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How can the games industry resist and push back against Trump & his fascism?

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A game shouldn't be designed around political agendas but every company is free to do whatever they want. But it's a risk and comes with the possibilty of alienating customers. I'd like them to do nothing if it doesn't add anything to the game. Not everything has to be about Trump vs. Hillary. It's kind of sad that this form has become such a toxic place for the last few days.

That's the thing though, when people are able to do whatever they want they produce art with inherent political agendas either through intention or no.
 

poodaddy

Gold Member
Wow this thread is a graveyard. On topic; I can empathize with how you feel OP, but I don't know what we can realistically do about it. The bigot got elected because there are far more disgusting people in this country than we ever realized, and that realization frightens me more than Trump. I'm just glad I live in WA state; we're such a blue state that I doubt we'll be affected much by Trumps presidency, but I'm honestly scared for minorities who live in the overwhelmingly red southern states. All we can do is keep voting with our wallets by refusing to support the alt right publishers and developers out there like Palmer Luckey and his ilk and hope that Trump doesn't get a second term. Hopefully after the coal and natural gas states realize that Trump has to take a side between one or the other and can't possibly improve jobs on both sides like he told them he would then they'll realize he was a boisterous liar the whole time and he'll be doomed in four years.
 

xxracerxx

Don't worry, I'll vouch for them.
A game shouldn't be designed around political agendas but every company is free to do whatever they want. But it's a risk and comes with the possibilty of alienating customers. I'd like them to do nothing if it doesn't add anything to the game. Not everything has to be about Trump vs. Hillary. It's kind of sad that this form has become such a toxic place for the last few days.

Huh? Why shouldn't a game take a political stance?

And you think GAF is a toxic place, come on.
 

Par Score

Member
Members of the games industry could have started the resistance TWO YEARS AGO by immediately, unequivocally, and totally rejecting GamerGate. They could have made it absolutely clear that they didn't want the business of anyone associating with that hate movement, that they stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the victims of harrasment, and that they intended to use that horrific episode as a jumping off point for wholesale changes and improvements to the diversifying of gaming culture.

But they didn't. Mostly. Mostly they kept their heads down, stayed quiet, not wanting to rock the boat that they feared carried their consumers.

They let GamerGate fester, let it breed and intermingle into the alt-right, let a generation be lost to Trumpism and all that will follow.


I have zero faith the majority of the games industry will be anything but utterly obsequient to Trump, save some lighthearted ribbing that does nothing more than further normalise him.
 

Orayn

Member
I once heard someone say that if something has a political message, it's propaganda and not art. I wanted to punch them in the face.
 

Catvoca

Banned
A game shouldn't be designed around political agendas but every company is free to do whatever they want. But it's a risk and comes with the possibilty of alienating customers. I'd like them to do nothing if it doesn't add anything to the game. Not everything has to be about Trump vs. Hillary. It's kind of sad that this form has become such a toxic place for the last few days.
There's a lot of great games (Paper's Please, Undertale, etc.) that revolve around a specific worldview and message that wouldn't exist if they didn't design them around "political agendas".
 
A game shouldn't be designed around political agendas but every company is free to do whatever they want. But it's a risk and comes with the possibilty of alienating customers. I'd like them to do nothing if it doesn't add anything to the game. Not everything has to be about Trump vs. Hillary. It's kind of sad that this form has become such a toxic place for the last few days.
Sorry you're not personally impacted by this election. But if other forms of media are allowed to have agendas so should games. You're 100% wrong on this. Also just a hint, but many games already do this.
 

Bl@de

Member
You just contradicted yourself in the same sentence.

You're actually right. Good observation. In that case ... Every company can do what it wants. Still, gameplay and a coherent story should always be the primary concern to a developer.
 

Nanashrew

Banned
A game shouldn't be designed around political agendas but every company is free to do whatever they want. But it's a risk and comes with the possibilty of alienating customers. I'd like them to do nothing if it doesn't add anything to the game. Not everything has to be about Trump vs. Hillary. It's kind of sad that this form has become such a toxic place for the last few days.

