Why is it that all stage plays are political, any movie with a shot at winning awards is expected to be political...

why is it that all stage plays are political, any movie with a shot at winning awards is expected to be political, tv shows and even cartoons are getting more and more political (think steven universe), but when videogames try to be political you get a massive outcry of "keep politics out of videogames!"?

Politics have always been part of video games.
If you don't think having a straight white male as the protagonist or having women as nothing but fanservice isn't a political statement you're an idiot.

Disgaea 4 was so political it was about leading an insurrection against a corrupt government.

Video games are for children.

Because video games are far more technical and heavy focus on story and themes is new for the medium

This. Don't credit videogames with being more socially important than they are.

because vidya is alternative reality you inhabit, and vidya is made for relaxation.

Why would toys be political?

but so are cartoons yet name one modern cartoon that isn't political. No one is batting an eye at that.

stage plays, movies, shows = passive, made to SHOW you something. Perfect for political metaphors etc etc.

games = interactive, made for having fun, being PLAYED. Politics can work here too but most of them time its just tacked on shit that nobody wants.

I am white and want to be generally surrounded by whites. Just like any other race want to be with their own.

Thats tribalism, which is in our genes.

Most games with political themes are rated 15+ idiot

Which political views do your examples express?

Because those media are made by people trying to influence others and tell them the correct way to think, and people see them as a social event to reinforce social norms (this is why you're a loser if you go to a movie alone)
Video games are just entertainment.

White men have retreated to video games

hows my little pony political?

The reality is that vidya "writers" don't have the competence to handle political material which is why it's so cringeworthy when they try to.

>More and more people let their stuff be covered in shit
Why are you so angry when I try to smear shit on your stuff?

Most relevant political movies, tv shows and cartoons are produced in America. They push these politics because they have been carefully groomed to expect them in their media, and would be considered inherently negative to not include them despite it not affecting the entertainment value they would provide.

Most relevant video games are created in Japan, which holds different political values compared with modern America. They have no obligation to include American politics in their entertainment.

my little pony ends literally every episode with some progressive message the characters learned about how you should tolerate others no matter what

Anything relating to real world politics is normalfag garbage. The average person shouldn't give a flying fuck about politics.

Well shit...
Isnt that what all kids cartoons tell you? Dont fight and share your toys?

Apart from SJWism, I have no quarrel with that. The shitheads need clean moral values.

Legos are political too.

>Thats tribalism, which is in our genes.
No, it's just you being retarded and equating being scared of back people to muh genetics, without a single piece of proof.

there was an episode where spike (dragon friend who lives with ponies) turned into an adult dragon and started terrorizing the place and kidnapping women. Instead of learning their lesson that dragons are evil creatures who are kept out of their village for a reason they try to reason with him until he decides to become calm again and they let him live in the (now destroyed) pony town once more without any consequences for his actions because that's the "friendship" thing to do.

>you should tolerate others no matter what
And how is that political? It's called being a functional adult.

LMGTFY
"same race preference"

whops..

OP is right
We need more games that expose drumpf
Down with oppression

Tranny btw

You realize that Persona 5 was an incredibly political game addressing very sensitive topics in Japan correct?

Not only that, Drumpf casted Nazism spell on random people.

Only way to dispell the curse is to beat them.

>Social and cultural impacts and divides have nothing to do with how people perceive race
Really makes me think

Yet its prevalent on the whole fucking planet. Only some usaians think theres a problem here. Tell them no and they go apeshit.

>They have no obligation to include American politics in their entertainment.
>American

>he thinks Persona 5 is the only single game produced by Japan and isn't a drop in the ocean

Because political is ok and outright propaganda is awful. Think Dr. Strangelove: it made fun of both sides of the cold war (implying that it was being run by impotent aging generals that were escalating the conflict as a literal dick measuring contest) and implied that a Nazi infiltrator was also pressuring both side into nuclear war as part of a deranged plan to create a sexual paradise for himself in an underground bunker with the excuse that "10 females to each male" would be necessary to repopulate the species. It's hilarious, great movie.

