Moral busybodies against fun

[Enguzrad]

Thread for those who wish to talk about any people or organizations who love nothing more than telling others what they can and cannot like.

OT post from a different thread to start this off:
 

Quote

So just one post with few instances where certain people (often called by different names - left wing extremist, SJWs, feminists, marxists and others) succeeded or failed to negatively (in my opinion) change games.

Chuchel - a little czech adventure game about a living ball of dust who loves cherries. The original design was black ball with red lips (to distinguish the mouth) and orange hat. Due to backlash of certain people, who immidiately saw black face instead of realizing that the concept of black face is non-existant in czech culture, authors decided to change how chuchel looks, so now the name makes less sense. Fortunately I do have the original version on my hardrive.

Kingdom come deliverance - here certain people failed to insert black characters into game set in medieval central Europe where at that time, people of black skin were basically nonexistant and having one in the game would go against the realism developers were going for. They also tried to report one of the developers to the studio owner (which was ironically the guy they were reporting) for basically being racist for pointing out the known historical facts.

These two are from the top of my head, there is more. Usually this doesn't impact gameplay, so if they had free hand good games would still stay good, even though the constant focus on minorities and women would be cringe inducing. But when they get their hands on existing franchises this can ruin the lore for many fans since they won't stop to think if what they are trying to add makes sense in established lore (see push for female space marines in wh40k).

 

[rairii]

It's a non-issue. The color scheme of a character in a video game is nothing to get worked up over and nothing came of the KCD controversy because the only people who cared were terminally online Twitter drones whose sole purpose in life is to get angry over something. 

[Prinny]

8 hours ago, Enguzrad said:

Thread for those who wish to talk about any people or organizations who love nothing more than telling others what they can and cannot like.
 

Except none of examples you showed or those people tend to target are really about "what others can and cannot like". Whether or not those claims hold any water, they are about stuff people believe to be offensive or racist or harmful in some way.

 

This is interesting and complicated topic and I would love to discuss it, but in terms of what the problem really is and not by just bringing it to simplest, one sided caricature.

[Wwen]

Yeah, I probably agree with it in some part, but this is not a well articulated version. It's a noisy minority that complains in both directions. I just want to play/watch/read good <insert media>. In some cases a minority of noisy assholes have an over-sized affect on the <x> industry. Whether it's a problem worth wringing ones hands about, I don't know. I just take care of myself and my own and try to ignore all this political stuff, which is increasingly everywhere. IMO, it's a sign of unhealth in the culture at large. I'm just one powerless person, I try to only worry about stuff I can affect.

Edited July 29, 2019 by Wwen (see edit history)

[Prinny]

49 minutes ago, Wwen said:

I just take care of myself and my own and try to ignore all this political stuff, which is increasingly everywhere. IMO, it's a sign of unhealth in the culture at large. I'm just one powerless person, I try to only worry about stuff I can affect.

I'm bit oversensitive on the issue, but I don't like complaining about something just for being "political". There's nothing inherently wrong with politics as it's very important part of life. And way too often, people complain about stuff being political only when it's politics they don't like. Hell, huge portion of videos from Accursed Farms is fundamentally political.

 

The real issue with those types of comments is almost never that they are political, but what they actually say or how they say it. But saying something is political often gives more moral ground than straight up disagreeing with politics themselves.

 

Of course one can be simply tired of seeing certain political topics and that's totally legit, but I believe treating being political as something fundamentally wrong isn't doing us any favors. Recently game developers are scared to admit their products have anything political in them, which is a shame as is limits what they may be willing to show and tell in their games. And I prefer to see games that I don't agree with over ones that are afraid to say anything.

 

Look at me, writing lengthy response to something said casually without any bad meaning behind it.

 

But even though it isn't case with Wwen, people demanding from games to not have politics in them fit perfectly into this thread, so I'm not totally off-topic, right?

Edited July 29, 2019 by Prinny (see edit history)

[Wwen]

All that totally makes sense. I prefer to have some retreat from all political talk, but it varies. The best stuff isn't heavy handed/not trying to convert. I don't like propaganda of any stripe. The bad stuff the prioritizes the political message over the story. I can't really think of any examples. Haven't played new game in years, but the same applies to other media as well. Hell, there was propaganda I liked when I was younger. I used to think the Gandhi move told the true story and then learned everything is bullshit. I mean it's a good story, Oscar worthy, but it takes some real liberties with events and characterization of G-man.

