Is Political Speech And Wokeness Be The End Of Gaming?

Discussion in 'Politics 2.0' started by SkylaRose, Nov 11, 2024.

  1. SkylaRose

    SkylaRose Administrator Staff Member

    Wasn't sure where to post this originally, but as all this "woke" nonsense is seen more as politics in people's eyes in today's society this would be better than general chat.

    I'm a game girl. I've been playing computer games since I was 6 years old on the NES and before that even on ZX Spectrum. I've owned almost every single console growing up regardless of platform and coding small adventure games got me into programming and my whole interest in computer science. Sega, Nintendo, Microsoft, Atari and Sony have been a dominant force throughout my childhood and into my late teens. Before I turned away from console gaming in the era of the Xbox One X and PS5 and went to PC gaming, it's made me look a lot closer at the games we have now compared to them.

    Obviously the technology has massively improved in huge leaps since Super Mario Bros in the 1980s, but getting more to the point of this thread, and taking a few particular games in isolation as examples, do you think "wokeness", being politically correct and the over-shadowing 'gamer-gate' that computer games promote violence and the crash of the late 1980s, could spell the end of AAA titles hittng the heights of 2000s? Let's look at three games which have caused uproar in the past years alone.

    Life is Strange: Double Exposure

    Hogwarts Legacy

    Dragon Age 4: Veilguard

    Now we all know the reasons why these three have brought so much spite and calls for 'political correctness' in games. I would say out of these three, Hogwarts Legacy is the least entangled in all this. It was only brought to the forefront due to JK Rowlings comments and the fact it included a trans character (who was amazingly portrayed). Dragon Age is a fantastic series, or was. I mean, Bioware is a massive company but all their talent is long gone and the writers have shoved so much into it which is not necessary. There is even a character who outright states "I am non-binary". I get it from one angle they are showing it's alright to show different sides of a character through media. But the whole point of a game (or it used to be) was the NPC's and player characters were blank slates to a point. You could imagine and define their personalities as you played. That just is not the case anymore, and it seems with each new mainstream game that comes out, developers seem hell-bent on shoving their own political views into games, where it doesn't belong in my view anyway.

    I am worried that the more this goes on, the less people will purchase new releases and more studios will fall by the way side. Life is Strange is one of my favourite IP's, but that has suffered the same sort of 'new way of thinking'. Max Caulfield (brilliant character, voiced by the talent of Hannah Telle) was always shown to be a 'coming out' sort of character in the older games. It was well written, was not shoved in your face throughout the game, and it developed her relationship with Chloe in a real and very sensitive way. In the new game, the writers have leapt on the bandwagon and made her, well to be honest, a horn-dog. She wants to leap on every single female character she speaks to and it destroys the credability the character had been given before hand.

    I am a proud member of the LGBTQ but even I can see how games are becoming dominated with this sort of thing, pandering to one sort of demographic where the games should be open and available to all gamers within the age range.

    I hope, going forward that developers return to what made games great. Gameplay, story and the DNA of the culture we all loved growing up. Chuck all this woke crap in the bin and stop pandering to certain markets, because at the end of the day, sales are hurting the bottom line and people will just stop buying games going forward.

    Thoughts?
     
  2. Clive_ofthe_Kremlin

    Clive_ofthe_Kremlin Squad Player

    Well I don't play or buy games - apart from chess and double 9 domino of course.

    Political correctness doesn't really come into those games, although it's a bit dodgy how white goes first in chess.

    When it comes to 'wokeness' I think you just have to use your own morals as the best judge.

    The most important thing is to always be on the side of the weak and powerless against the strong and powerful and challenging powerful dominant forces without any fear and at the price of any sacrifice. It is simply being treated and treating others with respect and as human beings.

    Modesty, selflessness, altruism, solidarity and heroism. Those are the values that *should* be promoted by the media such as computer games, TV and films.
     
    RookeryDad and SkylaRose like this.
  3. GarbeliaHornet

    GarbeliaHornet Academy Graduate

    I really don't think it's the ideas that are the problem here though? Bad writing is bad writing, no matter what point of view it takes and big companies/studios trying to take advantage of a minority group's spending power isn't the fault of that minority group or activists, it's just the fault of a bad game.

    In general I don't think any of the examples you've criticised have "hit" their target market as a result of that dodgy representation, and I really don't think this is the existential threat you're making it out to be. AAA studios will only do something as long as it makes them profit, and in the next few years I'm sure they'll either get better at working those themes in or start to drop them entirely (preferably the former, for me).
    To take another positive example, the charming but devilishly difficult indie platformer Celeste is hugely popular with trans women and is a game that holds a lot of significance to me personally. The main character, Madeline, is trans, however she wasn't initally intended to be - it is never referenced throughout the main story and is only directly referenced once, through a variety of fairly subtle clues in the game's final cutscene of the extra content released a year later. Despite this, it doesn't feel tacked onto the end, it just recontextualises a story and a character which stands its ground alone too, in a way that isn't intrusive but still permeates the narrative after, and for many people before, you get any confirmation of anything. This is an example of "wokeness" in a game done well, she's a complex and largely well written lead character, with more than one identifying feature and characteristic, written by a person of the group she's a part of - the game's lead developer transitioned a year after the game's final release in 2020.

