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Thereās room to split hairs over the first cartridge based console, or the first console with interchangeable games. But no matter what, the Channel F was designed by Mr. Lawson from first principles.
Mrs. Williamsā pet project series remains one of my favorite duologies in gaming - Laura Bow. If you say that she was the cofounder, you also have to point out that Ken & Roberta were a married couple, so no matter what sheād have been involved. Itās more about what she contributed to gaming and her skill with crafting coherent stories both AGI and SCI - and you can see that in KQ4, since it was released in both AGI and SCI!
I have to admit that I never got into the BioWare D&D games - my preference remained with Black Isleās development (Planescape: Torment); but I respect others like them more than me.
The first person to put together principles on programming was a woman (Ada Lovelace). One of the most influential programming languages in the world, and the origin of the term ācomputer bugā, come from a woman (Captain Grace āAmazing Graceā Hopper). Women programmed the computers that put men on the moon and got them home safely. Dr. Ellis, a black man, was the first black person to get a Computer Science PhD, and (arguably) created the first known GUI.
These are all good people who made our lives better.
There are two kinds of wokeness I complain about:
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Hernia level virtue signaling - this is when a production company is straining super hard to make sure we know theyāre the good guys, but the writers donāt have the brains to come up with interesting allegories, or even super-transparent ones like the half-black/half-white dudes in the TOS episode. All they can muster up is character dialog like, āWow, look how backward this time period is! So much misogyny and discrimination!ā Yeah duh, I live in this time period and Iām not stupid. (talking to you, Picard season 2)
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Misrepresenting the past - this is when they portray letās say Victorian England or 1950s America as a fully integrated society where characters of all races mix freely, with equality at all levels. Thatās not how it was, kids. The black housewife in 1953 Ohio would not have a white maid, although she might work part time as one in a white household. You donāt raise social consciousness by painting a fake picture of history to avoid upsetting your audience. That does no service to the people who still feel the effects of those times.
But oh right, I forgot, the point is profit not genuine social consciousness - sorry, my bad.
/edited for grammar
While I agree with your first point - corporate pseudo-progressivism is a stain - I donāt really think itās fair to call it āwokeā. In fact, itās almost the opposite of what woke is supposed to mean. To be āwokeā originally meant having āwoken upā to the reality of systemic racismā¦ Corpos thoughtlessly stuffing games/films with ādiverseā casts are not really respecting that reality. Itās performative. There is an argument that it improved things for actors regardless, but I still donāt think itās āwokeā.
On your second point I have to slightly disagree. Taking Bridgerton as an example - set in something like Victorian England, but a racially diverse one. The Queen is black, thereās a black Duke. I think these things immediately set the story apart from real Victorian England. Ok, perhaps if you know nothing about history it might be confusing, but to me I see those things and immediately one of two things is true:
- We are suspending our disbelief. Just like the pantomime dame, within the world of the play, is a woman and not a man in costume, we can assume that weāre seeing black actors playing characters who would have really been whiteā¦ Like Queen victoria.
- The world we see is not an accurate representation of history. In this world we might assume that slavery was abolished sooner, or never started, and black people moved not just into the lower but the higher echelons of British society.
Given that itās fiction, I donāt mind either of these things. I think itās nice for people who arenāt white to be able to imagine themselves in those stories, even if in the real history things would have been much different. Bridgerton isnāt trying to present a vision of real historical events, itās primarily a romance. Just like mediaeval fantasy isnāt really medieval, Victorian romance doesnāt need to really be Victorian. We donāt need to see the systemic racism any more than we need to see the cholera or dropsy or whatever.
I will also just briefly shill for Taboo which I just finished - thatās a historical show which incorporates a ārealisticā amount of diversity into itās cast while maintaining (at least what appears to me) a level of historical accuracy. The story is fictional, although it appears around real eventsā¦ But the world it presents feels genuine. Crucially by contrast to Bridgerton, slavery plays quite an important role in the story - so here it would feel absurd to have a black Queen or Duke.
Havenāt seen Taboo but Bridgerton is a fantasy alt world - it can have steam-powered computers for all I care. My objection is specifically about falsely portraying real eras for the sake of casting diversity, which I think is a disservice to people who were held down in those real eras.
Fair enough, I have seen the same arguments applied to it is why I used it as an example. I donāt know what shows you are thinking of, but are they misrepresenting things, or are they just using blind casting and asking you to suspend your disbelief? This is something we do without thinking when watching theatre, but itās a bit more subtle when watching television or films because they go to lengths to make the environment feel more real.
Suspension of disbelief is great for science fiction and fantasy, but I donāt think itās healthy to mask past realities. I donāt believe for one second anybody does āblindā casting - entertainment companies pander to what they think their audienceās main demographic wants, and they do extensive research to tell them what that is. They want to be on the audienceās side on every issue, support all the right things, criticize all the right thingsā¦ thereās nothing blind or random about any of it.
Perhaps, or perhaps the casting team had other goals that arenāt so obvious. While itās true there are purely capitalistic production firms, there are clearly things being made with artistic vision behind them, and sometimes that includes blind casting. Again, I suspect this is more prevalent in theatre, where audiences are more willing to accept, say, a woman playing King Lear, or black actors playing nobles in a historical setting. Because, on stage, you are already suspending lots of that disbelief - youāre not looking into a throne room, youāre looking at a stage - itās easier to take it a step further.