[Prinny]

16 minutes ago, Wwen said:

The best stuff isn't heavy handed/not trying to convert. I don't like propaganda of any stripe. The bad stuff the prioritizes the political message over the story.

But is it that they prioritize politics or just that they do it badly?

The core or Final Fantasy VII is about environment and how corporations are bad. Disgaea is about tolerance. Witcher takes on several issues such as sexism, again tolerance, sex workers… The Cave discuss morality. The Binding of Isaac – religion. Ace Attorney is a critique of Japanese legal system. Papers, Please… one doesn't get much more political than that one. And everyone is waiting for Cyberpunk 2077 which has political movement right in the name and what we've seen of it so far shows it's gonna have politics in it as well.

 

And those are just some titles for which politics are fundamental part of them. It doesn't mean games need to be political or are inherently better by having politics in them, but it's worth remembering when thinking about politics in games.

[Wwen]

 

4 minutes ago, Prinny said:

But is it that they prioritize politics or just that they do it badly?

I'm can't recall any that stand out in my mind atm, so not sure. Could be one or both. The Civil War story in the comics was super heavy handed and dumb, but I started think super heroes stories were dumb way before then. I'm sure there's an amount of subjectivity to it. Whatever they were trying to do in Deus Ex: HR didn't make sense, due to how badly they did world-building. The set up for all the strife just doesn't make sense. They needed let that idea bake in the oven for longer.

 

I never really thought of FF7 that way, I remember the character stories more than that, but that's a pretty common message in all media at the time. I think Capt Planet was still on TV at the time and those villains made factories that produced no product other than toxic waste XD. I loved Fern Gully as a kiddo as well. All the stuff you mentioned did whatever it was trying to do pretty well. (Never played the Cave or Ace) Papers Please is more setting than politics, but that's just me. People sometimes see the same thing and take away different things.

[Prinny]

7 hours ago, Wwen said:

I never really thought of FF7 that way, I remember the character stories more than that, but that's a pretty common message in all media at the time. 

Well, that's the thing. We're so used to seeing politics in media, we barely notice it. Unless it's something we don't agree with or some controversial topic.

[Morrinn]

I always feel like people like to signal boost these stories to make it sound like there is a huge controversy going on. Like with Chutchel, the way some tell the story they make it sound like developer Amanita was *forced* to make changes to their protagonist, as if in response to an angry crowd laying siege through social media. If that's what really happened, you'd be hard pressed to find any evidence of said flame war, the discussion now being entirely dominated by those upset that the poor developer had to buck to public pressure and compromise their vision.

Is that what happened? Or did Amanita possibly just decide, "Hey, you know, now that we think about it, this design might be a little problematic. let's change it to avoid upsetting anyone." Which of course set an even angrier flood in motion...

 

This of course is just a slightly less ridiculous retread of what happened with Cuphead, and the non-controversy surrounding that game. So many people screaming into the void about how in the name of political correctness people are now getting upset at this game for paying homage to an animation style tangentially related to culturally insensitive cartoons. Nobody ever seemed to stop to ask, "Wait, who are we screaming at again?" Because truth was, while several journalists did broach the issue, nobody was actually accusing MDHR of insensitivity, or claiming that they were creating racist caricatures. By simply acknowledging the existence of racist cartoons, readers immediately assumed that journalists were once again trying to ruin our fun with some of that dreaded political correctness.

 

And of course Cuphead isn't racist. Of course Chutchel isn't blackface. That's why it's so easy to get people worked up and angry over those 'Moral busybodies, ruining our fun', because it's obviously bullshit.

But maybe, before you grab your pitchforks and torches, see if there's actually anyone out there genuinely making those claims, and see if the response you had planned is really warranted.

[Prinny]

4 hours ago, Morrinn said:

But maybe, before you grab your pitchforks and torches, see if there's actually anyone out there genuinely making those claims, and see if the response you had planned is really warranted.

Well, you'll always gonna find some people. It's the internet. It's made of huge amount of people and it's really great at highlighting the most extreme ones. And then, there's possibly some false flagging on top of that.

 

And I totally understand people getting concerned about it. I've met some total nuts myself, but even among ones who complain about those issues, most are normal, reasonable people. We don't always agree, but even than I'm able to understand their points.