We use that a lot down here for someone trying to avoid sometthing. An all round catch for avoidance. 'Just call them up and complain -or no balls' haha! Its an asexual term too, its said to everyone equally and everyone knows what it means.
Respect this video extremely. Because i'm glad you're a Gamer and while i know you tend to ere on the side of "inclusiveness" and "peace" you're a gamer and you understand that we cannot forgo creative expression and integrity of a piece of media and boil it down to token characters to fit narratives and quotas.
Youre absolutely right i am on the side of lnclusivity and diversity, i think thats a good thing to have distinctly different people and cultures represented. But only in a way that doesnt 'tokenise' them. Its just so bad how 'checklisty' its become.
@@HazVsRPG I find Mass Effect and how Bioware made the trilogy to be a real indication of being able to make a diverse and interesting new IP without sacrificing creativity. Developers and Publishers alike should strive to deliver that type of quality and we will gladly open our wallets.
@@HazVsRPG Probably one of the most important topics in the industry. Reducing "groups" to soulless implementations to be able to claim you checked the "required boxes", instead of truly dealing with a topic to understand those "groups".
Money is indeed the root of ALL EVIL. Your talking about what WAS, now games are made to make money for the shareholder's.... it is the reason a game can make record profits all leech CEO's can give themselves a 50 million bonus each year and then layoff the actual talented workers who MAKE the game...... This reality truly sucks.
Larian is the best example for a company going against big corpos. They were offered many opportunities to sell the company and partnerships with publishers and they always refused to keep their freedom of creativity. They can do literally whatever they want now and nobody is behind telling them to add predatory systems like lootboxes, DEI stuff, microtransactions, etc. On the other side of the coin theres BioWare. They made big games like Baldurs Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Star Wars KotR, Jade Empire, etc and then in 2007 when EA bought them, they completely changed their formula. No more Isometric games. You can tell the next following games started to introduce more "checkboxes" in DAO and ME. And then the "checkbox" list got way worst in 2014 with Inquisition, Andromeda, etc. Thats one of the reasons why games like Space Marine 2 and Helldivers 2 are such refreshing games. No politics involved, no cattering to DEI, no microtransactions, nothing. Just pure focus on gameplay and fun.
I'd argue that consultancy agencies are to blame and not just big corpo. Blaming big corpo in this long winded speech kinda shows a bit of ignorance. Because there was something in the analytics and data that made these companies want to push these things. Articles about how being "inclusive" can mean bigger profits.. Studies done by paid Psychologists that explain how being Equitable and friendly can mean more money for the company. Not everything is "big corpo greed" there's a lot more nuance to it The politics in gaming actually didn't come from "the top down" it came from extremely hyper emotional individuals who blamed corporations for not being "inclusive" enough and not having enough XYZ characters.. it wasn't a corporate decision it was a decision that came from Consultancy agencies and marketing firms to "Market" gaming or interactive entertainment to "Marginalized communities" As for Micro transactions and lootboxes and the like consumers enjoy those and they still exist because consumer still buy them... What consumers don't like is unnecessary messaging in their game because consumers have spoken with their wallets and not purchased these games as much as they were expected to.
@@Mr.Genesis Oh god you just reminded me of Anita Sarkeesian. I guess you're right to say that consultant agensices have a huge role in this mess, true. But to me, it all comes down to this "being Equitable and friendly can mean more money for the company". It IS ultimately "big corpo greed". They choose to pay/listen these agencies or not. And I do generalize, because its happening to many game companies and devs nowadays (obv I shouldnt though).
Yeah there is elements of that - no question. Hiring on middle management groups that peddle a particular narrative within their sphere and use graphs and pie charts / projections that by the numbers state if we do this, this will be the yeild. What im most excited about is that the wheels are turning and its turning in the wrong direction.
I 100% agree with every word you said man! The box checking content in games is so obvious in games nowaday and most time it hurts the immersion! Hopefully things goes back to before the DEI BS!
How to make an interesting character/story without offending someone? I've seen people complaining about an evil character for the essential traits that make them evil. And the 'critics' that complain about games that are actually creative and don't have enough 'diversity' - most of them haven't played nor will play any game at all. These are not the voice of gamers. You can definitely tell when a game is being negatively influenced by DEI. The weird writing and dialogue, the subvert portrayal of established norms that were the basis of a that specific fictional world. If anything, that in itself is insulting to people who have been invested in the story and characters for many years. To see a game you love being stripped of what made it interesting and fun is disappointing and sad. Just like you've said, devs that are working in companies that are neck deep into this diversity business don't really have much choice in what goes anymore. Its a pity to see their talent wasted like this. I hope this is all just a phase in the gaming industry and it will eventually go away, however many years it might take. I hope.
You cant, thats the thing. But thats FINE. You just write a damn good character. See at the end of the day, when someone gets offended, even if its a large group of people. that goes away and youre remembered for the good game. If you make a crap game to avoid the people being upset, your not remember for being the company that tried not to be offensive, you get remember for making a shit game. BIG DIFFERENCE.
