[Off-Topic] Social "Justice" in the Videogame Industry

*Warning! Small early-game spoilers for Dishonoured 2 ahead.*

Personally I frown upon the somewhat recent air of social "justice" in the modern world these days. I find it seeping into places where it doesn't belong and doesn't contribute anything positive. The videogame industry is starting to seem to be one of those places, much to my dismay.

I recently bought the game Dishonoured 2 on sale off of Steam because I was a fan of the original. The game isn't bad, but it does have a few little quarks about it. I've only played a little bit of it so far, about two or three missions in.

What I don't like is the not-so-subtle "politically correct" agenda that seems to be going on.

• One of the very first major allied characters the player meets is a disabled black woman.
• The "elite" guards/soldiers are exclusively female while the lower enemies are exclusively male
• The main protagonist & antagonist are female, though the player is given the choice to play as Corvo Attano for the original. However, the game starts with the player as Emily.

None of these things are inherently bad, in fact I would call it quite a stretch for them to be at all negative traits. The problem lies in how they all come together.

The new boatwoman, Meagan Foster, is a strong-spirited black woman missing a length of her forearm and eye. Her character would actually be quite a badass if I did not look upon her with the suspicion that she was conceived out of the desire to appease people on the internet whom likely wouldn't even play the game anyway. It is also quite suspect that the entire first game and all that I have seen of the second game is comprised of solely Caucasian characters, with the only exception of which I am aware is her.

The other two main points I've raised are self-explanatory, favouring modern day feminist ideologies of more women in positions of power.

This is not something I want to see in games. I've nothing against people of any race or sex or whatever. What I dislike is real-world politics and ideologies tainting other faucets of life by twisting words and creating artificial and unrealistic worlds and narratives. This is a step backwards in my opinion.

Thoughts, comments, or concerns? Am I just being too sensitive to a non-existent issue or I'm just a racist-misogynistic-homophobic CIS white male scumlord who needs to check his privilege?

It is entirely your own suspicions about why a character is the way they are that fabricates this scenario, without asking the designers who actually made it. Ultimately it should not matter what genitals a fictional character has, rather how said character behaves and acts. So yes, you might be more a "scumlord" as you put it than you would like to believe.

It's cultural Marxism for the sheep. To really be a free human one should give up video games, television, movies, p*rn, and overt desires for food.

Some things are taken out of context, some are unintentionally naive, some are blatant. It's hard to say for sure, so don't overthink it too much. Otherwise you'll be critiquing everything and not minding your ******* business, then you'll get face punched cause you won't shut up about what you think is right.

Heh, told you not overthink it and that's just what I did.

Conscientious straight white male here,

Sooo you're saying that important characters being minorities is some kind of sociopolitical agenda? Seems like a stretch, I say just roll with it.

Nothing wrong with some representation as long as the characters themselves are cool. It is an issue when minority characters are there just to be there and have one-dimensional personalities (but I don't think it's as prevalent as people think). Makes it feel like a "hey look what we did!" kind of stunt. That's a bad move and an insult to minorities, but at least it was an attempt to move in a good direction.

You're being exposed to something you're not used to in entertainment, and your first reaction is to reject/be suspicious of it. That's normal human behavior... just make sure you get over it. Things like this are not as "experience ruining" as non-minorities want to make it.

the first response may not be entirely accurate but honestly i only find one ground for serious immersion breaking. I say the first responding individual may be not entirely accurate namely because there has been larger and larger pressure from feminists and such, into areas such as comics, games and other such mediums, which has created notable backlash in such areas from the individuals in them (such as the OP) as such it is a fair possibility that such things arose from that. that said, i wouldn't honestly jump to that conclusion.

