Spiders Are a Popular Video Game Monster. They're Also an Accessibility Problem

TowinKarz said:
Well, I was wrong, I assumed the complaint was gonna be that having spiders in a video game was being insensitive to amputees/paraplegics, mocking them with a character that has 8 functional legs...... what a shameless display of AMBULATORY PRIVILEGE!
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What's the insect equivalent of a furry/otherkin? Scaly? Chitiny? Exoskeletony?

Edit: oh yeah, arachnids aren't insects, but you get my drift.
 
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klepek.jpg
 
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I do have arachnophobia and have trouble even with tiny irl spiders, but so far the only spiders in a videogame that made me even go "aw, yuck" were the harmless background spiders in Metro: LL.
Generally for me, the bigger the spider in a videogame the less scary it is. Most often the giant spiders look like crabs or something.
The Skyrim one didn't even register to me as a spider really.
 
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I'm powerleveling a bit with the communities I hung around with a few years back, but there is an extremely huge push against this kind of bullshit by people who run biology and nature blogs. For once I think their reeing is justified since I'm a biology nerd myself and I think the thoughtless way spiders are feared and reviled is just senseless. There is a decidated community of people on places like Tumblr (where else?) who go on massive rants about how much they hate spiders and wish to see them all destroyed. It can get quite psychotic sometimes.

Unless you live in a location where spiders grow particuarly large, you generally have nothing to fear from them living in your house. The overwhelming majority of the time they are not poisonous, they do not create infestations (they are fericely territorial and two or more spiders in the same location will usually kill each other), they don't try to get into your food like other bugs, and in general they're one of the few things that if it gets into your house you can leave it alone.

For the record, almost every page of a spider bite that has gone septic is showing an infection from an improperly cleaned wound, not the effect of the venom. While the venom may not be that dangerous to a fully grown human, spiders are still filthy wild creatures and their jaws can carry plenty of bacterial like any other animal. Its reccomended that if you get a bitten by a large spider, clean the wound out first and disinfect, then seek medical help just to be safe (allergic reactions are still common).

I say all of that as someone who is quite disturbed by bugs and who is glad I live in a northern climate where they don't get particularly large. The reason spiders get such a bad rap is mindblowing to me. For instance, scorpions are absolutely more dangerous than spiders and since they don't like to climb they can end up hiding in places where you put your feet. Like your damned shoes. But is there a scorpion content warning? No there isn't. In general the idea of having to fight just about any large insect or arachnid in a videogame sounds just as frightening as a big spider. I don't see the difference.
 
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Know how you get over a phobia? Exposure therapy. Video games are fantastic forms of this. If you piss yourself at the sight of Skyrim's spiders, get the PC version and install the mod that turns them into bears. Or grow a pair(of tits, balls, ovaries, lungs, whatever) and face your fear. Slash them bad boys open. Don't cower!
 
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Homoerotic Cougar-kun said:
Being scared of spiders is not a fucking disability you absolute dipshit. Being scared of ANYTHING, for that matter, is not a disability. Your personal fucking hangups are not disabilities. Being a pussy is not a disability, Patrick. Being a game journo, however, might be.
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Being a pussy might be a disability, but it's not one worth accommodating people for, because unlike being paraplegic, there are easy solutions to it.
 
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L50LasPak said:
I'm powerleveling a bit with the communities I hung around with a few years back, but there is an extremely huge push against this kind of bullshit by people who run biology and nature blogs. For once I think their reeing is justified since I'm a biology nerd myself and I think the thoughtless way spiders are feared and reviled is just senseless. There is a decidated community of people on places like Tumblr (where else?) who go on massive rants about how much they hate spiders and wish to see them all destroyed. It can get quite psychotic sometimes.

Unless you live in a location where spiders grow particuarly large, you generally have nothing to fear from them living in your house. The overwhelming majority of the time they are not poisonous, they do not create infestations (they are fericely territorial and two or more spiders in the same location will usually kill each other), they don't try to get into your food like other bugs, and in general they're one of the few things that if it gets into your house you can leave it alone.

For the record, almost every page of a spider bite that has gone septic is showing an infection from an improperly cleaned wound, not the effect of the venom. While the venom may not be that dangerous to a fully grown human, spiders are still filthy wild creatures and their jaws can carry plenty of bacterial like any other animal. Its reccomended that if you get a bitten by a large spider, clean the wound out first and disinfect, then seek medical help just to be safe (allergic reactions are still common).

I say all of that as someone who is quite disturbed by bugs and who is glad I live in a northern climate where they don't get particularly large. The reason spiders get such a bad rap is mindblowing to me. For instance, scorpions are absolutely more dangerous than spiders and since they don't like to climb they can end up hiding in places where you put your feet. Like your damned shoes. But is there a sporpion content warning? No there isn't. In general the idea of having to fight just about any large insect or arachnid in a videogame sounds just as frightening as a big spider. I don't see the difference.
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A phobia is by definition not rational. I'd rather go closer to a bear than a bloody daddy longlegs spider.



(It's also why, say, the name 'transphobia' is completely retarded, as it's neither fear nor irrational)
 
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Cyclonus said:
Here's what I said on the LKD thread:



Seriously, there are thousands of phobias out there. It's impossible to cater to all of them.
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Chrometophobia (fear of money) - NO IN GAME ECONOMIES
Cherophobia (the fear of happiness) - NO SUCCEEDING
Biophobia (fear of living things) - NO NPCS, ENEMIES, OTHER LIVING CREATURES
and especially
Anatidaephobia (the fear of somewhere, somehow a duck watching you) - NO DUCKS (unless they are visually impaired, otherwise that's ableist)
 
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Battlecruiser3000ad said:
A phobia is by definition not rational. I'd rather go closer to a bear than a bloody daddy longlegs spider.
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Stop calling it a Daddy Long Legs. Those sick cunts make everyone get involved in their weird age daddy daughter fetish. Stop encouraging it.

General Disarray said:
Spiderbros pay rent. They are good bois.
View attachment 1512281
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That's either a real big spider, or a real small coin. If it's a small coin it implies a sort of spider economy; which in turn means I want my fucking rent from the house spider that lives behind my desk and eats silverfish at my uni flat.
 
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Also, I just noticed this snippet:
When it came time to develop Cook, Serve, Delicious! 3?! the goal was to double down on this idea and “make the most accessible game I could possibly make.” The third installment allows players to mute gun shots (“a response to those involved in school shootings with PTSD”), change police siren sounds (“a result of the BLM movement”), colorblind features, motion sickness tweaks, and more.
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change police siren sounds (“a result of the BLM movement”)
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lmao
 
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Okay, i will be serious here for one minute:

I have a huge phobia when it comes to wasps. It never bothered me that much in video games, except for that one time i went to that old house in Resident Evil 7, which was just way too fuckin real for me.

Anyway, Fuck this article. Why should a developer be considerate to every little shit thing on screen? If you can't take it, go back and play candy crush.
 
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