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Bioware Closing Down
- Thread starter Richie
- Start date
Ah so it's not ok to offend Saudi Arabia, but it's perfectly fine to insult those of us who didn't want this **** in our games in the first place
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Ah so it's not ok to offend Saudi Arabia, but it's perfectly fine to insult those of us who didn't want this **** in our games in the first place
Basically if you're an investor you can demand what you want. That's what EA and other big corpos are indirectly saying - the customer (you), doesn't matter at all - only the investor matters
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That's big corpos for ya!
Do you believe that the work and beliefs that went into the codex entry about Trans would be present through other aspects of the game or was it just a 1-off and the mindset that put the codex entry in had no other inflence at all on any other part of the game?
You are focussing purely on the codex here with no consideration of how the people and ethos that implemented it would also have had input and influence on the direction of the rest of the game.
Soldato
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The thing is, Bioware have had representation in games going back decades, even back to Baldur's Gate 1/2 and Mass Effect, what changed was that the quality of the game and content began to reduce in recent years, and the messaging became far more prominent.
I bet no one moderate here would have had any major issue with any representation in Dragon Age: Veilguard, if the core game had been better, and the messaging less blatant, but the actual quality of the game suffered across the board, and this simply added another straw to the camel's back. If the game had been fantastic, people would have largely just moved past it. It certainly wouldn't have blown up in the way it did, because more people would have been engaged with the quality of the game itself.
A perfect counterpoint is Nintendo; or many other asian developers.
No one except people who personally KNOW the developers know thier political leanings, identity leanings etc, beyond any generalised messaging they have in thier game. They simply do not engage with identity politics as a foreground element at all; they simply tell you, go play my game. We think we made it good. We hope you enjoy it and play it. I'm not saying there is never a message or moral/social/ethical leanings, but it's rarely a core focus of the product.
Compare that to a lot of American corpo influenced games with the various targets, and the difference between the amount of identity politics is staggering. Bare in mind many games coming out in the last few years will have been developed when this stuff was at it's peak height in the late 2010s and early 2020s; whereas I think there is more recognisable social/community pushback on overt messaging and developer hiring practices now that it has become more of a recognised 'no-no'.
As said above, if it's in the game and it has been pushed to the forefront of the experience, does it add to it, make it better or flesh it out somehow? If no, it's got no real place being there as a major part of the experience. If it's hidden away in the background, or an element of the world building/character building, that's different, but the game shouldn't exist as a vehicle for messaging, and should stand as a product.
Back when Bioware was making say Mass Effect 1, it did...and that's what changed.
In fact that's one reason I'm excited about Exodus, as it has a number of old Mass Effect/Bioware creatives behind it, and if they still remember what made those games good, then it could genuinely be a fantastic Mass Effect pseudo-sequel. It certainly shows promise.
If they have focused on the quality of the game, the world building, and the likes, and simply have social and identity politics naturally integrated into it as PART of the world and character building, rather than existing as a vehicle for the messaging, then they're doing it right.
No game should be afraid of including these things if it serves a purpose for the game itself, but it shouldn't exist purely as messaging; that's not what we play games for.
I bet no one moderate here would have had any major issue with any representation in Dragon Age: Veilguard, if the core game had been better, and the messaging less blatant, but the actual quality of the game suffered across the board, and this simply added another straw to the camel's back. If the game had been fantastic, people would have largely just moved past it. It certainly wouldn't have blown up in the way it did, because more people would have been engaged with the quality of the game itself.
A perfect counterpoint is Nintendo; or many other asian developers.
No one except people who personally KNOW the developers know thier political leanings, identity leanings etc, beyond any generalised messaging they have in thier game. They simply do not engage with identity politics as a foreground element at all; they simply tell you, go play my game. We think we made it good. We hope you enjoy it and play it. I'm not saying there is never a message or moral/social/ethical leanings, but it's rarely a core focus of the product.
Compare that to a lot of American corpo influenced games with the various targets, and the difference between the amount of identity politics is staggering. Bare in mind many games coming out in the last few years will have been developed when this stuff was at it's peak height in the late 2010s and early 2020s; whereas I think there is more recognisable social/community pushback on overt messaging and developer hiring practices now that it has become more of a recognised 'no-no'.
As said above, if it's in the game and it has been pushed to the forefront of the experience, does it add to it, make it better or flesh it out somehow? If no, it's got no real place being there as a major part of the experience. If it's hidden away in the background, or an element of the world building/character building, that's different, but the game shouldn't exist as a vehicle for messaging, and should stand as a product.
Back when Bioware was making say Mass Effect 1, it did...and that's what changed.
In fact that's one reason I'm excited about Exodus, as it has a number of old Mass Effect/Bioware creatives behind it, and if they still remember what made those games good, then it could genuinely be a fantastic Mass Effect pseudo-sequel. It certainly shows promise.
If they have focused on the quality of the game, the world building, and the likes, and simply have social and identity politics naturally integrated into it as PART of the world and character building, rather than existing as a vehicle for the messaging, then they're doing it right.
No game should be afraid of including these things if it serves a purpose for the game itself, but it shouldn't exist purely as messaging; that's not what we play games for.
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