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The “keep politics out of games” complaint


KHCast

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Um...I wonder if it's right to feel bitter towards Nintendo for taking out those stages. Sometimes these serious issue are given one extreme or the other and rarely considered the middle ground. If Nintendo didn't want "Trans Rights" depicted in a game that has nothing to do with it, isn't that their right? It doesn't make them bad, does it?

I'm reminded of a character that has earned the title of "First Trans Video Game Character" who also happens to be a Nintendo character.

Super_Mario_Bros_2_-_Birdo--article_imag

Based on what I've read, it seemed to originate in the manual of Super Mario Brothers 2. He was mistakenly given the name of a different enemy called Ostro. In Japan, her name is Catherine.

Since then, his/her gender seemed to change depending on what game you're playing while various others directly point out the gender confusion, such as Super Smash Brothers Brawl and Captain Rainbow.

If anyone is curious or doesn't know, the latter game I mentioned and Japan exclusive Captain Rainbow, did contain what an article described as "Potty Politics."

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In the game, Birdo is wrongly imprisoned for using the female bathroom, as the robot jailer did not believe her when she insists she is a girl. She gets quite upset about this, and asks Nick to go to her Cute Home and find something that will prove she is not lying. Nick finds a mysterious object under Birdo's pillow, and while it is never revealed exactly what the object is, it serves its purpose and Birdo is released. Birdo develops a crush on Nick, and calls him her "boyfriend". Nick accompanies her in her walks near her Cute Home, and she helps him carry a fallen Star to the altar on the top of Mimin Island. If Nick lets Birdo's wish be granted, she flies into the sky with the Star and disappears.

I don't know what they're saying. ^^;

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5 minutes ago, DanJ86 said:

If Nintendo didn't want "Trans Rights" depicted in a game that has nothing to do with it, isn't that their right?

What they choose to allow and what they choose to remove sends a message. There's all sorts of custom stages referencing things that have nothing to do with Smash that stay up without issue, so clearly the subject matter not having to do with Smash can't be the criteria they're using. What kind of stuff does get removed? Typically stuff that's inappropriate or offensive. By removing stages that show support for trans rights, they send the message that there's something inappropriate or offensive about that. And whether they intend to send that message or not, it's fair to criticize them for it.

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2 hours ago, Diogenes said:

What they choose to allow and what they choose to remove sends a message. There's all sorts of custom stages referencing things that have nothing to do with Smash that stay up without issue, so clearly the subject matter not having to do with Smash can't be the criteria they're using. What kind of stuff does get removed? Typically stuff that's inappropriate or offensive. By removing stages that show support for trans rights, they send the message that there's something inappropriate or offensive about that. And whether they intend to send that message or not, it's fair to criticize them for it.

I shudder to say this.....I can certainly imagine that certain kinds of people would find it offensive. We have words for people like those, I think.

It's just something I'm uncomfortable on commenting on when the decision to remove them might not have been Nintendo's idea. I'm referring to complaints. Now that I think about it, I haven't completed a custom level yet and I hadn't played any from other players either. I'd assume they'd be a report button or something?

I'm not confident in much but I do believe that an anti-trans level would be both inappropriate and offensive. My scientific curiosity would like to confirm if one of those would be taken down too, but I could never make a symbol of hate even as an experiment.

I'm getting side tracked. I guess I just want to believe the best in people, even though I have tones of experience dealing with unpleasant dicks in my life. Mostly bullies and thieves and a couple of others I can't quite remember...

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https://www.themarysue.com/warhammer-40k-fandom-fascism/

While the subject matter is a bit different and focused on why people gravitate towards fascism and it’s relation to Trump, there is a statement that I think sums up a good chunk of the pervasive mindset of “no politics and objectivity” that gets so prevalent in games:

There’s a lot of contributing factors to GamerGate, almost all of them revolving around hatred of women, people of color, queer and trans folk, and pushing back against their increased visibility in culture and media. But while the “ethics in games journalism” thing was only ever a smoke screen to hide their repulsive behavior, there is something interesting about how they chose to communicate that smokescreen. The most common thing I saw directed at game critics (aside from general harassment) was a bizarre plea to not bring politics into their reviews.

