Because we are supposed to have the freedom to form our own opinions/beliefs? Or are you one of those people who think your way is the RIGHT and ONLY way?
You know the secret of World Peace? Deny individual freedoms/thoughts/cultures. There ya go
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
Because we are supposed to have the freedom to form our own opinions/beliefs? Or are you one of those people who think your way is the RIGHT and ONLY way?
You know the secret of World Peace? Deny individual freedoms/thoughts/cultures. There ya go
Condemnation of something isn't about free speech, it's about you not liking something. There is a difference.
Because we are supposed to have the freedom to form our own opinions/beliefs? Or are you one of those people who think your way is the RIGHT and ONLY way?
You know the secret of World Peace? Deny individual freedoms/thoughts/cultures. There ya go
Condemnation of something isn't about free speech, it's about you not liking something. There is a difference.
Condemnation. Interesting choice of words. Check YOUR words that I underlined for clarity.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
From the article: "Now, I’m a firm believer that games are art and that they’re for everybody."
I can agree that games can be an art. There is artwork that caries a political message, religious art, artwork designed to be shocking, and anything in between. So, if games are art, then the same range can be applied.
I guess I'm not totally sold on the "they're for everybody" part though. Maybe I'm being too literal, but right off the bat, DA:I is rated "M for mature" so it is not intended for everyone right? The rating aside, I would think most games are developed with a target audience in mind. Some may strive for a larger target audience and therefore not tip their hand one way or the other on political/social issues.
On the other hand, if I'm to embrace my inner cynic, 'controversial' content does tend to get headlines. So it may be less art decision and more a marketing one in many cases.
Specific to Bioware, this isn't anything new right? Didn't a similar discussion occur with Mass Effect? Didn't a similar conversation occur with SWTOR? As far as I can tell, this is nothing new to Bioware games of recent memory..
-mklinic
"Do something right, no one remembers. Do something wrong, no one forgets" -from No One Remembers by In Strict Confidence
In games that feature romance between the player's character and other non-player characters, characterizing gay / lesbian relationships as "making a political statement" shows a pretty regressive and antiquated point of view.
This characterization by the OP IS the political statement-- not Bioware's reflection of the romance possibilities that have always existed as long as there have been human beings.
And no, I am not gay. I just have a low tolerance for homophobic BS disguised as arguments to keep "politics" out of games.
I have to agree with stance.
Pointing to a gay or lesbian relationship within a video game and going 'Now that's a political statement!' is just as offensive as saying '**** those ******!' As a society, we should be well beyond this issue by now but media continues to bring up it in hopes of creating diversity and drama. Lord knows, diversity gets more clicks than unity these days.
Originally posted by Yamota Depends on the game, just like movies. Some are fit for political statement, some are not. As for Dragon Age Inquisition it is clearly pushing a pro-feminist and pro-gay agenda, and hence why I am not touching it.
I'm curious, did you play Dragon Age 1 and 2 and only have this issue with Inquisition, or did you already feel this way about the IP? Because if its Inquisition you have an issue with I can agree to a point.
I don't really see how its pro-feminist, sure there's powerful women but it doesn't feel forced. Gender comes up a few times in particular, with one character talking about how women are in general not welcome in the Qunari military, and on the other side the Chantry needing to reform because they don't allow men to be in the higher levels of the leadership. The issues are there but in a balanced way.
The pro-gay agenda is different and more pronounced than it was in the previous games though. To me it was presented in the earlier games fairly simply- gay people exist, have romances, and can be heros or villians just like everyone else. No problem at all, easy to support. Inquisition left me feeling that everyone must support homosexual relationships- even slaveholding human sacrificing blood mage magisters are ok with it, and if you aren't you are the worst person in the world. Its the only kind of intolerance possible that isn't represented someplace.
Label me a bigot, I am ok with that being no one here pays my bills or lives my life. Nor do I need to answer to them for anything what so ever.
They should leave out the homosexual and heterosexual stuff, it sends a wrong message to those families that plan to raise their kids the way they want. This guy I know bought this frozen movie and found out the hidden message it had about being homosexual in it. He took the video and destroyed it because that wasn't what he believed in and it really upset him that social media and society would FORCE that nonsense on him .
Either way it should always include the option or you can be like me and just not buy it.
