Dragon Age: The Veilguard foolishly inserts modern politics into a game that could have addressed these issues within the framework of the game's lore.
I know this might start war in the comments so please chill people, I don’t want to get 20 reports from this single post.
I guess I should add that I’m not speaking to this game specifically since I’ve never played it. I really enjoyed Dragon Age: Origins but frankly felt like I got everything I needed of the world from it and haven’t been interested in any of the sequels. So I won’t be playing DA: The Veilguard, but that reason has absolutely fuck all to do with the inclusion of any social politics.
If you read the article you’ll see that the author takes issue not with the inclusion itself, but the hamfisted way in which it is included. Pandering can be fine, but when it’s just checking boxes in a cringy, lazy way it’s not, and worse it becomes fodder for the gamergate type to rage about.
I understand that, but my point is that there is no shortage of shoehorned comic relief characters, or awkwardly placed fanservice, etc. Critique the actual fault at play, bad writing, rather than letting the gamergate right-wing nutsos have the benefit of having the conversation on their terms. Make the headline “DA:tV falls short in the writing department, here are some examples” and include the flimsy way the character is written as the valid critique. Games are going to pander to us, that is what I was saying; when we place special emphasis on this particular type of pandering all we’re doing is letting the right define the conversations we’re having.
That seems to be what is being done here. Everything that I have seen on this has done what you asked, said what they where critiquing then giving a clip from the game as an example. If people can not be critical of media for any reason, we have an issue.
You’re right; I have been unclear. Allow me to try to clarify.
My issue is specifically with the headline here using the word “political.” This implies, whether by design or accident, that this inclusion in the game is BioWare specifically making a political stance to push some sort of politically-motivated agenda.
This is, 100%,notthe case.
BioWare is a subsidiary of EA; the only agenda they care about is making money. This is not making some kind of political statement; this is pandering to ensure free media coverage and to attempt to appeal to what they see as a currently valuable demographic. Fucking blast them to hell for that, blast them to hell for their poor writing—whatever. But calling this political is doing exactly what I stated before: allowing the conversation to happen on the terms of gamergate/right-wingers who insist that anything in the entire fucking world that doesn’t specifically cater to their own individual interests is somehow inherently “political.”
I guess I should add that I’m not speaking to this game specifically since I’ve never played it. I really enjoyed Dragon Age: Origins but frankly felt like I got everything I needed of the world from it and haven’t been interested in any of the sequels. So I won’t be playing DA: The Veilguard, but that reason has absolutely fuck all to do with the inclusion of any social politics.
If you read the article you’ll see that the author takes issue not with the inclusion itself, but the hamfisted way in which it is included. Pandering can be fine, but when it’s just checking boxes in a cringy, lazy way it’s not, and worse it becomes fodder for the gamergate type to rage about.
I understand that, but my point is that there is no shortage of shoehorned comic relief characters, or awkwardly placed fanservice, etc. Critique the actual fault at play, bad writing, rather than letting the gamergate right-wing nutsos have the benefit of having the conversation on their terms. Make the headline “DA:tV falls short in the writing department, here are some examples” and include the flimsy way the character is written as the valid critique. Games are going to pander to us, that is what I was saying; when we place special emphasis on this particular type of pandering all we’re doing is letting the right define the conversations we’re having.
That seems to be what is being done here. Everything that I have seen on this has done what you asked, said what they where critiquing then giving a clip from the game as an example. If people can not be critical of media for any reason, we have an issue.
You’re right; I have been unclear. Allow me to try to clarify.
My issue is specifically with the headline here using the word “political.” This implies, whether by design or accident, that this inclusion in the game is BioWare specifically making a political stance to push some sort of politically-motivated agenda.
This is, 100%, not the case.
BioWare is a subsidiary of EA; the only agenda they care about is making money. This is not making some kind of political statement; this is pandering to ensure free media coverage and to attempt to appeal to what they see as a currently valuable demographic. Fucking blast them to hell for that, blast them to hell for their poor writing—whatever. But calling this political is doing exactly what I stated before: allowing the conversation to happen on the terms of gamergate/right-wingers who insist that anything in the entire fucking world that doesn’t specifically cater to their own individual interests is somehow inherently “political.”
edit: typos