Video Games, Violence, Context and Choice

[Hotfoot]

So recently the game "Hatred" was removed from Steam Greenlight, the people at Steam not wanting to distribute that game. Since then, people have screamed censorship, brought up comparisons to other needlessly violent and otherwise despicable games, complaining that Steam still sold those, so why not this one.

That started me thinking, given several discussions recently regarding video games, violence, choice, and context that I've had both on the forum and in other arenas. Since one of my staples is the shooter, it's fair to say I'm pretty familiar with violence in my video games. Some games in the genre pride themselves in being over the top or hyper realistic in their gore, both to show off the graphics engine and to add a bit of grindhouse flavor to the games.

But when is it too much? The obvious answer is that when you feel uncomfortable, that's too much and you should stop playing the game. Other people really enjoy it, using the excesses in the violence as a method of humor and escapism. When Kratos, in God of War, slices a giant snake, breaks its jaw, then drives his swords into the things eyes to kill it, all while it's gushing blood like a fountain, then goes to sleep with several pretty ladies, it's pretty hard not to laugh a little at the absurdity of it, especially given the context. When one's character in Grand Theft Auto kills the prostitute he just had sex with in his car (to regain health), with his car, all to get back the money spent on paying the prostitute, it's still somewhat absurd, at least when the games had more comic-book violence, but far less so than Kratos. When, in the standalone DayZ game, one is able to capture another player, bind them, and force them to drink bleach, which results in a rather disturbing death sequence, one can make the claim it's still absurd, but it's much harder for me at least to accept that claim, because while it's still all about pixels on a screen, now it's about another player behind that screen being tormented and humiliated in a way that makes teabagging seem utterly innocuous in comparison.

With all these examples, however, these are merely things you can do within the context of the game, not things you must do in order to proceed, save God of War, which, as mentioned, is clearly over the top here. They are mechanics that are available, either by intent or coincidence, that players can choose to do or not do as they see fit. Hatred, meanwhile, is about killing vast numbers of people who are begging for their lives because, well, the character hates them. It's a mass murder simulator the likes of which Jack Thompson wished Grand Theft Auto had been. Just watching the trailer is enough to make one feel vastly uncomfortable. Could it be that the game is being made as a statement, an elaborate troll? Perhaps, but it doesn't matter. The game's core mechanic is one that makes a lot of people uncomfortable, and that takes some doing, especially when games like Postal, Manhunt, DayZ, and Soldier of Fortune all have pretty ugly depictions of violence and death.

Games do not need to be completely accurate in order to be fun or tell a story. More times it is important that they be fun, even if they are not always enjoyable. For example, while I've yet to play Hearts of Iron in any serious fashion, it's my understanding that the game does not, in fact, allow you to make any decisions with regards to the Holocaust. You don't build Auschwitz, you don't choose how many Jews or Romani or Gays go to each one, it's a series of decisions left out of the game, despite the fact that, realistically, those sorts of decisions could well matter in determining your war effort, morale, and so forth. It's something left out and, in my opinion, for the better. It's a strategy game of global war, not an atrocity simulator.

But then, how does that compare to Star Wars: Rebellion, where the Imperial Player can build Death Stars and wipe out all life in the Galaxy should they choose to? Again, I feel the context makes the difference here. Even though both games would reduce such numbers to, well, numbers, rather than scenes of explosions or gas chambers, Star Wars is not reality. No one died on Alderaan, etc. and so forth. These are mitigating factors that, while the actions one could take in Rebellion would be potentially vastly more horrific than what the Nazis actually did, the Nazis, in this case, actually did these things. People exist who have survived the camps and told their stories. The reality of that makes it far more horrific than some space fantasy planet exploding.

However, there is also the matter of choice. As the Empire, I don't have to destroy planets with Death Stars, even should I build them. Historical accuracy would probably force someone playing Nazi Germany to engage in the Holocaust, if they wanted to or not. In fact, it could be argued that in Hearts of Iron, the Holocaust is happening off screen and nothing you can do can stop or change that, but it does not have any effect on the game otherwise.

