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[Firestartah]

I miss the days where everyone just talked about the intricacies of gaming on this forum.

While I believe you can still find quality discussions like that (which is why I’m still here), it’s quite obvious that the overall tone of the forum has shifted towards one of thinly-veiled political views. (And hey, that’s also just kind of the internet at large, so I don’t blame GAF for that.)

Because we are literally fighting for the survival of our hobby as we know it. Gaas, agenda driven games and other bs is not what i consider real gaming. We are fighting for a return to good writing clean of wokeness and having likeable leads in our games and favorite hobby.

Remember Max Payne ? Ezio ? Geralt ? Marcus & Dom dynamic and hardships in Gears of War og trilogy ? Thats what we fucking lost, due to these fucking degenerates pushing their social commentary in everything with unlikeable characters and marvel style dialogue.

 

[TGO]

There was a lot of backlash about CJ when he was revealed.

I don't actually remember this or maybe didn't care.
Given the location and story it made sense and I didn't think anything of it.
That's how you know it isn't forced.
But then again I didn't think anything of Boomerang only having a one white racist person in it either or a whole fashion business with only black employees.
Still like the film but that went over my head when watching it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Funny how people watch things now and think "not enough diversity"

 

[Loxus]

Right now the world is full of gays that hate women, so that will probably never happen.

If Rockstar had announce part 2 of this game instead of GTA6, it would be highly praised among the gaming community.

 

[samoilaaa]

 

[LectureMaster]

I miss the days where everyone just talked about the intricacies of gaming on this forum.

NeoGAF used to be filled with industry veterans, insider discussion, and quality comprehensive debate. And it was all centered around the fundamentals of gaming, like mechanics/design/innovation/etc.

While I believe you can still find quality discussions like that (which is why I’m still here), it’s quite obvious that the overall tone of the forum has shifted towards one of thinly-veiled political views. (And hey, that’s also just kind of the internet at large, so I don’t blame GAF for that.)

But it’s a shame, because so many gaming vets, journos, and icons have jumped ship. Even folks like Wario64 have gone. And it’s understandable as to why, there’s just so much political pollution that it’s tough to extract the same level of quality discussions used to have here.

I feel like the old man yelling at the clouds, but this forum has drastically changed. And despite the best efforts of @EviLore (banning outright political discussion was a great move), things still seem to always circle back to thinly-veiled political discussion.

I still love this place, and I hold onto hope that it can return to a board of pure gaming discussion someday. But posts like this show how the focus has truly shifted. It’s a shame, in my opinion.

I think it's more because of the whole industry/culture have shifted drastically rather than posters at the forum changed.

You didn't have those threads in the past because there weren't those controversies to begin with.

 

[ANIMAL1975]

In the end what really matters is te inner beauty OP, not the looks

 

[laynelane]

Gaming has been diverse for as long as it has existed. It sounds like you don't actually understand the conversation around this topic or you're doing the usual thinly-veiled opinion that any criticism is from all the intolerant chuds on GAF. There's nuance to this discussion and always has been, you should try to actually understand it.

 

[llien]

Zoe Saldana's career is the perfect example how to do it the right way.

Her movies are super succesful.

Hm, remind me, where was a protagonist.

 

[RoboFu]

lets jsut add that no one had issues with her and she is actually crazy.. lol

 

[Danny Dudekisser]

In all honesty, it felt more normal to me in the past than it does now thanks to how terribly Western devs have handled their time to shine. Here's the thing: if they had a cool character design that happened to be black or female, the whole DEI thing wouldn't occur to me.

Sheva was a good character design:

This is horse shit:

And that's why people are upset.

 

[The Chairman]

For me, i think black women and women in general from every race are beautiful and their beauty should be depicted accurately in games so as a rule if the devs made a black woman ugly that means they have an agenda and their intentions are not pure. here a comic to make it easier to understand:

examples of DEI agenda driven black women in games:

Black women in games without any agenda or influenced by anti-human organizations like SBI:

Here is a black dev talking about not being allowed to make a beautiful black woman because it's against the rules of these evil agenda that hates women and celebrate ugliness.

