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[Cosmogony]

Considering we've been hearing about "SJWs ruining mah vidya" for 5 years, which hasn't happened yet and the quality of AAA games have generally just been increasing, yeah.

And perhaps, just perhaps, the people whom in your fantasy you describe as persistently crying "SJWs ruining mah vidya" do not agree with your assessment of the quality of AAA titles. But there's always the chance you think your assessment is objective and therefore mandatory, which in turn would be perfectly in line with the quality of your other points.

I think you should reconsider what the word 'dictate' means, because it doesn't mean what you think it means.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/dictate

"to give orders, or tell someone exactly what they must do, with total authority: "

"to influence something or make it necessary: "

Has it been that long since you looked it up?

Though it is super interesting that you took affront with m

I am naturally attracted to picking apart poor or otherwise non-existent arguments.

(and later hilariously claimed you don't care),

Key expression is white noise. Your money and your free time is white noise to me. That's healthy. I would assume the reverse is also true. If not, then I'd get uneasy, more so than intrigued.

but not every time a conservative/controversial developer brings out a game and conservatives fall over themselves with things like "buy this game to piss of Ess-Jay-Dubbayous!"

You're the first to mention conservatives, which, Freudian slip, goes to show where your mind tends to go. And, unlike you, I don't base my buying decisions on what pisses other people off.

Sorry, I didn't realise English wasn't your native language. Let me try to explain it in a way that is easy for you to understand. The 'hyperbole' isn't my claim, it's what anti-SJWs have been claiming since Gamergate dropped. "SJWs are going to destroy gaming" and blah blah blah.

Hyperbole is a rhetorical device, a figure of speech you went with. First you misrepresent the other side's position and then you proceeded to cry wolf!, how that position is an exaggeration. No doubt it hasn't fooled anyone paying attention.

Go to IGN or Gamefaqs or clearly, even Neogaf, and all you'll read all day is threads about how SJWs are allegedly dangerous to gaming and ruining the hobby and god knows what else.

One would think that if you had a knockout argument against their points, you would be confident enough not to misrepresent their position. I guess the matter is settled then.

Go to any mainstream gaming forum and it's borderline impossible to discuss games without the conversation inevitably turning to "forced diversity" or whatever else boogeyman they can cook up. Meanwhile, there isn't any basis for any of this in the majority of games being discussed anyway.

Yes, and people making the contention disagree with you. But you can't seem to be able to make a cogent counter-argument, can you?

You can't even go to Resetera either, because they're just the opposite side of the same coin. For anyone skirting the middle-line who is genuinely interested in talking about videogames without the unnecessary political hysterics, there really is just nowhere to get that at this point.

If you feel the situation is that dire and beyond mitigation and that there is a considerable number of gamers who agree with you, start your own forum and watch them flock in droves. Alternatively, you can always stick around and spend your time telling GAF how terribly awful GAF is, when all what you want to do, or so you say, is to talk videogames tout court.

At that point, what other option is there but to piss on the batteries of the 'dominant' faction on a particular forum.

See above.
Indeed. The word "dictate" perfectly describes the situation.

AC Odyssey is great so far, though. I hope the character turns out to be trans halfway through.

#metoo

 

[Redneckerz]

I remember the times that everyone in this industry just played games to play games and have fun.

I kinda miss that.

2018 proves Jack Thompson ultimately won his crusade and he has the last laugh.

Troubling times.

 

[Dunki]

Considering we've been hearing about "SJWs ruining mah vidya" for 5 years, which hasn't happened yet and the quality of AAA games have generally just been increasing, yeah. It is a weird obsession that anti-SJWs have with SJWs. Like the recent Spider-Man, which many are hailing as GotY, but somehow didn't manage to escape the angered gaze of the anti-SJWs (waah, why do the wimmins look normal and blah blah blah).

Does it? Honestly most of my purchases these days are Japanese Games. Spider-Man though was fantastic.

 

[Thiagosc777]

Considering we've been hearing about "SJWs ruining mah vidya" for 5 years, which hasn't happened yet and the quality of AAA games have generally just been increasing, yeah.

Dragon Age Inquisition, Mass Effect Andromeda, Wolfenstein 2, and others are objectively made worse by the introduction of agendas in their stories. The quality usually goes down when developers focus on such things.

 

[cormack12]

That is such a (pardon me) bullsh*t statement, it's not even funny anymore. These people seem to confuse stereotypes with character archetypes. Those archetypes are necessary if you want to create a well rounded character with whom the audience can identify. Archetypes exist for a reason, because they conceptualize fundamental problems and character flaws that most humans can relate to.

This is an excellent post and the main point missed by a lot of people. Archetypes exist for a reason and can be extrapolated to even non human entities. Certain archetype traits are tied to physicality as well.

