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Game character ethnicities/sex - Where do you draw the line between anti-woke and racist pushback?

midnightAI

Banned
It's like making the game about 1579 Japan and using black man as main protagonist (maybe only black person on Japanese islands at the time?).



For US (audience) this was shown as VERY BIG and serious problem. LoU2 is a story about revenge but this stuff is pretty big in the game.

I like this game very much, but it's full of woke agenda.
So Americans (straight males) don't like watching lesbian sex? (Some females like watching it too)

Animated GIF
 
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nikolino840

Member
It's like making the game about 1579 Japan and using black man as main protagonist (maybe only black person on Japanese islands at the time?).



For US (audience) this was shown as VERY BIG and serious problem. LoU2 is a story about revenge but this stuff is pretty big in the game.

I like this game very much, but it's full of woke agenda.
Why a writer can't write a story about that only black person? Is...immoral? Offend god?
 

missiles

Member
Anything that promotes self harm/mental illness (top scars, pronouns etc) identity politics/gender woo, or race swaps/girl boss gets a hard pass from me. Anything inauthentic, pandering and current world just makes me think the dev has no integrity and/or is pushing an agenda. I do not give a single fuck about your politics/messaging/guilt tripping and will not tolerate it in my entertainment.
 

Hohenheim

Member
AW2 has some stuff like that - like most men are idiots or what Saga says at some point (I think story justified it but...).

TLoU2 was really into it - main protagonist is ultra masculine woman and the biggest problem of post apocalyptic world (when it's hard to survive even one day) is that some people are not tolerated because they are LGBT... LOL.
Yeah, i've seen this a million times here, but I would never have thought twice about that stuff if it wasn't for the focus on this stuff here.
 

nikolino840

Member
Magic school in 19th century that looks like modern day London to be exact.

AC games so far used protagonists that were "logical" to time period and place they... took place.
So...writing a story about an alien in japan (don't know..like kiseiju) is ok and logical but a black in japan not and illogical?
 

SHA

Member
Racist words aren't racist, it depend how you use them in sentences and to whom you talking with and their perceptions. Most of time it's perception cause you can't deny the gap in people's perceptions.
 
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KàIRóS

Member
Nowadays I just avoid most media (not just games) made in the west to be honest with you, especially if it's american, you guys live in a very weird bubble that does not reflect most of the rest of the world and I don't want no part in it.
 

EN250

Member
Simple, it's not about ethnicity and sex with woke crap, always it's a weird bundle with added "traits" in one combo

Like the strong independent woman who needs no man because most likely she's a lesbian (but it's not said out loud at first because male gaze objectification) who happens to be a know it all douchebag with a bad attitude/awful personality that's branded by its creator as "badass"
 

Thebonehead

Gold Member
AW2 has some stuff like that - like most men are idiots or what Saga says at some point (I think story justified it but...).

TLoU2 was really into it - main protagonist is ultra masculine woman and the biggest problem of post apocalyptic world (when it's hard to survive even one day) is that some people are not tolerated because they are LGBT... LOL.

Think Tim Robinson GIF by NETFLIX
 

Bojji

Member
So...writing a story about an alien in japan (don't know..like kiseiju) is ok and logical but a black in japan not and illogical?

Aliens don't exist (at least it's not proven) - it's fantasy/sci-fi.

Black people are real (duh) and vast majority of them were living on African continent at the time (Europeans bringed Yasuke to Japan).

If they used Ainu person it would be much less controversial, Ainu lived in Japan before East Asians traveled there.

Normally in the series someone like Yasuke would be a side character, like in Valhalla Basim from Baghdad were present as one, then he got his own game set in the place he was born in. Yasuke is also a real historical figure, never in the series we played as real persons from the past.

Ubisoft did that on purpose to gain some woke points.
 

nikolino840

Member
Aliens don't exist (at least it's not proven) - it's fantasy/sci-fi.

Black people are real (duh) and vast majority of them were living on African continent at the time (Europeans bringed Yasuke to Japan).

If they used Ainu person it would be much less controversial, Ainu lived in Japan before East Asians traveled there.

Normally in the series someone like Yasuke would be a side character, like in Valhalla Basim from Baghdad were present as one, then he got his own game set in the place he was born in. Yasuke is also a real historical figure, never in the series we played as real persons from the past.