You gotta explain to me all the war games then.
 

L Thammy

Member
And you think GAF is a toxic place, come on.

Well, I mean, just look at the TOS.

You agree, through your use of this service, that you will not use NeoGAF to post any material which is knowingly false and/or defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or otherwise in violation of any law. Sexual, racial, or ethnic slurs will not be tolerated in any form and are bannable on the first offense.

That's really difficult for some people!
 

EdgeXL

Member
How can the games industry resist and push back against Trump & his fascism?

1. Get a license for Game Maker, Unity or your preferred game development tools

2. Make anti-Trump game

3. Sell anti-Trump game

4. Donate profits to Democratic Party

5. Hope to God the Democrats don't nominate a candidate as awful as Hillary Clinton in 2020

6. Try not to resort to name-calling, insults or over-the-top hatred when trying to get people to vote for your preferred candidate
 

Sushi Nao

Member
A drone game where you think you're making a difference on the other side of the world, but you find out that you're bombing poor black neighbourhoods.

An economics game where you need to find places to cut funding in order to secure tax breaks for the corporate interests who will get you re-elected, and the white neighbourhoods will balk at losing money, so you have to take it from communities of colour.

A day-to-day first person life simulator but instead of a power fantasy, you get spit on and pushed and harassed constantly and you don't know why except that your hands are a different skin colour than those of your harassers.
 
in other words, morality and long-term thinking are externalities that capitalism is completely incapable of dealing with

Oh come on.

I can see we aren't going to have a productive exchange.

The call should be for privately owned games companies and shareholders, employees and executives of publicly owned games companies to donate to these issues.

The company itself should not do so because the donation would not be appropriate. The money doesn't belong to the company.

If by this you think that capitalism is somehow at fault for the worlds ills, well, good luck to you I guess.
 

Alo0oy

Banned
You're actually right. Good observation. In that case ... Every company can do what it wants. Still, gameplay and a coherent story should always be the primary concern to a developer.

A game with a strong political message can have a more engaging story than a milquetoast apolitical generic story about saving the world.

Most good stories in games have a strong political message anyway, a political message isn't just left vs right.
 

Woorloog

Banned
You're actually right. Good observation. In that case ... Every company can do what it wants. Still, gameplay and a coherent story should always be the primary concern to a developer.

Coherent story and gameplay are not mutually exclusive with political message.
Indeed, good stories are often built around strong themes, like politics.

If you don't like a game's theme, don't buy it. But don't complain if others want games with such things. It doesn't impact you.
 

bj00rn_

Banned
yeah that video explains quite clearly why the left is failing around the world

It really does. It's just simple common sense. The sooner people realize, the better (an understatement..) - for everyone. I don't want my son to grow up during "a civil world-war". We need to mend this shit.
 
A game with a strong political message can have a more engaging story than a milquetoast apolitical generic story about saving the world.

even a milquetoast generic story is being deliberately apolitical. To ignore the state of the current world in favor of fantasy is a deliberate choice that is political in nature.
 

Nanashrew

Banned
You're actually right. Good observation. In that case ... Every company can do what it wants. Still, gameplay and a coherent story should always be the primary concern to a developer.

But stories have political agendas and differing world views to share. No book or movie is without them, same for games. And those world views and politics can be put into gameplay too.
 

Dalibor68

Banned
even a milquetoast generic story is being deliberately apolitical. To ignore the state of the current world in favor of fantasy is a deliberate choice that is political in nature.

That's moving things into infinitely abstract areas. Obviously there's a difference between a game where you can clearly see what political stances the developers have / wanted to show in their games vs a game simply deciding not to bother with it. My guess would be that people asking for politics to stay out of video games are referring to the former, not the latter.
 

aeolist

Banned
Oh come on.

I can see we aren't going to have a productive exchange.

The call should be for privately owned games companies and shareholders, employees and executives of publicly owned games companies to donate to these issues.

The company itself should not do so because the donation would not be appropriate. The money doesn't belong to the company.