Aside from that, people are getting lost in this debate. It's not even a serious or unreasonable stance. Basically what people are against is retconning or modifying existing IP's with established characters just for the sake of diversity. No one is bothered there's a game with a strong Lara Croft, no one is bothered that Aloy was a female lead et al. The evidence is there. Even more so, I remember the thread from these people way back about who should play Nathan Drake in a film. Almost unanimously Nathan Fillion - but wait, does that mean because no one said Denzel Washington that they are racist because they want a white Drake? Laughable, but that is what the entire Ciri debacle was about earlier. Sure you can, but if you the only reason is that you can, should you? And the worse thing is, just pushing to have a black face as a visible demonstration of progressiveness is -probably one of the most reductive things I've ever heard.

So, to anyone I'm asking for examples of new IP's in the last three years with female leads that caused this massive sexist, homophobic, racist, bigoted response that people are convinced is happening.

 

[cireza]

Back in the days, women had to fight to have the same rights as men. Like voting for elections. Having the right to terminate a pregnancy. In many countries, this is still not a reality. These are things worth fighting for.

People are actually just creating all this shit because they don't have anything more important/interesting to do.

Glad to see that Valkyria Chronicles 4 actually did not give a shit about this.

 

[DreamsiclesPlz]

I don't have any factual information, but something tells the the average person who enjoys video games (read: like 90% gamers) not only don't care about this, they probably don't even know who these people are. They just want to play games. I think it gets blown way out of context on social media/forums and whatnot.

I don't care if they're influenced by whoever. If they have a cool game I'll play it. The last Ubi game I bought was Mario X-COM so... it's few and far between lol.

 

[Thiagosc777]

I think it gets blown way out of context on social media/forums and whatnot.

You are mistaken. The target audience for these types of games is hardcore gamers (AAA, complex games that take a long time investment to master). Enough of them know about it, because they are waiting for its release. Bethesda thought the same about Wolfenstein 2 and it tanked.

This "it's just a small minority of people" excuse is a fallacy. Disney's Star Wars, Marvel Comics and some games in the past are proof of it. As some people have pointed out: "Get woke, go broke".

 

[JimmyRustler]

I remember the times that everyone in this industry just played games to play games and have fun.

I kinda miss that.

That times won't come back mate. Videogames are a big buck industry now and they won't be able to avoid such topics any more. Perhaps only if the general outcry dies down.

That's why the 80s and 90s will never be replicated again. Today everything is so mainstream and big business. Sports, games, movies... It's not just some geeks doing the stuff they love. So yeah...

 

[Redneckerz]

That times won't come back mate. Videogames are a big buck industry now and they won't be able to avoid such topics any more. Perhaps only if the general outcry dies down.

Personally its really easy to just play games for the sake of playing games. Just imagine: All that bickering that is spent arguing politics in gaming could have been used to you know.. play games. To invest in experiences.

That's why the 80s and 90s will never be replicated again. Today everything is so mainstream and big business. Sports, games, movies... It's not just some geeks doing the stuff they love. So yeah...

It also has a lot to do with current (US) political climate. Like really, outrage over virtual character's gender is a thing that is less prevalent here in Europe. Perhaps i am just being naive, but i feel a lot of this talk comes from the US in general.

 

[FranXico]

Those hired by merit also include people of color, women, and people that belong to the LGBTQ community by the way. And the fanbase for video games also include those people. Lets not forget that.

Ok?

If they are hired by merit, it means they make quality work, no matter who they are.

Your post reflects that if one hires talent by merit, you still get diverse talent, no need for "diversity quotas".

 

[Zewp]

Does it? Honestly most of my purchases these days are Japanese Games. Spider-Man though was fantastic.

It depends on what kind of games you're into, obviously, but I feel that the average quality of AAA has improved quite a bit from what we got in the 2011 - 2015 era. This year is the first time in a long while where I'm simply swamped by good AAA games and struggle to finish most of them. There's still a lot of excellent AAA games from 2017 that I haven't had the time to get to and probably never will, sadly.

#metoo

Phew buddy. Try to stick to 2 or 3 quotes at most. I'm a working man, the days where I value my time so little that I'd respond to angry dudes who make posts with 10+ quotes are unfortunately far behind me. Have a like for effort (and the insinuations about my debating skills/attention span/reading skills that are no doubt coming up next), though.

Dragon Age Inquisition, Mass Effect Andromeda, Wolfenstein 2, and others are objectively made worse by the introduction of agendas in their stories. The quality usually goes down when developers focus on such things.

O B J E C T I V E L Y

I mean, it's not like DA:I was a critical and commercial success that was well-loved by many and turned out to be Bioware's best-selling game. It's not like ME:A had a massively chaotic development. As for Wolfenstein 2, you really want to pin that on politics? It's more likely that it tanked because the game didn't live up to the hype. Just like how Evil Within 2 (which launched close to Wolfenstein 2) tanked despite not angering any Nazis by suggesting they should be punched. I mean, you really want to say Wolfenstein 2 was a worse game because of the introduction of "ESS-JAY-DUBBAYOU" politics in the form of taking a harsh stance on Nazism? A franchise that has always been about shooting the shit out of Nazis? It's okay to literally punch Nazis in Wolfenstein, but don't make it part of your marketing campaign because you might upset the Nazis. Wtf, lol.

