Video game studios pretend that real social issues do not exist.

I am having trouble putting together this post because I dont want it to be taken as a political view or as in bringing stuff from the ugly real life into a fantasy MMORPG world. However, two things start to annoy me when living the plot of video games and I want to write my opinion on what is a good immersive way to develop a plot, and what breaks immersion. Also it might be mentioned here secondly, but I find it more important and serious that political correctness takes away the gravity of human suffering, so don't misjudge.

There is a TLDR. I suggest that you read the full post, even tho it might not be agreable to your beliefs. You can always skip those bits.

The violence people have suffered because of religious, racial and sexual hatred should not be forgotten because political correctness wants people to behave like there are new norms. No, the ugly truth is that society is not ready yet to be kind.
I have been playing (I won't name the MMORPG) for the past 5 years on and off. I find the writing of the plot in (I wont name the MMORPG) non genuine. The characters of that game make real social issues as non existent with the way they so casually brush them off as the norm:
1) They portrait slavers as goofy and silly clans being outsmarted by the good guys.
2) They portrait couples of the same sex as living easy lives within a town, while the reality of 2020 is that still many people face humiliation and aggression for being attracted to the same sex.
3) They portrait religious cults as underground, while in 2020 religion is still a massive power influencing the heart of people and their attitude towards their fellows.

Recently I played again Dragon Age Inquisition.
1) They didnt sugar-coat the hatred of mages (controlled slaves if you will) by the many or the near killing to extinction (spoiler. I will actually take the second piece of hatred out)
2) They didn't sugar-coat the issues one homosexual character had with his family.
3) They didn't sugar-coat the treatment mentally ill people face by their peers.
One of the homosexual characters of Dragon Age Inquisition. Dorian had such interesting dialogue script. In comparison, the MMORPGthat I mention above had numerous homosexual characters made so BORING because they game was being politically correct. None of the characters faced any troubles because the game writers decided to pretend that homosexual people dont face discrimination and live a life just like anybody else. Lies. Dorian was my fav companion in Inquisition and I even made my character take a sexual interest in him to unlock more dialogue. I am a straight guy but I just enjoyed how interesting BioWare made Dorian in the game so I wanted to experience more.

My second favourite character was Cole, a ghost-demon in the form of a very young male human. His story was that as a demon he was attracted to the imperial prison due to the suffering of the inmates. But something changed in him when he found a young mage taken prisoner and thrown in the dungeons for being able to use magic. Left to scream for food and was forgoten left to die hungry and covered in his own shiet. The demon assumed his form and from there on he became a mercy killer, ending the lives of people suffering. When he joined my group he was treated badly from almost all of the other characters. Even I as the main character had options to treat him badly for his confused mental and weird state.
Do you know how interesting was to watch the cutscenes and diologue of that confused spirit? Struggling with his duality?
In the MMORPG I mentioned above all the "weirdos" were treated as cool and strong and funny and managing just fine. Lies.

I wrote about another Inquisition character who was tied and briliantly written about racial hatred and genocide. I took it out because I dont want to spoil the game for any1 who hasn't played it yet. Go play Dragon Age Inquisition. You will thank me.
Ye, the above mentioned MMORPG pretends that the slaver race and the enslaved race put behind their differences and formed one of the three alliances of the game. Such political correct bs. But not Dragon Age Inquisition. When I finished the 3rd DLC of that game, the theme of genocide was not sugar-coated. BioWare created such an amazing character. Damn right "character". What they did to your people was wrong. I dont blame you.

TL;DR
If you are a person that has experienced racism, violence for being homosexual, ridicule for having mental issues, hatred because of your religion, would you like it if a video game writer pretended that lives like yours are easy without discrimination? I might be wrong and you would like it if somebody wrote a plot in which you can go about life without being treated badly. That also makes sense. But I find that when video games pretend (for politically correct reasons) that such characters dont face rejection, aggression, alienation, they HIDE the truth. that is: people are still suffering. Dont pretend that it's a perfect world, with happy go-lucky-characters with just some evil king or some evil world boss demon that is the bad guy. That is immersion breaking and a boring setting.

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Comments

Ravudha

My take is how characters should behave and react in a fantasy world depends entirely on the history and cultures of that fantasy world - not the history and cultures of Earth. That goes for social issues as well; they do not need to mimic how they manifest on Earth.

A second though is characters in MMOs may seen boring compared to RPGs like Dragon Age simply because they have different design priorities, and not necessarily because of some political stance. If MMOs had the resources to fully flesh out every single NPC with in-depth dialogue trees, behaviours, and interactions, that would be really nice to see - it just seems like a resource-intensive process.

