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

Okay, well, aside from my first two paragraphs everything was addressed to OP/the topic in general, not you specifically.

2. From what I understood with my whole 5 minute skim through the Dishonored universe, the world was actually inspired by a couple different settings combined. Including a modern setting, where an even split of male:female characters wouldn't be weird (and especially not women being only 25% of what appears to be the enemy models in the game, judging by that one screenshot.) So 19th century London could've been the most sexist period and location in our entire world's history. Wouldn't matter for Dishonored, 'cause it doesn't take place in 19th century London.

(Like the For Honor thing. Yeah, FH vikings aren't like our vikings, FH knights aren't like our knights, etc. But that's cool, because there was never a point in time where our vikings, knights, and samurai all gathered around and started killing each other for funsies. I don't remember ever seeing someone say [insert a balance issue in For Honor here] is part of a political agenda by the developers...)

3. Yeah I don't think the elite guard thing would be such a big deal if Dishonored went the same route to start with. Insignus brings up a solid point though - it could just be that the developers were working with what they had. I'm starting to think that's the right situation; the OP gave me the impression there were a solid 20+ models and all elite guards were all chosen to be women. (Now THAT would need a good explanation!) But naw, if it's just a case of "we didn't have time to add more models" everything suddenly falls into place. It's not uncommon for sequels to represent the same enemies as earlier games in an entirely different way, either. Sooo I don't think that research is worth investing in

4-6. Indeed. My point was essentially that there are a lot of reasons the characters could have turned out the way they did. It's kiiiiinda weird when someone goes straight to thinking it's a political reason without considering other reasons and why they don't think those reasons would be valid. Going to For Honor for example: that game has a lot of [dishonorably] knocking people off ledges to kill them. One could go straight to "Oh it's this deep and meaningful symbolism of what it means to be honorable!!!", but that sounds silly - are they sure it wasn't just because the game design's got some glaring issues?

7. I meant more from a marketing perspective (and honestly I cannot think of a single time where attempts to market a game or movie actually improved the game or movie - at best it doesn't affect the quality of the product at all.) Advertisers are starting to learn that when some people hear, say, "Look! It's a game set in a world vaguely similar to London a couple hundred years back!", their game gets ignored by certain groups of people. But if those same people hear, "Look! It's a game where a black woman is important to the story and the elite soldiers are women!" they start to think, "Ooh, a game with an important black woman, we're overdue for one of those" and start looking into the game.

The new Ghostbusters is an excellent example. So what if the movie was bad? Nearly everyone knew about it; some people were excited about the lead characters being women, others... very clearly weren't. But both of them were talking about the movie and people that wouldn't normally care about... reboots? (was it?) suddenly know all about Ghostbusters and when it was coming out because people wouldn't stop talking about it. Imagine the success it would have had if people watched it and told everyone it was really well written!

This is what I'm saying.

The developers seem to be baiting for people that don't even play a lot of videogames using social "justice"/politically "correct" narratives.

2) Im judging current on the position of the wiki (i would need sources to displace my current position) the only other "time frame" that i know was considered was the 17th century AFAIK. You note "an even split between male and female wouldn't be weird" in a modern world, maybe in a non-combat enviroment, but soldiers are predominantly male even today. thats not taking into account the fact that they still use melee weapons which would highly favor male soldiers. That said, it would be more understandable if the modern world was a factor in the setting (as there is growing acceptance at the idea of female soldiers). on the other hand we could consider them not to be soliders but police officers which in the US (as far as i know) there is currently an 80% male to 20% female split which is pretty close to the in game break down (and since these are usually guarding something this may be a more applicable idea) as such if it was based around a more modern view, atleast for the second game, this could account for it.

They didn't bring up balance issues, but there was a ****storm related to the historical inaccuracies (and historic accuracy was my focus).

3) Oh i noted that its probably just easier for the developers just for different reasoning, I wasn't sure of the designing side of characters as such i didn't really comment too much on it. I would myself agree with him here too.

4-6) Granted. Frankly for honour messed up, they didn't involve ending thy foe rightly by throwing thy pommel and the only honourable death, is to die rightly by thrown pommel (if you understand the reference *high5*).