But hey, O B J E C T I V E L Y.

 

[Zewp]

It also has a lot to do with current (US) political climate. Like really, outrage over virtual character's gender is a thing that is less prevalent here in Europe. Perhaps i am just being naive, but i feel a lot of this talk comes from the US in general.

Yeah, you obviously still get extremists on both sides of the fence in Europe, but I find that the average person has a "live and let live" attitude and tend more towards centrism. The situation is not as polarising as it is in the US.

Even on Facebook, if an ad for a game comes up the comments very rarely go into the political discussion. It's quite refreshing to just see people talk about games as games.

 

[DreamsiclesPlz]

Wolfenstein 2

Which got 8's and 9's across the board. This shit is still blown out of proportion. Not only hardcore gamers play AAA titles my dude, and the majority of them don't give a shit about this.

 

[Paracelsus]

Ok?

If they are hired by merit, it means they make quality work, no matter who they are.

Your post reflects that if one hires talent by merit, you still get diverse talent, no need for "diversity quotas".

Except they know they can't quite get to that level, so that's why you have full blown communist rulings like the California Board of DIrectors one, they act like merit and skills are magically earned through the white patriarchy, so they don't matter.

 

[ROMhack]

I take a cynical view and see this is as a pretty firm business decision from Ubi here. They obviously want to brand themselves as on the right side of whatever cultural war the Internet is having this week. I don't suspect that it's something that'll dent the already low quality of their titles (at least in terms of originality, which Ubi games have zero of)

 

[Thiagosc777]

A franchise that has always been about shooting the shit out of Nazis?

The issue with Wolfenstein was the parallel between real world events and in game events, creating a moral equivalence between the protagonist and Antifa. Wolfenstein prior to that has always been about fun and now it is ruined forever. Wolfenstein 2 was an Antifa endorsement, and that's just as bad as an Isis endorsement for normal people.

 

[Thiagosc777]

Which got 8's and 9's across the board.

From gaming illiterate critics who admittedly don't even play games anymore.

 

[Pantz]

Is this why there's no nudity in Assassin's Creed Odyssey?

 

[petran79]

So what if a game does both? Why are people acting as if a game that's inclusive, can't be deep and interesting?

First I'll worry if the game can run properly, is optimised and has bugs/glitches, then I'll worry about inclusion.

 

[Sapiens]

Man, what's it like to make a living off of this pseudo science?

 

[DreamsiclesPlz]

From gaming illiterate critics who admittedly don't even play games anymore.

7.5 on metacritic from user scores, 4.5 stars on amazon. I'd say people generally really liked it.

The issue with Wolfenstein was the parallel between real world events and in game events, creating a moral equivalence between the protagonist and Antifa.

No, Antifa has nothing to do with it. It's a game about killing Nazis. Because Nazis are bad.

Wolfenstein prior to that has always been about fun and now it is ruined forever.

Are you 12?

 

[Cybrwzrd]

7.5 on metacritic from user scores, 4.5 stars on amazon. I'd say people generally really liked it.



No, Antifa has nothing to do with it. It's a game about killing Nazis. Because Nazis are bad.



Are you 12?

Hold on, you got an account on GAF 3 years ago, when it was arguably difficult to do, and have only posted 10 times, all in the past month or two? And nearly every post is some sort of trolling? You deserve an achievement.

 

[Thiagosc777]

No, Antifa has nothing to do with it. It's a game about killing Nazis. Because Nazis are bad.

I am not going to prolong this discussion, but I suggest you Google the "punch a Nazi" thing that happened some time ago and how it was used in their marketing, thus creating an association between Wolfenstein and Antifa.

 

[Boss Mog]

Listen, hiring based on diversity has already been tried at Bioware Montreal. They were even given one of last gen's biggest IP to work on and we all know how that turned out. Andromeda was so bad that the ME series is now shelved indefinitely and the studio was shut down.

You need talented, hard-working people to build a good AAA game. You should never turn down more talented applicants to make room for less talented ones just because of their skin color or gender. Hire the best people no matter what they look like period.

 

[zenspider]

Do you and others realize that Anita is not that only person that feels this way? It's not the Gospel of Anita Chapter 3, Verse 2. This is and has been common wisdom going on multiple years.

I agree these are not unique positions held by Anita S., but this is not common wisdom by any stretch of the imagination.

This is a particularly nefarious brand of politics that has consumed the both the left and right wings over the last decade.

Identity politics have become common, but it's certainly not wisdom.

 

[Dunki]

No, Antifa has nothing to do with it. It's a game about killing Nazis. Because Nazis are bad.

