Equating modding a game to real life tolerance by a handful of people is an absolutely ridiculous comparison. There are always going to be people that are going to feel that way. Trying to force diversity pushes the people who are open to idea away.
I'm not fool enough to think that I can change a bigot's mind by having a trans character in a game. That character is not really for them.It's for the people who will listen, for the people who are possessed of reason. Those people will come to know of certain struggles through art, possibly being exposed to stories and, thus, ideas that they never imagined and considered.
That character is also for the marginalized. To remind them that they can be heroes. To remind them that they matter. To remind them that they are not invisible or unwanted. We don't get these things if we don't push for them, advocate for them, and fight for them. I believe that these things are valuable enough that we have a very moral prerogative to demand them.
Asking this question in the best possible faith: how do you feel about when actors of color portray white characters? For example, Kratos is voiced by an African American. You also bring up Nadine Ross in Uncharted 4, yet a fairly major character in that is also an elderly white woman portrayed by a much younger African American actress.
The fact that examples such as these are few and far between perhaps helps make your point, but the question is--is it a matter of representation in actors, or should actors' race/gender (I recognize gender poses different questions than race) be a limiting factor in roles they can or cannot play? If actors of all races were equally represented behind the scenes, would race still matter in voice casting? I'd hate to think we'd lose out on Phil LaMaar's Samurai Jack if so, or is an African American actor portraying a Japanese character also problematic?
In many ways, yes! When you consider the limited roles that Asian actors and actresses have access to (or tend to have access to), it is definitely a problem. Marginalized people are consistently denied access to a broader culture and economy and are left to compete with each other while those with privilege have no such barriers. In fact, those with authority count on this competition as one of the things that will keep them in their position of authority.
As for the initial question: because of the deluge of systemically persistent obstacles that marginalized folk must deal with I don't think you can compare, say, a black actor taking a white role to a white woman taking up the performance of a black woman. Consider the economics of it all. Whatever hypothetical white man was in contention to get the role of Kratos before Terrance Carson got the gig probably has a wider pool of potential jobs (and statistically higher paying ones) than Carson would have if he did not get the part. Laura Bailey and Jen Hale need work, sure. We all do. But they're both highly seasoned voice actresses with plenty of opportunities before them whereas I promise you than a transman actor trying to pull down work does not.
"If we cannot find a place for minorities in our fantasies, how will we ever find a place for them in our reality?" People's inability to separate fantasy from reality still shocks me to this day. What an over exaggerated question.
But it's not. If people bend over backwards, going so far as to mod a trans character out of their game because they are morally repulsed by their existence, how can I ever expect them to find a modicum of tolerance for me or my brothers and sisters?
@theht: Someone gave a hypothetical, to which I gave an answer informed by my experience; it has been my experience that (in a broad sense) consumers fundamentally misunderstand the nature of labor when it comes to dictating who has control over a piece of art.
Worse, they have uncomfortably loose notions of what constitutes suppression or censure. Among the things often misunderstood is the role of criticism and review. Hard criticism against a game isn't a call for it to be altered or any type of judgement of anything other than the game itself.
When you critique, you make qualitative statements. That's just how it goes. It should be fundamentally understood by a reader that these statements are from a single, personal lens of interpretation. It is a mistake for critical thoughts to be full of gratuitous vacillations because timid criticism is poor criticism.
I think that mindset downplays, or even disregards wholecloth, other factors that might influence a creative decision that are besides creativity. There can be integral nuance to that sort of situation, which is unduly squashed out in the process of reducing any change to just another creative call.
I've actually been on that side of things when I worked as a designer. I was on a title that received pushback for certain stereotypes. The reality is that it still came down to a creative choice to respond to the criticism and implement changes or not. This will only be complicated in the case of large corporate mandates but that power dynamic is generally understood at the start of development in a contract with the publisher. In theory, this applies to shareholders too but I can't think of a case where a shareholder meeting altered game content. At least not off the top of my head.
The philosophical answer here is that, broadly, we are only ever under authority that we consent to. At least, when it comes to creative engagements. The practical answer is that development tends to account for the possibility of such criticisms and changes during the process, while a developer is never subject to any necessary obligation to change their game outside of the exceptions above.