Ubisoft did that on purpose to gain some woke points.
aliens doesn't exist but you says that there wasnt black or whatever in other countries...whats the difference? There wasn't black in japan so is illogical if a writer write a story but since aliens doesn't exist is illogical for writer writing a story about aliens
 

Kokoloko85

Member
So we wanna question this now in time for Avowed criticism………. I am so shocked…

Let’s change the narrative all a sudden and have sentences like woke/dei is ok as long as “insert fanboy/shill excuse”

I knew the dishonest bums wouldnt be able to keep the same energy for woke/dei games if they were made by Xbox
 

bbeach123

Member
I dont mind woke...As long as they looked good , and likeable... Who doesnt like hot lesbian couple ?

But the woke characters in videogame most of the time was insufferable or/and ugly af .
 

Nickolaidas

Member
Why a writer can't write a story about that only black person? Is...immoral? Offend god?
Because having natives to represent the populace and the culture was AC's thing in all previous games. Putting a black man in feudal Japan instead of a Japanese man is a major fuck you to the Japanese, the whole schtick of AC to this point, and it reeks of pandering/virtue signalling.

If every AC game in the past had a character who was completely irrelevant to the country/land/culture as the protagonist, I don't think that anyone would've minded Yasuke.

But I won't lie, another major reason for the pushback is pattern recognition from the gamers. When you have numerous devs and press releases saying how much diversity matters, how they need to be diverse, how much they need to diversify everything, you immediately assume that Yasuke wasn't an honest creative decision, but pure virtue signalling.

THEY did this - not us.
 
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ikbalCO

Member
But people have shouted that TLOU2 is woke trash, so what's happens in that case when your good example is also lumped in?
People who call tlou2 trash are lying to themselves. Come on now, there has to be some objective truth. Part 2 is fucking fantastic
 

Gaiff

SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
I don't know...making a game about a chinese merchant in the roman empire? There's a reason that i can't do it?
5H16lxx.jpeg
Nitpicking, but there is only one record of a Chinese man who traveled to Ancient Rome if I'm not mistaken and it's contested. It's believed that he never actually went as far as Rome and perhaps stopped somewhere in Asia Minor where he heard about Rome. The reason there is doubt in the veracity of his writing is because they're full of falshoods that wouldn't have been told by someone who had witnessed Rome with their eyes. I forgot the exact details and would need to look them up, but I don't believe there are Roman records of Chinese people in Rome. Still, that doesn't mean there weren't, just that they weren't recorded. But you're right that there's no reason not to do it. They would have to make up the Romans’ reactions and wouldn't have much in terms of historical sources to draw from though.

One thing I find really fascinating is that following Crassus' army getting wiped out by the Parthians, several of them were captured and sold into slavery. Chinese texts from a period shortly after reference foreign slave-soldiers fighting in a "fish scale formation" which may have described Roman soldiers. The thought of being a Roman legionary, seeing your unit defeated, getting captured, and being sold into slavery before reaching all the way to China sounds so crazy that I'm surprised no one wrote a book or something else about it. Imagine being so damn far from home in the ancient world and witnessing such a foreign and alien culture.
 
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Guilty_AI

Member
People who call tlou2 trash are lying to themselves. Come on now, there has to be some objective truth. Part 2 is fucking fantastic
People are free to like the game or not, but it's undeniable TLoU2 has some serious writing and narrative structure issues. And while not as bad as other examples, some of the woke stuff is included among those issues.
 
Just look at Veilguard. One of the characters has to do push ups because she accidentally misgendered. That makes bigot sandwhich look like Shakespeare. More often than not, most of this stuff is just stupid as if a 5 year old wrote it. I think it actually does a disservice. Many of these characters act as if they have an IQ of 50. Why would you want to be associated with that.
 

nikolino840

Member
Because having natives to represent the populace and the culture was AC's thing in all previous games. Putting a black man in feudal Japan instead of a Japanese man is a major fuck you to the Japanese, the whole schtick of AC to this point, and it reeks of pandering/virtue signalling.

