@josephknows: haha nice try satan :D
If I did that I would only be furthering their cause, whilst contradicting my own attempts to have a productive discussion about what we, the nice people, can do to improve our scene
Editorial: Why We Write: On Game Critique, Influence, and Reach
I'm all for conversations about diversity in gaming. Sadly, the Internet and social media is a hothouse for bullshit phony outrage culture and that's where the blowback against these conversations are coming from.
See, this what happens you get one of them "bookreaders" on staff. Go home, egghead!
Really though, glad to see this kind of content on the site. Cheers, playboy
@soundlug: Not because of his race. There's a ton in there about discrimination based on the fact that he's a witcher, and discrimination toward other magic users, and yeah there's some throw away dialogue here and there about his white hair or how pale he is, but if Geralt were black (for example), you could still have all the same interactions. Yes, they'd have to change some stuff that's incidental to the experience, but nothing fundamental to the story or themes would change.
@soundlug: What? I'm not Austin Walker. Is that what you're confused about? We're talking about a thing a specific commenter said, and they are still online, so I plan to respond to them about what they said.
I've invited you to have the conversation with me you claim that you want to have - feel free to start it whenever you're ready.
@aromaticflower: Well forgive me if you think I was presenting a strawman - that was legitimately my interpretation of your argument. It was my belief that you were seeing things as absolutes, and attributing a master plan to the people who often present the type of argument that Austin has made - a master plan that involves influencing developers of video games. Perhaps I had a knee-jerk reaction, since I do see that type of argument made a lot on the internet.
So here's my question - what exactly were you talking about then? Sure, I'll readily admit that a "tiny minority" of people try to profit from pissing people off on the internet. We both agree it's a tiny minority, though - and it's very rarely the same people that are accused of doing it for reasons of "status and money" that are the ones actually doing it. It's usually people like Arthur Gies over at Polygon - people who have a specific perspective, one with which you might disagree, but their perspective and valid nonetheless.
How prevalent do you really think it is that people try to have a racial debate about video games to make money and not because they give a shit about the subject? As far as I know, anyone who could be reasonably seen to be doing that does not have a respected place in the industry. Really, I think the "follow the money" approach is usually a thing said by people who don't want the discussion taking place AT ALL because it makes them uncomfortable - not trying to ascribe motivation to you, by the way, but that's how I usually see it applied.
@aromaticflower: Sure. I just think that when you start making these ominous and vague statements about greedy, manipulative authority figures, you are both inviting the discussion about these people and implying conspiracy. In fact, you already contradict your own stance when you say "readily attributing intentionality/some sort of master plan to the troubling things humans do is a misunderstanding and extreme simplification of human nature" and make the statement about people in power profiting off of conflict.
@p2535748 said:
@soundlug: Not because of his race. There's a ton in there about discrimination based on the fact that he's a witcher, and discrimination toward other magic users, and yeah there's some throw away dialogue here and there about his white hair or how pale he is, but if Geralt were black (for example), you could still have all the same interactions. Yes, they'd have to change some stuff that's incidental to the experience, but nothing fundamental to the story or themes would change.
He is also albino. Albino were not looked out up to begin with during middle ages.
@jay_ray said:
@soundlug: By that stance then, shouldn't Polish people/culture then be sensitive to discrimination and therefore not want to disenfranchise a group of people especially when the final products "Polish-ness" would be unaffected?
You ARE the one asking them to be more "sensible". You AREN'T sensible with them by doing passive agressive questions.
