CLICK. I meant click. My phone’s been dropped one to many times, the predictive keyboard swipey typey thingo doesn’t mesh well with a slightly fucked screen.
Can I just say that I love this story line and interaction with Zhusen and Theron? Cause it’s fantastic. I really enjoy how Theron is the antagonist without being an outright bigot or villain. He’s just someone whose insensitive and didn’t understand how much his decisions and actions hurt Zhu. And, as has happened many times in the past with Theron, he was able to realize what he did wrong (after a bit of calling out for his BS) and honestly attempt to make amends. Incredibly well done.
Here’s a question. Goomba Gorp: Based on anyone? Or the generic why-aren’t-the-devs-catering-to-my-exact-needs?-better-try-and-invalidate-their-other-progress shitjerks? I get the “FROM estoc bestoc pls Nerf” sort of thing, since the r1 spammers ruined pvp for months, but some of the bullshit people go on about, I swear.
(and I mean, would you rather the match making place you will scrubs/super mlg pros our not at all? Unless its For Honor’s match making, fuck that noise.)
Not to start a giant ahitstorm, but Goombagorp is right. Diversity should not exist for the sake of diversity. That’s not to say you can’t make a believable story with a various cast, just that some of the more recent indie games take it really far and make an effort to ostracize certain ethnicities while pandering to others in a way that has nothing to do with the actual story.
See you SAY this and yet I, a diverse minority, has yet to stumble on this. Just ’cause a story is not focused on the perceived default narrative (cis het white American dude, basically), and is aimed at other demographics, does not mean it is taking it ‘too far’.
Like my own stories tend to have like. One straight cisgender person and a even mix of races as that is what my friend group looks like, and yet I’ve had people accusing me of intentionally alienating cishet white people and/or just doing diversity for ‘diversities sake’.
Which like nah bro I’m just speaking from my own perspective and sub culture.
When Game developers talk about diversity, half the motivation seems to be just a corporate grab-bag for $$$. “LGBTQ issues are popular with target demographic! Increase diversity!” It’s the same thing as when a company picks a song for a game’s commercial because it is popular with the target audience, not because it fits with the game. Like CoD: Black Ops didn’t get a playable female character till Black Ops III. Same with Halo I believe and even then you could only make your character female in the multiplayer. It’s because the target audience generally wasn’t (and probably still isn’t) interested in these things.
Then you look at a series like Mass Effect and the backlash Hainly Abrams gets and realize that the LGBT community is definitely a target audience of Bioware games. Bioware even moved to change the character in a patch based on conversations with transgender community leaders.
Is the promotion of diversity done out of some moral commitment? On the whole, no. It’s just a race to see who can yell “FIRST” in the arena of LGBT promotion.
See the problem with that is not so much the aim of diversity, or that the diversity doesn’t fit the game, it’s that the designers aren’t concerned with diversity so much as the potential extra people to draw in- so any representations of people who are non white, non straight, etc are shallow at best and outright insulting at worst TO those groups they claimed to want to represent.
Heck see mass effect and their consistent shoving off of gay/bi men. The fact that there is only one m|m romance and it’s playtime with that character is half of what you get for any other romance. (Which considering how the stereotype of gamer bois being terrified of gay men hitting on them, well, it seems like mass effect wanted to cookie of having a gay men in there without actually being concerned about how gay/men would feel about how it was handled).
But the thing that makes me twitch is people claiming things aren’t realistic/doesn’t fit if things are diverse, when I am a nerd who has studied a ton of history and have read about how diverse a lot of places were, actually, and that the all white/modern perceptions of sexuality aspect of a lot of it is actually what is ridiculously unrealistic.
So it is a complex subject but the answer is not less diversity or less of a push for diversity, which is what the comment in the strip was complaining about, but instead more holding people accountable for actually trying with the diversity instead of going ‘hey we included this poorly done representation of one diverse person, you can’t criticize us!!!’
I agree that this issue in gaming can be a grey area in terms of execution and motivation. However, Goomba Gorp, and the kind of people they represent, aren’t actually part of the conversation. Goomba Gorp isn’t making an argument about diversity in games. Goomb Gorp thinks we shouldn’t be talking about diversity at all, which IS the problem, and the whole point of this arc with Theron.
