• Endymion_Mallorn@kbin.melroy.org
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    2 days ago

    Thereā€™s 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 sheā€™d have been involved. Itā€™s 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 Isleā€™s 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 ā€˜computer bugā€™, come from a woman (Captain Grace ā€œAmazing 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.

  • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    There are two kinds of wokeness I complain about:

    1. Hernia level virtue signaling - this is when a production company is straining super hard to make sure we know theyā€™re the good guys, but the writers donā€™t 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, ā€œWow, look how backward this time period is! So much misogyny and discrimination!ā€ Yeah duh, I live in this time period and Iā€™m not stupid. (talking to you, Picard season 2)

    2. Misrepresenting the past - this is when they portray letā€™s say Victorian England or 1950s America as a fully integrated society where characters of all races mix freely, with equality at all levels. Thatā€™s 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 donā€™t 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

    • BluesF@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      While I agree with your first point - corporate pseudo-progressivism is a stain - I donā€™t really think itā€™s fair to call it ā€œwokeā€. In fact, itā€™s almost the opposite of what woke is supposed to mean. To be ā€œwokeā€ originally meant having ā€œwoken upā€ to the reality of systemic racismā€¦ Corpos thoughtlessly stuffing games/films with ā€œdiverseā€ casts are not really respecting that reality. Itā€™s performative. There is an argument that it improved things for actors regardless, but I still donā€™t think itā€™s ā€œwokeā€.

      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, thereā€™s 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 weā€™re 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 itā€™s fiction, I donā€™t mind either of these things. I think itā€™s nice for people who arenā€™t white to be able to imagine themselves in those stories, even if in the real history things would have been much different. Bridgerton isnā€™t trying to present a vision of real historical events, itā€™s primarily a romance. Just like mediaeval fantasy isnā€™t really medieval, Victorian romance doesnā€™t need to really be Victorian. We donā€™t 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 - thatā€™s a historical show which incorporates a ā€œrealisticā€ amount of diversity into itā€™s 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.

      • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        Havenā€™t 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.

        • BluesF@lemmy.world
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          4 days ago

          Fair enough, I have seen the same arguments applied to it is why I used it as an example. I donā€™t 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 itā€™s a bit more subtle when watching television or films because they go to lengths to make the environment feel more real.

          • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
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            3 days ago

            Suspension of disbelief is great for science fiction and fantasy, but I donā€™t think itā€™s healthy to mask past realities. I donā€™t believe for one second anybody does ā€œblindā€ casting - entertainment companies pander to what they think their audienceā€™s main demographic wants, and they do extensive research to tell them what that is. They want to be on the audienceā€™s side on every issue, support all the right things, criticize all the right thingsā€¦ thereā€™s nothing blind or random about any of it.

            • BluesF@lemmy.world
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              3 days ago

              Perhaps, or perhaps the casting team had other goals that arenā€™t so obvious. While itā€™s 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 - youā€™re not looking into a throne room, youā€™re looking at a stage - itā€™s 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 couldnā€™t have filmed this in the Victorian era, thatā€™s not really Henry VIII, and Jesus wasnā€™t a white guy. The question is what makes it too jarring for you?

              I noticed youā€™re quite focused on the production companyā€™s intent behind the casting. Maybe itā€™s politically/philosophically motivated, maybe purely capitalist, or maybe artisticā€¦ But you canā€™t 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 doesnā€™t seem like something to bring into your viewing experience - just perhaps conversations like this one on the internet.

              Iā€™d invite you to try suspending your disbelief as you might when watching the Passion of the Christ, and see if youā€™re able to enjoy these films/shows despite the historical inaccuracies.

              • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
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                2 days ago

                Okay hereā€™s my background - Iā€™ve been involved in over 20 stage productions as an actor, director, assistant director, designer, set builder, and various other tech positions. This doesnā€™t make me an expert but it means Iā€™ve been there and done that. Iā€™ve seen Midsummer Nightā€™s 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 donā€™t need invite me to try it like youā€™re talking a kid about broccoli.

                Casting directors do not cast ā€œblindā€ 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 thereā€™s 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 donā€™t object to comic anachronisms like throwing WWII German soldiers and Count Basieā€™s orchestra into Blazing Saddles. Iā€™m 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 todayā€™s audiences generally know very little about history except what they see in movies and on TV. You probably arenā€™t 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. Thatā€™s why I criticize the current trend of misrepresenting history as a carefully balanced well-integrated society. Whatever the reason, itā€™s just a different generation trying to please audiences. Like every generation the one currently doing most of the creative work in Hollywood thinks itā€™s 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.

                • BluesF@lemmy.world
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                  1 day ago

                  I understand suspension of disbelief, so you donā€™t need invite me to try it like youā€™re talking a kid about broccoli.

                  Haha, ok, I wasnā€™t 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 didnā€™t 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 youā€™re seeing is inaccurate. Anyway, I donā€™t mean to come across as condescending, sorry about that.

                  Casting directors do not cast ā€œblindā€ except background crowds, and even then the overall look and feel is as important as paint scheme and set decoration.

                  Blind casting doesnā€™t mean you have to have no artistic vision. It just means you arenā€™t 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 itā€™s clear that there was no philosophical motivation behind the castingā€¦ She was just small. Iā€™m sure it was a conscious decision to cast someone small, but do you really think they specifically wanted a woman? I doubt it.

                  Iā€™m 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?

                  Iā€™d also ask, given your example, what your perspective is on modern Cowboy films still presenting the old west as predominantly white?

    • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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      5 days ago

      You took the words out of my mouth, both of those are such libshit that I cringe my asshole out.

      • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        Thatā€™s another aspect of it - those practices arenā€™t ā€œlibshitā€ theyā€™re corporate shit. Same as sticking a big GREEN label on random products.

        • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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          4 days ago

          Ya know, thereā€™s a scene in The Boys where Maeve is outed as a bisexual, so they decide to promote her queerness as part of a ā€œBrave 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 ā€œtoo confusingā€, and even then they police what behaviors she is and is not allowed to do; she can be a lesbian but not ā€œtoo gayā€, and sheā€™s only allowed to date feminine individuals while presenting as masculine or vice versa because to do otherwise is to ā€œsend the wrong messageā€

          This basically ruins her life, forces her girlfriend to break up with her because she canā€™t take having to be a ā€œModel Minorityā€ at all times, and Maeve is left so broken she almost reveals the fact that she and Homelander donā€™t actually save people to the whole world.

          When I saw that, I was like ā€œHoly 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 theyā€™re making sure other people get it too.ā€

  • BetaDoggo_@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    A game is only called ā€œwokeā€ when itā€™s bad. Balderā€™s Gate 3 is one of the most ā€œwokeā€ major releases in the last few years but you hardly hear them complain about it.

    Itā€™s the same thing with cyberpunk 2077. The anti-woke crowd canā€™t agree on whether itā€™s woke because many of them like it.

    • Geth@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      7 days ago

      I think the problem isnā€™t the wokeness for most people, but the awkward shoehorning of stereotypes and forced messaging that makes everything feel cheap and doesnā€™t 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.

      • unbanshee@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        7 days ago

        How do you differentiate between a character ā€œwritten for the sake of checking a diversity boxā€, a poorly-written diverse character, and a ā€œrandom fact of the worldā€? Itā€™s a fictional world. Nothing is random. Itā€™s all creative decisions made by a team of writers and producers.

        I donā€™t 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 donā€™t 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 donā€™t think the result of that will be ā€œbetter representationā€.

        I think the result will be devs being harrassed and pushed out of an already brutal industry.

        • yeather@lemmy.ca
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          6 days ago

          Games like Cyberpunk have characters who are black, gay, etc. but it never impacts the player characterā€™s 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. Itā€™s the odd injection of the woke rather than the woke itself.

          • unbanshee@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            5 days ago

            Have you played the game?

            I havenā€™t.

            Do you have to interact with that character? In all the BioWare games I have played, you donā€™t 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 youā€™ve completed both of their loyalty missions, and you have to choose to talk to them to unlock those in the first place.

            And since Iā€™m assuming youā€™re referring to the Qunari companion, and Iā€™ve watched a couple of critiques of the scenes I believe youā€™re referencing - itā€™s not their sexuality thatā€™s being discussed, itā€™s their gender.

            • yeather@lemmy.ca
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              5 days ago

              Iā€™ve played Cyberpunk, havenā€™t 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.

      • Soup@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        An LGBTQ person doesnā€™t need ā€œa good reasonā€ for being written that way. If they did, then so would the straight person, no? Unless, of course, weā€™re trying to say that every storyā€™s default needs to be a straight white man who doesnā€™t 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 hereā€™s a sticker.

        Itā€™s not about checking a diversity box, itā€™s about the barest amount of representation. The LGBT people in my life donā€™t exist because they fit some kind of plot-point in my life; they exist because thatā€™s just how the dice landed and they donā€™t 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 donā€™t, historically, seem to have the capacity to write terribly creative games. Theyā€™re fine and Iā€™ve enjoyed playing the ones I have but still.

        • Geth@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          7 days ago

          I didnā€™t 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. Itā€™s 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 doesnā€™t matter to me what the genders involved are, if itā€™s there I want it to make sense and add something, not just tick a box.

          • Soup@lemmy.world
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            6 days ago

            Right, except that 99% of LGBT characters arenā€™t doing anything special and their mere existence, since we arenā€™t numb to it, is taken as some political act of tokenism. Itā€™s as simple as being aware that youā€™re 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? Itā€™s not nearly as much as everyone claims and it all serves to normalize it so get over it. Itā€™s not like there isnā€™t heaps of absolutely dogshit straight writing that we are fine ignoring for the sake of the rest of the game. Tthe second itā€™s the same thing but with a gay character every shitstain gets all bent outta shape over it like their problem isnā€™t their own homophobia.

      • maniii@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        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.

        • TSG_Asmodeus (he, him)@lemmy.world
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          5 days ago

          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€¦ shouldnā€™t hold corpos responsible for their actions?

          Elon Musk doesnā€™t 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.

          Iā€™m going to need you to explain how wanting representation of non cishetero characters is proof of ā€˜people who actively hate video games and gamersā€¦ā€™

          You want to know who hate video games and gamers? ā€˜Anti-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, thatā€™s laughable, and the taunting youā€™ll receive is justified.

    • TSG_Asmodeus (he, him)@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      I bought BG3 due to constant negative comments about it. Itā€™s 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.

    • njm1314@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      There were absolutely people calling that game woke. You didnā€™t hear them because they were drowned out by the good press. Itā€™s not that game is only called woke when itā€™s bad, itā€™s that when a game is good thereā€™s enough positive publicity to drowned out the negative.

    • lad@programming.dev
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      6 days ago

      I heard complaints about BG3 characters being romanceable independently of MCā€™s gender and race, that itā€™s against lore and statistics. But my guess would be that it wouldā€™ve been the thing devs wanted to do not because of wokeness, but because it seems fairer towards the player.

    • IsThisAnAI@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      BG3 doesnā€™t lecture you like other games though. There is a difference between having these peop