I did not like what CD projectred did, in regard to releasing a buggy, broken, and frankly unfinished game. A company with hundreds of millions of dollars, forcing workers to endure crunch time, all while serving shareholders and investors, individuals who have no business in the art form. The utter hypocrisy to dive into the cyberpunk genre, with no self awareness of the very evils the corporation behind the game has committed, is frankly disturbing, and morally disgusting. This company has no regard, no respect, to those who would actually live such a life.
What does any company want? A society of consumers. Hypocrisy. They lied about what it is. We know that they lied. Hell, even more than that, they know that we know that they know they are lying. Yet...still they lie. The game is a corpse, a product, a commodity packaged and stamped and patented to be out in the footlights, gawked at by investors and appeasing a genre that has been taken by the very entities that it has long since criticized.
I also find it's attempts of the cyberpunk genre frankly inept. Deus ex, blade runner (the first movie especially), metropolis (super old but good movie), do androids dream of electric sheep, among other movies, games and books have done a far better job illustrating the death of the human soul. A snake consuming its own tail, oblivious to its own suicidal actions. Not suicide according to pain or suffering. Nor is it a suicide according to some techno fetishists. No. It's a suicide, when an appetite for greed and vice become so strong, that you die bursting from within, a carnal death for a carnal life. But they kill everyone else, and harm everyone directly by doing so. Yet why aren't you criticizing them? Why is the onus on such a person, living in an abusive household, beaten, molested, poor, no one to help them? Why are they at fault for their suicide, for seeking freedom, away from this consuming monster?
The Games suicide ending is everything that is wrong in regard to understanding the nuances of death and life. It attempts to give a preachy ending, as if they could monopolize the meaning of life and death. It certainly does not help when Keanu Reeves decides to just take over your body. Victim blaming at its finest.
What the games does offer, it does not do well. Just because there are flashing neon signs and lifeless NPCs, am I supposed to be impressed? That's foolishness.
Suicide, depression, mental illness. All of this disturbs me, but for a certain few reasons. First, in many ways they can be akin to a personalized cancer. One thing I have learned, in my short time of being in this Forum, is that there are many individuals from all walks of life here. What helps or doesn't help them also varies. This is what makes mental health so difficult. But there is something more insidious at hand, something I have noticed in academic discussions especially.
Mental health is treated still as an individual flaw. Why is it the person's fault they committed suicide? What does it say about their family? Their home? Their community? Their country? The reality of it is, is that if we actually looked into a holistic approach for treating suicide, you would finally realize that suicide is not an individual fault. For years, centuries, we are told that it is the individual who has to heal. My answer is no.
In order for the individual to heal, society must heal. Trauma is not what happens to you, it's what happens inside of you.
Why are you even here? Why aren't you sending this to your local government? When Ronald Reagan decided, alongside the rest of his entourage, to undo mental health protections and wards, the assumption was that the "churches" and the "people" would pick up the slack...they didn't.
50,000 committed suicide in the United States last year. That is unacceptable. It does not suggest that they were at fault. No. The government, the leadership, the community, all have failed. No one wants to assume responsibility or guilt for it.
My only regret with commiting suicide, even though I haven't already, is that I wouldn't be around to fight against this cancer of victim blaming, gaslighting, and pushing guilt and responsibility into others, especially among the most vulnerable in society.
When Jesus Christ entered into the temple of Jerusalem, and found Money changers, profit seekers, and those looking to take advantage of others sacrifice and time, what did he do? Did he cry? Did he say nothing? Did he walk away? Did he ask them to leave?
No, he drove them out.
Your video game, CD projectred, and frankly any plutocrat or any form autocracy, and all governments, represent that very reality. You speak of being pro life, of thinking about our families and friends, when the environment, the community, the city, the government, the policies, the laws, the culture, the families and friends, even the very language, all scream the opposite. You cannot oppress and create a world that worships hardness and strength, the death of the human soul, and be surprised when those that look at this wasteland, realize that there is nothing good left here.
One last thing. I know you might take my comment as rude or offensive. Truly believe me, when I say that I do not wish to make enemies out of anyone. Nor do I wish anyone to suffer. I am glad you are doing better. I hope everyone and everything, from the tallest of trees to the smallest of animals, could be better. But we don't live in that world.
Genie, the feral child's story changed me. Reading about children being bayoneted to death haunts me, as described in the Brothers Karmazov. And reading how corporations, governments, and leaders abuse and refuse to take care of their people, angers me beyond all description.
There are many things I can tolerate and forgive. But one thing I will not tolerate, is the abuse of the most vulnerable. Victim blaming and gaslighting them into a belief system that got them there in the first place. A raw visceral torment, that started not with them...but with others. Guilt, love where it cannot find home. Guilt, where pain cannot turn into relief.
Perhaps I said a bunch of useless words, being the ignoramus that I am. It's late, and this 25 year old fool needs his bed rest. If anyone is interested in any art forms that actually do the genre justice, send me a DM or just message me here, and I'll send out a list to you. Once you realize that power does not share, nor does it care, you see patterns. Patterns of abuse. Rewards for abuse...even celebrations of abuse. This world runs on trauma and suicide.
Trauma and suicide are not bugs or defects of any nation. They are features, proof that the system is working as intended.
