4 ms·

Assassin's Creed: Unity is re-igniting an historic debate

30 points by samclemens 12y ago

swang 12y ago
I smell a paid placed article. Assassin's Creed has been getting killed in the press for its numerous bugs, graphical glitches and its slowness and lag even on the beefiest of PC machines. Then all of a sudden this article but the game's "rich history" pops up? P.S. The Atlantic has no articles written about the numerous bugs from the game, even though it made it into several websites that usually don't cover video games. P.S. #2, The Atlantic is the website that produced that awful Scientology Paid Content Article[0] 0: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2013/01/15/the-atlantics-scientology-problem-start-to-finish/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2013/01/1...
- rverghes 12y ago
  So Ubisoft is also paying off the French politicians complaining about this? There are numerous links in the article. (If they are, that's pretty impressive work by the Ubisoft PR department.) The simpler explanation that someone at the Atlantic pays attention to French politics, saw these complaints, and spun it into an article for their American audience.
  - Zikes 12y ago
    They must have used all the money they saved by not doing any QA.
  - Ygg2 12y ago
    Maybe their PR department is Illuminati and the Masons (<- Sarcasm).
  - r00fus 12y ago
    From TFA: "Ubisoft, the maker of the Assassin’s Creed series of video games, which has been going since 2007 and has sold more than 70 million copies, is in fact French. " The French President's party isn't doing to well in the polls and I wouldn't put it past them to be this desperate (I see them as both winning in a sense here).
  - subtenante 12y ago
    Of course not. Alexis Corbière (from the same party than Mélenchon) is actually the one who got this analysis of the trailer first. It may have been a mistake from his, but he surely didn't do it for the money. He has already co-written a book concerning Robespierre[1], and is always on the lookout to bring the debate on this question. [1] http://www.amazon.fr/Robespierre-reviens-Alexis-Corbi%C3%A8re/dp/2364880378 http://www.amazon.fr/Robespierre-reviens-Alexis-Corbi%C3%A8r...
- bsaul 12y ago
  Nope, the controversy really did happen here (didn't last more than 2 days though). And the guy triggering it can be called anything, but he most likely wouldn't take money from a video game maker just to raise such a weird controversy. He's just taking any occasion he can to have media talk about him, and being on the extreme left, he is very much attached to the global positive feeling toward the french revolution (which he would probably like to see happen once again, with him being Robespierre, of course).
  - deciplex 12y ago
    If nothing else, The Terror served as an enduring lesson to the ruling class of Europe (and, for that matter, North America and beyond) about just how far they can push. Not totally enduring though, as it's a lesson that seems to be very nearly forgotten by now. Mélenchon may get his wish.
  - subtenante 12y ago
    This is false. Mélenchon does not wish media to talk about him (his private life is almost completely unknown, people know he has a daughter, but not much else) . He wants the media to talk about his ideas, and he takes any occasion he has to put them forward. He is not extreme left either. He is from what was considered the "normal, banal" left in the 1980's, which is now tagged extreme just because they have not stopped to use the phrase 'class struggle'.
    - bsaul 12y ago
      I guess times change... What was considered "normal left" when the ussr still existed is now considered a bit more radical now.. He did make a coalition with what's left of the communist party until very recently, though.