Maybe big game devs can get back to having a spine and actually saying no to slapsticking layers of crap into their games. Or take the time to do things right like Larian.
games are expensive and when you have investors and stakeholders who are not interested in the core vision, you have to compromise your vision or lose your funding. its a sad reality and it impacts more than just the gaming industry.
Hear hear! Been saying this for years, and will continue to do so. We have to push back against this small groups that throw temper tantrums like toddlers over dumb shit, and let's be really honest - those people behind those Twitter profiles that behave this way are totally nuts 99% of the time anyway in the real world.
Not people that are fun to be around anyway. How many people do you know in person that are like that? Rhetorical question, the answer is none, because noone willingly chooses to hang out with people like that lol.
I have been struggling lately with franchises my husband and I have supported for 10 or 20 years leaving us behind for the “modern audience”. Please leave existing franchises alone and make new IP for your “modern audience “. I’m pretty sure this audience doesn’t like the new agenda anyway . Who said the new generation wouldn’t like the classic games? They were great for a reason and you said it perfectly Haz!
This was wild to hear. I had a very similar experience relocating from Poland to AU. I always assumed that NZ was even deeper into that... Was I wrong, or is America just that much worse?
Australia is going the way of the US ever so slowly. They are pretty close allies in a lot of things. the NZ prime minister told the US to GTFO when they requested port for their warships on the way past. LOL.
This video series have been amazing, there is nothing we notice more as gamers than the forced message of "we are all equal"... no we are not, and thats the fun thing about life! This video made me think of Elden Ring.... and realized, there was no forced message there (what good game), just punch and slash your way to the top, If you found a message that you got involved with it was because it meant something to you internally, not because the game "teaches" you about politics, or anything like that.
exactly - and THAT is how you do things. Otherwise it feels just so heavy handed, you feel like a kid back at school with a teacher bearing down on you forcing you to learn something.
HAHA I know, I know, and I appreciate it - I was fortunate enough to travel to Seattle and down and across to Texas where things were quite different from California!
I would venture saying that outrageously politically incorrect games would be far more fun than moderate or normal games trying to avoid being perceived as political activism propaganda.
No, that's a good thing. But then they should be okay with taking the critiques and standing by their decisions. My critique for veilguard is really around the systems used to homoginise the races using a face creator like metahuman or an in-house derivative of it.
Dumbing down and ensuring DEI to video games atrophies the imagination muscle. We're developing a society of cupcakes that can't ever be trusted to physically protect themselves or their loved ones, much less to defend their country. But look at me yelling at clouds again.
You know what's also funny about Space Marine 2, besides it being and loving being unapologetially masculine? It's diversity done right than most of the slop in the recent Western games. Like you have Titus representing a European-esque character and voiced by an European guy. Gadriel representing an Asian character and voiced by an Asian guy. And Chairon, representing an African and voiced by an African guy. It also makes sense as well because the Imperium of Man being made up of various nation states of various ethnic groups built into one huge melting pot of culture.
Yeah see, it fits. Noone complains. But what we hear and see on ssocial media is that when we complain about when its done wrong, we must be phobic of whichever group of folks we are talking about - but its not that AT ALL. I would be dissapointed to have myself represented in such a 'token like' manner.
I do have to push back and i'm sorry there's so much. I've worked on AAA and indie titles and haven't seen a diversity hire myself or heard of one. game companies are naturally pretty diverse here in California too so maybe it's different other places. I have seen people hired because they were a friend of the boss and got a title bump to find their only qualification was that the boss liked them a lot which usually meant they were bad at their job. I rarely ever saw someone hired on merit alone. in our presidential election people claim kamala harris is a diversity hire when she has a long history of why she deserves to be there but saying she's a DEI hire is a way people use to discredit her and her accomplishments. so even if people even in the industry claim diversity hire happened i can't help but feel they are injecting their own personal bias into the situation to feel better when a couple years ago they never knew what DEI was. i think they do this to make sense of a situation they feel is wrong but games have always had shitty people hired. i don't doubt you have people you know working in games who see the same things as you but with the content you make and videos you put out i can't help but feel you're creating an echo chamber. which only continues to validate that bias eventually pushing people out of the discussion because it's not enjoyable to try and have conversations with people who have no interest in actually understanding what the other side is arguing for and is caught up with just wanting to feel right. i don't agree or disagree with you on everything but i also never got the impression you fully understood or could steel man a counter argument to your own points. you also seem to confuse me a bit with your argument because you say people have no balls to stand up and not be PC but what you're arguing for is a return to the status quo. would it not take more balls for a company to take a risk on diversity? most investor situations i have seen have been people pushing back against characters being anything other than white or male because they know that will work. I agree with you that we shouldn't make games diverse to just check boxes but I don't believe that's what people want but i do believe a dumb CEO or investor might see i that way. I also don't believe that games fail or succeed based on their diversity and that when games with diversity do succeed like you have pointed out with space marines or baulders gate, they aren't credited for that being the reason they succeed. even harry potter included character customizations that were very gender inclusive and the game still succeeded but that