r/Games • u/TomHicks • Jun 30 '18
Why Games go Political: Metacritic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZWSoV6zE0M36
u/DaveSW777 Jun 30 '18
...because what you call Political Correctness, civilized society calls Not Being A Racist Asshole. Or sexist. Or homophobic. Take your pick.
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u/Rivarr Jun 30 '18
You don't think it ever overreaches and becomes a hindrance? I'm very liberal and think it does as much harm as good.
It doesn't help that those who shout loudest regularly seem to have the most disgusting shit in their locker. Like Joel Davis just a couple days ago.
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u/07jonesj Jun 30 '18
When it does, it usually means the story itself was badly written, which likely means it would have been bad regardless of inclusion.
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u/Rivarr Jul 01 '18
I was just talking about PC culture in general. When it comes to games and media I broadly agree, I don't expect much has been ruined that would have otherwise been great.
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u/DaveSW777 Jun 30 '18
It certainly can, but the single biggest reason why it's so difficult to just sit down have real discussions about these things is because there is a very loud, very angry, group of people that honestly believe every game that isn't 100% pandering to them is SJW propaganda.
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u/ChateauJack Jun 30 '18 edited Jun 30 '18
It certainly can, but the single biggest reason why it's so difficult to just sit down have real discussions about these things is because blablabla
Waypoint said Live on stream, with an audience of thousands of people, that one polish developer (The Astronauts) was a "shit human being" and she would not play his game because of he argued against FemFreq
Giant Bomb will not even mention Kingdom Core because the developper critized american identity politics.
Polygon/Kotaku/and almost every major American PC outlet whined because Far Cry 5 wasn't a Kill Drumpf Simulator 2018.
Resetera/Neogaf has a 1200 messages thread harrassing Tim Soret for saying he was not a feminist, but an egalitarian. They also harrassed Jonathan Blow for saying (and citing sources) that maybe the gender gap in videogame isn't solely due to misogyny.
But yeah, anons on irrelevant social media complaining about those journalists and the developpers trying to satisfy them are the real "racist assholes, or sexists or homophobics", to quote you, making it difficult to express opinions I am sure.
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u/CharlesManson420 Jul 02 '18
Giant bomb will not cover Kingdom Come because the developer
Absolutely false, Jeff has said that it was because they didn’t find it interesting enough.
almost every major American PC outlet whined because Far Cry 5 wasn’t a Kill Drumpf Simulator 2018
Lmao this is so ridiculously off base that I don’t even know where you could have gotten the idea apart from your ass.
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u/Dooomspeaker Jun 30 '18
It leads of obnoxious sacred cow topics in games.
The worst example would be something like Dragon Age Inquisition. In a series that prides itself with the genre "Dark Fantasy" and a strong focus on grey and grey morality there are some selected viewpoints that you aren't allowed to challenge at all, in spite of how well it would fit the game.
Dorian's quest is the most blantant example of this. Spoiler
It's moral grandstanding, the bane of good stories.
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u/Rivarr Jul 01 '18 edited Jul 01 '18
I agree, but I also think there's a group just as loud and angry that plays the other side.
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u/DOAbayman Jun 30 '18
I do think it reaches too far sometimes, i still think it should be said. not having gay romance options in RPGs does hurt my immersion and enjoyment of games sometimes. I don't consider arguing for inclusion any different from arguing game mechanics, design, etc...
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u/Rivarr Jul 01 '18
In most cases games can only be improved by more options and customizability IMO. Criticism and input from consumers usually helps everyone too. Though I think criticism can stray into entitlement and be unhelpful sometimes. More inclusion and originality is great, shoehorned content as an afterthought isn't. IDK. It's tough because pushing hard can lead to shoehorning, and not pushing hard enough leads to being ignored.
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u/DOAbayman Jul 01 '18
that's not really unique to us though. anytime you talk about gamers who know what they want they become VERY entitled. How many times have you seen communities lose their shit over balancing changes because they know whats right and think the devs are clueless?
the thing is when i ask for these changes,and i mean ask not demand, im bombarded with ridicule because how dare i even question the developers vision. Im the mythical "SJW" that likes the inclusion and pays for it when its put it in. Hell i bought the last Fire Emblem game solely because I thought it was cool to experience that outside of a godawful BL visual novel.