I do think that there is a certain amount of criticism that is very 'American' to outsiders. I live in (a very white part of) Belgium. Until I was 12 or so, the only place I'd ever seen a black person was on TV. After that, it probably still took me about a decade to stop "noticing" black people. Many Belgians think like that. A while back there was an "incident" because a baker made a life-size cookie version of Obama during a state visit. But because the cookie was dark brown (because that's just the way that type of cookie always is) and it's pretty hard to make a baked cookie look like someone without looking like a horrible mutation of that person; the US press took that story as an example of how Belgians are racists. The truth often is that people outside of the US just don't look at everything from a "how might this thing be racist"-viewpoint. When people here heard about how this was viewed on in the US the reaction was "oh yeah, maybe when you look at it THAT way". But we also understand that until a few decades ago racism was an actual law in the US. Black people were legally separated from white people in all sorts of matters, and that still is something that is written in the collective mind of Americans. And looking at certain events there still is a huge difference in how black people are treated by the authorities. So it's understandable that you look at so many thing through those "let's make sure we don't do something like that again"-goggles. And although there are of course plenty of actual racists in Belgium and other countries, I can still understand how a group of people just don't think about "ok let's make sure nothing is racist about this" when making a game. I think the people who are thinking about race the most are 1) the people who suffer because of it and 2) racists. Your average non-racist white person just does not think about it all that much. Which is a good thing because it means he doesn't really care about the colour of people's skin, but it also means he doesn't think about how something might offend someone because he isn't trying to do anything wrong. And since (I assume?) most game development is done by white-straight-males, it's not that hard to understand why the concerns of people outside of that group just don't occur to them naturally. No one has ever "forced" them to think about such things. So a reviewer mentioning it might help a bit (although it might just as easily confuse them), but until we see an influx of women and non-whites in game development, I doubt anything will really change.
@homelessbird:haha I suppose this is a good example of how two well meaning people can so easily end up misunderstanding each other :)
'So here's my question - what exactly were you talking about then?'- I was talking mostly about how when people believe they know what is morally right they can become proselytising and see it as their mission to convert non believers to their point of view. Because of how social influence works, criticism and the tyranny of ideas can be powerful ways to coerce others to support them (more powerful than legislation in some cases).
'How prevalent do you really think it is that people try to have a racial debate about video games to make money and not because they give a shit about the subject?'- not very prevalent at all. As I said, I think most people who end up supporting the oppression of opposing ideas or creative products do so inadvertently and without considering how or why there are doing it. I think this is far more dangerous actually.
Great read, Austin. Always happy to see people engaging in these types of discussions without the arrogance and single-mindedness that normally comes along with it ("you're either with us or a racist/misogynist/homophobe/etc." or "you're either with us or a fascist/puritan/SJW/etc."). As with most things in life, the correct answer lies somewhere in the middle of the two extreme viewpoints and the real problem is that people keep walling each other off by censoring viewpoints they don't agree with and assuming the person with the differing opinion is a moron without giving them a chance to speak or argue in good faith.
Well, that and children shouldn't be allowed on the internet... but that's another discussion for another time.
@aromaticflower: But why would you signal-boost something like that if you weren't actually persuaded by the argument? Even if you agreed with it, the most likely result in that case might be that you might not like Futurama as much any more. Or that you might still like it overall but dislike that aspect of it.
At the core in any case, the argument still must be persuasive enough to change the listener's perspective even if it is appealing to emotion or morality.
I mean, I could write a piece going "Splatoon continues Nintendo's practices of erasing gay people!!! There's no representation whatsoever!!" which is technically accurate but somewhat misleading. I doubt it'd get much traction because it's not really a persuasive argument. (I can imagine that while you or others might ascribe bad faith to the person writing that article, I would probably just suspect that they were simply someone tremendously frustrated by years of poor representation.)
But I could also write a short piece about how there are some interesting ways that genders are differentiated within the game, focusing particularly the outfit gained from the Inkling Girl Amiibo (the body piece of which has a skirt if you put it on as a girl and does not if you put it on as a boy, and the head piece is a barrette on the girl and a ponytail holder on the boy) and the response would be a lot greater because it's actually based on something.
