No, I don’t think it’s as simple as that. Politics are good in games when done right, but they can also be nothing more than a distraction when the narrative has huge errors or lacks and depth in general.
It’s the concept of pushing real world politics in games that is the problem.
Sometimes they can overlap, but they needn’t to. Some things are just obviously pushing the agendas of developers, instead of making it feel like a legit part of the game universe.
Not just in games, but often times the point of the story’s fake politics is to be a parable for real politics. But that’s also the fun of it, even if you disagree with the story’s intended message.
Elves being racist towards dwarves is acceptable in a game, but white humans being racist towards hispanic humans is “pushing agendas”?
I fault Bioware for a lot of things, but failing to invent a fantasy equivalent of the concept of gender is not one of them. Not everything needs to be moved to an otherworldly analogy just to avoid hurting the feelings of bigots.
This isn’t right either. Inserting politics into anything serves that that up for discourse, and getting people discussing and thinking critically about a topic is a fantastic achievement for any medium that delves into the subject.
It’s when partisan messages about politics are inserted into a game that poses problems. Instead, video games should explore as many takes on an issue as capable in service to the story being told. Wow, it’s terrible that the horned people are aholes to the perfectly normal looking people, but how did that come to be? Is there any historical precedent where the shoe was on the other foot? I think of Jews and how 70 years ago they were facing extermination at the hands of Germans find themselves now in the position of the exterminator. How did that happen? That’s great material for exploring politics in games, to me.
In a world that is controlled almost entirely by heteronormativity, policing straight representation in a queer-friendly game made by a queer developer does not seem like an equivalent situation at all.
Alternatively: people have gone out of their way to foster a space where LGBTQIA+ people feel comfortable. In a world full of heteronormativity, this is a bubble where they can truly be themselves. It’s one of the few places where a gay dude can flirt with another dude, without the fear of being punched in the mouth just for being gay.
And then a straight guy walks into the gay bar, and starts a fight when another dude tries to flirt with him. He starts ranting about how it’s not okay to assume he’s gay, and that he feels oppressed for being straight. He wants the heteronormativity to extend even into LGBTQIA+ spaces, despite the fact that he could go to literally any other bar in town and not have this issue. Instead, he has chosen to make a scene at the gay bar, because he’s upset it’s a gay bar.
Nobody normal complains about politics in games, what people complain about is poor writing and US cultural idiosyncratic defaultism in games. Perhaps if ESA members hadn’t laid off the lion’s share of adult writers in the room to hire cheap, overwhelmingly ignorant, uneducated and straight out of college dev teams with a superiority complex, we could get good narratives. There’s a reason why everyone and their mothers keeps harping about indie games now, that’s where the laid off talent went, they make independent games now. But it’s cheaper to take “journos” to Disneyland than keeping a roster of devs with 10+ years experience. In the past, there was already a backlash on journos for their habitual prostitution to the companies they cover but that message was quickly erased in favour of “gAmErS aRe MiSoGyNiStIc”. Now, most traditional game news outlets are owned by a handful of holding companies, and most of their articles are AI generated drivel by, you guessed it, people not holding journalism degrees. Gaming journalism has become the off ramp of untalented and incompetent language/social science majors who are too inept to actually find a job in their field. That’s why we get this level of shitty journalism, because technically, they really don’t know what being a journalist is, from the ethics standards to the reporting without inserting personal bias. No self respecting journalist chooses covering hatsune miko’s latest release when there are so many conflicts in the world that need covering, so we get Felicity, Mars and Bruno, English major extraordinaires, who end up on a dead end career with wages capping at below 40k pounds per anum that justify their lack of journalistic ethics by “It’s the perk of the profession since we don’t get well paid”.
There were more articles covering game character sexuality than the mass lay offs of the last two years that left entire families without sustenance. Then people are surprised that orange nazi cheeto gets elected by the dumb yanks? The megaphone holders for social issues have room temp level IQ. When was the last time that a “game journo” or major dev from a AAA outlet seriously addressed relevant issues like social inequality or poverty? Do yourself a favour and compare the google interest in the topics “transgender”, “hunger”, “unionization” and “lay offs” and tell me that it isn’t by design that an issue that affects an infinitesimally small percentage of the population has so much air time in comparison to an ongoing genocide and hunger crisis in the global south. I guess rich white teen problems are more serious than brown people dying. The bourgeois left has set back the class struggle for 100 years. Enjoy the hard right turn of modern western society.