"Ooooh! Dragon Age is so progressive!! A strong female warrior, and a strong lesbian female!!!!! SUCH A STATEMENT!!!!"
Why even bring this up....? It's like every news site is trying to get attention by "poking the gamergate" stuff...
That exactly what it was, the continuation of the hijacking of the gaming industry using propaganda and lies.
"People who tell you youre awesome are useless. No, dangerous.
They are worse than useless because you want to believe them. They will defend you against critiques that are valid. They will seduce you into believing you are done learning, or into thinking that your work is better than it actually is." ~Raph Koster http://www.raphkoster.com/2013/10/14/on-getting-criticism/
While this topic does include and encourage discussion on some things we don't normally allow on these forums, we do want to encourage discussion within reason here. I've removed a few things that essentially bashed certain groups or were turning into back and forth arguments over general politics. Try to stay away from that, as well as personal attacks.
To give feedback on moderation, contact mikeb@mmorpg.com
Originally posted by AlBQuirky Originally posted by d_20 Everything is politics. -- Thomas MannThe question itself is political, whether consciously or not -- and thus moot.
Call me arrogant, but I disagree with Mr. Mann. Love is NOT political. It certainly can be politically motivated, but very separate from politics.
Birth and Death is also not "automatically" political.
Entertainment is certainly not 100% political, though much of it is. What political message did "Zoolander" pass on?
You missed the point.
If we assume that politics means influating others on global or individual level, then everything you do is politics thus making the question/article moot.
The article is rubbish, desperately trying to argue a point where is none.
I think this thread perfectly illustrates the problem with making any kind of political statement. No matter what, you are going to piss someone off. 99% of people have made up their mind about an issue, and talking about usually only makes matters worse.
I'd rather go kill some aliens than worry about who is sleeping with who.
While this topic does include and encourage discussion on some things we don't normally allow on these forums, we do want to encourage discussion within reason here. I've removed a few things that essentially bashed certain groups or were turning into back and forth arguments over general politics. Try to stay away from that, as well as personal attacks.
Thank you for actually being fair in this thread...so used to be outright banned here for disagreeing with an articles writer.
"People who tell you youre awesome are useless. No, dangerous.
They are worse than useless because you want to believe them. They will defend you against critiques that are valid. They will seduce you into believing you are done learning, or into thinking that your work is better than it actually is." ~Raph Koster http://www.raphkoster.com/2013/10/14/on-getting-criticism/
I don't really see the point of this question...... Asking if politics should be allowed in games is like asking Devs not to insert their biases into the game. It is humanly impossible. Admittedly when I stumble across a point of view in a game that I disagree with, I usually roll my eyes. But I understand I am playing in a world of someone else's (or multiple someones) creation, and their biases are also apart of the game. Don't like it? Then don't give them a cent.
The code of the pessimistic loner: "We unpopular loners are realists, who follow the three non- popular principles: Not having any (Hope), Not making any (Gaps in your heart); And not giving into (Sweet talk)".
With every thing that is going on in the rel world the last thing I want is to log into my game of choice and have to deal with the same s**t.
As far as I can remember I have yet to see anyone cater to conservative gamers. The gaming community, from my perspective, is no different than the community at large and leans decidedly to the left. I saw in the article that the author equates gamers to college professors and likens them to political figures. That for me is a huge problem. A lot of these professors don't educate as much as they indoctrinate.
I went to college to learn and expand my point of view. I did not go to be force-fed some professors personal bias. How can you expect people to think for themselves and form their own opinions when all they are getting is one side of the story? The same goes for the mainstream "media".
If game makers are going to choose that path then it is something I would have to think long and hard about and decide if I really want to support that.
What would bother me is if this is only being done to appease the PC crowd. And by PC I mean the politically correct asses that have their overly sensitive claws in every aspect of daily f*****g life. That crap just gets under my skin.
That Guild Wars 2 login screen knocked up my wife. Must be the second coming!
This sort of thing reminds me of that South Park episode where the kids write a book that becomes a huge hit after they blame Butters for it and you have a bunch of idiots arguing about the meaning behind it and the political statements it is trying to make, etc when they really just did it for fun and there was no meaning at all. Just an attempt at being vulgar.
People will try to turn anything, even something created purely for entertainment and to make it fun / interesting, into some sort of political / moral debate when in reality it has no deeper meaning behind it than "Because we felt like it" or "It made it more exciting".
