They’re allowed to do whatever they want. I’m allowed to ask “hey why aren’t there women” and then, upon hearing your response, say, “oh you’re kind of a sexist dickwad. Imma let my friends know so they don’t unwittingly give money to a bunch of assholes. Unless they’re ok with that.”

“It’s not a good or compalling argument for saying that others aren’t doing it the way you want it done.”

The artist has no vision without an audience. And if his only audience is himself, fine. But it isn’t. If you want applause expect to get boo’d. If you want more applause than boos, take criticism and create your vision in conversation with something other than your palm and a bottle of vaseline.

“ Who knows, maybe they’ll go and write a valid reason into the lore and we’ll all be ashamed of our words and deeds”

“in a vacuum, those are actually fine.”

Why? If someone designing a game is a bigot, and designs their game in accordance with their bigotry, the game will express bigotry. If they company had said nothing one way or the other, we would have an open question.

“Representation is good but I don’t think we should be judging an individual game for choosing a setting with limited diversity” 

“And it should be totally fine if a person who chooses to tell a story in *any* medium reflects that reality”

The goals develop, that doesnt mean they’ve moved. No one ever wrote down a checklist and said well, once we hit all these boxes we’re done. The goal is, generally, more representation,less exclusion, and less normalization of ‘status quo stereotyping. What that ends up meaning is dynamic. There is not some quota to…

“ If I create a Warhammer 40k game and you can’t play as a female space marine because of the lore, does that game not have a right to exist?”

The seminal work “exit, voice, and loyalty” is half a century old. Buy/dont buy is not the extent of our options. Eat a book once and a while.

“Your last paragraph is precisely my point. There is no “right” or “wrong” answer as far as the choice the developer made. To criticize their decision as a “bad” decision is myopic and juvenile.”

The option to vote with your wallet does not preclude vocal criticism, nor should it.

“That being said, this is still just a form of art, and shouldn’t necessarily have to be one size fits all. I firmly stand 100% for human equality, but our recent expectations for ALL media to represent ALL groups, ALL the time, is just a little ridiculous.”

“We have no idea what their development cycle was”

“They shouldn’t have to justify”

Imagine using this “2 year old game” argument in the age of perpetual open/closed beta early access constantly in development games. The game has not been finished. It entered closed beta 2.5 years ago..  It has been in development for nearly 8 years.  At what arbitrary point in the development process did you decide…

There are good reasons and bad reasons for making choices.  There are reasons that you find justifiable and reasons you dont.  There is nothing hypocritical or wrong about liking/accepting some reasons and disliking/rejecting others.

“2 years after release”

How is “demanding” (which, let us be clear, in these contexts is just a polemicized, more emphatic synonym for “asking”) a change to a game *still officially in closed beta*, that will likely continue to be modified as a “living” game for years to come, ridiculous and entitled? At what point does one lose the privilege…