Soldier of Fortune, which I enjoyed when it came out, was also the first sign to me that even I had limits, and that game pushed them. While it was somewhat over the top with everything, it was still disconcerting to see people fall to the ground clutching the bloody stump of a limb I had just severed with a shotgun blast, or howling in pain as they tried to keep their intestines from spilling on the ground after a blast to the gut. But then it was funny to watch guys get shot in the nuts and go down with their hands on their groins, or choking to death from a bullet through the throat, because that involved a bit of slapstick. Interesting side note, SoF had male and female enemies. The only difference was that you couldn't get a groin hit on the female enemies. Otherwise, the violence was just the same and just as bloody and graphic. But it was just enough on this side of the metaphorical top that it made me profoundly uncomfortable at times, even if the gore itself wasn't the biggest issue.

I'll admit, I've never played Manhunt, or Postal, or Blood, because I've never had much of a desire to. Shock value games don't interest me much, my limit was Soldier of Fortune. But given what I've seen of those games versus Hatred, I can see why Steam sells those and not that one. Sure, Manhunt is uncomfortable in its violence, but it at least provides the context of this being a kill or be killed scenario. You can't just walk away. Hatred involves a character choosing to go on a vile and bloody rampage for no reason other than the title drop. A thin justification? Perhaps, but it's there and it makes a lot of difference.

One can make the argument that all violent video games are deplorable, which is a difficult position to hold when one considers that Mario, Mega Man, and Sonic all solve their problems with violence. One can hardly make a serious case that Mario violence is equal to Grand Theft Auto, much less Manhunt or Hatred. Spec Ops: The Line makes the argument that most shooters are barely justified murder simulators and then spends most of the game hamfistedly trying to make you feel bad for enjoying them. While the initial premise may or may not have merit, the structure of the game's own violence and loading screen messages is poorly constructed. The easiest way to construct an argument within a game is to create a scenario in which a player makes a choice, and that choice has consequences. Note that playing the game or not is not itself a choice in this scenario, that is an excuse.

Once one creates a choice within a game, one should be able to experience what that choice means. This could be as simple as a gameplay decision, a gameplay mechanic, a penalty for failure, and so on. In Mass Effect and Dragon Age, certain choices determine if party members live or die, even if you didn't know you were making the choice. In Metro 2033, decisions made throughout the game, most of which are not clearly defined as decision points, determine what endings are available to you. In Alpha Protocol, each decision can affect the flow of the game, if people live or die, if you even meet some people, and so on. In Far Cry 4, deciding to sit around for your captor to come back results in a secret ending to the game. All of these are explorations of choices made, regardless of any other things that flat out simply happen to the character. Some are less meaningful than others, others are utterly devestating.

Anyway, just some thoughts I had regarding the subject. At some point I'll pick this up again and link it in to This War of Mine, which has been a fascinating, if difficult on many levels, game.

[Josh]

Apparently it got yanked over lack of an ESRB rating and not as a moral objection to the content. It's back now.

My feeling is that art reflects culture. If something like this succeeds, it's because there's a feeling for it already there.

I honestly expect Hatred to get a sales spike from the controversy, then to probably wither away. That angsty rage vibe is very nineties.

[Hotfoot]

There's always going to be a market for reprehensible media, there's nothing really new there. Right now, this is just the Greenlight process, Steam can and has pulled games after being Greenlit for a number of reasons. The big difference is that in the past, most of those have been due to developers outright lying about what their games were capable of or other misrepresentations.

This one is going to be about what standards Steam is going to have going forward. Will anything go, content-wise, or will there be hard limits? There's no ESRB rating for Hatred and likely never will be, it's a voluntary system that most Indies don't apply to.

I'm in favor of Steam being able to say "No" based on a number of different variables regarding the game's content. They should have them clearly defined but not in the usual "you get one utterance of 'fuck' at Pg-13" sort of ways. Context should matter, for violence, sex, and so on. With the massive influx of indie games on Steam, some are going to have get rejected even if there's enough people asking for it.

Hatred will get its sales if it's on Steam or not. It may not get as many if it's not on Steam, but it will get them, make no mistake. I doubt it will get a tremendous number either way, because it's only going to appeal to a relatively small market of people who get it either as a joke, a "protest" against "censors", or truly misanthropic individuals like those the game seems to be developed by. But if there are truly no standards of content on Steam for what gets in and what doesn't, expect this to be the first of many truly noxious games submitted to Greenlight.

