Hogwarts this ain’t. A generic fantasy world is being threatened by a generic, creeping evil, so the generic magic school has dispatched 1-4 terrifyingly powerful (but comically inaccurate) wizards on a generic quest to save the world. Is Magicka, the first release by small swedish studio Arrowhead truly magical, or does it struggle to even pull a rabbit from a hat?
Arrowhead Studios' CCO has spoken out against shoehorning DEI into games, suggesting that anything that doesn't 'add value' isn't worth it.
I agree (focus on making it fun) but I think some of the onus is on us to guard ourselves from being rage baited. It honestly shouldn't matter what or who a game is about. It's an art form so we can't censor it if it doesn't match our sensibilities.
Also there is no distinction made between 'forced DEI' and having, say, a black female character. Does 'forced' simply mean some demographic you don't want to see?
I have never been playing a game and got upset at character demographics even when player as a female, another race or sexuality. Maybe if I let myself get rage baited into oblivion then I get upset at a game character.
But alas, I play games not politics.
Totally agree with all that you have said however, it can be quite obvious sometimes when it has been forced rather than natural. I think this is what tends to anger the majority. Some people are just numpties and will just instantly refuse to accept certain colour or genders. The vast majority do see when its blatantly forced down their throats purely on a tick box basis and doesn't really make any sense!
Forced means that in the concept development stage someone said...we have to have a black/female/masculine etc protagonist or character. Or we have to have a bi or trans side character etc.
Developing characters based on identity, race or sexual orientation is shallow and stupid. And as we can easily see...any and all characters developed that way are pretty poorly written mainly because writing was second to inclusivity.
By itself none of those things are issues but the writing is where we get the gist of the goal in mind. So obviously given recent events people are naturally on guard against this crap
You know there's something bad going on when the majority opinion is that media - games or films or whatever - are different things from talking about politics when Human interaction in any way = something filled with politics.
You've experienced politics hundreds of times today alone and you don't even know it. You're not adult enough to see it.
That's scary, man.
@1nsomniac: It seems to me that the moment you put, in your game, a character who is at once not a villain/antagonist, and is either a woman who isn't a sex object, or a person with a disability, or a black woman, or a gay person, and so on, you immediately get accused of "forcing" DEI and wokeness, regardless of whether or not that was your intent. I don't think it's as easy as you think to tell when it's "natural", or "forced". All that besides, there are people who probably know the example they're raging about is "natural", but just don't like that the character(s) in question is of a demographic they are bigoted towards, so they claim that it's forced DEI, because that's a reason to make this stuff stop that people can get behind - you won't win very many people over by openly being a bigot. My point is that we need to be careful what we call "forced", and we need to scrutinise the people who claim as much, because they might be spreading misinformation for the sake of their own bigoted agenda, consciously or unconsciously.
@SoloZelot90: Your definition is based on information that, like 90% of the time, you won't have or be privy to. What do you know of the "concept development stage" of any videogame? Or any other form of art or entertainment, for that matter. I agree that there are some examples where it is evident that "DEI" has been shoehorned in tokenistically, but it's not as easy to discern as you seem to think it is. There are definitely countless examples of things that have been wrongly accused of "forced DEI". Just because something features a character of a demographic atypical of the medium does not necessarily mean DEI has been forced into it, and yet this is what many people seem to believe - they pounce on nearly every single example indiscriminately. Sometimes it seems like the only way to do DEI "right" is to not do it at all. The standards of the anti-DEI people seem near impossible to meet.
If the color or gender of a character makes them bad..then your problem may be bigger than games...
not saying that at all.
but often times, a character is just there to fill a "quota" and thats their whole personality.
i played plenty of games with female leads or with different nationalities that were good written characters.
thats what i want. good written characters.
And now their chances to be acquired by Sony are zero, since Playstation is "focused" on DEI:
https://sonyinteractive.com...
