A game is only called āwokeā when itās bad. Balderās Gate 3 is one of the most āwokeā major releases in the last few years but you hardly hear them complain about it.
Itās the same thing with cyberpunk 2077. The anti-woke crowd canāt agree on whether itās woke because many of them like it.
I think the problem isnāt the wokeness for most people, but the awkward shoehorning of stereotypes and forced messaging that makes everything feel cheap and doesnāt contribute to the experience or story. For example having a lgbtq+ element for the sake of checking a diversity box, instead of it being a random fact of this world or character.
How do you differentiate between a character āwritten for the sake of checking a diversity boxā, a poorly-written diverse character, and a ārandom fact of the worldā?
Itās a fictional world. Nothing is random. Itās all creative decisions made by a team of writers and producers.
I donāt think shoehorning in of diverse identities and character backgrounds is good representation or good art, and I completely agree with your point there.
But I donāt think that the people driving the current backlash bother to make those distinctions.
What I see is a lot of outrage being stoked by people using the (updated) language and tactics of gamergate, and I donāt think the result of that will be ābetter representationā.
I think the result will be devs being harrassed and pushed out of an already brutal industry.
Games like Cyberpunk have characters who are black, gay, etc. but it never impacts the player characterās decisions when interacting with them (besides romance options). Dragon Age The Veilguard has one character walk the player through their sexuality in cutscenes, making it forced and unnecessary information in the moment. Itās the odd injection of the woke rather than the woke itself.
Do you have to interact with that character? In all the BioWare games I have played, you donāt actually have to interact with any companions at all outside of critpath questlines. Even big blowup moments like the Miranda/Jack fight only trigger once youāve completed both of their loyalty missions, and you have to choose to talk to them to unlock those in the first place.
And since Iām assuming youāre referring to the Qunari companion, and Iāve watched a couple of critiques of the scenes I believe youāre referencing - itās not their sexuality thatās being discussed, itās their gender.
Iāve played Cyberpunk, havenāt played DATV but have seen a walkthrough. The cutscene we a referring to seems to be mandatory as no walkthrough or creator has mentioned a path that does not trigger it. There is another scene with the same character that plays as an akward sex scene. It again, feels and is forced, so people do not like it. If you removed these cutscenes and just had the character be trans it would be a non-issue.
An LGBTQ person doesnāt need āa good reasonā for being written that way. If they did, then so would the straight person, no? Unless, of course, weāre trying to say that every storyās default needs to be a straight white man who doesnāt need to be constantly justifying his existence.
Frankly, these days you better have a damn good reason why we have to deal with the ten-thousandth same old shoe-horned straight relationship that only exists because two main characters happen to be opposite genders and roughly the same age. Like, yeah, who could have seen that coming wow good job hereās a sticker.
Itās not about checking a diversity box, itās about the barest amount of representation. The LGBT people in my life donāt exist because they fit some kind of plot-point in my life; they exist because thatās just how the dice landed and they donāt owe me a justification for why they are that way in order to be my friends. That would be absurd, right?
ā
Sidenote: Everyone complaining about Veilguard(for example) forgets that a) Bioware is famously unclear about what dialogue choices do and b) they just donāt, historically, seem to have the capacity to write terribly creative games. Theyāre fine and Iāve enjoyed playing the ones I have but still.
I didnāt say they need a reason to exist. I said basically the same thing as you. A character is supposed to just exists with their traits and act naturally, instead of making diversity their whole personality. Itās the same thing as the classic token black guy in movies. Only present to serve the quota, not actually contributing to anything. And having a character make their straight-ness and whiteness their whole personality would be just as infuriating.
I dispise forced romance just as much as you seem to, it doesnāt matter to me what the genders involved are, if itās there I want it to make sense and add something, not just tick a box.
Right, except that 99% of LGBT characters arenāt doing anything special and their mere existence, since we arenāt numb to it, is taken as some political act of tokenism. Itās as simple as being aware that youāre going to have biases and letting yourself get used to it instead of complaining about it.
And yes, some of it will be a bit heavy-handed and some will even be an attempt to get more money but like, so what? Itās not nearly as much as everyone claims and it all serves to normalize it so get over it. Itās not like there isnāt heaps of absolutely dogshit straight writing that we are fine ignoring for the sake of the rest of the game. Tthe second itās the same thing but with a gay character every shitstain gets all bent outta shape over it like their problem isnāt their own homophobia.
Woke activists have already said that they are willing to annihilate and scorched-earth and salt-the-fields if DEI ESG woke things arent put front and centre into video games.
