Edit:

Well it seems like people here don’t agree with me. OK.

I’m locking this post now as the very thing that I said happens has happened. Right here. I was called a bigot for being against DEI.

Calling people racists or bigots and/or claiming harassment when those people call You out and then screaming VICTIM is simply unacceptable

Most of you have also proved my very first point for my far more effectively than I ever could

Being a gamer on the internet in 2024 is not a very pleasant experience.

Which unless you conform to the beliefs of the very loud and vocal minority is unfortunately a fact of life 2024.

The hard leftists have decided they own the internet and gaming industry and everyone else who dares oppose them is not welcome.

Being a gamer on the internet in 2024 is not a very pleasant experience.

You either support DEI in games or you’re a racist bigot. There’s no middle ground.

What happened to the days when we could talk about the games we like without having to worry if we are ALLOWED to like a certain game?

If I was proclaim my support for Suicide Squad kills the Justice League the right wing gamers would yell at me. If I was to say I didn’t like Suicide Squad Kills the Justice League the left wing gamers and the journalists would yell at me.

There’s no way to win.

My person opinion is all politics, racial issues and gender identity should be left out of games and writers should create the stories that they want to create without worrying if they have enough white or black or gay or trans characters. As long as the story is good and the gameplay is good and the characters are well developed most people don’t care what colour the main character is or if they’re gay or not.

But in 2024 that just isn’t the world we live in anymore.

The developers and journalists seem to have decided that gamers are the enemy and will be told what to like and if they push back they are branded as taking part in harassment campaigns.

So the gaming industry crashing and having to start again probably wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.

I’m tired of being told what to like and what not to like by developers, journalists and other gamers on both sides of the arguments.

I’ve been a gamer for 34 years and I don’t have any desire to buy any new games or support any developer for the foreseeable future and that makes me sad.

I love playing games and I loved talking about games but things have changed and it’s no longer fun.

  • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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    5 months ago

    This is an extremely terrible post, to the point that I’m going to directly counter each statement you’ve made.

    If you don’t support DEI, you are in fact a bigot. Getting triggered because you see a black person in a fantasy video game is in fact wildly racist.

    You are allowed to like games. You’re also allowed to be properly shit on if you express racist views. I’m not sure of any game in recent years you aren’t “allowed” to like, that’s vague bullshit.

    I am left-wing, and I truly couldn’t give a shit if you like Suicide Squad or not. I really don’t see what the point of that statement is.

    This next statement, where you say that you want to leave all politics, gender identity, and racial issues out of gaming, is perhaps the absolute worse take you’ve made thus far and is extremely dangerous.

    1. Everything is political, especially gaming. Some of the most classic gaming series of all time have heavy political messaging, from the anti-war, anti-imperialist Metal Gear Solid series, to the anti-capitalist Fallout series, to the anti-libertarian Bioshock series, and so forth. Gaming cannot be separated from politics whatsoever.

    2. Artists are not worrying if they have “enough” inclusivity. Artists include diverse casts because they want to, and it only fits your narrative and fragile worldview if you imagine BIG TRANS is forcing everyone to abide by them. Lunacy. A good example is Celeste, a famous trans-positive game, made by a transwoman.

    3. You’re correct, most people do not get triggered if they see a gender, sexual, or ethnic minority in games, but you seem to be.

    Racist and anti-LGBT gamers that hide behind this narrative of forced inclusivity that doesn’t exist and just get triggered when Artists and writers tell the stories they want to tell are in fact the enemy.

    You don’t really love games if you stop loving them as soon as more gay, trans, and black people appear in them and the extremely boring era of eternal white male with brown hair and scruffy beard protagonists is finally coming to a close, as marginalized people begin to take more jobs in the gaming industry to better represent the population as a whole.

    Rethink yourself, you’re going down a horrible path.

    • MaddieTian@lemmy.zipOP
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      5 months ago

      If you don’t support DEI, you are in fact a bigot.

      This is the problem. You used the word FACT instead of “in my view you are a bigot.”

      You’ve decided you’re RIGHT and I’m WRONG and that simply isn’t your call to make.

      Thanks for proving my point for me.

      • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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        5 months ago

        I used the word fact because I am indeed correct. If you don’t like seeing black people in a fantasy video game, it’s because you hate black people. You’re arguing against artistic freedom because you want to only see white people, lmao

        • MaddieTian@lemmy.zipOP
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          5 months ago

          Did I say I don’t like seeing black people in games?

          Did I say I only want to see white people in games?

          I didn’t, you know I didn’t but you CHOSE to play those cards and make blatantly false claims.

          You think you effectively call people racist with impunity.

          You can’t.

      • neptune@dmv.social
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        5 months ago

        They paraphrased your own post, dude. You are the one setting up this wild wild argument.

        • MaddieTian@lemmy.zipOP
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          5 months ago

          Well I’m fairly sure I didn’t start the name calling.

          No, I definitely didn’t.