What a dumb fellow... Lol
Sony was talking about making diverse developing teams that can feel welcomed in the gaming industry and not feel marginalized. Arrowhead is talking about not forcing diversity into the games they make and letting it be more about what they want to make then an agenda.
Very different things.
@Rimeskeem
"Very different things."
Oh yeah? What about TLOU, TLOU 2, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, Spider-Man 2, God of War: Ragnarok and Concord to name a few? Literally all of those games has been trashed by haters because of "DEI and Woke Agendas" and you know it.
So you can play coy and deny all you want, but the undeniable fact is that Sony has being hated by incels and anti-woke weirdos because of DEI reflected in their games and that´s why ALL of their new upcoming first party blockbusters are been hated by incels on the internet right now!
Intergalactic, Ghost of Yotei, Wolverine... Go ahead, do some research and prove me wrong.
@Obscure_something I have never seen a user on this site get as many disagreements as you. It's impressive.
Because he is full of crap and spin shit.
I mean look at the link he provided. Rimeskeem explained it perfectly.
Are you really that desperate now you have to throw in that kind of comment
You do realise most companies are doing this including MS, but you don’t care do you? Only when it’s Sony.
Kind of funny, I thought this kind of comment would have been kept for one of your alt accounts. Feels more in line with one of them when you are free to completely go off the handle.
Please stop the horrible contribution you make to every article Mr. Obscure (including your multitude of alt accounts).
Sincerely,
Fellow N4G user.
@obscured: “ And now their chances to be acquired by Sony are zero, since Playstation is "focused" on DEI:”
Bad news buddy Microsoft isn’t going to buy them ether 🤣
https://www.microsoft.com/e...
.
Edit: Oh and don’t say they don’t need it because those PUBLISHERS they bought they do DEI too 🤣 so suck on that Dino Bon_er🤣
Whatever happened to developers ever wanting to create their vision? Oh yeah, Black Myth Wukong.
Here’s the deal, don’t force it and if you include it, add nuance to it. It doesn’t need to be a character who breaks the fourth wall and looks at the audience to tell us if you ain’t gay, trans, bi, or brown then you ain’t sh*t.
Make a character with depth and let their character define who they are, not their skin color or sexual orientation. I believe there’s ways to include characters like this in a game and still appeal to an audience who doesn’t care.
The issue for me is the censorship of stuff that a majority of people think looks visually appealing, removing everything that isn’t woke while preaching how everyone who doesn’t view the world with their perspective is the problem, and making everything so squeaky f*cking clean. It’s annoying, especially when these people cry about inclusivity. If they’re all about inclusivity then why are they trying to make all content in games and media exclusively what they want?
We were doing just fine with the original Dragon Age release. None of it felt woke even when you had a bisexual elf in the party. Now, you’ve lost all sense of nuance and basically feel like some evangelical movie where you break out in the middle of it to tell us a Bible verse and then tell the audience why they need to be saved.
Just treat it like it’s a background element. No straight character starts off preaching to everyone about their sexual preferences and sh*t. Maybe try to be more like that and less… preachy.
'who breaks the fourth wall and looks at the audience to tell us if you ain’t gay, trans, bi, or brown then you ain’t sh*t.'
Wait a minute... where did this go down?
It’s hyperbole to prove a point.
The point that I’m emphasizing is things like in Dragon Age when a character accidentally misgenders another character, the conversation is so forced that it’s, and bear with me for comparisons sake through communication here, like in a play where everything goes dark and a spotlight is cast on a character who addresses the audience to lecture about misgendering a character.
Same with Alan Wake 2, where Alan is trying to help Saga and her response is saying, “I’m not going to let some white a**-hole tell me what to do,” it’s just one of those things that comes off forced in the same regard as addressing the audience directly.
There’s a bunch of other examples if you need more.
And for the record I enjoyed Veilguard and Alan Wake 2. Did you ever see the Mario Kart SNL skit where Toad jumps out to announce who he is and how he’s bisexual? It comes off like that and I’m saying add nuance when introducing characters and ideologies.