Perfect example, the Sons of Anarchy episode a few weeks back with the opening scenes of a bunch of people having sex. You immediately had a bunch of fucktards whining all over the internet about being "offended" by it because of 1 particular scene when for 7 years before that it hadn't been an issue for them to show lots of sex and violence. Perfectly OK to watch a pregnant woman inject herself with drugs and nearly kill her unborn baby, watch people get murdered by the dozens, several rape scenes involving both men and women being raped, drug dealing, prostitution and pornography, racism, kidnapping, religious figures having sex with multiple people & recording it, and pretty much anything else you could think of... but then this 1 scene suddenly offends people and they turn it into a ridiculous little crusade against FX for airing it.
What it really boils down to for me is that I do not want "real life politics" in my entertainment. The politics of Tamriel (Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim) I can enjoy. The politics of Middle Earth I can enjoy. Why? Because I do not deal with them every day in real life. In other words, these politics are NOT REAL.
Does a game have slavery? Can you DO anything about it in the game? Does the game have homosexuality? Does it add to the game play?
In some of these latest RPGs, it is not really homosexuality as it is omnisexuality. The NPCs seem to "swing BOTH ways" with nary a blink of the eye, but maybe a wink
Also, about "dark skinned player models. What about it? If I play a dark skinned character, he is a dark skinned character, not an African-American, which does NOT exist in the game world, usually.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
Originally posted by Iselin In games that feature romance between the player's character and other non-player characters, characterizing gay / lesbian relationships as "making a political statement" shows a pretty regressive and antiquated point of view.
This characterization by the OP IS the political statement-- not Bioware's reflection of the romance possibilities that have always existed as long as there have been human beings.
And no, I am not gay. I just have a low tolerance for homophobic BS disguised as arguments to keep "politics" out of games.
So, no matter the culture, planet, or species in any game, EARTH humans (and their behavior/culture) must be the norm? Are you serious?
Do beings from the Rigel or Betelgeuse systems have gay/lesbian/LBGT/straight members?
In my opinion, "sexual relationships" have no place in video games. I have not seen any developer handle the subject well at all, with any sense of "maturity." I usually avoid these kinds of games, so my experience is very limited. I understand some players' desire to have romances in their games for the immersion, but for me, "pixel love" is just uncomfortable. Call me a prude
So, people who disagree with your own OPINION are "homophobic?" Smooth...
WTF do Betelguese and Rigel have to do with anything? Unless you know something no one else knows about real extraterrestrials, it's humans writing fiction using anthropomorphisms and the culture they live in at the time of their writing to shape the behavior of the fictional characters... be they elves, orcs, bug-eyed aliens or lion kings. Just read some Sherlock Holmes written in the 19th century and compare the stories to 21st century Holme's fiction and tell me you don't see the cultural influences of the day all over the fiction.
So why does a contemporary reflection of human relationships and sexuality in a computer game seem so odd to you? Oh wait, it's because you agree with imposing the typical US-biased censorship where violence is A-OK and sex isn't on video games - even those written and produced in countries that don't share the same fundamentalist fear of sex ya'all do.
It's only "odd" or "noteworthy" or a "political statement" because it doesn't reflect conservative American prejudices and intolerance? Give me a break.
And no, you're welcome to disagree with me without me thinking you're homophobic. But homophobia and intolerance is thinly disguised (or outright overt before the mods make edits) all over the responses to this article.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
political debates and wars should be settled via WoW PVP, in particular AV. American be the alliance and everyone else can be the horde. If you truly play WoW PVP, you already know who will win AV.
Yes, of course. Why not? Art has always been used as a way to address the problems of it's times usually without directly insulting anyone. From paintings to television and music, it's always been this way. The medium of the delivery has always been a way to make people think deeply about a subject by tugging at the emotions associated with them.
Think about it. Star Trek addressed racism through an episode where the left hand side of one mans face while black while the right was white, and the person they were fighting against had the left hand side of his face black, and the right side of his face white.
Shakespeare addressed the behavior of the royal families of his time in several different plays from Hamlet, to King Lear, and even Montague and Capulets in Romeo and Juliet.
It has always been this way. Why would gaming be any different? It has always, and will always, be about whats good and right and between good and evil. It's not about right and left in any way. Society considers what helps humanity to be good, and what hurts humanity to be evil. It's not about religion or about right and left, just simply about good and evil.
