Tim Sweeny says to get dem poltiks out his games!

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

https://www.ign.com/articles/epic-games-boss-says-all-politics-should-be-removed-from-games

[Edvarius]

Well quickly skimming over the article I'd say that he isn't wrong about having the marketing department not decide what kind of a message a game should send, and how that should be up to the creators. But there's no way to completely remove politics from gaming unless you are going to make nothing but characterless, single-player puzzle games... and even then you'd need to be careful about assets like the graphics and music, as well as avoiding anything that could be considered controversial in payment options. (You got microtransactions? That's some controversy right there. And a deal breaker for me personally. Microtransactions payment systems need to burn in a fire.) If you present any kind of a story, there is politics in that. Even something like Harvest Moon or Animal Crossing present a particular type of lifestyle/society as an ideal, and that in turn is a statement.

[Mecha82]

I remember that there were claims that Tom Clancy's Division isn't political when it clearly is. It happens to have political view that Tom Clancy has and he is very political author.

[AlucardNoir]

Of course he would. He's seen the writing on the wall as it were. Games have always been political, but that didn't matter because of how those politics were implemented. When Samus took off her armour in the original Metroid that was the developers saying something political, and yet gamers and critics alike did not have a problem with that. If the same thing would have happened in today's games journo climate the move would have most likely been seen as pandering by gamers and been criticised by as many critics as would have praised it. And why? because it didn't make sure players knew they were playing a woman from the start so it gave the wrong "impression" to anyone who might not have finished the game or some such nonsense.

The problem today isn't that game's have become more political, is that game journalists that used to be nothing more then paid shills now think of themselves as important and are trying to do something with the "power" that they think they have. Bioware became famous for the intricate stories they told through their games and because of the romance options they gave the player, yet by Dragon Age: Inquisition even people that were pro LGBT+ started to wander if they weren't just pandering. Why? because every single companion you got was now seemingly bisexual and pansexual. They weren't all that way but in a desperate attempt to make sure nobody playing their games would get rejected they made the sexuality of the companions a joke. When the character don't behave like normal people would the immersion of the story is broken.

Beamdog got flack when it inserted a new character that just so happened to blurt out their sexuality in a very unimmersive way in a conversation.

Even games that tried their darnedest to say something political got their messages ignored by "SJW's" that were trying to make the same fucking point. Obsidian's Fallout: New Vegas has three main factions the player can aid and join, a democratic one lead by a woman, a randian/objectivist one led by a man in cryo, and a patriarchal misogynistic one led by man. Yet, when Anita Sarkeisian decided to analyse that game for her series what she found offensive was that the player could chose to play as a man, that he could then encounter not just male but also female raiders that would try to kill him, that he could then kill said female raiders and then - making use of the universally applied ragdoll physics of the game - drag the corpse of said female raider through the desert. And that in a game where the devs went out of their way to make sure the raiders you encounter in the wild are more egalitarian than Caesar's Legion, a group that is not only literally patriarchal but which keeps it's women in literal cages, treating them like slaves.

The problem isn't politics in games, the problem is the retards writing reviews about said games. Kingdom Come Deliverance was bashed by progressive critics because it didn't have black characters. Eurovision even interviewed a historian on the topic and all the historian had to offer was a "merchants of Arab or African descent might have passed thought the town, and they might have staid in a taverns, and they might have had a frisk with a local woman, and might have sired a child that wouldn't be white". That was what their historian had to offer, a "what if". No proof, no historical documents that would have condemned the studio as racists. NO, just a "what if." Other's tried bringing up portraits from different regions of Europe, like Spain and Italy. And other out right stated that because the game was being released for an international audience it should take into account the audience as opposed to the historical setting. Hell, some accused the game of specifically choosing that particular historical setting just so it could be overtly racist and exclude people of colour.

Politics aren't the problem, it's the political expectations of the retards writing reviews that are the problem. Or in the case of Blizzard, the political expectations of the Chinese censors.

[Antiboyscout]

I think I've said it before, but I think it's pretty simple. Does your political message exist to serve the plot, or does your plot exist to serve the political message?

That's what it means to "get politics out of games" does the political message exist to serve the plot of the game, or does the game exist to serve the political message?

[Worffan101]

Tim Sweeny is a greedy idiot who is afraid of his Chinese paymasters.

Honestly, I'd like MORE politics in games, but approached honestly and with a genuine sense of moral and artistic courage. The Outer Worlds did that, and it's one of the best video games I've ever played.

[clearspira]

I love Battlefield 4. Bloody love it. Spent hours on it. Level 140. And I never bought Battlefield 5. Why? Because the developer came out and said that if i disagree with their political stance of deleting actual men from actual battles and replacing them with women then I shouldn't buy it.

And I didn't. Nor did many others.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I love Battlefield 4. Bloody love it. Spent hours on it. Level 140. And I never bought Battlefield 5. Why? Because the developer came out and said that if i disagree with their political stance of deleting actual men from actual battles and replacing them with women then I shouldn't buy it.

And I didn't. Nor did many others.

Really, just for the inaccurate aggregate?

[Mecha82]

To be honest most people who demand politics out of something mean that they want politics that they disagree with out of it. If there are politics they agree on they don't mind that it's there. With video games some go so far that they don't like having option to play as woman because it some how offends them when no one is forcing them play as woman in video game were that's option. It goes to same category as some people in fighting game community hating some character being in roster of some fighting game (for example Lucky Chloe in Tekken 7) when no one forces them to play that character.

[clearspira]

I love Battlefield 4. Bloody love it. Spent hours on it. Level 140. And I never bought Battlefield 5. Why? Because the developer came out and said that if i disagree with their political stance of deleting actual men from actual battles and replacing them with women then I shouldn't buy it.

And I didn't. Nor did many others.

Really, just for the inaccurate aggregate?

He challenged me - and I went all in on that action.