This is kind of wrong. Wolfenstein was gamplay wise far worse than the original. It got however good scores because you could kill Nazis. So called critics called the story great and I have my suspicion that is because you could kill nazis which also reflected the reviews. Wolfenstein 2 in the end was a financial bomb as far as I know,

 

[zenspider]

This is literally one of the greatest non-videogame things I've ever seen directly from a video game company in years! It makes me want to purchase Ubisoft games even more now (they still have to be good first). It honestly looks like they care about humanity in a way that they don't actually have to do (in a profit-driven world).

It does look that way (and sometimes feel that way), which is part of why this agenda is so nefarious.

The fact that corporations can reconcile the Left with their neoliberal ambitions now that identity politics has taken class conciousness and the working class struggle off the table doesn't help humanity. It helps corporations.

 

[Redneckerz]

Yeah, you obviously still get extremists on both sides of the fence in Europe, but I find that the average person has a "live and let live" attitude and tend more towards centrism. The situation is not as polarising as it is in the US.

Even on Facebook, if an ad for a game comes up the comments very rarely go into the political discussion. It's quite refreshing to just see people talk about games as games.

I think that the reason why it blew up is because of US's position in the world. Undeservedly, issues like these reach a broad audience on a form of entertainment that for 3-4 decades was around games and games only. Sure you had problematic titles like BMX XXX or Custer's Revenge, but they were just that: Problematic.

Ironically those 2 examples were also only really problematic in... the US. Because nudity.

 

[TheWatcher]

No surprise. These people are locusts that go from popular hobby to popular hobby and rot it out from inside. "The Future is Female"... Good luck with that one.

 

[mckmas8808]

It is pretty easy. Because to be inclusive you have to make compromises in terms of stories, events and even characterization. For example in Anita's works a women who is shy in media is a negative for her. These days all you get in western video games are strong independent women. There isnothing else allowed anymore. Be it a Lara, be it an Alloy Cassandra from Odessey etc they are basically the same characters with the same personalitites. Meanwhile in Japanese games you have a huge variety of female characters. Are many of them tropes and stereotypes? Yes but they also feel way more real because they also have flaws.

Honestly I am bored of female characters in Western games. They are boring and predictable.

I wish people would realize that this bolded sentence is literally why we have such a HUGE divide at the moment when it comes to these converstations. There are people like D Dunki that honestly believe that being inclusive equals having to make compromises. "Usually" people view compromises as having to give something up and not getting everything you want. So D Dunki and others that agree with his post above you have to ask yourself why do you feel like you are giving something up just because a women maybe one of the leads in a video game (for example)?

Please just stop. Everything that I've read from you is just spouting fallacies. Even this you're putting the burden of proof which you have no intention of continuing the discussion.

What is your stance? From what I've been reading, there's a whole lot of nothing.

Then you need to read better. English is my first and only languange and I have a very good command of it. The comprehension is on you. To make it crystal clear......

- Ubisoft is doing a good thing discussing their characters and not trying to be overly stereotypical when it comes to creating them. Having internal discussions about this is good.
- Trying to stir clear of obvious/boring tropes are a good thing.
- Making Anita's words the lead on this probably isn't a good thing. They should have a better understanding on how Anita is viewed in the real world and stir clear on ever using her name publically or privately.
- I'm pro diversity and pro inclusion (the real definition, not the made up racist definition of diversity).

You know, I hope nobody takes offence. I'm a bit of a movie buff, so of course I watched Wonder Woman & Black Panther. And honestly found them to be nothing special at all.

Yet the praise received would make you think they were movies of the decade. So I need to ask, is the praise genuine or is it skewed due to the strong Woman protagonist, and the Black protagonists? Is inclusion or a flattering representation worth extra merit in critique of media?

If so, are game companies as businesses chasing this for some free points. Or am I the one that is Blinkered and can't see the forest through the trees?

Thanks for asking the question. The "REAL" answer is the praise for both are 100% REAL! You just didn't feel moved by either movie or characters and that's 100% okay and you aren't a racist or sexist for feeling that way. It's okay to not feel moved by movies or characters that are praised by the media and millions of people globally. Stop feeling the pressure of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). There are many people that didn't think Ellen Ripley in Alien was great. There are others that think the Indiana Jones and Rocky Balboa characters were overhyped. It's okay to just disagree and move on. No need to think those characters in Black Panther or Wonder Woman got the love they got just for "SJW" reasons.

That is clearly the case. They tried to do the same with Star Wars, and failed.

This is sad. This clearly shows how divided this country and many of us in the world are. This culture war is only beginning and our Earthly society will have some huge issues going forward, because minorities and women are only going to get more and more money, power, and respect the longer we keep surviving on this planet. At SOME POINT there will have to be an understanding that other people matter and are smart and talented too.

Your post reflects that if one hires talent by merit, you still get diverse talent, no need for "diversity quotas".

Except that's not what's happening in the real world. The push for diversity has been happening because too many black and brown people and women have been overlooked for years in many industries.

