“easier to take the line that the work is open to many interpretations”
June 20, 2018 12:30 PM Subscribe
Why are game companies so afraid of the politics in their games? [Polygon] “Game publishers are lathering their productions with the stark imagery of modern political divisions, while at the same time denying any topical intent. Their strategy, according to industry sources ranging from developers to publicists, is to profit from emotive societal divisions, while ducking difficult conversations about what their works might signify. Their games garner publicity and a sense of cultural relevance, but the companies avoid the challenge and expense of controversy. In the words of one senior game industry publicist I spoke to, under conditions of anonymity: “It’s bullshit. They want to have their cake and eat it too.” In the past few years, we’ve seen repeated examples of the quasi-political AAA game. ”
• Let's talk about politics in games [PC Gamer]
• Let's talk about politics in games [PC Gamer]
“There’s a distinction to be made between games that passively express political ideas in their worlds without passing comment or turning them into an explicit message—The Witcher 3, for example—and games that do. BioShock’s literary influences are obvious and showing a Randian society as a warped hellscape is a clear political position. GTA and Red Dead Redemption are on a mission to explore American identity and pop culture through drama and parody. Far Cry 5 gestured at being a BioShock or a GTA, and so the lack of any coherent point of view in the game ended up being a surprise worthy of a mention in our review. One of the ways we approach evaluating a game is to consider how successful it is at what it set out to do. If customers saw Far Cry 5’s marketing and bought it anticipating some political ideas, it’s worth pointing out the absence of that, without holding that against the amount of fun you're likely to have with the game.”• Playing with politics: How real-world politics could improve your game [Gamasutra]
“Politics have to creep in eventually. You can’t really avoid politics, no matter how much people will try, because people create politics. Get a group of people together and give them reasons to interact, and political structures will start to emerge almost immediately. Even in a small group, people will find things they agree or disagree about. They will form alliances, hold grudges for past wrongs, and try to impose some kind of order. That’s what politics is, in essence. If you want your science fiction world to feel real and compelling, you’re going to have to think about the political structures that exist within it. You will need to think about practical questions, like how law and order are managed, how interlopers are punished, and how leaders are appointed. All of these are inherently political, and if you want the societies and groups in your stories to ring true, then the best way to create the political structure is to take inspiration from the real world. This isn’t a bad thing: believable politics will make your world richer and more interesting, and help your audience to accept all the impossible things you throw at them.”• The Uber Game Shows the Latent Power of Political Video Games [Kotaku]
“What is the point of the more ideologically-driven games? Some developers might answer: "Well to change the world, of course!'' But is that desire ever realised? There is an abundance of politically-motivated games, but are they ever going to change anyone's opinion from one side to another? Swedish Fine art curator Maria Lind has an apt analogy for this question: if, when you are about to tell a joke, you make the declaration "This is going to be really funny!", then in all likelihood the listener is not going to find the joke funny. The initial declaration defuses the humour – the surprise factor is gone, and the listener prepares in advance for something that might be funny. You could argue a similar thing happens with politics in video games. If a developer announces that their work is going to be highly critical of the status quo, it is likely to lose that criticality straight away. Up-front declarations of intent mean that the players purchasing and downloading such games are already aware of its political propositions. More often than not, these socially-conscious video games simply reflect the divisive times rather than offering solutions to any particular issues. And it would be naive to think that people who disagree with the message behind a given video game will care to download it and, more importantly, be open-minded enough to have their opinion changed.”• Far Cry 5 wasn’t a game for the Trump era, but it tried to be one anyway [The Verge]
“The members of Eden’s Gate obviously hoard guns, and they’re theoretically Christian — they scrawl the names of various deadly sins on every available surface — which is why many reviews have criticized Far Cry 5’s cult for not drawing on real Christian Fundamentalist or neo-Nazi ideology. But if you disregard Ubisoft’s interviews and marketing, you get the sense that the game isn’t avoiding these topics. It’s just not interested in them. Despite Ubisoft’s solemn PR campaign, Far Cry 5 isn’t a serious narrative game about political extremism hampered by shooter mechanics or controversy-shy executives. It’s the ludic equivalent of a trashy exploitation film, with a core of ultraviolence dipped in a shiny coating of social commentary. Far Cry 5 is “about” guns and religion the way ‘50s women-in-prison films were about criminal justice reform. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but it’s not surprising that consistent political messaging takes a backseat to firefights and explosions.”
Games can't have "default" politics anymore, because that ends up being the political consensus of the current era. Which, at the moment, is fascism.
No, Ubisoft, I am not interested in playing a game wherein strong men with guns save Washington, DC. What the fuck is wrong with you.
posted by selfnoise at 12:37 PM on June 20, 2018 [26 favorites]
No, Ubisoft, I am not interested in playing a game wherein strong men with guns save Washington, DC. What the fuck is wrong with you.
posted by selfnoise at 12:37 PM on June 20, 2018 [26 favorites]
Game publishers are lathering their productions with the stark imagery of modern political divisions, while at the same time denying any topical intent.
That's how art works. You don't have to explain it. If you've picked up on it, congratulations, you've understood what the artists intended. Is the author complaining there wasn't a Cliff Notes enclosed?
posted by Damienmce at 12:42 PM on June 20, 2018 [3 favorites]
That's how art works. You don't have to explain it. If you've picked up on it, congratulations, you've understood what the artists intended. Is the author complaining there wasn't a Cliff Notes enclosed?
posted by Damienmce at 12:42 PM on June 20, 2018 [3 favorites]
The opposite, I think - games use the trappings of politics without any of the content of those politics.
posted by sagc at 12:45 PM on June 20, 2018 [18 favorites]
posted by sagc at 12:45 PM on June 20, 2018 [18 favorites]
If my fanbase was known to contain a fair proportion of insane manchildren with a willingness to send the police to get someone killed over minor disputes, I would be afraid of a lot of things, and an explicit political statement is only one of them.
posted by Countess Elena at 12:56 PM on June 20, 2018 [42 favorites]
posted by Countess Elena at 12:56 PM on June 20, 2018 [42 favorites]
Obviously big publishers want to try and avoid politics because they want to avoid the risk of alienating half of their audience. Pick liberal politics and you tick off the Trumpers, pick conservative politics and you might tick off everyone else.
I suspect that as we move forward we'll see video games, like most media, becoming increasingly visibly conservative because in general leftist and liberal types will enjoy a game even if it goes against their politics, while the Trump crowd is vastly more concerned about ideological purity in media.
