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The “keep politics out of games” complaint


KHCast

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3 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

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

My mistake.

3 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

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.

I'm not against the discussion of fictional works, I'm against the idea that a creator must own all interpretations of his work and exercise restraint in the case it might be interpreted by some fringe group as an ideological dog whistle.

3 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

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.

Because photoshops and memes aren't always political and much gets left to interpretation when a lot of it is played for group humour.

3 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

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.

Fair enough.

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1 hour ago, Azzy said:

I'm not against the discussion of fictional works, I'm against the idea that a creator must own all interpretations of his work and exercise restraint in the case it might be interpreted by some fringe group as an ideological dog whistle.

I've gone about this issue about as light-handed as I reasonably could. I've already said this is about significant numbers of people, not just a couple of randos, and that a creator's got the right to defend their work against these sorts of accusations. I'm not really sure how much more assurance you need that I'm not arguing for "someone said a thing, shut it all down!"

1 hour ago, Azzy said:

Because photoshops and memes aren't always political and much gets left to interpretation when a lot of it is played for group humour.

I'm pretty sure when your photoshops and memes involve the current president of the United States that's sufficient grounds to say there's a political angle to them, even if it may not be a particularly biting one. And I don't really buy the humor argument; too often shitty ideas float by unchallenged under the cover of "humor" or "irony" or "it's just a joke". It's often a cheap way to cover up intent from people who still think the internet is something separate from "real life". And the kind of jokes we choose to tell tell at least as much about our beliefs as anything else we say.

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17 hours ago, Diogenes said:

I've gone about this issue about as light-handed as I reasonably could. I've already said this is about significant numbers of people, not just a couple of randos, and that a creator's got the right to defend their work against these sorts of accusations. I'm not really sure how much more assurance you need that I'm not arguing for "someone said a thing, shut it all down!"

A shame there's no real way of knowing said numbers and the gross overuse of the term fascist in click-bait news. 

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I'm pretty sure when your photoshops and memes involve the current president of the United States that's sufficient grounds to say there's a political angle to them, even if it may not be a particularly biting one.

But how is a photoshop over a character indicative of an entire fanbases political leanings and reasonable evidence for a commentary piece? It's bizarre. Sure, I've seen shops of Trump over the Emperor (the good guy), but I've also seen shops of him over Horus (the bad guy).

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And I don't really buy the humor argument;

I don't really buy fascists infiltrating entertainment mediums for recruitment and this actually works in any way, as much as internet news outlets love to push the idea along with media from video games to genres of music and film being simply overrun with racist and nazi fanbases.

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too often shitty ideas float by unchallenged under the cover of "humor" or "irony" or "it's just a joke". It's often a cheap way to cover up intent from people who still think the internet is something separate from "real life". And the kind of jokes we choose to tell tell at least as much about our beliefs as anything else we say.

I'm hoping this is aimed at genuine extremists and not support for an internet meme police. I might accidentally just be talking past you at this point as it's all getting really hypothetical beyond the example of Warhammer.

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34 minutes ago, Azzy said:

But how is a photoshop over a character indicative of an entire fanbases political leanings

It's...not? And I've never claimed it was? But it's likely indicative of the beliefs of the person who made it and the people who spread it.

34 minutes ago, Azzy said:

I don't really buy fascists infiltrating entertainment mediums for recruitment and this actually works in any way, as much as internet news outlets love to push the idea along with media from video games to genres of music and film being simply overrun with racist and nazi fanbases.

I mean...they've admitted to it?

34 minutes ago, Azzy said:

I'm hoping this is aimed at genuine extremists and not support for an internet meme police.

It's "aimed" at everyone. People who make shitty, hateful jokes are likely to be shitty, hateful people. Recognizing this doesn't require that we set up any kind of "meme police", just that we actually pay attention to what people are saying instead of writing it off as "just jokes".

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If the creator of a product is disturbed by a group of people politicising their game for any reason, and then decides to change it after reflection, that isn't self-censorship or policing, it's the creator changing their mind after their product was received in a way they didn't want. It's not really different to creators adding cutscenes or editing the story of their game with patches to make certain aspects of the plot clearer and ease misinterpretation, a common tactic in modern gaming.

Changing a game isn't always censorship, it especially isn't if it fits the new vision which the creator wants to promote. Now I fully understand disliking the new direction and preferring the old vision, but that's a different matter.

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My mind automatically snapped to these two episodes of the jimquisition reading the current argument 

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That article only comments that they were inspired to create a news source that appealed to the audience they apparently found on World of Warcraft. Not influencing neutral parties through subterfuge or active involvement in games themselves. Equivocating angry sentiment from 2005-7 over Chinese paid account padding as being the same force behind the farce of gamergate and the alt-right? From video games to white nationalism. Okay, setting aside the media spin that was desperate to find reasons for 2016 election result and video games and "gamers" being the favorite thing to club, I'll take that with a pinch of salt like everything else Bannon says.

