The sjw review by eurogamer on Kingdom Come: Deliverance

[DonFerrari]

nuckles87 said:
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.

One can't be sure if the review will make silly remarks or problematization.

But I do agree with you that any review can look at political or social aspects of the game or gamemaking, as long as they make sense.

JWeinCom said:

DonFerrari said:

So you want to argue just so you can accuse the OP of something?

Yes.  I wanted to point out that the OP took parts of the quote out of context.  And that's precisely what I did.  

not out of context, the context of the OP is the same from the review.

And even the full quote makes nothing... it just say that there were some places and events in europe that had participation of black people and that "perhaps in that specific area there may have been one that stayed overnight". The justification is total bullocks.

SuperNova said:

haxxiy said:

Since you mention Marco Polo, it would have been worth noting he and his relatives were literally the only italians Kublai Khan had ever seen in its entire lifetime; and Yuan China was actually at one end of the silk road, and was a world power on trading, diplomacy etc., unlike Bohemia. So, the chances do not look that great for a 16 square km piece of land somewhere in the middle of Central Europe.

And the Black Death was transmitted from the turkic / mongolic peoples through the Eastern Roman Empire and the Pontic Steppe, by means of invasion (some even outright mention biological warfare, such as throwing infected dead bodies over walls on sieges) and only then to the rest of Europe, not direct cultural contact, which was basically closed to Europe ever since the arabs dominated most of the Mediterranean.

On heart, though, this whole thing is not a debate over historical accuracy, but trying to impose a poltical statement even against overwhelming odds it is something factual. People's feelings are involved as well, since it was OK not to be minorities among the rural Spain RE4 zombies, but those absolutely had to exist instead on RE5 on a similar context, transposed to Sub-Saharian Africa.

Yes?

What I'm saying is they clearly didn't want to make diversity a priority, or they would have chosen a diffrent 16 square km piece of european land. And AGAIN it's fine that they didn't.

If they wanted to tell a diverse historically accurate story, the options are there. They didin't take these options, because it didin't fit with what they wanted to do. That's ok. It has however all to do with design decisions and very little with historical accuracy.

So we are in agreement in so far as I also don't think this debate is about historical accuracy. I'm also not trying to impose anything. The only thing I am saying is that instead of using an excuse of historical accuracy 'We didn't want to' should be sufficient enough explanation.

One aside about the black death point: European cultural contact and trade with Arabs was well established by the time and it was by no means only indirect and by invasion. Heck there was a sizable enough Arab population in Spain that the Spanish King (who was technically austrian) had to establish diplomatic relationships with them, since they were the former ruling class.

Nope, again. The way it is (since it would be a very very very specific scenario for it to be historically right, but still have a female protagonist or black NPC) is that they would have to force a situation where that would be accurate... but if someone wants to tell a story using black people it would be more practical to use something from Africa history books.

You fail to see it isn't an excuse, it was a decision to portray a period.