But even then it'll be watered down, milquetoast, conservatism because, again, regardless of the politics of the corporate entity making the game they want to get the most profit and that means they don't want to seriously torque off the left either.
Plus, of course, more games like Far Cry which have this sort of mysterious gaping void where the politics the game narrative demands have been omitted.
And, even more games set in the past where the political issues of the era are mostly settled
or completely alien now. Set a game in Tokugawa Era Japan and the average American gamer won't have any real devotion to the politics of one side or the other. The Wolfenstein people thought they were working with a society where Nazis were universally agreed to be bad, but they failed to anticipate the effect Trump would have on US politics.
posted by sotonohito at 12:56 PM on June 20, 2018 [6 favorites]
I suspect that as we move forward we'll see video games, like most media, becoming increasingly visibly conservative because in general leftist and liberal types will enjoy a game even if it goes against their politics, while the Trump crowd is vastly more concerned about ideological purity in media.
But even then it'll be watered down, milquetoast, conservatism because, again, regardless of the politics of the corporate entity making the game they want to get the most profit and that means they don't want to seriously torque off the left either.
Plus, of course, more games like Far Cry which have this sort of mysterious gaping void where the politics the game narrative demands have been omitted.
And, even more games set in the past where the political issues of the era are mostly settled
or completely alien now. Set a game in Tokugawa Era Japan and the average American gamer won't have any real devotion to the politics of one side or the other. The Wolfenstein people thought they were working with a society where Nazis were universally agreed to be bad, but they failed to anticipate the effect Trump would have on US politics.
posted by sotonohito at 12:56 PM on June 20, 2018 [6 favorites]
(My last comment was too "LOL gamers" in a specific and gendered way. This can happen in any fandom with too much internet in it, and these days that is going to be true of most any game's fandom. Somebody caught death threats over Dream Daddy fanart, for pants' sake.)
posted by Countess Elena at 12:58 PM on June 20, 2018
posted by Countess Elena at 12:58 PM on June 20, 2018
This article doesn’t go nearly deep enough to trust them about the point they say they are making. Like, Bethesda didn’t go milquetoast on the new Wolfenstein. They were pretty upfront about who they were targeting and it was really clear throughout the game.
I think what this article gets wrong is a game that’s Setting Out To Be Politically Meaningful, and a game that uses political influences to make it more emotionally resonant. The latter isn’t unpolitical, it just didn’t set out to be that way.
posted by corb at 12:59 PM on June 20, 2018 [3 favorites]
I think what this article gets wrong is a game that’s Setting Out To Be Politically Meaningful, and a game that uses political influences to make it more emotionally resonant. The latter isn’t unpolitical, it just didn’t set out to be that way.
posted by corb at 12:59 PM on June 20, 2018 [3 favorites]
That's how art works. You don't have to explain it. If you've picked up on it, congratulations, you've understood what the artists intended. Is the author complaining there wasn't a Cliff Notes enclosed?
It's one thing to say "This game stands alone and you can take from it what you wish". It's quite another to drench a game in politics and then to insist that there's nothing political about it.
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:40 PM on June 20, 2018 [11 favorites]
It's one thing to say "This game stands alone and you can take from it what you wish". It's quite another to drench a game in politics and then to insist that there's nothing political about it.
posted by Pope Guilty at 1:40 PM on June 20, 2018 [11 favorites]
It’s like demanding anything more than a superficial dusting of politics in the latest explosion-biff-bang Hollywood blockbuster, in a way. Of course they’re going to do a shit job.
posted by Jimbob at 1:49 PM on June 20, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Jimbob at 1:49 PM on June 20, 2018 [1 favorite]
There are two related but distinct issues here: one about the politics of games companies and another about the politics of games.
Big games companies don't want to be seen as political because, being good mass-market capitalist media companies, they want to sell to the widest possible audience. So Bethesda will make a game like Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus which clearly has a message about fascism in America, and then turn around and say “Bethesda doesn’t develop games to make specific statements or incite political discussions.” This is sometimes disingenuous, but generally we all accept that not every movie with a message represents the stance of the studio, and not every book represents the stance of the publisher, so why should we treat games developers and publishers any different?
The more serious issue, to my mind, is games that want to use political issues as window-dressing, without actually dealing with them. Far Cry 5 depicts an armed militia/cult taking over a chunk of Montana in Trump's America, but doesn't seem to be interested in militias, cults, or how they might function in the Trump era. The Division 2 is about a paramilitary organization overthrowing a corrupt government against the backdrop of a ruined Washington DC, but all indications are that they want to "avoid politics". Detroit: Become Human posits a near-future world in which androids are the subject of violent prejudice in a way that echoes the history of racism in America, but at the same time actual historical racism seems to have magically evaporated.
These games take political issues and stories as their core subject matter, but at the same time they want to avoid actually exploring any of those issues, instead just using them as a backdrop for power fantasies that mostly involve lots of murder of a dehumanized other. That in itself is a powerful political statement, even if it's not one that the creators explicitly intended to send.
To draw a historical parallel, the Western movie genre in the first half of the 20th century was full of fun action movies where the white hero saved the town by killing large numbers of Indians. Their creators probably saw these movies as "non-political" but looking back, those movies send a pretty clear message: "people of color are your enemy, and their lives do not matter." I don't think it's out of place to point that out for criticism.
On preview: It’s like demanding anything more than a superficial dusting of politics in the latest explosion-biff-bang Hollywood blockbuster, in a way. Of course they’re going to do a shit job.
And yet lots of blockbuster movies and games either forgo the dusting of politics altogether, or they use their dusting judiciously and make a point to get the bits they include right. I don't think it's too much to criticize those who don't.
posted by firechicago at 1:57 PM on June 20, 2018 [23 favorites]
Big games companies don't want to be seen as political because, being good mass-market capitalist media companies, they want to sell to the widest possible audience. So Bethesda will make a game like Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus which clearly has a message about fascism in America, and then turn around and say “Bethesda doesn’t develop games to make specific statements or incite political discussions.” This is sometimes disingenuous, but generally we all accept that not every movie with a message represents the stance of the studio, and not every book represents the stance of the publisher, so why should we treat games developers and publishers any different?
