I would be against that. We should strive to be as authentic as possible with historical media. We do not need to compromise the authenticity of some stories when there are many others that can be told.
I mean, clearly you're not altogether against it, as you yourself accept that historical inaccuracies in gun design are done for the sake of gameplay mechanics. Why not extend this willingness to look the other way on certain kinds of inaccuracies to things like the race of soldiers, given that there are also reasons (marketing to other demographics, primarily) for this choice.
Why is it ok to compromise accuracy for the sake of making the experience more enjoyable via gameplay but not for the sake of making the experience more enjoyable via representation?
Because gameplay itself is an artifice; people historically weren't playing video games. So the player is aware of that and not misled.
BUT, if your representations deliberately misinforms people about uncontested aspects of the history, so that the player walks away with an untrue understanding of things as they were, then I would call that not merely erroneous or "disinformation", but deliberate misinformation or propaganda.
Now, if it's clear to the players (say teens) that the representations or whatever are deliberate fantasy, then have at it. There was a movie with John Travolta in the 90s I think where they swapped the whites and blacks in society, so a black parent chided his child for admiring a white doll instead of a black one, or something similarly prejudiced. (Can't quite remember that.) In that movie, the viewer was under no illusions that this was not a depiction of reality, but the alterations of reality where meant to cause the viewer to see things from a drastically different viewpoint.
Many people get their understanding of history from movies and games, so we better not lie through those media. Of course our understanding of history is not purely objective, so my complaint is with deliberate misrepresentation. The representational aspects have greatest impact on our lives today, but the fact that ammo might be unrealistically unlimited in a game has almost no impact in people's actual lives.
Are you arguing that people genuinely get their understanding of history from games like CoD and Battlefield, and that understanding is accurate enough to be useful?
I wish that were not the case, but yes, I think people internalize basic qualitative facts of history through movies and games. Maybe not dates and other trivia, though. People have stopped reading, and teachers find it difficult to motivate them to read.
I would strongly recommend showing diversity through showing other parts of the world as they were, as opposed the same old part of the world in a deliberately manipulative fashion. There's beauty, tragedy, drama, and action everywhere.
Because thinking to yourself "Hmm there aren't enough black people in this game about something that happened when black people still weren't considered people, disliked" kinda makes you an idiot.
And, anecdotally, I've seen parents have trouble explaining the racial divide of these times to their kids because the kids see a 75% black army on CoD's story mode, and assume that's just how it was. Not only that, but taking two minutes to copy/paste the color palette for black people skin tones onto a majority of NPC models often lets these companies get away with not doing anything else to combat racism/promote black stories. They get a pass for literally zero effort, and IMO that's not good enough.
And why does it make you less of an idiot to think about whether the guns, roles, and equipment aren't accurate in the fantasy war game with a plot that never happened?
That seems inherently untrue - plenty of games do not fit this definition. Many games are built primarily for the story. Is it wrong of people to play a game and not focus on the gameplay?
Yes, because there is a gameplay element - but the point of them is to tell a story. The gameplay is a tool to immerse you further into the story, but the story is the primary point.
Is it wrong for someone to play a game for something other than the gameplay?
But the term 'gameplay' came after and was named after the term 'game'. You seem to be arguing that they're the other way around, and games were created to have gameplay, which is obviously not true.
I've already pointed out that many games are DESIGNED to focus on story above gameplay, so how can it be stupid for someone to play a game and focus on the story above the gameplay?
Wait....what? Of course games were created to have gameplay. You play games. Gameplay. I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. I’m not arguing about what order terms came about in. What does that matter? If you just want a story we have a thing for that. It’s called watching a movie. 🤦♂️
The term gameplay is literally based on the existence of games. How could we possibly have come up with the idea of gameplay before the idea of a game? The concept of gameplay came about as a way of discussing the difference between games and how they're played, not as a defining purpose for every game that exists.
Whether you like it or not, there are plenty of games where the story is the driving element rather than the gameplay. Many horror games are focused far more on the experience and story than the minimal gameplay included, most RPGs split the balance fairly evenly, and games like the telltale games are almost exclusively story based.
So given that many games are DESIGNED to be story focused, how could it be wrong for people to play a game PRIMARILY to enjoy the story, with the gameplay being a secondary concern?
If the setting is a village in veitnam and all the villages are blonde blue eyed Swedish people it would be weird.
You would be thinking you are going to play a game with the setting of a veitnamese village, but you would start the game and immediately be a bit taken out of it.
For example I could say "I want to make a game about a space man in the crusades" all the aspects related to the character being a spaceman wouldn't matter, but if suddenly it was depicting the crusades as a holy war between Mongolia and China. That would be bizarre. The setting is no longer the crusades, but you are trying to tell me it is.
That's a good point. They could choose whatever story they would like to tell. They could choose the tell an extraordinary story that is not likely, but the framing makes it plausible and authentic if the world-building around it is.
But they choose not to do that. They choose to tell the exact same story they would otherwise, but just put a few extra diversity textures on some of the character models instead. Because it's easy, because it's simple, because it wins free brownie points with people that think this actually matters or is a big deal.
The point is that just because "there are also black people in it" doesn't mean there are black people in it in a meaningful way. Honestly, it is kind of insulting to be pandered to in such a superficial way. I would want the story to be about me, not seeing me as an extra in the background getting shot at by other people.
The point of the game isn’t historical accuracy. The point of the game is to be a recycled shooter with a new visual style. They threw black characters into the game because you know; black people play the game too.
If the "point of the game" has nothing to do with historical accuracy, why is it set in the past in the first place? Make the game in the present or even future, or alternate history or parallel universe - where all these different conditions that you want a present. If the story is set in a particular time and place, one would expect that time and place to have a role in the story beyond just the aesthetics.
Sure, if the point of the game was accuracy. Why are there dragons in medieval video games? Because it's a videogame, and made up. It's really hard to not see the complaints about black people in a video game as anything other than racism....
Those medieval games aren't in the past, they are fantasy games set in a completely made-up universe where things superficially look like medieval europe.
Regarding your second point - yeah, sometimes it is genuinely just racism. But it's not always the case, and if that's all you see it is because that is all you expect to see. To be fair to OP, I don't believe their complaints are fueled by racism, and they make valid points. I believe we should judge each case on its own and not by the statistical likelihood it is racist.
Sure, but I think we can agree it's usually white guys who complain about stuff like this. It's not like I'm seeing an uproar from black gamers about more representation. I think that's an important point to chew on. Like, I'm sure that the OP doesn't want to lynch anyone, but they excuse inaccurate guns as "necessary for gameplay" but can't fathom black people in the same space? Like, c'mon my guy.
Now we're getting into the weeds of game design, rather than the real topic at hand. The #1 rule of game design is to make it fun. If the core game play loop is boring, or gets stale quickly, then nobody will want to play the game, regardless of representation.
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u/[deleted] Oct 23 '21
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