In my experience that loophole has not worked for a long time. I have never been able to redeem gifts from friends in a low-cost region while I'm outside of the country. Even though my Steam account is also based in that same region.
Gamers have gotten quite lucky so far that the company that has been in the position to turn the screws and establish a monopoly has been content to only make gobs of money, instead of trying to make all the money like pretty much every other entertainment industry.
No, sorry, I'm not willing to play your stupid little word game where you try to semantically differentiate a demographic from the "ideology" that that demographic meaningfully exists and should have the right to pursue happiness in society.
The set of ideas that you refer to includes the ideas that transgender people exist as transgender, and non-binary people exist as non-binary.
Your previous comments implied that there was a difference in type between the inclusion of women or people of colour, and the inclusion of trans of non-binary people.
There is a difference in magnitude of the controversy. But not a difference in type. Something can be more or less controversial, but it's still the same type of controversy.
I dunno, being a man, woman, or black person isn't political.
I agree, they should not be, but people still try and make them political.
Trans, non-binary, etc is
No. Absolutely not. Trans people and non-binary people are types of people who exist. Exactly the same as men, women, people of colour, and so forth. They are no more or less political than those other types of people. People still make them political, but that's exactly the same thing as with other groups.
My earlier analogy was about having a pro-life/pro-choice option forced on you, but I guess to make it more accurate it would be more like the game just telling you that you're pro-life as part of your character settings? Because it's not just putting the politics in the game, it's taking a strong side. Again, rightly or wrongly, I can see why some people would reset that in their escapism.
You are mistaken. There is no political opinion here. None is being asked for, and none is being assigned. The character creator having additional options is just allowing players to make trans or non-binary characters. This isn't asking you for a political opinion, it's simply adding options to create more types of characters.
Which is why the bigots are upset. Because they don't think those types of characters should be allowed to be made.
Not really a good example. A more apt example is if these people were getting angry that the character creator allowed a player to create a woman, or a person of colour. The game offering you a choice of pronouns is not asking you for a political opinion, it's literally just an option to create a type of character that these people don't think should exist.
And that's the crux of it, they aren't angry about pronouns, they're angry about trans and non-binary people becoming normalised.
Because it's not actually about the pronouns. These people aren't actually angry about pronouns.
They're angry about trans and non-binary people. They're angry that people are growing to accept these people, who they do not think should be accepted. They are angry that a group they don't think is normal, is being accepted as normal.