203 Comments

Seems like a symptom of a larger issue that we don't understand the role of different value systems.

Right now, it seems like the only valid value is morality, so every argument is framed as a moral one. No one understands the values of aesthetics, so we don't argue along those lines, and even if you tried to, no one would care or track what you said.

To say you like or dislike a piece of art is only to comment on the morality of it; likewise if you like or dislike art, you can only frame that in moral judgments.

Boring.

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“Everything that can be consumed is owed to us, and it’s owed to us because all we are is that which we consume.” Beautifully put; good god I love your writing.

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founding

As someone with ADHD, it has been discouraging to see ADHD / neurodivergence turned into another identity group with all of the annoying woke behaviors.

We do need greater awareness so that people can recognize and accommodate ADHD, especially in girls who are under-diagnosed (I was 30 the first time a clinician suggested it). So generally, I’m happy that more people are talking about ADHD, even though there is a lot of clinically dubious content from people who self-diagnosed on Tik-Tok.

But it’s not productive to scream about oppression every time something is difficult for us. Executive dysfunction means that, sadly, we’re going to struggle with almost everything we need to get done. It doesn’t mean laundry and bills are ableist.

I believe lot of young people are grasping for an identity category that will allow them to speak as an oppressed person on social media. Anything to escape the drudgery and humiliation of being an “ally” all the time.

It’s very easy to find posts where people connect ND (neurodivergent) oppression to white supremacy. Did you know that white people are responsible for oppressing people with ADHD? It’s true—before colonization, neurodiverse folx were considered gifted and special. But white supremacy taught us to punish anyone who is different. (This is a real argument that I have seen multiple times.)

Anyway, the only video game I play is Tetris, but I support the creators of Elden Ring making their game confusing. Actually, someone with real ADHD is likely to hyperfixate and document the shit out of everything they’re doing.

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My uncle is quadriplegic and has been since birth. I grew up around him every single week of my childhood, so the accommodations needed for disability were evident to me in ways they wouldn't have been without that firsthand experience. But you make an extremely important point with the "reasonable accommodations" clause.

People are medicalizing their grievances, as you so aptly put it, because the au courant worst designation you could give someone or some company is "non-inclusive" and the most valid and dispositive way of making that claim is by granularizing your needs so finely that you could arguably never fit in anywhere.

I've said it before: perhaps people ought to try giving up standpoint epistemology and have a go with cognitive behavioral therapy instead.

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In a game like Disco Elysium, Fallout: New Vegas or Skyrim, I'd consider a lack of quest log an obnoxious atavism -- it represents the character's "headspace", stuff that for the player is competing with IRL stuff. Sure, it could be an artistic decision to not have it, but as a player I'd be within my rights to call it a dumb one. Not an injustice, still an obnoxious atavism.

However, Elden Ring, in my so-far limited experience (someone with more hours can correct me if I'm full of shit) doesn't need a quest log. You're not juggling the interweaving plot threads of a murder mystery, a possibly-cursed commercial district, a brewing communist revolution, and the possible annihilation of all reality. There's a lot of diagenic storytelling and lore, but at its heart, the quest structure is simple. Just follow golden threads or wander randomly around as suits your fancy, until you come across a hole in the ground or an ugly mofo the size of a truck with a named health bar. If it's a hole in the ground go in, find the ugly mofo the size of a truck with a named health bar within. Either way, bring that health bar to zero. Then head out and find the next name-bearing, grotesque, vehicle-sized mofo.

EDIT: I'll add that I personally liked the "I have no idea what to do, but I've got a sword and a beautiful world in front of me" feel. It's intimating, yet liberating; I'll figure things out, get lost, die horribly, repeat, and slowly build up an understanding of this world's mechanical and narrative "laws".

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I do have to say that when I clicked on Schrier's initial thread over the weekend, it seemed like for every person that posted "this is ableist against neurotypical people" there was then someone else that responded to that with "I have ADHD/autism/etc. and I have always taken notes when playing games in order to help with my memory/attention/stimulation issues."

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In dealing with accommodations of university students, there is a definite minority that want to treat their disabilities as a get out of jail free. This might just be the more or less unavoidable downside of a more accommodating culture: give an inch and some will try to take a mile

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As a professor who reads a lot of pedagogy, I'm told that students can't have knowledge poured into them [insert reference to Freire here], but instead have to actively create knowledge. And that creating active knowledge is good for you -- it helps your memory, helps your understanding, and makes you a better critical thinker.

