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[The Verge] Final Fantasy XVI has a medieval approach to diversity

Are you a diversity supporter?


  • Total voters
    153

Moneal

Member
The funniest part is that Square just released a big RPG with a black female protagonist. They bent over backwards to try and make her all likeable and relatable to the modern audience and brought in BIPOC consultants to get their stamp of approval.

The result? She was almost universally disliked by the (overwhelmingly left-leaning) gaming press. Kotaku wrote some meandering hit piece about how non-black the dev team was. Some other joke of a gaming site (Destructiod maybe?) complained because they portrayed a black person in a fantasy world where racism doesn’t exist, instead of making her identity and victimhood the focus of her character.

The only conclusion I can take from this is you shouldn’t try to appease these fucking wackos. They’re liars and narcissists. Their goal isn’t to help minorities. Their true goal is to virtue signal and prove they are the most virtuous of all. No matter how hard you try to win their approval, you will never get it. Because they don’t gain esteem (and clicks) by saying “hey you did a pretty good job”,

Just make the game you want to make with the characters you want, and don’t give a single thought to what these petty, resentful assholes will say about it.
Hell Hogwarts Legacy is probably the most inclusive game I have ever played, and those asshats either won't review it or bomb it because some lady said something. One reviewer even complained that the movies and books had all white faculty and then bashed the game for having too many minority professors. There is literally no winning with them.
 

Sgt.Asher

Member
Honestly, what I've noticed with these types of people is that: they claim they're for "people of colour", but are actually pretty racist themselves. It's like they hide behind the veil of righteousness and uses it as a sort of red herring for their actual beliefs.

For instance, I had a coworker who was obsessed with Tupac and BLM, but talked shit behind our black coworker's back to her clique of coworkers. It was an odd thing to experience.
They tend to think white people are superior in every regard and feel it is their solemn duty to uplift the lesser races.
 

Felessan

Member
Yes, it's the only point I'll concede to the journalist. There's a nation inspired by north African or middle east desert kingdom and there's no reason to not include characters from this nation with north African or middle east ethnicity.
They do what they want, how they see it and what they want it to be.
Rest of the world doesn't really care so much about diversity (some places are mono-ethnicity, some places are mutual assimilation instead of forced one that makes so much trouble for western world) - they have their own share of problems, and no one from woke crowd really care about them, why should they care about woke "problems"?
 

Bo_Hazem

Gold Dealer
I support diversity but not in the way of throwing others under the bus.

I'm surprised the mods didn't check a few of those options in the polls lol suggesting a group is genetically "inferior" whether it was a joke or not is a bit much but I digress.

The poll serves nothing but jokes. If you follow many famous stand up comedians you'll find way worse stuff but people just laugh and don't take it seriously. Consider it as a parody thread.
 
Make a game and make it good. I don't care what colour the characters are, what their sexual orientation is, or which policies/political parties they support 🙂
 

TheUsual

Member
I can't help but think when "diversity" is wanted to be added, it's only as a means to add "diverse" characters to lecture the audience on modern day issues in a hamfisted fashion. No nuance and detracts from the story.
 

Doomtrain

Member
The funniest part is that Square just released a big RPG with a black female protagonist. They bent over backwards to try and make her all likeable and relatable to the modern audience and brought in BIPOC consultants to get their stamp of approval.

The result? She was almost universally disliked by the (overwhelmingly left-leaning) gaming press. Kotaku wrote some meandering hit piece about how non-black the dev team was. Some other joke of a gaming site (Destructiod maybe?) complained because they portrayed a black person in a fantasy world where racism doesn’t exist, instead of making her identity and victimhood the focus of her character.

The only conclusion I can take from this is you shouldn’t try to appease these fucking wackos. They’re liars and narcissists. Their goal isn’t to help minorities. Their true goal is to virtue signal and prove they are the most virtuous of all. No matter how hard you try to win their approval, you will never get it. Because they don’t gain esteem (and clicks) by saying “hey you did a pretty good job”,

Just make the game you want to make with the characters you want, and don’t give a single thought to what these petty, resentful assholes will say about it.

I accepted at some point that you can't interpret these people in good faith. That makes me feel overly cynical, but I think it's accurate.

Not enough diversity in your game? They'll call you racist for it.

Make the main character a black woman from present-day New York, i.e. Forspoken? They'll call you racist because the opening cutscene shows her in court.

Make the main character NOT go to court? They'll call you racist for not "tackling real-world issues". (Ironically, reviews criticized Forspoken for this as well).

Make a game like Hogwarts Legacy that bends over backwards to have characters of all backgrounds and skin colors? These same outlets attacked it for appropriation, or because it doesn't make sense in-universe that modern-day Hogwarts isn't portrayed with the same level of diversity.

They don't actually want progress, because if they got what they claim they want, they wouldn't have anything to complain about anymore. Thus, there's literally no way to win.

For the record, I'm a lifelong progressive, and I think the ACTUAL values of diversity and inclusion are totally legit things to champion. I just no longer believe that's what these people are doing. To use their own language, they're appropriating those values for their own cause, which seems to mostly be to produce generic outrage clickbait. In a sense, this is doubly disgusting, because not only are they furthering societal anger and division, they're bastardizing and cheapening potential real progress to do so.
 

MarkMe2525

Member
Square enix can do what they want, but the reasoning they gave was really thin. I am in an interracial marriage with mixed kids, but I don't have very strong feelings about it one way or another. I imagine though, it the roles were reversed, I may feel differently.

I can honestly say I can't help but notice how I feel when I see media portray females in traditional male roles, while the men trot around like bumbling idiots. I then tell myself, "self... this is probably what someone else feels like when their ethnicity/orientation/etc... is portrayed in unflattering ways, or completely unrepresented in the media I consume."

But alas, I'm generally apathetic to these things, maybe I shouldn't be.
 
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