The more serious issue, to my mind, is games that want to use political issues as window-dressing, without actually dealing with them. Far Cry 5 depicts an armed militia/cult taking over a chunk of Montana in Trump's America, but doesn't seem to be interested in militias, cults, or how they might function in the Trump era. The Division 2 is about a paramilitary organization overthrowing a corrupt government against the backdrop of a ruined Washington DC, but all indications are that they want to "avoid politics". Detroit: Become Human posits a near-future world in which androids are the subject of violent prejudice in a way that echoes the history of racism in America, but at the same time actual historical racism seems to have magically evaporated.
These games take political issues and stories as their core subject matter, but at the same time they want to avoid actually exploring any of those issues, instead just using them as a backdrop for power fantasies that mostly involve lots of murder of a dehumanized other. That in itself is a powerful political statement, even if it's not one that the creators explicitly intended to send.
To draw a historical parallel, the Western movie genre in the first half of the 20th century was full of fun action movies where the white hero saved the town by killing large numbers of Indians. Their creators probably saw these movies as "non-political" but looking back, those movies send a pretty clear message: "people of color are your enemy, and their lives do not matter." I don't think it's out of place to point that out for criticism.
On preview: It’s like demanding anything more than a superficial dusting of politics in the latest explosion-biff-bang Hollywood blockbuster, in a way. Of course they’re going to do a shit job.
And yet lots of blockbuster movies and games either forgo the dusting of politics altogether, or they use their dusting judiciously and make a point to get the bits they include right. I don't think it's too much to criticize those who don't.
posted by firechicago at 1:57 PM on June 20, 2018 [23 favorites]
The Wolfenstein people thought they were working with a society where Nazis were universally agreed to be bad, but they failed to anticipate the effect Trump would have on US politics.
I really don't think that's the case. Sure, Bethesda isn't about to come out and say "Fuck Trump, he's a Nazi and our game is all about putting your boot up his ass" but if you read the article that was cited by the Polygon piece, it's pretty clear that they knew exactly what they were commenting on. The political moment that the game was being developed in clearly shaped it heavily, and Pete Hines, their most visible spokesperson, was pretty clear that his stance was that if you thought that their game about kicking Nazi ass was a personal attack on you, maybe you're a Nazi who deserves an ass-kicking.
posted by firechicago at 2:05 PM on June 20, 2018 [18 favorites]
I really don't think that's the case. Sure, Bethesda isn't about to come out and say "Fuck Trump, he's a Nazi and our game is all about putting your boot up his ass" but if you read the article that was cited by the Polygon piece, it's pretty clear that they knew exactly what they were commenting on. The political moment that the game was being developed in clearly shaped it heavily, and Pete Hines, their most visible spokesperson, was pretty clear that his stance was that if you thought that their game about kicking Nazi ass was a personal attack on you, maybe you're a Nazi who deserves an ass-kicking.
posted by firechicago at 2:05 PM on June 20, 2018 [18 favorites]
Weak, half-hearted political statements in games (political set dressing, really) seems like a monkey's paw wish that "games grow up." What results is a lot of the same power fantasies, gun worship, and regressive cultural models (e.g. a single hero murdering a thousand people in order to right a wrong) being given the very barest semblance of a political statement. Mid-thirties (largely male, largely white) gamers who now have children, and grew up alongside modern digital games, seem to be the target audience here, and game companies pander to them with faux-serious themes the same way they pandered to them with pixelated strippers in Duke Nukem 3D.
So that is to say that perhaps the problem here are the genres. Everything cited in the articles I read above is a violence heavy shooter or RPG (usually both, now-a-days). Lots of independent studios manage to make personal games, with clear political statements, that are very entertaining and profitable, and don't contain a bearded man Nathan Draking his way through a whole city's worth of faceless cannon fodder.
However, action movies are a good point of comparison. A lot of modern stuff (especially the plague of super hero movies) seem content to right down the center, and give vague platitudes about a nebulous "good" winning out over a nebulous "evil". Others, like Mad Max: Fury Road, don't even bother with making politics a sub-text. Although it's a tired genre, I think you could also make a violence-heavy, power fantasy twitch shooter with well-considered politics. However, it's less clear that you could get a studio to agree to fund it, or a player-base to show up for it.
posted by codacorolla at 2:07 PM on June 20, 2018 [4 favorites]
So that is to say that perhaps the problem here are the genres. Everything cited in the articles I read above is a violence heavy shooter or RPG (usually both, now-a-days). Lots of independent studios manage to make personal games, with clear political statements, that are very entertaining and profitable, and don't contain a bearded man Nathan Draking his way through a whole city's worth of faceless cannon fodder.
However, action movies are a good point of comparison. A lot of modern stuff (especially the plague of super hero movies) seem content to right down the center, and give vague platitudes about a nebulous "good" winning out over a nebulous "evil". Others, like Mad Max: Fury Road, don't even bother with making politics a sub-text. Although it's a tired genre, I think you could also make a violence-heavy, power fantasy twitch shooter with well-considered politics. However, it's less clear that you could get a studio to agree to fund it, or a player-base to show up for it.
posted by codacorolla at 2:07 PM on June 20, 2018 [4 favorites]
Others, like Mad Max: Fury Road, don't even bother with making politics a sub-text.
This statement could be interpreted to mean either they didn’t bother with politics or that their politics was totally in your face, no “subtext” involved. In the context of that paragraph, I’m not sure which you mean.
posted by Celsius1414 at 2:14 PM on June 20, 2018 [1 favorite]
This statement could be interpreted to mean either they didn’t bother with politics or that their politics was totally in your face, no “subtext” involved. In the context of that paragraph, I’m not sure which you mean.
posted by Celsius1414 at 2:14 PM on June 20, 2018 [1 favorite]
Oh, sorry, that is confusing. The politics of Mad Max are clear, and also a central part of the narrative. There isn't really a sub-text - the idea of women not being property, and of banding together to fight a corrosive patriarchy is the literal text of the movie.
posted by codacorolla at 2:19 PM on June 20, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by codacorolla at 2:19 PM on June 20, 2018 [3 favorites]
It’s like demanding anything more than a superficial dusting of politics in the latest explosion-biff-bang Hollywood blockbuster, in a way.
