The sjw review by eurogamer on Kingdom Come: Deliverance

[nuckles87]

Video games are an art form. As such, video games inherently have political elements in them, whether you like them or not. These political elements aren’t even NEW, and have been in games for as long as games have been advanced enough to have them.

Missile Command was about the futility and hopelessness of nuclear war. In the 80s SEGA produced an arcade game called “I’m Sorry”, which was blatant political commentary on the corruption surrounding Japan’s then-Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka. SEGA’s own mascot starred in a game where he fights to protect the environment from a greedy human (one of Sonic’s early shows even took that environmental message and made it a central theme). And do I even need to bring up the Metal Gear Solid series and its commentary on war, nuclear weapons and private military contractors?

But nevermind the games that have political messages woven into them, ALL games can be viewed in a socio-political context, because all games inherently carry with them the worldview of their creators (or, at the very least, all games with a story/characters). As such, the criticism of games from a political perspective should not only be expected, it’s a GOOD thing, because it brings attention to culturally problematic aspects of video games, and gives the creators a chance to correct or avoid them in the future.

And as with all criticism, just because a critic has a political issue with a game doesn’t mean you should feel bad for liking that game. Heck, plenty of people are able to love video games in SPITE of the issues they may have with a game’s politics. I’m not a big fan of the male gaze framing in the Bayonetta series. But not only did I buy both games AGAIN on the Switch last week, they also rank as my favorite action games, period.

And as with anything, not all criticism is smart. The way this review takes Kingdom Come to task seems like it’s taking a magnifying class to something that, at best, seems only slightly problematic. I’ve only seen a few of Anita Sarkeesian’s videos, but the ones I have seen use examples that are so poor that they undermine the valid points they are trying to make.

If you don’t care about the political aspects of games, then don’t read the reviews that touch on them. But this is an aspect of gaming criticism that there needs to be MORE of, not less, even if that means more silly reviews like this one.