this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2024
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If the game is dog shit the people crying about it being woke will still be the idiots. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Exactly. Woke is just a symptom not the reason. It's hard to see a beloved series go bad but people should learn to move on if the game is bad. Just buy the game when it's good and the problem is solved.
Fuck off.
Woke is not a symptom. What people usually complain about with "woke" is more choices for the player to personalize their experience. Body type 1 or 2 instead of male female? Woke. Different skincolors? Woke. Woman in charge? Woke.
(I'm so sorry for writing so much. Skip to the last paragraph if you have to. There's a tension in me because I fall on both sides a bit.)
It's an indicator of developer focus and intent. Sometimes.
If people's introduction to trans characters wasn't "hi, I'm trans" then maybe they wouldn't have these stereotypes, but we are where we are. Pretending that it's just extra options is ignoring that the people that push this sort of thing also seem to think we also want to read their shitty writing and shitty characters.
Their dumblelore/voldemort slash fiction bullshit was trash 15 years ago and they haven't improved because their focus is social issues, not good writing. That's the real issue - paper thin characters that are just vehicles for social commentary. Subversion isn't annoying your audience from the start, it's developing deep characters with all the flaws of humanity that also happen to have atypical identities.
My favorite book series are The Culture novels and Discworld. They both have trans characters that aren't there just to push narrative. They were well written characters that fit the world and also trans. In the culture it's not even remarkable - they've solved everything biological so it's just kind of there. Discworld is more by-the-horns, but he still manages to be sneaky with the subversion and it works every fucking time.
On the flip side, Hugo award winner A Deepness in the Sky has a character that uses gender neutral pronouns which is whatever. Not a big deal, but it was the first time I saw it in a book. What was the book? Torture/rape fantasy set in space. It's one of two books I couldn't finish. The other is Atlas Shrugged. Coming from someone that's read a lot of more classic science fiction and considered a Hugo a seal of approval, that was a very harsh realization.
I don't think there's anything wrong with extra options or making ugly characters (though I don't get that - there's a sweet spot between fan service and trash can) but I don't consider them a useful feature if the game is shit. If they focus on the game and add 'woke' shit to a good game with well written characters it'll go down like honey. If the devs see the game as a vehicle to disseminate their social ideas, they're in love with themselves and not the game and people will see that. It can, and has, been done well.
That's not wise to complain about more choices though. Unless there is a forced agenda, that I can understand.
It isn't. More options doesn't affect anyone but somehow it is an issue to snowflakes.
My 4 favorite games are "woke"
I dont think it has any connection to the quality of a game
That's what I think as well. If it requires, just put 18+ inscription and let people decide for themselves, which I believe Veilguard already has that rating.
Why would it need an 18+ inscription?
What is not safe for kids about it?
"woke" is now just a dog whistle that tells you the person saying it is a bigoted shithead.
Aye, it has become another dogwhistle of the weirdo alt right crowd. It's kinda helpful because whenever you see someone use it unironically, you can just safely block/ban them at no loss of conversation.
Eh, it's a bit of slippery slope if you ask me since it's overused these days.
Not sure I’d consider things like the ability to make your character trans a symptom of anything other than the game being made in the 21st century.
I think it's a symptom because the creators using it to hide their bad games, and the idiots think the game is bad because it's woke. If the game is already bad, it's bad. Dragon Age games were always diverse and Dragon Age Origins was epitome of its genre. No one is talking about it being woke.
How does this work in particular? The hiding bit? Doesn't it actually draw attention, considering how many people then spam "OMG SO WOKE!11!!angry-1!!" and so on threads everywhere?
They indeed draw attention. It's basically there is no good or bad advertising from their point. However, this is a fantasy world and people would like to see psychically appealing characters, especially the playable ones. I believe this is the root issue.
When they have no good material, they start to promote unrelated things to gameplay. This is just one of those things.
Didn't YOU just say that people focus on the visuals of characters? As in, something unrelated to gameplay?
Visuals are part of the experience, it's not unrelated. Gameplay is the core, you only have make up without it. If the game turn out to be good, most of these will be forgotten. There are a lot of good games that can be considered as "woke" and no one talk about them like this. Because they are good games.
Why? Or rather, why this, but apparently not your character or their back story?
[citation needed]
On broader range everything in the game is part of the experience. However there is a significance order to that. Core gameplay loop comes first, every person who plays the game experience this. Back story is lore. To me lore is also important and a very enjoyable part of the games, but some people are not interested in this and they tend to skip these parts. If they are optional (like reading books in Skyrim or reading pamphlets in Shadowrun etc.) they don't even bother with them.
Citation: Cyberpunk 2077, Baldur's Gate 3, I can even put Stardew Valley in this list, though not as vocal as others. I didn't see anyone bash these games as being woke, or maybe they are a minority if there are.
You have spend zero time in game forums talking about Baldur's Gate 3 if you think it wasn't criticized for being woke. The best game of the year by every metric, and conservatives got batshit insane about a slider for gender that contained "non-binary" as an option. The first year or so every second steam discussion was about that topic.
Yes I didn't spend time in BG3 forums but from what I see on Steam reviews being 96% positive out of 500k people, I believe they are a minority.
Which goes to show that it being heavily criticized for being woke has nothing to do with quality. It's not a "symptom" of a bad game, like you wrote earlier.
If Dragon age flops it will do so because it's a bad game, not because it's woke - the people who actually give games bad ratings for that are thankfully always a very small minority, no matter what a conservative bubble, right wing influencers, or some random internet shit storm might suggest to you. Your original comment simply missed the point.
That's a good point. I probably missed that because I didn't visit those forums. Usually these discussions go around with already bad games. I actually checked BG3 Steam forums now however couldn't find those threads without searching. Perhaps it was a vocal minority? If a game is good, majority don't care about these details or they don't express their feelings even though they're conservatives.
I guess it would be more fitting if I said "symptom of an ongoing debate" or something like that. But like I said, these conversations go around on already bad games. Maybe they being bad attracts these conversations since those people have a tangible indication, even though it's actually not the real reason of it's being bad.
If Veilguard flops, there will be a lot of reasons to list. Not sure if wokeness would make into top 10.
So "woke" means all of the following together, trying to summarize:
Did I sum that up correctly?
Not sure how commercial flop part is related but from what I understand from the people who talk about this, yeah it's more or less something like that. Though I can easily say that many people have different definition of "woke" in their minds and it shows. Consistency differs.
This is my conclusion, from what I see, it is mostly about TQ+ part.
So this then begs the question, why are people decrying games as "woke" trying so hard to push their political agenda into gaming discussions? After all, as per point 1 + point 3, the game was already criticized/panned anyways, then someone came in and tries to push the critique onto a political level instead of a game one.
That's a good question. I think it's more like reciprocal, as a counter measure from conservative people. I wouldn't approach this as left and right quarrel. What we see is political but not in its core I believe, it's pushed into politics.
If simplify it, this whole debate is around having transition chest scars as a customization option, at least that's what I see. Woke is just a bigger cluster here.