Wolfenstein III and Far Cry 5 are propaganda. You're never going to learn about how corporate America funded and even built factories and supplied weapons to Nazi Germany, AND the Soviet Union, and has literally been funding both sides of every war we've been in since the 20's, you're never going to learn about that, through corporate propaganda. You're not going to be told about how racial tensions are being inflamed by wealthy interest groups who have been plotting an American civil war and corporate takeover to do away with the inconvenient constitution which allows people freedom.

I hope people enjoy being literal slaves ... or worse.

>this extremely popular game doesn't matter because I said so

because people only think its politics if its something they disagree with

steven universe is political? because the weird jewel creatures have sex?

see this

just because you prefer it doesn't make it ok

having straight white males be the "default" character in media is a political statement. removing politics from media, including video games, includes removing straight white men as the "default" character.

straight white men should only be characters if there is a story reason for them to be there.

I'd actually love if vidya became political in an intelligent and nuanced way.

steven universe is full of allegories with the gems having a strict class-system and their earth uprising bringing on the moral question of "is it ok to kill one oppressor if it improves the lives of many?" the show answer that with a "no" which upset tumblr more than anything else that ever happened in the show

>Yet its prevalent on the whole fucking planet.
Are you sure about that statement? Have you researched every single culture and how they view race?

Sup Forums told me it's true so fuck off

I have no problem with removing defaults. I have played games where I wasnt a whitey cis man. I purchase products which I like, and if the main character/plot is bullshit pandering I'm generally not interested.

Metal Gear is pretty political and people love it. Oh, wait, that's right, it's not the kind of "politcal" Communists ITT mean.

>having straight white males be the "default" character in media is a political statement

Why is that? Does it not make sense that primarily white developers in primarily white countries for primarily white audiences would make primarily white characters without making a statement out of it?

Is it a political statement to simply have a character be human to begin with? Should we instead focus on making fish be the "default" character in media, so as not to throw around political statements? Or would that be one, too?

Main question : Have you?
second : how does 1 or 2 to exeptions make a rule that proves the other 99% of the time not valid?

because Sup Forums is a reddit safe space.
get out with your facts and truth

And before you get the wrong idea. THIS IS NOT ABOUT RACISM, BUT ABOUT PREFERENCES

But the straight heroic everyman in a crazy situation against his will main character only exists because it's the least politically charged character possible.
Literal vanilla ice cream of character writing. That their skin is white is coincidental because most writers are white.

Because politics are pure faggotry

Oh, in that case you're probably right. I still don't think it's genetic though.

GTA
Call of Duty
Medal of Honor
Halo
Metal Gear Solid
Skyrim
Assassin's Creed
Red Dead Redemption
Bioshock

are all extremely popular games/series that are political off the top of my head and no-one complains about them.

Maybe because their political content is handedly competently and appropriately and feels like a complimentary layer to the game, so that the player and audience gets the sense that the game was built to be a game and then some sort of narrative was put on top for entertainment, rather than the game being built to deliver a political message.

It's almost as if the messages, themes, motifs, and political/social content of your media should be subtextual implications derived from the events, characters, and setting of your creation rather than simply having your game/movie/play/show/novel/comic/etc be a billboard for your agenda.

All of those games are shit.

...

That's not the point of the thread.

When people say they don't want politics in video games, they mean they don't want their side to be shown as wrong or ridiculous.

We are not allowed to comment on certain political topics

Art has been political since the beginning of time and anybody bitching about their vidya being political is just angry that it doesn't reflect their personal views.

I don't mind politics or social commentary being included in games. As long as it doesn't feel forced and the gameplay is good.

I dont want to ponder about political science in my games.

which games make you ponder about political science?

Maybe cause games are for kids and I don't want swathes of unwashed 40 year old hipsters and casuals telling me stories covered literally hundreds of years ago in other media

Last month I played Stellaris with a fanatic pacifist spiritualist. It was fucking boring. But then I started thinking about how thought provoking my Battleships were in their coloring.