BadPotato

Not going to say that you are wrong on your standpoint @George Black but also will agree with @Ravudha. The lore of the game should have no connection to the outside of the fantasy world. However, if the fantasy world have such portrayed problems on their own (example being Tulnar, the only under-realm race). If for example, they are feared upon or not accepted by the rest of the races, racism or slavery for example, it should not be portrayed lightly and be accepted with jokes. Or if there will be a concept of mix relationship between races (if that exists in Ashes universe/lore ) shouldn't be treated as happy accepting if it is not in general by the context.

All depends on lore and fantasy world view of things, if slavery is bad but portrayed happily if you are playing as slave race, wrong. If mixing races is against religious beliefs in lore, it should be clearly seen and rejected by most (God)

P.S: No hate vs any examples above, Tulnars are aversome

Caeryl

I honestly don't understand this desire to have a fantasy world be as crappy as the real world.

George_Black

It's not about copying real life.
It's about not pretending, not faking that everything is rosy.

Caeryl

Once again, why would you want to add things that really just put a downer on people? Does it give any benefit to remind gay players that the world doesn't accept them?

Treating serious topics with a deal of respect is implied, but there's no point adding real-world style racism.

RealArtwork

Yeah right because anti heroes like Hancock or Captain Jack Sparrow to name 2 out of millions are so unpopular.

Dude if you are really offended by games who put a slavetrader into a hero position thats because you seem to be very unhappy in your acctual life so unhappy that you cant even enjoy those gifts some developers provide us with.

c0ug4r

George Black wrote: »

It's not about copying real life.

Then why are all of your three initial points direct comparisons of very specific issues between game world and real world? You say the discrepancy between both breaks the immersion, yet you claim your goal is not to carry real world problems into the game world to make it more believable? That just seems very contradictory.

George Black wrote: »

It's about not pretending, not faking that everything is rosy.

I can get behind that social conflicts create a more believable, immersive world, but that just doesn't seem to be what your post is about.

George_Black

Caeryl wrote: »

Once again, why would you want to add things that really just put a downer on people? Does it give any benefit to remind gay players that the world doesn't accept them?

Treating serious topics with a deal of respect is implied, but there's no point adding real-world style racism.

I have mentioned that it might be the case that the story is writen more idealistic in order not to put a downer on people.
I am also expressing that taking away the significance of an issue might be wrong.

I never said anything about adding real-world style racism.
The respect that real issues deserve is absent when every other mission is "free the caged prisoners and kill the enemy slavers" with dialogue like "good thing you came along. These rascals would have done away with me".
The scene does not embody well some social themes.

George_Black

c0ug4r wrote: »

George Black wrote: »

It's not about copying real life.

Then why are all of your three initial points direct comparisons of very specific issues between game world and real world? You say the discrepancy between both breaks the immersion, yet you claim your goal is not to carry real world problems into the game world to make it more believable? That just seems very contradictory.

George Black wrote: »

It's about not pretending, not faking that everything is rosy.

I can get behind that social conflicts create a more believable, immersive world, but that just doesn't seem to be what your post is about.

I actually said it's not about copying, it's about not faking.
In the fantasy world there can be justice unlike the real world.
What does my post seem to be about to you?
I said that the mentioned MMORPG doesnt have interesting characters because it avoids touching serious social issues.
I said the RPG Inquisition is not so afraid to paint a more realistic image, becoming more respectful to those issues, whilst providing better developed characters and a more immersive game.

Lalli

Ravudha wrote: »

My take is how characters should behave and react in a fantasy world depends entirely on the history and cultures of that fantasy world - not the history and cultures of Earth. That goes for social issues as well; they do not need to mimic how they manifest on Earth.

A second though is characters in MMOs may seen boring compared to RPGs like Dragon Age simply because they have different design priorities, and not necessarily because of some political stance. If MMOs had the resources to fully flesh out every single NPC with in-depth dialogue trees, behaviours, and interactions, that would be really nice to see - it just seems like a resource-intensive process.

Caeryl wrote: »

I honestly don't understand this desire to have a fantasy world be as crappy as the real world.

I agree to both of these!

Wandering Mist

Putting in social injustice and strive just for the sake of it is just as immersion-breaking as ignoring it completely. It's like when a film puts in a strong female character just to say "see? women are strong too!" etc etc. The thing is, when you so blatantly draw attention to it, it comes across as forced and fake.

So by all means, put social injustice and strive and all those complicated issues into the game, but have them make sense and don't smack us over the head with them.

c0ug4r

George Black wrote: »

What does my post seem to be about to you?

Your dislike of game worlds not representing social issues the way they are in the real world.
I mean your initial points read like 'I watched Star Wars. Star Wars has space ships. In 2020 there are no space ships.' Well yeah, that's the point of fiction

I guess you meant game worlds in general should not always/only be a Utopia. I just found your examples to be very specific.

As I said on the one hand social conflicts tend to make game worlds more realistic and thus believable, on the other hand - as was stated several times now - they are detached of real world problems and that is one reason people play games. Their main goal is entertainment not confronting us with another messed up version of the real world.

