Games ruined by creator's politics

Tizoc

Member
Every time anyone is critical of Fish, this video gets reposted, as if it somehow erases all the nasty things Fish has said and done in public. Like telling others to kill themselves (how can anyone defend this?) or humiliating a humble and polite Japanese indie developer in front of a large crowd. No one put a gun to Fish's head to do those things - he did them of his own accord. Absolving him of blame by saying "Oh well he was just reacting this way due to fame" is ridiculous. Most famous people (including people far more famous than him) don't act the way he has.

With that said, saying mean things is a lot less harmful than actively using your financial and public position to influence the legal system and treat others as second class citizens.

I don't see it as absolving him, and I do admit my posting of the video was improper as the video was more about the perception of the Phil Fish 'fame' than Phil Fish himself.
Far as Phil Fish is concerned and his views; has he changed over time? He's not been active in Social Media far as I know.
More often than not I tend to not let creator's politics affect my view (or enjoyment) of a game, which is the case with Fez for example.
 

Raw64life

Member
With the size of the teams working on most retail games these days, there's a decent chance that there is at least 1 racist or homophobe working on all of your favorite games.

Sugiyama isn't the creator. He just does the music. Hundreds of other people also work on Dragon Quest games. And I'm pretty sure sure his contract doesn't involve him getting a % of every DQ game sold.

Personally stuff like this doesn't effect me at all. It's very simple for me to separate a person's art from their morals.
 
I can usually separate a creators work from the creator because a large portion of the most creative people in the world hold views I disagree with on many levels or have genuine mental health issues. so if I let it effect my enjoyment of the work there wouldn't be much left to be fan of.

Same, I feel for the people that arent able to do that tho, if you cant do it you cant do it.
 
For me...The Last of Us: Left Behind.

I was definitely left behind, because I am not intrigued by homosexuality nor exploring same sex relations.

That's funny, because for gay people, straight relations and straight politics are all they're given in most of the media they consume, and they don't react in the same way you have.

Heaven forbid a straight person have to "endure" homosexuality in ONE game (hell, not even a game - a short DLC), while gay people have to "endure" heterosexuality everywhere, every day, all the time.
 

poodaddy

Member
For me...The Last of Us: Left Behind.

I was definitely left behind, because I am not intrigued by homosexuality nor exploring same sex relations.

Wtf?!? Between the guy who was defending a bigot, the guy who subtly suggested that he hates the U.S. Army, and this crock of shit, what the fuck is going on in this thread?? Please be making some high brow joke that I'm simply not witty enough to pick up on. Otherwise, ew to you.
 

scitek

Member
IIRC the expanded version of that story is something like
allegedly pacifist liberal cabal invents mechs to take over because they HATE OUR TROOPS.

I do want to give Chair the benefit of the doubt, that it might have been easier to pitch Shadow Complex if they attached a famous author's name and tied it into some of his recent work, but OSC is still a huge jagoff.

Well, they'd worked with Card before on Advent Rising.
 
Finding out about Sugiyama was disappointing, but as a DQ newcomer I'm doing well in disassociating his garbage from the series. I'll certainly be calling him out on it, though.

OT, but The WayBack Machine is depressing if you have a favorite site that's fallen out of activity. Visiting old forums with it that I spent so much of my life on at eleven, twelve, thirteen years old and seeing the life that was there, to then see them now in current state, dead and abandoned, hurts sometimes.

I know how that feels. :(

For me...The Last of Us: Left Behind.

I was definitely left behind, because I am not intrigued by homosexuality nor exploring same sex relations.

wowwwwwwwwwwwwww
 

Alavard

Member
For me...The Last of Us: Left Behind.

I was definitely left behind, because I am not intrigued by homosexuality nor exploring same sex relations.

You have no trouble playing games involving straight out killing people, but homosexuality is where you draw the line, gotcha. If you can't even tolerate homosexuality in a video game, why is it you think anyone should have to deal with your bigotry in real life?
 
Wtf?!? Between the guy who was defending a bigot, the guy who subtly suggested that he hates the U.S. Army, and this crock of shit, what the fuck is going on in this thread?? Please be making some high brow joke that I'm simply not witty enough to pick up on. Otherwise, ew to you.

Before reading the OP, I actually expected more posts like this since it is game side
 
haha wow did this thread get terrible in ways I didn't expect.

I'm good at separating art from artist, but things like Levine's BioShock comments are in a different league. There's enough garbage in media that I can tune out misinformed bits of misogyny, racism, etc - things that are clearly more representative of society as a whole rather than a dedicated agenda - but when your game is based around and actively sends a shitty message I can't get behind it. Anything along those lines is instantly out for me, while on the other hand the music of the Dragon Quest series doesn't inherently deny Japan's war atrocities despite being made by a guy who does. I won't support any individual releases of the game's music for that reason, I don't want to so directly give the man money, but I also wouldn't want an otherwise innocuous game that is probably made mostly by wonderful people to be entirely ruined by one person attached to the project who's shitheaded beliefs ultimately didn't impact the final product.
 
