Hit the Bitch

sounds like a game the99th would be into.

I was thinking about this game just the other day.

While I understand that general reaction of "this is ridiculous" from critics, I've been inclined to defend the game on fairly simple grounds: you don't have to hit the woman in the game, much as you did not, TheDustin.

To my mind, the fact the game provides no alternative within its interactive possibilities is important. Specifically, it pushes us into a situation of (mistakenly) thinking we have to hit her by leveraging the conventions of games - we always interact, we always see what's possible during play.

But if we take even a moment to think about it and to see that our only "real" reason to hit her is essentially "because we can", I think we're able to have a kind of moment of clarity about the whole stupidity of such situations both in the game and in real life.

My assumption/hope is that the game designers were attempting to provoke that kind of thought, and I'd like to think players would be able to take it to that kind of level.

As the mysoginistic gangsta rapper that I am, I was particularly enticed by the idea of being able to smack my bitch up without straining my wrists.
Unfortunately :

"Dear non-danish visitor,

Due to an extremely high amount of traffic "Hit the Bitch" has been limited to only allow users from Denmark.

However, domestic violence is a global problem, so please support the fight against it in your local country.

Thanks for your interest.

Kind regards
Children exposed to Violence at Home"

Also, yes, a game were you have just one option is called a movie. Too many developpers don't seem to be aware of it (Tale of tales...).

I'd like to state for the record that I've never hit a woman ever, even when I really wanted to. I did however get smacked up by my baby's mama on two occasions when we were together. Ahhh pregnancy hormones...

Now if you really want a taxpayer bitch slap, look no further than the USA's own FEMA camps.

Dear non-danish visitor,

Due to an extremely high amount of traffic "Hit the Bitch" has been limited to only allow users from Denmark.

However, domestic violence is a global problem, so please support the fight against it in your local country.

Thanks for your interest.

Kind regards
Children exposed to Violence at Home

For those not Danish, here is the 'game' as it was meant to be experienced:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSbr2xLKBrA

Pippinbarr: Jesse Venbrux already did this meta-experiment, and if you compare the two his Execution works a lot better. You aren't antagonized in his game, and you aren't able to repeat your actions in it either. I imagine a sick fuck (who has access to the game) could play this indefinitely. Venbrux didn't come off as preachy, either.

pippinbarr: Dude, by calling it a game they are asking you to interact with it (or simply being missrepresentative in what they tell you the thing is).

There is no epiphany in people using language in self contradicting ways/badly.
Philosopher Gamer Blog

Nasty. I'm danish, so I'll just translate the text and speech, so you can get the full picture.

First off, she doesn't "berate" you. She insults you in the harshest way possible. Trust me, she is not being nice.

The speech at the end:
"Idiot. Det er sgu da ikke gangster at slå på kællinger.du tabte spillet første gang du hævede hånden. Der er slet ikke nogen undskyldninger for det, så søg dog hjælp".

translates into:

"Idiot. There's nothing gangster about hitting hóes. You lost the game the first time you raised your hånd. There's no excuse for it what so ever, so go get help (counseling)"

The text:
"Gør Noget. I Danmark lever 2 piger i hver klasse fra 9. til 3G i et voldeligt forhold. Er du en af dem der slår eller en pige der bliver slået, så søg hjælp"

translates into:
"Do something. 2 girls in each class from 9th grade (age 15) to 3G (third year of highschool; age 18) in Denmark is in a violent relationship. If you're one of the hitters or a girl being beaten, ask for help".

(The statistics are for violent relationships in general, including abusive families; they don't cite a source for this info. The game says "2 girls", the website says "2 pupils").

And there's a link for more information + a Facebook-group (we have extremely high FB-penetration in DK).

So is it nasty? very much so. Does it address a important issue in a way that communicates well with the target audience? I think so (the language is very teenager-ish; hoes, gangster etc). Do I like it? no, but I'm not the target audience.

A.

But seriously, though, I've played a great game where the only viable option was not doing anything-- "7 Minutes".