And besides, we all know that placing money and power above things like lives is bad. It's a simple and knowable truth that we all accept, even those that use it to their own ends.
Originally posted by VichusSmith Why shouldn't they? If any other fiction is allowed to, then games should as well.
Fiction, forum w/e. You are correct. They are able to, they are entitled to, and they will speak to issues if they feel like it. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. If people do not like x company addressing political concerns, they can speak with their wallet.
Thats the key word right there! I would guess that any game launched with overt political views will be a lesson on why communism is great and you should cast out all religions. Well not all religions, just the one on trial these days.
What you wont get is the message of freedom, responsibility, importance of family, values and limited government.
If you're in danger of being indoctrinated by a game then your original beliefs were pretty weak. I mean look, Star Trek could be viewed as portraying a basically communistic society in a very positive light but many people still enjoy it with very few of them actually becoming communist.
If you don't see enough artistic works with the message you want go and make some yourself or encourage others to. I'm fine with playing your game that sings the virtues of your ideology of choice as long as you are creative about it (blatant propaganda screeds are boring even if I agree with them). If it's a well written game it may even expose me to perspectives I've never given much thought to in real life which is great. I'm confident enough in my own beliefs that unless you make a really incredibly strong argument I'm not just going to blindly support your politics even if I think your game is good.
I wish people would stop trying to censor ideas that they don't agree with. We need more diversity of opinions and stories in games not less.
Some people seem to be interpreting the question as, "Should it be legal for games to make political statements?" There are a lot of stupid things that it should be legal for games to do, but games still shouldn't do them. For example, if a very grindy game wanted to completely wipe the database every 24 hours so that no one ever got very far into it, it should be legal to do that. But it's stupid, so games shouldn't do it. That's about how I feel about political advocacy in most games, too.
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Your view on whether games should make political statements is likely to depend strongly on whether you expect the political statements that games make to be ones that you agree with. Some people might think, "Yes, games should try to convince everyone to adopt my personal political views." I doubt that anyone in this thread wants games to constantly ridicule your own personal views.
-----
There's an enormous difference between a political statement that:
a) raises issues or arguments that you had never considered before, as opposed to
b) bashes you over the head with the 86th time that you've seen some stale argument that you didn't find persuasive the first 85 times and stopped seriously pondering more than a decade ago because it was already a nuisance by then.
Games that try to comment on hot-button political issues have a very high probability of ending up with something much closer to (b) than (a). The much longer latency to implement something in a game means that game designers simply don't have the capability to offer quick reactions to issues. Rather, if you're going to touch on a hot political issue, by the time it's live in the game, everyone will have had their say months ago. In order for the game to have any sort of timeliness at all, it will have to be a perennially contentious issue of the sort that most people are sick of.
Furthermore, even if there is something new and creative to say about a contentious political issue, it doesn't follow that game developers will be able to say it. There's no obvious reason why being a good artist or programmer would be correlated with being good at political commentary. Indeed, there is much reason to believe that they'll tend to be much worse at it than professional pundits who do political commentary for a living. So even if there is a deft way to say something new, game developers probably aren't going to find it.
So what happens if a game goes with (b)? Well, you're not going to change anyone's mind, for starters. You are going to annoy a lot of people, and probably lose some customers. So basically, (b) accomplishes nothing except harming the people who did it. Should games do that? No.
Originally posted by Painbringer7 I don't really see the point of this question...... Asking if politics should be allowed in games is like asking Devs not to insert their biases into the game. It is humanly impossible. Admittedly when I stumble across a point of view in a game that I disagree with, I usually roll my eyes. But I understand I am playing in a world of someone else's (or multiple someones) creation, and their biases are also apart of the game. Don't like it? Then don't give them a cent.
If a game studio wants to refrain from annoying people by inserting their political biases, it's not that complicated. Run anything remotely political by people with opposite biases and see if either of them pick up on bias that they don't like. It doesn't matter if the people checking for bias are writers, artists, programmers, or customer support. Spotting and being annoyed by political biases that you disagree with isn't a particularly rare skill. What does matter is that you get multiple people with opposite biases to both look at it.
Comments
[mod edit]
Because we are supposed to have the freedom to form our own opinions/beliefs? Or are you one of those people who think your way is the RIGHT and ONLY way?You know the secret of World Peace? Deny individual freedoms/thoughts/cultures. There ya go
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
Condemnation of something isn't about free speech, it's about you not liking something. There is a difference.
