Oh, Chairman Yang and Colonel Santiago. How many times have I wanted to crush your windpipe and watch your eyes as you die under my grip. So many, many times.
Edit: Um. And you, too Sisterless Miriam, and iFucker Zakharov. Morgan, go sell your shit elsewhere (oh, wait, you’re already ensconced in my worst prison! Whee! Daily whippings!).
Um…Deirdre, I understand you want to play with the pretty trees, but come along and be sure you understand who is being voted into power…otherwise it’s The Napalm for you and yours.
ANOTHER EDIT: Staying on topic (ahem), it’s entirely possible good character art will invite me into a game genre I might normally avoid, but those surface feelz go right out the window if the gameplay mechanics or the basic rules and structure are poorly developed.
Can diverse character art invite you into a game genre you normally avoid?
In all honesty, probably not. I’m not going to start playing online FPS, RTS, or casual games like Bejewelled clones (three genres that I don’t enjoy) just because the art looks more diverse than what I’m used to. I already know I don’t enjoy those games, and a change in the character art sure isn’t going to change that.
On the other hand, really bad art can tip the scales against a game that I’m undecided on.
Why not talk about game mechanics instead of just evaluating games purely on identity politics? This is just like the recent article about black male bodies in gaming and the one on The Witcher; they’re all pretty superficial. The author of this one doesn’t even sound like much of a gamer.
To answer the question, I will play the game if it has good gameplay. Extra points for subverting hegemonic trends. The character art of Subterfuge looks cool, but it doesn’t tell me anything about gameplay.
The rule would be nobody would take you seriously for it, because your race and gender are already represented just fine in the gaming industry, and we’d tell you to go whine somewhere else. You really don’t seem to get what people are trying to accomplish here, yet you seem awfully eager to look for an excuse to say “Me, I’m oppressed, too!”