Edit: Jason Schreier is a good example of how to conduct yourself, he mostly keeps his private ideas to his social media but his work focuses on more relevant issues to a majority of the population.
Both GPT4 and Gemini estimate a 3:2 ratio between articles addressing video game character sexuality and those addressing lay offs and unionization in the games industry.
I won’t continue this discussion because “Schreier’s politics come out in his writing as well as social media. The drum he’s been beating for a long time has been about labor and unionizing.” is basically what I wrote on Schreier using more words, which indicates you’re more interested in being a confrontational than engaging in an honest discussion on the topic. Enjoy the Cheeto for 4y.
If you want to talk about an honest discussion, consider the sample set you plugged into your search. You didn’t go through two years of articles on VGC or GameSpot. You plugged indiscriminate search criteria into an AI. We just had a discussion a few days ago about how mainstream media is not covering major gaming news, but if you’re reading gaming news outlets, it’s been layoffs for the past two years dominating the news. Gaming news outlets would have very little reason to ever use the word “hunger”, for instance, and “transgender” would apply to far more articles than those about fictional characters.
Ai, google trends in english, what else does one need? Even after I gave precise google trends inputs so that the observations are reproducible? Your reply proves my point yet again. Peace.
I see you have a 10 days old account. I can’t imagine why you had to create a new one… This one won’t last long, ironically you can go to r/gamergate and feel accepted.
Yes yes, whatever illusion you created in your head to make me some kind of monstrous being because I dared question the ubiquitous distortion of the class message in favour of bourgeoisie invented flags. I’m also the boogey man on my free time. It’s funny, all the replies I got fit just in line with the ones I’d get in r/conservative every time I shared climate change evidence.
But of course you’re DARED question the distortion of the class message… By complaining about diversity in video games…?
The funny thing is how everything you said so far would fit in a conservative forum, reddit or otherwise. It seems that’s where you have you go to find people agreeing with you. Should make you think (but it won’t)
You must be salty, coming back two days after. Did you practice the perfect answer in the mirror?
At least now it’s not ChatGPT! Anyway, I’m sure Bernie is not going to be bitching about too many blacks and gays in videogames (he’s not an incel after all), so I’ll assume this is yet another non argument.
What point have you raised? You bitched that there is too much diversity in games and used an LLM as proof. You mentioned a few games that had failed… So? Concord failed when overwatch was a success, with much more diversity. Hades, Persona, final fantasy rebirth, Hogwarts legacy … Those are the games I played in the past few months with much more diversity than your examples, and successful. The likes of you claimed those games were doooooooooomed and then proceeded to shut up when people played them.
Then started telling that those who disagree with you sound like redditors and conservatives and send a Sanders video. How can you complain about red herrings if everything you do is rant and go on tangents?
You’re also the one who somehow couldn’t shake this conversation for your brain and had to come back. If that’s not a sad fucking life, I don’t know what is. What a sad, miserable existence you have you have, really.
I can’t say I enjoyed this conversation even though at least I could laugh at you a bit.
The original comment is still available. At no point did I complain about diversity in games, I complained about incompetence in games and lauded indie games. I see you’re having a Quixotic moment and are arguing with a figment of your imagination. In fact, one could argue my point is the exact opposite, clumsy amateurish depictions of diversity do not do the importance of the topic justice. I understand not everyone can be as talented as Naughty Dog (Amy Henning is the GOAT) but at least something passable would be desirable. Keep fighting windmills.
I’d even consider the possibility he’s right, but not for reasons that support his argument.
Games and media present transgender and minority groups in an unobtrusive way, and bigots create 17 articles complaining about their basic inclusion for the sake of “DEI”.
Obviously that steam guy was probably coming from a place of bad faith, but the response is maybe imperfect no? This would look pretty bad if the roles were reversed I think. (genuine question I am hoping I am told why this may not be the case; I have nowhere else to ask)
Yeah the history of oppression is definitely reason to dislike those that support it, but it seems ill-fitting to have this affect all people who identify as straight no? (Not just cis straight people who don’t support that oppression but also trans straight people and other exceptions, as another commenter pointed out)
It’s okay to take context into account and not just look at it as a math problem. Targeting a minority isn’t the same as doing it to people who make up 90% of society but are whiny.