I didn't purchase Titan Souls because after TotalBiscuit posted on Twitter that "the game wasn't his cup of tea", the developer got ultra-passive aggressive and made a bunch of childish posts in response about how happy he was and how he printed out TB's tweet and put it on his fridge.

TB didn't even say the game was bad, he just said it wasn't for him.
 
"This game had publisher trouble" or "I don't like this one person on Twitter" are not politics, people.

I recenly played the re-release for the first time when it came out on PC, and honestly the tone of the story seems...oddly goofy, which gave me the impression the developers were subtly kinda making fun of OSC's "leftist terrorists taking over murica" setting.

Although it's based on OSC's novels, the actual script for Shadow Complex is by Peter David, a dyed-in-the-wool entertainment-industry liberal, so yes, that's what's going on.
 

Gestault

Member
For me...The Last of Us: Left Behind.

I was definitely left behind, because I am not intrigued by homosexuality nor exploring same sex relations.

Serious question: Would you have the same reaction to a heterosexual storyline with the same structure? Maybe I'm just projecting here, but a gay love story isn't particularly alien.
 
Well if it came out that Apple was giving money to anti-LGBT organizations (just as an example), I wouldn't feel comfortable buying an iPhone 7. And even then, in today's world a cellphone has essentially become a necessity, whereas a video game is purely a luxury.

And there are so many games to choose from. It's really easy to avoid those that promote a hateful message (either the game itself, or from the creator).

As far as politics go, I'm currently avoiding anything from Doug TenNapel and Dennis Dyack. I bought Earthworm Jim and Eternal Darkness previously, but want to make sure those two don't get any of my support in the future.

I also associate the Postal and Dead or Alive series with GamerGate, though I've never bought any of those games before, so they're not really losing anything from my boycott.
 
I didn't purchase Titan Souls because after TotalBiscuit posted on Twitter that "the game wasn't his cup of tea", the developer got ultra-passive aggressive and made a bunch of childish posts in response about how happy he was and how he printed out TB's tweet and put it on his fridge.

TB didn't even say the game was bad, he just said it wasn't for him.

Given some of the hateful, GamerGate-related things TotalBiscuit has said, my respect for the Titan Souls dev just went up. I should go play it.
 
Lots of talented artists are pretty shitty people. You need to separate them from their creations and try not to think about it.

These replies are inane. I don't need to do anything, I follow my conscience and you follow yours. You don't need to come into a thread to which you can't contribute anything, so perhaps you shouldn't.
 

Dio

Banned
Stupid post, really. I edited it after realizing how content-free it was in relation to the topic.

Everything is political in my eyes but that doesn't mean I have to be shirty about it.
 

RangerBAD

Member
I don't think it's fair to label all of the hundreds of people that work on a game the same as the director/creator.

This is a case where you can dislike the personal politics of the creator but still enjoy the work for what it represents (as long as the game doesn't reflect those views in the content)

This. It would be different if Sugiyama injected his politics into his music, but he doesn't because it's contract work and classically based. Truthfully, it bothered me when I found out, but I realized the music had nothing to do with his revisionism.
 
This thread has been pretty enlightening. I didn't know about Armikrog or Ethan Carter having such individuals behind them, only Shadow Complex. I don't know why Sugiyama's involvement in Dragon Quest doesn't bother me as much though. I don't find his views any less reprehensible and I wouldn't describe myself as a huge Dragon Quest fan. It's just that intuitively, as a gut feeling, the other cases put me off their respective games whereas it doesn't put me off Dragon Quest. I guess him being behind only one aspect of the game (music) which probably won't have any effect on the themes and ideas pushed within plays a part in that. I'll have to reflect on that.

Wtf?!? Between the guy who was defending a bigot, the guy who subtly suggested that he hates the U.S. Army, and this crock of shit, what the fuck is going on in this thread??

One of these is not like the others.
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Yukinari

Member
Given some of the hateful, GamerGate-related things TotalBiscuit has said, my respect for the Titan Souls dev just went up. I should go play it.

I like that we have to bring gamergate into this just because TB was doing his job for video game coverage and critique.
 

Orayn

Member
Wtf?!? Between the guy who was defending a bigot, the guy who subtly suggested that he hates the U.S. Army, and this crock of shit, what the fuck is going on in this thread?? Please be making some high brow joke that I'm simply not witty enough to pick up on. Otherwise, ew to you.

Don't know if you're referring to me for this one, but I was talking about the story of Shadow Complex/Empire.
Orson Scott Card hates liberals, so he set them up as villains in a story where they hate our troops so much that they try to take over the country with evil robots.

Like Charlequin said, Chair kinda wrote around it and aren't necessarily in agreement with OSC.
 

Krejlooc

Banned
I find it funny how many people are dogpiling you about this. Sure, your comment implies homophobia, but in essence you are answering the question posed in this thread title, even though I don't agree with your dismissive attitude towards homosexuality.

Maybe the thread title should be fixed to "Games ruined by creator's politics but only post games by people I disagree with and politics I don't agree with."