@ryonian said:
@tomba_be: I think I agree with most of what you're saying. The main point I've tried expressing today is that I feel extremism is the root of just about all of these problems. The readers and writers of articles like this aren't part of the larger problem. I've gotten off social media because of how extreme everything is. I don't read these gaming articles anymore because of how extreme everything is. It makes me sad to read them, not because I like ignoring problems, but because I feel there is really no point. They leave me unsatisfied. I don't feel they are working. Preaching to the choir. Is writing the same story over and over going to change things? Are the people that are the source of the entire problem going to read them or even care? Is there a better approach that focuses more on the people who don't care than bogging down the mood of people who are trying as hard as they can?
I mean these as real questions, not to tell Austin or anyone else to stop trying.
I think indie development is the most likely way for things to change. Things need to change from the inside out, not by banging on it from outside. You need to get "minorities" into game development so they can raise their issues at the root. But if a lot of studios are as macho-driven as you often hear, I can see why women don't want to work there. So it's been a vicious circle. But with indie games being so prevalent nowadays, women can start proving that they are just as capable of making good games. Unfortunately a lot of the more visible female game developers are making quite niche games, which don appeal to a different crowd than the games that actually need change the most.
@josephknows said:
@aromaticflower: Sure. I just think that when you start making these ominous and vague statements about greedy, manipulative authority figures, you are both inviting the discussion about these people and implying conspiracy. In fact, you already contradict your own stance when you say "readily attributing intentionality/some sort of master plan to the troubling things humans do is a misunderstanding and extreme simplification of human nature" and make the statement about people in power profiting off of conflict.
I think it is important to have a discussion about those people and I think conspiracy does exist in this case. I just don't think this is the appropriate time to have that discussion.
To your second point, in my opinion how readily one thinks is 'too readily' is a judgement call. Intentionality is a thing, I just think its overestimated. If I believe 0.01% of people in the discussion about race in games are intentionally manipulative, is that too readily? You are free to think so, but I am free to disagree. And to follow on from my point about seeing things in polar absolutes, you've provided another good example. The two points you highlighted, about the master plan and the statement about profit from conflict, are not mutually exclusive and as such do not contradict one another.
This was a fantastic read--I'm so pumped to have @austin_walker around doing this sort of writing (and so quickly, too!) and bespoke chart creation. Racial politics are ugly as hell, but they're something that needs to be discussed (especially in America, because holy shit do we pretend it's not a big deal). It is always tempting to say "this isn't the right game/time/place for this discussion" but as you point out, it's never the right time. Folks are always going to not want to talk about this stuff, because it's uncomfortable and sad, but it is so dang necessary to talk about this stuff and not let it just kind of fester in the background of everything. If even one person comes away from a discussion with a different or better understanding of the issue, then it's been a success, as far as I'm concerned.
On a more general note, it's important to be critical about the stuff we consume because that's how we make better stuff to consume. That's how culture evolves, and how people get to become better people (plus I think it's fascinating and fun as hell to think about these things--even the uncomfortable bits help me become less of an asshole). I've enjoyed seeing the rise of actual, critical writing about games in the last... I guess decade at this point? It's not all great reading (and some of it misses the mark), but man just seeing it out there is exciting! Five years ago I did my MA dissertation on narrative structure in electronic literature and video games and had to fight tooth and nail to convince my academic superiors this was worth talking about. Now there's a ton of people running around studying video games like it ain't no thang, and it warms my heart to see it.
@soundlug: I am not being passive aggressive, I am simply asking questions so I can understand the view point. Can you clarify who "them" are? The Polish? the devs? or the people who make the argument that critics should not bring up the absence of non white characters since the Polish have been discriminated in the past?
@aromaticflower: Ok - thanks for explaining your position in more detail. I'm always glad when I can get around an internet misunderstanding - this is not a medium that lends itself to subtlety of expression!