          So why defend them after they start throwing words like “bigot” around?

          It’s always the same. The ones that preach that DEI is a good thing or who claim “harassment” are always the first to start throwing the insults then scream VICTIM!

          It’s sad really. Very sad.

            • MaddieTian@lemmy.zipOP
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              5 months ago

              Did I call anyone a racist bigot? No.

              I said, which has just been proved here, that supporters of DEI will (and just did) call you a racist and a bigot for not believing what they believe.

              I’ve literally just been called a bigot for speaking up for what I believe. You have no case.

              • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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                5 months ago

                The problem is that what you believe is racist and bigoted, so speaking up for it is racist and bigoted. Hope that helps!

                • MaddieTian@lemmy.zipOP
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                  5 months ago

                  Again. Thanks for proving my point.

                  You BELIEVE it’s racist and bigoted. Doesn’t make it fact though does it.

  • Hexagons [e/em/eir]@hexbear.net
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    5 months ago

    My person opinion is all politics, racial issues and gender identity should be left out of games and writers should create the stories that they want to create

    I’m sorry, but this is a silly and contradictory opinion. For one thing, what if a writer wants to write a story about racism or gender? Should they be allowed to write the story they want to write, even though you consider it “political”? For another, games have been political since extremely early in the history of games. The original Deus Ex is from 2000 and most of its themes were explicitly political. Fallout: New Vegas has multiple gay characters and (through its super mutants) deals with issues of racial prejudice. I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream came out in 1996 and one of its main characters is a black woman.

    What I’ve noticed about people who say they don’t want “politics” in their games is that they really just want to play games with political messages they already agree with. There’s no such thing as an apolitical work of art, and that applies to games too, unless you’re saying games aren’t (and shouldn’t be) art?

    Play the games you want to play, I don’t give a shit. But don’t make the mistake of thinking that games are “more political” than they used to be. They aren’t.

    Edit: Oh, you’re the same person who was whining about Sweet Baby Inc a few days ago. I’m wasting my time talking to you. Have a good day

    • MaddieTian@lemmy.zipOP
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      5 months ago

      If a writer wants to write a game about racism or gender then do it.

      But the problem is writing a game and then hiring consultants to see if what you’ve wrote is “diverse” enough. Who cares, just write the bloody thing.

      And if a game was made about racism and gender and didn’t sell very well it wouldn’t be the fault of the developers, it would the toxic and racist gamers not wanting to play it.

      Game developers work for gamers. Yet developers insist on going out of their way to make games they know will be controversial and then blame gamers for not buying it.

      Give the target audience what they want and stop TELLING the target audience that what they want is WRONG!

      Hollywood is currently learning this lesson the hard way and if the gaming industry needs the same lessons then so be it.

      As I said I’ve been a gamer for 34 years and I will not be told what I should want to play and be branded a racist or downvoted into oblivion for speaking up for what I want and speaking out against journalists and devs pushing their narrative because they’ve decided what they believe is correct and everyone else is an extremist.

      This will cost platform holders and developers a lot of money and then you’ll see how far their beliefs go when it’s costing them money.

      They can call gamers extremists and harass and try to deplatform them. But there’s one thing they can never do.

      Force us to buy their products.

      And with that in mind it will likely be a very long time before I buy another game or even pay for PS Plus/GamePass again. And it will still be many many years before I’ve played every game in my current collection.

  • Pronell@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    The gaming industry has never been larger or more widely embraced, the industry is contracting for usual business reasons, and you think it’s a political reaction?

    Find a game you like. Play it. Find another. Repeat.

  • Throwaway@lemm.ee
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    5 months ago

    Honestly, its not the weird dogmatic politics that gets me. Its the fact that DHS is funding them. Dont they have anything better to waste tax payer money on?

  • BumpingFuglies@lemmy.zip
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    5 months ago

    I understand where you’re coming from; it’s annoying when any moral message is forced into a piece of media simply for the sake of checking a box, regardless of whether I agree with the message.

    But I haven’t noticed this in modern games. Modern movies and TV, definitely, but not games.

    What games are you playing that do this?

    • Gamma@beehaw.org
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      5 months ago

      It’s a reference to all the new gamergate bs, unfortunately OP has fallen for it

      Also suicide squad sucked

      • MaddieTian@lemmy.zipOP
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        5 months ago

        What’s bs is employees of companies calling gamers Nazis simply for not agreeing with what they do.

        Or trying to get Steam users banned and lose access to their library simply for not agreeing with what they do.

        Or in the case of Unknown 9, from what we know of that game every good guy is black and every bad guy is white. That could change as more is shown off of the game though but as of now that’s what that game is.

        Or Angrboda, a white figure from Norse Mythology was race swapped in God of War.

        The point is just tell the fucking story without forcing in diversity for the sake of it. Stop race swapping characters.

        It’s not just games either. Doctor Who portrayed Isaac Newton as black, what the hell was that?