[Josh]

Oh yeah, I definitely agree that Steam has all legal rights to refuse content however it damn well pleases.

However, rejecting art because it offends us is always a tricky path. A serious drama featuring a protagonist in a gay relationship would've played bloody murder getting on TV prior to the past decade or so, and the objections that would've been made would've been from moral grounds, "What about the chilluns!" and so forth. But in our more enlightened time, we'd call somebody who tried to put one on the air in the eighties a courageous visionary.

Basically, it's going to boil down knowing obscenity when we see it, which is likely already the standard that the Steam S&P folks already run on. And regardless, people are always going to push at the boundaries because that's what humans and particularly artists (or wannabe artists) do. Inevitably they'll ask what the difference between the prostitute murder in GTA and their more elaborate BTK simulator is, and it will be hypocritical to pass one and block the other because they're both the simulation of violent, horrific acts.

There's no perfect standard and as a consequence there will always be hypocrisy. Formulating guidelines to block something like Hatred will inevitably point back to other games that got passed. So if that's the road you want to go, then be even-handed about it, take the hit on removing older titles, and be done with it.

That won't happen though, any more than Amazon will abide by its KDP guidelines by pulling Lolita off the virtual shelf.

Out of curiosity, what sort of clear standard would you promulgate?

[Hotfoot]

With regards to homosexuality, that gets to an interesting divide we have as a culture between sex and violence. I've very nearly brought it up before in this thread, but I decided against it because the question here is very clearly on violence, rather than sex or sexuality. There have been games in the past denied shelf space in stores because of explicit sexual content. GTA: San Andreas, once the Hot Coffee easter egg was revealed, but more on the point the Sims-clone "Singles", which was basically The Sims, but with nudity and sex. It had an AO (Adults Only) rating and thus the only way one could get it at the time in the US was through early digital distribution. Should it have gotten on Steam? Well, I think so, but then I think it's a pretty simple statement to make that the depiction of consensual sex is certainly more defensible than most forms of violence.

That one thing might have been censored or restricted from viewing does not make it equitable to another things which might be censored or restricted from viewing. The only thing in common is that, at some point, a group of people have decided that they do not wish to show such a thing or provide such a thing, as is the case with Australian Stores removing GTA5 from shelves and Steam deciding what they publish and what they do not. Again, context matters. Why is the material offensive, what potential harm can come from it, etc.?

I could easily make the argument that every time a spree killer gets a week of 24 hour news network time devoted to them, it encourages others who might become spree killers to act. While other acts of violent crime are generally decreasing, spree killings have increased. Making a game which glorifies spree killing of innocent people to the point where it's the central purpose of the game, one could very easily argue, may encourage spree killers. It may, of course, also discourage them, by giving them a safe space to act out their urges without actually hurting anyone, but that's only if they buy and play it, as opposed to seeing it advertised and seen as "generally acceptable" now.

It's a tough issue. Games have been pulled or cancelled or edited because they've been too close to home. A recent Modern Military Shooter had to change the name of one of the teams in multiplayer to "OpFor" from "Taliban" because of public pressure. Silly, perhaps, because the game was otherwise unchanged, but interesting in terms of what we're looking at.

As for me, I'm not certain. I think the game is vile and the people making it reprehensible. I'm not certain I'm the best judge right now as a result of that. I know that if I were in charge of a store, I wouldn't stock it. Let someone go somewhere else to buy that shit. It's the internet, there are options. As for a hard and fast rule? I'm not sure I can easily think of one beyond not funding or giving space to hate groups, and I'd have to prove that with reasonable accuracy. It of course also might mean that I couldn't sell Advent Rising, but really that's not much of a loss and I'd be willing to take that hit.