 

[Harlock]

Could be good if was normal people doing that, but they are crazy/radical.

 

[Woo-Fu]

Listen, hiring based on diversity has already been tried at Bioware Montreal. They were even given one of last gen's biggest IP to work on and we all know how that turned out. Andromeda was so bad that the ME series is now shelved indefinitely and the studio was shut down.

You need talented, hard-working people to build a good AAA game. You should never turn down more talented applicants to make room for less talented ones just because of their skin color or gender. Hire the best people no matter what they look like period.

While I agree in principle I don't think your example is a good one unless it was proven that diversity hiring is what tanked Andromeda. Somehow I don't think that was it. It possibly could have factored into the animation team being chronically understaffed but animation is hardly the only problematic aspect of Andromeda.

https://kotaku.com/the-story-behind-mass-effect-andromedas-troubled-five-1795886428

 

[Acidizer]

Pretty sad to see them fall over theirselves in order to pander.

If they brainstormed as hard over ideas for their games we might actually get something original and exciting.

 

[mckmas8808]

It does look that way (and sometimes feel that way), which is part of why this agenda is so nefarious.

The fact that corporations can reconcile the Left with their neoliberal ambitions now that identity politics has taken class consciousness and the working class struggle off the table doesn't help humanity. It helps corporations.

The sad part about all of this is.....wanting to not fall prey to boring tropes should be something that we all at least appreciate a company researching and thinking about it. But if that...yes....even just doing that turns into a huge culture war were you personally view it as "neoliberal" ambitions and reconciling with the so-called "Left".

A company can't even do this in private without looking like villains to 50% of gamers. This whole thing freaking sucks. Guys like me want to honestly play games with people that look like me, sound like me, and I can relate to them. I haven't gotten as much as I'd like but things have gotten better over the last decade. Then I started to realize that after playing games as a lesbian (Gone Home) and as a young girl (The Walking Dead and Life is Strange) what I REALLY wanted was to play games that told different stories than the 3,000 that I played as a straight/white/male. And the response that many on GAF and other places is "SCREW THIS SJW BULLCRAP" and it's just so frustrating that the world has to be like this.

 

[lock2k]

The whole concept of diversity as we know it nowadays is a fallacy. Diversity for diversity's sake is a concept that holds no value. Everyone has a different brain.

Therefore, even if a room has, let's say, 12 people who look similar... their thoughts will be completely different, hence diversity.

Skin diversity is not diversity. If anything, these mobs are much more hive-minded than people who don't care about this shit.

We should all go color blind and think about people as walking brains and not skins.

That said, everyone should have opportunities in life, we should have gotten past this whole quota thing by now. This checkbox mentality is some truly fucked up shit and I think it hinders companies more than it helps them.

 

[Acidizer]

I don't care what the protagonist looks like, at all.

What I am interested in is games with mechanics that aren't sloppy garbage, and devs fail on this 9 times out of 10 unfortunately.

They spend years creating impressive worlds and it plays like horseshit! The most frustrating part is that they are probably only a few tweaks away (a few days work) from nailing the "feel"... instead we end up with something ultimately shallow and unsatisfying.

The protagonist from MGS V could be the antithesis of "straight white male" and I'd still play it for hundreds of hours. That game played SILKY AF.

 

[RedVIper]

Except that's not what's happening in the real world. The push for diversity has been happening because too many black and brown people and women have been overlooked for years in many industries.

They weren't overlooked, woman didn't really play games until recently, is it that hard to imagine that these white guys you seem to hate, that spent their childhoods playing games, maybe are just better at making them? They have been part of the industry for longer it would be expected that, on average, they're better at it. Now we should definitely let everyone be a part of it, if they want to, but forcing companies to hire woman just because they're a woman is wrong (And extremely sexist btw), if they're good at their job they'll get hired.

This same logic applies to many industries, woman have been part of the workforce for a lot less time than men, some things just take time, trying to force diversity is honestly moronic and counter productive (If you force employers to hire woman/minorities because they're woman/minorities people will wonder if they deserve the position in the first place, even themselves, and rightfully so.)

 

[mckmas8808]

They weren't overlooked, woman didn't really play games until recently, is it that hard to imagine that these white guys you seem to hate, that spent their childhoods playing games, maybe are just better at making them? They have been part of the industry for longer it would be expected that, on average, they're better at it. Now we should definitely let everyone be a part of it, if they want to, but forcing companies to hire woman just because they're a woman is wrong (And extremely sexist btw), if they're good at their job they'll get hired.

This same logic applies to many industries, woman have been part of the workforce for a lot less time than men, some things just take time, trying to force diversity is honestly moronic and counter productive (If you force employers to hire woman/minorities because they're woman/minorities people will wonder if they deserve the position in the first place, even themselves, and rightfully so.)

Lets get something straight here! I don't hate white guys so stop it with the childish way of thinking. But no white men are not just "better" at making games. I have no reason to believe that this is the case. Especially when a small country in Asia per population puts out more quality games then many countries in the West combined.