>political games are fine!
>make game about blacks and Muslims being subhuman criminals
>steam bans the game and my account as well

I guess only some politics are okay

I know this is bait, but what people with that mindset don't actually realize is that a white person creating a white person by default isn't making some kind of statement. They're just doing it. It's the default in their mind because that's what they are, and their family and possibly the majority of where they live. They're not intentionally trying to make the majority of media white. They're just not intentionally making it non-white.

holy shit u dense nigga of course not all art is gonna touch upon politics, the point i made is that in general art has explored politics since mankind started making it

Steam is a private organization and has the right to deny service to people who are massive faggots. If you don't like it, you can find somewhere or someone else to publish your game.

Why is it that Sup Forumsfags don't understand how the free market works?

Why are you putting words in my mouth? Don't pretend society is perfectly okay with political thought if it actively suppresses what isn't mainstream

You don't seem to understand how the free market works, friend. You conflate society with private business. As a private business I have the right to deny people like you my time and effort.

You are not being suppressed. You are being told to fuck off by one business owner. You can find someone else to publish your game.

Isn't that a good thing though, video games may not be safe from the cancer of politics but at least many people play or make them for the sake of pure enjoyment

The bigger point to make, actually is that politics are largely a product of interpretation that is pot onto the fiction, rather than an inherent part of it.

The left is the one who came with the "Everything is political" thesis. It's an interpretation code, and it's as valid or invalid as you yourself decide it to be: its a normative, not objective process.

The problem is that the decision to treat every piece of fiction as political has some pretty deep and potentially pretty disturbing implications and consequences. The left banks on those: they literally imposed this idea to increase the scope of their own power and influence (gaining right to criticize and dictate what is acceptable or innacceptable in domains that were previously thought to be better treated as private).
What baffles me is that people decide consciously to actually AGREE with the left-wing "everything is political" claim. Because it's not TRUE unless YOU DECIDE TO AGREE WITH IT. Yet people act as if it was an objective fact. And that is what is really fucked up here.

>having the most typical video game consumer depicted in video games is a political statement
>another element of the straight white cis male patriarchy, if you will
Get your hands off my vidya you commies.

Not (you), but giving the ability to decide which games you put on your platform is a political decision.

Everything is political, everything is art, and you have to point it all out.

That's because for as much as I love video games, video games themselves are an immature, anti-intellectual hobby, which isn't helped in the least by gamers being a bunch of whiny, stupid, immature idiots.

That could change in the future, though.

How was that contrarian? If anything, I'd say you're the one being contrarian.

When you watch Mexican soap operas and all the characters are Mexican, you don't consider it a political statement. When you watch Japanese anime and the characters are Japanese, you don't consider it a political statement. When a show created for black people (Prince of Bel Air for example) features primarily black people it is not considered a political statement. It is only considered "making a statement" when white people do it.

Because there are certain movies specifically made for political bullshit and no one but critics watch them, a political videogame is just a popular series only now they've added a bunch of SJW shit this time.

>show created for black people
>Fresh Prince

All prime time TV shows are created for white people because white people are the mass audience in America. This includes all "black" shows since the Cosby Show, to Fresh Prince, all the way up to Blackish. This is why they are made palettable for whites by making them functional family units in middle to upper class homes and little to no social dysfunction.

An actual "made for blacks" scripted show is more like Keye and Peele, or the Chapelle Show, where they actually play on black culture and stereotypes as in-joke winks to their black audience rather than just creating a white people sitcom with black characters. Fresh Prince having "Very Special Episodes" where they deal with race is largely just the "for white audiences" version of racial examination. While those sitcoms will have more black audience than say, Married With Children, they are still built for white people consumption because they drop everything that your standard Nielson family would be turned off by like broken homes, drugs, crime, black culture, etc.

There are two factors that can be considered if we want to understand what stirs up so much bad blood about this subject matter.

