The game has just been nominated for two Gayming Magazine Awards due to its (optional) gay romance.
“TRIGGER WARNING,” the post begins. “Among all the various awards and nominations we’ve received, we’ve also just been nominated for the @gaymingmag GAYMING AWARDS! I’m really proud of that, because I absolutely stand by the fact that the way we did it is exactly how something like this should be done. Non-coercively, naturally, and educationally (because we show how things really were in the Middle Ages without idealizing them)–and without shoving it down anyone’s throat or trying to re-educate them like so many titles that are rightfully called ‘woke’ these days. We made the gay community happy and gave them the CHOICE to be themselves, just like we did for others in other choices and quests, and anyone who isn’t interested probably didn’t even notice. Except, of course, for [a] very small and very loud minority.”
That game was good until they added that gay shit. Nothing against gay people but the first game was legit.
I have a feeling he held up hand quotes, and spoke this in an ironic or mocking tone, and expected it to come through in a print interview. From the context it seems like it’s not a focus in the story, it’s just another option. There’s nothing wrong with that, it just sounds like he’s just bad with interviews.
The word has been absurdly corrupted by right wing though. It was just slang for being aware of the world, and promoting equality, and now it’s used for social justice enforcer.
This is they guy you’re making excuses for: https://lemmy.ca/pictrs/image/2814c61f-f3a2-43f6-a9d4-f07ab171b2ce.png
That’s a shame. I was thinking of buying the KCD games soon, now I won’t.
How hard is it to just not say stuff? Is this prat trying to calm pushed outraged right wingers? I hadn’t heard any outrage. And if there is outrage, so fuckin what. Just shut up, idiot, and let the game speak for itself.
Dan Vavra is simply a king of dickheads, and cannot pass a single oportunity to show everyone.
included optional gay content
Claims to not be woke
Seriously tho, what in the actual fuck is this guy trying to say, other than trying to appeal to rightoids while doing the same thing the games he is bitching about do. They constantly cry about ThE wOkE aGeNdA when you can select pronouns that LITERALLY have 0 impact on gaming, but apparently including WoKe content in the actual game is ok if you’re on their side.
Completely not transparent or shameless, as is tradition.
Sounds like he wants to have his cake and eat it too.
This is total bullshit.
“We did it right by not forcing it on players” just plays to a bullshit fallacy that acknowledging same-sex relationships == forcing people into same-sex relationships. This narrative is right wing outrage bullshit. It exists to allow the people who absolutely do not want same-sex marriage to exist in any form insist they are actually just very worried that heterosexual people are being forced into homo- bi- trans- sexually etc (which is actually not a thing).
This dickwad is trying to pat himself on the back for successfully navigating a moral outrage that he and his right wing pals invented. This is part of the ongoing narrative to normalise intolerance and to insist that being intolerant is actually the right moral choice.
Fuck him, fuck his game, fuck them all.
The games are great, if only he could, like, not open his mouth…
I can confirm. I played the gay romance in KCD2 and the penises never touched for the entirety of the playthrough. Thanks to this, I was finally able to play a gay character that felt authentic to real life and, more importantly, I didn’t turn gay myself.
To make sure of that, I replayed the game three more times, always choosing the gay option. Lo and behold, I’m still very, very straight. In fact, it worked like a vaccine: now I can watch gay porn without it having an effect on my sexuality (I’m super duper straight! I only watched gay porn to MAKE SURE that I was still straight).
Bravo Daniel.
I can confirm, too. I’m a straight man, and for some odd reason I always play as a woman and bang another woman. But not once have I become a lesbian.
i’ve re-read this several times. still unsure what this mf meant💀
20 years ago I’m sure they would have called it PC and a moral outrage. Keeping it out of the way and I’m guessing hyper masculine is just pallettable enough for right wing freaks decades later. It’s probably the type of gay story they’re into too.
In a lot of places, not just far-right assholes, the word “woke” has taken on the role of terms like “social justice warrior” and “political correctness” - i.e. in describing a self-righteous, superficial, performative and preachy kind of style.
Yes, that is not what the word “originally” meant, yes it is partially the result of right wing propaganda, yes “political correctness” and “sjw” have similar issues, but it is still a real thing.
What the man seems to me to be trying to say is that their goal was to do a medieval gay romance in a way that was not preachy or superficial – is that not good? Isn’t there a bit too much token representation and pinkwashing going on?
If he was trying to say that, he would’ve said that. “I think the reason why our game succeeded in portraying a gay relationship in medieval times, when it was definitely not as widely accepted as it is today, was because we took that fact into account and developed the story around it, so it made sense while still representing a group that existed throughout all history.” != “We still pander to the gays for free sales but not like those woke guys.”