 

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Can we stop acting like there aren’t bigoted fascists groups successfully radicalizing people online through memes, and other forms of media to, by default, look down on progressive ideologies, as if it’s some boogeyman made up to make gamers and the Internet look bad?

I mean hell, just for example, look at steam and the shitty games that flood that store. Kill gay people sims, rape sims, blatantly racist, transphobic, or in general insensitive “games”. There’s obviously people making these and playing these titles, and the meme reactions they generate among those communities show how people tend to try and spin these as “just jokes”. You just need to look at the steam reviews. While they might not make someone automatically racist, the “lol funny” aspect of them can desensitize people into thinking it’s acceptable to joke about and share.(or yes, allow shitty views one may have to be sent out under the guise of humor)

I also don’t see why gg is being treated like it was a totally different unrelated thing to these issues and wasn’t a festered thing influenced by years of normalization and isolated communities that were being fed shitty ideologies/rhetoric that told them they were under attack.

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2 hours ago, KHCast said:

I mean hell, just for example, look at steam and the shitty games that flood that store. Kill gay people sims, rape sims, blatantly racist, transphobic, or in general insensitive “games”.

W-Wait! Seriously?? Stuff like that is real??? I have Steam installed on my computer, I've been lucky enough not to come across anything like that. Can they really get away with stupid crap like that? I mean...I know games aren't real but surely they are lines you don't cross!?

*sigh* ….Stop the world. I'd like to get off.

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32 minutes ago, DanJ86 said:

W-Wait! Seriously?? Stuff like that is real??? I have Steam installed on my computer, I've been lucky enough not to come across anything like that. Can they really get away with stupid crap like that? I mean...I know games aren't real but surely they are lines you don't cross!?

*sigh* ….Stop the world. I'd like to get off.

Oh yeah

 

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50 minutes ago, KHCast said:

Oh yeah

I'm a little scared to watch those. Especially the first one.

I thought I saw an article claiming Steam was considering stamping out the more adult related content. I suppose that only includes intercourse and breasts because the insanely violent games tend to stick around.

Um....by the way....does anyone think it's worth talking about the other controversies surrounding MK11? I got curious and ended up with more than I bargained for. I think 85% of it (Or maybe all of it.) is politically based and would be covered by this topic. I even had to look up the actual definition of the word "political" to check if it meant what I thought it did.

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8 hours ago, KHCast said:

Can we stop acting like there aren’t bigoted fascists groups successfully radicalizing people online through memes, and other forms of media to, by default, look down on progressive ideologies, as if it’s some boogeyman made up to make gamers and the Internet look bad?

It's not just progressive ideologies that try to make people look bad. Even conservative rags blame violent video games for violence in real life despite study after study finding no correlation, and ones that do add the caveat it's just one potential factor among things like environmental factors and mental illness, almost like discrediting itself because they couldn't actually find a definitive connection.

8 hours ago, KHCast said:

I mean hell, just for example, look at steam and the shitty games that flood that store. Kill gay people sims, rape sims, blatantly racist, transphobic, or in general insensitive “games”. There’s obviously people making these and playing these titles, and the meme reactions they generate among those communities show how people tend to try and spin these as “just jokes”. You just need to look at the steam reviews. While they might not make someone automatically racist, the “lol funny” aspect of them can desensitize people into thinking it’s acceptable to joke about and share.(or yes, allow shitty views one may have to be sent out under the guise of humor)

If it's obvious something is just made for shock value, glorifying or targeting groups or for the sake of offense I can see why that's viewed as an issue, the problem of the people who defend things like that these days is there is no direct "joke", the reactionary subculture of people who are quick to take offense, general trolling and the childish crowd of people out to "own the SJWs", in the case of Steam there's good chance the devs are in on it and you're attributing malice to what can equally be explained by stupidity.

Creative expression over politics and art forms that invoke discussion and the like should be protected and shouldn't have to change because someone gets offended by the interpretation of it by someone else. If it's changed before release without the pressure of interest groups or changed later when there isn't even any outcry about it then that's absolutely fine.  

8 hours ago, KHCast said:

I also don’t see why gg is being treated like it was a totally different unrelated thing to these issues and wasn’t a festered thing influenced by years of normalization and isolated communities that were being fed shitty ideologies/rhetoric that told them they were under attack.