(For the record, the game's content remained unchanged.)
You can absolutely wring a message out of literally anything, game or not, but that doesn't make it always reasonable to do so, nor does it automatically ascribe any particular message to the thing in question.
Sure. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Except when it's also not. Products of labor, particularly art, can be many things at once. Most of those things are not intentional. Sometimes they can even be contradictory!
The authoritative imprinting of personal interpretations onto the very fibres of a work is inherently egotistical and domineering.
And yet we all do this unconsciously during almost every moment of play. Semiotics is a massive part of experiencing a game. Or any art for that matter.
@spaceinsomniac: I hope you forgive any typos and such. I'm on my phone and just stopped for a moment.
The decision is always in the hands of the developer. In the hypothetical you put forward, I'd personally be against changes. But it isn't my call to make ultimately. Developers have changed game content due to religious concerns before. Big example being Ocarina of Time's change to the Fire Temple's music.
I think consumers have a misunderstanding about how much control or ownership they have over a game. In most cases, they confuse the fact that they will buy a game or have bought a game with a mindset that gives them authorship over the game. Which isn't the case. BioWare, for instance, didn't have to change Mass Effect 3. Consumers didn't have any ownership over it. They didn't own the game, they owned a copy of the game.
Short version: it is always up to the devs. It is certainly not up to gamers or consumers. And if a developer does change something after an outside group says something, they are not being creatively suppressed because that change is also a creative decision.
Just wondering if sometimes a loot shooter is just a loot shooter.
They can be and you can definitely treat them that way and get plenty of enjoyment out of them. That's totally valid! Sometimes, that's what people need after a long day of work. To just play something.
Still, very few games are without politics. Arguably none, given that they are works of labor but outside of that even a game like checkers has politics. It's fine to ignore what The Division might be saying (or any other game for that matter) but it doesn't stop the game from saying something, intentionally or as a consequence of its design.
@halexandra64: Should we also ban movies from Tarantino because deaths in his movies are often presented withouth any real moral or ethical issues? ...i just believe in the freedom of expression and not censoring stuff because it doesnt suit your particular set of moral values.
I don't think I ever said anything about banning games or censoring anything. Listen, I get it. You have strong feelings about this stuff and it's easy to look at critique as something more than it is. At the end of the day, The Division is a perfectly fun game and if you just want to log in and run a mission with your pals, more power to you! :D
What i take offence to in these kinds of articles is the implicit statement that people who enjoy any form of entertainment that differs from the authors own set of moral values is simply doing stuff the "wrong way".
It should put your mind at ease when I tell you that there is no such thing as a wrong way to play a game. I'm making a judgement on a piece of art; I have no intention (or right) to judge anything else.
@corvidus: Alpha Protocol is probably up there in terms of examining the overreach of government while also leaving the player free to give into their darker desires. Deus Ex gets there, if a bit fantastically in the original. Human Revolution can be read as fairly critical of corporate and capital privilege. Dragon Age: Inquisition, particularly its final DLC, deal with questions about what it means to wield a significant amount of political power. Morrowind is comparable in examining religious authority.
Outside of this line of thought, I actually think Red Dead Redemption is a very good AAA title when it comes to morality. The "I Know You" side mission is a very tightly focused microcosm of what that game wants to say.
Binary Domain is a good game as well insofar as its concern about what is or is not human makes us ask questions about digital entities. As an example: that game has you shooting tons and tons of robots before giving you a robotic squadmate. Heck, mechanically, it functions a lot like The Division does but it uses those mechanics (like the ability to talk to squadmates using the Kinect) to make points while also letting you fight crazy bosses and stuff!
I point out that last part because I'm afraid people reading might get the idea that I'm against big, action fill shooter games but I'm not. Hell, right now I'm blasting people away in the Doom Beta. It's cathartic and there's no bigger message. Not everything has to! But I've also see titles (like those above) that have offered amazingly fun play while also asking me to contemplate strong themes and concepts. So it's not zero sum. It's not "have fun" or "have meaning". You can have both!
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