Condemnation. Interesting choice of words. Check YOUR words that I underlined for clarity.- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
From the article: "Now, I’m a firm believer that games are art and that they’re for everybody."
I can agree that games can be an art. There is artwork that caries a political message, religious art, artwork designed to be shocking, and anything in between. So, if games are art, then the same range can be applied.
I guess I'm not totally sold on the "they're for everybody" part though. Maybe I'm being too literal, but right off the bat, DA:I is rated "M for mature" so it is not intended for everyone right? The rating aside, I would think most games are developed with a target audience in mind. Some may strive for a larger target audience and therefore not tip their hand one way or the other on political/social issues.
On the other hand, if I'm to embrace my inner cynic, 'controversial' content does tend to get headlines. So it may be less art decision and more a marketing one in many cases.
Specific to Bioware, this isn't anything new right? Didn't a similar discussion occur with Mass Effect? Didn't a similar conversation occur with SWTOR? As far as I can tell, this is nothing new to Bioware games of recent memory..
-mklinic
"Do something right, no one remembers.
Do something wrong, no one forgets"
-from No One Remembers by In Strict Confidence
I have to agree with stance.
Pointing to a gay or lesbian relationship within a video game and going 'Now that's a political statement!' is just as offensive as saying '**** those ******!' As a society, we should be well beyond this issue by now but media continues to bring up it in hopes of creating diversity and drama. Lord knows, diversity gets more clicks than unity these days.
I'm curious, did you play Dragon Age 1 and 2 and only have this issue with Inquisition, or did you already feel this way about the IP? Because if its Inquisition you have an issue with I can agree to a point.
I don't really see how its pro-feminist, sure there's powerful women but it doesn't feel forced. Gender comes up a few times in particular, with one character talking about how women are in general not welcome in the Qunari military, and on the other side the Chantry needing to reform because they don't allow men to be in the higher levels of the leadership. The issues are there but in a balanced way.
The pro-gay agenda is different and more pronounced than it was in the previous games though. To me it was presented in the earlier games fairly simply- gay people exist, have romances, and can be heros or villians just like everyone else. No problem at all, easy to support. Inquisition left me feeling that everyone must support homosexual relationships- even slaveholding human sacrificing blood mage magisters are ok with it, and if you aren't you are the worst person in the world. Its the only kind of intolerance possible that isn't represented someplace.
"Ooooh! Dragon Age is so progressive!! A strong female warrior, and a strong lesbian female!!!!! SUCH A STATEMENT!!!!"
Why even bring this up....? It's like every news site is trying to get attention by "poking the gamergate" stuff...
Label me a bigot, I am ok with that being no one here pays my bills or lives my life. Nor do I need to answer to them for anything what so ever.
They should leave out the homosexual and heterosexual stuff, it sends a wrong message to those families that plan to raise their kids the way they want. This guy I know bought this frozen movie and found out the hidden message it had about being homosexual in it. He took the video and destroyed it because that wasn't what he believed in and it really upset him that social media and society would FORCE that nonsense on him .
Either way it should always include the option or you can be like me and just not buy it.
That exactly what it was, the continuation of the hijacking of the gaming industry using propaganda and lies.
"People who tell you youre awesome are useless. No, dangerous.
They are worse than useless because you want to believe them. They will defend you against critiques that are valid. They will seduce you into believing you are done learning, or into thinking that your work is better than it actually is." ~Raph Koster
http://www.raphkoster.com/2013/10/14/on-getting-criticism/
Hey guys,
While this topic does include and encourage discussion on some things we don't normally allow on these forums, we do want to encourage discussion within reason here. I've removed a few things that essentially bashed certain groups or were turning into back and forth arguments over general politics. Try to stay away from that, as well as personal attacks.
To give feedback on moderation, contact mikeb@mmorpg.com
Birth and Death is also not "automatically" political.
Entertainment is certainly not 100% political, though much of it is. What political message did "Zoolander" pass on?
You missed the point.
If we assume that politics means influating others on global or individual level, then everything you do is politics thus making the question/article moot.
The article is rubbish, desperately trying to argue a point where is none.