Ahem. Black Panther, Thor: Ragnarok, The Last Jedi, Mad Max: Fury Road.
posted by tobascodagama at 2:20 PM on June 20, 2018 [15 favorites]
Ahem. Black Panther, Thor: Ragnarok, The Last Jedi, Mad Max: Fury Road.
posted by tobascodagama at 2:20 PM on June 20, 2018 [15 favorites]
Gotcha, thank you — and yes, that’s how I’d interpret that movie as well. Interesting, in this conversation, to compare what the movie tie-in game was like — virtually nothing remained of what made the movie so good.
posted by Celsius1414 at 2:23 PM on June 20, 2018
posted by Celsius1414 at 2:23 PM on June 20, 2018
I suspect that as we move forward we'll see video games, like most media, becoming increasingly visibly conservative
Videos games are already at this point - most of them, especially the AAA field, revolve around simple violence as problem solving. Games which are not about this are either racing or sport games, and they are then very strictly codified (Madden, for example, or Fifa Soccer).
posted by The River Ivel at 2:23 PM on June 20, 2018 [1 favorite]
Videos games are already at this point - most of them, especially the AAA field, revolve around simple violence as problem solving. Games which are not about this are either racing or sport games, and they are then very strictly codified (Madden, for example, or Fifa Soccer).
posted by The River Ivel at 2:23 PM on June 20, 2018 [1 favorite]
Yeah, AAA video games spent most of the 2000s either explicitly shooting up Arab people or shooting up thinly veiled Arab stand-ins, soooooo...
I mean, even as cowardly as Far Cry 5 is, it's definitely a step forward from the dark age of desert-based military shooters.
posted by tobascodagama at 2:56 PM on June 20, 2018 [2 favorites]
I mean, even as cowardly as Far Cry 5 is, it's definitely a step forward from the dark age of desert-based military shooters.
posted by tobascodagama at 2:56 PM on June 20, 2018 [2 favorites]
The marketing for Wolfenstein was very clear, with no fence sitting. e.g. this tweet
posted by memebake at 3:08 PM on June 20, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by memebake at 3:08 PM on June 20, 2018 [4 favorites]
I thought EA did quite well on Battlefield 5. Some assholes were mad that you could play as a female character. Their COO, Patrick Soderlund came out with this:
"The common perception is that there were no women in World War 2. There were a ton of women who both fought in World War 2 and partook in the war."posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 3:19 PM on June 20, 2018 [11 favorites]
...
“there are a lot of female people who want to play, and male players who want to play as a badass [woman]."
He added that those complaining about the inclusion of female characters in Battlefield 5 are "uneducated," and that "they don't understand that this is a plausible scenario."
The CCO also noted how "this is a game," highlighting a point that should be obvious — authenticity doesn't matter as much as appealing to a broad base of players. If authenticity mattered in games that much, then those complaining about Battlefield 5 would have perhaps preferred a portion of Battlefield 1 devoted to a soldier incapacitated with trench foot.
"And we don't take any flak," Soderlund concluded. "We stand up for the cause because I think those people who don't understand it, well, you have two choices: either accept it or don't buy the game. I'm fine with either or.”
I also feel like the indie games/smaller developers front has been a good place for games that confront politics, specifically related to subjects that are under-represented in the gaming community: LGBTQ, race, gender, sexuality, visibility, accessibility, etc. They're also not bound by old-world corporate bullshit. They know there's a market there for these types of games and what might be perceived as a "risk" by a AAA gaming company is just generally behaving like a more human and understanding person/company and accepting that you should think critically about your audience.
There are plenty of shit indie developers too, it's not absolute, but I tend to see a bit more positivity on this side. The AAA games and developers have made a lot of strides but they're generally focused on larger audiences, more money, and keeping with the status quo, at least that's how I've perceived the gaming industry the last 15 years or so.
posted by Fizz at 3:31 PM on June 20, 2018 [8 favorites]
There are plenty of shit indie developers too, it's not absolute, but I tend to see a bit more positivity on this side. The AAA games and developers have made a lot of strides but they're generally focused on larger audiences, more money, and keeping with the status quo, at least that's how I've perceived the gaming industry the last 15 years or so.
posted by Fizz at 3:31 PM on June 20, 2018 [8 favorites]
I'd like to see a AAA game that can teach a PC voter how to give a shit about other people in the real world.
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:08 PM on June 20, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:08 PM on June 20, 2018 [1 favorite]
The political wishy-washiness of Far Cry 5 made it a much weaker game. Really bummed about it, even before the stupid ending really ruined what the game could have been. Turns out everyone joins the White Christian Death Cult because they're brainwashed with magic drugs. Such weak writing.
posted by Nelson at 5:28 PM on June 20, 2018 [11 favorites]
posted by Nelson at 5:28 PM on June 20, 2018 [11 favorites]
I saw a thing written by a games journalist (I can't remember who now, but given that it was someone I follow on Twitter it was probably someone from Waypoint or Polygon) recounting an experience they had talking to someone who worked on The Division 2 at E3. Heavily paraphrased: The journo asked what message they were aiming for with this game and the interviewee quickly responded "No message. There is no political message in our game." The journo hesitated for a moment, then said "But we can both at this exact moment see a monitor playing a marketing video for your game that features a man with an American flag bandana on his backpack shooting looters in Washington D.C. with an AK-47. Don't you think-" and the interviewee just repeated, louder "NO MESSAGE." I don't really know what to say about this except that I wish people would stop giving cowardly developers money.
A lot of modern stuff (especially the plague of super hero movies) seem content to right down the center, and give vague platitudes about a nebulous "good" winning out over a nebulous "evil".
Actually, some of Marvel's movies are quite political. Winter Soldier is explicitly about how evil and totalitarian America's surveillance and enforcement systems are, Ragnarok is unabashedly anti-colonial, and Black Panther's entire central conflict is about negotiating how to deal with the legacy of slavery as well as how a responsible country must manage its borders and resources.
posted by IAmUnaware at 5:40 PM on June 20, 2018 [9 favorites]
A lot of modern stuff (especially the plague of super hero movies) seem content to right down the center, and give vague platitudes about a nebulous "good" winning out over a nebulous "evil".
Actually, some of Marvel's movies are quite political. Winter Soldier is explicitly about how evil and totalitarian America's surveillance and enforcement systems are, Ragnarok is unabashedly anti-colonial, and Black Panther's entire central conflict is about negotiating how to deal with the legacy of slavery as well as how a responsible country must manage its borders and resources.
posted by IAmUnaware at 5:40 PM on June 20, 2018 [9 favorites]
I've touched upon this before. I don't think it's so much a Gamergate thing (well, there is that), as it is a general trend for American entertainment, especially Hollywood, to avoid making political enemies and decreasing consumer base:
There's rumors that the cult is led by some Hollywood type- the "crosses" on the flag are clearly resembling the Scientology symbol. A deep and well-researched examination of Dominion Theology in American politics, this ain't. This is just cribbing from Bush era stock villains- take a couple of Bible verses, toss it in a Jesus camp, wrap it up in Old Glory and sprinkle in some non-Christian weirdness as a disclaimer that this game was made by a multicultural team of various faiths and beliefs not seeking to disturb evangelical sensibilities.