A) videogames existed for very long time in a highly sheltered, disconneted reality that did not heavily reflect real world - both in their approach to storytelling, and the discourse that surrounded them. They also aimed at such audiences - often socially mal-adjusted individuals who sought refuge in them.
This made the sudden shock of the major political pressure being leveled at games over the course of mere months so jarring.

B) while political and social commentary has always been part of all media and arts, it has rarely been treated as their main purpose, and more importantly, virtually all media have been established for so long, and accessible by so many authors that they reflected relatively balanced and pluralistic landscapes of ideologies and philosophies. Works with leftist agendas, works of conservative agendas, theist agendas, nihilistic agendas, post modern works, works without a discernable political agenda at all, true works of art that reflect the complexity of real world and reject simplification of an ideology too.

Games, on the other hand, did not have time or space or means to developed such a complex, balanced rooster of ideas, ideologies and perceptions.

Now cue 2011, and the radical push for political transformation of games, which - let's not kid ourselves - came from the growing, radicalizing left above all. A small group of mostly ideologically like-minded people proposed that games are forced to reflect their over-reaching, instrumental ideology and attacking those who oppose such idea. Various political counter-points had emerged since then, but the initial push - and majority of the contemporary one - was not from a balanced set of views. It was completely one-sided. Games must reflect modern leftist world-view.

It's not surprising that sudden, JARRING confrontation ended up in a shitstorm.

>A small group of mostly ideologically like-minded people proposed that games are forced to reflect their over-reaching, instrumental ideology and attacking those who oppose such idea

Back to r/conspiracy with you.

Remember how Gamergate went? The journos had an agreement by themselves to talk shit about it. How the articles came at the same time? Technically that is a conspiracy.

There is no conspiracy. I wish you retards would learn the difference between conspiracy and ideology.

I just want politics out of all those things. I miss fun.

You are a mental child.

Or maybe I just don't want to talk about politics and play the game.

Video games are clearly political. The fact is this board has been co-opted heavily by /leftypol/, neogaf and reddit and with the mods help they have turned it against Sup Forums after 3 years of war. When somebody here reees at politics they're not actually reeing at politics, they're reeing at Sup Forums and everything it stands for, as it opposes their deluded world view.

you know nothing, the show was literally created as a favor to will smith by quincy jones, will smith having become bankrupt despite his moderately successful rap career. also the show won an award by the NAACP

>it's for white people because the main characters are rich, the families aren't dysfunctional and it doesn't depict broken homes drugs and crime
holy shit you just went full nigger

Nothing you just said contradicts anything in my post.

I would argue shows like Key and Peele or the Chapelle show are equally made for whites as the Fresh Prince, only they are more modern takes on the genre. Basically, now white people enjoy seeing more ebonics and "we wuz slaves and sheeit, dem cops be raciss" in their media because they feel better about sympathizing with these characters, especially with social media as a factor. If the characters were all well-off living in upper-class homes people would complain about it.

The people who would not watch it due to black characters are equally as likely not to watch the older shows such as Fresh Prince.

I just realised. To the lefties, everything is political. Since they arent making games, it means the rightists are making them. This shit is scary as fuck.

Wouldn't it be just as political for the scenario to end in your ideal fashion?

>it means the rightists are making them
spat out my drink laughing hard

I hate that fucking emoji so much

/thread

except for the fact that the show was literally created for a black man?

Because the people making the games lack the capacity for subtlety and it's just hamfisted as fuck 99% of the time.

>I just realised. To the lefties, everything is political.
You got that right. Yes, they are impossing a narrative in which everything that does not propagate their beliefs is inherently a threat to them: that is where the "everything is political" comes from. They are not the first or the last to employ this strategy. It's just kinda terrifying how successful they have become, in a society that has been in many ways designed to AVOID making the same mistake again.

>the way we teach our students to make games is political

Explain this shit to me. Do they lecture their programmers on race and culture?

Nah, I'm an emotional child.

Have faith in generation Zyklon. The fire rises