You’re right; I have been unclear. Allow me to try to clarify.

My issue is specifically with the headline here using the word “political.” This implies, whether by design or accident, that this inclusion in the game is BioWare specifically making a political stance to push some sort of politically-motivated agenda.

This is, 100%, not the case.

BioWare is a subsidiary of EA; the only agenda they care about is making money. This is not making some kind of political statement; this is pandering to ensure free media coverage and to attempt to appeal to what they see as a currently valuable demographic. Fucking blast them to hell for that, blast them to hell for their poor writing—whatever. But calling this political is doing exactly what I stated before: allowing the conversation to happen on the terms of gamergate/right-wingers who insist that anything in the entire fucking world that doesn’t specifically cater to their own individual interests is somehow inherently “political.”

edit: typos

I understand that, but my point is that there is no shortage of shoehorned comic relief characters, or awkwardly placed fanservice, etc. Critique the actual fault at play, bad writing, rather than letting the gamergate right-wing nutsos have the benefit of having the conversation on their terms. Make the headline “DA:tV falls short in the writing department, here are some examples” and include the flimsy way the character is written as the valid critique. Games are going to pander to us, that is what I was saying; when we place special emphasis on this particular type of pandering all we’re doing is letting the right define the conversations we’re having.

I guess I should add that I’m not speaking to this game specifically since I’ve never played it. I really enjoyed Dragon Age: Origins but frankly felt like I got everything I needed of the world from it and haven’t been interested in any of the sequels. So I won’t be playing DA: The Veilguard, but that reason has absolutely fuck all to do with the inclusion of any social politics.

I feel like I have a outside the norm third-take opinion on this topic, tbh.

I think including the hot social topic of the day often time is pandering.

But I also don’t think pandering is a problem. The muscles on the main character is also pandering. When McDonald’s does market research and then releases a new product, that is pandering.

Games are a sales industry; they are going to pander to potential buyers, period.

So yes, a potentially trans-centric storyline in a game is unnecessary. But so is including a longsword, or a tavern, or a comic relief character. Unnecessary doesn’t mean bad; all of those things are likely only adding to the depth and value of the game.

So all this to say that when crazy right-wingers talk about SJWs and pandering and all that nonsense don’t waste your time trying to fight them on the irrelevant bits - go ahead and acknowledge the pandering aspect and fight the real fight by telling them it’s not negative pandering and minorities deserve to be pandered to and represented just as much as anyone else. They just don’t recognize the market targeting the white male demographic as pandering because it is the sphere of normal under which they operate.

The whole thing is full of that kind of “drink their own kool-aid” propagandist thinking. It’s wild they expect anyone to take them seriously here.

I blame Meta. My Oculus Rift CV1 was working great until some random software update and now for some reason it won’t read my sensors as being connected via USB3.0 cable despite them being so, instantly rendering my expensive VR device a giant paper weight.

I’m still salty about Oculus starting out crowdfunded then selling to Facebook. What a fucking betrayal.

I can’t speak to the new update, but the pre-relesae version lets you face and beat the main boss multiple times just like in Hades 1. However (and I’m trying to avoid spoilers here), there is a “second path” in Hades 2 that didn’t exist in Hades 1 which currently only allows you to get partway through before you receive a “thanks for playing Hades 2!” win screen obscuring the rest of the game.

Random guess, I’d say the game is like 60-70% playable to players right now, but as the game is larger it’s already close to equivalent to Hades 1.

Why buy a console when for roughly the same price you could buy a PC that does everything the console does and more? Yeah $700 is an insane price for what is effectively a toy.

100%. We need more personal liability for the evils of big business, not less

I didn’t assume so, but I do appreciate you saying so regardless. Cheers ✌️

Hey man, I’m allowed to make a Beatles reference if I coo coo ca-choose to.

Also All-man Brothers? That doesn’t sound very inclusive; get back to me when you allow women brothers too.

Edit: what an enormously strange and entirely innocuous comment to downvote. I wonder whose feathers I’ve ruffled and how.

That’s fair and I see your point, even basically agree with it. That said, I still wonder sort of what standards we’re holding for “good” characters and how realistic that is. And I want to make a brief caveat that I don’t know you and can’t speak to your personal opinions so I will be making some generalizations about the topic in general; I apologize if it feels like I am unfairly lumping you in with anyone and promise that is not my intention. It is clear to me you aren’t a right wing chud screaming about DEI but rather you’re a very decent person looking for fleshed-out representation that isn’t shallow or driven by stereotypes.