Now speaking from a an accuracy to the time point of view, I think only one of the examples he gives, namely that of female soldiers (well officers) would be arguably immersion breaking considering the equivalent time period of our world to theirs is roughly Victorian (though dystopian in nature) at best late 19th early 20th century but that is imho stretching it, its probably late 18th early 19th. Unless there are differences in biology between this world and the dishonoured world, male soldiers would be the be all end all, if they are still reliant on swords equally to or more than guns (as they were for atleast much of - if not all of - the first game) i cannot say for certain its still this way though (i haven't played number 2), even if that isnt the case though we still relied on swords and such into the second world war - or was it solely the first i cannot remember - (though specifically for close range trench combat) as such said units and its officers would still be heavily male. This isn't sexism, it's historical and biological fact, that men made better soldiers when it came to swords or any melee based area predominantly because men grow and maintain muscle easier, at least in general (exceptions existing of course). In fact its entirely fictional that an equally well trained male and female would meet in a draw, in the majority of cases, the male would win due to the slight height, weight and muscle advantages that come with being male (though in some cases the female would win on the balance of probabilities it would favour the male). One could potentially explain this distinction in the dishonoured world away at least for female officers I suppose by the argument that in the first game, the male officers were completely corrupt but having not played the second game, i cannot substantiate that (nor do i think it likely that is the case). The most likely reason for this approach at least from the makers position, is that they simply did it to make it easier to distinguish between "normal" and "officer" characters, but none the less, such would still be an unlikely thing in a realistic world (aside from the strange magics) where automatic rifles aren't the main weapons of the soldiers (and even then a few studies suggest men are better with them, but such studies are generally very small and only involve a single squad of soldiers or some such).

The issues of race are another matter, but racism itself isn't required of a society, though most if not all societies have and had it. if the game did rely on stereotypes of a strong independent black woman (who don't need no man) - sorry couldn't resist... then that is upto them, but honestly, race itself isnt a bad thing here. the issue of Caucasian characters was probably a result of the world they were trying to portray (as like i said, its supposed to be a victorian like world and since england as of 2011 only had a 3% black population, and that number is an increase from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries is actually pretty accurate).

Disability would depend on type of boat, if it was a peddle or rowing boat, honestly, thats an absurd appraoch, but even in the last game, they had access to boats with engines so such a thing is unlikely, and thus the disability is of no real consequence... now if they had female officers missing an arm, but being as capable as standard soldiers... thatd be stupid. these are merely my individual understanding of the issues, but the sources i have read through and such are very limited in these areas and as such, if someone has evidence to suggest otherwise i will concede on the issues here as i am by no means an authority.

Characters are characters, granted however that does sound like monotonous enemy setup. If literally all enemies were girls then wtf is the reasoning behind it? If the devs are willing to make all enemies and allies fit a certain descriptor or type, I'd always like to know for the sake of the story(such as a story heavy game like Dishonored). But if there was no reason that character types were male or female then I would expect a mix, which is what "social justice warriors" claim they strive for. It just really seems stupid that they could easily have their way if they actually bothered with details or even writing a game themselves.

The same reason I don't like characters blurting "I'm gay" out of the blue, it's like it's a minor detail in the grant scheme of the story, unless it actually had something to do with the story of the game then I'd rather not even have it mentioned. It's like if I said "I walked in on my parents having sex when I was 10", ok, what the **** does that have to do with anything? Maybe you could interweave it with a tragic experience that simply turned this one guy or girl away from men or women because the main badguy was an ******* or something, but even then that just makes the main badguy look like an *******, we already knew he or she was an *******, we didn't need more of that, but generally thats what I've been finding.

The really sad part is that people who write these games will sometimes go out of the way to make the game less about the game and more about their political agenda, planetside for example, doesn't give a **** about what you are, the factions is what matters here, everyone kills everyone else, imagine that if you picked VS you'd have to listen this female commander drone on about girlfriends or boyfriends and feminism or blah, blah blah, no one would give a crap, they just want to play the damn game, having a character constantly sidetrack that is just a kick in the dick for anyone unfortunate enough to buy the game.

So, you're willing to suspend your belief about everything you've been exposed to by videogames so far, but put your foot down when it comes to women being in power?

C'mon Campagne, you're better than this.

Yeah. I'd say so

Just look at some other posts on this thread (and I guarantee it will become more obvious as more replies appear.) A game that is nearly exclusive white guy is fine, but another game doesn't have the same ratio of white or guy and suddenly it's political? Then why wasn't the first game also political?

Watch out, we're talking about a game where you can teleport around and have superhuman reflexes (from what I understand.) We better bring up historical accuracy if we see a woman in a position of power because we honestly believe people were able to teleport around and perform 20 attacks with their sword in under a second just a few hundred years ago.

And so on and so on. Yeah, the issue is pretty non-existent when you have to make absurd claims that can't apply to anything else in order to be angry about something.

Not that complicated. Basically you're crying about people wanting a safe space pushing into your perceived safe space.
world doesnt revolve around your personal demographic mate.