    I'm well aware that was a bit of a rambling tangent there, but forcing myself back to the opening post I really don't think we should "chuck all this woke crap in the bin", and I don't think that should even slightly correlate with "games being open and available to all". Good media representation as a whole should give voice to marginalised people, but if that is done in a way that doesn't impede on a character and you still take issue with it, then I think you should try to understand where that prejudice is coming from - likewise if you enjoy every other part of a piece of media but find it ruined by having the option to select more than two pronouns in the character creation menu, then I think that warrants some reflection. As I said earlier, bad writing will always be bad writing and AAA studios get it wrong a lot of the time, they always have and will always continue to, but good representation is important and video games as an industry are relatively young and just starting to enter the mainstream, with all the growing pains that come alongside that.
     
    SkylaRose likes this.
  4. SkylaRose

    SkylaRose Administrator Staff Member

    Now that is a fantastic argument to my ramble. I cannot disagree with any of it, because you backed it up with an example of game that I have myself played and 100% (seriously though, **** those strawberries) it's balanced and well structured argument. I do get what you mean about character creation and all that, and I am gald that more game companies are allowing for more complex character arcs that explore more of the person behind the pixel image we are presented with.

    Maybe I went off at the deep end a bit in my original post, but looking back at your take on it, makes a lot more sense to me now. So, thank you, I really mean that. I understand it's alright to have these policies in games as long as the groups remain uneffected or not offended, I think the mainsteam media has been clouding my judgement on this and it was nice to hear a non-biased view.
     
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  5. Keighley

    Keighley First Team

    Will, not is.
     
  6. wfcmoog

    wfcmoog Tinpot

    I shot a horse in RDR2 and my morality went down. Woke!
     
  7. Have you noticed that all the baddies in Wolfenstein are right-wing? Woke gone bonkers.
     
  8. domthehornet

    domthehornet Moderator Staff Member

    I kept on running into rocks unintentionally and killing them.
     
  9. wfcmoog

    wfcmoog Tinpot

    Is it any good?
     
  10. Lloyd

    Lloyd Squad Player

    I used to be quite good at Asteroids
     
  11. SkylaRose

    SkylaRose Administrator Staff Member

    It's essentially a clone of Doom. It's pretty well known but not as widely praised as Doom was/is. Uses the same engine with a slight upgrade. There was even a bible version where you shoot sheep instead of normal enemies.
     
  12. SkylaRose

    SkylaRose Administrator Staff Member

    I used to be really good at Pac-man on the Arcade cabinets. Had pretty fast reaction times but nowhere near the very best.
     
  13. wfcmoog

    wfcmoog Tinpot

    Me too but changes to diet and exercise have stopped them coming back.
     
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  14. wfcmoog

    wfcmoog Tinpot

    I fell off a few mountains
     
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  15. wfcmoog

    wfcmoog Tinpot

    I also died a load of times from being kicked by horses when I tried to rob their saddle bags
     
  16. The first Wolfenstein and Wolfenstein 3D (which are the only ones I've played) predate Doom by several years.
     
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  17. Otter

    Otter Gambling industry insider

    Doom II had two secret levels which were Wolfenstein 3D skinned levels.
     
    SkylaRose likes this.
  18. You're right.
     
  19. hornmeister

    hornmeister Tired

    Sega Rally for me. 50p in the sit down cabinet in the Student Union at lunch time and I'd complete it, even the special stage at the end. One hand on the steering wheel one on the handbrake. I'd alternate Celica/Lancia. I must have looked pretty cool.:rolleyes:

    Gonna have to fire up the PS3 and have a play later, not the same without the cabinet, atmosphere and pints of Theakston Old Peculiar though.
     
    SkylaRose likes this.
  20. SkylaRose

    SkylaRose Administrator Staff Member

    Absolutely. Modern games are very good and some even look better today than their arcade cousins of years ago, but nothing can ever beat the thrill of going down to the local Sega Arcade and wasting all your pocket money on Turtles or Simpsons Arcade. Never going to see those sort of days ever again. But it's one part of my youth I am glad I at least took part in, had some great Sunday afternoons chilling with mates and talking about what we will become when we're older.
     
    Otter likes this.
  21. Otter

    Otter Gambling industry insider

    Outrun was my favourite arcade game.
     
    hornmeister likes this.
  22. Del Payne's Left Sock

    Del Payne's Left Sock Academy Graduate

    Good for you, probably why you are so popular.
     
  23. Thanks for that Gregg.
     
  24. NathWFC

    NathWFC First Team

    I think it's blatantly obvious how forced, fake and lacking in any real, genuine care for the cause of "inclusivity" a lot of this stuff is at this point, across games, films, TV, all of it. Media companies have become far more interested in desperately trying to tick every box than they are about just telling good stories or creating quality products, to the point where - as you say yourself - even members of the LGBTQ/ethnic minority communities are becoming sick of all the OTT, transparent pandering.
     
  25. Why are you bothered? Do you see a mixed race couple or a same sex couple and get angry? Because it's not realistic? Don't watch Star Wars whatever you do. Or that it isn't YOU who is angry, but you are worried for minority groups because of all he people who WILL get angry? Or does it trigger a suspicion that they are questioning your traditional values?

    SOME LGBQ (not T)/ethnic minorities 'are becoming sick of it' but these are generally those who have been embraced by mainstream society and are 'all right jack'.

    Why are you bothered?
     
    GarbeliaHornet and sydney_horn like this.
  26. CarlosKickaballs

    CarlosKickaballs Forum Picarso

    It is more when movies do Ian Paisley played by Jackie Chan and Gerry Adams played by Eddie Murphy
     

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