• Endymion_Mallorn@kbin.melroy.org
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    3 days ago

    There’s room to split hairs over the first cartridge based console, or the first console with interchangeable games. But no matter what, the Channel F was designed by Mr. Lawson from first principles.

    Mrs. Williams’ pet project series remains one of my favorite duologies in gaming - Laura Bow. If you say that she was the cofounder, you also have to point out that Ken & Roberta were a married couple, so no matter what she’d have been involved. It’s more about what she contributed to gaming and her skill with crafting coherent stories both AGI and SCI - and you can see that in KQ4, since it was released in both AGI and SCI!

    I have to admit that I never got into the BioWare D&D games - my preference remained with Black Isle’s development (Planescape: Torment); but I respect others like them more than me.

    The first person to put together principles on programming was a woman (Ada Lovelace). One of the most influential programming languages in the world, and the origin of the term ‘computer bug’, come from a woman (Captain Grace “Amazing Grace” Hopper). Women programmed the computers that put men on the moon and got them home safely. Dr. Ellis, a black man, was the first black person to get a Computer Science PhD, and (arguably) created the first known GUI.

    These are all good people who made our lives better.

  • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    There are two kinds of wokeness I complain about:

    1. Hernia level virtue signaling - this is when a production company is straining super hard to make sure we know they’re the good guys, but the writers don’t have the brains to come up with interesting allegories, or even super-transparent ones like the half-black/half-white dudes in the TOS episode. All they can muster up is character dialog like, “Wow, look how backward this time period is! So much misogyny and discrimination!” Yeah duh, I live in this time period and I’m not stupid. (talking to you, Picard season 2)

    2. Misrepresenting the past - this is when they portray let’s say Victorian England or 1950s America as a fully integrated society where characters of all races mix freely, with equality at all levels. That’s not how it was, kids. The black housewife in 1953 Ohio would not have a white maid, although she might work part time as one in a white household. You don’t raise social consciousness by painting a fake picture of history to avoid upsetting your audience. That does no service to the people who still feel the effects of those times.

    But oh right, I forgot, the point is profit not genuine social consciousness - sorry, my bad.

    /edited for grammar

    • BluesF@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      While I agree with your first point - corporate pseudo-progressivism is a stain - I don’t really think it’s fair to call it “woke”. In fact, it’s almost the opposite of what woke is supposed to mean. To be “woke” originally meant having “woken up” to the reality of systemic racism… Corpos thoughtlessly stuffing games/films with “diverse” casts are not really respecting that reality. It’s performative. There is an argument that it improved things for actors regardless, but I still don’t think it’s “woke”.

      On your second point I have to slightly disagree. Taking Bridgerton as an example - set in something like Victorian England, but a racially diverse one. The Queen is black, there’s a black Duke. I think these things immediately set the story apart from real Victorian England. Ok, perhaps if you know nothing about history it might be confusing, but to me I see those things and immediately one of two things is true:

      • We are suspending our disbelief. Just like the pantomime dame, within the world of the play, is a woman and not a man in costume, we can assume that we’re seeing black actors playing characters who would have really been white… Like Queen victoria.
      • The world we see is not an accurate representation of history. In this world we might assume that slavery was abolished sooner, or never started, and black people moved not just into the lower but the higher echelons of British society.

      Given that it’s fiction, I don’t mind either of these things. I think it’s nice for people who aren’t white to be able to imagine themselves in those stories, even if in the real history things would have been much different. Bridgerton isn’t trying to present a vision of real historical events, it’s primarily a romance. Just like mediaeval fantasy isn’t really medieval, Victorian romance doesn’t need to really be Victorian. We don’t need to see the systemic racism any more than we need to see the cholera or dropsy or whatever.

      I will also just briefly shill for Taboo which I just finished - that’s a historical show which incorporates a “realistic” amount of diversity into it’s cast while maintaining (at least what appears to me) a level of historical accuracy. The story is fictional, although it appears around real events… But the world it presents feels genuine. Crucially by contrast to Bridgerton, slavery plays quite an important role in the story - so here it would feel absurd to have a black Queen or Duke.

      • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        Haven’t seen Taboo but Bridgerton is a fantasy alt world - it can have steam-powered computers for all I care. My objection is specifically about falsely portraying real eras for the sake of casting diversity, which I think is a disservice to people who were held down in those real eras.

        • BluesF@lemmy.world
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          5 days ago

          Fair enough, I have seen the same arguments applied to it is why I used it as an example. I don’t know what shows you are thinking of, but are they misrepresenting things, or are they just using blind casting and asking you to suspend your disbelief? This is something we do without thinking when watching theatre, but it’s a bit more subtle when watching television or films because they go to lengths to make the environment feel more real.

          • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
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            4 days ago

            Suspension of disbelief is great for science fiction and fantasy, but I don’t think it’s healthy to mask past realities. I don’t believe for one second anybody does “blind” casting - entertainment companies pander to what they think their audience’s main demographic wants, and they do extensive research to tell them what that is. They want to be on the audience’s side on every issue, support all the right things, criticize all the right things… there’s nothing blind or random about any of it.

            • BluesF@lemmy.world
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              4 days ago

              Perhaps, or perhaps the casting team had other goals that aren’t so obvious. While it’s true there are purely capitalistic production firms, there are clearly things being made with artistic vision behind them, and sometimes that includes blind casting. Again, I suspect this is more prevalent in theatre, where audiences are more willing to accept, say, a woman playing King Lear, or black actors playing nobles in a historical setting. Because, on stage, you are already suspending lots of that disbelief - you’re not looking into a throne room, you’re looking at a stage - it’s easier to take it a step further.

              But while less is asked of you when watching a historical drama on TV, you are nonetheless suspending your disbelief. You know really that cameras couldn’t have filmed this in the Victorian era, that’s not really Henry VIII, and Jesus wasn’t a white guy. The question is what makes it too jarring for you?

              I noticed you’re quite focused on the production company’s intent behind the casting. Maybe it’s politically/philosophically motivated, maybe purely capitalist, or maybe artistic… But you can’t really know. And should it even matter to you as the viewer? I understand trying to unpick the artistic decisions behind a piece, but those of the production company? That doesn’t seem like something to bring into your viewing experience - just perhaps conversations like this one on the internet.

              I’d invite you to try suspending your disbelief as you might when watching the Passion of the Christ, and see if you’re able to enjoy these films/shows despite the historical inaccuracies.

              • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
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                3 days ago

                Okay here’s my background - I’ve been involved in over 20 stage productions as an actor, director, assistant director, designer, set builder, and various other tech positions. This doesn’t make me an expert but it means I’ve been there and done that. I’ve seen Midsummer Night’s Dream done with 1930s gangsters, an all-black MacBeth in Stratford, England, and I was stage manager for a Comedy of Errors in a Hollywood Squares style set with a cigarette-smoking nun playing a piano. I understand suspension of disbelief, so you don’t need invite me to try it like you’re talking a kid about broccoli.

                Casting directors do not cast “blind” except background crowds, and even then the overall look and feel is as important as paint scheme and set decoration. I imagine this is even more true in television and movies, where there’s a lot more money at stake and a lot more people to please. They carefully control every element they can - if only because every person in those coveted positions is striving to prove how indispensible they are. Nothing is done at random except for occasional quick one-off decisions. I don’t object to comic anachronisms like throwing WWII German soldiers and Count Basie’s orchestra into Blazing Saddles. I’m talking about serious stories where everything seems to be meticulously recreated except the painful elements of society are being whitewashed for the sake of pleasing modern-day sensibilities.

                Suspension of disbelief only has meaning for an audience that already has knowledge of the material, but today’s audiences generally know very little about history except what they see in movies and on TV. You probably aren’t even aware that about 1 out of 4 cowboys in the Old West era were black. Ranch work was something a lot of freed slaves took up after the Civil War. But having grown up with American movies and TV, my mental version of the Wild West is almost all-white - with the odd asian cook, or an occasional black dude sweeping up in a saloon. I bet yours is similar. That’s why I criticize the current trend of misrepresenting history as a carefully balanced well-integrated society. Whatever the reason, it’s just a different generation trying to please audiences. Like every generation the one currently doing most of the creative work in Hollywood thinks it’s more enlightened than every other one before it, which is another crock of shit. One delusion in the collective consciousness is no better than another.