7) the problem with that though, is that such groups who are attracted by "politically correct ideologies" are not realistically going to be those who are interested in the media. One can be sure that an individual attracted to games set in the late 19th century with stealth mechanics, will be attracted to games of that type, there is no way to ensure that games involving a strong back character will obtain the interest of either gamers or games interested in this particular type of game. the ghost busters film is a great example why this sort of thing fails, yes a ton of people heard about it, but absolutely no one attended, the film crashed and burned because the quality of the film was neglected in favour of attempting to be politically correct.

So... you don't like it when people with different genitals are the main focus? Really, Campagne? Is that really you??

No, it's their differing set of genitals that's the focus that I don't like.

Edit: Nobody twist that! You all know what I mean.

Well, since Campagne has clearly established that he is in fact a scumlord, I declare this discussion officially concluded

*applause*

Pretty sure he means that he doesn't like the focus based on said subject.

Nope, it's official, even Campagne gave the thumbs up on it. lol..

I did so as a joke.

LaughingDead is correct, I don't care that the spotlight is on women, I care that the spotlight is on them because they're women.

Or so I would think.

No take-backsies Campagne, you know the rules.

PC is alive and breading, and you're right to be concerned about it.

I remember when the people wanted to change the word Deaf to Hearing Impaired.
Not sure who exactly the word was supposed to be offending........
That was an example of random people who have no idea wtf theyre talking about sticking their noses into some1 elses business, which is all PC really is tbh. Im glad the Deaf people put their feet down tbh, good move.


Excert from https://www.nad.org/resources/ameri...unity-and-culture-frequently-asked-questions/

Hearing-impaired – This term is no longer accepted by most in the community but was at one time preferred, largely because it was viewed as politically correct. To declare oneself or another person as deaf or blind, for example, was considered somewhat bold, rude, or impolite. At that time, it was thought better to use the word “impaired” along with “visually,” “hearing,” “mobility,” and so on. “Hearing-impaired” was a well-meaning term that is not accepted or used by many deaf and hard of hearing people.
For many people, the words “deaf” and “hard of hearing” are not negative. Instead, the term “hearing-impaired” is viewed as negative. The term focuses on what people can’t do. It establishes the standard as “hearing” and anything different as “impaired,” or substandard, hindered, or damaged. It implies that something is not as it should be and ought to be fixed if possible. To be fair, this is probably not what people intended to convey by the term “hearing impaired.”

So in thinking they were doing right, these PCers actualy created a derogatory phrase, /golf clap.....

Naw. To summarize what I've been saying (I realize I type a lot): there are a million reasons the characters could have the traits they do. It's really weird to pick one specific reason that, although possible, is very unlikely; and stick to it without investigating other options.

I dunno where this "don't even play a lot of videogames" thing comes from though. I'll probably just wonder about that below because doomed brought it up too... ???

2) According to dishonored.wikia.com:
"The world of Dishonored consists almost entirely of water, aside from the Isles, a group of islands in the northwest region of the world. There is also the Pandyssian Continent, a giant land mass to the southeast of the Isles.
...
Harvey Smith describes the aesthetic of Dishonored as "retro-future-industrial", combining influences from 17th century England, modern Orwellian dystopia, and anachronistic technology. This presents itself as spindled armatures, walls of light, and buggy-like vehicles."
Doesn't exactly make me think of London a couple hundred years back.

4-6) For Honor's first mistake was their server architecture. Their second mistake was not hiring Skallagrim.

7) Well first about the Ghostbusters thing: it was poorly written from what I've gathered. It would've continued to be poorly written regardless of who was cast. We can see in other movies that didn't have enough "PC", such as Ghost in the Shell, that they can also be complete disasters (at least domestically.) It's almost as if there are multiple roles and people working on a single movie and a failure from any of them can hurt the movie. But sure, let's go straight to "political correctness." Again.

But about people consuming media: People aren't so predictable and it's been well known for a long time that, while placing people into groups is convenient and efficient, it loses precision (saying "people attracted to stealth games set in the 19th century will all like a game with exclusively white people" is just as wrong as saying "people who disagree with Dishonored 2's characters are all severely racist dudes and there's no point in talking to them".)

I can't speak for everyone obviously, so using me as an example: I never got into Dishonored (clearly, since I've mentioned that in previous posts.) I figured there's no point in me getting another game where a white dude goes around sneaking, shanking, and shooting generic enemies. I already own Deus Ex: Human Revolution! But now that I've been looking into Dishonored more, I'm thinking I might get Dishonored 2 (probably when it's on sale) at some point. It provides something new and isn't as heavily inspired by a more primitive time (VS for life!) as I was led to believe. They'll get more money from me than they would have if they stubbornly stuck with the "everyone important to the story is a white dude" idea that tens of thousands of other games (including DXHR) have. So yes, it does create interest. Does it create enough interest in enough people to be worthwhile? Evidently, or this thread wouldn't exist.

