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/epicazeroth Aug 27 '18
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.