Now that’s an absurd request on the face of it; all media is unavoidably political, by dint of it being created and consumed in a political context, so asking someone to review something completely apolitically would more often than not result in something akin to Jim Sterling’s 100 Percent Objective Review of FF13. And why would they even want that?

Because then they don’t have to think about it.

This seems to be at the root of a lot of harassment campaigns—perhaps not as much as hatred of women or minorities, but still deep inside: the desire to stick their fingers in their ears and pretend political issues don’t exist. It’s why some people have felt the need to spend the last 7 years harassing Anita Sarkeesian—not because she’s trying to take their games away, but because she’s demanding that they think critically about those games. To use an example from this specific fandom, after my January 40k article, I had people coming out of the woodwork to tell me all about the reasons women can’t be Space Marines or just calling me a mangina, completely unwilling to think critically about the game we both supposedly love and ignoring my broader point (or the fact that I had already addressed their points in the article itself).

When you completely disengage your critical thinking, it becomes very easy to embrace Warhammer 40k’s fascist architecture. Of course fascism is good: the humans in 40k are fascists, and they’re the good guys because they’re humans—ergo, their fascism must be good. It never crosses their minds that the humans aren’t necessarily the good guys. (I’ve actually argued in the past that the Craftworld Eldar are the clearest examples of heroes in the 40k universe, and that the Tau Empire represents the best hope for saving the place.) And when you already believe the ideas present in the text, it becomes that much easier to disengage your critical thinking, which is why critical tools are so important.

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Normally i wouldn't bother answering to an article of TheMarySue of 3 years ago, but considering it's only part of it that is used as example and most of the board doesn't know much about Warhammer, let me fill in some gaps (something that the author couldn't do in multiple points of either articles, despite his average knowledge of the subject matter).
40k's politcs (and really, everything Games Workshop has created) have existed and virtually remained the same for the most part ever since the '80s, way before people even bothered with the idea of having fascism resurge. They are about many things, including opression, forced conscription, totalitarisms, slavery, forced castration, malicious sex cults and much more, but never wanted to parallel real-life events that were happening when they were made, instead taking inspiration from WWI-II and several fantasy and action/sci-fi franchises like Dune, Isaac Asimov's stories, Alien, Gundam or even Rambo and Mad Max. You can argue some parts of it had some grade of foresight, but not on the level of "Kojima predicted how the Internet would have been in MGS2". Putting them now on the table of nowadays politics because some idiot on /pol/ thought it was a good idea to photoshop Trump's head on the Emperor is annoying to say the least, but also detremental to the media in question, with the article basically asking to retcon decades of lore or be doomed to be associated to the alt-right movement because the Space Marines can't be gender-inclusive. You're telling me something similar would have happened if a Yu-Gi-Oh card artwork was used instead, or a Magic the Gathering one, or an illustration from Curse of Strahd? Is no tabletop game with even the slight point of narrative or visuals involving similar themes safe now because "it may attract fascists who believe in that unironically" due to Poe's Law? This reminds me on the campaigns of the '80s and '90s of demonizing D&D saying children would believe too much into them and become ultra-violent delinquents, a thing that happened before with rock 'n roll and nowadays still continues for violent videogames.
This not mentioning one thing the article glossed over or dismissed, the fact that aside from the Space Marines and the Sisters of Battle wich are one-gender armies, every other faction of 40K is either inclusive, purely equal or gender neutral (so technically very progressive for the time they were made), but just because the Space Marines are used in a case of Wolverine Publicity (and have in-lore reasons on why they look like males, even though technically they are genetically modified to be genderless), it's all moot. I agree that Games Workshop should print more plastic models for the Sisters of Battle or for female Imperial Guards, but GW has been stingy in a while in printing new stuff in mass for everything, so it's more a case of greediness than sexism.
When you have time, go and watch the webseries If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device, it's good both for knowing 40k lore (i.e. why for example the Imperium has the grimdark politics it has and the fact that they were not supposed to be like that and instead more utopistic) in an easy way with a good laugh, and for understanding the fact that its policts have been weaponized these years for the sake of stir up controversies. /tg/, the 4chan board who among other tabletop games talks about Games Workshop products, abhors the fact that the Imperium has been used by Trump supporters, because they just want to play the fucking game instead of giving more fuel to the fire that /pol/ exploits for the trolling campaigns of the Trump supporters. Also, fyi, the average 40k player never even considers the Imperium to be the good guys just because they're humans, that passage of the article feels like projecting; this doesn't deny the existance of players who may be fascists nor the fact that the Trump supporters have been using 40k imagery for their propaganda, mind you, but it's not even a good picture of the fandom. This is the equivalent of the article who says that white males who are gonna see the Joker solo movie are gonna be inspired to cause chaos and terrorism where they live because it may resonate with them.
And i say all of this as a Tau player since early 2003 who chose them because they had cool-looking armors and OP firepower, and that's what the game is all about: how cool-looking is your and how fun the gameplay mechanics associated to it are, knowing the lore is a secondary thing and understanding it's fictional and not inspiring for any current ideals should be obvious, reguardless if someone photoshops an orange man's head on it. I've battled and had drinks with countless Imperium/Space Marine players since then (around 1/3 or more of them female, btw) and the most fascist thing i could find in them in all these years was someone choosing to spray his army pitch black because he was too lazy to refine his army models and passed them for Black Templars, a SM chapter with black armor. This in a country that nowadays is more fascist than it has ever been in 100 years.

