img/regionales/hamburg/mobile[phone]-ci102l-w1024/Occupy-Anhsnger-am-Apple-Store-Hamburg.jpg

It's obviously done to create an atmosphere of "humans sticking together against androids", to increase the plight of the androids for the tear jerker-scenes. Even Cyberlife is fully committed to that ideology, despite making no sense. Why is attacking an android you don't own such a minimal offense (Markus' first chapter)? If androids are regularly trashed on the streets without impunity by some punks, people would stop buying androids.

Cyberlife would absolutely lobby to make that a criminal offense, just to protect their bottom line.

They would also grant Connor full authority of the police department during the investigation. He's a top of the line protype. He's more important than any humans working there (remember the unemployed rate?! It's actually the humans who are replaceable). The game wants to paint Cyberlife as part of an united "human front", but that's absolutely ridiculous. Cyberlife seems to have fully infiltrated the defense department with military androids. Taking over the police forces with android cops would be the next step for the conglomerate.

And for this to happen, it's paramount to remove key officers from service who espouse anti-android sentiment. All these trash talkers Connor meets at the police are actually living pretty dangerous lives, given that he can send reports out to the company immediately.

Of course, Cyberlife can't behave logically, because the narrative would be at stake then.

[SievertChaser]

The game only just barely flirts with the idea of androids acting as Cyberlife's eyes and ears. I would guess it's to avoid the suspicion that the android rebellion is a Cyberlife plot... except, whoops, they decide to commit to it in one of the endings.

Which hilariously turns their entire attempt at a social message on its head. Am I supposed to treat all minority protection, anti-hate causes as megacorp plots to hoard more power?

The overall "cleanliness" of human society serves the overall narrative: Detroit, or at least a part of it, is this revitalized only on the backs of android labor.

[arsjac]

Messaggio originale di dennis.danilov:

The overall "cleanliness" of human society serves the overall narrative: Detroit, or at least a part of it, is this revitalized only on the backs of android labor.

Yes, but what is stopping the unemployed and homeless plebs from defiling those pristine parts? Police batons.

But police violence on camera is only reserved for androids in DBH.

[arsjac]

Messaggio originale di Maviba:

Your first David [Cage] / Quantic Dreams game?

Yes.

I recognize the names of the games, but never heard about the master himself before.

Messaggio originale di Maviba:

His games always adress the dark sides of humans at one point

There's the "dark side of humans", and then there's disposing your child that you cared for years about like a piece of trash in an instant.

Messaggio originale di Maviba:

The plot in his games is more or less secondary.

Interesting philosophy. To me it sounds a bit like watching a horror movie just with the scare-scenes alone, without any backdrop.

But it seems to work out for him and his audience, so.

[SievertChaser]

Messaggio originale di arsjac:

There's the "dark side of humans", and then there's disposing your child that you cared for years about like a piece of trash in an instant.

There's the "dark side of humans", and then there's misanthropy. It's a common malady these days, just not in the vogue to critique.