It's like how in military games you're never truly fighting the Russians, but ultranationalists or a rogue general or something else like that. Plausible artistic deniability.
The Far Cry games already do a lot of that. In Far Cry 3 the fake-Polynesians being victimized by outsider pirates and slavers, led by a South African. In Far Cry 4 the fake-Nepalese were being oppressed by a half-Chinese gangster from Hong Kong. Both sets of villains had henchmen from multicultural backgrounds. Both games cameoed a CIA agent who went around showing how insensitive and uncouth Ugly Americans are. Both had sinister top henchmen of European or Australian backgrounds. Both games also showed that the locals had suspect religious beliefs and were not above betraying you for their primitive native agendas. Far Cry 2 has the multicultural mercenary cast but it didn't particularly exoticize the local Africans so much as not give them much stake in determining their country's future- but then, it doesn't really give you one, either.
With such diverse casting and comic book-level attempt at moral complexity (of the make every character unpleasant and unsympathetic variety) it makes it harder to straight up say "this game is racist." Given that the games are from Ubisoft Montreal, it almost feels like a stereotypical Canadian approach of preventing people from feeling offended by being politely diverse.
---
Consider spy movies and action flicks in the last few decades. How many of them had heroes face against "safe" enemies such as Russian nationalists complete with Soviet nostalgia, neo-Nazis, South African apartheid racists, Irish republicans, and lots and lots of Serbs? How many of them are about evil intelligence agents or bad apple bureaucrats (just pretend I linked to the entirety of 24, the Bourne trilogy, and Mission: Impossible) Mostly non-state actors, rogue elements, extremists who are so evil they are naturally villainous, yet safe to hate on. It's why Ian Fleming was smart enough to write the Soviets as merely rivals, while the true villains in James Bond are fictional white guys in suits running the world. He didn't want to alienate a potential foreign market. It's the same thing with games.
posted by Apocryphon at 5:44 PM on June 20, 2018 [5 favorites]
There's rumors that the cult is led by some Hollywood type- the "crosses" on the flag are clearly resembling the Scientology symbol. A deep and well-researched examination of Dominion Theology in American politics, this ain't. This is just cribbing from Bush era stock villains- take a couple of Bible verses, toss it in a Jesus camp, wrap it up in Old Glory and sprinkle in some non-Christian weirdness as a disclaimer that this game was made by a multicultural team of various faiths and beliefs not seeking to disturb evangelical sensibilities.
It's like how in military games you're never truly fighting the Russians, but ultranationalists or a rogue general or something else like that. Plausible artistic deniability.
The Far Cry games already do a lot of that. In Far Cry 3 the fake-Polynesians being victimized by outsider pirates and slavers, led by a South African. In Far Cry 4 the fake-Nepalese were being oppressed by a half-Chinese gangster from Hong Kong. Both sets of villains had henchmen from multicultural backgrounds. Both games cameoed a CIA agent who went around showing how insensitive and uncouth Ugly Americans are. Both had sinister top henchmen of European or Australian backgrounds. Both games also showed that the locals had suspect religious beliefs and were not above betraying you for their primitive native agendas. Far Cry 2 has the multicultural mercenary cast but it didn't particularly exoticize the local Africans so much as not give them much stake in determining their country's future- but then, it doesn't really give you one, either.
With such diverse casting and comic book-level attempt at moral complexity (of the make every character unpleasant and unsympathetic variety) it makes it harder to straight up say "this game is racist." Given that the games are from Ubisoft Montreal, it almost feels like a stereotypical Canadian approach of preventing people from feeling offended by being politely diverse.
---
Consider spy movies and action flicks in the last few decades. How many of them had heroes face against "safe" enemies such as Russian nationalists complete with Soviet nostalgia, neo-Nazis, South African apartheid racists, Irish republicans, and lots and lots of Serbs? How many of them are about evil intelligence agents or bad apple bureaucrats (just pretend I linked to the entirety of 24, the Bourne trilogy, and Mission: Impossible) Mostly non-state actors, rogue elements, extremists who are so evil they are naturally villainous, yet safe to hate on. It's why Ian Fleming was smart enough to write the Soviets as merely rivals, while the true villains in James Bond are fictional white guys in suits running the world. He didn't want to alienate a potential foreign market. It's the same thing with games.
posted by Apocryphon at 5:44 PM on June 20, 2018 [5 favorites]
I saw a thing written by a games journalist (I can't remember who now, but given that it was someone I follow on Twitter it was probably someone from Waypoint or Polygon) recounting an experience they had talking to someone who worked on The Division 2 at E3.
Here's the article:
Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 ‘is not making any political statements’ [Polygon]
posted by Fizz at 5:51 PM on June 20, 2018 [10 favorites]
Here's the article:
Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 ‘is not making any political statements’ [Polygon]
But you’ve got that red searchlight coming out of the Capital dome. The leadership has been decapitated. So the Division is the last remnants of the old government trying to push out the sitting government?*sighs*
That’s an amazing assumption that you’re making, one that I’m not going to confirm or deny. I’m just going to say that you are a veteran agent who was activated before the time of The Division 2 and you got the SOS call. OK, you’re war torn. You’re tired. You’ve been doing Division stuff elsewhere and you arrive in DC to find what it is that you’re going to find. And you’re going to rebuild and make sure that DC does not collapse, SHaDe [Strategic Homeland Division] does not collapse and that the nation does not collapse. And so should it be clear, we’re definitely not making any political statements. Right? This is still a work of fiction, right? Our job —
Wait a minute. It’s in DC.
Yes.
Your central character here on the key art has an American flag bandana tied to their backpack.
That’s correct.
This is not a political statement?
Absolutely not.
posted by Fizz at 5:51 PM on June 20, 2018 [10 favorites]
Yeah, AAA video games spent most of the 2000s either explicitly shooting up Arab people or shooting up thinly veiled Arab stand-ins, soooooo...