Point of all of this reguarding the article is that we shouldn't be discouraged or paranoid because someone uses part of a media for supporting its political ideologies or even the risk of it, otherwise not only we should stop having villains like the Joker in DC Comics products or Red Skull in Marvel Comics ones, but we're also gonna end up at some point burning books out of fear they may stir the wrong ideas in people. You know, like the nazis did.

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I don't know enough about Warhammer to criticize it specifically but I feel if a bunch of fascists and bigots flock to your product you do have an obligation to take a step back and reevaluate it, figure out what you're saying that they're attracted to, and basically tell them to fuck right off. That's not to say you have to sterilize your work, and obviously you can't prevent every last person from misunderstanding or deliberately misusing your work, but if it happens enough for it to be a known thing it's probably not a coincidence, and again you're still responsible for the messages you send whether they're intentional or not.

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28 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

I don't know enough about Warhammer to criticize it specifically but I feel if a bunch of fascists and bigots flock to your product you do have an obligation to take a step back and reevaluate it, figure out what you're saying that they're attracted to, and basically tell them to fuck right off. That's not to say you have to sterilize your work, and obviously you can't prevent every last person from misunderstanding or deliberately misusing your work, but if it happens enough for it to be a known thing it's probably not a coincidence, and again you're still responsible for the messages you send whether they're intentional or not.

Why are you advocating that companies should take responsibility for interpretations of their content and on the same hand say that companies shouldn't have to sanitize their content, because the former would certainly lead to the latter in a world where everything is viewed and criticised through a political lens when corporations want to avoid controversy as much as possible. If something as inane as a completely fictional dystopian hell future where humanity is in a constant war for survival is enough to turn someone politically fascist; I doubt it would have taken much in the first place, if he wasn't already a fascist to begin with.

Demanding companies start policing who is allowed to consume or purchase content is just bizarre and incredibly authoritarian in the current political climate, if you want to fuel victimhood and vindicate conspiracies of the oppression of certain political dissent; by far the biggest recruiting tools and propaganda of current far right parties: go for it.

1 hour ago, Teoskaven said:

And i say all of this as a Tau player since early 2003 who chose them because they had cool-looking armors and OP firepower, and that's what the game is all about: how cool-looking is your and how fun the gameplay mechanics associated to it are

Everything is a political statement so you're obviously a weeaboo space communist. I bet you have a mini shrine of Chairman Mao too.

18 hours ago, SenEDDtor Missile said:

The most common thing I saw directed at game critics (aside from general harassment) was a bizarre plea to not bring politics into their reviews.

Now that’s an absurd request on the face of it; all media is unavoidably political, by dint of it being created and consumed in a political context, so asking someone to review something completely apolitically would more often than not result in something akin to Jim Sterling’s 100 Percent Objective Review of FF13. And why would they even want that?