I think this thread perfectly illustrates the problem with making any kind of political statement. No matter what, you are going to piss someone off. 99% of people have made up their mind about an issue, and talking about usually only makes matters worse.
I'd rather go kill some aliens than worry about who is sleeping with who.
Thank you for actually being fair in this thread...so used to be outright banned here for disagreeing with an articles writer.
"People who tell you youre awesome are useless. No, dangerous.
They are worse than useless because you want to believe them. They will defend you against critiques that are valid. They will seduce you into believing you are done learning, or into thinking that your work is better than it actually is." ~Raph Koster
http://www.raphkoster.com/2013/10/14/on-getting-criticism/
The code of the pessimistic loner: "We unpopular loners are realists, who follow the three non- popular principles: Not having any (Hope), Not making any (Gaps in your heart); And not giving into (Sweet talk)".
With every thing that is going on in the rel world the last thing I want is to log into my game of choice and have to deal with the same s**t.
As far as I can remember I have yet to see anyone cater to conservative gamers. The gaming community, from my perspective, is no different than the community at large and leans decidedly to the left. I saw in the article that the author equates gamers to college professors and likens them to political figures. That for me is a huge problem. A lot of these professors don't educate as much as they indoctrinate.
I went to college to learn and expand my point of view. I did not go to be force-fed some professors personal bias. How can you expect people to think for themselves and form their own opinions when all they are getting is one side of the story? The same goes for the mainstream "media".
If game makers are going to choose that path then it is something I would have to think long and hard about and decide if I really want to support that.
What would bother me is if this is only being done to appease the PC crowd. And by PC I mean the politically correct asses that have their overly sensitive claws in every aspect of daily f*****g life. That crap just gets under my skin.
That Guild Wars 2 login screen knocked up my wife. Must be the second coming!
This sort of thing reminds me of that South Park episode where the kids write a book that becomes a huge hit after they blame Butters for it and you have a bunch of idiots arguing about the meaning behind it and the political statements it is trying to make, etc when they really just did it for fun and there was no meaning at all. Just an attempt at being vulgar.
People will try to turn anything, even something created purely for entertainment and to make it fun / interesting, into some sort of political / moral debate when in reality it has no deeper meaning behind it than "Because we felt like it" or "It made it more exciting".
Perfect example, the Sons of Anarchy episode a few weeks back with the opening scenes of a bunch of people having sex. You immediately had a bunch of fucktards whining all over the internet about being "offended" by it because of 1 particular scene when for 7 years before that it hadn't been an issue for them to show lots of sex and violence. Perfectly OK to watch a pregnant woman inject herself with drugs and nearly kill her unborn baby, watch people get murdered by the dozens, several rape scenes involving both men and women being raped, drug dealing, prostitution and pornography, racism, kidnapping, religious figures having sex with multiple people & recording it, and pretty much anything else you could think of... but then this 1 scene suddenly offends people and they turn it into a ridiculous little crusade against FX for airing it.
What it really boils down to for me is that I do not want "real life politics" in my entertainment. The politics of Tamriel (Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim) I can enjoy. The politics of Middle Earth I can enjoy. Why? Because I do not deal with them every day in real life. In other words, these politics are NOT REAL.
Does a game have slavery? Can you DO anything about it in the game?
Does the game have homosexuality? Does it add to the game play?
In some of these latest RPGs, it is not really homosexuality as it is omnisexuality. The NPCs seem to "swing BOTH ways" with nary a blink of the eye, but maybe a wink
Also, about "dark skinned player models. What about it? If I play a dark skinned character, he is a dark skinned character, not an African-American, which does NOT exist in the game world, usually.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
WTF do Betelguese and Rigel have to do with anything? Unless you know something no one else knows about real extraterrestrials, it's humans writing fiction using anthropomorphisms and the culture they live in at the time of their writing to shape the behavior of the fictional characters... be they elves, orcs, bug-eyed aliens or lion kings. Just read some Sherlock Holmes written in the 19th century and compare the stories to 21st century Holme's fiction and tell me you don't see the cultural influences of the day all over the fiction.
So why does a contemporary reflection of human relationships and sexuality in a computer game seem so odd to you? Oh wait, it's because you agree with imposing the typical US-biased censorship where violence is A-OK and sex isn't on video games - even those written and produced in countries that don't share the same fundamentalist fear of sex ya'all do.