And nobody is "forcing" women into these jobs. These companies are spending money to find talent out there amongst groups that have been overlooked. There's alot of hidden talent out there and its a worthy cause to find it. There have been women that would have been good at making games and they were overlooked. And I understand why it may feel like it's forced on you when you are the dominate race/gender. But just because overlooked talent now gets more jobs in that industry doesn't mean it's being forced on anybody.

View it as true competition now. The playing field is being leveled out and now you have to compete with more talent than before. It's not good enough to be a white guy that likes to write stories. You are now competing with ideas from more minorities, women, and LGBT people that have fresh stories from angles that haven't been told before. And on top of that, there's a new audience that WANTS those stories to be told. It's now your turn to truly compete and not have things given to you as easy as it once was.

Win the job!

 

[Moneal]

I wish people would realize that this bolded sentence is literally why we have such a HUGE divide at the moment when it comes to these converstations. There are people like D Dunki that honestly believe that being inclusive equals having to make compromises. "Usually" people view compromises as having to give something up and not getting everything you want. So D Dunki and others that agree with his post above you have to ask yourself why do you feel like you are giving something up just because a women maybe one of the leads in a video game (for example)?

I think D Dunki didn't word his post well, remember english isn't his native language. The inclusion being pushed isn't just for bringing in black, gay, trans or women characters. Its for only presenting those types of characters in good lights. There are complaints when black characters are the bad guys, Resident Evil 5 people even complained about Far Cry 5 for having black cultists, or when women are displayed as weaker and have to be saved, just about anything. I even remember the whole Far Cry 4 cover art reveal, and people complaining about why the bad guy was gay, without even knowing the story at all or even knowing if he was actually gay.

As I pointed out before no one cared before when female or black characters were the protags or the bad guys or the ones to be saved. Now if they aren't represented in a good light there are complaints. That is the problem. If you want representation, you have to accept that some characters will be good guys and some will be the bad guys. Its how real representation works.

 

[Dunki]

I wish people would realize that this bolded sentence is literally why we have such a HUGE divide at the moment when it comes to these converstations. There are people like @Dunki that honestly believe that being inclusive equals having to make compromises. "Usually" people view compromises as having to give something up and not getting everything you want. So @Dunki and others that agree with his post above you have to ask yourself why do you feel like you are giving something up just because a women maybe one of the leads in a video game (for example)?

I will now show you one current example how your so called inclusiveness hinders storytelling and character writing.

https://www.vg247.com/2018/09/25/valkyria-chronicles-4-sexual-harassment-problem/

This article not only straight out lies but also question the existence of certain character types. Even evil Characters are not allowed to be shitheads anymore. Remember the whole Lara Rape controversy in the 2013 Reboot? so well known people were mad about a evil character doing evil shit and in the end it was even a very harmless scene. Remember Castlevania 2 remember Hotline Miami 2 and their rape scene controversy?

And I feel I am losing something because characters evil or not have to be treated like they are walking on eggshells. Racist evil Characters? Not anymore violance against women or minorities? Not acceptable anymore. Sexy women like Bayonetta? NO. Women wearing skirts? HELL NO. A Naked Trish in DMC5 ? OMG SEXIST. So yes you are losing something.

And fuck I do not even care if I play a men or a women but make them interesting make them unique, make them have flaws and experience something terrible to show character grow etc. All this is not possible right now especially with women who HAVE to be a certain way or they are deemed as sexist.

 

[InterMusketeer]

I wish people would realize that this bolded sentence is literally why we have such a HUGE divide at the moment when it comes to these converstations. There are people like D Dunki that honestly believe that being inclusive equals having to make compromises. "Usually" people view compromises as having to give something up and not getting everything you want. So D Dunki and others that agree with his post above you have to ask yourself why do you feel like you are giving something up just because a women maybe one of the leads in a video game (for example)?

Hmm, I wonder why people feel like we have to give things up, and that artistic freedom is being limited.

First came the complaints that there were too many white, straight men in games. I mean, first off that's already sexist and racist, but okay, sure, we'll accommodate for the sake of inclusivity and diversity. Bam, tons of games where you can design your own character or where you can pick between genders. There ya go.

Oh wait, it's not good enough? Why? Oh I see, because we need to force men to play as women as a sort of twisted revenge scheme. Women have been forced to identify with men for too long so now it needs to be flipped upside down! We need to change the world through games guys! Sure, fair enough, we'll make big budget games where the main character is a woman. We'll get those darn men to play as women yet, just you wait!

Alright we did it! We got those pesky ,sexist men to play as women. What, Aloy was racist all along? She has that "Tribal Look©" that's been copyrighted by black people and native Americans and white people obviously can't look like that, so that's racist. Also, she's white, and there's too many white women in games. In fact, just give us anything that isn't white, that'll work. No racism here though.