An example, think of Bill in the Last of Us. He’s a fantastic character, actually one of my favorites, who is GAY (you taking notes @Kartos_Kart2007). It never felt forced and it didn’t become his defining characteristic.
Does that make more sense to you?
I don’t agree with what he said BUT journalists did come off like they had it in for Days Gone when it was announced and some of those reviews were far too harsh
Any other time when a game gets a day one update reviewers will wait for it or mention how things will be fixed in it later on, for Days Gone they ripped it apart despite letting it slide with other games. It felt like double standards.
The game wasn’t perfect but they never liked the look at it from the moment it was announced.
And what are you even asking? It is clear there is some initiative for the game industry to create more diverse (against the grain) characters just to satisfy a target audience that doesn't exist.
Why would Bend studios get flak for having White characters? Why would Bend studios get any flak for having human beings in their games period? Make it make sense.
"What target audience is that?"
Exactly.
And I think Deacon was the initial reason for the flak and then people started nitpicking, and not because he wasn't oiled and muscular.
Deacon was an insufferably written character that was fussy and whiny to every NPC he interacted with in the first half of that horribly paced game.
If nitpicks spiraled out about that game's characters, it starts with him.
Pilestedt writes: "Hey everyone,
Big update, I've decided to hire @ShamsJorjani as the new CEO of @ArrowheadGS ! We go way back and I wouldn't trust the business in any other hands than his. (...and he comes with an impressive resume and love for games)
But what about me and my involvement in @Helldivers2 ? Well, I'm glad you asked! I am taking the role of Chief Creative Officer, which means I will spend MORE time with the team and 100% of my focus on the games and community!"
Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead on the success of its game, what comes next and dealing with toxic players
Not yet, but they can grow. Sounds like that's the plan. They have a new CEO this week as well. I can see they pushing helldivers 2 to other consoles, Mac and even high end mobile devices. The game could become a global force and sony can rack up their MAUs.
Sure for Helldivers. Surprised Sony doesn't put Helldivers 1 on mobile.... but in reality, I think Arrowhead is talking about creating original IPs that they own. What I question is how they will do this (while remaining multiplatform) without expanding. For HD2, Sony contributed a lot. If they do this by themselves, they are going to hire more people (which isn't a bad thing as long as its sustainable). I love that they are trying to 'stay small' but even when looking at HD2, you get the feeling that they were woefully underprepared to deal with the success they had. Even to today, it takes too long to get bugs addressed.
Another story said that players had stopped playing because of lack of new content. We have know about the new factions since launch but one doubts that they have the internal resources to get new content added at the pace they need to. If they are looking for the kind of success they claim, they need to invest in the resources that will allow them to attract and keep as many players as possible.
The new CEO Shams is gonna burn this game to the ground. It was good while it lasted.
Now the real nickel-and-dime will begin.
Just wait and see.
You ain't wrong. Lostpotato. I'd rather see an rpg then another shooter. Shame though cause it'd probably be an online rpg ugghhh
They could start by putting any kind of story into their games and ditching the BS of "but we have a game master to direct your irrelevant actions".
When the Blizzard symbol appeared on a title, it used to mean quality. Starcraft, Diablo, Warcraft...I think that's what they're referring to.
Maybe if they grow they can split their teams in two
One does games like Helldivers and the other a single player driven RPG game
We’ll see. With the massive success of Helldivers 2 and the continual flops of things like FF7 Rebirth and a GaaS game like Concord right around the corner and seeing people’s comments on hype for that game leads me to believe we’re f*cked.
Helldivers 2 proved GaaS is a better gamble than traditional games right now and with Jim Ryan already setting the wheels in motion for a GaaS initiative all we can do is wait and see.
Game is awesome. The ONLY thing this game did wrong was not having the network code optimized. Other than that I can't wait to see what they do next.