I disagree. Currently, I think diversity for diversity’s sake (as in, making fantasy worlds as colourful and varied as can be just because) is what’s needed. That’s because we have huge, vast amounts of media which focuse on a very narrow type of human experience. Both the people who are and aren’t the majority demographic need to see and experience minority experiences as ‘more normal’, occurring more often in public depictions of people. Even though, yes, if we’re approaching this from a statistical POV, things should be different. But media can and should be more representative because a) we are all very familiar with the default POV and b) it makes things more interesting and c) it’s more fair. It’s very alienating to see one type of thing your whole life. As if your voice and thoughts and unique struggles don’t matter. It makes you feel alone, to wonder – am I just weird or do other people struggle with the same things? Feel victorious over the same things? It allows people to connect more and to empathize more.
Or, yknow, whine about SJW taking over the world. Can’t win ’em all.
Diversity if both more realistic, intelligent and its the right thing to do.
Not to mention the fact that when people say “diversity” they usually mean “Not all men with one or two models as supporting female characters”.
Straight white CIS men is a tiny demographic especially in the gamer community but for some reason (racism, sexism, homophobia, ect) they pander to this small group.
Not to mention that arguments like those are based on the idea of “our most vocal fans are horrible people so we’d rather sell to these Horrible People , than attract normal people to our product”
and either way someone complaining about diversity in gaming is a red flag because it probably means that they have a scewed perception of reality. If you dont know alot of gay people and most of your friends are white guys its probably has more to say about that person than it does about the community (spoilers, people are avoiding them) . This is even more considerable considering that one of the most white masculine forums out there (4chan) is the origination of the modern Nazi movement.
Also the idea of companies not doing a good job is a red herring. thats not “diversity”s problem thats the companies. If a lack of racism and sexism was the Norm then it will be the Norm and companies wont be half assing it. You know who doesnt want half assed diverse characters shoved into games? people who call for diversity.
hypothetical example: No we arent saying you should shove in a random black character for the sake of diversity. I’m calling into question YOU AS A PERSON and YOU AS A COMPANY as to why when you’ve made heroes for your DOZEN games you never thought “when i think of hero i think of a black woman”.
There are tons of games and movies we dont see or play or pay money for. ONE MORE with a generic white man as a protagonist isnt going to change anything, just going to ignore it and use it as ANOTHER example of a missed opportunity. The criticism isnt against the game, its against the game company and their values. If you make dozens of games and all your protagonists are white men then it shows OBJECTIVELY that your game company is sexist and racist. plain and simple.
Like this is what i want to tell so many people “i’m not calling into question your game. I’m calling into question You as a person”
“we made this character to appeal to everyone since his story is a humanitarian story that applies to all people”
“and of course you knew your customers are so disgusting that there is no way they could ever Identify or respect someone who isnt white and who isnt a man”
“exactly”
is basically what i hear when a company tries to make excuses
P.P.S and real talk, most people who say these things at BEST have no idea how development works.
This was a direct parody of what happens on community forums. To be clear what happened on this page is this guy was criticizing people who are probably in management decisions (i.e not working directly in game and THE people to talk to customers about what they want in the game) because they were talking about this in a community outreach interview….so not only is he criticizing the wrong people he’s criticizing the WRONG game (i assume its the equivalent of Overwatch)
I said not to start a shitstorm. I will address one, and one thing only here. I’m gonna go with the straight white men comments. Cis is a dumb word that doesn’t need to exist, you either are a man or aren’t. Straight white men were and still are the biggest demographic in the world for fps’s, and even I’d say most moms with a good system like WoW. Asian men rank 2nd probably. To say different is a bald faced lie, so it’s natural some companies would pander to the highest demonization.
Also for instance. You say it’s a small demographic, particularly in the gaming community. That implies outside it is. Let’s assume you live in America. White people make up 67% of the American demographic, that’s 180 million, give or take 20-30million people, people, in a single country. Let’s be nice and say 50% are men(more are. Not much, but a bit.) you have 90 million people you have just written off with this blanket statement.
The US is 50.8% women (so slightly more) as of the 2015 census. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/PST045216/00
Even if significantly more men played games, it would be a poor business decision to miss out on essentially an equally large demographic that we know enjoys games. In reality, 40% of gamers are women and that percentage is growing. The 2017 gaming report is a good reference. http://essentialfacts.theesa.com/mobile/
Firstly, contrary to popular belief “cis” was not invented by SJWs. It’s a scientific term that has been used as a prefix in many things, including chemistry. It wasn’t applied to gender by SJWs either, it was applied there by researchers who were studying it around 20 years ago. Cis and Trans are latin prefixes that are opposing. You may as well get mad at the terms hetero and homo while you’re at it.
