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Tedd Video Game Opinions - 011 - HD (Patreon)

Published:
2021-05-28 04:07:55
Imported:
2021-07

Content

Sarahvee!

At egscomics 

Commentary

This was posted late enough to be a Friday EGSNP, but I am boldly claiming it was a Thursday EGSNP, for I have no respect for clocks.

My honest assumption is that the word is fine, but I had that third panel thought while trying to figure out what the heck the third panel of this would be, and decided "yes. This is a way to conclude this comic."

I basically just had the first two panels in mind for the longest time.

Panel one: Sarah pops up, says "spiders", shocked Diane-a-chu face.

Panel two: Somewhat wordy explanation of how arachnophobia is a genuine issue with video games.

Panel three: ?????, profit

Phobias

As I've mentioned a few times in EGS's history, phobias are irrational fears (either in regard to what they are or their severity), and a person can know perfectly well that they're irrational and still have them.

In short, it's not as simple as using logic to argue why one shouldn't be afraid, and there are some things that are more likely to be issues than others.

That doesn't mean people can't have spiders in games, but it is worth asking if it's worth have spiders in their games.

Files

Comments

Narzain

And now I've had my cardio for the day. It is a valid point, though.

Stephen Gilberg

It makes sense for games that aim to be genuinely scary. Some people have nyctophobia, and that hasn't stopped any horrors from employing literal darkness. Boring? Well, I suppose giant spiders are overused. Tho "Kill It With Fire" stands out for using seemingly normal household spiders.

Merle Blue

Counterpoint: spiders are cute :(

IvyReed

So Sarah is an Eevee? ... DOES THIS MEAN MORE GRACE-MON stuff!!

Latency

Satisfactory has some really creepy spider like aliens. They also have an arachnophobia setting that replaces them with kittens that are oddly even more terrifying...

Latency
>>60730707

Definitely trigger warning https://youtu.be/UJ6bxL50-Gk

Anonymous

I was already a fan of Sarah, but Sarahvee is definitely the best version of Sarah, and it needs to be canon. Also, as always, thanks for the explanation of phobia =3. I feel like it is something people without it still have trouble understanding. You cannot reason with it at all.

Anonymous
>>60729065

Yeah, I like spiders. I just don't talk about it much because I don't wanna squick people out. Luckily there is now an anime with a spider protagonist so I can go enjoy that :) ... But what I want banned from everything is cockroaches, even thinking about then can be nauseating :(

W C Purdy

Counterpoint: if we try to cater to everybody's specific fears and hangups, then we won't have any games at all. Furthermore, exposure therapy IS actually a proven way to help people deal with these specific anxieties, so it's possible, depending on the severity of that arachnophobia, that playing games where you're empowered to kill giant spiders might even HELP some people with arachnophobia. I had Cynophobia - a fear of dogs - from being nearly mauled to death by a doberman when I was 4. I never once demanded that games stop using dogs in them, and it was only after years of exposure to them that I slowly stopped having anxiety attacks every time I was in the same room as a dog. Nowadays I still struggle with particularly large dogs, and I startle real bad every time I hear a bark, but I can be in the same room with, and even play with small-to-mid sized dogs, and I largely owe that to being forced to spend time around dogs

Kaz Redclaw

Grounded has an arachnophobia slider. You put it all the way to one side and it's realistic spiders. As you slide it to the other side, it gradually makes the spiders less spiderlike. Personally, I think jumping spiders are quite photogenic and friendly. I'd rather have spiders in my game than things like centipedes.

Anonymous
>>60734271

Okay, but that's not what the argument in the comic is. Fear of spiders is one of the top ten fears in most countries - I saw a recent thing for the UK that said 18% of people admitted to some kind of fear of spiders. It's not possible to cater for *every* fear, but one that might be a fifth of your audience and has an only slightly lower game appearance rate than anachronistic wooden crates? That's fixable.

Anonymous
>>60734271

Counter-counterpoint: That's not what exposure therapy is, also shut the fuck up

Anonymous

Dragon Age Inquisition has a part where you're fighting spiders in a dream world that represent actual fears. Each of them is labeled with the fear they represent. One of them is labeled "Ironical, Spiders"