[General Havoc]

Given that we saw just this week a major movie studio pull the release and cancel all plans for a major motion picture because someone was offended enough by it to threaten to kill people, I am afraid my reaction is going to be considerably more simple than the rest of yours. Spree killing existed before the media glorification of it did, as did the desire to do the horrid things that are in Hatred or other games such as Manhunt or the equivalents. ISIS beheads journalists and the Taliban slaughters children without any spur from such games or things, and hate groups pre-date the existence of media as a thing. I consequently conclude, as I often do, with my re-affirmed position that I trust nobody, not myself, not anyone on this board, not the government or Valve or any corporation or NGO or "neutral party" or any other person who has ever or will ever exist with the right to decide what forms of expression are and are not acceptable based on moral offense. Not one. I accept no excuses as to hate groups, moral corruption, secondary effects, seduction of the innocent, threats and violence. Having been the subject of more than one accusation of being a member of a hate group myself in the past, I know how easily such claims are twisted around to form a phalanx against such ideas as the group in power finds objectionable, as they have in every single case in human history wherein such censorial power has been offered to anyone. I do not begrudge people's introspection, nor deny that this is a debate that holds a great deal of nuance for many people, but I am not among them. This is a subject on which my views are ironclad. Steam Greenlight has the right to decide what will and will not be published on this platform, but I have the right to regard them as arrant cowards. Censorship is perhaps the wrong word for what they have done, given that they are not claiming the rights to arbitrate what can and cannot exist, merely what they will lend their name to. I condemn the decision all the same. A content publisher is a de-facto arbiter of content, and must be regarded as such.

With respect to those whose position on such things is less absolutist than mine, I must disagree that context is important. It is indeed important in how to interpret a work, but it is, by necessity, a subjective issue, and cannot be relied upon to gauge the suitability of a work for existence. Elsewise it is too easy to simply abolish that which is harmful to your particular position or politics via the lens of political context. Why a material is offensive has no bearing, in my mind, to whether it should be allowed to exist. Harmfulness I restrict solely to the prospect of imminent, direct, causal, physical harm, the "Fire in a crowded theater" argument, or the radio broadcaster providing real-time direction for genocidal mobs towards civilians to kill. The mere fact that a work may inspire riots, anger people, invoke reciprocal threats or wars or whatnot, I do not accept as a defense for banning it.

Hatred holds no interest to me. The game looks, as Hotfoot said, vile and reprehensible, to say nothing of simply bad. I will, however, defend its right to exist and to be purchased free of harassment or restriction. I will do this in good conscience, knowing full well that I have defended far worse than Hatred before. I defended the Columbine shooting game under the same proviso. I defended the KKK Jew-killing simulators, and the HAMAS training camp shooter knockoffs. I defended The Innocence of Muslims and the Satanic Verses. I defended the right of political consultants to lie to people as to what day elections were in an effort to suppress voter turnout. By comparison to these things, I shall lose absolutely no sleep in defending Hatred. And defend it I will.

[Hotfoot]

I would simply argue that there is a distinct difference between refusing to actively publish something and "banning" it. The idea that Steam is under some sort of obligation to publish any game, regardless of content, is absurd on the face of it, especially since we exist in an era in which self-publishing is essentially available to anyone. There are hundreds of games that do just exactly that because they know no other publisher will distribute their game. The only thing being denied to a game by not being on Steam is volume of sales, not overall access.

[General Havoc]

Yes, it's true that there is a difference between refusing to publish a thing and banning the thing, but that difference isn't always as ironclad as all that. If a platform is dominant in the market-space it inhabits, then refusal to publish the thing is indeed quite similar to banning it, the way that Amazon refusing to carry a book can be tantamount to banning it. There are indeed other methods of publication, and Steam, as I said, as a right to decide what they will and won't publish, but this is a standard they manifestly do not keep to religiously, nor could they keep to it even if they wished to, as it's a subjective standard in the first place. And I do not like dominant market players deciding what the industry is and is not allowed to be comprised of. Steam may not have that level of control over their particular market, but there are companies that do. And regardless of whether they do or not, while Steam is allowed to do this, I am allowed to regard them as arrant cowards in the aftermath of having done so.

[Hotfoot]

The problem I have is that "quite similar" is not enough, not anymore. Perhaps back when brick and mortar stores were the only way to get certain goods or products, that argument could work better, but it doesn't. Entire industries have sprung up on the Internet because existing structures refused to allow content or products on their service. Webcomics, Kickstarter, Steam itself, bluntly.