Because then they don’t have to think about it.

Who'd have thought the average consumer wants to avoid politics in their escapist entertainment, and people expect the opinions of a games entertainment value over how progressive the game is in a critical review.

Wild.

Nintendo removing user generated content that supports current political issues is reasonable insofar as remaining apolitical. If the company made a statement saying they removed them because they're against the rights of individuals or refuse to remove content from the opposite spectrum then go ahead and flame them for it (or support if it's you're thing for whatever reason) as clearly that is taking a stance. This assumption of motive/guilt, that if somebody isn't with you they're against you is absurd, juvenile and one of the causes of political discussion in general being so toxic in recent times. Yes, video games like most media forms have had undertones but that doesn't make every game in existence fair game as a political platform or companies should be obligated to comment on current agendas.

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9 minutes ago, Azzy said:

Why are you advocating that companies should take responsibility for interpretations of their content and on the same hand say that companies shouldn't have to sanitize their content, because the former would certainly lead to the latter in a world where everything is viewed and criticised through a political lens when corporations want to avoid controversy as much as possible.

There's a difference between not making content that fascists and bigots like and not making content with value and meaning to it.

9 minutes ago, Azzy said:

If something as inane as a completely fictional dystopian hell future where humanity is in a constant war for survival is enough to turn someone politically fascist; I doubt it would have taken much in the first place, if he wasn't already a fascist to begin with.

It's not that sketchy media turns perfectly ordinary non-fascists into fascists, it's that fascists rally around it, reinforce each other's beliefs, and use it to draw in people who are in some way on the fence.

9 minutes ago, Azzy said:

Demanding companies start policing who is allowed to consume or purchase content is just bizarre and incredibly authoritarian in the current political climate,

Ok. Not sure what that has to do with any of this though. It's certainly not anything like anything I've said.

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13 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

There's a difference between not making content that fascists and bigots like and not making content with value and meaning to it.

People can ascribe meaning and value to things beyond what was intended. If you want to invoke meaningful thought or discussion there's always going to be a chance somewhere that a bigot might enjoy it based on his own interpretation and sensationalist click-bait news outlets publish stories with wild accusations with specious evidence such as the example of Warhammer, this is not the fault of the original creator and the only way you could prevent such a thing from happening is completely safe and neutral, filtered content.

13 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

It's not that sketchy media turns perfectly ordinary non-fascists into fascists, it's that fascists rally around it, reinforce each other's beliefs, and use it to draw in people who are in some way on the fence.

I don't have as little faith in an individuals agency as you do where I can accuse hobbies of somehow spreading ideology, echochambers form everywhere. What's the line between sketchy media and something that's fine, when one dubious article can cause a discussion like the one we're having?

13 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

Ok. Not sure what that has to do with any of this though. It's certainly not anything like anything I've said.

?

2 hours ago, Diogenes said:

I feel if a bunch of fascists and bigots flock to your product you do have an obligation to take a step back and reevaluate it, figure out what you're saying that they're attracted to, and basically tell them to fuck right off.

 

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1 hour ago, Azzy said:

Who'd have thought the average consumer wants to avoid politics in their escapist entertainment, and people expect the opinions of a games entertainment value over how progressive the game is in a critical review.

Wild.

Including a gay, trans, black, etc person automatically makes it a political “progressive” statement that takes away from the games entertainment value? Also, Bioshock, Metal Gear, Deus Ex, Detroit, FF7, even fucking Sonic all say hi. People aren’t uncomfortable with politics, they’re uncomfortable with things they don’t personally agree with or like being given a spotlight more often than not when they bitch about politics being in media

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52 minutes ago, Azzy said:

People can ascribe meaning and value to things beyond what was intended. If you want to invoke meaningful thought or discussion there's always going to be a chance somewhere that a bigot might enjoy it based on his own interpretation

Yes, I'm well aware of that. You may notice that I mentioned that originally, that you can't prevent every last person from misinterpreting your work. But again, if this isn't just a few isolated cases there's probably a reason for it, and if you've got any amount of integrity you should be willing to reevaluate your work to see if that's where it's coming from.