I actually share your reaction to proselytizing, and very much dislike people trying to influence people through moralistic shaming. And you make an interesting point - people might look at an even-handed criticism (like Austin's) and assume a sort of militant viewpoint that he's not actually expressing. I guess we just disagree on how much of an effect that really has. I share the viewpoint of a commenter below: the people actually reading these articles are probably not "the problem" in this particular situation. Personally, I think most of the noise in this argument comes from people who already have made up their minds, and are content to spend their commenting/posting time screaming at the "other side."
@soundlug: Can you point out where him being an albino is important in the game in terms of discrimination? I don't recall people bringing it up other than incidental dialog, but it might be later in the game? And, to be clear, someone just calling him pale doesn't count. The discrimination against magic users is clear and prevalent, it's certainly part of the story and the themes. Discrimination against Geralt because he's albino doesn't really seem to crop up very much.
Honestly, how much of the game would actually change if Geralt was black? How much of the game would change if you had a wide mix of races running around? From what I've played, I just don't think it would make any real difference.
@seasleepy said:
@aromaticflower: But why would you signal-boost something like that if you weren't actually persuaded by the argument? Even if you agreed with it, the most likely result in that case might be that you might not like Futurama as much any more. Or that you might still like it overall but dislike that aspect of it.
At the core in any case, the argument still must be persuasive enough to change the listener's perspective even if it is appealing to emotion or morality.
I mean, I could write a piece going "Splatoon continues Nintendo's practices of erasing gay people!!! There's no representation whatsoever!!" which is technically accurate but somewhat misleading. I doubt it'd get much traction because it's not really a persuasive argument. (I can imagine that while you or others might ascribe bad faith to the person writing that article, I would probably just suspect that they were simply someone tremendously frustrated by years of poor representation.)
But I could also write a short piece about how there are some interesting ways that genders are differentiated within the game, focusing particularly the outfit gained from the Inkling Girl Amiibo (the body piece of which has a skirt if you put it on as a girl and does not if you put it on as a boy, and the head piece is a barrette on the girl and a ponytail holder on the boy) and the response would be a lot greater because it's actually based on something.
Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that people might not be persuaded. I think these hypothetical people were persuaded, by a powerful rhetorical argument appealing, as you say, to emotion and/or morality. I suppose you've kind of highlighted one of my points, persuasion is a subtle and powerful process and does in no meaningful way necessitate 'truth' or accuracy. If persuasion implied truth, we would have to rethink the Nazi regime and a whole genre of games! :P
Thank you for the interesting write-up. Still don't entirely agree with the "waiting for the right time" bit though. There aren't many articles that keep my interest when talking about issue X because it usually feels so shoehorned in (and incredibly preachy). On the top of my head I can only name one that I really enjoyed which was the Dragon's Crown review by Danielle Reindeau on Polygon. Probably because it gives a total picture and doesn't just focus on issue X.
I have high hopes for you Austin! You once said on the Beastcast that you recieved a comment from a user thanking you because you used "privilege" in an article and it didn't make him cringe! So yeah... Hopefully you don't make me cringe!
@jack_lafayette said:
@jadegl said:
This is why writers like Moosa and people like me try to talk about stuff with other people online. We want to shine a light on the fact that a hobby and a community that we are invested in and adore can also make us feel like outsiders and keep us at arms length, no matter how hard we struggle to be accepted.
I hope you'll continue to do so, Jade! Your posts are always interesting reads.
Every thread gets better when Jade posts in it!
@goldenwayne said:
@scotto: Like I said in another reply, Geralt could certainly be sexualized more, but I don't agree that he is not sexualised at all. The game starts with him naked and the game likes to at least show off his chest plenty. More sexy Geralt would be great though, no question.
I still vividly remember the sexy man-legs in that scene. I'm also pro more sexy Geralt!
@turambar: The Djinn stems from the first witcher book ( The Last Wish ). There's a mage that has genies trapped in bottles, and after fulfilling 3 wishes, they gain their freedom. Here we see that Sapkowski uses the arabic idea of the Djinn, and included that in his work.
CD Project Red is making a game based on the source material from Sapkowsi's books. They didn't insert a Djinn themselves.