Steam only really started bringing in Indie games through Greenlight over the last year and change, and it's been a rocky system since it started. Still, despite that, there have been literally thousands of games submitted, of which thousands have been accepted and added to Steam, and only a few of which have had problems serious enough to justify their removal from the service. Up until now, the most obvious cases have been pretty open and shut cases of, well, fraud. Games promising things they can't actually do, and so forth.

There's already an "Objectionable Materials" clause in the Greenlight process, which is what was used to justify the removal of the game originally. The issue is that it's not a well defined clause and people are asking for it to be well defined. The question now is how. In one respect, removing the game from the service gives the thing too much credit, it looks like a shit game and they'll ride the notoriety to sales. That said, allowing it creates a precedent in which Steam now can become a platform for hate groups to get funding, reach, and exposure they would have never achieved otherwise.

If Steam had established itself as a sort of public library of gaming, there'd be no question. Stock the game, end of discussion.

Ultimately, the market will decide one way or the other, but for years thousands of indie games, including those with hideously objectionable content, have managed to survive and even thrive without Steam. If this was about ISPs refusing to host the game's servers, or banning the content from even appearing on a google search, it would be a different conversation, but this is about demanding that a publishing company no longer being able to decide what they choose to publish because they have a large market share.

To go to the movie example, Sony decided to make that movie. I'm pretty sure it would have tanked and been terrible anyway, but they can make it. I didn't like that they made it, but fine, it's their studio, their actors, their money. They CHOSE to make it. They can do that. Other people can bitch and moan and ask them not to, but a line was crossed and they were hacked and threatened with violence and they backed down. Someone ELSE intimidated them into not showing it.

Steam, meanwhile, has an application process for indie games to get onto Steam. It relies on the votes of users to get noticed, and Steam then decides if they want to publish the game or not. Someone in Steam decided to reject the game, and a bunch of people screamed about it on the Internet and someone higher up reversed the decision.

The difference here is that one act involved people performing illegal acts and terrorism, the other was consumer feedback. Should Steam decide to ultimately not accept the game later on (it's still in the greenlight process), it would still be their decision. It will be a potentially major decision for the purpose of how many sales the game might get, but the game was getting made with or without Steam. At that point, we're talking about the right to sales and advertising, which is an absurd thing on the face of it.

[Josh]

I am absolutist on their right to publish the game. I'm also entirely comfortable with Steam not carrying it.

If there was a threat of actual censorship then I'd be planting the flag on it.

Take my Lolita example: as a KDP author, I'm not bothered by Amazon's double-standards on the issue. I'll admit that it's hypocritical while also readily admitting that the vast, vast majority of works that would be entered into KDP involving underage sex would be nothing more than pedophile spank material.

I would also disagree that Amazon constitutes a complete blackout- there are alternative services, even if they put you out on the ten percent fringe of the market.

To argue otherwise would be to essentially argue that if I took up writing editorials the newspapers would be obliged to carry them no matter how disagreeable or unpopular (revenue-costing) they were.

[Lys]

I see this as nothing more than a business decision on the part of Steam. They feel that publishing certain games will project a bad image and cost them business, so they won't. Then people whined about one in particular, and they figured controversy might cost them more business than just publishing the damn thing and letting it sink into obscurity, so they reversed the decision. There's really not much else to it here. Far as I'm concerned, if a publisher making a decision to not publish something is tantamount to censorship, then the problem is not the publisher's decision, but rather the fact that they hold a monopoly on the market. Monopolies are bad for precisely this reason. If a monopoly doesn't exist, then it's simply a matter of one party refusing to conduct business with another, and that's not a problem.

As for the game Hatred itself, mostly I just find it very disturbing, to the point that the trailer alone was enough to make me feel sick. I also find shit like Hostel or the Saw movies to be disturbing and unpleasant, and I want nothing to do with them either. I do think that tone matters a lot in these things, in fact it probably matters more than the subject matter itself. Postal 2, for example, is a sterling example of black comedy in videogame form, and I find it hilarious. The main reason is, as I said in a previous thread, that whole thing is just too surreal and over the top to take seriously.