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I don't have as little faith in an individuals agency as you do where I can accuse hobbies of somehow spreading ideology, echochambers form everywhere.

"Echo chambers form everywhere" kinda runs against your point about individual agency, I'd think. And the idea that the media we consume shapes the way we think shouldn't be a controversial idea. Again, not in the sense that it immediately turns good little boys into goose-stepping nazis, but in slower, subtler ways, that scumbags are more than willing to exploit. If we can be moved positively by art, we sure as shit can be moved negatively as well.

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What's the line between sketchy media and something that's fine, when one dubious article can cause a discussion like the one we're having?

Unfortunately life is complicated and there simply isn't a clear, unambiguous line, and even if there was I wouldn't pretend to be knowledgeable enough to draw it. Thus the need to analyze and self-reflect and discuss these issues, instead of just brushing them off.

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?

Telling fascists to fuck off is a very different thing from slapping the game out of someone's hands. I'm not talking about body checks for swastika tattoos or reviewing a dump of your 8chan posting history before you're allowed to buy a thing. But creators are certainly able to speak out against fascists and bigots in their fanbase and make clear with their words and their works that they do not support them and would like them to fuck off forever.

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About the Smash stages. Youtuber TheQuartering did a much better job at explaining why removing those stages was a wise move.

It basically comes down to, if that can get in, so must everything else. Because the titles clearly stated Trans Rights, it was a political statement and Nintendo doesn't want any political statements in Smash.

Perhaps everyone already knew this. I'm pretty slow on the uptake...

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1 minute ago, DanJ86 said:

It basically comes down to, if that can get in, so must everything else.

Nah. Nintendo is, in fact, allowed to make decisions on what is allowed in and what isn't.

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14 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

Nah. Nintendo is, in fact, allowed to make decisions on what is allowed in and what isn't.

Yeah. That's what I meant. ^^;

So if Nintendo allowed the Trans Rights stuff. For the purpose of equality, they should allow everything else.

So in my opinion, it seemed like a wise choice to keep them out or politics would be everywhere in the built stages. Sure, they can pick and choose what stays and what doesn't, but it's better to treat everything the same.

At least, that is what I think.

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I still question how equality for a person is considered even political. Never mind how I don’t see why it opens the gate for things like Nazi’s and KKK sharing hate on the platform. Seems more like “thing some people are uncomfortable accepting as reality” than something honestly political. I mean how many MAGA stages exist already? Then again, Nintendo being out of touch regarding these topics isn’t new, let’s not forget that tomodachi debacle with them calling non straight relationships “social commentary” as their response for “fixing” the game and why they did it 

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37 minutes ago, KHCast said:

Including a gay, trans, black, etc person automatically makes it a political “progressive” statement that takes away from the games entertainment value?

I didn't say that. 

37 minutes ago, KHCast said:

I still question how equality for a person is considered even political. Never mind how I don’t see why it opens the gate for things like Nazi’s and KKK sharing hate on the platform. Seems more like “thing some people are uncomfortable accepting as reality” than something honestly political.

Individual rights is still political even when we all agree to it, in modern politics regarding transitioning folk there are those that would argue against it for whatever reason and that's why it was removed. You can't keep something strictly moderated 24/7 when an hours worth of unfiltered hateful comments can spawn some news article about how your company is bigoted by not taking them down fast enough.

1 minute ago, Diogenes said:

Yes, I'm well aware of that. You may notice that I mentioned that originally, that you can't prevent every last person from misinterpreting your work. But again, if this isn't just a few isolated cases there's probably a reason for it, and if you've got any amount of integrity you should be willing to reevaluate your work to see if that's where it's coming from.

Integrity would be standing by your work and disavowing extremist interpretations of it, not changing your work by; in the case of Warhammer, the complaints of another minority. The alternative is censorship of content and an industry will follow whatever precedent has been set.

1 minute ago, Diogenes said:

"Echo chambers form everywhere" kinda runs against your point about individual agency, I'd think.

I'm not naive enough to discount the possibility that there is some that would take advantage of an entertainment medium to spread ideology, individual agency being what tells them to keep politics out of their games, left or right.