I feel that it must be understood that the Witcher universe isn't something that CD project Red crafted themselves. They're making a game based in the world Sapkowsi wrote about in his books. This means they have to work within the boundaries of what that world encompasses. Turns out that the sourcematerial does include the idea of Djinns, but states that Zerrikania is an unknown mysterious land in the south east part of the world. Far away from the region you visit in the Witcher 3. If CD project red decided to plant multiple Zerrikanians in the Witcher 3, they would have gone against the lore of the books. That might sound like a small hurdle, but if you look at the reception of the players and critics you hear how important it is.
The part of the witcher that is praised by many ('the world feels lived in, the world feels real, the world has it's own rules' ) that's a product of them being faithful to the lore Sapkowski created. We can't pick and choose which lore should be faithful and which should be violated.
A lot of people treat the Witcher as a similar game as Dragon Age and Elder Scrolls and therefore expect the same range in characters they'll encounter in those games. The benefit Dragon Age and Elder Scrolls have is that the devs are the owners of the lore, and can therefore insert characters and expend the lore wherever they want. This makes it easier to create situations where diverse characters show up.
It's also the difference between a Polish writer writing fantasy based mostly on his own country, and a game designer in the 21 century writing lore with the goal to appeal to gamers all across the world.
Instead, let's ask ourselves why COD only has white protagonists. Let us ask why theres no black kid in the persona games. Why is the cast of Final Fantasy 100% male?
In the meantime, we can still hope to visit Zerrikania at some point. May it be DLC or a new Witcher game.
Nice, deep piece. I'm not commenting on it because, hey, I mostly agree with you and a lot of people are working their way through it that have divergent views than mine, so why bother.
BUT
But this?
Part of the reason that I know that is because I just spent the last four years in Canada, which has laws made specifically to insulate itself from American cultural imperialism. One key part of this set of regulations is the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission's “Canadian Content” (or “CanCon”) requirements. These rules govern the required amounts of “Canadian” music and television that must be broadcast by networks and radio stations, and they go on to define what exactly “Canadian” means in terms of production, content, and distribution. These rules exist because (the argument goes), if they didn’t, then Canadian television and radio would be filled with American content, putting Canadians out of jobs and diluting the unique cultural heritage of the country.
Oh, boy. Having been to the US and Canada I'll say this: compared to the most Americanized place in Europe (that'd be the UK), Canada and the US are culturally indistinguishable. Compared to the most Americanized place in Eastern Europe it's even more so. And that's not just the law (although some places have quotas on how much US media is allowed), that's just how different the cultural backgrounds, ongoing culture and language are.
It's easy to mock Americans for navel-gazing, but it's also easy to forget that it's really hard to physically get out of the continent for many of them, even highly cultured ones, and see the extent of culture clash we get in Europe in roughly the same amount of landmass. That said, it is at the core of how simplifying and hostile some of the cultural assumptions from Americans can feel when arguing about global spaces like gaming.
I just wish I had the ability to push the non-US centric view on gaming further across the global market. It's a goddamn shame that we don't talk about EU indies, let alone Asian or African ones. We don't acknowledge the diversity of creators and content. We think anybody that doesn't show up for PAX doesn't exist. We assume all content will be voiced in English and be readable by American audiences. The market is broken so that if your game is set in the real world in contemporary times, your characters HAVE to be American and English speaking, even if you aren't. And then, when the diversity in gaming is analysed it's done in a strictly American way, by American values and through American views on race and discrimination.
If nothing else, Austin, I hope GB's global audience helps you transcend those limitations more. I think the Witcher conversation at GB has been really healthy. I hope we can keep talking about cultural differences in gaming. I sure have tons of examples, both good and bad, that I haven't seen enough people discuss.
