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[Mercer_CAR]

Those journos don't understand that people use games to get away from reality. To relax, have fun, forget about the world for a little while. Which is why the reaction to putting real-life BS grievances into gaming journalism is having such a backlash and why so many websites are struggling right now. People want to read about cool games, exciting news and surprising delights. They don't want to read some shitty journos opinions that are designed solely to make the reader feel bad about what he's enjoying.

Even if you care about politics in videogames, your articles would do a lot better and have much more positive impact if you would focus on promoting and praising stuff you like instead of attacking stuff you don;t.

This is a question often bought up on the right, the reality that these companies (not only in gaming) are more than happy to sacrifice profits to signal about contemporary neo liberal principals....

 

[infinitys_7th]

While he was certainly racist, at the same time, some of the works as being cited as racist are actually the opposite.

The Shadow Over Innsmouth for instance...

Spoiler

at the end of the story the protagonist realizes he's actually a deep one hybrid and he accepts it

And he keeps getting called "misogynist" and it's true he didn't feature women in his stories, but he literally collaborated with like 8 or 9 women authors, some paid clients, but some just because he wanted to work with them.

The thing is that a lot of his best works (At the Mountains of Madness, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, A Shadow Out of Time) and a few of his other works (e.g. In the Walls of Eryx) have relatively progressive messages about understanding and how humans are not all that different from what they fear. AtMoM, for example,

Spoiler

takes the revived Elder Things from simple murderous monsters to a very sympathetic entities who awoke in a bizarre situation, defended themselves, undertook the same barbarous scientific studies on the humans which the human took on their deceased comrade, and then left only to find that their civilization was long dead and haunted by their worst mistakes.

Even though fear of the "other" was a major theme in his works (some of which are really over the top, like The Horror at Red Hook, which is also shit on its own), a lot of his best shows a lot of empathy and understanding, and from what I understood he was gradually softening in his views due to his surprisingly vast social network. If he had not died early he likely would continued to soften.

The idea of depriving future generations of this fascinating universe (from the traditional Cthulhu Mythos to the Dream Cycles) because some of it is "problematic" is kind of terrifying to me.

 

[Zewp]

They really should just fire Sam Greer. She's going to turn the place into another RPS.

Though I guess if they fire her, she'd probably just rally Quinn and Wu to destroy the place anyway.

 

[ArnoldSewerby]

God I miss the 90s

It was a happy hobby once.

 

[Futaleufu]

I'm surprised they haven't targeted Arthur Conan Doyle yet.

 

[Paracelsus]

So if the inventor of Internet was racist you'd shut the Internet off?

 

[ILLtown]

I'm not keen on mincing words on this one. H.P Lovecraft was a racist and before you go making an argument for separating the art from the artist, let's be clear on another point: so are his stories.

I've never read any Lovecraft. I'm aware that he held some racist views, but were his stories racist, or is this just some "I see racism/sexism everywhere!" SJW bullshit?

 

[Orpheum]

Walt disney was anti-semitic so we should stop promoting animated movies under the name walt disney. Get the fuck out of here you dumb fucks and complain about something actually significant for once. This has got to be one of the worst articles this website has ever vomited into the internet.

 

[llien]

Racism is not ok, but you can’t judge people by modern standards, that’s taking everything out of context.

This.

Disney (antisemitic), Oscar Wilde (antisemitic), Herbert Wells (racist and leftie at the same time), Einstein (read what he was saying about Chinese), Lev Tolstoi (as most Russian writers, hated Polish people) and a long list of others.

 

[Graciaus]

Sites that had dumb stuff like this I deleted from my bookmarks. I have almost no where left to go for gaming news sadly.

 

[Makariel]

So if the inventor of Internet was racist you'd shut the Internet off?

There were cis white men involved, so better start taking a sledgehammer to the router...

 

[Helios]

I've never read any Lovecraft. I'm aware that he held some racist views, but were his stories racist, or is this just some "I see racism/sexism everywhere!" SJW bullshit?

There are some racist parts in a few of his stories and he used the N word more than a few times(though I imagine most people at that time did). But there are also a lot of people that just want to see racism in everything he wrote. Like this person

 

[DeliciousDoc]

There were cis white men involved, so better start taking a sledgehammer to the router...

If you promote the internet as a hate machine that was built to oppress minorities maybe they will stop using it.

 

[Cunth]

Imagine how much of a jackass you have to be to become a modern day games writer. You probably have to prove to management that you can actually suck your own dick

 

[HaveButOneLife]

His wife actually led him away from his racist upbringing, did she not? He wasn't racist in his later years.