It's only "odd" or "noteworthy" or a "political statement" because it doesn't reflect conservative American prejudices and intolerance? Give me a break.
And no, you're welcome to disagree with me without me thinking you're homophobic. But homophobia and intolerance is thinly disguised (or outright overt before the mods make edits) all over the responses to this article.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Yes, of course. Why not? Art has always been used as a way to address the problems of it's times usually without directly insulting anyone. From paintings to television and music, it's always been this way. The medium of the delivery has always been a way to make people think deeply about a subject by tugging at the emotions associated with them.
Think about it. Star Trek addressed racism through an episode where the left hand side of one mans face while black while the right was white, and the person they were fighting against had the left hand side of his face black, and the right side of his face white.
Shakespeare addressed the behavior of the royal families of his time in several different plays from Hamlet, to King Lear, and even Montague and Capulets in Romeo and Juliet.
It has always been this way. Why would gaming be any different? It has always, and will always, be about whats good and right and between good and evil. It's not about right and left in any way. Society considers what helps humanity to be good, and what hurts humanity to be evil. It's not about religion or about right and left, just simply about good and evil.
Fiction, forum w/e. You are correct. They are able to, they are entitled to, and they will speak to issues if they feel like it. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. If people do not like x company addressing political concerns, they can speak with their wallet.
If you're in danger of being indoctrinated by a game then your original beliefs were pretty weak. I mean look, Star Trek could be viewed as portraying a basically communistic society in a very positive light but many people still enjoy it with very few of them actually becoming communist.
If you don't see enough artistic works with the message you want go and make some yourself or encourage others to. I'm fine with playing your game that sings the virtues of your ideology of choice as long as you are creative about it (blatant propaganda screeds are boring even if I agree with them). If it's a well written game it may even expose me to perspectives I've never given much thought to in real life which is great. I'm confident enough in my own beliefs that unless you make a really incredibly strong argument I'm not just going to blindly support your politics even if I think your game is good.
I wish people would stop trying to censor ideas that they don't agree with. We need more diversity of opinions and stories in games not less.
Some people seem to be interpreting the question as, "Should it be legal for games to make political statements?" There are a lot of stupid things that it should be legal for games to do, but games still shouldn't do them. For example, if a very grindy game wanted to completely wipe the database every 24 hours so that no one ever got very far into it, it should be legal to do that. But it's stupid, so games shouldn't do it. That's about how I feel about political advocacy in most games, too.
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Your view on whether games should make political statements is likely to depend strongly on whether you expect the political statements that games make to be ones that you agree with. Some people might think, "Yes, games should try to convince everyone to adopt my personal political views." I doubt that anyone in this thread wants games to constantly ridicule your own personal views.
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There's an enormous difference between a political statement that:
a) raises issues or arguments that you had never considered before, as opposed to
b) bashes you over the head with the 86th time that you've seen some stale argument that you didn't find persuasive the first 85 times and stopped seriously pondering more than a decade ago because it was already a nuisance by then.
Games that try to comment on hot-button political issues have a very high probability of ending up with something much closer to (b) than (a). The much longer latency to implement something in a game means that game designers simply don't have the capability to offer quick reactions to issues. Rather, if you're going to touch on a hot political issue, by the time it's live in the game, everyone will have had their say months ago. In order for the game to have any sort of timeliness at all, it will have to be a perennially contentious issue of the sort that most people are sick of.
Furthermore, even if there is something new and creative to say about a contentious political issue, it doesn't follow that game developers will be able to say it. There's no obvious reason why being a good artist or programmer would be correlated with being good at political commentary. Indeed, there is much reason to believe that they'll tend to be much worse at it than professional pundits who do political commentary for a living. So even if there is a deft way to say something new, game developers probably aren't going to find it.
So what happens if a game goes with (b)? Well, you're not going to change anyone's mind, for starters. You are going to annoy a lot of people, and probably lose some customers. So basically, (b) accomplishes nothing except harming the people who did it. Should games do that? No.
If a game studio wants to refrain from annoying people by inserting their political biases, it's not that complicated. Run anything remotely political by people with opposite biases and see if either of them pick up on bias that they don't like. It doesn't matter if the people checking for bias are writers, artists, programmers, or customer support. Spotting and being annoyed by political biases that you disagree with isn't a particularly rare skill. What does matter is that you get multiple people with opposite biases to both look at it.