@homelessbird: Thank you, its nice to be able to have this sort of discussion in a well meaning way on my favourite games site. To be honest, I was saddened by the lock down on this kind of talk after the whole gamergate business and I glad someone like Austin came along to win back people's trust and open up the floor for people to share their views with each other. After all, I firmly believe this is the only way to make progress on these things.
@ryonian said:
@tomba_be: I think you hit it on the head.
We need black people to be able to write believable characters. We need women to make female characters. We need gay people to help make gay characters.
That's why the forcing thing comes up. People blame developers for making white male characters. But since they are not women, maybe they are simply not capable of writing a woman as well as a woman would. But people keep blaming them we don't consider they might be incapable. Not because they're bad but they are simply men. Everyone jokes how men don't understand women all that well right?
Okay, so now this why I say this stuff is futile. Instead of expecting these guys to pull that off, lets get in there and start making diverse games with diverse people. If a game like Minecraft can get so big, maybe an indie could make a revolutionary game that will reach the people.
Most of these articles will not reach the millions. Ever. It's not working. I guess that's why I get bored of reading it, not because I don't care.
Men have been writing good female characters for centuries. A ton of women have created great male characters etc. I'm all for more diverse game creators, but it's too easy to say that people can just write about what they know from personal experience. If we take an example from television, The Wire was written by a team of almost exclusively white writers. It would make for some boring-ass fiction if we just expected writers to be able to write about "themselves", and that's just underestimating people's ability.
@ryonian: I agree with you (to a certain extent) that white men are probably not the best candidates to write the most compelling portrayals of different ethnicities or genders. But "incapable?" No way. Very smart people make and write for video games, and white men have been writing compelling characters from backgrounds to which they don't belong about as long as white men have been writing anything. So I don't think that's good enough, personally. It's perfectly understandable that it doesn't happen more often, but I think it's also perfectly reasonable for some people to say "hey guys, maybe you could try just a little bit more often."
And hey - I'm with you about getting more diverse development going - but that's a WHOLE other kettle of fish. Easy to say, but the institutional barriers to having that happen outside of indie companies are not insignificant.
@jay_ray: Well, them refeers to the devs that are Polish and have a Polish perspective. And most people have said that is the preachy tone that rub the people off and make people less likely to anwser your question as it feels a rethoric trap to just further your point. Me, being honest: "No". The game will not be less Polish if there was a black charecter there, even if the inclusion feeled a little forced given that a merchant from a far land would had little reason to be there as a war going on there were soldiers kill for boots or suspecting you are a spy and witch hunts are directed not only to magic users but any person considered out of the norm. But honestly, it could work, and it could be a good story in the game, but a difficult one to writte given the state of this fictional world.
I believe the first part of this article is something that should really be stressed, gaming critiques are just that "critiques". They aren't letters to government bodies to ban game content, or force creators to change their games.
I also believe game critics (and anybody who posts an opinion publically) is open to criticism themselves, so if someone says your unfair in your critique you should probably accept that opinion as you would want your own to be accepted. And like some people have pointed out, not all internet game journalism (I should just say internet journalism period) is fair and balanced. Some people just want to spit Vitriol for the sake of being controversial or to push their own agenda, and sometimes as an audience it may be hard to determine which is which. So some people may take it as an attack or trying to force something on them as it's a thin line to thread on the internet between sensationalism and actual journalism.