Okay, caveats out of the way now, here’s the thing: I have a gay friend who is very proud of their community and themselves for being who they are despite any social pressures. This friend frequently goes out wearing full-blown rainbow attire, speaks with the affectation of their community, and they will absolutely inform you of their orientation upon their first meeting. Of course my friend has vastly more depth than just their community affiliation, but that affiliation is definitely going to be the largest and most prominent quality you associate with them, especially if you never move beyond acquaintanceship to friendship.

If my friend was in a video game, they would absolutely be described as flat or tokenism. But they are a real person. Even if you’re thinking to yourself right now “well frankly it sounds like your friend is lacking in depth in real life,” (I’d disagree, but go with the argument none the less, please), the fact is they still exist. There are people who define themselves by their identifiers first. So I don’t think the mere inclusion of these “flat” representations are inherently problematic.

I don’t think a flat character of an under-represented demographic is harmful in the way that a bad or stereotypical representation is. I think there is still benefit in the normalization of lesser-represented groups in media, even if those representations aren’t the deepest or most compelling characters. A gay shopkeeper who is flamboyant and one-note still helps normalize the idea of gay people in normal aspects of life.

But of course we can’t settle for these characters as the whole piece of representation. We have to still demand deep and complex under-represented characters, especially in lead or primary roles. I just personally don’t think the flatter characters are inherently problematic or detrimental to those goal. If anything, I think they’re almost kind of tangential or non-sequitur to the topic. The point isn’t to complain about flat under-represented characters and discourage their inclusion, the point is to demand good and complex under-represented characters regardless of the inclusion of these flat other representations.

I’m very sorry for the novel I wrote, my brain is crazy today and I couldn’t make it more concise in this moment.

Also I have no yet watched Kaos so I can’t comment on the representation in that show, but it does sound compelling from what you describe.

Also also, in case it’s not clear, I don’t think we’re arguing; I think we probably agree with each other about 90% of the way here.

I see your point and don’t disagree exactly… but…
I will say it is odd that I hear this kind of criticism of flat gay/female/minority/etc characters but for some reason never hear complaints about the equally-flatly written comic relief characters, or best friend characters, or sage characters, etc. Video games and other stories frequently contain flat characters that are used more as props for the protagonist or other characters to react and respond to, yet complaints about these characters seem to only pop up when said characters happen to represent an under-represented demographic.

Name one war which was ever fought on a single battlefield.

Yes, we should be pushing for both regulatory changes and changes on platforms like Steam, but we should also being doing our part.

If there is anything I’ve learned over time it is that nobody is coming to save you. Ever. If you are holding out for someone to swoop in and make things better, you will be waiting forever. Either we do it ourselves, or it doesn’t get done.

Yes. To the best of my knowledge there is no restriction, and the only breakages I’ve noticed in the app in that internal links don’t work (links to a post on a sub just opens the sub) and I can’t view the “other discussions” page on a post.

and demand refunds on any game that adds it after purchase.

This, which is in my original fucking message, applies here. If you think the effort is futile, fine, whatever, don’t try. But my statement was made with full understanding of the timeline, and I stand by it. Feel free to read the rest of the comments in the thread for further discussion of the timeline, or feel free to fuck off, I guess; I’m not in the mood to indulge a pedant clearly just looking for an argument.

Where did I even remotely imply otherwise?

There are plenty of anti-cheat measure that doesn’t require invasive access to your system or performance hits. The objection is not to fighting cheating, it is with the specific overreaching methodology chosen to do so.

Also I personally rarely play multiplayer so it’s even more frustrating to have bullshit installed on my system for a feature that doesn’t even apply to me.

Also like, food and water you acquire is food and water you don’t have to purchase or otherwise gain, meaning you can use the resources you would have used on food on military operations instead.

Sadly, a lot of their customers will be pissed about this but will be first in line buying other Rockstar games.

Then they aren’t pissed enough. But yes, talking the talk is completely meaningless if you don’t also walk the walk, I agree.

Companies like Rockstar certainly would meet any requests for refunds outside of very recently purchased with “Go kick rocks.”

If you let them, sure. The reason we use phrases like “fight for a refund” is because these things are hard and they take effort. Like yes it sucks to have to do that and yes I understand our time is valuable, but as I see it there is value in both having your voice heard and punitively costing an offending company manhours in having to deal with you - even if you ultimately do not win the fight.

Again, the point isn’t about winning or getting your money back, it’s about not being passive and just accepting the things that happen to you as if you do not have autonomy.