1 minute ago, Diogenes said:

Telling fascist to fuck off is a very different thing from slapping the game out of someone's hands. I'm not talking about body checks for swastika tattoos or reviewing a dump of your 8chan posting history before you're allowed to buy a thing. But creators are certainly able to speak out against fascists and bigots in their fanbase and make clear with their words and their works that they do not support them and would like them to fuck off forever.

That's still holding creators accountable for their customers which is something they cannot control, my opinion has always been that creators such as hobby and gaming companies don't support fascism and it's more than fair to assume that, they're just in the business of making money.

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10 minutes ago, Azzy said:

I didn't say that. 

 

10 minutes ago, Azzy said:

Individual rights is still political

By your very logic here, yeah, including a gay person, since the topic of sexuality and individuality to you is political, makes that piece of media automatically “political”. 

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1 hour ago, KHCast said:

I still question how equality for a person is considered even political. Never mind how I don’t see why it opens the gate for things like Nazi’s and KKK sharing hate on the platform.

Just wanna check first. Are you responding to the video I linked or something I said?

If you are, the point that TheQuartering was making is that equality in itself is not political, it's putting "[Insert] Rights" as the title which made it political.

If you weren't replying to something I said, then ignore this.

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3 minutes ago, Azzy said:

Integrity would be standing by your work and disavowing extremist interpretations of it, not changing your work by; in the case of Warhammer, the complaints of another minority. The alternative is censorship of content and an industry will follow whatever precedent has been set.

If you honestly reexamine your work and decide the fascists and bigots are full of shit and are willing to say so, then fine; that doesn't necessarily absolve you completely, but it's a defensible position to take. But if you're not willing to take that step of reexamining what it is you've said in your work, that isn't integrity, that's cowardice. And choosing to edit your work because you've decided it doesn't communicate what you intended it to isn't censorship. Nobody's forcing anyone to do anything; I'm arguing that this is what decent people should choose to do themselves.

3 minutes ago, Azzy said:

That's still holding creators accountable for their customers which is something they cannot control,

Not directly, but the audience a work ends up with isn't random. If you write a superhero comic, you're gonna end up with a lot of superhero fans. If you write a Western, you can be pretty sure a lot of your fans like cowboys. And if a sizable portion of your fans are fascists and/or bigots, you really ought to take the time to figure out why.

3 minutes ago, Azzy said:

my opinion has always been that creators such as hobby and gaming companies don't support fascism and it's more than fair to assume that, they're just in the business of making money.

The vast majority probably aren't fascists, certainly not open or conscious ones, but that doesn't mean their biases and unexamined ideas can't leak into their work, or that they can't end up writing something with implications they didn't intend. And intending to be apolitical and just focusing on making money doesn't make those things go away.

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22 minutes ago, KHCast said:

@DanJ86So if they said “trans pride” instead of “trans rights” would that be fair and not “political”?

Is that a rhetorical question because I don't think I could possible know that?

Although they are events and marches that have that name so it could be argued as potentially political, maybe. But that's me being hypothetical.

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11 minutes ago, DanJ86 said:

Although they are events and marches that have that name so it could be argued as potentially political, maybe

I feel that then steeps into the issue of technicality. Cause then someone could argue for example “well the word “gay” is used in gay rights, so therefore using the term gay is political”

Besides, the implication of trans pride, is that someone is taking pride in who they are, which as it’s been said, is inherently not political.

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24 minutes ago, KHCast said:

By your very logic here, yeah, including a gay person, since the topic of sexuality and individuality to you is political, makes that piece of media automatically “political”. 

If your logic is that whether a video game decides to have gay characters or define a characters sexuality being a commentary on individual rights, then I can see why you think that. Either way I don't care about the sexuality or race of a video game character. If I look for a review of a game I'd hope to see the game judged on entertainment value, not scored or penalised based on progressive points, though I'm more than happy to make an exception if it really does offer a discussion point or unique perspective on problems that can be faced instead of just pandering.

1 minute ago, KHCast said:

Besides, the implication of trans pride, is that someone is taking pride in who they are, which as it’s been said, is inherently not political

It is if it's being interpreted as support for the Pride movements which are political, many do still support legal and political action.

