NinjaDeathSlap said:
hentropy said:
I think what people are primarily afraid of is that possibility of games needing a "checklist" of ethnic or social minorities that you HAVE to include in your game in order for your game to be considered "progressive", and if it's not "progressive" then it won't get good scores or attention. In other words, it stops becoming about how good someone's game is, but rather about how many external issues that game tries to push on the player. I'm all for more inclusion in games, but I don't want "checklists" that the "progressive" gaming media tries to push.
And yes, I realize my use of scarequotes might come off as trying to say that progressivism is a bad thing, which it's not, I just think what it means is debatable and that many people who call themselves progressives cling on only to the oldest/intellectually non-evolved version of it and then pretend like that is the only possible right version.
I agree that that is what a lot of people seem to be afraid will happen if they don't fight the supposed 'Social Justice Warriors'.
My next question would than be, why? Why do they think that this will happen when it's not what anyone who thinks gaming matters enough in the first place to care wants to see? I've heard (and I go looking for this stuff a lot more than most) precisely no-one ever argue in favour of a progressiveness checklist or anything of the sort. As far as the vast, vast majority goes, all people want is for the people in charge of the industry to realise that there is actually a market for more diversity in characters and for the themes explored through them, and so we cheer on games that dare to give us something different when they get good press, because there's a chance that if we cheer loud enough, a publisher might notice and think "Hey, we could get in on this!". Gaming is now the biggest entertainment industry in the world. Do people really believe that there isn't enough shelf space to accommodate a broader range of tastes?
Nothing about what I (and, as far as I can tell, everyone like me) am 'fighting' for, will result in any kind of embargo on musclebound, straight or seemingly asexual white dudes being video game protagonists from now on. I guarantee that, even if we 'win' those guys will still be around in abundance for a lot time yet, and I for one won't begrudge that in the slightest. What's more, all the hundreds and hundreds of games like that that have been made previously will still be around to enjoy by anyone who wishes to play them, and that will be just fine. All it comes down to, is wanting to see a few more games on the shelves
beside them that look to be catering to other tastes, in accordance with the increasing numbers of women, racial minorities, open homosexuals and other non-straight sexualities and/or genders wanting to play games these days, but currently doing so in the face of an industry that barely seems to be aware that they exist.
That's what baffles me when I try to deconstruct this whole maelstrom. When you get right down to it, nothing about the status quo is really being 'threatened' here. Not every change has to be a revolution.
To be honest the issue isn't so much whether they exist, as to whether they are interested in gaming. As a general rule ethnic minorities don't seem much interested in gaming, attempts to cater to them have largely fallen flat, you didn't see huge numbers of black folks come stampeding into gaming when they decided to make the default character in "Crackdown" a black guy. The same largely applies to the media in general, people can decry how "white" everything is, but when things are different you don't see a bunch of black butts plopping into theater seats. Some don't like to criticize the culture, but the reason why "black movies" tend to be gang experience movies or Tyler Perry family flicks because that's generally been what they show up for, and neither have any really broad appeal to anyone else.
Likewise a lot of tolerance when it comes to "gay rights" basically revolves around the principle of "I don't care what two consenting adults do on their own time in private as long as it doesn't involve me". Basically you might find two guys having sex disgusting, but presumably nobody is forcing you to watch that. When it comes to forcing things into the general media though, that all changes, because now "gay inclusiveness" means people who are disgusted by those acts are forced to watch them, or at least have them suggested. That's fine for the tiny percentage of gays that are out there but not so great for everyone else.
Not to mention that the whole issue of "inclusiveness" is the result of white guilt anyway. We're really the only people who seem to give a crap about minorities within our own society. When China, Japan, etc... make games and movies they really don't give a crap about the whites, blacks, Spanish, etc... that live there, they don't go out of their way to be inclusive. Overall white media is the most inclusive in the world already, and it's kind of stupid to sit here and say we don't go far enough because the overwhelming majority of characters in it are white, just like the majority of society (for the moment) and the majority of people who create and consume that media.
To be blunt, for there to be more inclusiveness in the media we'd actually wind up having to produce more of it. With video games in particular the whole AAA focus of the industry means that we see very few, comparatively short, games produced each year. By the time the core audience is done with one game, they are hungry for another and one is coming out. It's kind of set up that way. You start changing the focus of games, and your core audience gets angry because it misses a feeding, and of course your core audience doesn't want to be offended by trying to shoehorn things into their games. To have more diversity the game industry would have to do what people have been saying for years, and go back to developing "A" and "B" games alongside the "AAA" ones to cater to niche audience, games created with a lower production value, but still well beyond "indie" that also don't need to sell as many copies as the "AAA" fare. That's the point where you can start looking at niche audiences like very ethnically oriented video games, gay video games, and of course style niches like turn based RPGs and the like. At the end of the day everyone wants GOOD/High Quality games of the type they are interested in which is why the niche audiences are generally not happy with old games that already exist or simply being catered to by indie developers. Playing an old turn based RPG for example is not the same as playing a current one developed professionally and with current technology. Likewise there are plenty of "non traditional" games in the indie market. That's why few people bother to consider things like "The Journey Down" which just saw it's second chapter released which is specifically developed as a black themed (Afro-Caribbean) adventure title and similar things in their arguments.
That said I think this installment of "The Big Picture" is largely Bob on the defensive after being called out in recent events as he's pretty much one of the more well known "problem children" when it comes to using geek media as a SJW platform, having been mentioned/called out by name on several occasions apparently. I think Bob is decent, but I do think he takes the politics too far no matter how he tries to justify himself, and he should really reign it in and focus on geek culture without trying to turn everything into a political platform, or make judgements about people who like or dislike various things, such as when he referred to people who like old school action movies "The Worst Kind Of People" in his "Expendables" review, not to mention when he goes beyond message into various conspiracy theories about white washing and all kinds of other garbage, oftentimes combined with at least implying if you disagree with him on things like ethnicity-swapping well established characters that your some kind of racist.
I think in their defensive attempts (and those defending them) both Bob and Jim, whose shows I enjoy even if I don't always agree with them, don't really understand how far they have pushed things. What's more every time someone has gotten banned due to firing back in response to some of the more outrageous comments (Critical Miss's "White Guy Defense Force" blood bath is actually the best example of this here) that kind of fueled the fire. I mean just because someone gets banned, and brushed under the rug, with everyone being told "people like that represent a weird fringe majority" perhaps with that fringe majority further being defined in offensive terms like "scared old people afraid of change" and things like that, doesn't mean that it's true, and eventually you start to see backlash like has been happening recently. As much as you might insist your opponents and those who disagree with you can be mistreated, and ingored, and sell yourself on championing some kind of truly clear majority (reinforced by favorable statistics) doesn't mean it's true. All it takes is one spark to hit the powder keg you've set up... and well... here we are. Bob needs to understand it's not just what he's said, but how he's said it, and also how he's characterized and attacked the people on the other side in doing so.