wasn't why it succeeded so no one jumped on that. when games do fail people are quick to say it's cause of diversity but games fail because they aren't fun to play and it's easy to pick on bad art or diverse characters but i will always stand by art and writing mattering very little in the success or failure of games. there are many games that are good looking that check all your boxes and still fail but we don't see hundreds of youtube videos jumping on them for it. it's also really easy to speak in vague terms about what exactly including people makes others feel alienated and i'd be curious to know what game it happened, why it bothers people, and how it matters in terms of affecting gameplay. the things that come to mind right now is seeing the immediate negative reaction to the new assassins creed having a black male samurai as a lead (based on a real person) along with a woman ninja and ghosts of yotei being a woman. all of those things do not affect the game play at all but people have already started to chime in claiming it's somehow political. since people are reacting negatively to early looks at the game before they can even play it that it feels more like people's political opinions are injected onto the game rather than the other way around. you talk about how games used to be vs how they are now but we always had diverse games in the past as well. only just now recently it's become an issue for players. no one went after capcom for poison being transgender and says capcom was pushing their political agenda. no one went after fighting games for having diverse casts (massive respect to the FGC). we have had a long history of playing as women in games only just recently it's become seen as political. ghosts of yotei and assassins creed will not even be the first time a woman has ever been a ninja or samurai in gaming. all this stuff only matters now because people have recently formed these political opinions. my question is always why do people care when it didn't matter before? As for a quick comment about being a different person with friends vs out in public i can't say that i do the same. i also understand that what used to be normalized when i was younger was at times not ok and after having learned more about people i find there are better ways to get my points across while also not offending others. there is a lot of behavior that in the past i did i cringe at now and i think that's a good thing cause it means i'm improving. we look back in time at people in the 1920's and the way they treated others and we know now it's wrong and one day people will do that with us too. before we say it's people just being PC i think it's important to remember times will change and it's up to us if we want to change with them but we should at very least understand why people are asking for those changes. i love good art but gameplay will always be more important than whatever i make. games were nothing but pixels and low polygons in the past and design is what always carried them. the problem isn't people trying to be diverse or write diverse stories because those things do very little for the success of a game. the problem is that more money in games means more people with money who do not understand game development or even playing games are making poor choices in running those game companies. i have seen so many times publishing companies coming in to review games in development and never playing them. games need to be fun first and pretty second. it was easier back in the day because it was a near impossibility to makes games pretty like you can now. so the focus was always on gameplay first. what AAA investors and shareholders want to see now is pretty art because to them that's how they see if a game is good or not and making progress but they also want to cut costs where they can. this is why games used to be more fun and it's not about diversity ruining games, the problem with games has always been poor leadership and prioritization of art over gameplay. we wouldn't blame the waiter for food being bad but we also wouldn't blame the chef if the owner only provided frozen ingredients. i know this is a lot but i write it because i have a lot of respect for you and that i hope i can reach you to at least think about things a bit. i find myself on the opposite side of your argument but i also do not feel you have spoken with enough people to understand why they feel like they do and understand the opposite point of view. i think AAA games have gone downhill over the years and are catering to the wrong people but i don't think it's cause of diversity but rather not making games challenging, too easy, one dimensional, making them too linear, and losing that magic of exploration that old games had.
I have first hand experience with diversity hires. Been in that meeting room, and not only myself but other lead artists have been asked this by upper management. I'm telling you 100% its real and its happening today, right now in more companies than you realise. I may not be working in games anymore but im still connected to a lot of people in management / art director / senior positions in reputable companies. It is absolutely NOT my bias and i wouldnt make a video saying these things if It was based on rumor or someone said something from a person i dont even know. Also Diversity has never been a problem, and i havent said anywhere that it is a problem. If it was a problem, i wouldnt ever be praising baldurs gate 3 or mass effect or final fantasy for example. Its all about how its executed. Its very clearly become something that more companies are using to layer into their games without thinking - if it comes across heavy handed. Its extremely jarring. For example Hogwarts Legacy is a phenominal game. Executed to perfection. The message in that game is, you can create a wizard, and no matter who you create and how you identify, you are treated the same. Extremely powerful message and imo thats how it SHOULD be done and should be handled. I appreciate your arguments, but ive worked and lived in 7 countries, and experienced multiple cultures - and 3 of those years were in california. Ive then worked in Asia, the South Pacfic, UK, Australia etc - I would say im uniquely qualified to speak a little on how this stuff has been handled all over the place based on my experiences. My network of friends include many humble but high placed and experience 12- 20+ years artists and art directors who speak to me in confidence about day to day life. Im not saying its like this day to day, but get us all around a table and we would tell you stories you wouldnt believe are true. Im also not speaking about the extremists. These people on both ends of that spectrum are nuts. And in my book dont even deserve 1 second of air time ever because its simply not worth lowering my IQ.
