Dude Lay off the aspirin, It'll make your gut bleed!

Why the low rating?

I knew this straw-man would show up. There's no hypocrisy here, I was rather clear on what constitutes dubious content. Once again: there's a world of difference between showing fictional violence (or sex, or military action, or whatever the offense-du-jour is) as a game theme, and explicitly endorsing real life violence both in game and in marketing materials.

Let me make this clear: what's clearly "garbage" it's the violence apologism, not the game itself. "I don't want endorsement of throat-punching" is not a "political opinion" to anyone who's still sane. It's the goddamn basis of civility.

For all I know, the game could be great (hint: it's not, it's mostly market-by-controversy shovelware). That's not what's being discussed here.

I don't care if the game is a full-on communist pamphlet (see: Disco Elysium, a game that by most accounts seems to be rather good and belongs on this store). I DO give a damn if you expect me to sheepishly accept the promotion of imbecilic calls to violence on a curated medium, specially when the curation has been rather overzealous before.

As to the attempt to conflate this opinion with a call to censorship: I clearly stated I much preferred a free storefront with no curation (where this game would be sold), specially if curation is to be selectively applied to appease the freshest batch of would-be-revolutionaries (who kindly welcome your monetary donation, thank you very much). It's rich to accuse me of double standards when my whole complaint is about that: for GOG curators presumably it's Ok to call for violence explicitly as long as you're the "right" side, but it's not Ok to have controversial personal opinions unrelated to your products and marketing when you're on the "wrong" side.

Anyway, signing out - I think I made my position rather clear, barring deliberate miscontruction.

Again, the problem is not that a game has an ideology... or even that this game is favorable toward socialism.

The problem is...

... that the base and simplistic expression of that ideology by the developers of Tonight We Riot promotes violence against a class of people simply based on them belonging to that class. The "guilt" of this class is ascribed simply by its existence.

Skin color... ethnicity... political affiliation... social class...

This is prejudice... and promoting violence as an expression of that prejudice.

This should be clear to any student of history (especially of WWII).

So, is my argument that no game can express a socialist ideology?

Certainly not. Games are free -- as any art -- to express ideologies...

...but...

... if an ideology about committing violence against others is not backed by a story or situation (in-game) that shows why that guilt is justified -- if the "guilty" class's only guilt is their station in life -- then the game is just childish propaganda promoting prejudice and violence.

That is the problem with Tonight We Riot -- certainly on it's GOG page, developer interviews, and advertising -- and possibly in the game proper.

What I find distressing is that many who back this game's prejudicial stance would be up-in-arms -- and rightly so -- if this game was called something like "Clean Up The Streets" and was about beating up the homeless and others on the street.

Oh the irony of rationalizing (and then excusing) your own prejudice.

Yes, in the end, I think the words of the developers (advertising and interviews) should have been enough to keep this work off-site by GOG's curation standards.

Gee... Wonder who that could be... ess Jay double you
Why did Breja's funny post get low rated?

I usually Up rate Low Rated posts even ones I don't agree with just to annoy the rep trolls

Welp gotta get back to unpacking groceries!

That game exists. It's called "Condemned: Criminal Origins".

I hear that: Pelosi with bits of visa ipo's is popular among us populace.

Not a direct equivalent, but Call of Duty and similar games are absolutely all about maintaining the traditional capitalism/freedom American social order across the globe and sticking it to the dirty commies/Russians/whatever. All the Tom Clancy stuff. Others I'm sure.

As much as games media lean left on social issues, I don't really think there's a prevailing sense of "uproot the American way of life and end capitalism and freedom" messages. Honestly when you ignore the social stuff, most games push the "lone man fights for freedom from controlling government" angle pretty hard.

Not meaning to sound confrontational. Hope this doesn't come off that way...

You do remember playing as the Soviets in COD, yes?

While I understand your point, I would counter...

I never remember seeing someone being killed because of their social class. Certainly fascists are used as enemies in many historical games, but that's because the "guilt" has a historical context (WWII) that's generally understood.

I wasn't trying to argue that a socialist revolution is a prevailing message in games... only that the way it's been expressed in this games' marketing is in fact just rationalized, prejudicial violence.

Fair enough, I don't dig on this game's call to violence either. I'm sure if you nailed them down they'd say it's "fantasy" and not actually calling for it, but still it's an ugly message in my opinion. I'm just saying if you're a die-hard communist or nationalist or whatever, plenty of games call for killing them too.

Loooooooool, my more recent posts ITT got downboated and yet my rep increased by 7 overnight!

NOOOOOOOOOIIIIIIIICE!!!!!!

Stay mad, downboaters!

Think next time, much like with Not Tonight, when a political game releases here, there should be some effort made to least moderate the release thread. The 'don't talk politics' rule is pretty hard to enforce when releasing a game which is using its politics for marketing and the core concept. Adapt to it

But don't fight/troll each other over a game, that most of you won't remember in a few weeks time. Use your energy to promote indie stuff you do enjoy.

Though the game is pretty fun FYI

Yeah, well, I tried to shill for Hatred ITT, but got downboated for that as well. :(

This is one of the reasons I think education have failed when people still doesn't know the difference between socialism and communism, and reality vs a little game. Either that or people still want to live blindfolded. Learning history and put it on repeat on the web means nothing if you don't understand it.

I am amazed how we humans obsess so much over games' violence and so-called overt political themes.

https://www.history.com/news/socialism-communism-differences Which, if you take the devs leaning too seriously, means this game goes against his own belief. However, this game is a mock-up, a parody into the extreme, which I find amusing.

Not my type of game (the cartoon style, not because of it's political theme), but I personally I couldn't care less about which way the dev(s) leans, be it political or physical, unless they outright wants to legalize bum-fights and "game-over-gazzing".

Thanks for the recommendation.

Warbanners is also available DRM-free on the Humble Store, and it is on sale right now. However, its expansion is DRMed on the same store.

Sooo I'm unbanned xD (was totally worth it)


But what I wanted to remark ...... Is this general trend on here possibly a marketing decision on the part of GOG!? In the manner of "Well Steam just allows literally anything, so we're gonna turn left & go SJW instead, simply for contrast and publicity's sake!"

I mean if you WANNA sell your soul ......