I totally agree that an unacceptable proportion of straight people are whiny about any manner of minority representation, but doesn’t this also affect straight people who are normal about this? Maybe it’d be more fitting to give a demeaning title to homophobes, eg. the steam complainer, but provide regular title to everyone else somehow? Thanks for taking the time!
I mean, are straight people who are normal about it clamoring for the title to begin with? This seems like a problem invented basically entirely by the whiners. You could just as easily say it affects gay people who want an ironic title, or straight trans people, but for obvious reasons the whiners don’t really care about that.
All that said I have no idea what the price tag means in terms of gameplay time to acquire it. If it’s unachievable without 10 hours of grinding or something that’s a little mean, but not enough that I really care.
I haven’t played the game for very long, but from what I’ve seen it would take a few hours to get to the point that you can just get a thousand bucks and blow them on a title, but it’s entirely doable. You would have to focus on upgrades anyways to start with just to get a proper income up and running, and then once you can fish with greater speed and with a greater success rate it should be fairly trivial.
Yeah a title in some fishing game definitely seems like a really strange thing to be upset about (and yeah you’re totally right that this doesn’t just affect cis straight people). I’m just saying that the presence of only that title for people who would like a regular version or don’t care about titles and just see it in passing might feel unwelcome through no fault of their own y’know? (Though obviously feeling unwelcome would be a little ironic)
I’m just saying that the presence of only that title for people who would like a regular version or don’t care about titles and just see it in passing might feel unwelcome through no fault of their own y’know?
I completely agree with this. For example, they don’t currently have a gender fluid title. Most gender fluid folks may not be clamoring for them to add the title but if they joined the game and saw that the gender fluid tag was harder to obtain for no discernible reason, was in air quotes, and had the description “mhm” I think they would feel pretty unwelcome. Also - a lot of people won’t know the context that there were people complaining about the lack of the title.
I’m sort of the opposite. Give characters sexualities! Make them people! Give them criteria by which they will or won’t find my character attractive! I feel gross when every NPC is pansexual and aggressively attracted to the main character for no reason. Then again, I’m acespec, so.
If it were me, I’d do something like not really focus on what their actual “real” sexuality is unless it is somehow relevant to the plot. Then if it is so something like make them a 1 or a 5 on the Kinsey scale instead of a 0 or a 6.
I don’t think games should be required to do, I’m not trying to force some sort of universal bi/pan agenda. I’m just saying it personally annoys me when I am locked out of pursuing a character just because of the gender I happen to be playing as because I typically don’t play games multiple times. It also annoys me when games don’t allow you to pursue all characters. Like in BG3, as far as I know, all characters are bi/pan but not all are poly. The game forced me to pick between Astarion and Karlach, for example. I put 100 hours or so into the game before I quit. I’m not willing to put over 100 more hours into it just to see what would’ve been different. It’s just a waste of my time.
An alternative approach is only having “sex scene” type content gated behind gender, but everything else can still be seen by friends. E.g., anything a character would eventually tell a lover they still tell close friends. Which is still sort of annoying but not really as bad because you can easily just look up a sex scene, but experiencing things like dialogue and special quests in game isn’t comparable to looking it up on YouTube.
I understand your perspective but I guess I just fundamentally disagree. I’d be annoyed, in the same vein as you, if every character was poly (unless they were actually poly and they had other lovers and referenced your other lovers and it was genuinely part of their identity) or if a relationship with them wasn’t different from a close friendship, besides having sex (because sex isn’t the only thing separating a close friendship from a relationship).
I guess, the way I approach the kind of game that we’re both talking about is just different. I’m not interested in exploring 100% of all the content possible, but rather having a rich experience in the content that I do explore. I’ll take an authentically written gay man and an authentically written straight girl who both won’t explore a relationship with me, over the opportunity to have more content that’s shallower. But yeah, again, thats just a different approach we both have to games.
I’m not interested in exploring 100% of content either, but I hate when games artificially block content off. For narrative reasons, I don’t care. I don’t mind the idea of mutually exclusive companions based on choices in game. But something as minor as gender at character creation? Come on now!
Obviously that steam guy was probably coming from a place of bad faith
The Steam forums actively encourage this kind of bad faith behavior:
when a post gets a new reply it’s moved to the top of the forums. So as long as people are engaging with a post, even if it’s just to make fun of a bigot, it keeps getting pushed back to the top.