It is not against free speech to say something that someone else finds offensive. Example: if someone hates Jesus, it is within their right to say so, be it if I like it or not.
Spot on. You have to take into account ESG ratings though as a big studio trying to fund these large scale games, which means they have to pander to DEI and produce woke slop. It's destroyed many AAA games though and I'm glad it's starting to turn back the other way.
Recently the Dragon Quest devs did an interview about the release of the DQ3 remake and that's exactly what I thought about them. "No balls". They critiqued the censorship but when asked about why they did it, the answer was "somebody told us to change it, so we did". One of them said that changing gender selection from "male" and "female" to "type 1" and "type 2" was due to Western pressure, but that was total BS. They changed it already in Dragon Quest X Offline, which was never released in the West. Basically, what I gathered is that many developers do not support censorship but "somebody" tells them to change something and they just cave to it. No balls to stand up for yourself or even question where those censorship requests are coming from or if there are any grounds for them.
The thing that really bakes my noodle is that some of the MOST picked on games for 'lack of representation" are packed FULL of representation if you actually LOOK at the GAME WORLD for what it is, rather than looking at it through a modern American lens. Take The Witcher 1 and 2 for example - and the series for that matter. It's a POLISH game. Not all marginalised people are black with dreadlocks and say "yall" every 5 seconds. The lore is Polish, the fantasy creatures are from POLISH folklore, Geralt is a GREAT example of a chronically ill/disabled character. He survived every type of abuse and violence you can think of, he HAS PTSD (it's not stated in a DSM way because it was WRITTEN in Poland DECADES ago, but he clearly has flashbacks - The writers knew that players aren't imbeciles, and they left it for US to figure out if WE felt it was necessary to even see it. He's the exact opposite of 'toxic masculinity. He respects women, he protects kids, he even saves monsters when he can. He helps the helpless and stands up for the marginalised people in his world. He respects sex workers and that is FAR more indicative of a "good person" that any amount of pointless virtue signalling. There are sex workers, strong female characters, marginalisation of Elves AND the political backlash of that marginalisation... The Elves don't need to be queer or black. The marginalisation is RIGHT THERE!! Women didn't need to be 'made stronger' - the Mages get fleshcrafted BECAUSE they are taking power back the only way they know how. They didn't NEED to make statements about women being tortured and made sterile during their initiation, they ALREADY knew hardship as the cost of their power. WHY was all of that watered down as the games progressed until it was all washed away in the series?! IT didn't NEED more representation from American sensibilities. The statements were THERE in a lore and context appropriate way. ADDING to that from modern American lexicon rendered that representation redundant. Hells, the ONLY addition to the diversity of the source material that makes sense was queerness, and it was done SO clumsily in the netflix series, it again... reduced the characters AND the representation. And now there's rumour they are removing a LOT of the "politically incorrect" aspects of the first game when it's remastered. They're removing the sex workers, the card game, a lot of the "language"... It's heartbreaking. If they want to "update" it, how about just turning some of the queer subtext into ACTUAL text and calling it a day. Just... let the source material shine, it doesn't NEED more representation. It's of the reasons I loved BG3 as well. All the inclusion was there, all the political statements were there, they were just included in a lore appropriate, world state accurate way that drew the player INTO the story rather than pushing us OUT into 'reality'. Most games that are proclaimed "lacking in representation" are in fact VERY inclusive... you just have to look at them from the perspective of the CHARACTERS, not the people screaming fashionable activism.
Offence is never given. It can only be taken. It is a choice. Hey HAZ do you play mobile games? If so "Shattered Pixel Dungeon" is a great rouge-like ive been playing for about a year or so now, even bought it on steam for the laptop. Free on Android.
I agree with you 1000% gaming industry needs to course correct or they will end up possibly bankrupt.
Look at ubisofts share prices, its unprecedented. Actually way worse than i even thought.
Great video spot on
"We call that: no balls" LMFAO!
We use that a lot down here for someone trying to avoid sometthing. An all round catch for avoidance. 'Just call them up and complain -or no balls' haha! Its an asexual term too, its said to everyone equally and everyone knows what it means.
Respect this video extremely. Because i'm glad you're a Gamer and while i know you tend to ere on the side of "inclusiveness" and "peace"
you're a gamer and you understand that we cannot forgo creative expression and integrity of a piece of media and boil it down to token characters to fit narratives and quotas.
Youre absolutely right i am on the side of lnclusivity and diversity, i think thats a good thing to have distinctly different people and cultures represented. But only in a way that doesnt 'tokenise' them. Its just so bad how 'checklisty' its become.
@@HazVsRPG I find Mass Effect and how Bioware made the trilogy to be a real indication of being able to make a diverse and interesting new IP without sacrificing creativity. Developers and Publishers alike should strive to deliver that type of quality and we will gladly open our wallets.
@@HazVsRPG Probably one of the most important topics in the industry. Reducing "groups" to soulless implementations to be able to claim you checked the "required boxes", instead of truly dealing with a topic to understand those "groups".
