That’s not “gamer dudes”
That’s humans. Literally any form of entertainment with the capacity for “characters” will have people like that in their community. They are one of the many vocal minorities in any community as the vast majority of a community gives very little shit about anything to do with it and just enjoys an entertainment form without much further thought about anything more than surface level details. Most people that consume a given “character bearing media” probably won’t even remember enough about it the next day to have any complaints about it.
She says being "too political" can't by essence be applied to a game that's about politics
and "unrealistic" doesn't have sense in unrealistic settings
That's not Socrates-level debate but those are refutations.
The main problem I see here is that video games and escapism media in general should just stay as thus. People play video games to escape everyday life and everyday problems, so if I feel like slaying dragons, I will slay me some dragons
Most people won't mind a gay person in their dragon slaying game but is that person interesting and multilayered or was this character thrown in for check box diversity quotas? It depends on what game we are referring to as I have no idea
It reminds me of that post where someone says "If your ideal world doesn't include minorities, there's a problem", but I get what you mean, being able to take a break from social problems is why we resort to some games, books and films. Presented like that, I'm on board.
Ideal world or not, it only makes sense for a diverse cast to appear in a space opera or modern American urban setting, but much less so for redskin to be in charge of an old American township, or for gender identity to be a thing respected by slavers in the post-apocalypse.
anything can be a refutation if the intent is to refute something, however that doesnt imply its correct or valid. An easy re-refuting of what she said would be to point out that anything can hit a point of too much of its primary focus. Desserts can be too sweet, gore-y movies can be too gore-y, action movies can be too actionn, etc.
on the other one, theres a whole school of design revolving around what things are unrealistic in an unrealistic setting. The whole argument of "well there's dragons and magic so literally anything that happens no matter what or anything shown no matter what is logical in the context of the subject matter" doesn't really hold up at all. Things need internal consistency, things need to be believable within themselves. An accepted by society "out" gay/trans character in a piece of media in which the society doesnt have anything specifically against those or perferably an active acceptance of things outside a social norm? believeable.
an accepted by society "out" gay/trans character in a piece of media in "medieval/renaissance italy but with magic" like assassins creed? not as believable. At the time the church would have still been pushing conformity and uniformity specifically precluding that from being allowed.
Some examples of actual things that could fit this sorta thing and that ive personally seen complains about.
alternate timeline world war whatever in (battlefield?) having female soldiers? its not trying to be historically accurate, its actively pushing anti-history in an alternate timeline, one of those alterations is a need for more troops requiring conscription to no long discriminate along genitalia lines. Relatively believable.
A character named mislav in the witcher, gay man whose's gayness was outed, causing him to be exiled from his place in the lords employ. The witcher takes place in a weird amalgam of a couple eras of northern Europe mashed together into a fictional world. Thats believable.
Starting a new thread because spoilers for the game "Little Hope"
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... interestingly I think that concept famousone mentioned may have been very subtly addressed in the game "Little Hope"
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Next comment will be full of spoilers so no one read it if they don't want that
SPOILERS
SPOILERS
SPOILERS
The game switches between 3 different Timelines, all of which feature the exact same characters leading different lives.
.
The first timeline takes place during the witch trial era of America.
.
The second timeline takes place in the 70s, and the third takes place in a more modern setting.
.
In two of the timelines there is a character who is of Asian descent. In The 70s timeline he has a very small role as a neighbour.
.
In the witch trials timeline, however, his role is far more involved. He is the judge of a small town, responsible for literally condemning those accused to horrific fates. Which is ODD, because superstitious white folk in small towns during the witch trials weren't exactly known for being very interested in furthering race-relations. They were more concerned with crushing their neighbours to death for using the wrong types of herbs
.
(Cont)
MORE SPOILERS
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It's innocuous enough that most people just kind of shrug and assume it's just the developer being inclusive. And maybe it is.
.
But at the end of the game it's also revealed that the Witch Trial timeline didn't exist at all.
.
Every character in that timeline was a projection of another person the main character had dealt with from the 70s timeline - including the judge.
.
In the 70s The Asian neighbour made a snap judgement about the main character - a judgement based on incomplete evidence, that briefly condemned the main character for a crime he didn't commit.
.
Which is how he received the role of judge in the witch trial era in the first place.
.
Idk if anyone has confirmed it, but a lot of people have speculated that using a character of a race that didn't make sense in that timeline may have been an intentional clue in this game that the timeline WASN'T real in the first place.