So maybe we dont need people who actively hate video games and gamers to be in the video game making industry. The woke can go be part of Hollywood leave the gamers alone.
Woke activists have already said that they are willing to annihilate and scorched-earth and salt-the-fields if DEI ESG woke things arent put front and centre into video games.
What exactly is your problem with ESG, which measures the social and environmental impact of a companies actions? You think weā¦ shouldnāt hold corpos responsible for their actions?
So maybe we dont need people who actively hate video games and gamers to be in the video game making industry. The woke can go be part of Hollywood leave the gamers alone.
Iām going to need you to explain how wanting representation of non cishetero characters is proof of āpeople who actively hate video games and gamersā¦ā
You want to know who hate video games and gamers? āAnti-wokeā gamers. All this whining and crying over having a character be bi, or someone being (gasp) non-binary is performative and ridiculous. If your entire day and gaming experience can be ruined by someone making a non-binary character in a fucking single player RPG, thatās laughable, and the taunting youāll receive is justified.
I bought BG3 due to constant negative comments about it. Itās woke, everyone is bi (sign me the fuck up), random misogyny, etc. I figured if they were that mad it had to be good, and 427 hours of gameplay later I am glad I did that.
There were absolutely people calling that game woke. You didnāt hear them because they were drowned out by the good press. Itās not that game is only called woke when itās bad, itās that when a game is good thereās enough positive publicity to drowned out the negative.
I heard complaints about BG3 characters being romanceable independently of MCās gender and race, that itās against lore and statistics. But my guess would be that it wouldāve been the thing devs wanted to do not because of wokeness, but because it seems fairer towards the player.
BG3 doesnāt lecture you like other games though. There is a difference between having these people live in your world vs being the spokesperson for BLM.
The difference isnāt in subject matter, but writing quality. I like retro shooters and considering Build Engine(think Duke Nukem) style games are based on movie genres, Iād love a blaxploitation game were Iām shooting Nazis and throwing molotov cocktails at clansmen. The subject matter would absolutely be in you face.
Remember, people got offended at how Nazis were portrayed Wolfenstein, a game solely about killing Nazis.
We can critique the writing of games like Dustborn, but the moment you start complaining about āwokenessā, you signal that youāre just gaming the algorithm for the lowest common denominator of viewer to drive that ad money up.
A game is only called āwokeā when itās bad. Balderās Gate 3 is one of the most āwokeā major releases in the last few years but you hardly hear them complain about it.
Itās the same thing with cyberpunk 2077. The anti-woke crowd canāt agree on whether itās woke because many of them like it.
I think the problem isnāt the wokeness for most people, but the awkward shoehorning of stereotypes and forced messaging that makes everything feel cheap and doesnāt contribute to the experience or story. For example having a lgbtq+ element for the sake of checking a diversity box, instead of it being a random fact of this world or character.
How do you differentiate between a character āwritten for the sake of checking a diversity boxā, a poorly-written diverse character, and a ārandom fact of the worldā? Itās a fictional world. Nothing is random. Itās all creative decisions made by a team of writers and producers.
I donāt think shoehorning in of diverse identities and character backgrounds is good representation or good art, and I completely agree with your point there.
But I donāt think that the people driving the current backlash bother to make those distinctions.
What I see is a lot of outrage being stoked by people using the (updated) language and tactics of gamergate, and I donāt think the result of that will be ābetter representationā.
I think the result will be devs being harrassed and pushed out of an already brutal industry.
Games like Cyberpunk have characters who are black, gay, etc. but it never impacts the player characterās decisions when interacting with them (besides romance options). Dragon Age The Veilguard has one character walk the player through their sexuality in cutscenes, making it forced and unnecessary information in the moment. Itās the odd injection of the woke rather than the woke itself.
Have you played the game?
I havenāt.
Do you have to interact with that character? In all the BioWare games I have played, you donāt actually have to interact with any companions at all outside of critpath questlines. Even big blowup moments like the Miranda/Jack fight only trigger once youāve completed both of their loyalty missions, and you have to choose to talk to them to unlock those in the first place.
And since Iām assuming youāre referring to the Qunari companion, and Iāve watched a couple of critiques of the scenes I believe youāre referencing - itās not their sexuality thatās being discussed, itās their gender.
Iāve played Cyberpunk, havenāt played DATV but have seen a walkthrough. The cutscene we a referring to seems to be mandatory as no walkthrough or creator has mentioned a path that does not trigger it. There is another scene with the same character that plays as an akward sex scene. It again, feels and is forced, so people do not like it. If you removed these cutscenes and just had the character be trans it would be a non-issue.