Because these things often are isolated and most people on the fence or otherwise aren't attracted to or by extremist thinking. There's a reason gamergate died as fast as it did and many people involved with it on either side lost most or all the attention once it blew over and why nobody really cares about it anymore other than those that bring it up for attention, there's a reason the alt right publically died after Charlottesville despite the media hyping up the Washington rally as the coming fascist apocalypse for only ~30 loons to turn up surrounded by an army of police and counter protesters. Much like media blaming video games for violence, accusing it of hiding some fascist underbelly will never amount to anything because it's an exaggerated lie. The outstanding majority of people who play video games just play video games for entertainment, not political motivation.

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42 minutes ago, Azzy said:

Because these things often are isolated and most people on the fence or otherwise aren't attracted to or by extremist thinking. There's a reason gamergate died as fast as it did and many people involved with it on either side lost most or all the attention once it blew over and why nobody really cares about it anymore other than those that bring it up for attention...

On the contrary, I'd argue that the effects of gamergate have permanently changed the discourse around inclusivity and feminism in gaming forever. Pre-gamergate, these topics weren't huge areas of discussion and gamers were far more relaxed around them. But now, if a game is to even hint towards a feminist message, the majority of gamers would go apeshit over it as a direct consequence of gamergate and the anti-feminists of the movement directly or indirectly influencing them. So yes, gamergate died ages ago, but its consequences and moral messages permeate gaming culture today.

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3 hours ago, Azzy said:

It's not just progressive ideologies that try to make people look bad. Even conservative rags blame violent video games for violence in real life despite study after study finding no correlation, and ones that do add the caveat it's just one potential factor among things like environmental factors and mental illness, almost like discrediting itself because they couldn't actually find a definitive connectio

So just NOT going to address my point and gonna continue this persecution complex angle.

 

3 hours ago, Azzy said:

the reactionary subculture of people who are quick to take offense, general trolling and the childish crowd of people out to "own the SJWs", in the case of Steam there's good chance the devs are in on it and you're attributing malice to what can equally be explained by stupidity.

No shit someone that makes a game called “kill gay people simulator” is already apart of shitty ideologies. Doesn’t at all argue against the point that they can and do desensitize people into caring less and less about their presence, and also manipulate the “freedom of speech” crowd into defending them. Like I said in my last bit which you blatantly fucking ignored there are internet and gaming communities  that ARE being manipulated be it subtly or not, so the idea these kinda games can get some random 14 year old loner white straight kid that has girl issues to find it funny and share it with his meme loving friends, thereby exposing them more and more to that type of shit which CAN have negative effects, really isn’t that hard a idea to put together.

 

3 hours ago, Azzy said:

Creative expression over politics and art forms that invoke discussion and the like should be protected and shouldn't have to change because someone gets offended by the interpretation of it by someone else. If it's changed before release without the pressure of interest groups or changed later when there isn't even any outcry about it then that's absolutely fine.  

No ones actually saying this, and just makes you look like someone that bats for those games and defends them for the sake of “creative freedom”. Yeah, k, if you wanna make “kill sjw gays, feminists, and trans students simulator” go ahead you by all means have the right. But you don’t have a “right” to promote and sell it on a storefront. That exposure is not rightfully yours, it’s earned. And no amount of “b-b-but it’s just my creative interpretation and artistic expression, first amendment” is going to get hate speech shit the thumbs up.

And if by some chance a game developer promoted something offensive like a derogatory slur to gays being said by the main character to be edgy  in one of their trailers, without intending offense, that doesn’t absolve them from criticism, and if they were to change that, it certainly wouldn’t be “omg terrible censorship, nooo triggered liberal sjw’s win again”.

3 hours ago, Azzy said:

Because these things often are isolated and most people on the fence or otherwise aren't attracted to or by extremist thinking. T

Are you one of those people that go on to say acts of racism, sexism, etc. are individual and isolated with no outside force or causation and aren’t part of a larger systematic issue? Gamergate certainly wasn’t a isolated incident, and acting like there weren’t gears being turned beforehand that led to that dumpster fire is ingenuous and ear plugging of the rhetoric and tolerance for that kinda behavior that existed even before it. Internet culture was pretty okay with sexism for awhile shocker. Hell, general media like films even embraced sexist tones for humor for YEARS, which in tern helped create a culture where that was seen as the norm and not a big deal. Just look at cartoons and comedy movies from the 2000’s.

 

3 hours ago, Azzy said:

There's a reason gamergate died as fast as it did and many people involved with it on either side lost most or all the attention once it blew over and why nobody really cares about it anymore other than those that bring it up for attention

Just cause something “dies” doesn’t mean it didn’t make a social effect going forward? I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but online harassment and sexism towards women sure hasn’t disappeared with gamergate.