Now I believe my own problem with how game critiques handle these issues of race and marginalization in gaming, is they only look at the games themselves and not who created them. I believe that when you bring up the lack of representation in games, we need to look at the lack of representation in the games development. As a black male I honestly don't think it's fair or realistic to ask a group of a majority white males, to try and represent me and my culture in a game. I mean how could they? Now the real issue to me is we need more diversity in game development. As much flack as games get for sexism i believe women in recent years are way better represented than they were before. More than likely because their are a lot more women involved on development teams than in the past weather, in writing, programming, art, game design etc. As much shit as Ubisoft gets for some of their business practices, they seem to have a pretty good grasp on the variety of characters that they create and claim to have a widely diverse development team (which their games seem to reflect). I liked how they handled the black characters in the assassins creed games (haven't gotten that far into 4 though). I can't say for certain, but i wouldn't doubt it's because these types of characters have actual representation on the teams(I could always be wrong on that). I think games will be less exclusive the more inclusive and diverse the more diverse the people who make them become. So I believe these types of critques should focus less on the end product and more on people who make them. Lets take CDProject Red. I remember when the original witcher games came out they didn't even have people who spoke english on the team let alone people from different countries and cultures. The witcher games have always felt unique to me and not really like anything i've played before, and this is more than likely because it is uniquely polish. It feels like they created a game that represented how their culture sees the world and how it reflects their version of fantasy and lore. I don't think any exclusion of different races or cultures was intentional, and just a product of the make up of the people who made the game. Maybe they could expand outside of poland and hire more diverse people to join their team, that's maybe something they should consider and something that maybe should be brought up in articles. But the games themselves just feel to me to represent the culture of the team and country they hail from. I think it's a unique situation that doesn't really fit in with other games that come from bigger publishers who only want white male leads because they "sell".
I may have gotten off track in this post, if so i apologize. This article was a good read, hopefully some of what i said makes sense. It's just how i see things i guess.
Hell yeah @austin_walker! Great talk.
And no typos! :P
@turambar said:
@austin_walker Would you say that CanCon exists more for the purpose of economic protection than actual cultural protection? If not, what are some of the aspects of Canadian culture that has come under threat?
I ask because it is an oft told joke by a few Canadians that I know that "Canada is just America desperately pretending it's not."
I think America would be depressed if Canada was the same thing...? That joke has always sounded more like a slap in the face to America than to Canada lol.
Anyways! Yes it is largely for economic protection but cultural protection is real. Your question is partially impossible though. How easy is it for you to the define The Cultural Aspects of any culture? Especially since most cultural aspects aren't unique. For example the US is just one of 100 countries known for patriotism. It's not unique. Same for Bacon in Canada. America likes Bacon too. All that said, American TV is not at all like Canadian TV. American film is not at all like Canadian film. Same goes for music, etc. The only way to talk about this is by way of stereotypes. A WWII movie about America will paint them as the aggressive heroes who won the war. A Canadian WWII movie is probably an apology. Think of the reverse. Nashville country sounds nothing at all like Alberta country music. A sound like the Barenaked Ladies could never have come from the US. That's canuck as hell.
If you watched local Canadian TV, shit like Corner Gas you'd realize there is a world of difference culturally between Canada and the US, but that's obvious enough by meeting Canadians and Americans I think.
Also, Hockey.
@ryonian: Well, I respect your opinion, but I have to disagree with it. Personally, I believe that good writers are able to empathize with and portray perspectives that are not their own, and that even men can write for women (and vice versa). I'll concede that a man will probably not know exactly what "women want to see," but hell, he probably doesn't actually know what men want to see either, as a whole.
I'm a strong believer that individuals vary much more greatly from one to another than large groups vary from one another - meaning I might be a whole lot more similar in personality and opinion to someone who very different from me than to someone who looks identical (I'll admit this becomes a whole different discussion, so maybe we shouldn't get into it here). So the upshot of that belief is that I feel any writer who thinks that not being X means that they can't write about X is making excuses for not doing the work.
And now that I saw your edit - I'll sure as hell agree that writing the same old story over and over is very quickly becoming not "good enough" for me either.
Amazing read duder. I must say I am really thrilled to have you here on the site. Not only Giant Bomb but the gaming media on the whole needed someone who feels the need to talk about 'the big issues' without sounding condescending and with proper respect to differing views. I honestly cannot think of an example of a video game writer who does such a great job of responding to and having an actual dialogue with their reader base.
I am really happy that your visit here at GB opened me up to your writing.