So I'm guessing you weren't talking a quasi-fascist paramilitary organization's massive AI into self destructing taking out there underground bunker with it, and then blowing up their mobile base crawler. Seriously, when I was playing though some of that I was surprised by their in your face attitude towards modern American neo-conservatism.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 7:17 PM on June 20, 2018 [3 favorites]
So I'm guessing you weren't talking a quasi-fascist paramilitary organization's massive AI into self destructing taking out there underground bunker with it, and then blowing up their mobile base crawler. Seriously, when I was playing though some of that I was surprised by their in your face attitude towards modern American neo-conservatism.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 7:17 PM on June 20, 2018 [3 favorites]
Other than Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, I'm not familiar with that many games that actually took place in the Middle East. There were the 50 Cent game, Blood on the Sand, of course, but the ones that come to mind were actual U.S. military-related games like America's Army or Full Spectrum Warrior.
The seminal Modern Warfare 2, of course, is the one that brought back Red Dawn in an outrageously Michael Bay-esque Russian (ultranationalist conspired, of course) invasion of the U.S. which seems so quaint in the halcyon days of 2009.
posted by Apocryphon at 9:18 PM on June 20, 2018
The seminal Modern Warfare 2, of course, is the one that brought back Red Dawn in an outrageously Michael Bay-esque Russian (ultranationalist conspired, of course) invasion of the U.S. which seems so quaint in the halcyon days of 2009.
posted by Apocryphon at 9:18 PM on June 20, 2018
Prince of Persia?
posted by inpHilltr8r at 10:53 PM on June 20, 2018
posted by inpHilltr8r at 10:53 PM on June 20, 2018
I think a lot of this is really driven by the Zombie Problem of making violent video games. Running around a 3D space shooting opponents and avoiding being shot is a fun game to play whether it's dressed up as paintball, WW2 reenactment, zombie apocalypse, or Chex Quest.
But actually killing a bunch of people is morally reprehensible. So you need some sort of excuse to make you feel okay about shooting a zillion enemies. And some people get tired of shooting zombies all the time (plus zombie stories often end up having racist subtext, plus they don't work very well for symmetric PvP multiplayer).
So for the majority of games, I think the process is:
1. Think of somewhere to set the game that will be visually striking and stand out compared to other games.
2. Think of a scenario in that location to justify all the shooting.
3. Tell your marketing team to go nuts hyping #1 and #2.
4. Make most of the game.
5. Get someone to write a story based on your premise that's not going to offend too many potential customers. Maybe the writer(s) can put some interesting stuff in there about politics, but of course it may get cut and shuffled around in order to fit the final version of the game.
posted by straight at 11:12 PM on June 20, 2018 [4 favorites]
But actually killing a bunch of people is morally reprehensible. So you need some sort of excuse to make you feel okay about shooting a zillion enemies. And some people get tired of shooting zombies all the time (plus zombie stories often end up having racist subtext, plus they don't work very well for symmetric PvP multiplayer).
So for the majority of games, I think the process is:
1. Think of somewhere to set the game that will be visually striking and stand out compared to other games.
2. Think of a scenario in that location to justify all the shooting.
3. Tell your marketing team to go nuts hyping #1 and #2.
4. Make most of the game.
5. Get someone to write a story based on your premise that's not going to offend too many potential customers. Maybe the writer(s) can put some interesting stuff in there about politics, but of course it may get cut and shuffled around in order to fit the final version of the game.
posted by straight at 11:12 PM on June 20, 2018 [4 favorites]
then those complaining about Battlefield 5 would have perhaps preferred a portion of Battlefield 1 devoted to a soldier incapacitated with trench foot.
I am 1000% more likely to play Trenchfoot Game than I am to play Battlefield 1, because I actually desperately love games that show the horrors of war.
Which is to say: in a sense, everything is political in that it is created in a world that has default politics by people who have default politics, and not everyone shares the same default politics. Like - people who see Americans as default good guys aren’t going to think a flag on a bandana is “political”, because “political” is defined and reserved for things that are /controversial/.
But that’s not about people being unable to make tough decisions and deal with politics in their games - that’s game designers actively having no interest in taking sides on a controversy they aren’t deeply involved in themselves. It’s game designers making games where their default assumptions are the default assumptions.
And like - everyone does that. Like, people are cheering the lack of breast sliders because their understanding is that creepy guys like breast sliders, but also sometimes women with not-default shaped breasts also like breast sliders to make characters that look like them. And they’re not meaning to cheer those women losing that - they just aren’t thinking about it.
So I think there also has to be a differentiation between people being “afraid of politics” and people just not having the politics folk would like them to have.
posted by corb at 12:18 AM on June 21, 2018 [2 favorites]
I am 1000% more likely to play Trenchfoot Game than I am to play Battlefield 1, because I actually desperately love games that show the horrors of war.
Which is to say: in a sense, everything is political in that it is created in a world that has default politics by people who have default politics, and not everyone shares the same default politics. Like - people who see Americans as default good guys aren’t going to think a flag on a bandana is “political”, because “political” is defined and reserved for things that are /controversial/.
But that’s not about people being unable to make tough decisions and deal with politics in their games - that’s game designers actively having no interest in taking sides on a controversy they aren’t deeply involved in themselves. It’s game designers making games where their default assumptions are the default assumptions.
And like - everyone does that. Like, people are cheering the lack of breast sliders because their understanding is that creepy guys like breast sliders, but also sometimes women with not-default shaped breasts also like breast sliders to make characters that look like them. And they’re not meaning to cheer those women losing that - they just aren’t thinking about it.
So I think there also has to be a differentiation between people being “afraid of politics” and people just not having the politics folk would like them to have.
posted by corb at 12:18 AM on June 21, 2018 [2 favorites]
I'm not a gamer, so what I know of them is mostly just secondhand, but Apocryphon's assessment matches pretty well with mine in regards to mass media more generally. The goal of most entertainment media is to make something emotionally resonant, vaguely meaningful, but ultimately "feel good" generic, and largely incoherent. The usual case is providing enough "clues" to some possible interpretation that can satisfy any potential audience or that is toothless enough to at least not cause offense.
That has it's own cost, however, as empty values and "reversible" ideology still carry their own meaning in their denial of greater importance or detail. The idea you can't trust the government but must rely on dynamic, asskicking, individual heroism can fit to either a conservative or liberal attitude in the generic form as liberals can read it as a reference to the evils of "this" government and the heroics of those opposing its worst impulses and conservatives can read it as opposing all government and celebrate "draining the swamp".