      - subtenante 12y ago
        The coalition still exists, but the French communist party (PCF) is generally not considered extreme left either, at least in France. They have had ministers in governments in the last decades. They have been financed by the USSR in its time, but have since made a lot of thinking and are not supporting Stalin's 'achievements' anymore. (Georges Marchais said back in the 1979 that the USSR's results were 'globally positive', which was already the premise of critics that were far more harsh in the 90's.)
- devindotcom 12y ago
  Relax, man. It's just an angle. Editors are always looking for original takes on popular news items - I have to pitch stuff like this all the time. That it is insufficiently critical of the game itself and the politics of post-launch embargoes and such isn't really enough to warrant allegations of corruption and conspiracy.
- prawn 12y ago
  People should be skeptical of the content they read, sure, but in this case has HN acted as a bit of a filter on the sort of content about the game reaching HN readers? This story made the front page while many about technical issues with the game have not.
ekianjo 12y ago
> The former leftist French presidential candidate, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, called it “propaganda against the people, the people who are [portrayed as] barbarians, bloodthirsty savages,” while the “cretin” that is Marie-Antoinette and the “treacherous” Louis XVI are portrayed as noble victims. “The denigration of the great Revolution is a dirty job to instill more self-loathing and déclinisme in the French,” he told Le Figaro (link in French). Melenchon, for those who do not know him, is an utter moron in French politics. Now we know he is also ignorant about History, because there's ample evidence that the age of Terror was barbaric and without mercy against anyone who may have shown any kind of sympathy for the nobility or the king, no matter their status. And with bloodthirsty guys like St Just, "Sympathy" could be defined as not being a fanatic for the revolutionary cause. And let's not forget the genocide in Vendee against masses of civilians still in favor of the King. The problem is that the Revolution did not stop at killing the King and its supporters, it basically turned into a massive genocide where everyone could become the next target. Hell, even Danton and Desmoulins were convicted to betray the Revolution ideals. On a side note, Melenchon is known soviet Russia supporter and he probably has the same reading of the Gulags.
- tjradcliffe 12y ago
  > The problem is that the Revolution did not stop at killing the King and its supporters, it basically turned into a massive genocide where everyone could become the next target So, just like almost every other revolution in history, eh? (The American Rebellion and the English Civil War are arguably two exceptions, both enabled by extremely special circumstances.) The curious thing is that that anyone bothers with revolutionary change any more. "I know! Let's have a revolution! That's hardly ever worked before so it's bound to work this time!" Admittedly, revolutions do happen in part because of the breakdown of tyrannical regimes, but incrementalism, even in the face of tyranny, is historically far more likely to produce better outcomes. It is what freed most of Eastern Europe from the Soviets, for example. Unfortunately incrementalism takes patience, and humans are far too willing to pursue quick fixes that don't work over long games that do. It's a very curious thing.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago

30 points by samclemens 12y ago

swang 12y ago

I smell a paid placed article. Assassin's Creed has been getting killed in the press for its numerous bugs, graphical glitches and its slowness and lag even on the beefiest of PC machines. Then all of a sudden this article but the game's "rich history" pops up? P.S. The Atlantic has no articles written about the numerous bugs from the game, even though it made it into several websites that usually don't cover video games. P.S. #2, The Atlantic is the website that produced that awful Scientology Paid Content Article[0] 0: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2013/01/15/the-atlantics-scientology-problem-start-to-finish/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2013/01/1...

rverghes 12y ago
So Ubisoft is also paying off the French politicians complaining about this? There are numerous links in the article. (If they are, that's pretty impressive work by the Ubisoft PR department.) The simpler explanation that someone at the Atlantic pays attention to French politics, saw these complaints, and spun it into an article for their American audience.
- Zikes 12y ago
  They must have used all the money they saved by not doing any QA.
- Ygg2 12y ago
  Maybe their PR department is Illuminati and the Masons (<- Sarcasm).
- r00fus 12y ago
  From TFA: "Ubisoft, the maker of the Assassin’s Creed series of video games, which has been going since 2007 and has sold more than 70 million copies, is in fact French. " The French President's party isn't doing to well in the polls and I wouldn't put it past them to be this desperate (I see them as both winning in a sense here).
- subtenante 12y ago
  Of course not. Alexis Corbière (from the same party than Mélenchon) is actually the one who got this analysis of the trailer first. It may have been a mistake from his, but he surely didn't do it for the money. He has already co-written a book concerning Robespierre[1], and is always on the lookout to bring the debate on this question. [1] http://www.amazon.fr/Robespierre-reviens-Alexis-Corbi%C3%A8re/dp/2364880378 http://www.amazon.fr/Robespierre-reviens-Alexis-Corbi%C3%A8r...
bsaul 12y ago
Nope, the controversy really did happen here (didn't last more than 2 days though). And the guy triggering it can be called anything, but he most likely wouldn't take money from a video game maker just to raise such a weird controversy. He's just taking any occasion he can to have media talk about him, and being on the extreme left, he is very much attached to the global positive feeling toward the french revolution (which he would probably like to see happen once again, with him being Robespierre, of course).
- deciplex 12y ago
  If nothing else, The Terror served as an enduring lesson to the ruling class of Europe (and, for that matter, North America and beyond) about just how far they can push. Not totally enduring though, as it's a lesson that seems to be very nearly forgotten by now. Mélenchon may get his wish.
- subtenante 12y ago
  This is false. Mélenchon does not wish media to talk about him (his private life is almost completely unknown, people know he has a daughter, but not much else) . He wants the media to talk about his ideas, and he takes any occasion he has to put them forward. He is not extreme left either. He is from what was considered the "normal, banal" left in the 1980's, which is now tagged extreme just because they have not stopped to use the phrase 'class struggle'.
  - bsaul 12y ago
    I guess times change... What was considered "normal left" when the ussr still existed is now considered a bit more radical now.. He did make a coalition with what's left of the communist party until very recently, though.
    - subtenante 12y ago
      The coalition still exists, but the French communist party (PCF) is generally not considered extreme left either, at least in France. They have had ministers in governments in the last decades. They have been financed by the USSR in its time, but have since made a lot of thinking and are not supporting Stalin's 'achievements' anymore. (Georges Marchais said back in the 1979 that the USSR's results were 'globally positive', which was already the premise of critics that were far more harsh in the 90's.)
devindotcom 12y ago
Relax, man. It's just an angle. Editors are always looking for original takes on popular news items - I have to pitch stuff like this all the time. That it is insufficiently critical of the game itself and the politics of post-launch embargoes and such isn't really enough to warrant allegations of corruption and conspiracy.
prawn 12y ago
People should be skeptical of the content they read, sure, but in this case has HN acted as a bit of a filter on the sort of content about the game reaching HN readers? This story made the front page while many about technical issues with the game have not.

ekianjo 12y ago

> The former leftist French presidential candidate, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, called it “propaganda against the people, the people who are [portrayed as] barbarians, bloodthirsty savages,” while the “cretin” that is Marie-Antoinette and the “treacherous” Louis XVI are portrayed as noble victims. “The denigration of the great Revolution is a dirty job to instill more self-loathing and déclinisme in the French,” he told Le Figaro (link in French). Melenchon, for those who do not know him, is an utter moron in French politics. Now we know he is also ignorant about History, because there's ample evidence that the age of Terror was barbaric and without mercy against anyone who may have shown any kind of sympathy for the nobility or the king, no matter their status. And with bloodthirsty guys like St Just, "Sympathy" could be defined as not being a fanatic for the revolutionary cause. And let's not forget the genocide in Vendee against masses of civilians still in favor of the King. The problem is that the Revolution did not stop at killing the King and its supporters, it basically turned into a massive genocide where everyone could become the next target. Hell, even Danton and Desmoulins were convicted to betray the Revolution ideals. On a side note, Melenchon is known soviet Russia supporter and he probably has the same reading of the Gulags.

tjradcliffe 12y ago
> The problem is that the Revolution did not stop at killing the King and its supporters, it basically turned into a massive genocide where everyone could become the next target So, just like almost every other revolution in history, eh? (The American Rebellion and the English Civil War are arguably two exceptions, both enabled by extremely special circumstances.) The curious thing is that that anyone bothers with revolutionary change any more. "I know! Let's have a revolution! That's hardly ever worked before so it's bound to work this time!" Admittedly, revolutions do happen in part because of the breakdown of tyrannical regimes, but incrementalism, even in the face of tyranny, is historically far more likely to produce better outcomes. It is what freed most of Eastern Europe from the Soviets, for example. Unfortunately incrementalism takes patience, and humans are far too willing to pursue quick fixes that don't work over long games that do. It's a very curious thing.
- dragonwriter 12y ago