Obviously that steam guy was probably coming from a place of bad faith, but the response is maybe imperfect no? This would look pretty bad if the roles were reversed I think. (genuine question I am hoping I am told why this may not be the case; I have nowhere else to ask)
It’s okay to take context into account and not just look at it as a math problem. Targeting a minority isn’t the same as doing it to people who make up 90% of society but are whiny.
I totally agree that an unacceptable proportion of straight people are whiny about any manner of minority representation, but doesn’t this also affect straight people who are normal about this? Maybe it’d be more fitting to give a demeaning title to homophobes, eg. the steam complainer, but provide regular title to everyone else somehow? Thanks for taking the time!
Obviously that steam guy was probably coming from a place of bad faith
The Steam forums actively encourage this kind of bad faith behavior:
when a post gets a new reply it’s moved to the top of the forums. So as long as people are engaging with a post, even if it’s just to make fun of a bigot, it keeps getting pushed back to the top.
Users can “award” posts for various things
(helpfull, cool, funny, etc) and users have taken to giving ‘Clown’ awards as a way of making fun of posts. Whenever one of your posts gets an award, you are given Steampoints you can use in the Steam cosmetics store.
This results in every game having bad faith posts “complaining” about wokeness so that people will make fun of them with Clown awards as a way to farm Steampoints. The developer bringing attention to it just helps them get more.
I’m sort of the opposite. Give characters sexualities! Make them people! Give them criteria by which they will or won’t find my character attractive! I feel gross when every NPC is pansexual and aggressively attracted to the main character for no reason. Then again, I’m acespec, so.
If it were me, I’d do something like not really focus on what their actual “real” sexuality is unless it is somehow relevant to the plot. Then if it is so something like make them a 1 or a 5 on the Kinsey scale instead of a 0 or a 6.
I don’t think games should be required to do, I’m not trying to force some sort of universal bi/pan agenda. I’m just saying it personally annoys me when I am locked out of pursuing a character just because of the gender I happen to be playing as because I typically don’t play games multiple times. It also annoys me when games don’t allow you to pursue all characters. Like in BG3, as far as I know, all characters are bi/pan but not all are poly. The game forced me to pick between Astarion and Karlach, for example. I put 100 hours or so into the game before I quit. I’m not willing to put over 100 more hours into it just to see what would’ve been different. It’s just a waste of my time.
An alternative approach is only having “sex scene” type content gated behind gender, but everything else can still be seen by friends. E.g., anything a character would eventually tell a lover they still tell close friends. Which is still sort of annoying but not really as bad because you can easily just look up a sex scene, but experiencing things like dialogue and special quests in game isn’t comparable to looking it up on YouTube.
I understand your perspective but I guess I just fundamentally disagree. I’d be annoyed, in the same vein as you, if every character was poly (unless they were actually poly and they had other lovers and referenced your other lovers and it was genuinely part of their identity) or if a relationship with them wasn’t different from a close friendship, besides having sex (because sex isn’t the only thing separating a close friendship from a relationship).
I guess, the way I approach the kind of game that we’re both talking about is just different. I’m not interested in exploring 100% of all the content possible, but rather having a rich experience in the content that I do explore. I’ll take an authentically written gay man and an authentically written straight girl who both won’t explore a relationship with me, over the opportunity to have more content that’s shallower. But yeah, again, thats just a different approach we both have to games.
Obviously that steam guy was probably coming from a place of bad faith, but the response is maybe imperfect no? This would look pretty bad if the roles were reversed I think. (genuine question I am hoping I am told why this may not be the case; I have nowhere else to ask)
It’s okay to take context into account and not just look at it as a math problem. Targeting a minority isn’t the same as doing it to people who make up 90% of society but are whiny.
I totally agree that an unacceptable proportion of straight people are whiny about any manner of minority representation, but doesn’t this also affect straight people who are normal about this? Maybe it’d be more fitting to give a demeaning title to homophobes, eg. the steam complainer, but provide regular title to everyone else somehow? Thanks for taking the time!
The Steam forums actively encourage this kind of bad faith behavior:
when a post gets a new reply it’s moved to the top of the forums. So as long as people are engaging with a post, even if it’s just to make fun of a bigot, it keeps getting pushed back to the top.
Users can “award” posts for various things (helpfull, cool, funny, etc) and users have taken to giving ‘Clown’ awards as a way of making fun of posts. Whenever one of your posts gets an award, you are given Steampoints you can use in the Steam cosmetics store.
This results in every game having bad faith posts “complaining” about wokeness so that people will make fun of them with Clown awards as a way to farm Steampoints. The developer bringing attention to it just helps them get more.
I don’t think its ethical to portray straight people in video games at all.
Bioware is well ahead of you. Haven’t most of their romanceable NPCs been bisexual for ages now?
Any game that doesn’t make all NPCs “opportunistically bisexual” pisses me off. Quit locking content behind my character’s pronouns.
I’m sort of the opposite. Give characters sexualities! Make them people! Give them criteria by which they will or won’t find my character attractive! I feel gross when every NPC is pansexual and aggressively attracted to the main character for no reason. Then again, I’m acespec, so.
You can do that while still not locking any content behind gender though.
How can you make a character not attracted to men and simultaneously make their relationship not locked for male characters?
If it were me, I’d do something like not really focus on what their actual “real” sexuality is unless it is somehow relevant to the plot. Then if it is so something like make them a 1 or a 5 on the Kinsey scale instead of a 0 or a 6.
I don’t think games should be required to do, I’m not trying to force some sort of universal bi/pan agenda. I’m just saying it personally annoys me when I am locked out of pursuing a character just because of the gender I happen to be playing as because I typically don’t play games multiple times. It also annoys me when games don’t allow you to pursue all characters. Like in BG3, as far as I know, all characters are bi/pan but not all are poly. The game forced me to pick between Astarion and Karlach, for example. I put 100 hours or so into the game before I quit. I’m not willing to put over 100 more hours into it just to see what would’ve been different. It’s just a waste of my time.
An alternative approach is only having “sex scene” type content gated behind gender, but everything else can still be seen by friends. E.g., anything a character would eventually tell a lover they still tell close friends. Which is still sort of annoying but not really as bad because you can easily just look up a sex scene, but experiencing things like dialogue and special quests in game isn’t comparable to looking it up on YouTube.
I understand your perspective but I guess I just fundamentally disagree. I’d be annoyed, in the same vein as you, if every character was poly (unless they were actually poly and they had other lovers and referenced your other lovers and it was genuinely part of their identity) or if a relationship with them wasn’t different from a close friendship, besides having sex (because sex isn’t the only thing separating a close friendship from a relationship).
I guess, the way I approach the kind of game that we’re both talking about is just different. I’m not interested in exploring 100% of all the content possible, but rather having a rich experience in the content that I do explore. I’ll take an authentically written gay man and an authentically written straight girl who both won’t explore a relationship with me, over the opportunity to have more content that’s shallower. But yeah, again, thats just a different approach we both have to games.
For my part I didn’t mind that so much in Cyberpunk 2077, I just played it multiple times with different V characters.
But then I can see that it’s a big time investment and not good for everyone.
Could you please define “potray”? /genq
I honestly don’t think I could. I don’t think that’s an English word.