I appreciate the attempt to instigate an actual discussion, but that train has long departed.

And it's not just the eight pages of aggressive derail – it's that the whole thread starts out with links to a complete nutjob who doesn't even possess a foundational knowledge about narratology, but has lots and lots and lots of inciting conspiracy theories for his hateful supporters (like the English Defence League) and at least one Kickstarter game fraud under his belt.

Really, diversity in games is an important topic. But one for another time, evidently.

Desura :

http://www.desura.com/games/no-male-heroes

Itch.io :

https://wazagames.itch.io/no-male-heroes

One free diverse game out there.

I believe "agenda" is often used as an indictment of an artist's inability to tell a compelling story that centers around, say, a social issue, rather than decrying the social issue itself that serves as the story's framework. It's more of a reaction at heavy-handed, hamfisted approaches to topical issues that are oftentimes bereft of nuance and forcibly inserted into a context that is largely foreign to them, which requires actual narrative skill to pull off. In essence, the product itself doesn't have an agenda, but when the people making it clearly do, and do it to the detriment of the product, or the product plays second fiddle to it, or is artificially constructed to serve the agenda, that's when it becomes problematic.

Think about it. There are many games where you kill animals, and some are about survival, which tends to involve animal killing. But if a game were to portray animal defenders as knuckle-dragging simpleton NPCs and deify animal-killing and extol the virtues of hunting via unsolicited dialogues that are little more than the writers getting up on their personal soapboxes, that's when you're treading into agenda territory.

I mean, Philadelphia could be said to have had an "agenda", but there really wasn't much ballyhoo about it, other than from the usual, inevitable suspects. You don't have an agenda if you make a game with a gay character - much like you don't have an amnesia agenda when you make Planescape: Torment - but if you make other characters into talking heads about amnesia, vilify or mock mnemonic-positive people with sophomoric subtlety and artificially shape the narrative around what should have been but an aspect of the plot... well, some might not react that favorably to it, and understandably so. And that's not even touching reboots, remakes and the like, with people wanting to put their own ideological stamp on beloved franchises.

That's my take on it. Others' mileage may and probably will vary.

I'm trying to give up making double entendres, but it's very hard.

Do you realize it's not actually a video by Sargon of Akkad? :D

but i dont know any elephant jokes
or any nun jokes
its PAYTALITY! these days

the joys of modern vidiya gaming

I believe that the games talked about in the video are games that have nothing else to offer than an agenda. Some of them don't even have what most would call gameplay, certainly not a compelling narrative.

Your example of Dragon Age is perfect. I don't think it's a game with an agenda simply because the sexual orientation of the characters don't matter at all. Especially because they don't just come out & state it the minute they see you. ;)

It's only by your interactions with them that you *might* get to know more about them, if you want. It seems perfectly natural.

I honestly see no difference in the writing between gay & straight characters, nothing feels forced, and though there *are* cringe worthy moments, it has nothing to do with the sexual orientation of the characters. It's just the occasional spot of bad writing, which of course happens in a game with so much dialogue, most of which will be bypassed by the majority of players anyway.

Simply put, if anyone has a problem with some characters from the Dragon Age universe being gay, then it most certainly isn't because they are forced or tacked on. In fact, some straight characters feel more tacked on - Hi, Sten - or forced - Hello, Alistair - than the gay ones.

Don't get me wrong, I like Alistair & Sten just fine, it's just... well, their stories don't seem to flow as well, even if Alistair's story is interwoven throughout the whole of Ferelden.

I absolutely loved the interaction between Wade & Herren, especially because it wasn't until Awakening that it became obvious they were lovers. Sure, some people paying more attention to the subtleties may have figured it out sooner, but I certainly didn't.

Furthermore, this is the only time I've discussed DA's character's sexuality, because it's not what matters. They're fully fleshed out characters defined by their different personalities, of which their sexuality is simply a part of, as opposed to their entire raison d'etre, unlike the shallow, one dimensional characters made up for the games displayed in the video, which are entirely defined by their gender and/or sexuality, which is exactly the opposite of what the creators set out to do.

