EA Mocking Battlefield V Genderfield Community Complaints at Games Launch Party - Sensationalist Headlines

I will never stop saying that DICE could have, and should have, side-stepped all of the historical accuracy/authenticity arguments with BF1 and BFV by committing to an alternate history/diselpunk aesthetic. Not only would it have set the games apart even more, but it would have given them more freedom to add in modern and anachronistic things that people like about modern Battlefield games. Also the rhetoric behind the arguments surrounding this game has made me terrified to say anything anymore because I do wish these games were more authentic in presentation, equipment, and setting. The old Call of Duty and Medal of Honor games were mainstream shooters (with MP!) that did this just fine, but now it's seemingly unreasonable to want this. Even Battlefield stayed within reason for this stuff, though they had to cut corners (such as StG44s for the Japanese) because at the time they actually were a small studio with limited resources. What's even more interesting is that they rectified some of those inaccuracies over time with free patches, such as adding the Type 99 to replace the Japanese StG44 and even eventually adding a Canadian faction with their own unique weapons. But now it's impossible for me to say that I want this. If I do, it means I'm an "alt-right chud" who obviously hates women. Nevermind the fact that I've never liked the trend that started with Modern Warfare in which equipment stopped being faction locked, making all these games less immersive to me. I often hear "where were you when BF1 had all these weird experimental one-off guns that never saw combat?" I was there expressing my dislike for it. It bothers me all the same as seeing all these extremely rare reflector sights on every gun, as well as a handful of guns that were barely even in WWI, let alone WWII, appearing because I guess DICE just needed to fill the gun roster. People also forget that before Modern Warfare, faction locked weapons for historical team based shooters was the norm. The big three: Call of Duty, Battlefield, and Medal of Honor all did it. Hell, DICE has even did this and more recently than you'd think in Battlefield 1943: An underrated gem of game that was basically BF1942 but in the Frostbite engine, including both countries getting and using their own equipment. No gimmicks, no extraneous features, just pure, polished, class based Battlefield with big maps, vehicles, and a cool setting. That's how I want to see a WWII Battlefield game done today. On women specifically, it's a gross over-simplification to say that somebody like me thinks women don't belong in the game. I have zero issue with it being done in an interesting and more historical way. BF1's Russian snipers was a really good example of this. It was mentioned previously in the thread that the player character in Medal of Honor Underground was a women and I think that's really cool! I love seeing things like that. What I don't like seeing is things that are misrepresentative for no good reason. People might ask, but what about character customization, but frankly I don't care much about character customization. I would rather play the part of a character who is a reasonable representation of something historical than a self-insert or something. For example, I think it would be awesome to have a map set in occupied France highlighting resistance groups with women in it (of which there were many) using captured and modified German weaponry. Or, an eastern front map where all the pilots are women because Russia had an all-women bomber squadron nicknamed the "Night Witches". Not only is that an interesting alternative to typical the Saving Private Ryan setting, but it's also based on real history! I know I have minority opinions about things like this. I know that the usual response is "go play ARMA or Post Scriptum". The problem is that I don't want to play those games. The much more realistic gameplay just isn't for me. Battlefield used to hit that sweet spot of gameplay, realism, and authenticity, without going too far in the one-shot slow paced realism direction. Battlefield doesn't do that anymore and while I've come to terms with the fact that it probably never will again, it still bugs me. Despite what all the above may make it look like, at the end of the day, the gameplay is what's most important and while I wasn't too happy with some of the decisions in BF1, I stopped playing that game primarily because of the gameplay. Similarly, I thought the BFV beta played great, despite my annoyances with the weapon selection and character customization. I plan on buying it when it goes on sale and gets more stable, but I still like to dream that some day we'll get another one of those classic Battlefields again. TL;DR This post is far too long and honestly I'm just venting my frustration at this point. As I said, what's most important to me is that the game plays good, but I also love history and being immersed in a historical setting. Not only does it add so much to the game, but when done well it can also be a novel source of information and shine a light on historical subjects I might not have known about. Unfortunately, the discourse around this game has become so toxic and polarized that I can't even say the word "historical" around this game without being accused of something. I'm just tired of it all, and what's worse is that this kind of discussion distracts from the real issues of the game such as balance and game design. From a gameplay perspective BFV is a huge step in the right direction and I'd hate to see EADICE get the wrong impression from BFV's poor sales and backtrack on it all because of all this controversy.