If by this you think that capitalism is somehow at fault for the worlds ills, well, good luck to you I guess.

our current situation is the direct result of late capitalism and its utter failure to solve real problems. the system, working as designed, has damaged our climate past reclamation and driven inequality to the breaking point. you can point to overall global economic growth numbers but the fact remains that if human society does not survive this century it will be thanks to people like hillary clinton for their role in creating and sustaining a socioeconomic system that was so fragile a reality tv star won the office of US president a month before going to court for alleged rape of a minor and widespread fraud.
 

- J - D -

Member
An individual artist or a collective should do what feels right to them, and of their own accord. Asking or expecting them to do otherwise isn't realistic nor is it practical.

This thread is garbage.

I don't understand. Do you late-comers who say this sort of stuff just skip over the 5 pages of greyed-out names who did the same thing?
 
Wow why are you doing this OP ?

This thread feels like one giant bait in order to flush out all ''trumps'' in the gaming section.
So many names greyed out...

Do we want this to become an echo chamber just like the off topic section ?
 

Alo0oy

Banned
even a milquetoast generic story is being deliberately apolitical. To ignore the state of the current world in favor of fantasy is a deliberate choice that is political in nature.

Even fantasy can have a political message, a political message doesn't have to be about current events, it can be about certain political stances like anti-war or anti-authoritarianism. A fantasy story with no political message would be boring as fuck lol, I don't know why so many posters want a boring story about saving humans from the elves or whatever.
 

xxracerxx

Don't worry, I'll vouch for them.
Wow why are you doing this OP ?

This thread feels like one giant bait in order to flush out all ''trumps'' in the gaming section.
So many names greyed out...

Do we want this to become an echo chamber just like off topic section ?

Discussing politics here is not an echo chamber, come on.

If you support Trump, make comprehensive arguments and don't cry when people call you out on the terrible things he literally says.
 
Completely agree with this...

'Make Gaming side great again' - keep politics in Offtopic

Mods help us!
Lol this made my day. Logged on saw this topic an thought uh oh this is gaming side so it'll be a lot of push back on even bringing this up.. I see the push back happen asap.. calls the mods to help stop all these "politics in mah games" the mods go here hold this ban homie. I love the moderation here. Top notch keep up the good work.

On topic: I think games journalism will do the majority of the pushing back. Like Colin from kinda funny says "devs always come up to me and say I agree with your views man keep it up". Which means we have more work to do on that side of the industry. And publishers will do whatever they think will increase profits.
 

Necron

Member
By making Mafia 4? Saw that Mafia 3 sold surprisingly well despite the gameplay being extremely monotonous. Started playing it yesterday and love the cutscenes though... only thing I really like about it so far. Must be some of the most convincing facial animations out there at the moment. However, I just finished Deus Ex: MD's DLC so it might be that which is clouding my judgement.
 

Sushi Nao

Member
A word-matching game which starts with neutral emotional language but gradually becomes loaded with racial slurs and strongly coded violent language until it's revealed that the player is generating talking points for hate speeches

A neighbourhood simulator where your character is rewarded greatly for spotting specific behaviour from your neighbours and reporting on it, which causes the police to swoop in and disappear them, but then you notice your neighbours are watching you too

A prison simulator which starts relatively innocently but then you start getting mandates to torture specific segments of the population
 

Ferr986

Member
1. Get a license for Game Maker, Unity or your preferred game development tools

2. Make anti-Trump game

3. Sell anti-Trump game

4. Donate profits to Democratic Party

5. Hope to God the Democrats don't nominate a candidate as awful as Hillary Clinton in 2020

6. Try not to resort to name-calling, insults or over-the-top hatred when trying to get people to vote for your preferred candidate

I'm still amazed at how the victims from hate are the ones that voted a (said by himself) racist and sexist presidential candidate.

And before anyone says it, no, when you vote someone, you vote all the pack, not the things that makes you look good. If you vote a racist, even if you're not racist , you send a message that racist policies are OK as long as you get your "something".

Everyone is free to vote whoever he wants, I'm ok with that, but let's not make mental gimnastics. A vote for someone is a vote for ALL he stands for.