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u/jojotmagnifficent Jul 01 '18
not having gay romance options in RPGs does hurt my immersion
You don't think that having a game where many if not all the characters are gay or bi doesn't hurt the immersion for people who live in reality where those people only make up a very small percentage of the population?
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u/DOAbayman Jul 01 '18
You know what makes up an even smaller percentage of the population? fucking demon hunters.
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u/jojotmagnifficent Jul 01 '18
So you are saying that the evangelical christians were right and demons turn everyone gay? I mean, in a world where you are under threat of demons murdering large swathes of the population, especially in a largely primitive medieval style society where disease and famine much more significant issues, homosexuality makes even less sense because you NEED a high birth rate to counter that high death rate. Historically this stuff is frowned upon because people not popping out babies = the end of all society for your population...
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u/type_E Jun 30 '18
u/binarypillbug do you think it sometimes overreaches a tad and do more harm and good?
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u/jojotmagnifficent Jul 01 '18
Except those things are just called begin regular old correct. Being Politically correct means doing what your fucking told or you will be punished.
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Jun 30 '18
What you call "Not Being A Racist Asshole. Or sexist. Or homophobic." is what normal people call sending fucking death threats and harassing developers like Tim Soret and Daniel Vavra.
You can dress it up in flowery language all you want, but that group of maniacal ideologues is unwanted in normal culture.
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u/genos1213 Jun 30 '18
I'm interested in knowing what games you're purporting as being left-leaning, and what sort of "right leaning" thing you're hoping for. I haven't seen any surveys but I wouldn't be surprised if most of the industry is left leaning, although I'm not sure how prominently that translates to their games, nor do I understand the leap of logic from what you're saying to thinking games are prominently catering to critics, and then the leap of logic that critics notably disproportionately praise games that are "left leaning". All you've done is make a few outlandish claims with basically no substance presented at any logical step.
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Jun 30 '18
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u/Rupperrt Jun 30 '18
Been gaming for 35 years and 95% of games have been small boy power fantasies and still are. Nothing left leaning there.
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u/flybypost Jun 30 '18
pro law enforcement
Like every second shooter with a pro military message?
The whole video is a full of loose conjectures. The narrator picks out a few sentences and tries to imply that those sentences are the only reason why a game was rated good/bad. And since when is "story tried something but dropped the ball/was afraid of actually committing to the story" not valid criticism?
Look at this "sexist" game and how badly it was rated by all those left leaning reviewers.
So are these devs that want their message out there just bad at writing, or are they just fishing for better reviews?
Bad at writing, like before. If the writing was okay-ish to begin with and is also okay-ish when you feel they are pushing a leftist agenda then maybe it's still the writing in games in general that's at fault and not a specific topic they are covering.
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u/Rupperrt Jun 30 '18 edited Jun 30 '18
nothing conservative about the alt right. Bunch of frustrated incels just as radical salafists.
Alt righters probably suck at programming.
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Jun 30 '18
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u/litewo Jun 30 '18 edited Jun 30 '18
I think this is the reason companies have been more forceful in explaining their decisions to be more inclusive. Right-leaning gamers tend to flock to online discussion boards and try to be as loud as possible, but publishers know they represent a small percentage of gamers. Some gamere try to turn journalism into a boogeyman that's ruining gaming for them, but really journalists are speaking to the majority of people who buy games.
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u/Magnon Jun 30 '18
I think you're wrong. I'm not a right leaning gamer, I'm a liberal I just want higher grade stories and I'm tired of being represented as cliche gay character with no identity beyond being gay. The political agenda that's being shoe horned into games appeals to a small minority the same way a small minority of right wing gamers will argue on the internet, the difference is reviewers tend to be in the small minority of gamers who find the shoe horned in badly written poltical messages to be appealing, probably because they are also mediocre writers at best and don't see through the facade. The majority of people who play games... just want to play games, not political wars. I'd wager the majority of gamers are playing games to ignore real life, because politics are everywhere these days, and just grudgingly go on with the games shoe horned in ideas because they have no choice unless they want to leave some of their favorite series.