Huh? Women certainly played an active role in the war effort, in both combat, spy, and auxiliary roles (not to mention work on the home front). And while their numbers in the warzone may not have been that of men. So what? What is actively being lost by allowing people to play as a women? What damage is actually being done by them taking the truth and stretching it a bit? The only people who have actually made a deal about women being in the game are those against it. DICE didn't make some huge announcement saying "Yes! We have added women. Give us praise". They just added them in and had one in a trailer. At this portion of the event they were talking about inital reactions to the annoucement, and that rhetoric was 100% a part of that reaction so it makes sense for them to bring it up at an event where they're talking about initial reactions.

I'd play the everloving SHIT out of a legitimate non-backpedal stab at a steampunk Battlefield game. What i won't play is this steaming pile of shit, because they keep making it about "the right side of history" while misrepresenting history and then calling its fans bigots for calling out their bullshit. I don't see how this stance keeps being represented as somehow controversial. Why should i buy from people who calls me stupid and bigoted to my face for questioning their bipolar marketing?

it's literally a piece of fiction. Of course things are going to get changed. Of course things are going to have flavors of what the creators believe and think, you can't really divorce yourself from your own cultural biases. That's just the nature of fiction and there's literally nothing wrong with that. Nothing that DICE is doing is "rewriting history". They're making an FPS based off of WWII, and doing it with their own style.

Can you read, or are you just choosing to not read any counterargument?

You're a fucking child.

I have the exact same sentiment. You can't talk about anything historical about the game without being bombarded with dumb zingers that end with either 'cuck' or 'sexist', much like modern politics. It's such a massive fucking headache to talk about it that I just straight up ignore it and instead just focus on the actual issues of the game itself. With that said, what people like me who aren't the_donald troglodytes actually want was just a repeat of BF1: any minorities who were historically verified to have actually served in X army were given an option as a playable customisable option i.e Indians in Wehrmacht, women in Soviets/partisan forces. The concerns for anachronistic weaponry and the like don't matter as they contribute to gameplay and are thus free to be all over the place for the sake of fun. Player race/gender however, is purely cosmetic and there's nothing much to lose in keeping the aesthetic believable at least to the average dudebro gamer whose only exposure to WW2 was Saving Private Ryan.

Who fucking cares about all of this? It's a game. It's not authentic to WW2. End of I don't want to play a WW2 game that isn't mostly authentic. These weird uniforms, germans starting with Stens and Brits starting with P38's, Americans and lot of iconic weaponry aren't represented at all, yeah count me out. That's not the type of WW2 game I want to play. That's my personal taste though. People are also confusing realism with authenticity. They're not the same thing. GR Wildlands is Authentic. But it's not even close to realistic, as an example

That is because the Americans are more than likely (as well as the Soviets and Japanese) coming at a later point in "Tides of War". They're working their way to that. They're intrinsically linked, and when people often call for "Authenticity", they call for the veneer of authenticity that conforms to their preexisting notions of what the past was like (often informed by other pieces of popular culture) not actual authenticity. If BFV wants to truly be "authentic" then players on the German team should probably have the chance to comitt war crimes, since the Wehrmacht was an essential part of the Holocaust. But they don't, and it's not very "authentic" to not have a formation that was essentially predicated on committing war crimes, not committing them. Or to really not even mention their warcrimes to players. But at the end of the day it's a fictional game. It's not real, and they are going to make choices for what they think will make the best game for the style they are going for.

People who wanted to play a new WW2 game care.

So far the only people outraged are the people who don't want to play the game.

When you are actually playing the game it feels a lot like a World War 2 game. I spent most of last night leveling up my Tiger and Flakpanzer and they really nailed armored warfare this time around.