 

3 hours ago, Azzy said:

there's a reason the alt right publically died 

See my last point. A toxic group “dying”(even though I disagree that they died as I see alt righters constantly argue and rally online) doesn’t mean that the views went with, and didn’t seed their way into others. 

3 hours ago, Azzy said:

Much like media blaming video games for violence, accusing it of hiding some fascist underbelly will never amount to anything because it's an exaggerated lie. The outstanding majority of people who play video games just play video games for entertainment, not political motivation.

Again, no one but you’ve is even talking about this point, so I don’t see it’s relevance. No one here’s insisting games make people shoot people, and no one is objecting that games have been the scapegoat for a long time. However games and gamers are not a perfect little angel either 

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On 5/6/2019 at 5:41 PM, Plasme said:

On the contrary, I'd argue that the effects of gamergate have permanently changed the discourse around inclusivity and feminism in gaming forever. Pre-gamergate, these topics weren't huge areas of discussion and gamers were far more relaxed around them. But now, if a game is to even hint towards a feminist message, the majority of gamers would go apeshit over it as a direct consequence of gamergate and the anti-feminists of the movement directly or indirectly influencing them. So yes, gamergate died ages ago, but its consequences and moral messages permeate gaming culture today.

I must have missed the "majority" of gamers going ballistic at diversity and inclusion in video games like Overwatch, Watch Dogs II, AC Odyssey, Mafia III, Apex, while being so sexist as to allow Horizon Zero Dawn to become one of the best selling titles on PS4 despite having a female lead. Inclusivity has always existed in games and always will, the problem isn't a majority of people who play video games being an -ist, it's that nobody can can tactfully push the envelope without going to straight to mass antagonising in the face of criticism (valid or otherwise), see Battlefield V. 

On 5/6/2019 at 8:01 PM, KHCast said:

So just NOT going to address my point and gonna continue this persecution complex angle.

I've already said I what I think about it in relation to games. Of course I'm going to dismiss your screeching.

On 5/6/2019 at 8:01 PM, KHCast said:

No ones actually saying this, and just makes you look like someone that bats for those games and defends them for the sake of “creative freedom”. Yeah, k, if you wanna make “kill sjw gays, feminists, and trans students simulator” go ahead you by all means have the right. But you don’t have a “right” to promote and sell it on a storefront. That exposure is not rightfully yours, it’s earned. And no amount of “b-b-but it’s just my creative interpretation and artistic expression, first amendment” is going to get hate speech shit the thumbs up.

You're right; they have the creative freedom to do that, Steam has the right to remove it under breach of TOS. Just to reiterate I don't care for media created just for offense, and I don't consider "murder people I don't like simulator" as artistic expression, just an expression of contempt and often those that argue otherwise; sophistry, to get reactions from people. How often do you see real outcry or movement over Valve purging games like this from it's platform as some form of censorship?

On 5/6/2019 at 8:01 PM, KHCast said:

And if by some chance a game developer promoted something offensive like a derogatory slur to gays being said by the main character to be edgy  in one of their trailers, without intending offense, that doesn’t absolve them from criticism, and if they were to change that, it certainly wouldn’t be “omg terrible censorship, nooo triggered liberal sjw’s win again”.

I've never said anything against that example. I have said that anybody is free to criticise, and pushing for change because of panic over another group; not something the creator has done, is silly.

On 5/6/2019 at 8:01 PM, KHCast said:

Are you one of those people that go on to say acts of racism, sexism, etc. are individual and isolated with no outside force or causation and aren’t part of a larger systematic issue?

Often are isolated =/= Never related

I just like to see proof beyond reasonable doubt before I definitively connect something to something else, otherwise it's just a theory.

On 5/6/2019 at 8:01 PM, KHCast said:

Just cause something “dies” doesn’t mean it didn’t make a social effect going forward? I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but online harassment and sexism towards women sure hasn’t disappeared with gamergate.

It didn't suddenly appear with it either.

On 5/6/2019 at 8:01 PM, KHCast said:

See my last point. A toxic group “dying”(even though I disagree that they died as I see alt righters constantly argue and rally online) doesn’t mean that the views went with, and didn’t seed their way into others. 

They died as any kind of relevant movement and interest in them is in slow decline.

On 5/6/2019 at 8:01 PM, KHCast said:

Again, no one but you’ve is even talking about this point, so I don’t see it’s relevance.

Concept, exploration, deconstruction.

Video games cause violence, studies show they're wrong, video games causing violence is a lie.

Fascists are infiltrating games and recruiting/influencing substantial numbers of people, absolutely no reasonable proof to support it, why should I or anyone else believe it?

On 5/6/2019 at 8:01 PM, KHCast said:

games and gamers are not a perfect little angel

ofc

I'm not little

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