If this is a partial response to me (which as far as i can tell it is as campagne doesn't mention anything to do with history) then i suppose i should justify it with a response. I judged the world by the standards which i thought the world was, and just checking the the wikipedia page, it stated that the world was based around and to quote that wikipedia page "inspired by late nineteenth-century London and Edinburgh—the game was set to take place in medieval Japan and seventeenth-century London. During development, test players discovered methods of exploiting the available powers and abilities to achieve unexpected outcomes". My point was not to expect perfect historical accuracy, doing such would make for a boring game, my point was that the world is relatively accurate, the only parts that I considered even potentially off was the female officers, and even then justifications exist for the game makers to take that approach. I even conclude that none of them are realistically supporting his position, in fact most if not all of this game is pretty much perfectly accurate to the world in which it was trying to simulate. nothing more and nothing less, if anything they simulate the world they were trying to copy perfectly.

Similarly, i dont cover women in power as historically it happened several times, thus no historical issues with it. Even if such wasn't the case, there is plenty of reasonings for not caring whether they are male or female, one of the largest being, fantasy worlds atleast with regard to positions of power don't need to adhere to this worlds standards (i take note of officers namely becase afaik they are still combat units).

I gave due consideration to the topic namely because why wouldn't I, he wasn't (or atleast as far as i can tell) trying to upset anyone, he was just genuinely interested.

Doom.

If i mis-interpretted this as something against my comment and it wasn't you have my appologies, it just seems you relied on my post a couple of times.

I'd say the former.

Don't get caught up in the drama machine. It is just a money machine for vacuous bloggers and media outlets riding the never ending wave of outrage, which turns into outrage over outrage, and on and on it goes. I've personally checked out entirely from this nonsense and I'm a lot happier for it. I do not miss it one bit, indeed, I realised just how much of a non-issue it is and how little it actually impacts my life.

There are other areas in public discourse which are subject to more troubling changes but I do not think that topic is suitable for these forums.

Hmm, some interesting responses here. I didn't know what to expect, but I'm certainly surprised regardless.

I will reiterate in case anyone missed it, but I'm not very far into the game just yet.

I'd just like to start off here by saying DoomedKing is absolutely correct. I do not mean to offend or hurt anyone, nor do I wish to create drama or unrest. I'm just curious about what others think in regards to the topic.

A few common point I've seen so far:

I've taken Meagan's character out of context and/or I am just suspicious of something different.

I've nothing against her at all, aside from her cold-hearted business demeanor whereas Samuel the boatman from the original showed a bit more concern for the player, or so I felt. I only draw note of her race because she's the first and only black character in an otherwise white-washed universe. No other characters before or after her to the best of my knowledge have been anything other than Caucasian.

As such, I am made all the more suspicious of this sudden change when the fact that she is severely disabled as well. In both Dishonoured 1 & 2, everyone is either dead, asleep, plagued, or the absolute picture of health. Missing a limb means the player removed it and now you're dead. It just seems like quite the coincidence --and for a major character the play interacts with frequently-- given the recent political climate.

Very much this. From what I can tell, Meagan is black for no other reason but to be one of the world's only black people.

It's not that I mind women having position in power, just that they are the main focus. I'd rather see either realistic/roughly equal representation or historically accurate representations.

[In order of appearance - Guard, Guard, Elite Guard, Overseer]

The two different models of the normal guards actually preform slightly different in combat, the smaller-framed attacking slightly different. I can say without exaggeration that these are basically the only models one will see of each of the four types of enemy I've seen so far. Even the faces are identical between two of the same enemies.

The elite guards are physically smaller than most other characters, so there doesn't seem to be a "biological" reason for it. The uniforms are obviously quite distinct, so there would be no need to make them all female to differentiate their ranking.

The Overseers are still exclusively males, but there is actually some in-game lore stating why. (Something about young boys being selected by overseers for training, most don't survive. In the original game.)

In Dishonoured 2, all human characters capable of fighting have a melee weapon of some kind, even certain civilians carry wrenches or whatever. Overseers carry pistols and swords as do the elite guards. The standard guards just carry swords.

The point of which I'm trying to show here is that the sudden addition of a black major character and many females in positions of power in the shift between the first and second games of the series is cause for suspicion in accordance with my theory. It just seems like quite a radical coincidence when given recent political events and ideologies.

When I read threads like this, I understand them, but sometimes I am obligated to post videos such as this.

This is what the rest of the world sees when you try and make these kinds of posts.

I understand your motivation, as I can understand most people's positions and places. But I can't agree with your conclusion or your agenda.