Secondly, “Straight white CIS men is a tiny demographic especially in the gamer community but for some reason (racism, sexism, homophobia, ect) they pander to this small group” is hands down THE greatest troll bait I have ever seen. This the kinda chum that will set a youtube comments section into blood bath.
Oh Lord that is master bait. You’d pick up a lot of alt-right bullshit, and probably some alt-left too, but damn, if I saw it in the wild and didn’t know it was bait you’d probably catch me too. Though its at least a bit true. Straight white dudes are way overrepresented as gamers. There’s plenty of racial diversity in games nowadays, but gamers seem to be considered straight white men or Korean pros.
I think there’s a vast difference between diversity for diversity’s sake, and characters that are diverse.
On the one hand, yes, we need more characters that are diverse. On the other hand, trying to get that diversity without a. pandering to the stereotype, and b. not getting ripped apart for making the character “Wrong” are real issues that people seem to gloss over.
The whole Monkey Island Galbrush thing, is an example. People throwing a fit over Tomb Raider, and Bayonetta. The “Hi, I’m trans” character in ME:A, and the baldur’s gate fiasco.
Diversity is great, but it needs the writers to actually put in more effort to make them *characters* first. Right now, it feels like they’re just slapping diverse adjectives around and calling it good enough. That just because they SAY this or that character is X,Y,Z, that’s all they need to do to make them worth interacting with.
Right on, Theron.
One small cock for man…
CLICK. I meant click. My phone’s been dropped one to many times, the predictive keyboard swipey typey thingo doesn’t mesh well with a slightly fucked screen.
I could even go in and fix the first comment and delete the reply, but I won’t.
Gotta commit.
What a delight to wake up to.
There’s just so many ways to twist this, but I haven’t found one that isn’t a bit rapey
And now that I’ve had my coffee, I see what happened and appreciate your restraint.
Well obviously Goomba Gorp is lacking in the bottom draw department. Is what you meant right?
That’s just too hilarious to fix.
Also I like how avatar randomizer surely knows I mostly play ranger archetypes in games.
Can I just say that I love this story line and interaction with Zhusen and Theron? Cause it’s fantastic. I really enjoy how Theron is the antagonist without being an outright bigot or villain. He’s just someone whose insensitive and didn’t understand how much his decisions and actions hurt Zhu. And, as has happened many times in the past with Theron, he was able to realize what he did wrong (after a bit of calling out for his BS) and honestly attempt to make amends. Incredibly well done.
Here’s a question. Goomba Gorp: Based on anyone? Or the generic why-aren’t-the-devs-catering-to-my-exact-needs?-better-try-and-invalidate-their-other-progress shitjerks? I get the “FROM estoc bestoc pls Nerf” sort of thing, since the r1 spammers ruined pvp for months, but some of the bullshit people go on about, I swear.
(and I mean, would you rather the match making place you will scrubs/super mlg pros our not at all? Unless its For Honor’s match making, fuck that noise.)
Wow that got away from me a bit there.
Not to start a giant ahitstorm, but Goombagorp is right. Diversity should not exist for the sake of diversity. That’s not to say you can’t make a believable story with a various cast, just that some of the more recent indie games take it really far and make an effort to ostracize certain ethnicities while pandering to others in a way that has nothing to do with the actual story.
See you SAY this and yet I, a diverse minority, has yet to stumble on this. Just ’cause a story is not focused on the perceived default narrative (cis het white American dude, basically), and is aimed at other demographics, does not mean it is taking it ‘too far’.
Like my own stories tend to have like. One straight cisgender person and a even mix of races as that is what my friend group looks like, and yet I’ve had people accusing me of intentionally alienating cishet white people and/or just doing diversity for ‘diversities sake’.
Which like nah bro I’m just speaking from my own perspective and sub culture.
https://twitter.com/glittervolt/status/746939826557984768?lang=en
I can see both sides of this issue.
When Game developers talk about diversity, half the motivation seems to be just a corporate grab-bag for $$$. “LGBTQ issues are popular with target demographic! Increase diversity!” It’s the same thing as when a company picks a song for a game’s commercial because it is popular with the target audience, not because it fits with the game. Like CoD: Black Ops didn’t get a playable female character till Black Ops III. Same with Halo I believe and even then you could only make your character female in the multiplayer. It’s because the target audience generally wasn’t (and probably still isn’t) interested in these things.