But video game publishers are a strange bunch and most have their heads up their ***. So the question is: are they deliberately forcing games to have a diverse cast to manipulate an audience they've been ignoring this whole time? Doubtful; you can see when publishers try to manipulate money out of people. They call it "Evolve". It's more likely they're just finally relaxing their restrictions on characters that aren't white men and developers that wanted to add different characters are starting to be able to. (And if you don't think publishers pass on games just because of the characters, ask the developers of Remember Me how easy it was for them to get their game published.)

I haven't played Dishonored 2, but I honestly don't care if games are pretty much filled with sausage/taco fest so long as the characters, story and gameplay are great. You can have a SJW with pink green ombre but has a great personality and great character in game, I personally wouldn't care.

What most people don't seem to realize is that about half of gamers are female. We may not necessarily play the same games, same genre or same platforms as males, but we're there playing video games as well. I think developers (which surprise surprise some are also females) are starting to realize that the market is growing and expanding outside the male demographic. With that said, the developers will be trying to make characters so that their new audience can relate to, which isn't surprising to see a more diverse characters in game. One of the reasons why imho character creation is a lot more important nowadays

Besides, video games on the narrative, visual and audio side are a form of art. It really shouldn't matter imho what the orientation, identity, background, race and preference of the characters as long as they are great, well thought out. well written and well executed.

That may be so, but in my own opinion, they seem pretty convenient given the ridiculous differences. Even just sticking with Meagan, she's still the only (surviving) disabled character in the entire Dishonoured universe as far as I'm aware. --Having played a little further into Dishonoured 2, I can see there actually are some other black characters, but they're relatively uncommon and have thus far played entirely insignificant roles. (Low-ranking enemies and civilians.)

It's mostly just a demographic thing. Women for example, rarely play PC games, typically preferring casual mobile games instead. (If one could count those as the same general category of entertainment media.) That already cuts a huge chunk of them out of the way. Furthermore, Dishonoured 1 & 2 aren't exactly the top played games of any given year, so they wouldn't have a huge following of anyone comparatively.

On top of that, try as one might it can be nearly impossible to avoid killing anyone, even in the second game which grants a far greater number of non-lethal options to the player. The games are primarily about killing, and they do that aspect very well; The kills are gruesome and satisfying.

To put it bluntly, I don't think the politically "correct" crowd has the constitution to play games like these front to back.

If you think you'd be interested in the game then go for it, but I would recommend playing the first one over the second if you could only play one. Additionally, the second game is very poorly optimized. I don't think I can get 60FPS while crouched down staring at the ground on the minimum settings with a fairly beefy computer.

Really though, if you do decide you want to give either a try, do wait for a sale.

Hello! You've just been issued a citation for [Heresy] regarding your mention of [Ghost in the Shell (2017)]. While we appreciate your interest, the quality of this [movie] is sufficiently [Terribad Claptrap garbage] that any mention under any circumstance can potentially alter critical and cultural perceptions when indexed by search engines. Please refrain from referring to its [plot-holes][rampant non-canonical individualism][bastardization of pronouns and proper nouns][lack of accurate setting][rampant source material deviations][inappropriate casting justifications that ignore canonical justifications] in the future!

Thank you,
Have a nice day!


Back on topic.

I would love to evaluate y'all's arguments as to Dishonored 2 directly using thoughtful, well rounded arguments.

Unfortunately, 7 months later, I can still only play it in 15 minute slices, so anything beyond the first level is beyond my ability to evaluate. As politically correct as you are alleging them to be, I think you are all ignoring the far greater sin of Graphical Discrimination against the AMD user by the oppressive cabal of the Nvidia crowd.

Or perhaps we can instead have a deep, thoughtful discussion, with some Tea and our professor jackets, about the meaningful sociological dialectic of how Bethesda has ******, ******, ****** QA and studio relationships that are sub-par at best.

It says a great deal when you're a AAA publisher and you've fallen behind even Paradox.

At least with Paradox games, nowadays, its only a 15% chance of a glitchy, borked release.

With Bethesda, I don't even bother any more. If it ain't 2 years old and on sale, I don't want it.