                • BluesF@lemmy.world
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                  2 days ago

                  I understand suspension of disbelief, so you don’t need invite me to try it like you’re talking a kid about broccoli.

                  Haha, ok, I wasn’t trying to be patronising - my suggestion was that you try suspending you disbelief in situations where you otherwise might not. Clearly you know what it is, I didn’t mean to suggest otherwise. Jumping ahead a bit to another relevant part of your comment…

                  Suspension of disbelief only has meaning for an audience that already has knowledge of the material

                  Where I am suggesting you might suspend your disbelief is exactly that - a situation where you have knowledge that the world you’re seeing is inaccurate. Anyway, I don’t mean to come across as condescending, sorry about that.

                  Casting directors do not cast “blind” except background crowds, and even then the overall look and feel is as important as paint scheme and set decoration.

                  Blind casting doesn’t mean you have to have no artistic vision. It just means you aren’t concerned with, for example, the gender or race of the actor. I saw a production of the Little Prince a while ago where the titular prince was played by a woman. Now, given the storyline (which was presented more or less true to the book) I think it’s clear that there was no philosophical motivation behind the casting… She was just small. I’m sure it was a conscious decision to cast someone small, but do you really think they specifically wanted a woman? I doubt it.

                  I’m talking about serious stories where everything seems to be meticulously recreated except the painful elements of society are being whitewashed for the sake of pleasing modern-day sensibilities

                  This specific situation I can understand. The reason I was inclined to argue with your original point, and why I jumped to Bridgerton as an example, is that I have usually seen these arguments presented in relation to things just like Bridgerton, where they really have no place… So, do you have an example?

                  I’d also ask, given your example, what your perspective is on modern Cowboy films still presenting the old west as predominantly white?

    • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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      6 days ago

      You took the words out of my mouth, both of those are such libshit that I cringe my asshole out.

      • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        That’s another aspect of it - those practices aren’t “libshit” they’re corporate shit. Same as sticking a big GREEN label on random products.

        • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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          5 days ago

          Ya know, there’s a scene in The Boys where Maeve is outed as a bisexual, so they decide to promote her queerness as part of a “Brave Maeve” campaign to encourage those in the closet to come out.

          But then they tell her she has to be a lesbian, not bisexual, because bisexuality is “too confusing”, and even then they police what behaviors she is and is not allowed to do; she can be a lesbian but not “too gay”, and she’s only allowed to date feminine individuals while presenting as masculine or vice versa because to do otherwise is to “send the wrong message”

          This basically ruins her life, forces her girlfriend to break up with her because she can’t take having to be a “Model Minority” at all times, and Maeve is left so broken she almost reveals the fact that she and Homelander don’t actually save people to the whole world.

          When I saw that, I was like “Holy shit, finally, someone else who understands why I, a transgender woman, actively avoid media that caters to the LGBT community. Finally, SOMEONE gets it and they’re making sure other people get it too.”

  • Snowclone@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    You only have to look at any anti-woke review for a few seconds to figure out it’s only ever racism, misogyny, and anti lgbtq hate. They aren’t like ‘‘This is why it’s woke’’ with some philosophical discussion, it straight up is ‘‘there’s a black in this game, that’s wrong.’’

    • Lemminary@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      This was very evident with Concord the week it shut down. People in the YT comments were inevitably blaming woke politics because it had an arguably diverse cast even though the trailer was one of the most bland, unimaginative and unpolished pieces of advertisement I’ve ever seen. Oh, but it was the blue haired people’s fault for reasons! 🙄

      • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
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        6 days ago

        I’m gonna get the quote wrong, so I wont even try, but some internet person basically said that any time there’s a failure, the worse people will come out to claim it as a victory.

        Game had cringe writing and was glitchy as hell? Oh, well it was the minority characters that caused it fail. Just ignore all the other games with minority characters that have succeeded.