Also consider the song Pumped Up Kicks by Foster People. It's pretty blatantly about a school shooting, like the chorus is straight up "The cool kids better run fast or I'll shoot them". Yet as far as I can tell the song has gotten nothing but accolades, with praise focusing particularly in its quirky upbeat tune and catchy lyrics. I don't disagree either, it's an excellent song and I'm rather fond of it. Then there's Hatred, which has a similar subject matter but the opposite effect on me and the general public, I think precisely because it takes a diametrically different tone.

To go to the movie example, Sony decided to make that movie. I'm pretty sure it would have tanked and been terrible anyway, but they can make it. I didn't like that they made it, but fine, it's their studio, their actors, their money. They CHOSE to make it.

Why don't you like that they made it? It looked hilarious, and frankly North Korea is so far past the fucked-up and horrifying threshold that parodying it is the only rational response left. Also, you know, it resulted in Sony getting hacked by North Korea, which is pretty high on the list of greatest things that have happened this year. Witness as Democratic People's Republic of Korea's glorious revolutionary computer warfare specialists strike great blow against capitalist oppressors! They have prevented movie insulting to Dear Leader from being released! Great victory on this day! *patriotic song plays*

[Hotfoot]

As to why I'd rather Sony never made "The Interview"? Because it looked like unfunny shit, for one. Team America: World Police, at the very least, was so over the top no one could take it seriously. It had puppets doing musical numbers. So was Hot Shots: Part Deux. This, ostensibly, was about two morons being sent to kill a sitting ruler of an existing nation. I'm not sure how this was going to be funny in the first place, never mind my natural dislike for Seth Rogan's style of humor.

Imagine if, tomorrow, the UK made a film about two of their comedians being sent to assassinate the President of the United States, Barack Obama. One would have to reach pretty far to actually make that funny.

One of the definitions of comedy is tragedy mixed with distance. The distance can be time, absurdity, or any number of other things. There are people who want any sitting world leader dead. To make that concept funny, you have to have SOMETHING to distance it from the ugly reality of it actually happening. Throw in the fact that in recent memory, the United States government has committed such an assassination (granted, I wouldn't call Bin Laden a leader of a nation, but still), it makes it even harder to make it funny.

I'm sick and tired of movies that confuse gratuity with content. Comedies that replace humor with shock, cruelty, and pop culture references. Horror movies that replace suspense with screaming and torture porn. Action movies that replace tense, suspenseful battles with buckets of lame CGI bullshit. The Interview was going to be just another drop in the pile of fucking bullshit movies that I would have added to the long list of shit I wouldn't see if you paid me, but now, while I still wouldn't watch the damn thing, I have to go tell Sony that they fucked up and they SHOULD release it. Fuck Sony for ever making it in the first place, but fuck them more for pulling it because of this bullshit. The damage had already been done. They lost millions, possibly BILLIONS of dollars due to that hack attack. They were going to release it anyway. Even if there had been a terror attack from North Korea, nobody would have blamed them for releasing it, and North Korea would become New South China. Perhaps that's a bit cold, but I don't seriously think there would have been an attack.

[Lys]

The entirety of North Korea's regime is itself absurd to the point that pretty much anything they do is a parody of itself. Witness how people readily believed that one of their pop stars, an ex-girlfriend of Jong-Un I believe, had been machine-gunned to death along with her entire troupe for embarrassing the regime. Then the woman shows up months later on live television, proving she's alive and the whole story was bullshit, but because it came out of North Korea it rang true. Or the one about Jong-Un's uncle being obliterated with a mortar round. We're pretty sure he's really been executed, but whether they actually used a mortar is dubious, yet I wouldn't be surprised if it's true. The whole of North Korea is just utterly ridiculous, effectively being the most horrifying joke on the planet, and forced to choose between horror and humour, most people pick humour. That's where the distance comes from.

[Hotfoot]

Yes, the regime is ridiculous, he's a pathetic tin pot dictator who tells utterly absurd lies to his own people. The problem? It's been shown that most of them buy it. They honestly believe North Korea is a better place than most other places in the world, that they're lucky to be as they are.