Users can “award” posts for various things (helpfull, cool, funny, etc) and users have taken to giving ‘Clown’ awards as a way of making fun of posts. Whenever one of your posts gets an award, you are given Steampoints you can use in the Steam cosmetics store.
This results in every game having bad faith posts “complaining” about wokeness so that people will make fun of them with Clown awards as a way to farm Steampoints. The developer bringing attention to it just helps them get more.
Games have a large male audience and many of those males are white. When new games focus on protagonists and issues that do not resonate with white males, this aggravates the audience and it only takes a few vocal few to whip the group into toxic online behavior.
Metaphor is set in a fantasy world populated by Japanese. The characters may seem to be of a multiracial society, but it’s understood that this is not a western game but an eastern one through a western lens. It could have the most radical political discourse but as players we quietly accept that this is a foreign story and not one that reflects on western issues and prejudices.
I feel this is a bit disingenuous. The original Steam forum post said:
when straight comin out.
Calling that even a complaint is beyond me, and mocking the poster seems unnecessary. I don’t understand the intention behind this new title. As purely a joke against that forum post, I guess, but are they trying to mock straight sexuality?
If I can express my sexuality if I’m gay, why refuse that same ability if I’m not? Maybe I’m interpreting too much into it, but I don’t find it funny. I like it when people can be proudly and openly gay/trans/bi, but I don’t see why I can’t also be proudly straight. Or in other words, this game now gives me the message “if you are not LGBT, it’s not for you” which I guess is fine if that’s what they want.
you know “straight pride” is in the same category of thing as “male pride” and “white pride”, right? it’s a homophobic thing to invoke. nobody cares that you’re part of the hegemonic sexuality group, it’s not something to be proud of.
The only reason “gay pride” exists in the first place is in reaction to oppression. The straights have in no way been suppressed, and “straight pride” is nothing but a backlash to gay liberation.
Maybe we have a different view on what pride means, but I see no reason to be ashamed of being straight, the same I see no reason to be ashamed of being white, the same I see no reason to be ashamed of being gay, the same I see no reason to be ashamed of being black. LGBT+ inclusion is not the same as straight exclusion. Gay pride, from what I understand, at its core is about being proud of yourself and not having to hide your ethnicity. That goes both ways, and I sure as hell would feel like I’m being shamed for being straight in this game. Not a great message is it?
Like I’m genuinely trying to understand here. How is shaming straights helping gay pride?
Sorta. They’re pointing out the fact is the default is straight, if you want to scream it at people well that’ll cost you some money.
It’s dumb, super petty and ultimately inane as are most identity politics. I get the point to an extent but anything to either extreme gets a bit grating and irritating.
but I don’t see why I can’t also be proudly straight
Ignoring all the power dynamics reasons why this is nonsensical, what does straight pride look like to you? What exactly are you being denied in terms of self-expression or inclusion?
its ok to vilify straightness hope this helps. you are not oppressed in any way for being straight lmao. this is the “complaining about anti-white racism” of misunderstanding sexuality power dynamics. queer people are telling you to shut up and you’re doubling down on your chauvinism, consider touch-grass you suck!
Yeah and that behavior is how the queer community loses straight allies.
When you require people to vote in your favor for your personal safety and survival, maybe don’t throw shit in their face. At some point they’ll say “fuck it, you’re on your own.”
I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the Straight moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Gays’ great stumbling block in their stride toward freedom is not the Super Straight or the Super Happy Fun American, but the Straight moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes they can set the timetable for another person’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Gay to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
If you never leave the online world then the only oppression you can know is being called mean words. That’s the only way these people can justify what they’re saying. Dang, someone called you a cissy and you don’t get a little ‘straight’ title in a game? Awesome! Hope this brutal oppression keeps going!
The rightwing/gamergate side not contesting this whole issue being called “Politics in videogames” is the biggest blunder. I don’t know the best way to call this phenomenon (political preaching?) but surely there is a better phrase. Right now you can’t talk about this stuff without getting hit by “Oh, you claim to hate politics in videogames yet you love Bioshock” type retort, when the actual thing people have problems with are californian nutcases pushing their views on US political crap onto the player as if it were gospel.
What is wrong with Californian views on identity politics, when it’s not just bad writing? Is it the acknowledgement of people that are gender nonbinary?