This whole "Well it's a video game, it's never been realistic! What about this other inaccurate stuff?!" i've seen a lot of people use is just absurd and entirely misses the point here. Video games inherently cannot be realistic, it is not possible for a game to be an accurate depiction of whatever real life circumstance its trying to portray - that's something that applies to every game to some extent. That lack of actual realism doesn't mean that things like tone have no relevance anymore and that there should be no attempt to realize a setting at a reasoanble level of abstraction, however. The games in no way play out like actual combat does - real soldiers aren't aimlessly running around on their own using whatever weapons and equipment they like, jumping into any vehicle they want or capturing arbitrary flags placed randomly - but that doesn't mean they can't aim to feel authentic and believable in what they set out to be. Things like the Katana, prosthetic arm and cricket bat were issues when something like the 3-inch Churchill Gun Carrier (a tank that never saw combat), the zepplin in BF1, timeline inconsistencies or prototype weapons aren't as much is because of the idea of thematic tone and consistency. The Battlefield games overall always tried to depict their settings in a way that, while not realistic or accurate, had a level of versimilitude (the feeling of believability) and aimed to show their settings in a way that had a level of care and thought put into it.Things like having air vehicles move and behave differently than in real-life, or player agency letting you do things like stand ontop of moving vehicles, or jumping out in the air and then getting back in and all that stuff, were the result of gameplay and player agency, they are not the same thing as the way a theme has chosen to be shown and depicted. They games theme itself rarely had elements that bordered on being silly or wacky, outside of easter eggs and such, and effort was put into making sure that things felt like they relevant and belonged with it overall - something like the slow-moving air vehicles didn't cause a problem of "How is this a modern-day theme?" because those discrepancies were integrated properly and adhered to the tone of things overall. Something in individually existing at the time isn't enough on it's own. The prosthetic was accurate to the time, Katana's obviously existed, face paint was used, Mad Jack Churchill had a sword/bow etc. Adding things like that to the game would only take away from the cohesiveness of the setting, though as being from the time does not mean it automatically fits in with the context, tone or, feel of the setting. Taking a theme, giving it a certain level of abstraction (A Battlefield game will play like a Battlefield game regardless of the setting), and then realizing that in a way that still feels like it achieves a reasonable level of verisimilitude is what they always did before - they didn't purposefully choose to depict their theme inaccurately within the portrayal and tone of the theme in itself, unless it was something like a fun easter eggs or alt-history expansion like Secret Weapons. It comes down to how things are portrayed and the effect they have on the setting overall.

Physical sales are down 65% while Black Ops IV doesn't have the same physical sale drop and is actually doing really well. Clearly you have it 100% backwards and people don't want to play the game because they don't like the changes compared to the last one.

I know and I don't agree with them. The only reason I haven't bought this game was because it's too expensive right now. The thing is, EA's response was just as childish as those people.

Numerous RAF pilots actually prosthetic arms as well, some of whom were top scoring aces. And I disagree, it's internally consistent with itself. It fits exactly within the context, tone, and feel of the game.

Indeed. RAF flying ace Sir Douglas Bader lost both of his legs in a crash before the war, despite this he earned ace status flying in both Dunkirk and Britain, and would later be shot down over Germany where he spent the rest of the war attempting to escape capture, several of his attempts actually resulted in him breaking out of captivity for multiple days. Similarly I've already mentioned Virginia Hall, an American woman working for SOE in France who the gestapo considered one of the Allies' most dangerous operatives, all while having a wooden leg named Cuthbert. On the flip side of things we have the infamous Volkssturm, the Nazi party's last-ditch militia activated near the end of 44 whose recruits consisted of the elderly, the disabled, women, and children. The British actually had a similar organization called the Local Defense Volunteers, but they never saw combat (these were the people who infamously ordered 250,000 spears made from pipes and bayonets).

All of this is a great reason to bring over the hero system from Battlefront and give these people a proper bit of idolizing and presence, instead of hamfisting in a bunch of cosmetics.

You're missing the point. In the context of a pilot, a prosthetic wouldn't be a problem - in the context of a typical front-line soldier, it's different. The first of those isn't something as out of place and it doesn't clash with the idea much, those RAF pilots were still allowed to fly and could obviously still fight despite those prosthetics. You're using one set of circumstances to justify something quite unrelated. Saying "The tone and feel of the game matches the tone and feel of the game" seems a bit absurd. The tone the game has/was going for does not match the way the series usually depicts it's settings and especially considering it's meant to be a serious depiction of WW2 that's meant to "provide both a true and an unexpected WW2 experience". If they'd done (or later on add) something like add War Elephants (in Normandy), Plane-listening acoustic headsets or let you use antique, vastly outdated weapons (Volkssturm were armed with whatever they could find), spears and other improvised stuff like those used by the British Home Guard early on, none of those would add to the idea of "This is a WW2 game" automatically. If they were included in an arbitrary way without any thought that would only lessen the feel of it as despite them being a real thing that was has relevance to WW2, the context and how they mesh with the rest of the tone matters. Stretching the truth isn't the problem - as already said, things like the Churchill Gun Carrier were not used in combat despite it being one of the very first vehicles were (it was in the reveal trailer), yet that doesn't inherently make the depiction of the setting feel less cohesive because it's something that doesn't feel like it's just been randomly put in there, it doesn't directly affect the realization of the setting because it's an inclusion that doesn't contrast with the idea of a serious depiction of ww2. The previous games were always careful with what they included and made sure that what was it wasn't something vastly at odds with the rest.

