You seem to be expressing a moral stance that says that all games should feature a certain sort of customizability. That is what I mean by “insisting”. Also, talking about games using an analogy of a service industry like a hotel rather than an art form like a novel really only confirms my about your lack of respect for games as an art form.
Your comments are some of the most intelligent and sensible on this article, in my humble opinion. Thank you.
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LoL, you’ve never allowed yourself a proper experience at such establishments if you can’t find the art in the execution of said service.
You find a preference to inclusion a moral stance? Good on you! Next you can work on describing how water is wet. Is that all water is? should be your followup query, for extra credit.
When these devs act on said criticisms and recommendations, as they have in the past, are you going to light a candle on a leaf and float it down a river, saying a little prayer for the end of an era?
Are we really going to have this big, long, snarky pseudo-intellectual conversation about the semantics of the word “insist”? We both know what I meant, and we both know that it’s a perfectly valid and obviously appropriate use of the word.
I review my post and find no reference to the word. Are you replying to someone else or were you trying to reply to a different post?
Were you trying to exclude art from criticism on the basis that you find insistence inherent in criticism? You’re the one trying to start a semantic argument I hope you realize.
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Maybe I misinterpreted the point of your comments. In any case, I’ve explained what I meant by “insist” in this context and I don’t think it is a very useful or interesting discussion to continue.
I don’t think a preference for inclusion has to mean the sort of customizability you call for. It could just as well mean greater diversity of game protagonists in games as a whole, rather than “insisting” on customizability of individual games.
Also, I don’t think that inclusion and diversity are the same things. I think diversity is a good thing with regards to literature as a whole for example, but I don’t always want to be “included” by a novel.
If game developers want to react to criticism by changing their games, that’s fine by me, and the same goes for novelists. But I don’t think that, in general, a “customer is always right” attitude is the right one for either games or novels.
Things I’ve learned from this thread:
Madonna is Polish culture, and nothing but.
Dr Who is Polish culture, and nothing but.
Jinn are a Polish mythological creature, and nothing but.
Even if the actual author of a work says it’s not “true Polish fantasy”, and openly mocks people who think so, you should insist that anyone who thinks it’s not “true Polish fantasy” is a racist: https://storify.com/LukeMaciak/sapkowski-openly-mocks-those-who-fetishize-slavic-
So tell me, WHO is it that’s telling other people what their cultures are? The people doing respectful games criticism, or the people openly insisting to an author that his work represents what THEY want, and not what he thinks?
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I’ll just leave this here
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/702760-the-witcher-3-wild-hunt/71867262
Ah, a reference to The Big Lucasbowski.
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I would have hoped you would have already abandoned your novel/game analogy for being as hopeless as it is.
But it’s good that you’ve accepted that it is alright to criticize devs and that it is alright for devs to accept criticism and act on it. You’re one step above the GG whose points you took to heart with “insistence”.
The game as it is currently released would still exist as it is currently released even if it had options. That’s end game, and this devs history reflects their desire to accommodate even if they still have some distance to travel.
I haven’t read GG’s posts. Either great minds think alike or fools seldom differ, I suppose. In any case, I never said that it’s not alright to criticise devs, did I?
I would have hoped you would have addressed my points, (perhaps explaining why you think the novel analogy is hopeless,for example) rather than merely dismissing them and then restating your own previous point, but I suppose that’s too much to hope for on an Internet message board.
Novels you re-read, games you re-play.
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Classical novels as your examples are immutably fixed works per their media/medium (especially with long, long dead authors).
Modern games, particularly PRG’s, significantly Single-Player RPG’s can be fixed or otherwise simultaneously. It’s the nature of that media/medium.
Silly to compare them at all.
And you have read GG posts. GG means GamerGater, a term for a particular kind of shit stank that desires devs and games to conform to exclusionary practices wherever such is possible.
Novels are written on paper, games are not. I’ve pointed out a difference between them, therefore any analogy between them is doomed. Good arguing.
Only that I don’t see it as a dearth. I am assuming that you write from the multicultural USA, where around 10 000 people are killed each year by firearms alone. In Poland the number is maybe 35. Correcting for population, you are 33 times more likely to be gunned-down in your neighbourhood that I am in mine. Please come by, the cuisine is better here, too 
Don’t be a fool. Lots of games are written on paper, and Jane Austen is dead. Your analogy was pathetic.
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Maybe, but I’m still waiting to actually hear an argument that comes anywhere near establishing that.
The point I’m making, using the analogy of novels, is not that we don’t or shouldn’t criticise the creative choices of people making creative products. The point is that it doesn’t make sense to demand that we, as the consumer, are always put in a position to directly determine those creative choices via customizability of some sort. Because when we consume a creative product like a game and or a novel, it’s the creative choices of the people who made it that we are paying for / looking for. Those choices are the good that is being provided to us.
Which is not to say that options are a bad thing in games, but that a generalised statement to the effect that you should always be able to edit the main characters ethnicity, or any other characteristic, would be a stupid statement to make, and one that displays a lack of respect for videogames as an art form, compared with other art forms. I stick by that position because, despite your statement that I’m being “a fool”, I’ve not read anything to convince me that it is particularly foolish.
?? Someone said that? Not me.
I merely point out that due to the nature of the media/medium it can occur without detracting from the experience of any other player whatsoever. Persons demanding that it would ruin the game because culture/Polish/history/fake are simply 100% wrong.
If you think petitioning Jane Austen’s tomb for a revised or upgraded version of Pride and Prejudice is comparable, you’re making a foolish comparison. Asking a publisher to publish a version of Pride and Prejudice with zombies also isn’t comparable, when the underlying suggestion is that it would change the book for everyone who reads it, even if they choose to read the original, because that just isn’t true.
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True - I think nobody in Poland would have understood the term ‘true Polish fantasy’ - Sapkowski’s books are very clever melting pot of Tolkien, medieval reality and Arturian myths with added great jokes and postmodernist flair which creates funny subtexts (like the certain battle which is a twisted copy of Waterloo). They are very universal, easy to understand and that’s why they were translated into many languages. From Slavic mythology there are certain names, few customs, not much more. If any real mythology is exemplified it is the British one - Arthurian myths and the concept of Avalon. I’'ve read the books (all of them) and played games (not all) so I should know, right?
It certainly sounds like that’s what you are saying, so thanks for the clarification.
I’m not sure what you mean by “petitioning Jane Austin’s grave”. My point would have been the same had I happened to reference a living author.
I don’t know what I think about your other point. Part of me thinks that part of the value of a game might be in its specific constraints.
Also, I’m not sure whether just being able to customise a character’s skin colour, without making all the sensible adjustments to storyline that might make sense in particular contexts, settings, etc., is really giving people what they want. I’d personally rather see more games with good black protagonists, for example, rather than more games where you can customize the main protagonist to be black - at least for the more story-based games.
Role-Playing-Game.
The player plays the role. A mere skin tone option is an accommodation, not a change.
In this instance it is easy to see that it is what some players want, because it was requested (or demanded, insisted, criticized for it’s lack of)
