Trust me, the world is run on a shoestring. / He flashed a mouthful of aluminium teeth there in the darkness.

John Ashbery

Image: Ubisoft

Canadian game company

profits from the Nepalese
civil war
by Jesse Beatson

First-person shooter Far Cry 4 was released

by Montreal-based Ubisoft on November
18th. Marketing for the game has been drawing heavy parallels between the games fictionalized location of Kyrat and the country it is
based on, Nepal. Alex Hutchison, the creative
Shoot that holy site up, bruh.
director of Far Cry 4, reported,If we were going to have a story about going to a Nepal-like
needed to find somewhere that had a history
rebels and the kings army. This conflict didnt
environment in Kyrat, then we needed to be
of conflictsomewhere that could be politically
receive much media attention in the West,
as truthful as possible.A quick scan of gaming
unstablethe kind of place that you would go
despite claiming over 16,000 lives and causing
review sites indicates an overwhelmingly posto that was on the edge of the mapPlaces
far-reaching effects on Nepals political system.
itive response so far. Ubisoft cleaned up at the
that are referred to as failed states. So it was
Certain parts of the country were caught
2013/2014 Canadian Videogame Awards and
about enhancing the games sense of realism?
between armed forces and local communiwith Far Cry 4, they are looking to continue
Then in response to early criticism of Far Cry 4,
ties were often terrorized by both sides.
Ubisoft employed the we are just making art
dominating in sales and critical acclaim. Their
What about the people who lived this
argument. Mark Thompson says: Were makapproach with this latest addition to the Far
conflict or are connected to the people it has
ing a video game. Its about escapism and fun.
Cry franchise is to further heighten the felt
affected? What would they think about painful
So much for being as truthful as possible.
realism of gameplay while ramping up the
recent history, perhaps even traumatic personal
Describing one of their treks in Nepal,
sense of risk and danger by putting the player
experiences, being turned into entertainment?
Thompson
reported: I felt like I was in Kyrat.
in increasingly ethically dark situations.
Ram Sapkota, a PhD student at McGill, pointThe
landscape
was perfect. Everything looked
Ubisoft has made the exotic flavour of
ed out to me that while Kyrat might be a made
Nepal an important part of its North American up place, the word is taken from the name of
like the game Id been playing. We left civilimarketing strategy. In Montreal and Toronto
zation behind. This blatant orientalism (and
the Kirat or Kirati people, an indigenous
they have commanfactual inaccuracy: Nepal was never, in fact,
ethnic group of the
deered bus stops and
classified as a failed state; and Nepali culture
Himalayas. Having
In Montreal and
dressed them up in
goes back thousands of years) show that the
a Kyrati protagonist
the architectural style
game creators were primarily attracted by their
engage in multiple vioToronto they have
of Nepalese holy sites.
lent massacres through- notions of Nepal as a violence-steeped place on
commandeered
bus
the extreme periphery; a place far from home
Below the decorative
out the game may
roof and Tibetan
where violence can be effectively framed as
reflect badly on the
stops and dressed
harmless entertainment. For all Ubisofts rhetprayer flags (ubiqKirati people. Sapkota
them
up
in
the
oric, their attraction to Nepal seems little more
uitous in Nepal), an
also spoke to me about
than callous voyeurism along with an opporad poster depicts the
architectural style of the message the game
tunistic ploy to generate hype and boost sales.
games villain, Pagan
sends. How do you
Nepalese
holy
sites.
Nir Prakash, chairperson at the Nepal
Min, surrounded by
solve social problems?
Mental
Health Foundation (NMHF) based
deadly weapons and
Take up a gun, when
in
Kathmandu,
has simply said the game
sitting casually against
there are hundreds
is
disgusting.
Coming
from his context,
a Buddha-statue amid a Himalayan mountain
of other ways. This concern might be more
advocating
on
behalf
of
people with menscene. The games main character, Ajay Ghale,
easily addressed if it were not for the fact that
tal
health
challenges
in
Nepal,
he is paris an Americanized Nepali man returning to
many survivors of the conflict in Nepal are
ticularly
upset
that
a
Canadian
company
the country of his birth who gets caught up in
still struggling to cope. Though the impact of
is
profiting
off
of
a
conflict
from
which
a rebellion to overthrow the oppressive regime. the civil war in Nepal has been complex, and
people
are
still
feeling
the
aftermath,
inAs this ad campaign shows, Ubisoft has
some positive new changes have emerged, the
cluding
widespread
psychological
trauma.
hijacked Nepals landscape and ritual life as a
notion in Far Cry 4 that violence solves the
Far Cry 4 comes too soon after the close of
kind of marketable exoticism. Whats more, the kind of problems Nepal has faced is naturalthe
Nepalese Civil War, which remains an open
games narrative is based on a civil war in Nepal ly going to offend and hurt some people.
wound
for many. Critics of it are not simply
that ended only recently, in 2006, and from
Its important to remember that the game
conveying
the oft-repeated condemnation of
which people are still suffering. This conflict is
designers of Far Cry 4 had the benefit of all
violence
as
entertainment in video games.
being cynically exploited by Ubisoft to sell the
the information they had could have reasonRather
the
ethics
of this games appropriation
realism of their game, in itself nothing new for ably gathered. They went on a field trip to
of
Nepals
civil
war,
including the experiences
first-person shooters. Far Cry 4 merely continNepal and even interviewed conflict survivors.
of
conflict
survivors,
needs to be seriously
ues this recent trend of blurring lines between
Gaurav Thapa, a former U of T student, told
examined.
There
is
little
justification for the
simulated and real life violence, a formula thats me that some of his friends were initially excitmarketing
of
this
game
as
an authentic
been highly successful for video game compaed when they heard about the game coming
representation
of
Nepal
or
its recent history. n
nies as they compete to offer the most edgy
out. However, one of the biggest issues that
and exciting player experiences. Far Cry 4
was immediately apparently with the fiction100 YEAR OLD WOMAN GOES SKYDIVING
game play includes sneaking up behind people
al Kyrat kingdom was its language. Ubisoft
.........................................................................
and killing them with a Kukri (traditional
used Hindi as the language of choice rather
After kissing her 7-month-old great-great-grandGurkha blade), using elephants as weapons,
than Nepali. Whether this was done out of
ziplining on strings of prayer flags, detonating
ignorance or was a cost-saving measure is undaughter before boarding the plane, Eleanor Cuntemples, overhearing acts of torture, stabbing
known, but many Nepalese are very upset and
ningham of Howes Cave, New York, went skydiving
various other animals to harvest organs as bait,
there is currently a petition with over 3,000
to celebrate her 100th birthday. It was her third
and (spoiler alert) using a pistol to execute
signatures attempting to have this changed.
jump; she first tried the sport at age 90. Her doctor
a woman who betrays the rebellion.
Why was Nepal such an appealing choice
signed off on the skydiving expedition since her
The Nepalese Civil War was a decade
to Ubisoft as the setting for Far Cry 4? In nargood health means she is more than capable of takof conflict (1996 2006) between Maoist
rative director Mark Thompsons words, they
ing the trip. With files from CP24.

