Editorial: Why We Write: On Game Critique, Influence, and Reach

Inequality is a huge issue in the US, and is probably gonna be one of the biggest issues this presidential election. That the political landscape is so different from Europe doesn't change the fact that it's a widely discussed and controversial topic, it just means that a lot of Americans view the "solutions" to that (mainly Republicans) to be very different from us in Europe.

Love the Oxford Comma in the title.

Nice read, and i really liked the way you framed the tension than exists at very different levels regarding criticism, i always been of the mind that a creator should try to pursue his vision no matter what (with the obvious limits of hate speech and incitacion to violence of course) because if you don´t do that the end result is going to be poorer, you can´t have an aseptic version of the world, of course it has and need to be criticised at all levels, but you need to have your world view challenged and sometimes you need to feel a little enraged and moved to discuss different points of view, there a lot of themes in wich i changed my mind along the years after being confronted with some harsh realities. I´m all in for inclusion, i work in a mostly female occupation, in the racial sphere i live in the north of spain, and here we have our problems with racism and immigration specially from southamerica, and curiously enough with polish people wich came to work in the mines, (the dudes can drink i tell you, in the place i used to live we were famous drinkers and those dudes sure could keep the pace), and historically with gipsies, gay discrimination, this has changed a lot here with the years thankfully and other nasty issues.

I have digressed a lot, weel like i said, i really liked the way you framed this, yes is complicated, but yes it has to be tackled it, i recently listened to an interview with clive Barker, and he said that, yes a lot has been acomplished but it was not enough untill it was really normalised at all levels, disregarding of course hate groups and extremists, the issue was gay rights by the way, but his attitude is extensible to other similar issues, i think

@stryker1121: But there is a segment that also accepts the criticism. Right here, many of us disagree welcome Austin take on the witcher stuff even if we disagree at points with him. I appreciate Austin diplomatic point of view and that he knows tone can change how a discussion develop.

@aromaticflower: I don't really get your argument here at all then. What you're implying is some (as you admit, vanishingly small) group of critics who particularly rely on social issues in their arguments to up the emotional impact are actually lying liars who bully or trick people into agreeing with them (which is, as I've tried to point out, is really ignoring the agency and intelligence of the people in question) for... reasons (personal gain? vendettas against certain people?).

I mean, I'm sure there are a few people out there to rabble-rouse, but I can't think of anyone with much influence in the gaming press who would match that description.

I also can't really think of why you'd bring it up here when you're clearly excluding Austin from this group.

(I realize this sounds a bit hostile but I am honestly genuinely confused as to what you're implying.)

@homelessbird:

Yeah, its just the tedium that gets to me. My point my rather be they are incapable of avoiding the hyper sensitive issue while following their creative vision.

Totally independent of writing skill or empathy. Its the social media and stuff they cannot avoid it thats what i meant but yeah Im with you on just about it all good conversation. Catch you around

We were talking specifically about the discussions about morality and computer games, which are focused nearly entirely on race and sexuality. God knows inequality is a huge issue in the US, but I definitely don't think it gets a platform befitting of its importance in US politics (but again, that is a slightly different question and I am not really qualified to talk about US politics). As I implied above, I think there are good historical/philosophical reasons why different social justice issues have a different emotional weight in different places, which is the point yothatlimp made, which I was agreeing with.

It's odd to read "A Spectrum of Influence" and "Americans, Big Guns, and Strident Views" back to back, because I feel like they sort of contradict at a point. The former section talks about how media critics exist, by their nature, to influence the direction of media as it is developed, and then the latter just is one big, wordy way of saying "I recognize American cultural imperialism is a thing but don't think media analysis is part of that." The vast majority of even remotely influential games criticism is American, or at the very least, Anglo. It makes little sense to say that those American critics arguing about, and influencing what they critique, is somehow not facilitating the spread of a specific set of cultural norms throughout the world. It's the definition of what they're doing.

And while I get what you're saying about "waiting for the right time" that argument is still really frustrating because it keeps trying to remove individual games from their specific set of context. You can't just dodge legitimate questions about "Why are you going after this game?" by saying "because games overall have a problem!" You still have to justify the target you're going after in that moment. So trying to dismiss "It's satire" as some sort of cop-out just doesn't fly. You can't invalidate a legitimate defense based on nothing, or based on other games. It's of no relevance to the qualitative argument surrounding that specific thing.