Moreover, thanks to reading people like Nicholas Carr, Johann Hari, Sherry Turkle, etc., I've learned that there are all sorts of benefits to not letting your devices do everything for you. It's important to get over having the constant dopamine hit of button-pushing, it's important that you problem-solve, etc.

But when a game does that, it's bigoted.

How much longer until we're told that having students do a guided lecture, or having students talk in small groups, or having students do reading preparations, or having students do reading quizzes, is a form of ableist bigotry?

I realize the two aren't that related. And that people have different priorities when it comes to video games and education. But I will say, I have already heard from several of my students that having them read and write at home is bad for their mental health.

The clock is ticking.

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Right, I never will be able to play the viola well enough to be in an orchestra due to my poor sight reading and I'm ok with that.

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I would say that the game is absolutely bigoted against people like me who have a sack of wired potatoes for a computer.

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Feb 28, 2022·edited Mar 1, 2022

There's something gleefully ironic about all of this, as the adjective that woke anti-GG journalists and game enthusiasts most frequently use to describe pro-GG "hardcore" gamers is "entitled", as in "gamers are bunch of entitled manbabies".

Not that I'm saying the criticism is entirely without merit, but what could be MORE entitled than demanding that a difficult or unintuitive video game be redesigned from the ground up to accommodate YOUR preferences, which you've arbitrarily designated as more legitimate than a "hardcore gamer"'s preferences?

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Thank you for writing this. I knew that we'd get another round of "FromSoft games are ableist" bullshit when Elden Ring came out and the internet did not disappoint. And what's funny about Elden Ring is that it's probably the most accessible of their games to date (I didn't play Sekiro.) They added a counterattack mechanic that is functionally a parry mechanic without the timing window. You find items across the world where you can summon NPC help to assist you in some battles. There's a map! And immediate fast travel! There's the ability to summon other players to help you in boss battles, something I always take advantage of because I'm terrible at boss battles.

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The admixture of “woke” feeling critiques and therapeutic language into the phenomenon you are describing—“all must cater to the consumer”—has been interesting to behold. When the musician Mitski tweeted that she didn’t want people to spend her entire concert filming and photographing on their cell phones, she was met with similar complaints from people claiming they needed the videos to watch later because they are dissociative or have ADHD and can’t remember things. It feels like we sometimes have really lost the plot on the idea of art as a dialogue between the artist and the person consuming it and have leaned fully into the idea it should serve the consumer. No doubt because of the dominance of “consumer culture” as a force, but also because these accessibility and identity framings seem to be so effective at making people alter their process. No one wants to be a dick! Miyazaki is true enough to his vision and this game will sell enough copies that these complaints won’t matter, but artists like Mitski who have made some of those framings part of their artistic identity won’t be so lucky.

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I'm not a Gamer, but it reminds me of the small furor from this "community" of complainers about Pokemon Go when it came out and its "bigotry" against people who can't exercise or who live in rural communities.

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Accessibility discussions and complaints online are fascinating to me, because inevitably people will have different disabilities or need varying accommodations even if they have the same disability. While I generally think people should try to increase accessibility when possible (having caption or subtitle options for videos, alt text for images, etc.), it’s not a perfect science. I remember a discussion where someone was praising something being available in audio form instead of text as reading was hard due to a TBI. Except someone else was deaf, and there were no captions or subtitles so they couldn’t participate at all.

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"It just sucks, and it’s nobody’s fault. There are things I have to deal with stemming from both my disorder and the drugs I take to control it, and none of those things are the fault of any human villain."

I also have a disability, one which isn't immediately apparent to people and which I generally choose not to advertise. I have had opportunities to, well, weaponize that disability to improve my chances of getting something I would like, in situations much more consequential than which video games I can easily play. I have consistently chosen not to do that, in part because a situation where I have to leverage my disability to gain access will probably not be compatible with long-term happiness anyway. It's one thing to get your foot in the door, it's another to stick it out and prosper in a setting which is so much at odds with my natural abilities. And I prefer to feel satisfied that I've earned what I get.

I don't say this to rag on people who would make a different choice in my situation; that's not my point. Just saying that I appreciate and identify with your perspective here.

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