 

[metareferential]

Your not far off their ideals there old mate. I think your conclusions should read like this for a more accurate reflection of what they are implicitly suggesting:

"Let's also ban Plato, Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe and everyone else WHITE, while we're at it"

Well, we're not sure Homer was (were, since it's actually multiple writers) white. And greek and roman culture has lots of multi-cultural writers, philosophers and artists, from all over the world (then-world, that is). The Roman Empire even had black emperors (before Obama, you know).

Western culture isn't "just white" (and it surely isn't about white supremacy). It's dumb people like the author of the article that don't know shit about mythos and history that think everything revolves around 20th century racism/facism.

It's like pretending gender issues were actually issues back when those same mythos developed.

And you're falling for the same dumb mistake eurogamer made: modern-day values can't be placed over other cultures just because.

Of course I was being facetious. But you see, that's why I was talking about functional illiteracy: people just can't understand context anymore. From simple phrasal context up to historical/cultural context.

 

[Shmunter]

Sometimes I wonder if 90% of SJW’s are nothing more than trolls trying to derail genuine issues of actual social justice.

The anger, the hate, the extreme views and behaviours just cannot be taken seriously. The opposite is achieved by tarnishing genuine causes by making everyone involved looking like complete kooks.

It’s like PC Principlal is a template for many. And that is South Park satire. Surely some suspicion must be had?

 

[betrayal]

The person who wrote the article is well known for her political views. In my opinion it the job of sites like eurogame etc. to filter these biased political and personal opinions out or at least always provide someone with an opposing opinion if you feel the need constantly publish political articles.

 

[metareferential]

Sometimes I wonder if 90% of SJW’s are nothing more than trolls trying to derail genuine issues of actual social justice.

The anger, the hate, the extreme views and behaviours just cannot be taken seriously.

Occam's razor: is it a big consipiracy with a hidden agenda or is it just plain old stupidity?

Yeah.

And oh, by the way: William of Ockham was a racist. Let's throw logic out of the window for good.

 

[Nikodemos]

His wife actually led him away from his racist upbringing, did she not? He wasn't racist in his later years.

Well she was Jewish, so he had to walk back most of his earlier outbursts.

But he was known to be quite a bit more racist than the period's average earlier in his activity. "Nigger Man" wasn't an acceptable name for a black cat even then.

 

[ROMhack]

Writers like Sam Greer and her personal opinions aren't the problem I have. The issue I take is that the writing in this piece is poor. It feels like a premise to a much longer piece and should never have gotten beyond the editors as it is. For that, you want to be asking Oli Welsh, Wesley Yin-Poole, etc why they didn't give some feedback and ask for alterations before posting.

Top comment sums it up:

"If you're going to accuse an author of every prejudice under the sun, you could at least put in the effort to cite your sources. Your first paragraph is terribly written and unconvincing, making broad statements without referencing even a single work from the author to illustrate what you're trying to argue. You produce absolutely no evidence for your claims and just assume that the reader is going to agree with you. The problem is only worsened by the didactic tone, which makes absolute statements like your case is rock-solid when it's literally standing on nothing.

And in your argument to offer an alternative, you just propose another problem. You say that part of the issue with the oversaturation of Lovecraftian games is that they've become boring because they're overdone, since they all draw from a single source (Lovecraft). But then you only discuss one alternative, SOMA. So is the solution then to just replace Lovecraft's tropes with the ones in SOMA and create a new wave of oversaturation? Replace tentacles with technology and horror with existentialism?

This isn't even first-draft quality. This is structured like a rushed high school essay."

 

[Kenpachii]

somebody should sue them for using euro in there name.

 

[marowit]

Next up, any media about World War II where the German soldiers are portrayed as anything but savage butchers is just Nazi propaganda in disguise

 

[Strife In a Teacup]

Howard was far, far more racist than HPL. Read Black Canaan, probably his most racist story, though there are a few other contenders. HPL was more or less like Archie Bunker, and despite his prejudices, married a Jewish woman.

I've read all of Lovecraft's and Howard's stories. They're great and I mostly ignored all the early 1900s racism stuff. I just was in it for the high adventure of Conan and the psychological horror of Lovecraft.

 

[petran79]

Next up, any media about World War II where the German soldiers are portrayed as anything but savage butchers is just Nazi propaganda in disguise

Nimdok was missing in the French and German versions of I have no mouth and I must scream.
He was Jewish and an assistant to Dr Mengele.

It was a relatively niche PC adult adventure game back then. Plus it had a black woman who was a rape victim.
Such game today would gather pitchforks outside the studio

 

[Morinaga]

What a trash article.

