Oh we're talking about Sargon, I though that was your opinion of Harmful Opinions the guest who did the video for his channel.

Still I disagree on all points raised against him, except for the kickstarter thing which I know nothing about.

lol you're unloading all your stereotypes about people who disagree with you.

a.I don't have to accept it, if I don't like it, I don't buy it.
b.Depends on what theory of historical period you buy into, still not buying if not liking
c.What if no one is forcing me to buy it?

So you're arguing that people won't be able to decide what's forced because they've been fed what your perception of game stories have been for the past few years? You're arguing from the point that all your claims of bias and accusations are true.

I don't expect you to see things from my perspective but please don't expect me to read some stuff like ''after decades of an incestuous monocultural time loop of stereotype regurgitation in game design you are not begging for more diversity, and in fact still get goose bumps in horror when you think about how "all those SJW" are now "killing your games" with "girls, blacks and gays", you're a pretty sad judge of the state of things.''


And I'm not saying differentiating is that important for you to question its validity. If they think its forced, don't buy it. Similarly, if you think its not ''diverse'' enough, don't buy it. ''Review bombing'', please define it.

Again, for the twentieth time. The wallet is not a deciding factor. I'll buy Cyberpunk 2077 and probably a new PC to go with it no matter what. And I may just love it even when it's another whitewash fantasy, though Pondsmith won't be pleased. It would be a deeply disappointing detail in a game I may love.

That boycott nonsense is pretty strange, and when I take a good look at games like Rust, it's pretty clear who imposes what standards on games here. Which is all rather logical: If you were to approach from the other side going e.g. "I'm not buying the game if I can't play a woman", it's pretty much goodbye gaming hobby for you.

Look people, this all boils down to one very simple thing.

Straight white men are to blame for everything that is wrong with the world & must all be exterminated.

With extreme prejudice.

Damn those straight white males! Damn them all to hell!

And people who don't fixate on race will enjoy it. No one needs to enjoy or not enjoy a game for it to exist.

Who is it then? Who is ''imposing standards''?

So you're saying there should be developers who should cater to your specific tastes? What duty do they have? Their trying to express their vision and you're saying they should express visions you like?

Unfortunately, that's where you get it wrong, because, according to the diversity intelligentsia, you either can't or shouldn't be allowed to create games the way you want. Not if you dare not to tick enough boxes in this nebulous checklist of inclusiveness, which some reviewers will harp on about almost to the exclusion of the actual game itself when writing up a critique about a game that fails to conform to it. The fact that "diverse" games (the way I defined them a couple of posts ago, at least) end up being uniformly terrible only puts the cognitively dissonant cherry on top of the self-centered ice-cream.

I am going to assume you are White. Would I be correct?

And that's unfortunate. A game creator ought to be able to say, "This is my world, my virtual creation, and in this particular world those are not issues. Period." I find it a bit ridiculous that we try to force diversity stuff onto a creative work that may bear very little resemblance to our own world simply because the audience comes from a world where those issues do exist (sort of).

And if we ARE going to force them to do that - apply real world issues to fantasy worlds - then I think there needs to be mention of global warming caused by fire-breathing dragons. And all of the litter from medkit use in FPS games. Hell, the Stalker games don't address the tainted syringes left scattered around The Zone after inoculating oneself for radiation poisoning.

But when another game creator does that, and another and another and another and another and another, to the point where the majority of games that exist feature as main characters people of a very specific type, to the point where if someone tries something different it is seen as something unique, wouldn't you say there's a problem?

And it isn't really about being a specific design choice. The issue being highlighted by those that highlight it is that there is a very specific set of character traits (white, male, grizzly, hardened, etc.) that is seen as default. Very few people go into the design of a game specifically thinking "Oh, all my major characters MUST be white males, and it is absolutely narratively necessary that the only women that exist in my story (if any at all) are only window dressing". Those are usually just the defaults chosen due to lazy storytelling.
I find it quite interesting that those games where actually thought has gone into the the narrative and story just so happen to be ones with diverse characters. Not that they are diverse because the designers were wanting diversity for the sake of diversity, but they actually thought through their characters and designed them to match that.

Also, I don't get this thing about "forcing". Who is forcing? How are they forcing? How can they possibly force? All that is being done now is pointing it out as it is. Negative publicity isn't force. It is just the airing of an opinion.

That's because you're thinking of the wrong type of forced.

Forced as it pertains to writing, when a situation or a character are completely out of place & are just crammed in there to solve an issue where the author has painted herself into a corner, or in the case of these games, to be an interactable billboard.

