The Division studio believes being openly political in games is bad for business - Sensationalist Headlines

I'm tired of people conflating real Nazis with the modern day political "Neo-Nazis." Do Neo-Nazis deserve to get punched in the face? Probably. But stop acting like it's hypocritical to treat WW2 German soldiers differently than pudgy white teenagers with tiki torches. These kids will never be real Nazis, no matter how much they or other people want them to be.

My point is if a game is trying to shove you a shitty ideology then all it is is shit story. If you don't care about the story then you shouldn't care about it's dumb politics.

it can be a shitty story. it can also be a shitty story as well as an extremely thinly veiled attempt at telling me that their way is the right way. or should we just let people like Manveer Heir do whatever they want in games?

I sound like /pol/? For thinking that games can be political and that's alright? What world are you living in? If you guys want politics to be handled well or with nuance and on proper context, maybe don't make your main statement "Keep politics out of games" or "Stop shoving it down our throats". Those stances are so vague and open to interpretation that I can't glean anything from them. Which games need less politics? What is politics in a game to you? Do representation, diversity and gender roles count? Does the absence of commentary or reinforcement of negative stereotypes not bother you or does it? I need input, but all I get is "KEEP POLITICS OUT OF GAMES" it's the equivalent of a shurg and a vague gesture. Like, yeah a half baked story element is bad, but you're operating under the assumption that politics was the problem and not bad writing.

Even when a game has some current day political message I agree with (such as nazis being bad like any sane person would think with TNC) its fucking annoying and comes off as forced. Video game writers are the last people I want trying to convey some political message as many have as much subtly as getting hit over the fucking head with a jackhammer. The only time I'm fine with this stuff is when the premise itself is built on something political. If writers want to current day politics right, don't do it in a way that comes off as just trying to shove their views down your throat of what they think is right and wrong, but instead write it in a way that makes the player ask themselves questions about the subject (such as having an ounce of subtly)

no, I'm claiming you sound like /pol/ purely because you assume lack of wanting political stuff is due to political reasons. "if you dont want shoehorned politics, it's because it goes against YOUR views". no, i just dont want politics in something that doesnt need politics in it

What's an example of this? Genuine question. I'm sorry if I'm coming off as combative, but I don't tend to see this stuff I see people complain about and the stuff I do see tends to be total non-controversies like the trans bit in Baulder's Gate.

I mean people have a very different attitude towards historical Nazi's and Neo-Nazi's, the one enacting their beliefs get's shot while the other just get's punched.

I mean, what else am I supposed to assume here? The idea that only games specifically about politics can or will have political themes or messages is pretty silly. You can totally have a political message even if your game has nothing surface level political about it. The things you don't comment on in a game are just as important as the things you do.

Manveer's writing just fucking sucks in general so his politics could be literally anything and it'd still fucking suck. And also who cares if it's trying to tell your that their way is right, media has been doing that since time immemorial why should games be the exception?

Yes and? Just because you're a soldier, doesn't mean its political. Wildlands is more accurate because you're literally a seal team attacking the local government and cartel on the whims of DC's interests. The division is "oh fuck, theres no order, go there and help the local police stop a wave of heavily armed inmates from killing even more people."

Sure, and that's fine for the most part. I just want people to be aware that violence against Neo-Nazis is something that is understandably controversial, as opposed to violence against actual Nazis. It annoys me when people say stuff like "ugh, punching Nazis used to be so normal, but NOW it isn't???" as if they're talking about the exact same people at different points in time.

I found Wolfenstein TNC to be the most extreme example of the stuff I'm bitching about, or the Life is Strange games especially the most recent (though I admit I haven't played them and have only watched parts of it).

okay you haven't actually played the game then

did i say that games should be the exception? quote me where i said this or are you so fucking dense you need me to explain every single little thing? i hate hamfisted politics in any medium. not just games.

I mean, the idea that the government maintaining a sleeper cell, answering directly to them and this is ok is pretty Bush presidency politics kinda thing. The idea that prison inmates would then form massive criminal gangs armed with flamethrowers and shit during a national emergency is also a pretty political stance. It doesnt help that all this is taking place in a quarantine zone and some of the people you're fighting feel they were abandoned by a government that thought covert sleeper cells were a better investment that overhauling FEMA.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pP-gRykSOkc quality subtle writing

I mean, I'm actually just trying to understand your position really. You say you don't want any type of political tones of any kind but then you'll make exceptions since it's written well essentially. You could have a game like Deus EX but it's written poorly so it comes off as some leftist horse shit, so we shouldn't allow games like that? But you know, I'm just so fucking dense I really need you to explain this to me.

Not defending the guy as a person but Manveer wasn't a writer, he had nothing to do with the writing in the games he was part of.

I don't want poorly written political overtones or undertones, preferably none at all. But if a game, like Deus Ex, has written it so well that it stands out remarkably in a good way I can let it slide. However as you've ignored my posts stating I want neither leftwing, nor rightwing, nor even center ideologies shoved down my throat I'll just remind you that again, I want no politics, or as little as possible. It does not matter which side it's on.

