Another Gaming Industry Post... Ya'll should start ignoring these from me by now lol

[melchi]

It’s due to DEI hiring instead of merit hiring. Overall though, let’s face it, people who are easily brainwashed tend to be less talented than people who can resist.

I think this is a bit of a straw man argument. One can make a game that checks all the boxes DEI types want to see. However, creating a successful game requires someone to understand game design principles.

Taking a game that is already well into the process, getting Sweet Baby Inc in as a consultant and making the people who design the levels and write the narrative redo all their work to change the game to check certain boxes is a great way to go over budget and waste resources.

There is some evidence that people who have sweet baby inc on their resume is actually a check against them. If nothing else, recent failures have caused the game companies that want to continue existing to not be so open to certain pressures that could ruin their game.

 

[Sabruness]

Believe it or not, I liked the Last of Us 2 as well and preferred it to the first game.

same here. then again, i never played much of 1 because the gameplay and controls were ass. TLOU2 was fun, in part, because the 'accessibility' were top notch allowing me to tweak things easier because i play games like that for the story and the world, not for the challenge. (side note: i also think the Abby hate was/is overblown. i found Abby's segments far more interesting)

I’d say the way DEI is killing the industry is resource waste and hiring practices. There are certainly talented woke programmers, but there simply aren’t enough of them for the industry to function like it did in the past.

There are just way more passionate non-woke people who are talented in programming. In the end, I refuse to pay for trash.

Still, there are trash games I’d buy just because they have nice looking characters, like Senren Kagura.

Trash gameplay is palatable by an actual good story or very attractive characters, woke games industry isn’t sustainable because majority of games they make have neither.

this. i dont care what you are or how you think (as long as you're not like a radical communist, an anti-semite and/or nazi and/or 'x colour' supremacist' as long as you can make a fun game. the trouble these days, as you rightly point out, is hiring is becoming more and more determined on virtue signalling, box ticking and buzzword bingo than on actual merit.

good trash games are like fast food. yeah, it's not as good as 'fine' dining but it's usually cheaper, it's tasty and it;s fun. it also makes good money that can fund more expensive stuff.

 

[FleecedSheep]

It's about passion and love! Simple as that. If you lack either or both, your bound to fail. If you have both, even if you fail now, who's to say you won't succeed later in life? Or even after your death?

 

[HungrySheep]

Yeah.

 

[Daitengu]

This entire thread hurts my brain. The entire viewpoint of those companies is to make something pandering first, and a good game second. And I mean pandering, not inclusive. Honestly phrases like "woke" or "DEI" are just used nowadays to paint trying to be decent as somehow a bad thing, which is really stupid; like, I get the hate for shoehorning at the cost of quality, but some of y'all sound like having a black main character is somehow weird or even bad.

Like, who cares? But OP definitely reached a good conclusion, as long as the game is good who cares.

But fr, the actual problem is shitty AAA studios using it as a way to get more sales instead of making their game actually good, and they don't even try to do that well. You can integrate non-standard characters into a story easily, you just have to make them actual people instead of making their diversity their entire personality and story line. Come on, you've watched Into and Across the Spiderverse, are you going to call Miles a one-note character or bad? Are you going to call such a great character "woke" just because he's black?

So yeah, we're here for quality. The kinds of characters in a work don't matter to that effect, but making a stink about anyone who's not "white straight cis male" or whatever just because they're whatever they are (rather than because of their actual character) is dumb.

Chose the most extreme side to fit a narrative did we?

Is it woke to have a PoC main character? Of course not, and even if it was, does it matter if the game was good? Like with Submautica Below Zero and Bauldr's Gate 3.

What is woke is replacing the MC with a girl boss like Ghost of Yotei. Or Flintlock replacing their white girl MC with the most stereotyped black girl imaginable. Or adding PoC characters to God of War Ragnarok that don't make sense for the area. How about the gender swap of Cyrex in MK1. Or giving Deadshot a commie daughter and adding a trans Mrs. Freeze in Suicide Squad.

What's the common pattern I presented? Forced diversity to hit numbers while not caring about pesky things like logic, lore, history, or design.

Trans flag painted ammo in a war game. Woke. A handheld pony that shits rainbow lasers? Not woke, just funny.

 

[Gray_Mann]

Chose the most extreme side to fit a narrative did we?

Is it woke to have a PoC main character? Of course not, and even if it was, does it matter if the game was good? Like with Submautica Below Zero and Bauldr's Gate 3.