  • MooseTheDog@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    So that fact is wrong, it was a Jewish man who escaped nazi persecution. I dont think this is historical appropriation on purpose. Clap back politics don’t provide anything, and in this case accidentally lied. It’s usually free nowadays to check your facts before posting.

    • pyre@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      did you point at something when you typed “that”? because the rest of us can’t see what you’re pointing to.

    • orbitz@lemmy.ca
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      6 days ago

      Which is the incorrect part, the console itself or the person who invented it? You weren’t really clear on that and it shows the Fairchild F was designed by a black man in Google but I didn’t search too deep.

      • MooseTheDog@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        The tweet makes a false statement about who invented the first video game console, and what the console was. Neither were correct I’m afraid. It was invented a year earlier.

    • Lemminary@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      Clap back politics don’t provide anything

      Clap back politics isn’t for the opposition but for others on your side to gain a new perspective by pointing out the things people knew but couldn’t put into words. It’s a tool for our collective awareness. I wouldn’t say it’s useless.

        • Lemminary@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          It’s a tool that can be abused, just like with rhetoric. Instead, you could @ the OPs to modify their posts.

  • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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    6 days ago

    I thought I had read somewhere that Zoid Kirsch is also gay. He had quite an impressive career in gaming.

    He created Threewave CTF, which was an incredibly inspirational mod for the original Quake. Practically defined team deathmatch arena games to this day. Got hired by the legend John Carmack to work at id Software shortly after and helped develop QuakeWorld and subsequent Quakes.

    • ArchRecord@lemm.ee
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      6 days ago

      The actual definition of wokeness isn’t diversity, but the term “woke” has just become synonymous with any left-leaning ideas (including diversity) because of how commonly people on the right continue to use it as a word to define “anything I don’t like.”

      • aidan@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        Diversity isn’t a left leaning idea. People do use “wokeness” to describe forced/pandering diversity, but I’ve never seen that to describe just people who happen to be black or a woman in games. Sadly can agree though that it happens with gay/trans characters- but I think part of that is people reacting to forced romance that I think a lot of people don’t like but fail to articulate when its straight characters.

        • ArchRecord@lemm.ee
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          5 days ago

          People do use “wokeness” to describe forced/pandering diversity, but I’ve never seen that to describe just people who happen to be black or a woman in games. Sadly can agree though that it happens with gay/trans characters-

          The problem is, any new diverse characters/media is immediately treated as “forced.” It happens less with race than it does sexuality/gender, since sexuality and gender are generally newer in terms of broad acceptance compared to existing acceptance for racial diversity, but it does indeed happen.

          Diversity is absolutely a more left leaning idea, especially nowadays, when diversity is actively feared by the right, which is why they are almost always on the side of the racists/sexists/homophobes/transphobes/etc today and throughout history. I’m not saying those on the right can’t accept diversity, but that they often don’t.

  • ArchRecord@lemm.ee
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    6 days ago

    B-b-but I don’t want to actually see those people in my games! I just want them to make them! /s

  • BetaDoggo_@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    A game is only called “woke” when it’s bad. Balder’s Gate 3 is one of the most “woke” major releases in the last few years but you hardly hear them complain about it.

    It’s the same thing with cyberpunk 2077. The anti-woke crowd can’t agree on whether it’s woke because many of them like it.

    • Geth@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      8 days ago

      I think the problem isn’t the wokeness for most people, but the awkward shoehorning of stereotypes and forced messaging that makes everything feel cheap and doesn’t contribute to the experience or story. For example having a lgbtq+ element for the sake of checking a diversity box, instead of it being a random fact of this world or character.

      • unbanshee@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        8 days ago

        How do you differentiate between a character “written for the sake of checking a diversity box”, a poorly-written diverse character, and a “random fact of the world”? It’s a fictional world. Nothing is random. It’s all creative decisions made by a team of writers and producers.

        I don’t think shoehorning in of diverse identities and character backgrounds is good representation or good art, and I completely agree with your point there.

        But I don’t think that the people driving the current backlash bother to make those distinctions.