Then you look at a series like Mass Effect and the backlash Hainly Abrams gets and realize that the LGBT community is definitely a target audience of Bioware games. Bioware even moved to change the character in a patch based on conversations with transgender community leaders.
Is the promotion of diversity done out of some moral commitment? On the whole, no. It’s just a race to see who can yell “FIRST” in the arena of LGBT promotion.
See the problem with that is not so much the aim of diversity, or that the diversity doesn’t fit the game, it’s that the designers aren’t concerned with diversity so much as the potential extra people to draw in- so any representations of people who are non white, non straight, etc are shallow at best and outright insulting at worst TO those groups they claimed to want to represent.
Heck see mass effect and their consistent shoving off of gay/bi men. The fact that there is only one m|m romance and it’s playtime with that character is half of what you get for any other romance. (Which considering how the stereotype of gamer bois being terrified of gay men hitting on them, well, it seems like mass effect wanted to cookie of having a gay men in there without actually being concerned about how gay/men would feel about how it was handled).
But the thing that makes me twitch is people claiming things aren’t realistic/doesn’t fit if things are diverse, when I am a nerd who has studied a ton of history and have read about how diverse a lot of places were, actually, and that the all white/modern perceptions of sexuality aspect of a lot of it is actually what is ridiculously unrealistic.
So it is a complex subject but the answer is not less diversity or less of a push for diversity, which is what the comment in the strip was complaining about, but instead more holding people accountable for actually trying with the diversity instead of going ‘hey we included this poorly done representation of one diverse person, you can’t criticize us!!!’
I agree that this issue in gaming can be a grey area in terms of execution and motivation. However, Goomba Gorp, and the kind of people they represent, aren’t actually part of the conversation. Goomba Gorp isn’t making an argument about diversity in games. Goomb Gorp thinks we shouldn’t be talking about diversity at all, which IS the problem, and the whole point of this arc with Theron.
I wasn’t defending Goomba. He’s a 12 year old shitter who needs to get good and stop complaining about match matching.
Format made it hard to tell. Was responding to OP with respect to Goomba Gorp.
I disagree. Currently, I think diversity for diversity’s sake (as in, making fantasy worlds as colourful and varied as can be just because) is what’s needed. That’s because we have huge, vast amounts of media which focuse on a very narrow type of human experience. Both the people who are and aren’t the majority demographic need to see and experience minority experiences as ‘more normal’, occurring more often in public depictions of people. Even though, yes, if we’re approaching this from a statistical POV, things should be different. But media can and should be more representative because a) we are all very familiar with the default POV and b) it makes things more interesting and c) it’s more fair. It’s very alienating to see one type of thing your whole life. As if your voice and thoughts and unique struggles don’t matter. It makes you feel alone, to wonder – am I just weird or do other people struggle with the same things? Feel victorious over the same things? It allows people to connect more and to empathize more.
Or, yknow, whine about SJW taking over the world. Can’t win ’em all.
Diversity if both more realistic, intelligent and its the right thing to do.
Not to mention the fact that when people say “diversity” they usually mean “Not all men with one or two models as supporting female characters”.
Straight white CIS men is a tiny demographic especially in the gamer community but for some reason (racism, sexism, homophobia, ect) they pander to this small group.
Not to mention that arguments like those are based on the idea of “our most vocal fans are horrible people so we’d rather sell to these Horrible People , than attract normal people to our product”
and either way someone complaining about diversity in gaming is a red flag because it probably means that they have a scewed perception of reality. If you dont know alot of gay people and most of your friends are white guys its probably has more to say about that person than it does about the community (spoilers, people are avoiding them) . This is even more considerable considering that one of the most white masculine forums out there (4chan) is the origination of the modern Nazi movement.
Also the idea of companies not doing a good job is a red herring. thats not “diversity”s problem thats the companies. If a lack of racism and sexism was the Norm then it will be the Norm and companies wont be half assing it. You know who doesnt want half assed diverse characters shoved into games? people who call for diversity.
hypothetical example: No we arent saying you should shove in a random black character for the sake of diversity. I’m calling into question YOU AS A PERSON and YOU AS A COMPANY as to why when you’ve made heroes for your DOZEN games you never thought “when i think of hero i think of a black woman”.