Virtanen's take was subtler, of course, and benefited from fine platforming throughout most of the game. However, I admired that the only way to win it was to simply sit still, not move from the first room, and for the most part do absolutely nothing. It was like a lesson in Jedi discipline, and made for a fine illustration of how the path to enlightenment is not always the one filled with adventure and excitement.

I can see a very similar point being made here, although with the inclusion of sexual politics and machismo-mockery, it becomes a lot cloudier. The only way for the player to assert themselves in the game is to "hit the bitch". And that way lies damnation. On the other hand, the game does everything to prod and pressure you into resorting to violence, not only via its gameplay bottleneck but also through the video of the whining girl, and the HUD that all but labels the player a pussywhipped wimp. As an illustration indoctrinating effects of cultural norms and the everyday aggresors of domestic squables, it sounds like a smart use of interactive mechanics to drive home its message. That doesn't make it a great game, but it also doesn't make it a complete failure either.

I'll call it ludological minimalism, the game equivalent of that painting in Yasmina Reza's "Art"-- yes, it's basically just a blank canvas, a pretentious waste of off-white paint that just begs to be defaced, but there's something worthwhile in anything that can inspire that kind of visceral response.

I actually loved 7 Minutes and your interpretation of it is spot-on, but I have to disagree with your take on this game. You aren't rewarded for not abusing her; I waited a good five minutes but nothing came from it. She just flipped me the bird. I even minimized the screen and ate a meal, but when I came back the 'game' was still in its loop. Not doing anything granted you victory in Seven Minutes, but it does nothing here.

"Quitting the Game" isn't interacting with it, its quitting the game. I don't put that into account when I factor in game vocabulary, or any other aspect of design really. Again Venbrux' Execution is the only other title that toys with this concept, and is the "Art" equivalent if there was one imo.

I didn't hit her because I'm a misogynistic prick, I did it because it was my only option available and I wanted to see how it played out. I think the subject matter is the only compelling part, which I can understand. I live in rural Alaska and the level of domestic violence is high here as well, so I can emphasize with their goal. I still stand by the fact that this could have been done as a Youtube video and would have been just as effective.

It'd be interesting if you could take her berations (and frankly I think words can be just as effective as fists - no one is registering that this berating is domestic violence as well?) but you can do stuff to distance yourself from her, resisting the slap and instead slowly distancing her (making her quieter and quieter), then perhaps winning somehow by 'living well'.

Other than that, this seems dumb and some failure at theory of mind, that thinks the capacity to be annoyed by other human beings is the real issue here and some sort of failing. Or something.

Philosopher Gamer Blog

Agreed, it needs a reward for your inaction to really give meaning to it, or else the idea of a win-condition here is only there in the abstract, or by contrast of the loss-scenario. It's that tiny little bit at the end that would make all the difference between it being a you-tube video and an actual game, no matter how pedantic and pretentious. The interactive constraint isn't what hurts this-- if anything, I think it's what could define it, if it were done a little more seriously.

It's a decent first-draft. Pity they didn't try harder. And know knows, perhaps theirs is a bitter, pessimistic take on the subject-- without a win condition, "hitting the bitch" becomes a near inevitability. Maybe to them, all cases of domestic violence are only a matter of time, with the abuser seeing it as the only possible way to express themselves in what they perceive as an emotionally suffocating relationship. It all might just be an attempt to put the player in the subject's mindset, the type of person who bottlenecks their own interactivity with the world.

Either that or it's just lazy, lazy design. Whichever.

"and frankly I think words can be just as effective as fists - no one is registering that **the chick's** berating is domestic violence as well?"

Actually, Callan that's a pretty good point. It would be great if somebody made a parody game where you play as a chick with a loser boyfriend; your only interaction would be to call him an ugly lazy fuck, among other things. What would make it even better is if they were straight Youtube videos, and at the end of each it would say "go to the next video to continue the game". The ending would be along the lines of "IDIOT. Do you not realize how much press we're gonna get because we called this a game?"