Do you use an adblocker? Well, those "NPCs" are kinda like ads. Some people don't care, others put up an adblocker, and yet others go into a raging froth, foaming at the mouth whenever a pop up pops up.

The majority just clicks on them anyway & gets a virus in their brains, I mean computers.

Put simply, if someone is a writer & writes something feels forced, then she should really care about that, because that makes her a very bad and/or lazy writer. Usually both. CERTAINLY both in her case.

I'm using force in the sense the poster I quoted used it. To quote:

Ah, I see. I thought you meant this bit here.

Lots of forcing going about, these days.

This kind of diversity? Nope, thanks.

What we need is diversity in gameplay. Different strategies. Diverse options and possible ways of solving problems. Different classes, attributes, abilities, skills. Diverse enviroments and challenges etc.

Even if that were an issue, it'd be called supply and demand. However, it most certainly is not, as Gordon Freeman, Guybrush Threepwood, George Stobbart et alii beg to differ (as pertains to character "types"). I assume you're referring to FPS and the like. If people bought into the notion of female, chipper, pollyannaish character types indulging in warfare and wanton killing as some sort of default, it'd bespeak a very problematic zeitgeist in our society. As for White being the default, it's as much of a problem as Asian being the default in Asian games - that is, not at all. Defaults aren't lazy, they're merely defaults for a reason. But, just because they're defaults and, by definition, a majority, they do not impede variety in any way, nor have they ever. It's not nearly as interesting as this conflation of yours of "fleshed out" with "diverse". Nobody called Memoria, Heavy Rain, Longest Journey, Bayonetta, to name but a few, "diverse". They're just accomplished games which happen to have main characters who aren't all white males. And they would have been equally good games if they had been envisioned for white male characters, as "diversity" in and on itself is just a meaningless, empty shell of a buzzword, which accomplishes nothing in and on itself. Unless you're talking about your eating habits, which should indeed be as diverse as possible.

If you were to design a game, I'd hope you'd put in some thought to the story, and not just go the lazy route. Then, if there is a specific reason the characters you chose are the characters you chose, then sure, it might be fine. To take the example of STALKER which I think someone here mentioned before, nobody complains that the player character in STALKER should've been black or could've been black.

How is it supply and demand? I'd say it is either lazy writing, or when it is forced (there are quite a few stories you read about games envisioned with different characters having to be changed to be more 'relatable'), it's because publishers are cowards with outdated data. I'm not sure I understand your examples, though. You just gave me 3 white male characters, a twenty year old one that has since been turned into a stereotypical comical buffoon, a stereotypical loudmouth american, and a silent protagonist? Are they diverse? The three aren't the same character, certainly, but I can't say more than that.

So many weird preconceived notions. Can women only be chipper pollyannaish characcters?
Asians are the default in asian games?
And the entire analogy itself- Whites being the default in 'our society' is like Asians being the default in Asian society- You're matching "Whites in our society' to "Asians in Asian society'. Whites (especially white males, which you skipped out on) are not the majority market for video games any more. And 'our society' (even taking your meaning to be your society and not mine) isn't white by default.
To echo your assumption to Vainamoinen, I'm going to assume you're white?

"Default' is by no definition a majority. And selecting the default (or more accurately, going the default way due to a lack of forethought or any actual selection) IS lazy, by definition. A game development tool I use has a specific font, and this grey flat GUI theme for the save/load and menu options by default. If I play a game with those in it, I won't think "No, the developer SPECIFICALLY chose that because they wanted it to be part of their game" or "that's just the majority". I would think "This developer, for whatever reason, didn't do something different than the default in terms of the interface. It is an indication that they may possibly be lazy, or have not thought this through".

Saying they'd be just as good if they had been white male characters is also a bit strange. Errr..they aren't. No they wouldn't. We just doing guessing games now? So if a character different than a stereotypical white male was swapped in for a stereotypical white male (not advocating something as simplistic, obviously), it would be forced, but if a white male was swapped in for one of those characters you mentioned, it would make no difference at all?

And are you saying that they are NOT diverse? Or just that they were not called diverse? I don't get your point. Just because they aren't CALLED diverse (they're just called in general good games, because of the reason I said- well thought out and non-lazy writing- not that I can be sure, I haven't played them all), doesn't mean they aren't.
Are you simply angered by the term 'diverse' because it is being used by those you consider your idealogical opponents, thus must be wrong?