Anyway, it's weird that this has gone on for so long, or is even being treated as if there's much disagreement. Almost no one would actually be upset if there were NPCs "of color" in the game, and basically no one has denied games don't depict as many minorities as they probably should. So to see this go on for three pieces, pieces that have gotten vaguer and vaguer, is weird. I know you think you're fighting the good fight, but I don't think there's much of a fight being had.

(Just something random I came across, by the way: The SuperBestFriends audience is actually meaningfully more diverse than the Giant Bomb audience based on the podcast surveys, despite the former explicitly going out of their way to not get into politics and activist causes, and pretty much having contempt for most gaming journalism, and Polygon in particular. That the latter has had a loud voice catering to explicitly that, for several years now, but is actually whiter and more male, is hilarious.)

I was replying to Austin's assertion that, because critics aren't lobbying for legislation, they are not exerting significant force on the creative landscape. I tried to give an example of how people can, intentionally or otherwise, influence creativity in the service of their own moral agendas. I think maybe you've taken my comment as more aggressive than it was intended to be and this is causing you to focus on what you perceive to be my own negative feelings about the gaming press.

Because you brought it up, I do believe there are people in many walks of life who are lying liars, bullies and tricksters who do things for personal gain and it would be naive, in my opinion, to think gaming is immune to that. And as I also said earlier, the negative impact of people promoting their own moral agenda can be extreme whether they mean well or otherwise.

Also, I stand by my earlier comment that social influence and persuasion are extremely powerful and no amount of agency or intelligence guards against it entirely. I was being tongue in cheek about the nazis, but they remain perhaps the best example of this we have in our culture.

@ryonian: Hey, I'm totally with you on the frustration. It seems like a lot of words get said and nothing changes. And yeah, our perspectives really aren't that different.

To be honest, my solution to that is just to not have a Facebook, Twitter, or Tumblr. Cause fuck that noise.

@marokai: I wouldn't exactly call those surveys very scientific. Also, while SBF might "have contempt" for most of gaming media (whatever point you're trying to prove with that), they've taken much of the inspiration for what they're doing from GB.

Also, you keep saying that almost no one would have a problem with more diversity in games, but a lot of gamers seem to have a problem with the conversation happening.

Wait, what? Are you living in the same England as I am? The rise of UKIP and before it the BNP, prove that race is definitely a massive topic of conversation in the UK. Class is certainly a huge topic of political conversation, but look at the response to the drowning of the refugees on their way to UK to seek asylum. Look at the Britain First Facebook page and their constant fear-mongering about "Muslim values" creeping in the UK. Look at the demonisation of Muslims in general. Just because the people who push those view points frame it as a working class issue doesn't make it not about race. I just don't know how you can think that Britain doesn't have issues with race on the same level as the US.

Really needed to let everyone know about this, huh?

Doesn't come across as passive-aggressive at all.

I think that just speaks to how ingrained classic liberalism is in American society, where as Europe has flirted with socialism (less so for the English) since the late 1700's.

Great article Austin. I thought you unpacked this subject very well. Hope to see more of this.

@amyggen: None of it's scientific, nor did I ever claim it to be, I was just dutifully filling out my preferred podcast surveys and thought the result was ironic.

Muslims would be a religious following rather than a race, unless I am completely mistaken.

I love that Giant Bomb can host some of the most wonderfully stupid content on the web and can host articles like this at the same time. It's the best of both worlds, Hannah Montana-style.

Good article.

I think if video game enthusiasts would just look at game critiques within the context of how we all, to a point, naturally critique the world around us within the same sort of spectrum as you have outlined - they would see that critics aren't "bashing that thing you love"; but are, rather, naturally and (usually) professionally carrying out a very natural process that exists in just about every facet of our society. Dialog and critique are healthy, and a natural part of the evolution of any 'thing'.

But you do bring it up at some sort of "gotcha", and you need some better numbers than that if you're gonna do that.

@marokai:I very much disagree that there's no fight to be had here. If you read through the response to these sort of articles, especially outside of GB, you will see that there are people vehemently opposed to this sort of thing being even discussed. And while you'll rarely see someone say "I think there are plenty of minorities in video games," you'll definitely see people say more tactically politically correct things that amount to the exact same sentiment.

