Since I plan to gradually post more and more of my vidya writeups on Varis, which include ratings of something I call "Based Morality", I thought I might as well also post the Fediverse thread where I explained that rating system - as well as something of more general interest, a takedown of the "politics in gaming is nothing new" talking point that leftists and Redditors love trotting out whenever people like us object to SJW propaganda being shoved down our throats. The thread about politics in vidya was actually was led to me developing my own culture war rating system, so I thought it would be appropriate to put the two together in the same topic.
This whole “games have always been political” talking point is one of those superficially compelling claims that just falls completely apart upon closer inspection. No, retarded Woke Current Year shit didn’t use to be the standard in video games, not even close, for a number of reasons:
1) The type of politics are not comparable. Generic environmentalist, anti-authoritarian or even implicitly pro-diversity themes are not the same as obsessing over specific current year political hot-button issues and blatantly acting as propagandists for one side of the culture war. Even JRPGs from the 1990s and 2000s pushing Religion Bad and Racism Bad plots at least knew to make those themes feel like authentic parts of their fantasy setting, rather than blatant current year politics inserted into a world that’s basically just our contemporary society with magic and fictional countries.
2) The way political issues are approached is not comparable. Even in games with clear Good Factions and Bad Factions, the people with the Bad beliefs were occasionally allowed to be cool, badass, and even score a few rhetorical points against the good guys. The Shinra Corporation in Final Fantasy VII is obviously fundamentally bad and corrupt, but formerly Shinra-affiliated Cait Sith is still at one point allowed to call out Barret for his eco-terrorism during Avalanche’s anti-Shinra activities. People with the Wrong opinions aren’t just Strawmen stand-ins for Real World political enemies, they’re actual characters with their own unique virtues and vices. This is the difference between art influence by the left-liberal politics of its creators, and propaganda primarily created to push those left-liberal politics.
3) The quality of political writing has gotten far worse. Again, it’s the difference between art and propaganda. It’s not just a question of nuance and even-handedness, it’s a question of straight up better, more realistic and more intelligent writing. In Xenoblade 1 (2010) you have a couple of sidequests helping certain NPCs overcome their racism, but guess what, those racist NPCs are generally still likable, reasonable characters even while racist, and usually have legitimate reasons for becoming racist in the first place (like a kindly human grandmother having her grandson killed by a bunch of Nopon). In modern Woke games, characters with the wrong beliefs are inevitably stupid, cowardly, ugly and incompetent, and the Mary Sue main character (straight male protagonists will usually be done away with in some convenient way, or otherwise be emasculated) will be justified in sadistically murdering the wrongthinkers. And that’s not even getting into the piss-poor world building (because why make a unique, believable fantasy world that makes a potentially awkward fit for the current year political issues you want to address?), and the inevitably contrived plots that are primarily meant to push a particular leftist Message. And obviously, when politics dominates the story, bad political writing will mean the whole story is ruined in the process.
4) A far larger share of games now have turned political than in the past. It’s one thing for plot-driven games to touch on political issues, but 3D collect-athons didn’t use to push any particular set of politics, yet now they do (see A Hat in Time). 2D platformers used to be as apolitical as games come, now they aren’t (see Celeste). Hell, nowadays fucking FARMING SIMULATERS are gender ideology pioneers, Street Fighter is aggressively pushing “gender identity” and “gender nonconforming” faggots, and everything from Elden Ring to Splatoon 3 has replaced the categories of Male and Female with various SJW-approved euphemisms.
We went from Danganronpa 2 (2012) being apolitical to Danganronpa v3 (2017) having a couple of Trump jokes to AI: The Somnium Files (2019) featuring unapologetic LGBTP propaganda speeches, an openly tranny character, a somewhat major character who's gay (and who apparently openly hates conservatives) and another notable character who's a closeted homosexual. And that’s not getting into how even modern Japanese games now always seem compelled to add at least one token Nigger..
No faggers, things are obviously not the same as they used to be.
This whole “games have always been political” talking point is one of those superficially compelling claims that just falls completely apart upon closer inspection. No, retarded Woke Current Year shit didn’t use to be the standard in video games, not even close, for a number of reasons:
1) The type of politics are not comparable. Generic environmentalist, anti-authoritarian or even implicitly pro-diversity themes are not the same as obsessing over specific current year political hot-button issues and blatantly acting as propagandists for one side of the culture war. Even JRPGs from the 1990s and 2000s pushing Religion Bad and Racism Bad plots at least knew to make those themes feel like authentic parts of their fantasy setting, rather than blatant current year politics inserted into a world that’s basically just our contemporary society with magic and fictional countries.
2) The way political issues are approached is not comparable. Even in games with clear Good Factions and Bad Factions, the people with the Bad beliefs were occasionally allowed to be cool, badass, and even score a few rhetorical points against the good guys. The Shinra Corporation in Final Fantasy VII is obviously fundamentally bad and corrupt, but formerly Shinra-affiliated Cait Sith is still at one point allowed to call out Barret for his eco-terrorism during Avalanche’s anti-Shinra activities. People with the Wrong opinions aren’t just Strawmen stand-ins for Real World political enemies, they’re actual characters with their own unique virtues and vices. This is the difference between art influence by the left-liberal politics of its creators, and propaganda primarily created to push those left-liberal politics.
3) The quality of political writing has gotten far worse. Again, it’s the difference between art and propaganda. It’s not just a question of nuance and even-handedness, it’s a question of straight up better, more realistic and more intelligent writing. In Xenoblade 1 (2010) you have a couple of sidequests helping certain NPCs overcome their racism, but guess what, those racist NPCs are generally still likable, reasonable characters even while racist, and usually have legitimate reasons for becoming racist in the first place (like a kindly human grandmother having her grandson killed by a bunch of Nopon). In modern Woke games, characters with the wrong beliefs are inevitably stupid, cowardly, ugly and incompetent, and the Mary Sue main character (straight male protagonists will usually be done away with in some convenient way, or otherwise be emasculated) will be justified in sadistically murdering the wrongthinkers. And that’s not even getting into the piss-poor world building (because why make a unique, believable fantasy world that makes a potentially awkward fit for the current year political issues you want to address?), and the inevitably contrived plots that are primarily meant to push a particular leftist Message. And obviously, when politics dominates the story, bad political writing will mean the whole story is ruined in the process.
4) A far larger share of games now have turned political than in the past. It’s one thing for plot-driven games to touch on political issues, but 3D collect-athons didn’t use to push any particular set of politics, yet now they do (see A Hat in Time). 2D platformers used to be as apolitical as games come, now they aren’t (see Celeste). Hell, nowadays fucking FARMING SIMULATERS are gender ideology pioneers, Street Fighter is aggressively pushing “gender identity” and “gender nonconforming” faggots, and everything from Elden Ring to Splatoon 3 has replaced the categories of Male and Female with various SJW-approved euphemisms.
We went from Danganronpa 2 (2012) being apolitical to Danganronpa v3 (2017) having a couple of Trump jokes to AI: The Somnium Files (2019) featuring unapologetic LGBTP propaganda speeches, an openly tranny character, a somewhat major character who's gay (and who apparently openly hates conservatives) and another notable character who's a closeted homosexual. And that’s not getting into how even modern Japanese games now always seem compelled to add at least one token Nigger..
No faggers, things are obviously not the same as they used to be.