 

[Dacvak]

Because we are literally fighting for the survival of our hobby as we know it.

“Literally fighting for the survival of our hobby as we know it”

I will never understand such an over-dramatic and cringy perspective. I’m not trying to insult you, I just truly can’t relate. This sounds just so sensitive and fragile to me.

 

[SEGAvangelist]

Never in my whole life have I prejudged an entire game based off of what a character looks like. And that has certainly never affected my overall enjoyment of a game.

It’s pathetic to me how many people here will see a screenshot of one character and immediately make a judgment on an entire game. Unless I’m playing DOA Beach Volleyball, it has literally never mattered to me even once.

It's more than a screenshot. The damn straw sucking moment was so cringe and just made me never want to play as this character. We know the exact person this is. It's not charming.

 

[bender]

I don't actually remember this or maybe didn't care.

I do. There was a subset of GTA fans who didn't want to play as a black person and couched it in not liking rap music or gang culture. The sentiment was rather odd.

 

[LectureMaster]

I think a lot of this forum needs to consider that the number of protagonists with those features is only going to increase as time goes on.

Hey, we need to have more female leads in games, but it has to follow a pattern am I right?

 

[mitch1971]

The recent ND situation shows just how idiotic takes can be on here. 12 year olds in adult bodies. But...but... I want to be able to have a wank over my leading lady!

With that in mind, to answer the question: There will never be a point of return for some people. They enjoy sitting too close to the DEI fire just so they can moan when they get burn't.

 

[Guilty_AI]

Alternatively:

XXX

OOO

 

[Gamer_By_Proxy]

Gaming has been diverse for as long as it has existed. It sounds like you don't actually understand the conversation around this topic or you're doing the usual thinly-veiled opinion that any criticism is from all the intolerant chuds on GAF. There's nuance to this discussion and always has been, you should try to actually understand it.

Some people are still trying to stick to the name calling. Instead of reading the room after the last election.
People can make up their own minds and see things well past skin deep.

 

[Aces High]

Hm, remind me, where was a protagonist.

Avatar 1+2, Colombiana, and Rosemary's Baby immediately come to my mind.

And she played in ensemble casts in Guardian's of the Galaxy and Star Trek.

 

[Feel Like I'm On 42]

I think a lot of this forum needs to consider that the number of protagonists with those features is only going to increase as time goes on.

If the sex or ethnicity of these characters doesn't matter, then at what point will it stop being an issue when they aren't the "default"

At what point will it just be normal to have these characters leading games, in your mind?

When they start slowing down with the female leads in every game lately. When they stop forcing in these obviously masculine, agenda driven characters?

You're not in a position to tell people that its all in our heads when the woke agenda is so clearly established and seemingly getting pushed harder than ever. That's called gaslighting ...thats what you're doing right now.

 

[llien]

Black Americans are 16% of US population, a fraction of that in "The West" as a whole.
Black Women are low single digit % of the total population.

Despite years of trying, overwhelming majority of gamers are male.

Why should significant number, let alone, majority of protagonists in games be POC women pretty please?

 

[Unknown Soldier]

The thing is that almost every time a game is showed that has excessive DEI/SBI, it also ends up being an awful game

The kind of people who work on games with a lot of DEI-SBI are not the kind of people who makes good games

So in that sense, it all kind of works itself out

 

[Interfectum]

How is the target audience going to play this now?

Do you pick Crash's pronouns before you start the game? Does he go out of his way to tell the gamer how much he misses his boyfriend while he's on his adventures?

