Simple, everyday gamer Davin Andersen reportedly wishes video games would stop pushing unneeded political agendas and instead focus on just being fun. He’d also support…
This is the single worst take in existence. I see it everywhere and it contributes nothing. There’s a difference between a game having politics in it and a game being political. A game with politics in it typically has a message with complexity and nuance and attempts to get people to ask questions by immersing them in an environment where philosophical ideas can be explored. A game that’s political typically has no message beyond “straight white men are inherently evil and cause all of the world’s problems”, and forgoes subtlety, nuance, and often even basic storytelling in favor of shouting that message in the viewer’s face as often and as loudly as it can, vainly attempting to tell its audience outright what the writer thinks they should believe no matter how much the end product’s quality suffers.
There are always people who will complain about black people, gay people and trans people being in a game at all. But don’t lump those people in with people who are simply sick of their entertainment trying to guilt-trip them into hating themselves for having physical traits they never asked for and can’t control, otherwise your message becomes this:
“There are
Many genders: The good ones, and male
Many races: The good ones, and white
Many orientations: The good ones, and straight”
And that’s an opinion only possessed by those narcissistic enough to consider their own prejudices more justified than anyone else’s. I don’t want to hear any of that “prejudice plus power” nonsense. Bigotry is bigotry is bigotry. And we all deserve better.
I know you aren’t actually interested in hearing any more examples, so I’ll keep this short and name the example that comes right off the top of my head: Timespinner. Every bad guy is a straight white man and none of the characters considered sympathetic are more than one of those three things. And its writing is the worst thing about it.
If you’d care to show me some examples of games which are recent, western-made, high-budget, and have a white male protagonist who isn’t constantly getting put down by the game’s own narrative to prop up someone more politically correct, I’d genuinely love to hear them.
Would you care to offer any examples of that or would you rather do the same? I said I want in-game diversity to feel natural instead of like the writer getting on a soapbox. That’s as far from racist as you can get. The comment above me repeating the claim that characters who aren’t straight white men are required to be saddled with real-world current-day rhetoric instead of being allowed to just exist - THAT’S what’s racist.
Nah, I think succinctly telling you your whole premise is wrong is fine. If you don't understand the viewpoint or can't suspend disbelief, that's entirely on you. You are quite literally saying "Games with political elements [that I do not like] are the only political games", you're a child. Non-thinkers like you give gaming in general the malorous odor it still has popularly.
That’s an excellent strawman you’ve built there, but you appear to have either missed my actual point, or have deemed it too difficult to refute and chosen to deliberately ignore it. So this time I’m going to put my most important words in bold, to ensure that neither you nor anyone reading this will miss them.
Unlike many on the internet, I don’t base my definition of “political themes vs. political propaganda” off of whether or not I agree with it - that’s a false assumption that you made. I base it off of whether or not the writing respects my intelligence enough to allow me to come to my own conclusions instead of trying to decide those conclusions for me. (I have repeatedly stated this elsewhere.) In other words, your responses are founded on an outright lie, and even if I give you the benefit of the doubt by applying them to what I actually said, you’re attempting to paint me as a “non-thinker” for disagreeing with the practice of writers trying to get viewers to unthinkingly agree with their opinion. Which is not just patently absurd, it’s also a disservice to your own position because it makes you come across as a hypocrite.
Moral superiority is not something you just have. It needs to be backed up with facts. And the fact is, you do not know me, you have never met me, and you do not have the authority to tell me what I am saying, much less to call my premise wrong on the basis of words you put into my mouth. So you can either debate me for real or you can agree to disagree and get on with your own life, but you will not half-ass your discourse with logical fallacies or personal attacks and then expect me to take you seriously.
I have heard people earnestly say that shit. Also about hispanics and gays. You’d think at some point they would realize the “keep those people away from me” rhetoric is about the most snowflakey shit a person can do.
Oh my god the number of times I have heard people, in Los Angeles county, give me the 'the gays are our misfortune' speech. And I'm just sitting there with my blue hair and a pic of me with another woman as my phone background just kinda nodding. Thinking about exits and if I can get this bastards address.
I have a guy who used to be a good friend. His wife cheated on him and it was slow move from that, to misanthropy, to his Facebook feed being a constant stream of parroting right wing outrage.
Every so often, posts about how ridiculous it is for liberals to be so outraged all the time and how fragile they are because of it. I really just want to smack him, grab him by the cheeks, forcefully turn his head so he has to read his own wall.