W C Purdy
>>60734271

There are some people - a very slim margin of people - who are so afraid of spiders they literally stop being able to function and maybe even start to feel sick in their presence. I know of at least one because a youtuber I follow, RTGame, has admitted to this level of arachnophobia. That said, not all phobias are built equally, and not all 18% of those people who claim have "some kind of fear" of spiders are going to be affected on that level. In fact, I would wager that only a VERY small minority are as badly affected as RTGame is. And you can't speak to how all the rest of those people will respond to fighting and triumphing over spiders in a safe environment like in games. Many of them might find it cathartic, or even empowering. So I don't think this is something that even needs to be fixed. You guys are concerned either with "protecting" either a large population that doesn't need protecting, or catering to a tiny minority of people too small for developers to reasonably be compelled to make grand sweeping changes for. It's like asking people to stop using the Greek gods in games because it's offensive to Neo-Hellenists. Meanwhile I'm more concerned with preserving artistic intent and integrity. Sure, put trigger warnings on the box or the Steam page if you want, in fact I encourage it, but there's so many moral busybodies these days desperately trying to get their personal hangups banned from games or other media and then using people somehow "affected" by those hangups as puppets to prove their opinions are the "right and moral" ones. Dan is treading very close to that line now, and it's a line I'm sick of. Up to this point, Dan's mostly been saying "these are some features and mechanics I wish existed in games, or this is how I wish these game mechanics worked," and that's fine. But this is the first time he's really gotten to the point of "this common thing should be removed because I don't like it," and it's made worse by him trying to use people with an anxiety disorder as a shield. Dan does not speak for people with arachnophobia. Even if he HAS arachnophobia, he does not speak for "people with arachnophobia" because everybody's anxiety disorders manifest differently. If Dan had just said, "I wish people would use spiders less because they are overplayed and boring" that would be one thing. I'd even agree with the sentiment. But I wouldn't start going onto the internet and demanding developers change their artistic intentions - even if they're intentions I consider overplayed and boring - because that stifles creativity and artistic enthusiasm. And I certainly wouldn't use "but think of the people with X-phobia" as an excuse because not only can I not speak for those people, but that leads to a slippery slope where you can demand that game developers remove just about anything that somebody finds frightening or offensive. And then, like I said at the beginning, you'll have no games.

Kaz Redclaw
>>60734285

They're not too bad, they have shoes and only a dozen or so legs.

Anonymous
>>60734271

There are some truths in what you say. I am severely affected by arachnophobia...when they are real. Though I've grown to ignore really small ones (I'm talkin a few millimeters large), seeing a bigger one is sure to create a stressful situation. I wasn't able to walk under a tree arch because a spider web was crossing over the path between the trees. Three meters high! I could not go through, because I couldn't help imagining the spider dropping, accidentally (the most plausible one) or even willfully (the most ridiculous one, but it still was in my head). And yet, I love Eight Legged Freaks and I played Deadly Creatures, a videogame where you play AS a mygale spider. On the other hand, I know some people who cannot watch a fake spider, no matter how unrealistic looking it is. So, no, you can't consider that one fifth of your potential audience is unable to play if there are spiders That being said, there is also such a thing as too much of a good thing. It's a cheap fright to include spiders, precisely because a lot of people have a negative reaction to them.

Anonymous
>>60729065

Cute? Really? I admit they are very well designed, but cute? Most of them are still ugly as hell. A few are comically weird, but cute? No. Even Goro spiders are not cute, despite their vibrant colouring.

Anonymous

Yeah my arachnophobia has stopped me from random games unless they have mods. Like dragon age, which isn’t even supposed to be a scary game. At least make your game Mod-Friendly so that someone can do that

W C Purdy
>>60734271

I know some people have arachnophobia so severe they can't watch a fake spider, but that seems to be a minority. I know that, when I was dealing with my Cynophobia, I had no trouble watching dogs on a screen, or playing as a wolf in Twilight Princess, or fighting zombie dogs in Resident Evil, but being in the same room as a freaking CHIHUAHUA was enough to give me panic attacks (yes really). And if all that was being said was "it's a cheap fright to include spiders" I wouldn't have a problem. That's a valid opinion. "Spiders are boring" is a valid opinion. "I don't like spiders in my media" is a valid opinion. "I am concerned that having spiders in media is detrimental to people with arachnophobia" is a valid opinion even if, in most cases, that concern is most likely misplaced. "Games shouldn't have spiders," - the words that Dan uses in this comic - is not an opinion. It's a declarative statement. It's a DEMAND. And then it's followed up with a mealy-mouthed justification by implying that people with anxiety disorders (phobia is actually an outdated term that's no longer used in any professional context) are incapable of handling their fears represented on screen, and that they cannot separate fantasy from reality. EDIT: and for the small minority of people whose arachnophobia IS so severe that they cannot handle depictions of spiders, Alienea had the suggestion of using mods to remove spiders from the game. That is an excellent compromise in my opinion, and I feel like more games should be mod-friendly regardless.

W C Purdy
>>60771351

Mods are an excellent compromising solution to this issue. More games should be mod-friendly anyway.

ijuinkun
>>60731080

Dan did say that his first idea for Sarah, back before he started posting the series, was for Tedd to zap Sarah into a Pikachu form with the TF gun.

Some Ed
>>60730707

Watching that clip, I'd say it's the uncanny valley that makes those kittens so much more terrifying. - They're not properly animated. - As far as the movements they do have go, they move like spiders, not kittens.

Merle Blue
>>60729065

Jumping spiders are freaking adorable with their big eyes. I understand folks don't like 'em, but spiders are cute to me.