I believe you are reading too much into a business/marketing decision.

Furthermore, you are over-emphasizing the role of external factors into an internal moral/ethical debate clearly held within another entity, that "others" and "the times" are compelling decisions adverse to your view-point.

This obfuscates your dialectic via the introduction of suddenly appearing rabbits of unusual sentimentality, which in turn pollute your narrative of the world stage, by supporting the notion that only via a mystical return to the status quo ante, can you and your like-minded individuals rise up and slay the culturally seductive mother-oppressor figures, and thus become the golden-boy ubermensch wunderkind figure that you wish to be.

I have also found an audio/visual summation of a similar argument for you, in case this is a bit much.

Oh whoops nah I misinterpreted some things, don't mind me. That's what I get for skimming posts.

Though now I'm slightly upset. This is the internet; I was certain the "I don't like seeing the blacks in this video game made for meeee" crowd would get here before my second/this post.


Anywho, I personally have the mindset that things in a story only need to make sense within the world the story takes place in (with exception to things that are implied to be identical to the world we actually live in - gravity, for instance.)

I haven't actually played either Dishonored game, but according to a quick 5 minute search it seems the two games have a 15 year difference between each other and the antagonists are completely different? That could affect who the guards are and how their equipment is distributed. Going straight to "political agenda!" seems a bit rash. Did you finish 100% of the story? Was there anything that at least strongly implied a reason why the guards are set up this way? Such as "Oh yeah that seems like something [character that would be able to determine what's up with the guards] would do."

Of course, even if a reason's not found in the game itself that doesn't mean there isn't a story-based reason (various games that end up revealing information in books or developers say part of the story was cut during development but the plan was to have it a certain way), and even if there is a reason given in the game it could be so awful they'd be better off not trying. (See: people getting mad over Quiet's appearance in MGSV just because she showed a lot of skin. Find out there was a reason given for that. Turns out it's the worst reason imaginable and it's not even consistent with other, similar characters. Truth be told they just wanted fanservice in the game and people did have a good reason to be mad.)

Still, I'd argue there's a lot that should be checked within the story before going to "oops it's blatantly politically correct." Cause it could be a political statement. But sometimes aspects of a story are simply part of the story.

Similar idea with the disabled black boatwoman: it could be that she's there because she's part of the story. Sure, she might be out of the ordinary in the Dishonored world (or at least the world that players have been exposed to), but why get suspicious about her and not all the player characters who are out of the ordinary for their own reasons? (Honestly even if characters in Dishonored actually said "Black people don' t exist in this world" and then you see her, it still wouldn't be weird because of the countless stories that treat everything from people to unicorns like "Oh you THOUGHT they didn't exist but actually there's like 5 left and you're their friend now.")


Come to think of it, the pessimist in me still doesn't think there's some social agenda going on. Worst case scenario is the fact that people have figured out that diversity sells so they jam in characters not for the sake of a diverse cast or political statement, but for getting more sales. (And even then I wouldn't say it's a problem if the characters are believable and don't introduce themselves as "Hello I was clearly designed as a Call of Duty protagonist but am actually a disabled black woman now.")

No. ( I mean, maybe, but that would be an issue from her backstory, which I can't explain without spoilers)

I won't spoil it for you. Finish the goddamn game. She isn't shoehorned in just to fill out a diversity quota.


I agree on the elite guards tho. That did bug me a little. If they were gonna have female guards they should have just randomised the gender of every guard.

I'll finish it when I damn well please!

Though, in your opinion without spoiling anything, do you think this alleged backstory significantly contributes to her character to the point where she's a worthwhile addition to the game as opposed to bringing back Samuel?

Yeah, really. If nothing else it would have given the developers ample reason to flesh out the character models a bit so the player isn't just fighting an army of clones.

(1): There are undoubtedly some individuals like that which exist, but they weren't my particular views (not that i think you asserted they were merely that some individuals on here may express such views).

(2): This is a fair position to take for most games, in which the world itself is intended only to be lightly shaped by this world (such as the shapes and designs of weapons and armour but none of the lore), but exceptions of course exist. Games that are designed to resemble a real society, can be rated on how well they do such (you will note i state that i am only judging it from that view point). An example of this would be the for honour world (i think thats the game with the vikings, 15th century knight, and samurai), there have been multiple videos on how the game is incredibly flawed in its presentation of the aforementioned groups.