There are tons of games and movies we dont see or play or pay money for. ONE MORE with a generic white man as a protagonist isnt going to change anything, just going to ignore it and use it as ANOTHER example of a missed opportunity. The criticism isnt against the game, its against the game company and their values. If you make dozens of games and all your protagonists are white men then it shows OBJECTIVELY that your game company is sexist and racist. plain and simple.
Like this is what i want to tell so many people “i’m not calling into question your game. I’m calling into question You as a person”
“we made this character to appeal to everyone since his story is a humanitarian story that applies to all people”
“and of course you knew your customers are so disgusting that there is no way they could ever Identify or respect someone who isnt white and who isnt a man”
“exactly”
is basically what i hear when a company tries to make excuses
P.P.S and real talk, most people who say these things at BEST have no idea how development works.
This was a direct parody of what happens on community forums. To be clear what happened on this page is this guy was criticizing people who are probably in management decisions (i.e not working directly in game and THE people to talk to customers about what they want in the game) because they were talking about this in a community outreach interview….so not only is he criticizing the wrong people he’s criticizing the WRONG game (i assume its the equivalent of Overwatch)
I said not to start a shitstorm. I will address one, and one thing only here. I’m gonna go with the straight white men comments. Cis is a dumb word that doesn’t need to exist, you either are a man or aren’t. Straight white men were and still are the biggest demographic in the world for fps’s, and even I’d say most moms with a good system like WoW. Asian men rank 2nd probably. To say different is a bald faced lie, so it’s natural some companies would pander to the highest demonization.
Also for instance. You say it’s a small demographic, particularly in the gaming community. That implies outside it is. Let’s assume you live in America. White people make up 67% of the American demographic, that’s 180 million, give or take 20-30million people, people, in a single country. Let’s be nice and say 50% are men(more are. Not much, but a bit.) you have 90 million people you have just written off with this blanket statement.
The US is 50.8% women (so slightly more) as of the 2015 census. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/PST045216/00
Even if significantly more men played games, it would be a poor business decision to miss out on essentially an equally large demographic that we know enjoys games. In reality, 40% of gamers are women and that percentage is growing. The 2017 gaming report is a good reference. http://essentialfacts.theesa.com/mobile/
Firstly, contrary to popular belief “cis” was not invented by SJWs. It’s a scientific term that has been used as a prefix in many things, including chemistry. It wasn’t applied to gender by SJWs either, it was applied there by researchers who were studying it around 20 years ago. Cis and Trans are latin prefixes that are opposing. You may as well get mad at the terms hetero and homo while you’re at it.
Secondly, “Straight white CIS men is a tiny demographic especially in the gamer community but for some reason (racism, sexism, homophobia, ect) they pander to this small group” is hands down THE greatest troll bait I have ever seen. This the kinda chum that will set a youtube comments section into blood bath.
Oh Lord that is master bait. You’d pick up a lot of alt-right bullshit, and probably some alt-left too, but damn, if I saw it in the wild and didn’t know it was bait you’d probably catch me too. Though its at least a bit true. Straight white dudes are way overrepresented as gamers. There’s plenty of racial diversity in games nowadays, but gamers seem to be considered straight white men or Korean pros.
But the straight white male demographic would still be nearing a third of gamers
*sniffs* I’m so proud of you, dude. *thumbs up at Theron*
Nice to see Theron is true to form in not paying attention to guild meetings.
I think there’s a vast difference between diversity for diversity’s sake, and characters that are diverse.
On the one hand, yes, we need more characters that are diverse. On the other hand, trying to get that diversity without a. pandering to the stereotype, and b. not getting ripped apart for making the character “Wrong” are real issues that people seem to gloss over.
The whole Monkey Island Galbrush thing, is an example. People throwing a fit over Tomb Raider, and Bayonetta. The “Hi, I’m trans” character in ME:A, and the baldur’s gate fiasco.
Diversity is great, but it needs the writers to actually put in more effort to make them *characters* first. Right now, it feels like they’re just slapping diverse adjectives around and calling it good enough. That just because they SAY this or that character is X,Y,Z, that’s all they need to do to make them worth interacting with.
And that’s, pardon the language, utter bullshit.
Gorp? Wow. That takes me back. Those were horrible monsters. And they ate your armor. Good old RuneQuest.
small steps. nice.