Even Shakespeare has been accused as racist. (https://blog.oup.com/2016/09/is-shakespeare-racist/)

Maybe the writer should familiarise herself with literary history, its impact on culture and the world as a whole before telling everyone they are wrong for enjoying a good story.

 

[hariseldon]

Another angry tranny. Is anyone remotely surprised? There seems to be a little cabal of angry trannies and lesbians that are circulating the RPS, Eurogamer, etc sites in a clique that is turning them into hate-spewing racist misandrist hell-holes. The only choice is to not give them the oxygen of clicks or publicity.

 

[Saruhashi]

Even if Lovecraft was a massive racist by today's standards, or even by the standards of his time, then that just means that the narrator of the majority of his stories is a massive racist.

That doesn't make it a bad story. That doesn't mean the story isn't interesting or entertaining.

It's like if you are down the pub and one of the locals is telling a really gripping tale and then he turns round at the end and says "I hate gays and blacks and women" then fine you can say that guy is an asshole but you can't deny that the story was great.

Then you go home and you post on Facebook "old Jack the Knife down the pub was telling a great story this evening but that guy is an asshole so fuck him and his story". Why? It's just an exercise in publicly patting yourself on the back.

Same here with Eurogamer. Is there anyone who knows anything about Lovecraft who doesn't think the guy was racist? So what's the point of an entire article about it other than to say "we're not racist, honest"?

Hahahaha. This gem: "his gross simplification of mental illness ".

Really? A guy who lived from 1890 to 1937 with no experience in the field didn't know much about mental illness beyond simplifications? Wow.

Just think, somebody was actually paid to write this utter shite.

 

[Schrödinger's cat]

Given that the article's author themselves has evidence of bigotry in their past we can apply their logic to their work and safely ignore anything they say.

Seems fair.

 

[Hendrick's]

One could argue that his extreme xenophobia was what made his work so potent. This trend of retroactively crucifying legends by holding them to today's moral standards in ludicrous.

 

[onlyoneno1]

If there is anything that is racist/sexist in modern times its the modern feminism. Changing language left and right, attacking men in public, blatantly claiming that women can't be sexist etc. And now they have infiltrated "gaming journalism" and producing half backed shit like this and passing them off as articles. I am amazed at the editor who green lit this for publication. Says a lot about the credibility of Eurogamer.

 

[Mjau]

Eurogamer? More like Eugamer. Complete trash like the union itself.

 

[Fbh]

God I miss the 90s

It was a happy hobby once.

It's still a happy hobby if you share it with the right people
For as much as some people talk about wanting less politics in games journalism and how annoyed they are about outrage culture, they sure seem to visit SJW/Outrage heavy sites all the time looking for articles to be mad about.

I just don't visit those sites. I keep my gaming to talk to some friends, to GAF and in terms of "media" I like the Easy Allies because of their optimistic views and focus on the actual games.
If some people on GAF wouldn't insist on posting every article they don't like I'd honestly not even know 99% of them existed

 

[hariseldon]

I just don't visit those sites. I keep my gaming to talk to some friends, to GAF and in terms of "media" I like the Easy Allies because of their optimistic views and focus on the actual games.
If some people on GAF wouldn't insist on posting every article they don't like I'd honestly not even know 99% of them existed

The problem is that there are very few good sites out there, meaning this is the trash from which we have to get our gaming news. If you know of somewhere good, that's more text-focused unlike the site you mentioned (which may be wonderful, but I kinda like reading stuff), that would be wonderful.

 

[ROMhack]

It's still a happy hobby if you share it with the right people
For as much as some people talk about wanting less politics in games journalism and how annoyed they are about outrage culture, they sure seem to visit SJW/Outrage heavy sites all the time looking for articles to be mad about.

I just don't visit those sites. I keep my gaming to talk to some friends, to GAF and in terms of "media" I like the Easy Allies because of their optimistic views and focus on the actual games.
If some people on GAF wouldn't insist on posting every article they don't like I'd honestly not even know 99% of them existed

Agreed but I imagine people will eventually stop doing it, much like people learnt not to click on obvious side-bar ad content.

 

[Breakage]

It's just another example of the radical left's disdain of [white] Western history.

 

[Fbh]

The problem is that there are very few good sites out there, meaning this is the trash from which we have to get our gaming news. If you know of somewhere good, that's more text-focused unlike the site you mentioned (which may be wonderful, but I kinda like reading stuff), that would be wonderful.

For news I mostly use Gematsu.
Their focus is Japanese games so sometimes they do post about stuff I don't really care about (like "New TV spot for this niche Japanese game") but they cover all the major news from western games too. It's pretty much just the news though, so everything they post is pretty much just stating the fact with no personal opinions involved. They also don't really do opinion pieces.

