Edit:
Well it seems like people here don’t agree with me. OK.
I’m locking this post now as the very thing that I said happens has happened. On the PlayStation community I was called a bigot for being against DEI.
Calling people racists or bigots and/or claiming harassment when those people call You out and then screaming VICTIM is simply unacceptable
Most of you have also proved my very first point for my far more effectively than I ever could
Being a gamer on the internet in 2024 is not a very pleasant experience.
Which unless you conform to the beliefs of the very loud and vocal minority is unfortunately a fact of life 2024.
The hard leftists have decided they own the internet and gaming industry and everyone else who dares oppose them is not welcome.
Being a gamer on the internet in 2024 is not a very pleasant experience.
You either support DEI in games or you’re a racist bigot. There’s no middle ground.
What happened to the days when we could talk about the games we like without having to worry if we are ALLOWED to like a certain game?
If I was proclaim my support for Suicide Squad kills the Justice League the right wing gamers would yell at me. If I was to say I didn’t like Suicide Squad Kills the Justice League the left wing gamers and the journalists would yell at me.
There’s no way to win.
My person opinion is all politics, racial issues and gender identity should be left out of games and writers should create the stories that they want to create without worrying if they have enough white or black or gay or trans characters. As long as the story is good and the gameplay is good and the characters are well developed most people don’t care what colour the main character is or if they’re gay or not.
But in 2024 that just isn’t the world we live in anymore.
The developers and journalists seem to have decided that gamers are the enemy and will be told what to like and if they push back they are branded as taking part in harassment campaigns.
So the gaming industry crashing and having to start again probably wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.
I’m tired of being told what to like and what not to like by developers, journalists and other gamers on both sides of the arguments.
I’ve been a gamer for 34 years and I don’t have any desire to buy any new games or support any developer for the foreseeable future and that makes me sad.
I love playing games and I loved talking about games but things have changed and it’s no longer fun.
Maybe you should take a break from the internet and just play what you want to play. You really don’t need to worry about what you think people are telling you you can or can’t like. It sounds like you’re getting a little too into the culture war shit, you can just choose not to engage, you’ll be much happier.
Hard agree. Most people I know IRL play video games at least casually, and in all the conversations about games I’ve been involved in over the years (decades!!) I can’t think of even one single instance where the political bullshit that gets memed about online has ever come up. Not to say that it doesn’t exist, but it seems to be exclusive to terminally online culture warriors.
Play what you want, unplug from the toxic communities and tune into positive and supportive ones that make you feel good about your hobby.
This is exactly what I’m doing.
I already don’t use Twitter/FaceBook/Reddit an I will no longer be following gaming “news” or the talking heads on YouTube and won’t be supporting any developers, publishers or platform holders.
I’ve cancelled my PS Plus/GamePass subscriptions and won’t be buying any new games for a very very long time. If ever. Which was likely coming anyway even without all this as I won’t buy a game I won’t OWN. Which means no games that the disc is just a licence and doesn’t have the whole game on it and no digital only games.
I’ve got a big enough collection of physical games going back the PS1/OG Xbox/GameCube that I could play a game from the backlog every week and I still won’t have played them all by 2040. As a rough estimate I’m probably fine for games to play for close to 30 years. At one a week. By then I’ll be pushing 70 or dead. So I’m good.
I agree with others that I literally never hear these topics and would recommend you find other sources if their talking points aren’t about gameplay and that bothers you.
But I’m very confused by your comment: “without worrying if they have enough white or black or gay or trans characters.”
How would there be a wrong number of any of those types of people? If they didn’t decide they wanted one of those types of people, does the character just need to be a straight white male?
You’ve posed this as a “both sides” argument which gives me a decent inclination toward where you stand. You don’t want to believe you’re biased, but I doubt you’ve complained about a male and female character kissing in a storyline, or an all-white character cast because those scenarios feel “normal”. But if they add a trans character there’s a discussion about whether the developers were “forcing” them into the story as if they’d be better off as some other type of person.
I hope you consider what you’re looking for without diversity in games, and why anyone’s bringing up the “issue” of different types of people being in a game.
“you either support DEI games or you are a racist bigot”.
Yeah so this is likely a straw man. Build up a false equivalency your opponents are supposedly arguing.
90% chance you either know some really stupid people or perhaps you have way less self awareness than you think you do.
Like the other person said, play some video games, or not, no one cares.
Someone on the PlayStation community literally just proved this point for me be saying “If you don’t support DEI, you are in fact a bigot.”
Not that they think or they believe I’m a bigot. I AM IN FACT A BIGOT!
So no it’s not that’s what they’re “supposedly” arguing, they are arguing it and there’s proof.