Games should be entertaining. Nothing else matters.
Money is indeed the root of ALL EVIL. Your talking about what WAS, now games are made to make money for the shareholder's.... it is the reason a game can make record profits all leech CEO's can give themselves a 50 million bonus each year and then layoff the actual talented workers who MAKE the game...... This reality truly sucks.
Well, in this case they perceived this angle to be profitable and its backfiring - its about time tbh.
Larian is the best example for a company going against big corpos. They were offered many opportunities to sell the company and partnerships with publishers and they always refused to keep their freedom of creativity. They can do literally whatever they want now and nobody is behind telling them to add predatory systems like lootboxes, DEI stuff, microtransactions, etc.
On the other side of the coin theres BioWare. They made big games like Baldurs Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Star Wars KotR, Jade Empire, etc and then in 2007 when EA bought them, they completely changed their formula. No more Isometric games. You can tell the next following games started to introduce more "checkboxes" in DAO and ME. And then the "checkbox" list got way worst in 2014 with Inquisition, Andromeda, etc.
Thats one of the reasons why games like Space Marine 2 and Helldivers 2 are such refreshing games. No politics involved, no cattering to DEI, no microtransactions, nothing. Just pure focus on gameplay and fun.
I'd argue that consultancy agencies are to blame and not just big corpo. Blaming big corpo in this long winded speech kinda shows a bit of ignorance. Because there was something in the analytics and data that made these companies want to push these things.
Articles about how being "inclusive" can mean bigger profits.. Studies done by paid Psychologists that explain how being Equitable and friendly can mean more money for the company. Not everything is "big corpo greed" there's a lot more nuance to it
The politics in gaming actually didn't come from "the top down" it came from extremely hyper emotional individuals who blamed corporations for not being "inclusive" enough and not having enough XYZ characters.. it wasn't a corporate decision it was a decision that came from Consultancy agencies and marketing firms to "Market" gaming or interactive entertainment to "Marginalized communities"
As for Micro transactions and lootboxes and the like consumers enjoy those and they still exist because consumer still buy them... What consumers don't like is unnecessary messaging in their game because consumers have spoken with their wallets and not purchased these games as much as they were expected to.
@@Mr.Genesis Oh god you just reminded me of Anita Sarkeesian. I guess you're right to say that consultant agensices have a huge role in this mess, true.
But to me, it all comes down to this "being Equitable and friendly can mean more money for the company". It IS ultimately "big corpo greed". They choose to pay/listen these agencies or not. And I do generalize, because its happening to many game companies and devs nowadays (obv I shouldnt though).
Yeah there is elements of that - no question. Hiring on middle management groups that peddle a particular narrative within their sphere and use graphs and pie charts / projections that by the numbers state if we do this, this will be the yeild.
What im most excited about is that the wheels are turning and its turning in the wrong direction.
To put it simply, I have two words; amen brother.
I 100% agree with every word you said man! The box checking content in games is so obvious in games nowaday and most time it hurts the immersion! Hopefully things goes back to before the DEI BS!
Haz's view on video game development is so refreshing
Thanks so much!!!
How to make an interesting character/story without offending someone? I've seen people complaining about an evil character for the essential traits that make them evil. And the 'critics' that complain about games that are actually creative and don't have enough 'diversity' - most of them haven't played nor will play any game at all. These are not the voice of gamers.
You can definitely tell when a game is being negatively influenced by DEI. The weird writing and dialogue, the subvert portrayal of established norms that were the basis of a that specific fictional world. If anything, that in itself is insulting to people who have been invested in the story and characters for many years. To see a game you love being stripped of what made it interesting and fun is disappointing and sad.
Just like you've said, devs that are working in companies that are neck deep into this diversity business don't really have much choice in what goes anymore. Its a pity to see their talent wasted like this.
I hope this is all just a phase in the gaming industry and it will eventually go away, however many years it might take. I hope.
You cant, thats the thing. But thats FINE. You just write a damn good character. See at the end of the day, when someone gets offended, even if its a large group of people. that goes away and youre remembered for the good game. If you make a crap game to avoid the people being upset, your not remember for being the company that tried not to be offensive, you get remember for making a shit game. BIG DIFFERENCE.
Preach brother 🙌🏻
Totally agree, it's got ridiculous the way new western games seem so risk adverse and well lame.
Trying not to offend anyone = not really pleasing anyone.
Spot on as always Haz. I want to play great games, without any social or political messaging.
Maybe big game devs can get back to having a spine and actually saying no to slapsticking layers of crap into their games. Or take the time to do things right like Larian.
Great as always, Haz. I agree. Respect to all, of course. But you also need to be savage when you create. Being naked and true.
exactly, get down to the nuts and bolts of it!!
games are expensive and when you have investors and stakeholders who are not interested in the core vision, you have to compromise your vision or lose your funding. its a sad reality and it impacts more than just the gaming industry.
Most Americans share the same sentiment…. Glad to see others are seeing the same crap being produced. #makegamesgreatagain
Takk!
