| Louie said: I have not followed the Battlefield discussion so I can't comment on that. I'm not offended by stuff like The Last of Us DLC, I never cared in real life either whether my friends are straight or bi or gay, why would that bother me? I think what annoys me is when a game, book or movie postulates its creator's political agenda as being "correct" or superior. Basically, what you did in this thread: Framing the other side as being wrong right from the start, thus stopping any discussion from happening. I don't want to be lectured by people, neither from the left nor from the right. If a game portrayed national socialism as superior I'd be in an uproar. I think the real problem is that people both on the left and the right are so stuck up in their way of thinking that they can't see when the other side has a point. You could clearly see it in the discussion about big tech companies banning some right-wing people from their platforms a little while ago. If leftists had been banned, the roles would be reversed with the left clamouring for freedom of speech and the right saying these are private companies. Same here: The conservatives complain about Battlefield and the leftist defend it. If Battlefield portrayed the first wave of feminists during WWII as stupid (or had in-game discussion about female soldiers answered with "women are too weak to serve!"), the roles would be reversed. No side has the moral high ground, but lots of people from both sides act as if they had it. And that annoys me because it has no place in most games or movies. |
The problem is when people see politics when there isn't any. Yes, EA execs brought up misogyny and so on, but even before they said anything, when the trailer first came out, people were accusing DICE of being left-winged for having a woman as one of the main characters. Like, wtf? Representing people other than white cis hetero males is not a question of political view, it's just representativity. We shouldn't be attributing sides and polarizing something that just shows us how diverse we are as a species. I can't wrap my head around how someone opposes the thought of having different ethnicities, genders, sexualities et cetera represented.
The videogame industry is so far behind when it comes to diversity. While we have films such as Call Me by Your Name or Moonlight winning Oscars, I can't remember a single big game where the main character was gay. Just look at last year's TGA. In the main categories, all games with fixed main characters follow the same pattern regarding them: 1) If they're human, they're white. 2) If they have a partner, it's from the opposite sex. Both topics are true for 100% of all main characters in games with a fixed main character (no physical appearance customization other than clothing) running for GOTY, Game Direction, Narrative, Art Direction, Score/Music and Audio Design.