The only reason that the video game community is as polite as they are about their resistance to diversity is because it is talked about as much as it is. But all you need to do is look at the internet's reaction to black characters in the Hunger Games, or Idris Elba being in that Thor sequel, to know that there is definitely a relevant discussion that deserves attention.

Man. Austin sure is a great writer! Thanks, that was very enlightening!

Hi, um...

As much as I loved the character stories in inquisition, at some point they just seemed to analogous to common problems of people today. I find it much more powerful for fantasy to contain stories from which we learn some lessons but can't quite pin down exactly what the author eludes to. For example, the lord of the rings conflict teaches us about war in general, but the one ring isn't quite analogous to the atomic bomb.

You seem to have largely misunderstood my interpretation of Austin's previous responses. I know that the Djinn is from the books. As a result, the books have been more than willing to accept influences that come from outside of Polish culture. As a result, to Austin, the statement that Witcher 3 being exclusively white due to cultural reasons rings somewhat hollow.

Also, why does COD only have white protagonists: I have only played two COD games, the original, and Black Ops, and didn't Black Ops have a partner with you that was black?

Why is there no black character in the persona games? Persona 1 and 3 had black characters. Though I suppose the one from 1 doesn't really count, all things considered.

Why is the cast of Final Fantasy 100% male? FFXV is the first and only game so far with a completely male cast in terms of playable characters.

Great stuff, Austin. I think these editorials will add a lot to the site and you are very understanding and open in your writing and I like it. I've been thinking about/talking about/playing games since I was a kid and sometimes I feel like I'm doing nothing with that passion and want to do more than just discuss it with friends. This makes me want to get more involved writing blogs and getting in the forums. You saying "I cannot but write" really got to me. This article also really does get me thinking about American cultural imperialism vs our world moving to a much more globally-centric culture and that maybe I sometimes mix these things in my mind wrongly. Great stuff.

No you aren't, but these far right groups use the fact that certain people follow Islam as an excuse to engage in racism at the expense of Arabs, Indians (who generally arent even Muslim) etc.

Don't need to look further than the Gamespot comment section every time there's a video or article that touches on social issues, or the YT comment section and like/dislike ration under this video. /r/games and Reddit in general are also fucking cesspools of misogyny and racism every time something like this is brought up on the bigger subs, regardless of context.

Do I think racism is an important issue in the UK? Yes. Did I say it wasn't? No. Do I think racism is much more culturally relevant in the US (because of their history)? Yes. Do I think economic class is much more culturally relevant in the UK (because of our history)? Yes. Do I think economic inequality is an important political issue in the US? Yes. Is it treated as seriously as I think it should be? No. - just to clear up my stance so you don't have to read between the lines :P

Btw, have you ever been to the US? Even having been immersed in US culture pretty much my whole life, I was shocked at how pervasive and obvious the divides appeared. And I'm from Liverpool, if you can find a black man and a white man there who would rather dispute who has it easier in English society than to talk about fucking up the Tories, I would be amazed :)

I can just see Jeff before this: "Yeah you can write about this type of things, but let people know where you stand first" xD

Don't get me wrong, there's a fight being had about these topics, I just don't think they're being had here, or that editorials on the topic here are going to do much to reach an audience outside of this site that actually do need to be reached. The Giant Bomb audience is a pretty progressive place that has always been much better at discussing and receiving these kinds of topics as almost any other site that isn't moderated to death.

I'd be interested to see Jeff's self rated location on the charts, I imagine it would be far closer to reality.

@turambar: I mean yes, obviously that the Witcher isn't just Slavic. Elves and dwarves weren't invented by Sapkowski either. It's the overarching themes and setting that is very Slavic - but thats another thread so I don't really want to get into it here.

I did enjoy the alternate perspective. I just hope that it's a two way street for game critics - not just talking about Austin here but everyone. When a discussion inevitably does take place I hope most critics are open to changing their mind, rather than automatically going on the defensive when any contradictory comments arise. All too often I've seen lengthy editorials written and then abandoned to let the comments section eat itself up, arguing over what the author actually meant, with the author nowhere in sight. Community interaction is awesome, but it's even better when it's an open on-going discussion, rather than being simply spoken to.

I'm actually quite happy that Austin has essentially wrote two short essays soon after his initial one in response to the comments. Hopefully it remains a sort of running conversation.

@amyggen: Sure, but we'll probably never really get those. My only contention being that the narrative about who actually likes and dislikes hearing these kinds of issues, and the types of people the willingness or unwillingness to tackle them attracts, may not be as it is perceived.