You absolute LEGEND.
Hear hear! Been saying this for years, and will continue to do so. We have to push back against this small groups that throw temper tantrums like toddlers over dumb shit, and let's be really honest - those people behind those Twitter profiles that behave this way are totally nuts 99% of the time anyway in the real world.
Not people that are fun to be around anyway. How many people do you know in person that are like that? Rhetorical question, the answer is none, because noone willingly chooses to hang out with people like that lol.
I have been struggling lately with franchises my husband and I have supported for 10 or 20 years leaving us behind for the “modern audience”. Please leave existing franchises alone and make new IP for your “modern audience “. I’m pretty sure this audience doesn’t like the new agenda anyway . Who said the new generation wouldn’t like the classic games? They were great for a reason and you said it perfectly Haz!
1000% feel the same. Make something new. Changing existing is a surefire way to alienate your fan base!
This was wild to hear. I had a very similar experience relocating from Poland to AU. I always assumed that NZ was even deeper into that... Was I wrong, or is America just that much worse?
Australia is going the way of the US ever so slowly. They are pretty close allies in a lot of things. the NZ prime minister told the US to GTFO when they requested port for their warships on the way past. LOL.
This video series have been amazing, there is nothing we notice more as gamers than the forced message of "we are all equal"... no we are not, and thats the fun thing about life!
This video made me think of Elden Ring.... and realized, there was no forced message there (what good game), just punch and slash your way to the top, If you found a message that you got involved with it was because it meant something to you internally, not because the game "teaches" you about politics, or anything like that.
exactly - and THAT is how you do things. Otherwise it feels just so heavy handed, you feel like a kid back at school with a teacher bearing down on you forcing you to learn something.
Love your twitch streams brother!
Hey thanks so much dude!! Appreciate that!
Great video. And California is not America. A lot of us act just like you and your friends.
HAHA I know, I know, and I appreciate it - I was fortunate enough to travel to Seattle and down and across to Texas where things were quite different from California!
I would venture saying that outrageously politically incorrect games would be far more fun than moderate or normal games trying to avoid being perceived as political activism propaganda.
Mhm.. and yet when developers do say "Don't like it, don't buy" the gamerz get upset because... (Dragon Age Veilguard comes to mind as the latest)
No, that's a good thing. But then they should be okay with taking the critiques and standing by their decisions. My critique for veilguard is really around the systems used to homoginise the races using a face creator like metahuman or an in-house derivative of it.
@@HazVsRPG Oh yeah. I agree with the "Human" races all across. I was merely giving it as an example since it was the latest to read about ;))
Dumbing down and ensuring DEI to video games atrophies the imagination muscle. We're developing a society of cupcakes that can't ever be trusted to physically protect themselves or their loved ones, much less to defend their country. But look at me yelling at clouds again.
The clouds are nodding back furiously though.
You know what's also funny about Space Marine 2, besides it being and loving being unapologetially masculine? It's diversity done right than most of the slop in the recent Western games. Like you have Titus representing a European-esque character and voiced by an European guy. Gadriel representing an Asian character and voiced by an Asian guy. And Chairon, representing an African and voiced by an African guy. It also makes sense as well because the Imperium of Man being made up of various nation states of various ethnic groups built into one huge melting pot of culture.
Yeah see, it fits. Noone complains. But what we hear and see on ssocial media is that when we complain about when its done wrong, we must be phobic of whichever group of folks we are talking about - but its not that AT ALL. I would be dissapointed to have myself represented in such a 'token like' manner.
Actually, people do complain because there's one woman character in the game and because she has a high military rank, the game is considered "woke."
I do have to push back and i'm sorry there's so much.
I've worked on AAA and indie titles and haven't seen a diversity hire myself or heard of one. game companies are naturally pretty diverse here in California too so maybe it's different other places. I have seen people hired because they were a friend of the boss and got a title bump to find their only qualification was that the boss liked them a lot which usually meant they were bad at their job. I rarely ever saw someone hired on merit alone. in our presidential election people claim kamala harris is a diversity hire when she has a long history of why she deserves to be there but saying she's a DEI hire is a way people use to discredit her and her accomplishments. so even if people even in the industry claim diversity hire happened i can't help but feel they are injecting their own personal bias into the situation to feel better when a couple years ago they never knew what DEI was. i think they do this to make sense of a situation they feel is wrong but games have always had shitty people hired. i don't doubt you have people you know working in games who see the same things as you but with the content you make and videos you put out i can't help but feel you're creating an echo chamber. which only continues to validate that bias eventually pushing people out of the discussion because it's not enjoyable to try and have conversations with people who have no interest in actually understanding what the other side is arguing for and is caught up with just wanting to feel right. i don't agree or disagree with you on everything but i also never got the impression you fully understood or could steel man a counter argument to your own points.
you also seem to confuse me a bit with your argument because you say people have no balls to stand up and not be PC but what you're arguing for is a return to the status quo. would it not take more balls for a company to take a risk on diversity? most investor situations i have seen have been people pushing back against characters being anything other than white or male because they know that will work.