Hey by the way, have you seen that Black Panther movie? Remember all those black women kicking ass? Did you notice how none of them were lesbian? Yikes! Like, what's up with that man? The fuck? What a bunch of homophobes over at Disney.

Not enough trans people either, not enough fat people, not enough vegans, not enough muslims, not enough disabled people. Do I need to go on? The entirety of western media is just not diverse enough people, we can and need to do better than this! Also make sure they don't show any traits that could be seen as a stereotype, because that'd be awful, because all the work you put into pushing our agenda would be nullified!

TL;DR: It's never good enough. You can't win if you respond to the demands these people have. You'd have to resort to tokenism and checklists to even attempt to satiate the hunger of these gluttons. And we don't want that, because what they want is dumb. It's just an awful, terrible idea.

And nobody is "forcing" women into these jobs. These companies are spending money to find talent out there amongst groups that have been overlooked.

View it as true competition now. The playing field is being leveled out and now you have to compete with more talent than before. It's not good enough to be a white guy that likes to write stories. You are now competing with ideas from more minorities, women, and LGBT people that have fresh stories from angles that haven't been told before.

Yes, true competition is some people getting hired and others turned away for their skin color or genitals. That is true competition in your view.

Do I even need to point out what's wrong with that statement? I thought you weren't RACIST dude?

Also damn me for getting born in this period. If only I'd been born a decade or two earlier, I could've become a writer just like that! "Oh, you're white, male and you like writing stories? Hired! The actual quality of your work don't matter, as long as we keep them wamenz and blacks out. They need to know their place!" I guess your world view really is black and white, mckmas.

And on top of that, there's a new audience that WANTS those stories to be told. It's now your turn to truly compete and not have things given to you as easy as it once was.

Yeahhhh... about that...

Win the job!

By being a minority! Because only minorities can have unique perspectives and untapped talent and potential. Yay, racism!

 

[mckmas8808]

I think D Dunki didn't word his post well, remember english isn't his native language. The inclusion being pushed isn't just for bringing in black, gay, trans or women characters. Its for only presenting those types of characters in good lights. There are complaints when black characters are the bad guys, Resident Evil 5 people even complained about Far Cry 5 for having black cultists, or when women are displayed as weaker and have to be saved, just about anything. I even remember the whole Far Cry 4 cover art reveal, and people complaining about why the bad guy was gay, without even knowing the story at all or even knowing if he was actually gay.

As I pointed out before no one cared before when female or black characters were the protags or the bad guys or the ones to be saved. Now if they aren't represented in a good light there are complaints. That is the problem. If you want representation, you have to accept that some characters will be good guys and some will be the bad guys. Its how real representation works.

I agree with the bolded. And I disagree with people that said those things about the black characters in RE5. It was stupid and hard to see them get removed from the game. I personally was happy to kill some black zombies for once lol. Then that got taken from me and I was upset.

And it's times like that where some of the left make things worse (though we need to keep in mind that it's really the corporations that we should be upset at, because they are the ones that actually made the change).

 

[Dunki]

I agree with the bolded. And I disagree with people that said those things about the black characters in RE5. It was stupid and hard to see them get removed from the game. I personally was happy to kill some black zombies for once lol. Then that got taken from me and I was upset.

And it's times like that where some of the left make things worse (though we need to keep in mind that it's really the corporations that we should be upset at, because they are the ones that actually made the change).

They made the change because of the censorship pressure from so called journalists. You can not let it stand that people call your company racist and sexist. Companies can not win in this battle because these fucking "journlists" and their accusations have still too much power and they need to die (not the people but the sites) very fast to actually bring change.

So no be not upset about the big companies but be upset about these "assholes" who try to ruin gaming since a few years with their bullshit agenda and their lies. The faster this so called games "journalism" dies the faster we get great and interesting games back that do not follow a certain formular to get the lesat amount of backlash possible.

 

[mckmas8808]

They made the change because of the censorship pressure from so called journalists. You can not let it stand that people call your company racist and sexist. Companies can not win in this battle because these fucking "journlists" and their accusations have still too much power and they need to die (not the people but the sites) very fast to actually bring change.

So no be not upset about the big companies but be upset about these "assholes" who try to ruin gaming since a few years with their bullshit agenda and their lies. The faster this so called games "journalism" dies the faster we get great and interesting games back that do not follow a certain formular to get the lesat amount of backlash possible.

You are right. But they didn't "have" to. They didn't have enough resolve in their own game or developers and that's on them. These companies can win against some journalists. Stop giving these companies a pass. Look at RDR2 and Rockstar. They listen to gamers and critics, but only to a certain degree.

 

[zenspider]

The sad part about all of this is.....wanting to not fall prey to boring tropes should be something that we all at least appreciate a company researching and thinking about it. But if that...yes....even just doing that turns into a huge culture war were you personally view it as "neoliberal" ambitions and reconciling with the so-called "Left".