None of the Marvel movies, for example, are immune to this. Captain America fluctuates wildly in the films he's featured in, opposing one world government in standing up to General Ross, US Secretary of State, who wants to hand over control of these "super weapons" to the UN/World (which is so bizarre as to be laughable), or in placing his belief in friendship ahead of the interests of justice, or even in fighting the ubiquitous cartoon Nazis that movies and video games love to use as symbols of evil, while also showing them as bigger than life. Their leaders often brilliant and seductive or even sexy in a cold sort of way while the heroes that oppose them are down to earth compassionate types. Those appeals cut both ways as might be obviously from how the current online would be Nazi types like to style themselves.
Even the constant use of Nazis in itself undermines their meaning and shifts the location of any debate over values to being one where the Nazis represent one side, those opposing them the other as if that is the middle ground. It maintains a currency for Nazi values while also serving to deny those values their equally proper rooting in other national histories. Nazis simply serve as a brand name for an entertaining generic evil to avoid the need to trace where actual evil arises and how it spreads, which, ironically perhaps, seems to then help expand the ideal of Nazism as continually relevant and enticing to those who seek to oppose social values they disagree with.
The other movies are much the same, Black Panther places the burdens of black history on the black community while allowing whites to largely skate free of that debate, with ignorance being displayed as their primary fault, not purposeful racism. (That isn't to say the movie doesn't have merit within those bounds, just that what was allowed leaves an over-ample comfort zone for white viewers to not feel too challenged as the Black Panther (and the CIA??) is there to protect them from any excesses.)
Any game or movie that starts with the premise violence is necessary to solve some evil is already problematic. I grant it may not be as much fun to game play diplomatic solutions and the search for acceptable compromise between disagreeing parties and less dramatic to show government as having a useful function good people can enjoin for help in times of need, but that really is what liberalism does rely on, not the actions of one "hero" or a small group of them to absolve the larger whole of responsibility and make all the important decisions on their own.
I won't say there aren't game makers or other mass media creators with real concerns they are trying to put in their work, just that the larger corporate interests have so muddied the pool and are so adverse to clear ideological statements that seeking it in most entertainment is largely surface reflection of one's own ideals viewed through a lens of justifying one's pleasures. That is the design. At best, one can look for meaning that sneaks through the cracks and sits a bit below the surface, but that takes some effort that may disrupt easier enjoyment, which runs counter to what most people want from games and films which is basic, feel good, emotional resonance.
posted by gusottertrout at 12:45 AM on June 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
That has it's own cost, however, as empty values and "reversible" ideology still carry their own meaning in their denial of greater importance or detail. The idea you can't trust the government but must rely on dynamic, asskicking, individual heroism can fit to either a conservative or liberal attitude in the generic form as liberals can read it as a reference to the evils of "this" government and the heroics of those opposing its worst impulses and conservatives can read it as opposing all government and celebrate "draining the swamp".
None of the Marvel movies, for example, are immune to this. Captain America fluctuates wildly in the films he's featured in, opposing one world government in standing up to General Ross, US Secretary of State, who wants to hand over control of these "super weapons" to the UN/World (which is so bizarre as to be laughable), or in placing his belief in friendship ahead of the interests of justice, or even in fighting the ubiquitous cartoon Nazis that movies and video games love to use as symbols of evil, while also showing them as bigger than life. Their leaders often brilliant and seductive or even sexy in a cold sort of way while the heroes that oppose them are down to earth compassionate types. Those appeals cut both ways as might be obviously from how the current online would be Nazi types like to style themselves.
Even the constant use of Nazis in itself undermines their meaning and shifts the location of any debate over values to being one where the Nazis represent one side, those opposing them the other as if that is the middle ground. It maintains a currency for Nazi values while also serving to deny those values their equally proper rooting in other national histories. Nazis simply serve as a brand name for an entertaining generic evil to avoid the need to trace where actual evil arises and how it spreads, which, ironically perhaps, seems to then help expand the ideal of Nazism as continually relevant and enticing to those who seek to oppose social values they disagree with.
The other movies are much the same, Black Panther places the burdens of black history on the black community while allowing whites to largely skate free of that debate, with ignorance being displayed as their primary fault, not purposeful racism. (That isn't to say the movie doesn't have merit within those bounds, just that what was allowed leaves an over-ample comfort zone for white viewers to not feel too challenged as the Black Panther (and the CIA??) is there to protect them from any excesses.)
Any game or movie that starts with the premise violence is necessary to solve some evil is already problematic. I grant it may not be as much fun to game play diplomatic solutions and the search for acceptable compromise between disagreeing parties and less dramatic to show government as having a useful function good people can enjoin for help in times of need, but that really is what liberalism does rely on, not the actions of one "hero" or a small group of them to absolve the larger whole of responsibility and make all the important decisions on their own.
I won't say there aren't game makers or other mass media creators with real concerns they are trying to put in their work, just that the larger corporate interests have so muddied the pool and are so adverse to clear ideological statements that seeking it in most entertainment is largely surface reflection of one's own ideals viewed through a lens of justifying one's pleasures. That is the design. At best, one can look for meaning that sneaks through the cracks and sits a bit below the surface, but that takes some effort that may disrupt easier enjoyment, which runs counter to what most people want from games and films which is basic, feel good, emotional resonance.
posted by gusottertrout at 12:45 AM on June 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
Meanwhile, I’m partway through God of War and its central theme seems to be ‘toxic masculinity is bullshit - just tell your kid that you love him you utter tool’.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 1:21 AM on June 21, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 1:21 AM on June 21, 2018 [5 favorites]
And like - everyone does that. Like, people are cheering the lack of breast sliders because their understanding is that creepy guys like breast sliders, but also sometimes women with not-default shaped breasts also like breast sliders to make characters that look like them. And they’re not meaning to cheer those women losing that - they just aren’t thinking about it.
Dang that's a good point. The makers of the Saints Row games were probably thinking of the male gaze when they made their sliders (or at least the marketing team sure was). But the ability to make a character of any size, age, or color and letting you use both male and female voice actors with any character made the games a lot more friendly to people who don't usually see many people like themselves in video games.
posted by straight at 7:49 AM on June 21, 2018 [4 favorites]
Dang that's a good point. The makers of the Saints Row games were probably thinking of the male gaze when they made their sliders (or at least the marketing team sure was). But the ability to make a character of any size, age, or color and letting you use both male and female voice actors with any character made the games a lot more friendly to people who don't usually see many people like themselves in video games.
posted by straight at 7:49 AM on June 21, 2018 [4 favorites]
2. Think of a scenario in that location to justify all the shooting.
I meant to say that, obviously, this is where political assumptions come in, but my point was that starting with the need to create excuses for the gameplay is probably one of the main reasons so many games have muddled, incoherent, wishy-washy approaches to political ideas.