1 minute ago, Diogenes said:

If you're not willing to take that step of reexamining what it is you've said in your work, that isn't integrity, that's cowardice. And choosing to edit your work because you've decided it doesn't communicate what you intended it to isn't censorship. Nobody's forcing anyone to do anything; I'm arguing that this is what decent people should choose to do themselves.

And if they have examined it, see nothing wrong and still stand by it along with the support of people who aren't extremist groups? Applying moral pressure to somebody is still an attempt at forcing action, and retroactively changing content based on potential offense or wrongthink is still a form of censorship.

1 minute ago, Diogenes said:

If you honestly reexamine your work and decide the fascists and bigots are full of shit and are willing to say so, then fine; that doesn't necessarily absolve you completely, but it's a defensible position to take.

...

Not directly, but the audience a work ends up with isn't random. If you write a superhero comic, you're gonna end up with a lot of superhero fans. If you write a Western, you can be pretty sure a lot of your fans like cowboys. And if a sizable portion of your fans are fascists and/or bigots, you really ought to take the time to figure out why.

...

The vast majority probably aren't fascists, certainly not open or conscious ones, but that doesn't mean their biases and unexamined ideas can't leak into their work, or that they can't end up writing something with implications they didn't intend. And intending to be apolitical and just focusing on making money doesn't make those things go away.

The problem with the example of Warhammer is it's not anything that was said, the core piece of the lore is that Mankind has turned into a militaristic regime at war with several factions and often itself. Everything is excessive and ridiculous and if anyone would apply any of it's examples to real life; that's their own idiocy. There's no way of telling what percentage of a fanbases political leanings consist of unless we're willing to take news articles that cite Trump photoshops, memes, and previous disagreements no less for evidence.  A condemnation of fascist/racist groups is enough. As I could only agree to regulating content on very fringe cases.

Who says Wild Westerns or Superhero films aren't supported by large groups of fascists? We have this and this for the latter after all.

 

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8 minutes ago, Azzy said:

And if they have examined it, see nothing wrong and still stand by it along with the support of people who aren't extremist groups?

1 hour ago, Diogenes said:

If you honestly reexamine your work and decide the fascists and bigots are full of shit and are willing to say so, then fine; that doesn't necessarily absolve you completely, but it's a defensible position to take.

I mean it was right there at the top of my post dude I didn't exactly hide it

8 minutes ago, Azzy said:

Applying moral pressure to somebody is still an attempt at forcing action, and retroactively changing content based on potential offense or wrongthink is still a form of censorship.

Christ dude at that point what isn't. I may as well argue you're attempting to censor me by arguing the ethical superiority of your position. Despite what Youtubers might tell you it's actually a good thing to discuss fictional works and their messages and to admit when you messed up and try to do better.

8 minutes ago, Azzy said:

There's no way of telling what percentage of a fanbases political leanings consist of unless we're willing to take news articles that cite Fuckface photoshops, memes, and previous disagreements no less for evidence.

I mean, it's not like photoshops and memes aren't how a significant number of people engage with politics these days so I don't see why they shouldn't be cited.

8 minutes ago, Azzy said:

Who says Wild Westerns or Superhero films aren't supported by large groups of fascists? We have this and this for the latter after all.

Hey I'm not gonna claim as fact that they aren't. I know pretty well that there's a lot of shitty superhero nerds out there and there's conversations about that that should be happening. But I'm talking about abstracts here, not any specific genre or medium or whatever.

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42 minutes ago, KHCast said:

I feel that then steeps into the issue of technicality. Cause then someone could argue for example “well the word “gay” is used in gay rights, so therefore using the term gay is political”

If somebody did argue that the word "gay" is a political term on it's own, then I'd think you'd have the right to call them a raving imbecile.

"Trans/Gay Rights" or "Trans/Gay Pride" are two words together that will limit what they could possibly be referring too. "Gay" is one word and has multiple meanings and as such, the word on it's own couldn't possibly have any political connections. At least, that's my stance on it.

Hope I'm not coming across as aggressive. I'm just not sure if Nintendo deserve any hate over this particular custom stage issue. They aren't perfect, nobody is. ^^;

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