I agree with you that we shouldn't make games diverse to just check boxes but I don't believe that's what people want but i do believe a dumb CEO or investor might see i that way. I also don't believe that games fail or succeed based on their diversity and that when games with diversity do succeed like you have pointed out with space marines or baulders gate, they aren't credited for that being the reason they succeed. even harry potter included character customizations that were very gender inclusive and the game still succeeded but that wasn't why it succeeded so no one jumped on that. when games do fail people are quick to say it's cause of diversity but games fail because they aren't fun to play and it's easy to pick on bad art or diverse characters but i will always stand by art and writing mattering very little in the success or failure of games. there are many games that are good looking that check all your boxes and still fail but we don't see hundreds of youtube videos jumping on them for it.
it's also really easy to speak in vague terms about what exactly including people makes others feel alienated and i'd be curious to know what game it happened, why it bothers people, and how it matters in terms of affecting gameplay. the things that come to mind right now is seeing the immediate negative reaction to the new assassins creed having a black male samurai as a lead (based on a real person) along with a woman ninja and ghosts of yotei being a woman. all of those things do not affect the game play at all but people have already started to chime in claiming it's somehow political. since people are reacting negatively to early looks at the game before they can even play it that it feels more like people's political opinions are injected onto the game rather than the other way around.
you talk about how games used to be vs how they are now but we always had diverse games in the past as well. only just now recently it's become an issue for players. no one went after capcom for poison being transgender and says capcom was pushing their political agenda. no one went after fighting games for having diverse casts (massive respect to the FGC). we have had a long history of playing as women in games only just recently it's become seen as political. ghosts of yotei and assassins creed will not even be the first time a woman has ever been a ninja or samurai in gaming. all this stuff only matters now because people have recently formed these political opinions. my question is always why do people care when it didn't matter before?
As for a quick comment about being a different person with friends vs out in public i can't say that i do the same. i also understand that what used to be normalized when i was younger was at times not ok and after having learned more about people i find there are better ways to get my points across while also not offending others. there is a lot of behavior that in the past i did i cringe at now and i think that's a good thing cause it means i'm improving. we look back in time at people in the 1920's and the way they treated others and we know now it's wrong and one day people will do that with us too. before we say it's people just being PC i think it's important to remember times will change and it's up to us if we want to change with them but we should at very least understand why people are asking for those changes.
i love good art but gameplay will always be more important than whatever i make. games were nothing but pixels and low polygons in the past and design is what always carried them. the problem isn't people trying to be diverse or write diverse stories because those things do very little for the success of a game. the problem is that more money in games means more people with money who do not understand game development or even playing games are making poor choices in running those game companies. i have seen so many times publishing companies coming in to review games in development and never playing them. games need to be fun first and pretty second. it was easier back in the day because it was a near impossibility to makes games pretty like you can now. so the focus was always on gameplay first. what AAA investors and shareholders want to see now is pretty art because to them that's how they see if a game is good or not and making progress but they also want to cut costs where they can. this is why games used to be more fun and it's not about diversity ruining games, the problem with games has always been poor leadership and prioritization of art over gameplay. we wouldn't blame the waiter for food being bad but we also wouldn't blame the chef if the owner only provided frozen ingredients.
i know this is a lot but i write it because i have a lot of respect for you and that i hope i can reach you to at least think about things a bit. i find myself on the opposite side of your argument but i also do not feel you have spoken with enough people to understand why they feel like they do and understand the opposite point of view. i think AAA games have gone downhill over the years and are catering to the wrong people but i don't think it's cause of diversity but rather not making games challenging, too easy, one dimensional, making them too linear, and losing that magic of exploration that old games had.
I have first hand experience with diversity hires. Been in that meeting room, and not only myself but other lead artists have been asked this by upper management. I'm telling you 100% its real and its happening today, right now in more companies than you realise. I may not be working in games anymore but im still connected to a lot of people in management / art director / senior positions in reputable companies. It is absolutely NOT my bias and i wouldnt make a video saying these things if It was based on rumor or someone said something from a person i dont even know.
Also Diversity has never been a problem, and i havent said anywhere that it is a problem. If it was a problem, i wouldnt ever be praising baldurs gate 3 or mass effect or final fantasy for example. Its all about how its executed. Its very clearly become something that more companies are using to layer into their games without thinking - if it comes across heavy handed. Its extremely jarring. For example Hogwarts Legacy is a phenominal game. Executed to perfection. The message in that game is, you can create a wizard, and no matter who you create and how you identify, you are treated the same. Extremely powerful message and imo thats how it SHOULD be done and should be handled.
I appreciate your arguments, but ive worked and lived in 7 countries, and experienced multiple cultures - and 3 of those years were in california. Ive then worked in Asia, the South Pacfic, UK, Australia etc - I would say im uniquely qualified to speak a little on how this stuff has been handled all over the place based on my experiences.