JOHN HITCHCOCKS

KUBRICK
QUIZ

TIFF has a Kubrick exhibition going on

right now. Can you match the description
of the prop to the movie?
1

A three foot rubber baby

Carefully crafted 18th-century garments

A typewriter on which the phrase All work

and no play makes Jack a dull boy has been
typed endlessly
4

A cane used to beat several people up

Unnerving figures in strange masks

A giant ape costume

An axe used by a deranged writer to break

down a door
8

A spacesuit worn on the moon

Remote controlled marine helicopter

10 Erotic statues of nude women and a sculpture of a mans genitalia

(1. 2001: A Space Odyssey, 2. Barry Lyndon,

Reality

3. The Shining, 4. A Clockwork Orange, 5.

A Far Cry From

Strip Club Hosts Church Services

.................................................................................
A strip club called The Manor in Guelph, Ontario has Saturday nights full of tits and booze,
but early Sunday afternoons it hosts a church
service with a four-piece worship band. Jack
Ninaber, a non-denominational Christian pastor, was first given the idea to run a church service in a strip club by his wife when they were
driving past The Manor in 2013. Theyd been
hosting a church service once a week at their
home nearby, but their crowd had grown to
about 35 peopleleading them on a search
for a new venue. The posters of scantily clad
women on pillars had to be covered up with
images of Jesus, the pole had to be sanitized; the mirrors embossed with images of
strippers were covered with curtains and a
pool table was covered and decked out with
mini-sandwiches, Bundt cakes and oranges. A
guest speaker takes the stage, playfully swinging around the stripper pole before he says
anything. Dancers started coming in around
7 PM, their weekly gift from the ministry was
waiting for thema vase of flowers in their
change room.With files from Vice Media.

Eyes Wide Shut, 6. 2001: A Space Odyssey,

7. The Shining, 8. 2001: A Space Odyssey, 9.

for success? Mastery of your craft? This film says yes.

Full Metal Jacket, 10. A Clockwork Orange)

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