What is woke is replacing the MC with a girl boss like Ghost of Yotei. Or Flintlock replacing their white girl MC with the most stereotyped black girl imaginable. Or adding PoC characters to God of War Ragnarok that don't make sense for the area. How about the gender swap of Cyrex in MK1. Or giving Deadshot a commie daughter and adding a trans Mrs. Freeze in Suicide Squad.

What's the common pattern I presented? Forced diversity to hit numbers while not caring about pesky things like logic, lore, history, or design.

Trans flag painted ammo in a war game. Woke. A handheld pony that shits rainbow lasers? Not woke, just funny.

I'm glad you did this comment. I was preparing myself to type it up because to me, Vnator was being obtuse and PURPOSELY missing the ENTIRE POINT of people hating the so-called "inclusivity/diversity/woke" nonsense in the first place to push that "you hate dem blacks" bullshit THAT IS SO DAMNED DISENGENUOUS of an argument/opposition.

Three examples in television:

1) The last Castlevania series, why was the very well established White French noblewoman replaced with some black chick from the Caribbean? The only thing the two had in common, was they both spoke French. Why did they need to race-swap her?

2) I'm still pissed they changed a Tudor era English queen into....a black woman. Because why?

3) Lastly, the Barbarians series. The show died after it's 2nd season when they started inserting black people into the show and just started screwing with the historical narrative inserting some weird racial shit that just....didn't fit the timeline or historical period. AND WHY? They played the black-inserts off as Carthaginians. Okay, Carthaginians would make sense, since Rome did destroy their city and whatnot centuries prior so there is SOME logic to maybe putting them in there, despite there being no historical proof of this. I mean, centuries is a long time to hold a grudge, but sure okay. Makes some sense. But then, why was the Lady Carthaginian black? Carthaginians weren't black. They were Phoenician. They would look like people in Lebanon do today and I guarantee you, they ain't black. Even the natives of that area, modern Tunisia/Algeria etc,, the Berbers/NumidiansAmazighs, weren't black. In fact, most of the natives of North Africa, weren't black. Darker than Europeans? Sure. But not black. Even today, most North Africans do not look like the typical Sub-Saharan Black African, and through genetic testing, most people living in North Africa still have a strong genetic connection/relation to those who were around even in Antiquity.

North Africa is Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt. Also, I myself lived for several years in Tunisia, spent a year in Algeria, and 8-9 months in Libya and a few weeks in Egypt. I haven't been to Morocco however. Anyway, almost never saw anyone with the Sub-Saharan Black look. Only saw people of that darkest complexion in Algeria, and that was in the southwestern regions near their border with Mali.

 

[DeepWater]

I'm glad you did this comment. I was preparing myself to type it up because to me, Vnator was being obtuse and PURPOSELY missing the ENTIRE POINT of people hating the so-called "inclusivity/diversity/woke" nonsense in the first place to push that "you hate dem blacks" bullshit THAT IS SO DAMNED DISENGENUOUS of an argument/opposition.

Three examples in television:

1) The last Castlevania series, why was the very well established White French noblewoman replaced with some black chick from the Caribbean? The only thing the two had in common, was they both spoke French. Why did they need to race-swap her?

2) I'm still pissed they changed a Tudor era English queen into....a black woman. Because why?

3) Lastly, the Barbarians series. The show died after it's 2nd season when they started inserting black people into the show and just started screwing with the historical narrative inserting some weird racial shit that just....didn't fit the timeline or historical period. AND WHY? They played the black-inserts off as Carthaginians. Okay, Carthaginians would make sense, since Rome did destroy their city and whatnot centuries prior so there is SOME logic to maybe putting them in there, despite there being no historical proof of this. I mean, centuries is a long time to hold a grudge, but sure okay. Makes some sense. But then, why was the Lady Carthaginian black? Carthaginians weren't black. They were Phoenician. They would look like people in Lebanon do today and I guarantee you, they ain't black. Even the natives of that area, Berbers/Numidians, weren't black. In fact, most of the natives of North Africa, weren't black. Darker than Europeans? Sure. But not black. Even today, most North Africans do not look like the typical Sub-Saharan Black/African, and through genetic testing, most people living in North Africa still have a strong genetic connection/relation to those who were around even in Antiquity.

The race swapping stuff is just anti-white hatred, plain and simple.

 

[Gray_Mann]

The race swapping stuff is just anti-white hatred, plain and simple.