An LGBTQ person doesnāt need āa good reasonā for being written that way. If they did, then so would the straight person, no? Unless, of course, weāre trying to say that every storyās default needs to be a straight white man who doesnāt need to be constantly justifying his existence.
Frankly, these days you better have a damn good reason why we have to deal with the ten-thousandth same old shoe-horned straight relationship that only exists because two main characters happen to be opposite genders and roughly the same age. Like, yeah, who could have seen that coming wow good job hereās a sticker.
Itās not about checking a diversity box, itās about the barest amount of representation. The LGBT people in my life donāt exist because they fit some kind of plot-point in my life; they exist because thatās just how the dice landed and they donāt owe me a justification for why they are that way in order to be my friends. That would be absurd, right?
ā
Sidenote: Everyone complaining about Veilguard(for example) forgets that a) Bioware is famously unclear about what dialogue choices do and b) they just donāt, historically, seem to have the capacity to write terribly creative games. Theyāre fine and Iāve enjoyed playing the ones I have but still.
I didnāt say they need a reason to exist. I said basically the same thing as you. A character is supposed to just exists with their traits and act naturally, instead of making diversity their whole personality. Itās the same thing as the classic token black guy in movies. Only present to serve the quota, not actually contributing to anything. And having a character make their straight-ness and whiteness their whole personality would be just as infuriating.
I dispise forced romance just as much as you seem to, it doesnāt matter to me what the genders involved are, if itās there I want it to make sense and add something, not just tick a box.
Right, except that 99% of LGBT characters arenāt doing anything special and their mere existence, since we arenāt numb to it, is taken as some political act of tokenism. Itās as simple as being aware that youāre going to have biases and letting yourself get used to it instead of complaining about it.
And yes, some of it will be a bit heavy-handed and some will even be an attempt to get more money but like, so what? Itās not nearly as much as everyone claims and it all serves to normalize it so get over it. Itās not like there isnāt heaps of absolutely dogshit straight writing that we are fine ignoring for the sake of the rest of the game. Tthe second itās the same thing but with a gay character every shitstain gets all bent outta shape over it like their problem isnāt their own homophobia.
Woke activists have already said that they are willing to annihilate and scorched-earth and salt-the-fields if DEI ESG woke things arent put front and centre into video games.
So maybe we dont need people who actively hate video games and gamers to be in the video game making industry. The woke can go be part of Hollywood leave the gamers alone.
What exactly is your problem with ESG, which measures the social and environmental impact of a companies actions? You think weā¦ shouldnāt hold corpos responsible for their actions?
Elon Musk doesnāt want DEI, do you think maybe there might be a good reason the US has it?
Iām going to need you to explain how wanting representation of non cishetero characters is proof of āpeople who actively hate video games and gamersā¦ā
You want to know who hate video games and gamers? āAnti-wokeā gamers. All this whining and crying over having a character be bi, or someone being (gasp) non-binary is performative and ridiculous. If your entire day and gaming experience can be ruined by someone making a non-binary character in a fucking single player RPG, thatās laughable, and the taunting youāll receive is justified.
I bought BG3 due to constant negative comments about it. Itās woke, everyone is bi (sign me the fuck up), random misogyny, etc. I figured if they were that mad it had to be good, and 427 hours of gameplay later I am glad I did that.
There were absolutely people calling that game woke. You didnāt hear them because they were drowned out by the good press. Itās not that game is only called woke when itās bad, itās that when a game is good thereās enough positive publicity to drowned out the negative.
I heard complaints about BG3 characters being romanceable independently of MCās gender and race, that itās against lore and statistics. But my guess would be that it wouldāve been the thing devs wanted to do not because of wokeness, but because it seems fairer towards the player.
BG3 doesnāt lecture you like other games though. There is a difference between having these people live in your world vs being the spokesperson for BLM.
The difference isnāt in subject matter, but writing quality. I like retro shooters and considering Build Engine(think Duke Nukem) style games are based on movie genres, Iād love a blaxploitation game were Iām shooting Nazis and throwing molotov cocktails at clansmen. The subject matter would absolutely be in you face.
Remember, people got offended at how Nazis were portrayed Wolfenstein, a game solely about killing Nazis.
We can critique the writing of games like Dustborn, but the moment you start complaining about āwokenessā, you signal that youāre just gaming the algorithm for the lowest common denominator of viewer to drive that ad money up.
Which games are like that, though?