        What I see is a lot of outrage being stoked by people using the (updated) language and tactics of gamergate, and I don’t think the result of that will be “better representation”.

        I think the result will be devs being harrassed and pushed out of an already brutal industry.

        • yeather@lemmy.ca
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          7 days ago

          Games like Cyberpunk have characters who are black, gay, etc. but it never impacts the player character’s decisions when interacting with them (besides romance options). Dragon Age The Veilguard has one character walk the player through their sexuality in cutscenes, making it forced and unnecessary information in the moment. It’s the odd injection of the woke rather than the woke itself.

          • unbanshee@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            6 days ago

            Have you played the game?

            I haven’t.

            Do you have to interact with that character? In all the BioWare games I have played, you don’t actually have to interact with any companions at all outside of critpath questlines. Even big blowup moments like the Miranda/Jack fight only trigger once you’ve completed both of their loyalty missions, and you have to choose to talk to them to unlock those in the first place.

            And since I’m assuming you’re referring to the Qunari companion, and I’ve watched a couple of critiques of the scenes I believe you’re referencing - it’s not their sexuality that’s being discussed, it’s their gender.

            • yeather@lemmy.ca
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              6 days ago

              I’ve played Cyberpunk, haven’t played DATV but have seen a walkthrough. The cutscene we a referring to seems to be mandatory as no walkthrough or creator has mentioned a path that does not trigger it. There is another scene with the same character that plays as an akward sex scene. It again, feels and is forced, so people do not like it. If you removed these cutscenes and just had the character be trans it would be a non-issue.

      • Soup@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        An LGBTQ person doesn’t need “a good reason” for being written that way. If they did, then so would the straight person, no? Unless, of course, we’re trying to say that every story’s default needs to be a straight white man who doesn’t need to be constantly justifying his existence.

        Frankly, these days you better have a damn good reason why we have to deal with the ten-thousandth same old shoe-horned straight relationship that only exists because two main characters happen to be opposite genders and roughly the same age. Like, yeah, who could have seen that coming wow good job here’s a sticker.

        It’s not about checking a diversity box, it’s about the barest amount of representation. The LGBT people in my life don’t exist because they fit some kind of plot-point in my life; they exist because that’s just how the dice landed and they don’t owe me a justification for why they are that way in order to be my friends. That would be absurd, right?

        Sidenote: Everyone complaining about Veilguard(for example) forgets that a) Bioware is famously unclear about what dialogue choices do and b) they just don’t, historically, seem to have the capacity to write terribly creative games. They’re fine and I’ve enjoyed playing the ones I have but still.

        • Geth@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          8 days ago

          I didn’t say they need a reason to exist. I said basically the same thing as you. A character is supposed to just exists with their traits and act naturally, instead of making diversity their whole personality. It’s the same thing as the classic token black guy in movies. Only present to serve the quota, not actually contributing to anything. And having a character make their straight-ness and whiteness their whole personality would be just as infuriating.

          I dispise forced romance just as much as you seem to, it doesn’t matter to me what the genders involved are, if it’s there I want it to make sense and add something, not just tick a box.

          • Soup@lemmy.world
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            7 days ago

            Right, except that 99% of LGBT characters aren’t doing anything special and their mere existence, since we aren’t numb to it, is taken as some political act of tokenism. It’s as simple as being aware that you’re going to have biases and letting yourself get used to it instead of complaining about it.

            And yes, some of it will be a bit heavy-handed and some will even be an attempt to get more money but like, so what? It’s not nearly as much as everyone claims and it all serves to normalize it so get over it. It’s not like there isn’t heaps of absolutely dogshit straight writing that we are fine ignoring for the sake of the rest of the game. Tthe second it’s the same thing but with a gay character every shitstain gets all bent outta shape over it like their problem isn’t their own homophobia.

      • maniii@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        Woke activists have already said that they are willing to annihilate and scorched-earth and salt-the-fields if DEI ESG woke things arent put front and centre into video games.

        So maybe we dont need people who actively hate video games and gamers to be in the video game making industry. The woke can go be part of Hollywood leave the gamers alone.