As Ashes is much less of a themepark than your unnamed MMORGP example I don't think there will be much space for in-depth social criticism there.

Jahlon

If a developer wants to use their video game as a social justice platform, that is their decision to make.

If they don't do it well, you are just going to have a shitty video game full of blatant social justice warrior.

Nagash

I play games to ESCAPE real life why on earth would I wont more of that in-game?

Makinoji

I will say this and I will say this once. Steven is a homosexual man living in 2020, he grew up facing the hardships of a 80's-90's kid while being a nerd/gamer.
His partner is his CFO now COO.

He literally has created the world of Verra in his mind and even though he has not openly admitted any bias towards the LGBTQ community, he has made it clear that his experiences will reflect within the world in some shape or form.

Granted his view will not be the only one, as he has an amazing team of writers who also will interject themselves into the fabric of Verra.

The reason he does not say this game is an LGBTQ one is that it's only partially true. It's an all-inclusive one. If he chose to market it that way so many people would be up in arms due to personal beliefs. By not shoving his politics or lifestyle upon his product and community he is saving himself and his studio tons of headaches.

Still, we must not ignore that social justice will be prevalent in the world either by systems put there on purpose or by the player base. It is safe to say humans will be humans. Everyone wants to be represented and will voice that in-game. Now if that is reflective of their real-world self or their RP persona is another discussion on its own.
For example, in ESO I play a snooty High Elf who mocks argonians and khajiit as mere clothing or servants. However, that is not reflective of my true self.

I will, however, say, to check your morals at the login screen and grow a thicker coat of skin if you plan on traversing the MMO landscape for many more years.

I personally have been attacked in the AOC official Discord by homophobic people and since then have avoided using that platform to socialize with this community. I feel the forums are a place of more calm and level headed discussions. This is one of the main reasons a good chunk of the discord community isn't active on the forums. In my real-life experience, it's an everyday issue. I won't go much further than that.

Hopefully, we'll see more information in the coming year. Safe travels until then.

Nodoff

Unless you are crafting an MMORPG to reflect our world and reality (sounds terrible), then it seems like a complete non-issue to me. The worlds inside of video games are completely different and separate realities from our own, and expecting them to all reflect the real world seems silly.

If you want real world issues and adversity, step outside. I don't play MMORPGs to experience what you and I can experience daily, I play them to enter into a world all their own.

I vote against trying to incorporate real world political and social issues into games every chance I get, unless those games are specifically trying to emulate the real world.

Balrog21

I dont want to think of anything in the real world while I'm playing. Please dont do this or add it in.

Plateau

I don't think there's just one correct answer here. Games can reflect an idealized world, and depict how the real-world could work if humanity wasn't so shitty. Or games can reflect the real-world, and depict realistic issues, but then let players work through those issues. It's just comes down to subjective preference.

I agree that most MMOs lean more towards a nice idealized/fantasy world. My subjective opinion is that I like it that way. When I want a more realistic/emotional story about real-world hardships, then I'd prefer to get that from a single-player game.

Fortunately (for the OP at least), AoC intends to be a bit more realistic. At the very least, I think that means dialogue and graphical depictions won't be so goofy or cartoony. But I don't think that means it will be full of realistic social issues in every quest/town. Although, the player-driven nature of the game will probably cause plenty of social issues on it's own. (Have you seen the people who want to burn all Tulnar, just because they're the furry race?)

I hope AoC will strike a good balance: realistic and immersive, but not relentlessly misanthropic.

Ravudha

George Black wrote: »

The respect that real issues deserve is absent when every other mission is "free the caged prisoners and kill the enemy slavers" with dialogue like "good thing you came along. These rascals would have done away with me". The scene does not embody well some social themes.

While I think how characters should behave depends on the cultures of their world, I do think it's reasonable to expect human NPCs in a fictional world to have the same base psychology as humans on Earth. All fiction has a baseline where it draws from reality as a reference point to avoid having to create and explain absolutely everything from scratch.

So for dialogue like this, I can see how it can come off as light in contrast to the heaviness of the prisoner's predicament, and I think there is wiggle room to improve the writing. Some triple-dot pauses and slight rewording could add a sense of trauma and disorientation.

I think there's a middle ground in cases like this where small changes can simply enhance the player experience by making it a little bit more believable without it becoming too dark or an overt commentary on real world issues.

BadPotato

leonerdo wrote: »

Have you seen the people who want to burn all Tulnar, just because they're the furry race?.

They could be furries if you make them a furry, I want lizard-men instead!

"Tulnar do not equal furries, but there are definitely some bestial components that you can scale up when you're creating your Tulnar character, so you could max that setting I guess. Whether or not that would give you what you would think of as a furry, I guess it's going to be up to your interpretation of what a Furry is."

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