In a lot of places, not just far-right assholes, the word “woke” has taken on the role of terms like “social justice warrior” and “political correctness” - i.e. in describing a self-righteous, superficial, performative and preachy kind of style.
LOL no, “woke” is anything that acknowledges LGBT+ individuals exist and have a right to live their lives as they want is woke. These fucking snowflakes cry about being asked to pick fucking pronouns, even when there is 0 impact on the game.
Crying ‘woke’ instantly tells me all I need to know about someone. The same goes for people who try to pretend it’s about preaching a message instead of acknowledging these people can and do exist.
What the man seems to me to be trying to say is that their goal was to do a medieval gay romance in a way that was not preachy or superficial – is that not good? Isn’t there a bit too much token representation and pinkwashing going on?
And you’re parroting the message loud and clear. Acknowledging their existence is always tOkEn RePrEsEnTaTiOn
LOL no, “woke” is anything that acknowledges LGBT+ individuals exist
…so the guy who directed a game where you can have a medieval gay romance, does not acknowledge that LGBT+ individuals exist?
…why do you think he has to say he’s not “doing that woke shit” while doing nothing particularly different from “that woke shit”? He had to get on front of people who agree with him who were going to cry about a gay romance existing, but now they have a narrative to follow when it comes up.
In other words, “it’s different when we do it”
Alternatively, as I wrote: in some places, the word “woke” has taken on the role of terms like “social justice warrior” and “political correctness” - i.e. in describing a self-righteous, superficial, performative and preachy kind of style - and he wants to distance himself from that style.
the word “woke” has taken on the role of terms like “social justice warrior” and “political correctness”
LOL, this is exactly what I’m talking about, because we agree to a point that woke replaced those words. But those words as well were just nice ways of complaining that minorities existed.
The “social justice warrior” moniker was only ever BRIEFLY your definition, because it was quickly picked up by rightoid chuds as a thought terminating epithet they could say without getting booted for saying slurs. Saying that’s what it means now is just carrying water for the people who use it as an epithet, because your definition does not match common usage. I watched the change happen from that side of the fence, and it was part of what woke me up to the reality of the situation, and see through the lies people pushed (that unsurprisingly sounded a lot like what I’m hearing in this conversation).
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Its not good, because you are now playing into the toxic norms that already exist. So its ok if straight stuff is upfront, but gay stuff has to be optional? This is completely pathetic and I will never support this, this team or game.
Dude is doing so much mental gymnastics to make himself sound superior. Again, it is really pathetic.
because you are now playing into the toxic norms that already exist’
how? I don’t get it.
So what should be the word we use for “media that depicts positive social ideologies?” Apparently “woke” includes the definition “while being super preachy about it.”
Of course, in that split, it’s also common people will call something “preachy” when a gay guy is there, and doesn’t even waste the viewer’s time. It happened to that horrible conservative animated show, as well.
So what should be the word we use for “media that depicts positive social ideologies?” Apparently “woke” includes the definition “while being super preachy about it.”
For a lot of people it does, yeah. I don’t know if the best solution is to run away from the word, though – like you say, it’s good to have a word for this stuff, and a different word is just as susceptible to being tainted by conservative strategists.
Now now, don’t be getting all reasonable. This is the internet after all!
sry
Thank you. I’m a lefty myself, but leftists have such a hard time seeing that criticism of their own side actually has validity. I totally understand what this developer is saying about depicting a progressive topic without being “woke” (preachy) about it. I see the same thing in movies/shows that depict female heroes—there are some that just make the hero a woman, and then there are others that pump the “girl power” angle, overplay the female lead, make it explicitly clear she’s better than all the male characters, bloat the script with feminist jargon, blah, blah, blah. It’s stupid. You want to do the progressive thing? Fine. Just do that. Don’t brow-beat your audience with a political message about it.
yep, it’s great to have a progressive message, but a progressive message is not an easy-button - you still have to do the hard work of making good art
without shoving it down anyone’s throat or trying to re-educate them like so many titles that are rightfully called ‘woke’ these days. We made the gay community happy
Not anymore you didn’t.
How can you ever depict a gay relationship in a game without “being woke”? By having the characters say “no homo” loudly and high five while they fuck? I swear right-wing asswipes find new mental gymnastics routines every day to redefine what they mean with this word.
Bro… You literally had to say nothing and you failed at that. And to use the word “woke” is stupid. The amount of flak they are gonna get for this just for saying that word will be immense. This would blow over by Tuesday if you said that entire thing but left out the work “woke”