Anyways, staying on topic, I think the gaming industry should really have a better stand about hate groups like Gamergate. A lot of devs have been very shy with that issue and that's just more fuel for these hate movements. They keep doing their shit because no one in this industry (other than their victims) are calling them for what they're doing wrong.

Of course, more gay/bi, minorities and better female representation is a must too.
 

dottme

Member
Even fantasy can have a political message, a political message doesn't have to be about current events, it can be about certain political stances like anti-war or anti-authoritarianism. A fantasy story with no political message would be boring as fuck lol, I don't know why so many posters want a boring story about saving humans from the elves or whatever.

I think I like "boring story" and there is place for "good story" and "boring story".
I like to be sometime disconnected from real life issues and just have fun. That's why video games are part of the entertainement industry.
 

EdgeXL

Member
Discussing politics here is not an echo chamber, come on.

If you support Trump, make comprehensive arguments and don't cry when people call you out on the terrible things he literally says.

I am just not certain why we need to discuss politics in the Gaming Discussion forum. Isn't that what the Off-Topic forum is for?
 
I am just not certain why we need to discuss politics in the Gaming Discussion forum. Isn't that what the Off-Topic forum is for?
Because gaming has been a part of this issue for a long time. Ever heard of GamerGate? Ever hear how those woman are treated? Hell there's devs that have given money and support to these people. So guess what it doesn't get a pass.
 

VegiHam

Member
I am just not certain why we need to discuss politics in the Gaming Discussion forum. Isn't that what the Off-Topic forum is for?

Because the role the political climate will play in the games industry in the forseeable future is an interesting discussion worth having. If you don't want to participate you don't have to, you can just not engage with the thread.
 

The_Lump

Banned
Just working my way through this thread, saw the "He won't do most of the stuff he said he would anyway" BS pop up a few times. Like that matters?!

Whether he meant to or not he empowered a lot of racists, bigots and misogynists. Doesn't matter what he does or doesn't follow through with.

As an art form (and if it ever wants to be seen as a serious artistic medium) Gaming has to do a better job tackling those unacceptable ideals head on. "Getting Political" is exactly what the industry needs to do. Not exclusively of course (not all games lend themselves to tackling these things), but someone has to take it on. It will take one or two of the big publishers to stick their neck out and make a statement with one of their games.

I am just not certain why we need to discuss politics in the Gaming Discussion forum. Isn't that what the Off-Topic forum is for?

We're discussing Politics in games, so it absolutely belongs in Gaming Discussion.
 

Alo0oy

Banned
I am just not certain why we need to discuss politics in the Gaming Discussion forum. Isn't that what the Off-Topic forum is for?

This thread isn't about politics, it's about politics in video games in the gaming discussion forum.
 

Dsyndrome

Member
I'm still amazed at how the victims from hate are the ones that voted a (said by himself) racist and sexist presidential candidate.

And before anyone says it, no, when you vote someone, you vote all the pack, not the things that makes you look good. If you vote a racist, even if you're not racist , you send a message that racist policies are OK as long as you get your "something".

Everyone is free to vote whoever he wants, I'm ok with that, but let's not make mental gimnastics. A vote for someone is a vote for ALL he stands for.

Anyways, staying on topic, I think the gaming industry should really have a better stand about hate groups like Gamergate. A lot of devs have been very shy with that issue and that's just more fuel for these hate movements. They keep doing their shit because no one in this industry (other than their victims) are calling them for what they're doing wrong.

Of course, more gay/bi, minorities and better female representation is a must too.

So everyone that voted for Obama in 2012 is complicit with drone strikes in the Middle East? C'mon.

For the topic, support the games that make the change/way you want to see, and shun the games that do the opposite.
 
I am just not certain why we need to discuss politics in the Gaming Discussion forum. Isn't that what the Off-Topic forum is for?
Because the question is specifically about the gaming industry. AFAIK, the thread fits perfectly the description for the Gaming forum, and I'm pretty sure a mod would move it if it was out of place.

Anyway, it's not like this is suddenly cluttering Gaming side, you don't have to read every thread.
 
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