I've heard Siliconera is also pretty good though I haven't looked into it myself.

I also kinda like Destructoid. Not entirely apolitical but it's far from their main focus (unlike Kotaku/Polygon, etc). News are a bit slower there but they do have more opinion pieces or some random stuff that's not directly related to videogames but I still find interesting (like how Venom did at the Box office and stuff like that)

 

[Warm Machine]

It's just another example of the radical left's disdain of [white] Western history.

No, its a journalist who has to create a story to get their story quota. Also writers want to write about things they think are important. A game writer is the equivalent to a guy who writes about stereo equipment, most of their time is parroting PR and doing a test of the gear. It gets ultra boring so given the chance to write about the newest Call of Duty DLC or something they feel strongly about that is tied to games they will choose the latter. Just like the thousands of decent games that come out daily get passed over for the one game made by someone unique with an interesting story to tell. The failure in this article is that suggesting stories not deal with proactive subjects or troubling ideas is tantamount to censorship. You can't tell artists what they can and cannot create. You can however choose to ignore the ones you don't like.

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

So if the inventor of Internet was racist you'd shut the Internet off?

Checkmate.

 

[Sakura Doritos]

For news I mostly use Gematsu.
Their focus is Japanese games so sometimes they do post about stuff I don't really care about (like "New TV spot for this niche Japanese game") but they cover all the major news from western games too. It's pretty much just the news though, so everything they post is pretty much just stating the fact with no personal opinions involved. They also don't really do opinion pieces.

I've heard Siliconera is also pretty good though I haven't looked into it myself.

I also kinda like Destructoid. Not entirely apolitical but it's far from their main focus (unlike Kotaku/Polygon, etc). News are a bit slower there but they do have more opinion pieces or some random stuff that's not directly related to videogames but I still find interesting (like how Venom did at the Box office and stuff like that)

SiliconEra imo is the best gaming news site on the web that I know of.

 

[zenspider]

The worst thing is - in the words of Jonathan Heidt - these SJW writers get "paid by the bullet." There is zero consequences to misfires like the argument presented in this article, zero consequences in trying (and failing with reason) to call out the myriad artists and creators who are influenced by or even contribute to Lovecraftian mythos, and zero consequences to further dividing all discourse into identitarian black and white rhetoric.

Just keep shooting.

 

[Zeusexy]

They're not videogame websites anymore. They're just cucks.

 

[LukeSkywater]

Can create: The Tea Room and Dream Daddy
Cant create: Anything else

To be fair, I've heard Dream Daddy is very very good.

 

[Hudo]

It would be quite hilarious if some people at Eurogamer would own a car made by Ford.

 

[ipukespiders]

Another angry tranny. Is anyone remotely surprised?

Uh, please don't use the word angry. Dogs get angry, people get mad.

 

[Doom85]

In other news, critically-acclaimed director Jordan Peele (of the excellent film Get Out) is producing this show: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lovecraft_Country_(TV_series)

It's clearly Eurogamer's duty to contact Peele and tell him that he has made a huge mistake and clearly anything related to Lovecraft's stories and mythos is totally racist. I'm sure Peele won't feel insulted by the implication that HE doesn't know what's racist and has to have it explained it to him.

Seriously, what is this? Yeah, Lovecraft was racist, yes his depictions of black people were racist, BUT no adaptations of his work are forced to include those elements and lo and behold virtually no modern adaptations of his work do have those elements. There, end of discussion.

 

[Randall365]

For a real laugh, read their review of that recent medieval rpg that came out - the whole review is basically some guy shitting on the developers for the lack of diversity in the middle ages.

Games tm went with the same line - nearly cancelled my subscription.

 

[drotahorror]

In other news, critically-acclaimed director Jordan Peele (of the excellent film Get Out) is producing this show: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lovecraft_Country_(TV_series)

It's clearly Eurogamer's duty to contact Peele and tell him that he has made a huge mistake and clearly anything related to Lovecraft's stories and mythos is totally racist. I'm sure Peele won't feel insulted by the implication that HE doesn't know what's racist and has to have it explained it to him.

Seriously, what is this? Yeah, Lovecraft was racist, yes his depictions of black people were racist, BUT no adaptations of his work are forced to include those elements and lo and behold virtually no modern adaptations of his work do have those elements. There, end of discussion.

Peele needs a white man-woman to tell him about racism, you are exactly right.

 

[CRON]

I'm under the impression that some games journalists feel ashamed that they're line of work isn't seen as legitimate as traditional journalism, so they have to politicize everything in an attempt to make it seem more layered than it is.

 

[Fuz]

I think we're beating a dead horse here.