And to South Korea, they represent a serious threat, because they're still technically at war and there's always the specter of it starting up again with artillery shells darkening the skies of Seoul. Because there's the very dangerous issue that this Great Leader may in fact buy his own press or actually be crazy enough to start things up again, and if he does, what follows?

Barring that, however, nothing you've stated really changes my position. It's really just not very funny to make a movie about killing a sitting (or frankly, living) foreign leader, no matter who they are. It's not that the subject is utterly verboten, it's been (sort of) handled in the past, but in ways it's hard to take seriously at all. I've not seen this movie, but based on the previews, it looked horrid. Internal memos leaked from the hack also indicate that the studio felt it wasn't funny, even when they went with the more comical death of Kim Jong Un.

That said, there's a growing thought inside of me that wonders if this hasn't been some sort of bizarre viral marketing campaign for the movie. If that's the case, honestly, I hope Sony's movie department gets sued into oblivion.

[rhoenix]

To be honest, I'm still skeptical that North Korea (or a faction thereof) is actually behind the hack. It still seems likely to me that Sony's treating North Korea (as a remote crazy hermit kingdom nobody really talks to) as a scapegoat to draw attention away from themselves as much as possible in the wake of what was revealed, and attempting to not only score sympathy points, but try to cash in those sympathy points to get some policy changes made.

I'm having a very difficult time believing that Sony, a prominent Japanese technology and entertainment company, was overcome and exploited by North Korea's "elite cadre of hackers," no matter how utterly abysmal their network security practices were.

[Lys]

Well, if the North Koreans weren't behind it they certainly went out of their way to make everyone think this was the case. Usually their government is quick to categorically deny anything it might have been involved in. This? They didn't deny it for a whole week, apparently unable to decide whether they actually wanted to or not. It's possible they didn't do it and were debating whether it was worth it to take credit anyway, or perhaps they did do it and are being coy about it, but either way their hesitation is uncharacteristic.

rhoenix, the company that got hacked is Sony Pictures Entertainment not Sony Corporation. Sure the latter owns the former, but whereas the latter is a Japanese technology conglomerate, the latter is an American entertainment company. You really should be looking at this as if Paramount Pictures had been hacked, not as if Microsoft has been hacked. Furthermore, thanks to the wonders of outsourcing the North Koreans don't need some manner of elite cadre of hackers to pull this off. All they need is a crate of counterfeit dollars and access to Chinese hackers, both of which they have.

[rhoenix]

Well, if the North Koreans weren't behind it they certainly went out of their way to make everyone think this was the case. Usually their government is quick to categorically deny anything it might have been involved in. This? They didn't deny it for a whole week, apparently unable to decide whether they actually wanted to or not. It's possible they didn't do it and were debating whether it was worth it to take credit anyway, or perhaps they did do it and are being coy about it, but either way their hesitation is uncharacteristic.

rhoenix, the company that got hacked is Sony Pictures Entertainment not Sony Corporation. Sure the latter owns the former, but whereas the latter is a Japanese technology conglomerate, the latter is an American entertainment company. You really should be looking at this as if Paramount Pictures had been hacked, not as if Microsoft has been hacked. Furthermore, thanks to the wonders of outsourcing the North Koreans don't need some manner of elite cadre of hackers to pull this off. All they need is a crate of counterfeit dollars and access to Chinese hackers, both of which they have.

That all is true, and I grant you all of the above points. However, I would liken this situation to accusing, say, Bangladesh of electronic espionage against NASA. If you're from Bangladesh, I'd imagine you'd almost be tempted to say "sure, yeah, that was me," if only out of ego - even if you don't actually own a computer.

Yes, it's possible someone from Bangladesh was able to bankroll the operation, in the same way it's possible for pigs to evolve wings and become various species of flying porcine mammals. I just wouldn't describe it as probable.

[Lys]

The government of Bangladesh is quite capable of hiring Indian hackers to go after a film studio if they were so inclined. They're just not crazy or petty enough to actually do so, even if said film studio were to come out with something staggeringly insulting to Bangladesh, but the DPRK very much is that crazy and petty. Also, you know, the FBI seems to think it was the North Koreans.

