They call themselves pro-gg, and they cheer that Tauriq Moosa got harassed over his Witcher commentary.
Smells like sea lion in here.
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Once again, you are taking in the lens of americentric race and diversity.
that is certainly one of their largest target markets, so it seems reasonable. but, thatâs not the only lens through which this is an issue.
i certainly never said poles havenât faced discrimination.
as you said before, this uses slavic mythological influences to describe modern poland. it wouldnât be a stretch to realize that both modern poland is a part of the world. look at this internet bringing people together to talk about games comprised of zeros and ones!
it was mentioned by others that perhaps this isnât the best game to make the argument about the whiteness of video games. i think, however, itâs a great one to use.
we can always make arguments about why a lack of diversity is justified here, or there, or in this way or that. i think thatâs actually the point of the author about talking about âhistorical accuracyâ justifications. when all games adopt white as neutral â and by and large they do â all developers need to consider whether thatâs right, or good.
no one said they must. i simply think it would make a better game, and i think it would allow people of color to find themselves in the stories of the world we all â including poles â share.
you seem to say CDP wonât be able figure out how to do it in an internally consistent way. but, as you pointed out theyâve made strides towards improving the representation of gender⌠so why sell them so short?
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Iâd stop feeding the troll dude. Heâs posted here 38 times since the thread opened and has attempted to insult and dissuade half the forum from posting. In an attempt to be cordial, as I am also a new poster, I sent him a PM only to be shot down and insulted. Thereâs a lot of hate in there, not much point in letting him direct it at you. You both agree on the fundamental point that diversity in games is something the industry should strive toward but you will NEVER get him to concede anything more than this.
After reading his 38 posts you should see itâs pretty clear playing semantics and turning away new users is how he gets his jollies and I hate to see you waste any more time on him.
Theyâve actually already set themselves up for doing this with the frequent allusions to the Zerrikanian continent where the inhabitants have darker skin tones. From The Witcher wiki: âNot a lot is known about Zerrikania: its climate is hot, exotic animals roam the land, and the inhabitants worship dragons. Zerrikania is famous for its tattooed warrior women, who are skilled in the use of sabres.â
That sounds like an awfully fun place to explore in future content so hopefully they take cues from this sort of debate and head in that direction. It will still maintain their âinternal consistencyâ for those concerned about altering Witcher canon but also demonstrate a move toward being more racially inclusive.
Edit: For those interested hereâs another interesting take on this discussion: http://www.usgamer.net/articles/on-the-witcher-iii-race-and-fantasy-homages
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Do you feel bad that you have to apologize for not viewing a piece of entertainment through some absurd socio-political lens? Itâs a fucking game. If you enjoy it, play it. Do you listen to every Kanye song searching for its inclusion of inuit throat singers? They are oppressed, you know. He should be more sensitive and include references to Emperor Hirohito, Uncle Tom and Santa Claus.
Welcome new user. I foresee a long, successful posting career here!
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That sounds like an awfully fun place to explore in future contentâŚ
whole heartedly ( 
? ) agree.
( and, that was a good read. thanks for the link! )
You mean just like how nitpicking the particular game used to illustrate an issue is a sideline from the importance of the issue?
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Do you work in a cinema perchance?
Well thatâs too bad for you then. Tolkien wrote in mainly pre-WWII Europe, borrowing heavily from Norse and Northern European myths and folklore. The idea that he shouldâve included cultures/races that had little place in this regional mythology in the main line of the story is frankly ridiculous. In fact, the little mention of southern peoples in LoTR, most likely Moorish-derived from the descriptions he gives, takes a rather sympathetic view of them as being manipulated into fighting for the wrong side who wouldâve, all things being equal, have preferred to stay home. The Orcs are not stand-ins for darker peoples, they are monsters, period. And this is in an era when such stand-ins would not have been out of place. I could bore you to death with examples of other authors who have used orcs, etc., as such stand ins, but Tolkien did not commit this sin.
I find this whole line of argument with regard to stories/games like Witcher really off the mark. Witcher is a parable for the sickness of anti-semitism and scapegoating of others in medieval Europe, specifically Poland. There is no reason to include âPOCâ in a game where culturally they have utterly no place at all. Just because in the USA we always seem to see such issues in terms of black and white, literally, doesnât mean the rest of the world must see it that way, or that we should blind ourselves to the reality that if there were no POC in the USA, weâd find some other group to other and scapegoat. It wasnât always that way here: when Irish, Italians, Jews and other âwhitesâ started flooding the shores of the US the racism, fear and scapegoating were intense and horrifying. Actual bigotry always seems to find a way, and by focusing on the color issue we risk forgetting that fact.
The problem comes in where the article skirts the edge of claiming outright racism on the devs part. Zerrikania is far away, the north is an extreme backwater in the middle of a destructive war. Could there have been a handful of Zerrikanians? Sure. Would they have played a major part in the game? Certainly not. Barring one (the bloody baron), every important character in the game exists in the books already. Putting a black character in would have been the definition of tokenism and honestly kinda offensive on its own.
For one, thanks for asking honestly, instead of dishonestly, cause that would be dishonest and dishonesty, honestly, is dishonest.
That you appear to have no interest in identifying with the protagonist of a game does not lessen or negate other peopleâs interest in doing so.