Really great read. Perhaps I was wrong in assuming that some of these issues were and are common sense.

As the late Christopher Hitchens said "If someone tells me I've hurt their feelings I say,'I'm still waiting to hear what your point is' I've been told that 'That s offensive' is an a argument. Not to me it isn't"

@aromaticflower: I suppose we just fundamentally disagree about what constitutes force then, because I'd never categorize a critic influencing creativity as "forcing" someone to do a thing.

I have finally started to read your articles in your soothing voice.

While I don't necessarily agree with the comments made about The Witcher 3, I certainly appreciate the tone and scope of this article. Searching for more diversity in this medium is a complicated issue and I hope people on all sides are willing to enter debates like this with an open mind.

Let's not be crazy here. Giant Bomb absolutely is a forum that is very heavily moderated. This community isn't a unique butterfly, it's just soaked in stronger preservatives.

Personally, when I read the two articles @austin_walker wrote, I understood that he wasn't trying to get a mob grabbing pitchforks and trying to force CD Projekt to fit a specific racial quota. But at the same time, I have been in this rodeo a few times. I have seen games like Dragon Age 2 and 3 feel very clumsy, sloppy and dumb in their attempts at tackling issues like Homosexuality, Racism and even more deep subjects like Transgender characters.

When I "pushed" back and criticized the line of thought regarding Witcher 3 and Race, I was doing it to hopefully try to impart the message that CDProjekt did a great job in their game's writing, and that they shouldn't be worried about the lack of POC diversity in their world. I promise I don't do this because I am a racist bastard (at least I don't think that's the case, anyways), but more because of the quality. Writers are at their best when they write what they know about, and as has been clearly shown in their other three games, CDProjekt Red are not particularly interested or skilled in writing about racial diversity (specifically Black VS White) the same way the average American with a culture more in tune with such an issue would be. If someone at CDProjekt were to, say, (and this is a ridiculous exaggeration for the sake of the argument), read Austin's article, think about it and say "Man, we should really add some more racial diversity to The Witcher", it could, in my opinion, result in badly done racial characters to complain about or badly and sloppy pandering.

Saying The Witcher 3 has a lack of racial diversity is a perfectly understandable cricticism, but not necessarily one I have to agree with. I also happen to be one of the weird people that think Witcher 3's combat is pretty damn good and shouldn't be changed to a more "simplistic" (in some ways, not another) DMC-clone style gameplay. I think it's fair to equate those two disagreements together.

@carryboy: There's unfortunately a ton of race related baggage attached to muslim social issues. To the point where a lot of the muslim-hate is being spilled toward any brown skinned person, regardless of their actual ethnicity or religion. Sikhs and Hindus being good examples.

Heh, we took a long, long road to get there but we got there in the end :P

:)

Thumbs up.

It's moderated, but I also think the community is extremely strong, diverse, and thriving in a way that outpaces the actual size of the site and it's reach.

It's probably better to just put black people in your game, if that's what people want.

Glad to read your ever evolving discussion on this topic Austin, and the back and forth with the members of the community. It's an interesting topic for me, tho it always feels to me to be a topic I view from an outsider's perspective. All the talks about race and colour etc... I'm a brown person, not a black, or white, or asian person. S'funny... it's always the one type of race that's mostly conveniently ignored in these topics, as if it didn't matter either... (not saying that you are doing that mind you, you are discussing your specific perspective). I do find it simultaneously fascinating and disheartening, tho I guess that's also based on my specific perspective.

@aromaticflower: Listen, I'm totally with you on class being the larger problem with our country, and I'm more than on board with ousting the Tory scum, but the Tories have a majority. UKIP got more votes than everybody but the Tories and Labour (it didn't translate into seats thank god, but theres no denying that thats worrying). If you put a Muslim Pakistani man in a room with a Tory voting white man you'd best believe that conversation will come down to race, as much as the Tory might insist that it isn't. Race is a big deal here, like it or not. It's more subtextual here than in America definitely but that doesn't mean that it isn't a massive factor in our country's recent history.

And yes, I've been to America. Yes, the climate is more palpable there. But if you walk into a pub in Salford, where i'm from, and don't manage to over hear a conversation by a group of white guys about "Sharia law" or burkas or some shit I'll buy your drinks all night.