@tomba_be said:
I do think that there is a certain amount of criticism that is very 'American' to outsiders. I live in (a very white part of) Belgium. Until I was 12 or so, the only place I'd ever seen a black person was on TV. After that, it probably still took me about a decade to stop "noticing" black people. Many Belgians think like that. A while back there was an "incident" because a baker made a life-size cookie version of Obama during a state visit. But because the cookie was dark brown (because that's just the way that type of cookie always is) and it's pretty hard to make a baked cookie look like someone without looking like a horrible mutation of that person; the US press took that story as an example of how Belgians are racists. The truth often is that people outside of the US just don't look at everything from a "how might this thing be racist"-viewpoint. When people here heard about how this was viewed on in the US the reaction was "oh yeah, maybe when you look at it THAT way". But we also understand that until a few decades ago racism was an actual law in the US. Black people were legally separated from white people in all sorts of matters, and that still is something that is written in the collective mind of Americans. And looking at certain events there still is a huge difference in how black people are treated by the authorities. So it's understandable that you look at so many thing through those "let's make sure we don't do something like that again"-goggles. And although there are of course plenty of actual racists in Belgium and other countries, I can still understand how a group of people just don't think about "ok let's make sure nothing is racist about this" when making a game. I think the people who are thinking about race the most are 1) the people who suffer because of it and 2) racists. Your average non-racist white person just does not think about it all that much. Which is a good thing because it means he doesn't really care about the colour of people's skin, but it also means he doesn't think about how something might offend someone because he isn't trying to do anything wrong. And since (I assume?) most game development is done by white-straight-males, it's not that hard to understand why the concerns of people outside of that group just don't occur to them naturally. No one has ever "forced" them to think about such things. So a reviewer mentioning it might help a bit (although it might just as easily confuse them), but until we see an influx of women and non-whites in game development, I doubt anything will really change.
I think this is an interesting case, my wife was similar when she first visited me in the south side of Chicago coming from New Zealand. While New Zealand has a large native population and a growing number of Asia immigrants by and large they are a fairly "white" population and she was amazed at all of the ethnicity in America.
I can definitely concede that we can we be a bit sensitive to race in America and I wonder if it stems from America being settled and living with slavery and most of Europe participating in the slave trade but not seeing or living with it directly? Maybe it just hits closer to home for us.
@p2535748: White hair is also a sign of albinism. Geralt gets called a lot of things for other physical characterists (like his eyes), that is "fantasy" in nature but still points out that he could was a normal dude unable to use signs or kill monsters but with cat eyes and albinism... well, he would be as insulted by random kids or adults. Also there is actually human characters of different skin tone in the witcher world and mostly come from a different nation. So is probably weird to be there in a middle of a war with a trigger happy Empire and witch hunters burning "normal" people for back talking them.
@oursin_360 said:
I believe the first part of this article is something that should really be stressed, gaming critiques are just that "critiques". They aren't letters to government bodies to ban game content, or force creators to change their games.
I also believe game critics (and anybody who posts an opinion publically) is open to criticism themselves, so if someone says your unfair in your critique you should probably accept that opinion as you would want your own to be accepted. And like some people have pointed out, not all internet game journalism (I should just say internet journalism period) is fair and balanced. Some people just want to spit Vitriol for the sake of being controversial or to push their own agenda, and sometimes as an audience it may be hard to determine which is which. So some people may take it as an attack or trying to force something on them as it's a thin line to thread on the internet between sensationalism and actual journalism.
But all too often critique of a games journalist's opinion boils down to, "You shouldn't be writing about this." Concepts of fairness often have nothing do with it, and suggesting certain journalists have an agenda or are aiming to stir controversy is a loaded concept in and of itself.
@yothatlimp: I think you're absolutely spot on about the specific cultural relevance of racism in the US. As an English person, I was confused by how dominant the topic of race was in discussions about social justice. For us, class is a huge deal (again, because of our history) and again, I was surprised at how little Americans (the richest society on earth) spoke about that sort of inequality.
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