Yep. Nothing but.

 

[Corty]

Playing newly released “AAA” titles.

Heh, what a nerd

 

[Deleted member 41774]

@ElliePorter where's that Tom Cruise meme again-- ???

 

[AnonUnlimited]

If I’m being frank, a super woke but super hot woman with massive breasts as the main character would be interesting to me.

I would play that game.

Im finding that almost all woke characters in games except for some males are ugly as hell though so it wanes my interest.

 

[expentio]

By now we're at a point where both extremes don't really leave space for a middle ground. People even called for a boycott of Baldurs Gate 3 because it was too diverse. The term "woke" itself is barely defined. Is a black woman as MC making a woke game? Is it forced politics that leaves barely any space for character? Where do you draw the line? Can you even draw the line? In my opinion woke are just as bad as the witch hunters from anti-woke. Both are bad for developers just doing their thing and will always find something that fuels their agenda to critizise.

As an after thought: Be it a woke game or somehow one within anti-woke guidelines. Both woukd beequally manipulative, as the latter would cater to a specific audience and by doing so support a specific world view. Every kind of media influences us and has therefore a degree of manipulation going for it.

 

[AnonUnlimited]

By now we're at a point where both extremes don't really leave space for a middle ground. People even called for a boycott of Baldurs Gate 3 because it was too diverse. The term "woke" itself is barely defined. Is a black woman as MC making a woke game? Is it forced politics that leaves barely any space for character? Where do you draw the line? Can you even draw the line? In my opinion woke are just as bad as the witch hunters from anti-woke. Both are bad for developers just doing their thing and will always find something that fuels their agenda to critizise.

As an after thought: Be it a woke game or somehow one within anti-woke guidelines. Both woukd beequally manipulative, as the latter would cater to a specific audience and by doing so support a specific world view. Every kind of media influences us and has therefore a degree of manipulation going for it.

I think in general, most gamers will play and enjoy it if the game is good and isn’t preachy.

Baldur’s Gate 3 might have diverse characters, but it wasn’t preachy or hateful to any group of people.

 

[Alfir]

How about games... with no gameplay?

It's because the gameplay sucks.

I don't remember the name of the game, but I am sure it exists.

 

[AnonUnlimited]

How about games... with no gameplay?

I don't remember the name of the game, but I am sure it exists.

You mean like the tell-tale series?
To be honest, the first Walking Dead was great. Lee was a good protagonist and his journey was human and meaningful.

I also enjoyed the Wolf Among Us, but as time went on their series started to get worse and worse. Mostly because the story telling was lacking more and more.

 

[Deleted member 177167]

Wow, character growth? In a gamer's(TM) post? Can't believe there are still writers out there not shackled by the limits of outrage brainrot.

 

[Ellieporter]

@ElliePorter where's that Tom Cruise meme again-- ???

 

[AnonUnlimited]

I'm glad you did this comment. I was preparing myself to type it up because to me, Vnator was being obtuse and PURPOSELY missing the ENTIRE POINT of people hating the so-called "inclusivity/diversity/woke" nonsense in the first place to push that "you hate dem blacks" bullshit THAT IS SO DAMNED DISENGENUOUS of an argument/opposition.

The forced diversity and race swapping is a different problem than the gameplay issue. The point of this thread was that when it comes to gaming, gameplay can save bad character design and writing, but that often fails because the woke programmers are generally newer generation workers who don't have much experience and are seeking to 'change the ideology' behind a game rather than making a good game.

Hence a lot of games they make suck and don't sell well because gamers talk to each other about how good something is.

As for writing... race swapping, gender swapping, sexual orientation swapping, all that just alienates the fans who have come to expect something from a character that has been in development for a long time. Fans of a franchise who are now introduced to 'new versions' that completely disrespect what they liked before and then are told they are bigots for not liking it are the main problem with woke marketing and writers.

They don't seem to understand how to respect their customer base.

That and woke writers tend to be untalented grifters who get in as diversity hires.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

Fuck me, another bullshit thread that will be milked for months, yet a real cool one, Favorite Fighting Game Character Themes was dead on arrival. I am so sad, somebody play Despacito.

 

[Alski]

Fuck me, another bullshit thread that will be milked for months, yet a real cool one, Favorite Fighting Game Character Themes was dead on arrival. I am so sad, somebody play Despacito.

To be fair your target audiance for that thread was really small so its to be expected.