Most game studios don't care about Nazis nearly as much as they need a universally-despised villain that it's morally okay to shoot. Hydra would be even better if they could afford the Marvel license.
posted by straight at 7:54 AM on June 21, 2018
I meant to say that, obviously, this is where political assumptions come in, but my point was that starting with the need to create excuses for the gameplay is probably one of the main reasons so many games have muddled, incoherent, wishy-washy approaches to political ideas.
Most game studios don't care about Nazis nearly as much as they need a universally-despised villain that it's morally okay to shoot. Hydra would be even better if they could afford the Marvel license.
posted by straight at 7:54 AM on June 21, 2018
Saints Row
On similar lines, I feel like the "gender slider" might have been intended as a bit of a joke, but TBH I wish more games would use something like it.
posted by tobascodagama at 8:44 AM on June 21, 2018
On similar lines, I feel like the "gender slider" might have been intended as a bit of a joke, but TBH I wish more games would use something like it.
posted by tobascodagama at 8:44 AM on June 21, 2018
Most game studios don't care about Nazis nearly as much as they need a universally-despised villain that it's morally okay to shoot.
The new Wolfenstein definitely was meant to subvert that, if only in the sense that it wanted to reinforce that Nazis were bad, people. Some alt-right types actually got mad about it.
posted by atoxyl at 9:00 AM on June 21, 2018 [3 favorites]
The new Wolfenstein definitely was meant to subvert that, if only in the sense that it wanted to reinforce that Nazis were bad, people. Some alt-right types actually got mad about it.
posted by atoxyl at 9:00 AM on June 21, 2018 [3 favorites]
Nazis-as-generic-badguy is definitely a valid critique of most WWII games outside of the MachineGames Wolfensteins, though. Not only do games like CoD: WWII tend to ignore the political angles of the conflict, they often deliberately include "we're not so different" types of themes that present the German soldiers as apolitical victims of Nazi ideology (there's probably a good thesis project juxtaposing this with American narratives about Vietnam).
What makes Wolfenstein: TNO/TNC so refreshing is not just that it's willing to stake out a vehemently anti-Nazi stance and market itself on that but that it refuses any attempt to present the Nazi rank-and-file soldiers you mow down as apolitical or to allow them to escape judgment via the Nuremberg defence. During the stealth segments, not only are you discovering textual ephemera showing that many ordinary soldiers and civilians agree with the Nazi regime's politics, there are frequent overheard conversations where they openly chat about taking death camp assignments. The game doesn't let its fictional Nazis pretend not to know what's going on around them.
The New Colossus, if anything, doubled down even further on this political content. The white citizenry of occupied America are shown eagerly celebrating in the "taking back" of their country for the white man, and to the extent that any of them have qualms about the way the war went they're mostly bothered about having to learn German. That's why the two major resistance groups you ally with in America are black liberationists and communists. Everybody else has pretty much fully bought in to Nazi ideology.
Not to harp too much, but I feel really strongly about these games, and I would hate to see anybody come away with the idea that the whole "fuck Nazis" thing is just a marketing pose rather than a core value expressed by the game's narrative design.
posted by tobascodagama at 9:29 AM on June 21, 2018 [8 favorites]
What makes Wolfenstein: TNO/TNC so refreshing is not just that it's willing to stake out a vehemently anti-Nazi stance and market itself on that but that it refuses any attempt to present the Nazi rank-and-file soldiers you mow down as apolitical or to allow them to escape judgment via the Nuremberg defence. During the stealth segments, not only are you discovering textual ephemera showing that many ordinary soldiers and civilians agree with the Nazi regime's politics, there are frequent overheard conversations where they openly chat about taking death camp assignments. The game doesn't let its fictional Nazis pretend not to know what's going on around them.
The New Colossus, if anything, doubled down even further on this political content. The white citizenry of occupied America are shown eagerly celebrating in the "taking back" of their country for the white man, and to the extent that any of them have qualms about the way the war went they're mostly bothered about having to learn German. That's why the two major resistance groups you ally with in America are black liberationists and communists. Everybody else has pretty much fully bought in to Nazi ideology.
Not to harp too much, but I feel really strongly about these games, and I would hate to see anybody come away with the idea that the whole "fuck Nazis" thing is just a marketing pose rather than a core value expressed by the game's narrative design.
posted by tobascodagama at 9:29 AM on June 21, 2018 [8 favorites]
. The makers of the Saints Row games were probably thinking of the male gaze when they made their sliders (or at least the marketing team sure was). But the ability to make a character of any size, age, or color and letting you use both male and female voice actors with any character made the games a lot more friendly to people who don't usually see many people like themselves in video games.
I think this has already been mentioned up above in previous comments/articles, but is worth reiterating. For a lot of these developers/AAA game companies they do not see gender/sexuality/visibility/race/accessibility as political. But for those individuals who are not given representation, those who are pushed to the margins and/or not included at all, it is a political statement. It matters.
posted by Fizz at 11:49 AM on June 21, 2018 [3 favorites]
I think this has already been mentioned up above in previous comments/articles, but is worth reiterating. For a lot of these developers/AAA game companies they do not see gender/sexuality/visibility/race/accessibility as political. But for those individuals who are not given representation, those who are pushed to the margins and/or not included at all, it is a political statement. It matters.
posted by Fizz at 11:49 AM on June 21, 2018 [3 favorites]
As Fizz notes, AAA games are getting better about diversity. And avoiding the cringiest tropes. Dishonored 2 managed to not have a brothel level!
Asking them to handle (say) racism, or right-wing militias, is a taller order, partly because there's only so much they can sneak past the suits, and partly because the teams themselves still skew towards white dudes.
Black Panther is a good lesson: it was as good as it was because they gave $200 million to a black director.
posted by zompist at 2:11 AM on June 22, 2018
Asking them to handle (say) racism, or right-wing militias, is a taller order, partly because there's only so much they can sneak past the suits, and partly because the teams themselves still skew towards white dudes.
Black Panther is a good lesson: it was as good as it was because they gave $200 million to a black director.
posted by zompist at 2:11 AM on June 22, 2018
Video Game Companies Want to Reflect Trump’s America—They Just Don’t Want to Talk About It [The Ringer]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:09 AM on June 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:09 AM on June 22, 2018 [2 favorites]
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posted by Pope Guilty at 12:36 PM on June 20, 2018 [5 favorites]