 

[Jigsaah]

So I think about what OP is saying and I immediately think of Alan Wake 2. As a consumer I had no prior knowledge that the lead FBI agent was originally a white woman. I played through the first several chapters not knowing this. During this my playthrough, I felt like Remedy did a good job with the character. When I say this, I mean it felt believable. There was no breaking of immersion, no shoehorned in agenda. In a case like this, I don't really care why they made the choice, because it all fit well together in the final product anyway.

So I guess the answer to OP's question is: I'll stop giving games this designation when they stop earning it through doing the exact opposite of what Remedy did in Alan Wake 2.

 

[Hookshot]

Mario is a pudgy hairy Italian, It's not about looks or race or any of that, it's about being so obviously done to push this white liberal agenda that nobody but them want or enjoy.

 

[SEGAvangelist]

The recent ND situation shows just how idiotic takes can be on here. 12 year olds in mens bodies. But...but... I want to be able to have a wank over my leading lady!

With that in mind, to answer the question: There will never be a point of return for some people. They are too close to the DEI fire just so they can moan when they get burn't.

What's the idiotic take? Maybe I read your post wrong. The majority of people critical of the character design in Intergalactic has nothing to do with sexual arousal, IMO.

 

[Urban]

If the developers would finally understand that we don’t care whether the character is Black, Asian, male, female, or anything else—we just dislike it when the character is used solely to push a "message" or agenda.
However, I don’t think it will ever go back to how it was. Those times are over, and BlackRock pays too well.

 

[Interfectum]

Black Americans are 16% of US population, a fraction of that in "The West" as a whole.
Black Women are low single digit % of the total population.

Despite years of trying, overwhelming majority of gamers are male.

Why should significant number, let alone, majority of protagonists in games be POC women pretty please?

For Hollywood and game publishers on the West Coast going with the black lesbian female is the easy way to check all the DEI boxes which is why you see them everywhere now.

 

[Horatius]

I think a lot of this forum needs to consider that the number of protagonists with those features is only going to increase as time goes on.

If the sex or ethnicity of these characters doesn't matter, then at what point will it stop being an issue when they aren't the "default"

At what point will it just be normal to have these characters leading games, in your mind?

op what you're witnessing is the power of branding, unironically. straight up marketing 101, these things are becoming increasingly associated with the woke "brand". branding is just a form of stereotyping that the human brain does, eventually pattern recognition kicks in, and "sassy black female lead", "unconventional looking female protagonist with masculine traits", "black guy with the sides of his hair cut short and long dreads on top", etc. all become easily identifiable as part and parcel of all this same tired slop that the AAA devs are ideologically bound to include in their games.

society wide women and minorities are, after being represented as enthusiastically supporting the past decade plus of woke overreach, almost entirely considered part of the woke brand if they don't do stuff to counteract it.

this seems like a great idea when that brand is on the up and up and you get rewarded for your adherence to it, but once that brand starts heading out of vogue suddenly you find a large group of people have fucked themselves. this is partly their own fault for loudly embracing this stuff on social media, but also partly not at all since probably a majority or irl human beings never did or do.

the way to not have yourself considered DEI is to go out of your way to distance yourself from tropes like the above. let women be sexy. let men be masculine, women feminine. let a black guy be something other than a bland inoffensive utterly uncharged millenial or gen z caricature. signal something other than total ideological adherence to the modern progressive hive mind and no one will give a shit whether your character is female or a minority or whatever.

 

[proandrad]

Game companies can start by not gaslighting gamers by saying it’s not happening.

 

[Dacvak]

It's more than a screenshot. The damn straw sucking moment was so cringe and just made me never want to play as this character. We know the exact person this is. It's not charming.

When did gaming become more about that shit, and less about gameplay and design? That’s my whole point.

There are so many great games I’ve played that, on the surface, made me cringe. Just look at the entire Xenoblade series. I can’t stand over-the-top weeb shit, and yet those are some of my favorite games because the gameplay and design are just soooo good.

And it’s been like that for me from the 16-bit era. At the end of the day, it’s the actual gameplay that matters.