But while less is asked of you when watching a historical drama on TV, you are nonetheless suspending your disbelief. You know really that cameras couldnāt have filmed this in the Victorian era, thatās not really Henry VIII, and Jesus wasnāt a white guy. The question is what makes it too jarring for you?
I noticed youāre quite focused on the production companyās intent behind the casting. Maybe itās politically/philosophically motivated, maybe purely capitalist, or maybe artisticā¦ But you canāt really know. And should it even matter to you as the viewer? I understand trying to unpick the artistic decisions behind a piece, but those of the production company? That doesnāt seem like something to bring into your viewing experience - just perhaps conversations like this one on the internet.
Iād invite you to try suspending your disbelief as you might when watching the Passion of the Christ, and see if youāre able to enjoy these films/shows despite the historical inaccuracies.
Okay hereās my background - Iāve been involved in over 20 stage productions as an actor, director, assistant director, designer, set builder, and various other tech positions. This doesnāt make me an expert but it means Iāve been there and done that. Iāve seen Midsummer Nightās Dream done with 1930s gangsters, an all-black MacBeth in Stratford, England, and I was stage manager for a Comedy of Errors in a Hollywood Squares style set with a cigarette-smoking nun playing a piano. I understand suspension of disbelief, so you donāt need invite me to try it like youāre talking a kid about broccoli.
Casting directors do not cast āblindā except background crowds, and even then the overall look and feel is as important as paint scheme and set decoration. I imagine this is even more true in television and movies, where thereās a lot more money at stake and a lot more people to please. They carefully control every element they can - if only because every person in those coveted positions is striving to prove how indispensible they are. Nothing is done at random except for occasional quick one-off decisions. I donāt object to comic anachronisms like throwing WWII German soldiers and Count Basieās orchestra into Blazing Saddles. Iām talking about serious stories where everything seems to be meticulously recreated except the painful elements of society are being whitewashed for the sake of pleasing modern-day sensibilities.
Suspension of disbelief only has meaning for an audience that already has knowledge of the material, but todayās audiences generally know very little about history except what they see in movies and on TV. You probably arenāt even aware that about 1 out of 4 cowboys in the Old West era were black. Ranch work was something a lot of freed slaves took up after the Civil War. But having grown up with American movies and TV, my mental version of the Wild West is almost all-white - with the odd asian cook, or an occasional black dude sweeping up in a saloon. I bet yours is similar. Thatās why I criticize the current trend of misrepresenting history as a carefully balanced well-integrated society. Whatever the reason, itās just a different generation trying to please audiences. Like every generation the one currently doing most of the creative work in Hollywood thinks itās more enlightened than every other one before it, which is another crock of shit. One delusion in the collective consciousness is no better than another.
I understand suspension of disbelief, so you donāt need invite me to try it like youāre talking a kid about broccoli.
Haha, ok, I wasnāt trying to be patronising - my suggestion was that you try suspending you disbelief in situations where you otherwise might not. Clearly you know what it is, I didnāt mean to suggest otherwise. Jumping ahead a bit to another relevant part of your commentā¦
Suspension of disbelief only has meaning for an audience that already has knowledge of the material
Where I am suggesting you might suspend your disbelief is exactly that - a situation where you have knowledge that the world youāre seeing is inaccurate. Anyway, I donāt mean to come across as condescending, sorry about that.
Casting directors do not cast āblindā except background crowds, and even then the overall look and feel is as important as paint scheme and set decoration.
Blind casting doesnāt mean you have to have no artistic vision. It just means you arenāt concerned with, for example, the gender or race of the actor. I saw a production of the Little Prince a while ago where the titular prince was played by a woman. Now, given the storyline (which was presented more or less true to the book) I think itās clear that there was no philosophical motivation behind the castingā¦ She was just small. Iām sure it was a conscious decision to cast someone small, but do you really think they specifically wanted a woman? I doubt it.
Iām talking about serious stories where everything seems to be meticulously recreated except the painful elements of society are being whitewashed for the sake of pleasing modern-day sensibilities
This specific situation I can understand. The reason I was inclined to argue with your original point, and why I jumped to Bridgerton as an example, is that I have usually seen these arguments presented in relation to things just like Bridgerton, where they really have no placeā¦ So, do you have an example?
Iād also ask, given your example, what your perspective is on modern Cowboy films still presenting the old west as predominantly white?
You took the words out of my mouth, both of those are such libshit that I cringe my asshole out.
Thatās another aspect of it - those practices arenāt ālibshitā theyāre corporate shit. Same as sticking a big GREEN label on random products.
Ya know, thereās a scene in The Boys where Maeve is outed as a bisexual, so they decide to promote her queerness as part of a āBrave Maeveā campaign to encourage those in the closet to come out.
But then they tell her she has to be a lesbian, not bisexual, because bisexuality is ātoo confusingā, and even then they police what behaviors she is and is not allowed to do; she can be a lesbian but not ātoo gayā, and sheās only allowed to date feminine individuals while presenting as masculine or vice versa because to do otherwise is to āsend the wrong messageā
This basically ruins her life, forces her girlfriend to break up with her because she canāt take having to be a āModel Minorityā at all times, and Maeve is left so broken she almost reveals the fact that she and Homelander donāt actually save people to the whole world.
When I saw that, I was like āHoly shit, finally, someone else who understands why I, a transgender woman, actively avoid media that caters to the LGBT community. Finally, SOMEONE gets it and theyāre making sure other people get it too.ā
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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?
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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?
Elon Musk doesnāt want DEI, do you think maybe there might be a good reason the US has it?
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 peop