If every AC game in the past had a character who was completely irrelevant to the country/land/culture as the protagonist, I don't think that anyone would've minded Yasuke.
So you find immoral? No one can write a story about that? You want that writers to be in jail if someone wrote a story about that? Like Gustave Flaubert and the trial for madame bovary?
 

Bartski

Gold Member
If every AC game in the past had a character who was completely irrelevant to the country/land/culture as the protagonist, I don't think that anyone would've minded Yasuke.
Now imagine instead of Yasuke the protag is a completely irrelevant to the country/land/culture caucasian European. Does this sound familiar?
 

nikolino840

Member
One is science fiction, the other is, according to Ubisoft, wanted the game to be "as authentic as possible".
Source? I'm not a fan of ac,only played ac2 bc i'm italian...and there's nothing authentic either...do you read books? Have you studied literature at school? They have teached you what historical fiction is? Like ivanhoe and The Betrothed as example

 

Nickolaidas

Member
So you find immoral? No one can write a story about that? You want that writers to be in jail if someone wrote a story about that? Like Gustave Flaubert and the trial for madame bovary?
When did I say it's immoral? All I said is why it is hypocritical for Ubisoft to claim that Yasuke was 'the story they wanted to tell'. And even if it was - because Ubisoft has a lot of commie devs right now - it still doesn't fit the status quo of Assassin's Creed, because for more than a decade the AC franchise used natives of the land it's taking place as leads.

The equivalent of AC Shadows would be the developers of Mortal Kombat constantly saying on social media that violence on women must be condemned and that they value female rights, and in the next Mortal Kombat game you cannot perform fatalities on females. And when people point it out, they are labelled as misogynists by the devs and the shill media.
 

nikolino840

Member
When did I say it's immoral? All I said is why it is hypocritical for Ubisoft to claim that Yasuke was 'the story they wanted to tell'. And even if it was - because Ubisoft has a lot of commie devs right now - it still doesn't fit the status quo of Assassin's Creed, because for more than a decade the AC franchise used natives of the land it's taking place as leads.

The equivalent of AC Shadows would be the developers of Mortal Kombat constantly saying on social media that violence on women must be condemned and that they value female rights, and in the next Mortal Kombat game you cannot perform fatalities on females. And when people point it out, they are labelled as misogynists by the devs and the shill media.
If it's not immoral why you don't want that no one can write a story about that only black person? As i said there was a trial for gustave Flaubert and a death penality for salman rushdie because some people doesn't want that writers have the freedom to wrote stories
 

Nickolaidas

Member
Now imagine instead of Yasuke the protag is a completely irrelevant to the country/land/culture caucasian European. Does this sound familiar?
If you are referring to Nioh, I remind you that A) it didn't have an established status quo of what to expect from the main character in terms of race because there weren't any Nioh games before it, and B) it was made by the Japanese, so it's not like they are pandering to their own country by doing that. You can make the argument that they are pandering to the western game market of that time, and you may be correct, but unless we have interviews or statements from Koei Tecmo that imply/verify that, we cannot know for sure. We have Ubisoft on record stating time and again how much they live and die by diversity, so they only have their big mouths to blame for their troubles.
 

Doom85

Member
Now imagine instead of Yasuke the protag is a completely irrelevant to the country/land/culture caucasian European. Does this sound familiar?

All I know is both Resident Evil 5 and Assassin’s Creed Shadows featured a lead not native to the land, and in both cases people making a overdramatic deal about it were extremely obnoxious.

And of course, in both cases the female playable character who is native to the area “doesn’t count” for some flimsy reason or is just conveniently not mentioned.

True Detective Time GIF
 

Bartski

Gold Member
it still doesn't fit the status quo of Assassin's Creed, because for more than a decade the AC franchise used natives of the land it's taking place as leads.
Except for Black Flag, Rogue, Revelations and arguably Valhalla.

If you are referring to Nioh, I remind you that A) it didn't have an established status quo of what to expect from the main character in terms of race because there weren't any Nioh games before it, and B) it was made by the Japanese, so it's not like they are pandering to their own country by doing that. You can make the argument that they are pandering to the western game market of that time, and you may be correct, but unless we have interviews or statements from Koei Tecmo that imply/verify that, we cannot know for sure. We have Ubisoft on record stating time and again how much they live and die by diversity, so they only have their big mouths to blame for their troubles.

