They did focus on what you call “gameplay” related features (pretty sure character creation is a gameplay feature as well, butanyways...). Thats not a reason, its a fact. The *reason* they focused on what they focused on would be something like “other shooters dont incorporate different ballistics based on ammo and…

Meanwhile, coming here telling people they’re wrong and only talking because they want to virtue signal, on your part, is just... Letting everyone know you’re a hard thinking contrarian who isn’t taken in by all that PC bullshit. Congratulations, you win.

The argument is not that everything should cater to everyone. The argument is games should have good reasons for catering to whom they choose to cater. That ideally, many decisions should be the object of conscious intention and discussion.

Second only in righteousness to he who runs around insulting people for being “righteous.” If only we could be as self satisfactorily ambivalent as him, express as much fervor in support of caring as he does in *not* caring. Truly a saint among men.

At what point is it ok to use someone’s artistic choices to infer something about the content of their character? Or, even more generally, to say that they behave in a way that exacerbates various social ills, that makes the world worse, that is bad, evil?

And Triumph of the Will was a movie made by Germans. Who cares?

How do you encourage diversity in videogames without looking at the process of production/design for specific games, relating that process to the design outcome, and “attacking” the elements of the process that you believe produce the outcome?

So according to you, you can either say hey you have carte blanche to do whatever you want, I dont give a shit, or express a substantive opinion that may or may not agree with whatever gets decided. But if you do give an opinion, and stand by it, you are controlling them and preventing them from doing whatever they…

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.”