My network of friends include many humble but high placed and experience 12- 20+ years artists and art directors who speak to me in confidence about day to day life. Im not saying its like this day to day, but get us all around a table and we would tell you stories you wouldnt believe are true.
Im also not speaking about the extremists. These people on both ends of that spectrum are nuts. And in my book dont even deserve 1 second of air time ever because its simply not worth lowering my IQ.
It is not against free speech to say something that someone else finds offensive. Example: if someone hates Jesus, it is within their right to say so, be it if I like it or not.
And really whats the worse thing that could happen? They come under some critique from a particular group of people? Engage SPINE!
@@HazVsRPG yep! What a world we live in now.
Spot on. You have to take into account ESG ratings though as a big studio trying to fund these large scale games, which means they have to pander to DEI and produce woke slop. It's destroyed many AAA games though and I'm glad it's starting to turn back the other way.
Dude, I'm playing Lunar Eternal Blue on Sega CD...
The only modern game I'll buy this year is Baldurs Gate 3
It's a epidemic in the workplace these days.
Im totally aware.
Recently the Dragon Quest devs did an interview about the release of the DQ3 remake and that's exactly what I thought about them. "No balls". They critiqued the censorship but when asked about why they did it, the answer was "somebody told us to change it, so we did". One of them said that changing gender selection from "male" and "female" to "type 1" and "type 2" was due to Western pressure, but that was total BS. They changed it already in Dragon Quest X Offline, which was never released in the West. Basically, what I gathered is that many developers do not support censorship but "somebody" tells them to change something and they just cave to it. No balls to stand up for yourself or even question where those censorship requests are coming from or if there are any grounds for them.
This is an exact scenario of what I'm talking about. No balls indeed. Why listen? Every person on earth knows what that choice means. 😂
I cannot like this enough!! also I need a "no balls" counter
1!!
Loving these opinion videos! Keep up the great work, Haz!
Hey thanks so much dude, im really glad that people are enjoying them!!!
The thing that really bakes my noodle is that some of the MOST picked on games for 'lack of representation" are packed FULL of representation if you actually LOOK at the GAME WORLD for what it is, rather than looking at it through a modern American lens.
Take The Witcher 1 and 2 for example - and the series for that matter. It's a POLISH game. Not all marginalised people are black with dreadlocks and say "yall" every 5 seconds. The lore is Polish, the fantasy creatures are from POLISH folklore, Geralt is a GREAT example of a chronically ill/disabled character. He survived every type of abuse and violence you can think of, he HAS PTSD (it's not stated in a DSM way because it was WRITTEN in Poland DECADES ago, but he clearly has flashbacks - The writers knew that players aren't imbeciles, and they left it for US to figure out if WE felt it was necessary to even see it. He's the exact opposite of 'toxic masculinity. He respects women, he protects kids, he even saves monsters when he can. He helps the helpless and stands up for the marginalised people in his world. He respects sex workers and that is FAR more indicative of a "good person" that any amount of pointless virtue signalling.
There are sex workers, strong female characters, marginalisation of Elves AND the political backlash of that marginalisation... The Elves don't need to be queer or black. The marginalisation is RIGHT THERE!! Women didn't need to be 'made stronger' - the Mages get fleshcrafted BECAUSE they are taking power back the only way they know how. They didn't NEED to make statements about women being tortured and made sterile during their initiation, they ALREADY knew hardship as the cost of their power.
WHY was all of that watered down as the games progressed until it was all washed away in the series?! IT didn't NEED more representation from American sensibilities. The statements were THERE in a lore and context appropriate way. ADDING to that from modern American lexicon rendered that representation redundant.
Hells, the ONLY addition to the diversity of the source material that makes sense was queerness, and it was done SO clumsily in the netflix series, it again... reduced the characters AND the representation.
And now there's rumour they are removing a LOT of the "politically incorrect" aspects of the first game when it's remastered. They're removing the sex workers, the card game, a lot of the "language"... It's heartbreaking. If they want to "update" it, how about just turning some of the queer subtext into ACTUAL text and calling it a day. Just... let the source material shine, it doesn't NEED more representation.
It's of the reasons I loved BG3 as well. All the inclusion was there, all the political statements were there, they were just included in a lore appropriate, world state accurate way that drew the player INTO the story rather than pushing us OUT into 'reality'.
Most games that are proclaimed "lacking in representation" are in fact VERY inclusive... you just have to look at them from the perspective of the CHARACTERS, not the people screaming fashionable activism.
standing ovation. nothing else really to add.
because 1) money and 2) you live in a super corrupt period. Similar to Rome, you know, *before* Caesar tried to reign in the elites
I would argue that '1) money' should actually be 1) Percieved money (which is now backfiring)
Offence is never given. It can only be taken. It is a choice.
Hey HAZ do you play mobile games? If so "Shattered Pixel Dungeon" is a great rouge-like ive been playing for about a year or so now, even bought it on steam for the laptop. Free on Android.