Let's flip this around, imagine Nioh is released today, it's the same exact game but William is black. What do you think the reaction would be?
 

RedC

Member
I'm all for artistic expression of all kinds regardless if I disagree, dislike, or it offends me.

All that matters to me is how well the story is told and the characters developed within the narrative.
 
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Nickolaidas

Member
If it's not immoral why you don't want that no one can write a story about that only black person? As i said there was a trial for gustave Flaubert and a death penality for salman rushdie because some people doesn't want that writers have the freedom to wrote stories
Jesus fucking Chri- (takes deep breath) I am not saying that they can't write a story about Yasuke, or whomever they want. Of course they can. That's the beauty of capitalism. You make the product that you want, and based on how much the market wants such a thing, your product succeeds or fails.

And the majority of AC fans do NOT want a non-native lead. That's it. Did you see an uproar with the AC lead in Egypt? Did you hear any complaints there? No? What do you think is more possible? The fact that the people somehow became racists after five years? Or was it the fact that a dark-skinned protagonist in THAT region MADE SENSE and respected the AC status quo and nobody had an issue with that?
 

Bojji

Member
aliens doesn't exist but you says that there wasnt black or whatever in other countries...whats the difference? There wasn't black in japan so is illogical if a writer write a story but since aliens doesn't exist is illogical for writer writing a story about aliens

No one would give a shit about alien in Japan. They put black person in there to up their metacritic score - most of the reviewers are very woke.

There are games that got trash scores because they are not woke enough in eyes of some people. Like BMW - game about monkey from the Chinese legends, full of half people-half animals:

GVR7S2eacAA1Fy2.jpg


LOL.
 
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Varteras

Member
All I know is both Resident Evil 5 and Assassin’s Creed Shadows featured a lead not native to the land, and in both cases people making a overdramatic deal about it were extremely obnoxious.

And of course, in both cases the female playable character who is native to the area “doesn’t count” for some flimsy reason or is just conveniently not mentioned.

True Detective Time GIF

My favorite part of the RE5 racism controversy over a White guy killing vicious Black men was finding out that the villains causing the problem were White. Also, the complete disregard that the previous entry had you mass killing dangerous Europeans.
 

Nickolaidas

Member
All I know is both Resident Evil 5 and Assassin’s Creed Shadows featured a lead not native to the land, and in both cases people making a overdramatic deal about it were extremely obnoxious.
If only the RE games weren't known for having a 95% all-American cast.
 

Griffon

Member
You detect woke by seeing art/games actively trying to suppress/humiliate straight whites, feminine women, and any other group who are seen as "oppressors" by the "oppressed" hivemind.

It never was about inclusivity, it was about destroying our culture instead of them creating their own.
 
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ReyBrujo

Member
Had Concord's developers kept their mouths shut it would have gone as a game with horrible character designs. I think Veilguard is a worse example because they not only give you the choice but they explain why _in game_. And Pokemon Go is another where they forcefully switched character avatars just to be more "inclusive".
 

Outlier

Member
I draw the line when the themes/topics/subjects do not match the game world or story.

Save the nonsense for minor side questing.
 

Laptop1991

Member
Yeah i agree with other posters, when you can clearly see it's forced and doesn't fit the narrative or setting naturally, also if the game isn't very good you notice these things far more easily, instead of just playing the game and ignoring it.
 

shubik

Member
People who care about this kind of stuff and don’t play a game because the character looks a certain way are brainless idiots in my opinion.

Is the game fun? Is the gameplay loop good? Is the story griping? These are the things that are important
 
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nikolino840

Member
No one would give a shit about alien in Japan. They put black person in there to up their metacritic score - most of the reviewers are very woke.

There are games that got trash scores because they are not woke enough in eyes of some people. Like BMW - game about monkey from the Chinese legends, full of half people-half animals:

GVR7S2eacAA1Fy2.jpg


LOL.
You know that is the same if someone in veilguard says that is full of inclusivity and diversity? 😂

As i said i like freedom of writing ... i'm playing kingdome come right now and i don't care if there's no blacks or whatever like i don't care if AC have a black protagonist in japan or if in veilguard they talk about non binary...whats the difference between me and you? Why i don't care and you care about it?
dQIjFVN.jpeg
 
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