Here the game itself isn't set in "our world", but it is still based heavily around the setup of late 19th century london and edinborough, and as such, the social norms that existed, would likely be very similar thus i judged them as such. It's at this point that I note female "elite" swordsman would be very unlikely in such a world, namely because female swordsman are generally going to be less effective than their male counter parts (if all else being equal) which was the prevailing view through out history, especially when you consider 19th century Britain was pretty sexist in its views. Thats not to say i was saying they couldn't or shouldn't exist (there are some (though few) who think females can be better "dualists" than men but as i noted they are few in number), merely that in this world it would have been unlikely.

I then turned to possibly reasons why, one such being a possible "in game" lore reasoning. I wasn't sure (though my suggestion was unlikely there are possible other ones, i just havent played so i wouldn't know) and similarly, i suggested a practical reason (which has been shown to be unnecessary), as such I'm stumped as to why they did it (having not played the game, I'm working on my understanding of the first game).

(3): I actually tried to refrain from political reasoning, sticking to "setting and time" of the world, "possible lore justifications" and finally "practical considerations" on the part of the makers. The 15 year difference would be unlikely to have changed much honestly in terms of whether X group of guards are male or female (with regard to real life), but the game may have if it took huge steps away from the world it was trying to create in the first game... which is possible (and shouldn't be discounted), I havent played dishonoured 2 so i was guessing with regard to lore, its just in the first game there were no female gaurds (AFAIK/remember), then having an entire army of elite females is strange but i dont know too much about this new main enemy which could have a preference for female elite guards and had them for longer than those 15 years, one would need someone who has completed the game to judge such, and one individual who has completed it, didnt seem to find a solid lore reason for having only female elites and male standards (namely CrimsonEclipse5). Now if you want to buy the game for me, so i can do research, feel free, I will be "thorough" in my investigation, and put "investment" to good use. ^.^



(4): Its possible, but until such is released we can speculate.

(5): certainly so, I wasn't doing such, mine was merely a historical evaluation of what was occuring in comparison to what would have been the case in reality. campagne did make the jump, but i understand why, as it may be quite a stark difference to the first game, if there is only a few character models.

(6): I understand this, i tried to stay away from doing such, i merely was explaining that in the time era it was trying to be based around, the amount of such individuals was low, so one could reasonably expect not to encounter them all that often...

(7): to be fair, "diversity" doesn't sell for the sake of dirversity, just look at the new ghost busters, they tried to ram "social justice" down peoples throats whilst having horrible story and comedy, diversity can accompany a good thing and compliment it so long as it fits the world (for instance if "black people didnt exist" in a world, suddenly having 5 survivors of Y event would seem odd, as they wouldn't be mythological, but "extinct" yet they were mythological but if were established that they had been wiped out, finding a surviving group wouldn't be odd). its not a negative thing by itself but it wont improve a game or other piece of media. On the other hand, being overtly racist and sexist against current populations will negatively impact sales if they are just being racist to be racist and just being sexist to be sexist.

I'm not realistically making any determinations on the game itself, just judging from my understanding of the lore as to how the world would have been had it been "most realistic" in comparison to the approach it has taken, and then tried to give explanations for why such deviations may have occured.

i do enjoy bucthering elite guards.
the longer the better

That's actually a design and project management issue.

Shaving NPC diversity is a short and simple method for trimming back a project. The original Rise of the Triad (1994) was slated to have male and female versions of all enemies, with randomized placement. At the time, this was cut due to a technical limitation regarding memory overhead - production time wasn't an issue as all NPCs are really 2D renderings of actual employees (HR in the gaming world was still in its infancy).

Nowadays, when each NPC is fully 3D, voiced, armed, and balanced, with all of the accompanying graphical assets, building a single NPC to fill out the gallery and then diversifying it later if you have time is more likely. Sometimes you run out of time. Or the NPC just doesn't mesh with the world, and rather than redesigning, its just axed.

Somewhat ironically, earlier 3D Enemies were much easier to hand-wave as only having 1 or 2 models - they were simpler, with fewer triangles. You could even hand-wave it with baggy clothes or changing colors, and of course swapping out voice files. For guard mobs, who only speak a few lines, this can be incredibly productive. A good example of this is the Thief series and System Shock 2, both based on TLG's Dark Engine - There's basically 5 or 6 models for humanoid enemies, with 6 or 7 voices for human enemies, changing colors and textures to create a diverse gallery.

Nowadays, with ever increasing standards of quality, not so much. Everything has to be particular, and fit, and trimmed.