Edit:
Well it seems like people here donāt agree with me. OK.
Iām 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 youāre a racist bigot. Thereās 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 didnāt like Suicide Squad Kills the Justice League the left wing gamers and the journalists would yell at me.
Thereās 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 donāt care what colour the main character is or if theyāre gay or not.
But in 2024 that just isnāt 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 wouldnāt be the worst thing in the world.
Iām tired of being told what to like and what not to like by developers, journalists and other gamers on both sides of the arguments.
Iāve been a gamer for 34 years and I donāt 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 itās no longer fun.
Maybe you should take a break from the internet and just play what you want to play. You really donāt need to worry about what you think people are telling you you can or canāt like. It sounds like youāre getting a little too into the culture war shit, you can just choose not to engage, youāll be much happier.
Hard agree. Most people I know IRL play video games at least casually, and in all the conversations about games Iāve been involved in over the years (decades!!) I canāt think of even one single instance where the political bullshit that gets memed about online has ever come up. Not to say that it doesnāt 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.
unplug from the toxic communities and tune into positive and supportive ones that make you feel good about your hobby.
Thatās the problem. The people that have decided their beliefs are the only acceptable ones find the communities where those beliefs arenāt prevalent and muscle their way in screaming words like racist, transphobe and extremist. Theyāre everywhere.
This is exactly what Iām doing.
I already donāt use Twitter/FaceBook/Reddit an I will no longer be following gaming ānewsā or the talking heads on YouTube and wonāt be supporting any developers, publishers or platform holders.
Iāve cancelled my PS Plus/GamePass subscriptions and wonāt be buying any new games for a very very long time. If ever. Which was likely coming anyway even without all this as I wonāt buy a game I wonāt OWN. Which means no games that the disc is just a licence and doesnāt have the whole game on it and no digital only games.
Iāve 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 wonāt have played them all by 2040. As a rough estimate Iām probably fine for games to play for close to 30 years. At one a week. By then Iāll be pushing 70 or dead. So Iām good.
I agree with others that I literally never hear these topics and would recommend you find other sources if their talking points arenāt about gameplay and that bothers you.
But Iām very confused by your comment: āwithout worrying if they have enough white or black or gay or trans characters.ā
How would there be a wrong number of any of those types of people? If they didnāt decide they wanted one of those types of people, does the character just need to be a straight white male?
Youāve posed this as a āboth sidesā argument which gives me a decent inclination toward where you stand. You donāt want to believe youāre biased, but I doubt youāve complained about a male and female character kissing in a storyline, or an all-white character cast because those scenarios feel ānormalā. But if they add a trans character thereās a discussion about whether the developers were āforcingā them into the story as if theyād be better off as some other type of person.
I hope you consider what youāre looking for without diversity in games, and why anyoneās bringing up the āissueā of different types of people being in a game.
āyou either support DEI games or you are a racist bigotā.
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 āIf you donāt support DEI, you are in fact a bigot.ā
Not that they think or they believe Iām a bigot. I AM IN FACT A BIGOT!
So no itās not thatās what theyāre āsupposedlyā arguing, they are arguing it and thereās proof.