Yeah he pretty much did the Mass Effect 3 multiplayer and a bit of work on Andromeda and then bitched about how it "Glorified colonialism" after looking into him more (I thought he actually had a bigger part in Andromeda).

Trying to detain those kids is a pretty good example, yeah. The way the guy who picks them up is framed is also kinda cringy, but I'd need some more context. The video seems like it was made specifically to highlight this one moment and it makes me want to check the game out to get the whole story. The store owner mentions the kids doing something in the city and I'd like to know how that ties in. Life is Dtarnge seems like the kind of game that's meant to evoke political and social themes, so I'm personally biased to be more forgiving if the writing fails a bit and goes overboard (not that I think it's a good thing) This is kind of a personal point, but growing up in a small town in middle America, that opening bit really hit home. I know that's anecdotal, but my town had a black minority and those kids were always getting blamed for every little thing that happened. I guess I can see how people might find that kinsa ridiculous, but store owners singling out minorities and accusing them of stealing happens all the god damn time. As a final point, Wolfenstien has always been a game about killing nazis, I really don't see how that could be construed as ham fisted when BJ has always been a big slab of meat.

How is it political? Because a agency was created to maintain order in the event of societal collapse from an contagion? What does that have to do with politics other than it being a secret to the general population. Its not like the main antagonists in 1 had political agendas, all of them wanted control of NY and thats it. Its not because they dont believe in the government, its because they have control over majority of the city.

But that's my point; you'll let a game like Deus Ex slide because it's written well, should we just not let other games get a chance at it? If you're going to say yes, but it has to be well written like Deus EX, then the devs could actually be trying to reach that quality but still fail to meet your expectations and have overt political tones because they're just not that great at writing.

The difference is Chief and the UNSC are fighting the Covenant in Halo. A genocidal race of alien religious zealots (which is also political for different reasons). The agency is The Division being secret and, as far as I know, being portrayed as the "good" side says some pretty worrying things about the developers politics. A secret paramilitary organization getting to kill Americans on American soil and being shown to be right in doing so is pretty awful.

well tough fucking luck for them isnt it. its not my responsibility to like every piece of trashy writing they put out.

They are the good side because the other side is killing people on the streets for no reason other than to obtain dominance. Heres the factions, you have gangs who are using the chaos to kill cops and civilians to loot supplies for themselves. The cleaners which is a near religious zealot group that is torching half the city and burning civilians who aren't infected alive. The inmates which are the same as the gang members but worse. And theres the paramilitary faction led by an insane person who is blaming the country for leaving him stranded in a clusterfuck, and wants to take control of the government by force while killing the populace. All of these groups are inherently evil, and the division agents are literally only there as backup for the police/firefighters/doctors trying to prop society back to normal. Its not like the division is a hitsquad trying to assassinate us civilians, half the missions are trying to restore power/food/water to civilians with the opposing factions keeping it for themselves, or wanting to eradicate the entire city.

...But it kinda is. Mixture of both, at least: Keener, one of the main antagonists, wanted all that power to grasp power over CERA and JTF because of its failure to contain the virus, riots and the shortage of supplies, leaving them (1st wave Division agents) to fend for themselves in the Dark Zone and to run away leaving away valuable tech. I don't see the voice records transcripted anywhere, so I can't give you his exact words, but that's pretty much it.

Deus Ex didn't sell itself as a political treatise, it was a tech-thriller story first and foremost. Games tend to cause a lot more politically-focused outrage when they're overtly being used as a vehicle for a particular statement, rather than telling a story which happens to include political elements. Cyberpunk as a genre is inherently political but I haven't heard much in the way of uproar over Cyberpunk 2077. If that game includes political themes, I don't have a problem with it. In contrast the run-up to Battlefield V has been a mess, mostly because the developers decided to use their game as a political soapbox outside of the themes of the game. Deus Ex might be 'openly political' in that the game's story and themes are political in nature, but it's not 'openly political' in the sense of telling you from the get-go that it's about contemporary politics and supporting one side in particular. Bioshock gets lauded for being about Randian philosophy (a political theme), but the game wasn't sold as Objectivism Is Bad: The Game. If you look like you're telling a story, then aside from a tiny minority of loud and angry idiots, consumers won't have a problem with it. If you look like you're pushing an agenda, then that's when it becomes divisive and unpopular. This isn't any different from film, books, or other media. People want to be entertained or at least pushed to think, not simply proselytized to.

Thats a story trope, not politics. It's called a Face-Heel turn; Character belongs to group X, Group X betrays them either accidentally or as nessicary, so character forms group Y for feeling betrayed. Slap the X group with the US/battalion/alien race and its the same shit. Its not that the US gov doesn't fit his ideas, its the fact that they left him for dead because the situation was rolling out of control.