I just dislike a lot of the studios based there (Insomniac, naughty dog, ubisoft) for how hard they try to push POC/minority representation in their games. Especially when it doesn’t make sense (black samurai)
The lead developer of Assassin’s Creed: Shadows is in Quebec. And does it not matter that it’s based on a historical figure? Consider also that in California, you’re just more likely to encounter a diverse group of people, so wouldn’t that just be representing the world around them?
Yeah fair enough, this stuff isn’t unique to Californian developers, they are just the first that come to mind.
And does it not matter that it’s based on a historical figure?
Yasuke existed in Japan but I think they went too far in making him a protagonist. As I understand it he was a curiosity that Nobunaga kept around, not a full fledged samurai. I think it’s also important to consider the current gaming landscape. There’s titles like Dragon age Veilguard, Concord, Dustborn, Forspoken, Fintlock and others coming out these days that put heavy focus on inclusion/diversity over quality (as evidenced by poor sales numbers). It’s hard to then look at an upcoming game set in historial Japan that somehow features a black protagonist and not think that they’re trying to push some weirdo agenda rather than tell a cool story.
It seems you’re the one who’s focusing more on avoiding inclusivity than in if the games are good our not.
Every year, we have a LOT of bad games, some pure thrash. You only seem concerned about those who don’t conform to your seemingly low acceptance for diversity. Sure, Concord failed because a playable character was overweight. Not a mediocre hero shooter for 40 dollars when great ones are free. Veilguard has been positively received outside of 4 Chan.
And dustborn. The fact that to are dragging an indie game already aiming to a very specific demographic shows how little you understand that not every game is made for you.
I guess this is what being a closeted bigot looks like.
Indicators are showing that Dragon Age is selling just fine. And it’s not like they get to their planning meeting and ask, “Can we spend some more time on the game design? It’s got real problems,” only to be met with, “No, we’ve got to really focus on diversity this quarter.” They’re not related. While I hardly trust Ubisoft to wow audiences with a cool story, it’s not hard to imagine the related struggles that a foreigner and a woman might have to bond over in that setting.
Naughty Dog’s most famous games (containing humans) are based around white male leads. It’s basically just Uncharted Lost Legacy and TLOU2 that have diverged from that, and not by very much.
Literally the only game of Insomniac’s I can find (outside of anthropomorphic games like Ratchet&Clank) that even leans to minorities is Spider-Man: Miles Morales, which is based on a comic character that was already popular. Even the games based around Peter were going to acknowledge he’s the type of person to work at food banks and embrace New York’s diversity; that’s the pre-existing character.
Nobody complained when Assassin’s Creed had Leonardo da Vinci hand you a tank or a glider, or a female Spartan mysthios fight mythical gods, or have London gang runners that fight in hoods from rooftops. Assassin’s Creed has always ventured into the unrealistically cinematic extensions of common historical myths, and they’re not even the first to turn Yasuke into a samurai. Netflix put out an animated series on that a while back and it was awesome.
I do not expect an answer, but I genuinely think you should quietly ask yourself the question: Are you a racist?
I’m thinking of three games specifically from these studios, TLOU2 basing the whole narrative around a woman hulk, spiderman 2 with the long story segments as Mary jane and the whole debacle on Yasuke. But yeah it’s not just these three california studios that are putting out games with this stuff, they are just the first that come to mind.
Nobody complained when Assassin’s Creed had Leonardo da Vinci hand you a tank or a glider
Yeah fair enough, people will have different lines in the sand for this stuff. I get that this series has time travel and aliens and whatever, but I think everyone can agree that if they randomly put, for example, modern sportscars into a historical setting it would be too unbelievable and ruin immersion. A massive black samurai slaughtering asians in feudal japan (and then seeing them bow down to him in another scene) has that effect for me.
(For the record I did look up on primary sources from japanese historians and everything points to the man being just Nobunaga’s pet curiosity. It helps that here’s all the shady stuff going on where the english and japanese versions of Thomas Lockley’s books say different things)
Are you a racist?
I am not. I just dislike when developers sacrifice the game’s story, quality or whatever in order to put in representation. I don’t understand why the story can’t just have a diverse cast and be done with it, right now it feels like all these studios are focusing on diversity first and foremost as a major selling point when it should be just a normal thing that doesn’t need to be highlighted
No matter how many times I reread this comment, I don’t see how this reasoning would convince anyone - including yourself - of its position. The point about translation, for instance, not only feels like a non-sequitor but ignores the wealth of subjectivity that inherently goes into translating text to other languages.