Inclusion isn't a political stance. A game having a homosexual relationship isn't making a political statement.
 

autoduelist

Member
None. I don't mind consuming media I don't agree with, and actually consider it healthy to hear opinions I don't agree with.

Orson Scott Card is a great example. I don't like the man nor do I agree with his views, but I still believe many of his books are worth reading [a classic or two, in fact] and certainly wouldn't hold it against a game if he was involved.

We shouldn't shield ourselves from opinions we might not agree with.
 

Canucked

Member
This thread made me a little sad.

I've not encountered this in games, except for incidentally Orson Scott Card, who I don't follow in any medium. As a gay man, I can usually push past the bigotry attached to art (maybe I'm just numb to it now), but he is vile.
 

F0rneus

Tears in the rain
I find it funny how many people are dogpiling you about this. Sure, your comment implies homophobia, but in essence you are answering the question posed in this thread title, even though I don't agree with your dismissive attitude towards homosexuality.

Maybe the thread title should be fixed to "Games ruined by creator's politics but only post games by people I disagree with and politics I don't agree with."

Not really. Two people kissing shouldn't be offensive to anyone, for any reason. It's a cute little love story. That's it. Meanwhile other posters brought up tons of examples including homophobic creators, especially one who is actively spending money on organizations that work against the rights of LGBT people.

Meanwhile Left Behind features what...two girls kissing? There's no politics or statement there whatsoever.
 
None. Much of the best art is deeply personal and rooted in the beliefs and opinions of the people who make them. Video games would be lucky to get more games that have a lot of their creator in them.
 
Nah, I would get my music and movies (and games less so because I'm more ignorant) cut in half at this rate. Im not super liberal or super conservative so basically I disagree with a lot of crap artists say. And a lot of them say a lot of crap.
 
I try not to let it impact me at all. Just like with movies and music. I judge it by the quality of the product and nothing else.
 

gafneo

Banned
Destiny for only having match making in strikes so that you have to play with the same fire team throughout every play through. Why would I want to wait for people to eat, sleep, and go to the bathroom, when I could meet brand new people that don't sit on a tight shift?
 
Wait, what did he say?

Here's a link to a recent interview. I don't want to act like he's inherently in the wrong, as he's a Jewish man making works from his own experiences, but the "oppression breeds oppressors" rhetoric bothers me, especially with how he presents it. Fitzroy's story in Infinite is probably the most egregious to me with how she, a black woman, was apparently so misaligned that the true savior had to be Elizabeth, a white woman.

Edit: Should specify that I mostly mean Infinite. I haven't played BioShock 1 in a while but I don't remember anything in that game sticking out to me like this.

Edit 2: Misread part of it, thought Levine said a shitty thing that the interviewer did.
 

Moosichu

Member
I find it funny how many people are dogpiling you about this. Sure, your comment implies homophobia, but in essence you are answering the question posed in this thread title, even though I don't agree with your dismissive attitude towards homosexuality.

Maybe the thread title should be fixed to "Games ruined by creator's politics but only post games by people I disagree with and politics I don't agree with."

Being gay is not "politics", it's Biology. People are gay. Is water being wet in a game politics now as Well? Because I couldn't handle that in Uncharted.
 

Canucked

Member
Not really. Two people kissing shouldn't be offensive to anyone, for any reason. It's a cute little love story. That's it. Meanwhile other posters brought up tons of examples including homophobic creators, especially one who is actively spending money on organizations that work against the rights of LGBT people.

Meanwhile Left Behind features what...two girls kissing? There's no politics or statement there whatsoever.

Exactly. Personal relationships aren't a political act. Trying to deny them human rights is though.
 
Pretty much. I never let a creator's personal opinions tarnish my enjoyment of their products unless said products are very clearly made to promote their agendas and very little else like most of OSC's later books.

Can you watch Chinatown knowing that the director of the film drugged and anally raped a 13 year old girl at Jack Nicolson's house around the time of the making of the film?
 

Fantastapotamus

Wrong about commas, wrong about everything
Don't know if you're referring to me for this one, but I was talking about the story of Shadow Complex/Empire.
Orson Scott Card hates liberals, so he set them up as villains in a story where they hate our troops so much that they try to take over the country with evil robots.

Since we are talking about the story of Shadow Complex (I have just played the remaster)
What was up with the beginning of that game? We play some random dude who is never mentioned again?

Seriously, that game has the most stupid story-twist I have ever seen
That CIA lady figured out the evil guys were evil but nobody in the CIA believed her so she had to go to a bar near the evil guys' lair, find a guy who looks like he can shoot a gun, seduce him and hope that he would instantly fall in love with her, go mountain hiking the next day and help her bring down an entire army? Sure, that sounds like a plan!

That is, no exaggeration, literally what happend.
 

Orayn

Member
I find it funny how many people are dogpiling you about this. Sure, your comment implies homophobia, but in essence you are answering the question posed in this thread title, even though I don't agree with your dismissive attitude towards homosexuality.

When you think about it, people who have a problem with bigots are the real bigots.
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