A company can't even do this in private without looking like villains to 50% of gamers. This whole thing freaking sucks. Guys like me want to honestly play games with people that look like me, sound like me, and I can relate to them. I haven't gotten as much as I'd like but things have gotten better over the last decade. Then I started to realize that after playing games as a lesbian (Gone Home) and as a young girl (The Walking Dead and Life is Strange) what I REALLY wanted was to play games that told different stories than the 3,000 that I played as a straight/white/male. And the response that many on GAF and other places is "SCREW THIS SJW BULLCRAP" and it's just so frustrating that the world has to be like this.

I cannot agree with you more in terms of what I want to see in games, but is there any evidence that these wonderful experiences (like the ones you mentioned) are the result of Unconcious Bias Training?

I also agree that it's terrible that these false lines are drawn and it's very difficult to express a nuanced opinion, and it does suck that someone like you who can really see both sides has no place in a discussion - you're immediately tagged one way or the other.

I think you should look into the actual process and ramifications of what "diversity training" and "inclusive practices" mean in the HR corporate context, and how these ideas were developed. There is a lot of room to be suspicious and critical of these ideas and practices before we get to into wether or not the net result is what you and I both seem to want in gaming.

 

[Dunki]

You are right. But they didn't "have" to. They didn't have enough resolve in their own game or developers and that's on them. These companies can win against some journalists. Stop giving these companies a pass. Look at RDR2 and Rockstar. They listen to gamers and critics, but only to a certain degree.

Are you serious? They have invested millions of dollar into their games they are employing 100-200 people and you do seriously believe that they would risk any of it? The shitstorm on media can not only ruin peoples life but also whole companies. They have everything to lose here not these piss "journalists" calling everything a racist and sexist their cultish agenda does not agree with. They are censoring companies due to public pressure and they know exactly what they are doing. And yes I rather support a company who tries to fight these people and their fascist minds on all acounts.

Rockstar is in a privileged Position here. They do not care because they makes tons of money. But especially smaller companies can not do this. Indy Developer can not do this and hell they basically made games like a hat in time invisible because of three spoken llines of some guy... The fucking lines and these so called Journlists completly ignored the game for it. Fuck these people seriously....

Social media is the easiest way hese days to censor products and companies you do not like. The Government in China is nothing against these lynching social media mobs.

 

[mckmas8808]

I cannot agree with you more in terms of what I want to see in games, but is there any evidence that these wonderful experiences (like the ones you mentioned) are the result of Unconcious Bias Training?

I also agree that it's terrible that these false lines are drawn and it's very difficult to express a nuanced opinion, and it does suck that someone like you who can really see both sides has no place in a discussion - you're immediately tagged one way or the other.

I think you should look into the actual process and ramifications of what "diversity training" and "inclusive practices" mean in the HR corporate context, and how these ideas were developed. There is a lot of room to be suspicious and critical of these ideas and practices before we get to into wether or not the net result is what you and I both seem to want in gaming.

There is no evidence that diversity training or unconscious bias training leads to the wonderful experiences I've had with games in the past. And to be honest, there's some evidence to believe that these training could cause more harm than good. It just sucks because how do you respond to an atmosphere at the workplace where sexual harassment is accepted? How does a company or community respond when racism is excepted within certain pockets or departments in a company? Like if someone is experiencing issues of racism at his job and the boss lets it slide, how is that person supposed to know what to do? Should that person have "faith" that HR will have his back?

I personally don't have the answers and I know diversity training isn't the answer because it doesn't really work as it should. But I don't know what else these companies can do.

 

[Dunki]

There is no evidence that diversity training or unconscious bias training leads to the wonderful experiences I've had with games in the past. And to be honest, there's some evidence to believe that these training could cause more harm than good. It just sucks because how do you respond to an atmosphere at the workplace where sexual harassment is accepted? How does a company or community respond when racism is excepted within certain pockets or departments in a company? Like if someone is experiencing issues of racism at his job and the boss lets it slide, how is that person supposed to know what to do? Should that person have "faith" that HR will have his back?

I personally don't have the answers and I know diversity training isn't the answer because it doesn't really work as it should. But I don't know what else these companies can do.

how about treating them as human beings. When for example men are already scared to be in the same room alone with women then there is something terrible wrong going on. When male teachers are not allowed to close the door when they are talking to one of his pupils then there is something terrible wrong. And yes you can thank modern feminism for it since they stigmatized man especially white ones as sexist and racist predators.

 

[mckmas8808]

how about treating them as human beings. When for example men are already scared to be in the same room alone with women then there is something terrible wrong going on. When male teachers are not allowed to close the door when they are talking to one of his pupils then there is something terrible wrong. And yes you can thank modern feminism for it since they stigmatized man especially white ones as sexist and racist predators.

If any of you men feel this way (the bolded) you need to check yourself. It's probably you! Don't blame women for that. It's just you guys being weidos. And why would a teacher need to close the door to talk to one of his pupils?