If you have lived your entire gaming life without seeing a protagonist that looks like you or yours, doesnât it stand to reason that this might indicate a larger problem? Exclusion, rather than inclusion? Or, to put it a different way, are people of color any less interesting to view as characters in a gameâs story, a movie, a poster, or any media?
Also, if it doesnât matter to you, that is, if the skin color of a videogame character doesnât matter to you, then why might it matter to you that other people want more choices in that arena?
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Iâm an Indian living in India, and have been gaming for 20 years. I know that nobody is scrambling to create Indian looking NPCs, let alone protagonists for the foreseeable future. Guess what? It doesnât bother me.
Iâve played Fallout and Skyrim and Starwars:The Old Republic, and in all of these Iâve never been bothered by either the presence or absence of skin color and tone. Iâm here for the story, the gameplay and the immersiveness. As are millions of gamers worldwide, who youâll notice, are not necessarily all white and male either.
People have been raving about the Fallout 4 trailer released recently, and at the end we see the standard white male protagonist going off with his dog and guess what? Nobody gives a shit about his race. Everyone who considers themselves RPG gamers on the net regardless of skin color has been going crazy over the game instead of worrying about skin color (when you can customize your character anyway if it mattered to you).
I donât see why game developers should spend the extra effort on such tokenism when their paying audiences donât care either. Whatâs going to change once you stick a black character in a medieval white European themed fantasy with castles and dragons and mages? Have him propagate another stereotype by making him speak in a ghetto gangsta accent?
How about convincing game developers to look to other cultures for inspiration? How about an African themed fantasy based on I donât know, the culture of Benin or featuring a ruler like Shaka, where perhaps black characters would be the default? You donât lambast Korean & Chinese MMOs for not featuring non Oriental characters, do you?
Good luck convincing enough people for this reason to boycott games in large enough numbers so as to dent sales though.
Are we bickering? Please note where I was petulant, or quoted you out of context. Petulance is one thing, reading between the lines is another entirely. When you complain about the ability of white males to do X because [people of color reasons], you are writing from a standpoint of white male privilege.
As for fleshed-out characters with back stories, did Moosa say that Geralt has to be a different shade? Or was he asking why every human character in the game is white? So your distinctions about character type does not hold. If I were to say to you: RTFA, please note that I donât want to be seen as bickering, so block out the âFâ in that acronym.
Also, the Rust devs specifically noted that:
âThereâs a lot of skin colors in the world, and itâs really easy to appear racially insensitive when doing this. This is compounded by the fact that everyone is really used to seeing [the player avatar] as a white guy, so when you see him as a black guy it feels like heâs just âblacked up.â So weâre spending a lot of time trying to lessen that effect.â
I tell ya, those people of color and their meaningless and unproductive opinions, huh?!
Except the post-Islamic world was rather a very eclectic place, as it was on a major cultural and economic cross roads. So, yes, people from all over the Mediterranean and from the far east would have been there.
Also, this:
And once again, these are fantasy games. They are not reflecting history, but a mythical past, meaning there is no reason not to be more culturally inclusive.
[ETA] Culture produced today is not about accurately reflecting the past, but is about telling us something about the present (which Iâll argue were likely far more multiethnic/cultural than people realize). Plus, video games are being taken seriously now, as art. If you want that, then some criticism is going to come with it. Youâre going to have to accept that. I also want to point out that the majority of people discussing games in this manner are themselves people who enjoy games and even like the games they are discussing.
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Holy fucking hell, do you always check Stormfrontâs whatever for the lulz?
T. Moosa, who wrote one of the articles listed by the OP is, if Iâm not mistaken, of Middle Eastern descent. This is not solely a white/black binary issue.
Just so weâre clear, can you tell me of all the other things to which I shouldnât be bothered? Hey, thanks in advance.
So innocuous! So un-botherable! Supported by statements of gross stupidity! Stormfront is not botheredâoffers no lulz!!
Please cite where the authors spoke of an obligation to do otherwise.
Gawd, I know!
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The world has teleportation. And mega-scopes for skyping.
And Zerikanian items, like bomb recipes and saddlebags.
haha Mindy you are THE BEST
Seventy monks and 180 local volunteers, mostly from the szlachta (Polish nobility), held off 4,000 Swedes for forty days, saved their sacred icon and, according to some accounts, turned the course of the war.
This event led King John II Casimir Vasa to âcrownâ Our Lady of CzÄstochowa (âthe Black Madonnaâ) as Queen and Protector of Poland in the cathedral of LwĂłw on April 1, 1652.
CzÄstochowa is regarded as the most popular shrine in Poland, with many Polish Catholics making a pilgrimage there every year. A pilgrimage has left Warsaw every Aug. 6 since 1711 for the nine-day, 140-mile trek. Elderly pilgrims recall stealing through the dark countryside at great personal risk during the Nazi occupation. Pope John Paul II secretly visited as a student pilgrim during World War II.
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I do think someone else posted this in a similar thread months ago when other trolls claimed that nary a person of color ever stepped foot in Europe prior to the modern era⌠I mean, people managed to travel about prior to modern modes of transportation, quite far, in fact. The Mediterranean has long been a major contact zone, and everyone seems to forget that the Arab conquests actually got into France, coming up from the Iberian peninsula in the 8th century. Likely some/many of the soldiers were Africans, possibly even sub-Saharan Africans. Even if they were turned back, I doubt they all left.
Reminds me of that scene from Django Unchained, where Leo Decaprioâs character is waxing eloquent about Dumas, and whatâs his name points out that he was black!
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