Frankly, it's hilarious.
Like I said, I only found out about his channel yesterday. That was the first video I saw, & then watched a couple of others before I posted that.

So now, I didn't realise that.

I've been looking for a bit more info & there's certainly some doubts cast on his character. I still don't know how truthful those claims are, for now, I enjoyed his videos, the corrections he annotates whenever new info comes to light & that he puts up links to his sources in the videos.

I also like that he seems to be pissing off all the right people, but I will not vouch for his character or get into his corner unquestioningly.

Eventually, I will have a more formed opinion of him, but for now, the video above is good, or at least I think it is.

Games with forced diversity suck. The key here is finding out which is forced and which are created out of artistic vision. And another important thing to note is that ''diversity'' isn't properly defined, even by the feeble minded twats that throw it around.

I would say it is more important to make the voice of reason heard, because the diversity advocates are loud, but what they say is nonsensical, vague or both. The devs may interpret the lovespeech in different ways and its more important to let it be known to them that making a good game in the traditional style (whatever that may be for a series) will sell copies, so that they know both sides and can create freely depending on their artistic vision.

As to saying ''diverse games suck'', its just pointless. You can't say any game sucks. Games and all art can only fail to reach expectations of a particular individual / group and not be bad to everyone who plays them. However, you can say they aren't good after viewing them with particular aspects in mind and when the vast majority of gamers care about those aspects (like gameplay, balance, writing, etc) they'll be a driving force for sales.

Yeah. But I think the principle that is most important in this argument is that the creators can create whatever they want. I've seen too many people countering the ''argument'' of ''that is sexist!'' with ''its not, here's why and how''. Both here and there, its more important to say ''they can do that if they want to'' and let the people playing decide what is worth buying if at all, and for what price.

Ie it doesn't matter if ''diverse'' games suck because they can create them like that if they want and it doesn't matter if ''non -diverse'' games aren't diverse enough because no one has the right to impose their will on someone's else's creation.

Just quoting because it deserves to be quoted.

That isn't just be lies and slander, especially the last claim, now is it?

The problem being that what you subjectively find "forced" may in fact

(a) have been created out of actual artistic vision, just one that you fail to find acceptable
(b) reflect historical accuracy
(c) reflect the actual diversity of today's real world, one you neither find credible nor acceptable

And how could you hope to be the judge of what's "forced" and what's not going on mere intuition, having been spoon fed absurd stereotyped conformity in games stories and design for decades? What arbitrary boundaries do you wish to set for the creativity of designers, whose games get review bombed because of overstepping said arbitrary boundaries i.e. just because they have a little less projection figures for straight white guys?

Granted, you've understood well enough that diversity isn't some magic powder that, liberally sprinkled all over your narrative, magically transforms it into something great. But when after decades of an incestuous monocultural time loop of stereotype regurgitation in game design you are not begging for more diversity, and in fact instead still get goose bumps in horror when you think about how "all those SJW" are now "killing your games" with too many "girls, blacks and gays", you're a pretty sad judge of the state of things.

I hope that CDPR has the guts and balls to depict Cyberpunk 2077's main hub with all of today's cultural diversity drawing on the example of the two real cities the fictional Night City supposedly lies between – and then some – and then manages to understand what punk really means in addition to all that.

If that nuclear diversity explosion doesn't feel 'forced' to you, hardly any diversity ever will.

I would argue the nutjob bit, as none of the videos I saw have anything on conspiracies - haven't watched 'em all yet - and he seems to be quite rational & logical in his arguments.

The last bit may be true, however. I haven't looked all that much into it, but there was one game & kickstarter at one point & I haven't seen anything about it being complete.

To be fair, yes, there are mitigating factors to this story. On the other hand, anyone who assesses some selected Kickstarters that deliver comparatively much comparatively late – here, especially Double Fine and FemFreq Kickstarters come to mind – to be fraudulent would exhibit a fair bit of hypocrisy not calling Sargon's crowd funding fraud.