.
END SPOILERS
END SPOILERS
END SPOILERS
Point of all that being is: History wasn't inclusive. And people are aware of that. And they will notice if you try and sell them a historical setting that deviates from what we've been told is true.
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Which doesn't mean you can't DO that. It just means people WILL notice. And how you handle it WILL effect their overall experience with the game - as with just about every other element
.
People say You can build games however you want. And they're right. BUT, to make that claim, you have to accept that it doesn't JUST apply to inclusivity. No game should be forced to include anything just because someone demanded it should be there.
.
At the end of the day it becomes a balance between what's inclusive vs what's accurate vs what's fair vs what's disruptive to the story/gameplay itself vs what the creators actually want to do
That’s humans. Literally any form of entertainment with the capacity for “characters” will have people like that in their community. They are one of the many vocal minorities in any community as the vast majority of a community gives very little shit about anything to do with it and just enjoys an entertainment form without much further thought about anything more than surface level details. Most people that consume a given “character bearing media” probably won’t even remember enough about it the next day to have any complaints about it.
and "unrealistic" doesn't have sense in unrealistic settings
That's not Socrates-level debate but those are refutations.
on the other one, theres a whole school of design revolving around what things are unrealistic in an unrealistic setting. The whole argument of "well there's dragons and magic so literally anything that happens no matter what or anything shown no matter what is logical in the context of the subject matter" doesn't really hold up at all. Things need internal consistency, things need to be believable within themselves. An accepted by society "out" gay/trans character in a piece of media in which the society doesnt have anything specifically against those or perferably an active acceptance of things outside a social norm? believeable.
Some examples of actual things that could fit this sorta thing and that ive personally seen complains about.
alternate timeline world war whatever in (battlefield?) having female soldiers? its not trying to be historically accurate, its actively pushing anti-history in an alternate timeline, one of those alterations is a need for more troops requiring conscription to no long discriminate along genitalia lines. Relatively believable.
A character named mislav in the witcher, gay man whose's gayness was outed, causing him to be exiled from his place in the lords employ. The witcher takes place in a weird amalgam of a couple eras of northern Europe mashed together into a fictional world. Thats believable.
.
... interestingly I think that concept famousone mentioned may have been very subtly addressed in the game "Little Hope"
.
Next comment will be full of spoilers so no one read it if they don't want that
SPOILERS
SPOILERS
The game switches between 3 different Timelines, all of which feature the exact same characters leading different lives.
.
The first timeline takes place during the witch trial era of America.
.
The second timeline takes place in the 70s, and the third takes place in a more modern setting.
.
In two of the timelines there is a character who is of Asian descent. In The 70s timeline he has a very small role as a neighbour.
.
In the witch trials timeline, however, his role is far more involved. He is the judge of a small town, responsible for literally condemning those accused to horrific fates. Which is ODD, because superstitious white folk in small towns during the witch trials weren't exactly known for being very interested in furthering race-relations. They were more concerned with crushing their neighbours to death for using the wrong types of herbs
.
(Cont)
.
It's innocuous enough that most people just kind of shrug and assume it's just the developer being inclusive. And maybe it is.
.
But at the end of the game it's also revealed that the Witch Trial timeline didn't exist at all.
.
Every character in that timeline was a projection of another person the main character had dealt with from the 70s timeline - including the judge.
.
In the 70s The Asian neighbour made a snap judgement about the main character - a judgement based on incomplete evidence, that briefly condemned the main character for a crime he didn't commit.
.
Which is how he received the role of judge in the witch trial era in the first place.
.
Idk if anyone has confirmed it, but a lot of people have speculated that using a character of a race that didn't make sense in that timeline may have been an intentional clue in this game that the timeline WASN'T real in the first place.
.
END SPOILERS
END SPOILERS
END SPOILERS
.
Which doesn't mean you can't DO that. It just means people WILL notice. And how you handle it WILL effect their overall experience with the game - as with just about every other element
.
People say You can build games however you want. And they're right. BUT, to make that claim, you have to accept that it doesn't JUST apply to inclusivity. No game should be forced to include anything just because someone demanded it should be there.
.
At the end of the day it becomes a balance between what's inclusive vs what's accurate vs what's fair vs what's disruptive to the story/gameplay itself vs what the creators actually want to do