I’m not trying to reject you just out of spite; I genuinely don’t think internet arguments like this are ever “winnable” for anyone. If you come up with a better description for what it is you oppose, feel free to mention it, but otherwise, I’d say do some self-reflecting.
I want to touch up on this. The reason I didn’t write much about my claim about for Yasuke not being a proper samurai is because it is my understanding that it is the default position and thus doesn’t need to be proven by evidence. But if I was asked to provide evidence, I would link the comparison of his translated and untranslated book in this post. Since Thomas Lockley is the main source behind the myth, I think discrediting his book should be enough to also discredit Yasuke’s role as a proper samurai.
We acknowledge that the game is a work of fiction. Historical fiction, but fiction none-the-less.
If every fifth character is also black, I think there is a point that can be made about verisimilitude and taking liberties; but since we know he really existed and that there has been debate on what he did, having a work of fiction that portrays him as a samurai under Nobunga doesn’t seem unreasonable.
To compare, we know that Leonardo Di Vinci didn’t hand out guns to people or build functional flying machines - but we know he designed all sorts of stuff ahead of its time, so it kinda fits in a fictional story with him in.
But only one of those seems to draw huge amounts of complaints online… And it’s actually the less historically accurate one.
I just think it’s bizarre to have a black dude protagonist in a historical japanese setting. I’ve read through the sources on Yasuke and I think it’s a stretch to say he was like a full fledged samurai. Especially given that the biggest proponent of that theory, Thomas Lockley, made some sketchy edits between the Japanese and English version of his book on him.
I just think it’s bizarre to have a black dude protagonist in a historical japanese setting.
Why? He is a historical figure. Why does a historical figure in his historical setting feel bizarre?
I’ve read through the sources on Yasuke and I think it’s a stretch to say he was like a full fledged samurai.
Potato potato. Why him being a “full fledged samurai” even matters? The series is known to take creative liberties with history.
Seriously ask yourself why having ONE SINGULAR black protagonist in a series where protagonists have so far been overwhelmingly white feels like “black people getting pushed into games”.
Because to me, it sounds like you have seen too many opinions of people getting outraged and because of that you internalized their views without asking yourself why they (and now you) feel the way they do.
Why? He is a historical figure. Why does a historical figure in his historical setting feel bizarre?
Why him being a “full fledged samurai” even matters?
This is just difference in opinion. For you it’s OK. I get that this series is only very vaguely based on history but this is a step too far for me.
Seriously ask yourself why having ONE SINGULAR black protagonist in a series where protagonists have so far been overwhelmingly white
Why MUST they make the main character in a 1580’s japanese setting black? The series hasn’t had a single asian protagonist. Couldn’t they have chosen a black history setting if this is what they wanted?
Say what you will, but implementing all manners of tags so users can express themselves, just to specifically leave out one is exclusion. “Move aside, heteros, this is our game!”.
You can argue that they deserve it, that the developer has no obligations, that they are represented everywhere else and that they should play those game instead, but it remains exclusion.
You got a few downvotes, but you’re not wrong. Another issue is if you have tags for everything except being straight, then it sort of implies that being straight is the default “normal” option, and everyone else has to go out of their way to designate themselves as not normal. It’s something that should be left up to the users to choose, instead of having a default.
Sort of like if you had race tags for everything except “white”, it would imply that being white was the expected norm, and everyone else has to mark themselves as outside the norm. Or for a more forced-binary example, what if a game had a “woman” tag, but no other gender tags? It would heavily imply that the expected default is “man”, and every woman (or really anyone who doesn’t explicitly identify as a man) has to self-select.
That being said, it’s a queer game made by queer devs for queer people. They can do whatever the hell they want with it. Not every space is meant for straight people; Queer people have often been required to go out of their way to form their own communities and spaces to avoid judgement from straight people. Demanding a “straight” tag feels a little like a straight dudebro walking into a gay bar and getting pissed when dudes flirt with him. No dudebro, you’re the one who is wrong here, because you have literally every other bar in town to go to instead. You don’t need to encroach on the gay bar, because it’s likely the only place gay people have that is truly “their” place.
Apart from them straights not being a Monolith, I feel there is a difference between not being represented and being actively excluded. You know, one is bad and one is worse.
You can and should leave a “Need a ____ tag” at the forum then. Don’t know why the article is so snarky about that, the poster of that seemed reasonable enough on the first 2 pages.
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Aktywne