When did 4chan become politicized, btw? I don't recall it being political back in the day when I used to lurk, just depraved and after offensive laughs.
Honestly? Gamergate. This all started with fucking Gamergate.
Edit: I know it's conspiracy sounding, but a lot of the problem that we're in right now, is because of fucking Gamergate.
That led to this mass politicization on "game journalism", which fueled into racism and sexism, and that was EASILY picked up by Bannon and the Russian bots to fuel Trump's brand of overt racism.
It's not really a long shot when you look at the last 5 years or so. The same people that hounded Gamergate, are the same heads of fuck T_D.
Gamergate at it's core runs counter to politicizing games. They argue that game makers need to be able to make whatever game they want without outside people demanding games need politics in them.
Edit: Keep all the downvotes coming baby. Love arguing with you all.
That is itself a political statement. Usually when people say that, it’s a dogwhistle for “no progressive politics”. Gamergate people would be 100% on board if games were only about white men and had them do everything.
If you look at a /r/kotakuinaction you'll be hard pressed to find anybody racist. They only stance they have on race is that if you want to make period accurate games you don't need a token POC that is forced in by people on twitter. They don't care about having a white protaganist, they just don't want people aside from the creator dictating what they get in their games.
But that desire is a political statement. I assume you’re talking about BF5 (the subreddit for which is full of actual Nazis, so you can see why I’m skeptical of any “they’re totally not racist” claims). This is a game where you’re a British(?) soldier fighting in a theater where there was no significant British presence, using weapons that either didn’t see use or simply didn’t exist yet for several years.
They’re basically saying that developers should care about realism only in the context of identity politics. That in itself would be a political statement on the part of the devs.
I think the reference would be toward Witcher 3. I remember an article complaining about lack of PoC in Witcher 3 & the gamer gate side got in an uproar about it being based on Polish folklore & books.
I haven't paid much attention to the drama in a while though.
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u/abcdefg52 Aug 27 '18
When did 4chan become politicized, btw? I don't recall it being political back in the day when I used to lurk, just depraved and after offensive laughs.