In other news, Sony claims it hasn't dropped The Interview and is "surveying alternatives to enable us to release the movie on a different platform." Their statement goes on to say, "Let us be clear - the only decision that we have made with respect to release of the film was not to release it on Christmas Day in theatres, after the theatre owners declined to show it. Without theatres, we could not release it in the theatres on Christmas Day. We had no choice. It is still our hope that anyone who wants to see this movie will get the opportunity to do so."

Time to lay your bets gentlemen! Is the Interview going direct to video, or are they merely stalling for time so they can quietly bury it once the affair blows over?

[General Havoc]

Sony is full of shit. They explicitly stated they were planning on releasing it nowhere, under any format, ever, and now they want to blame the theaters and claim they had no choice? I hope the North Koreans hack them again.

[Josh]

Whatever the original intent, Sony has gotten millions in free publicity for this movie no matter how much of a lameass shitfest it turns out to be. They'd be dumb not to find a way to release it at this point.

[Lys]

Sony is full of shit. They explicitly stated they were planning on releasing it nowhere, under any format, ever, and now they want to blame the theaters and claim they had no choice? I hope the North Koreans hack them again.

Yes, and now they're pretending they didn't because even the President of the United States called them out on it, which is some special level of 'you done fucked up' right there. Though to be fair, the première was in fact cancelled after every major movie theatre company in the US made it clear that they would not be showing the film, that was a thing that happened. However, nobody asked them to state explicitly that they weren't planning on releasing it on any format ever, that's on them. So now that they're back-pedalling we get to call them out on their shit again. Really, this whole affair's just been precious.

[rhoenix]

Really, this whole affair's just been precious.

On that, we certainly agree.

[General Havoc]

Sony is full of shit. They explicitly stated they were planning on releasing it nowhere, under any format, ever, and now they want to blame the theaters and claim they had no choice? I hope the North Koreans hack them again.

Yes, and now they're pretending they didn't because even the President of the United States called them out on it, which is some special level of 'you done fucked up' right there. Though to be fair, the première was in fact cancelled after every major movie theatre company in the US made it clear that they would not be showing the film, that was a thing that happened. However, nobody asked them to state explicitly that they weren't planning on releasing it on any format ever, that's on them. So now that they're back-pedalling we get to call them out on their shit again. Really, this whole affair's just been precious.

The theaters made this clear only after Sony made a completely unprovoked announcement that any theater that wanted to call off the premier was free to do so, wink wink, nudge nudge. They as good as begged the theater companies to step in and refuse so they'd have an excuse to refrain from releasing the film. A pox on them.

[Lys]

Ah, the news didn't report that part, I guess it really is all Sony's doing then. Though I have to admit that's actually pretty clever, say that any theatre is free to pull the film, then throw up your hands and pretend it's all their fault that you have to cancel the première. Would have worked if they'd only been more subtle about it, but Sony fucked it up by saying they would not release it ever under any format. If to begin with they'd implied that it would still be released, just direct to video, they would have been free to bury the thing once the story died down. It's amusing to see Sony desperately keep trying to get the story out of the news cycle and watching their efforts keep blowing up in their faces. Turns out hype machines are bad at burying things, what a surprise.

[General Havoc]

I'm glad everyone else finds this situation funny. I do not. This is the end of an entire range of films on any number of subjects. Everything from Casablanca to 12 Years a Slave to Red Dawn to the Manchurian Candidate to One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich to a thousand other films of greater or lesser quality. Sony has just lost a hundred million dollars on a film that was critical of a contentious figure, and film studios are staffed by errant cowards. In consequence, you will never again see a movie akin to any of the ones I have just cited above made by a major studio anywhere in the world for the rest of your natural lives. No thinking studio head will ever put any amount of money again into any film that runs the risk of some fringe group on the internet making threats to kill somebody, and now that this is an open license to control the distribution lists of major film producers, every film that is critical of any ideology ever will have such fringe elements. Sony just killed the most important and interesting third-to-half of the medium of film. For the rest of the 21st century or as long as the medium itself lasts.

I don't know if my mood will change on this subject, but right now I am so disgusted that I never wish to see or hear spoken of another film again. Ever.