except Bader had to fight to be able to fly again. In another instance, James MacLachlan had a prothestic arm. One of the most important spies the SOE had was a woman with a prosthetic leg. It's inclusion as a prosthetic is not at odds with the real setting or "tone" of World War Two. No, I am not. Battlefield V is a fictional video game that takes the truth, like every other single piece of historical fiction, and changes it around to suit its needs. And DICE obviously wanted cosmetics, so they found some that made sense for the setting by trawling through the facts and applied it where it fits for their game (although I guess a jacket says "God Save the Queen" on it. Oops!). This does not seem to be how DICE's senior staff sees it (remember that whole BF4 marketing campaign as well?). https://twitter.com/ogabrielson/status/1000042211936030720 https://twitter.com/Alekssg/status/999545829475090432 Huh? Are you actually trying to argue that prosthetic limbs that were actually used are somehow analogous to war elephants???? Player customization already "doesn't mesh with the rest of the tone", as in the military you usually don't get to determine what you wear. So you only care when it's women and prosthetic arms that were actually used? Because that's the feeling I'm getting Even though I'd argue weapons that never saw usage are a far bigger issue than arms that did get used, and women (since there were women who saw combat in WWII, and there were women who operated as spies and sabotaged shit, etc...) have more of a right to be there than the Churchill. And I strongly disagree that these cosmetics are somehow "vastly at odds" with the rest. BFV has far different problems than its cosmetics - using a free Origin Access week I have I'm doing the 10 hour demo and the writing in these war stories has just been "Eh" to "bad" with awful AI on top of it.

As someone who actually plays Battlefield I would vastly prefer prosthetics as a customization option (since they aren't in the game now) than hero classes/characters. This seems like a solution in need of a problem.

What is this supposed to mean?

Out of context its meaningless but in context what I mean is that whether a characters model has a real arm or a fake arm matters less to me than being farmed by elite/hero classes ala BF1.

Personally I'd find it far more disprectful to put real people like that in as a "hero" sort of class. While they may done some important and amazing things, they were regular people. No need to elevate them beyond that, homages work far better in my eyes.

Thats not even a zinger to begin with. Instead of shoving in female characters or going all out on the ultimate progressive blow and pull a crippled female to make it sound unique but probably end up being just that, invest into making an actually compelling story, with actually good characters who have their own backstories that are worth the attention because they pull you in and make you think about it. But hey, we're talking about a yearly release that doesn't knows what it wants to call itself that people care mostly for the multiplayer, so why aren't they pulling a cod and just axing it for good unless they pull something monumental thay will never happen because that doesn't makes constant cash?

They will absolutely axe it within the next fews years, just you watch. It's just not worth the resources anymore, given that the market has made it very clear it doesn't give a shit anymore about single player in multiplayer focused games.

Your argument is that women characters, especially crippled ones, cannot be good characters with compelling stories. That's fucking sexist, this isn't complicated!! It's not about zingers, it's about what you're literally fucking saying. Are we not reading the same damn words here?

Sucks that everybody is missing the biggest problem with the whole prostetic trenchcoat sniper lady. Which is that DICE sacrificed the games readability in favor of a cosmetics system. In previous battlefields for the longest time you could tell what kind of troop you were looking at based on their equipment. Can't do that now anymore.

This is less of a problem than i initially thought as well. I didn't have trouble with this until I was in a tank.

Why do you keep throwing that word at anyone in hopes of sticking? My argument is that just because a character is female and crippled BUT has nothing else to her, doesn't makes it a good character. I thought this was obvious at this point. Or you're just baiting.