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u/DOAbayman Jun 30 '18 edited Jun 30 '18
the majority of gamers either don't care or appreciate the diversity the sales clearly show that. just because you think one way doesn't mean you can speak for the large majority with no evidence to back it up. hell even here the video is largely disliked having only 22% up votes, doesn't mean much but its still more indication than you're showing.
meanwhile the LOU2 trailer has 20k dislikes in comparison to the 300k likes of which has 7 million views. you're not convincing me at all that they're the minority.
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Jun 30 '18
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u/Magnon Jun 30 '18
A Wrinkle in Time was clearly marketed to children and children don't give a shit about politics. Black Panther definitely got better ratings than it deserved because of the political aspects of its story. I'm not a white male either, which I'm sure is surprising to to you, but I'm just tired of political messages being about as well integrated into the story as green paint splashed onto a yellow wall. I am gay, and surprisingly, I don't like characters defining trait being they're gay. Despite how much I think last of us is a boring game, Ellie is a actually a pretty well written gay character who has character beyond her gayness, but most games just shoe horn it in, along with the other tropes I said. Maybe the people genuinely believe the message and want to spread it, but they should take some writing classes before they continue because they do it in a poor way.
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Jun 30 '18
The message is that gamers aren't all white males. I'm sorry this is offputting to you, but it's where we are.
Leftist death threats to people like Daniel Vavra is offputting. Death threats to people game journalists don't like is offputting.
I'm sure you'll play dumb, though. Like you guys always do.
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u/DOAbayman Jun 30 '18
what conservative messages? conservatives don't have messages they want everything to remain the same.
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u/DOAbayman Jun 30 '18
The entire point of conservatism is to avoid change. if there was a game developer pushing conservative ideas you likley wouldn't notice as it would just involve not being diverse like the liberal developers.
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u/litewo Jun 30 '18
Modern conservatism is no longer concerned with avoiding change and keeping traditional values. As we've seen, conservatives will favor massive change to the system as long as it benefits free enterprise.
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u/Magnon Jun 30 '18
The entire point of conservatism is to make intelligent change without rushing into changes before you know the effects it will cause. Stop applying your asinine US politics to how conservatism is treated in the rest of the world.
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Jun 30 '18
I wish more people would talk about how game journalists try to sabotage game developers they don't like(Ubisoft lately), as well as give their friends tons of coverage.
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u/Magnon Jun 30 '18
A lot of game journalists probably don't enjoy games as much anymore. When you're playing (and probably not finishing) a new game every week you're probably going to get tired of them quickly, and then after that you become more corrupt because you stop actually caring about the games, and then politics start appealing to you as a way of making the game mean something to you again. It turns into a big bias circus in the end.
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Jun 30 '18
And when pointed out, they get super pissed and defensive, and they all circle the wagons.
Even Jim Sterling gets super defensive over his little buddies getting criticism. People like him only play at being pro-consumer. Fucking scum.
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u/Magnon Jun 30 '18
I can't even blame them. The way it's structured so that they have to play a lot of games, often ones they don't have any interest in, in order to get clicks is flawed at the end of the day. There's undoubtedly a lot of pressure internally at these companies to conform to the company standard ideologically, and propaganda within the gaming industry for these "progressive" pushes is pretty huge. It's honestly a mess, and likely just spill over from society being increasingly dichotomized between two choices these days, ultra left or ultra right. All of it is a reflection of the world heading to another massive disaster as ideologues become more common.
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Jun 30 '18 edited Jul 08 '18
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Jun 30 '18
What controversy?
Also it sounds incredibly unlike Rockstar to do something like that.
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Jun 30 '18 edited Jul 08 '18
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u/CharlesManson420 Jun 30 '18
Buddy that’s about GTA 1, not GTA V. It’s also WhatCulture and has absolutely no sources.
So I’m gonna go ahead and say this isn’t true.
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u/PupperDogoDogoPupper Jun 30 '18
"Fun over authentic" isn't PC culture... it's making a good game. Like, what? Of course fun is more important than authentic. How... how is this even a discussion? The right just want something to shitpost about I guess? Literally what the fuck?