why do game journalists hate gamers so much? 

"It's no coincidence that this is occuring in a contentious election year" is the thing that got me. This fucking culture war nonsense is relentless. It's always something. And literally every even numbered year is a contentious election year in America. So stupid.

Friend of mine who works with journalism told me a few things about this. It’s very common for game’s journalism to be treated as an entry level position, something you do to get some experience while looking for a better position. Alot of people who get into video game journalism do so because they have no other choise and some people can become incredibly bitter over it. This explains why it feels like so many journalists have zero clue about what they are talking about and many of their articles feel like a sunmary of what a wiki could have told you. It’s a sad side product of how the industry works sadly.

fuck me dead - people need to get off twitter

plz don't even joke about reigniting the great dulex paint vs farrow and ball debacle of '95

The biggest problem is this whole affair gives a megaphone to the extremists and pushes moderates to their message, which just gives the conflicting parties more fuel to the fire.

Game journalists - Hate gamers, don't even play games.

They don't hate gamers. They hate themselves and project it onto gamers.

You can easily spot tokenism, it's like a bad photoshop.

"why do game journalists hate gamers so much?" Because these people aren't game journalists.

I think the dilution of stories in fear of offending people is the worst. People want gritty stories not utopian narratives. It just makes characters bland and uninteresting.

Calling them journalists is too much credit. They are activists.

I think the misconception is that for some reason, take Forspoken for example, they don't know how to actually WRITE a person of color, so the story sucked and the character was super cringe. People then blame "forced inclusion" for why the story or game sucked, even though the game wouldn't have been any better with any other character ethnicity, it was just a bad game.

I'm a bit tired of the culture war on the internet. Both sides lose and the grifters on both sides make a big name for themselves. This current shitstorm feels more manufactured than most.

One of the major problems is most of the words have become loaded. 'Inclusive' and 'Diverse' don't seem to mean the same thing to the various factions that weigh in. It makes misinformation and misdirection easy to occur, either by intention or mistake. It's all so petty and tiresome...

So, some of my favorite series were pretty diverse, and some might even say "woke" (the expanse novels come to mind). But here are some of my thoughts about where diversity-centric design often runs into issues. 1. Diversity doesn't always make sense. There are people (often games journalists) who play a game where the setting is based off of another culture (say, the Witcher 3) and complain that there aren't enough black people. Guess what guys, not all countries are melting pot countries, and have the same racial makeup as America. And, from a global perspective, if every country was like these melting pot countries, the world would actually be a hell of a lot less diverse. 2. On race/gender swapping characters, I immediately think of Starbuck from the Battlestar Galactica reboot. They made the character a woman, and it worked really well. But this is a double standard, and a lot people dislike those. If you made a black character white, or a female character male in one of these mainstream movies/tv series, there would likely be an outcry. So I think people push back against it in principle, either its always okay or its never okay. And I also think on a fundamental level, changing a characters race/sex takes you a step away from the source material, and a lot of people prefer adaptations be faithful to the source material. 3. Diversity doesn't improve bad writing. My example for this will be Frey from Forspoken (a shallow character with cringe dialogue). I feel like people are used to seeing these shallow diverse characters, and they overgeneralize that experience. So, when you have a firm, like SBI, that effectively lobbies for the inclusion of token diversity characters within a plot (and receives ESG money for doing so) these characters aren't being crafted from a place of inspiration, they're written and added into the story solely to chase after material gains. Shallow motivation leads to writing a shallow character. 4. People at these companies are often their own worst enemies, they behave irresponsibly and get themselves (and their companies) into trouble (and in many cases, these individuals are actually in leadership roles at their companies). Saying that you can't be racist against white people, drumming up a harassment campaign against a legitimate consumer boycott of their products, and the journalists deliberately omit context and only report on facts that suit their preferred narrative... These people see themselves as crusaders, fighting an imaginary race war. They're extremists, and hold many ignorant and prejudicial views themselves, but completely lack self-awareness, it’s pathetic.

I thoroughly enjoyed watching and also had zero aneurysms, so I can recommend this.

My issue with this whole debacle is how marginalized individuals and minorities are being exploited and tokenized more than ever only because big business wants to rake in some kind of disillusioned goodwill points

It's projecting guilt onto the other party so they don't have to admit that they fucked up, pissed off everyone and are now reaping what they've sown. Sweet Baby Inc. threw a bitch fit over someone simply deciding to make it easier for others to know when they were involved in a game. If they were at all proud of what they're doing, they should've taken this as a compliment, but instead, an employee decided to try to harass the people telling others about their involvement in games into quitting what they were doing. Sweet Baby Inc. was indeed the instigator and initial harasser, but when they got burned playing with fire, they decided to blame the fire instead. It also doesn't help that what they do is something that only people who don't play videogames want, which is racist tokenization for the most part, and more often than not their involvement is tied to games' stories being utter garbage. Beyond the whole racism thing they've got going on, I'm actually offended as an actual writer. I spent years building up to the point that I could get people to pay me to write, and I spend hours, days, weeks and even months on a 5000 word commission in order to make sure it's ready, and I guaran-damn-tee these jokers with zero writing skill get paid in a single month more than I make all year just because a brainless executive wants to "appeal to a wider audience" via tokenization and thus hires these talentless hacks to butcher their videogame.

I really think it's down to the fact that game journalists aren't gamers. I remember seeing something a while ago where a journalist had gone into a Discord server and was asking why nobody as using their real names and nobody had a picture of themselves as their avatar. I got real 'How do you do fellow kids' vibes from it. Put another way gamers are interested in gaming, journalists are interested in journalism.

What bothers me is that even if these journalists agree with the intent behind sweet baby inc, they should still be denouncing them for how poorly they handled the situation. You can defend that inclusivity discourse while still believing that sweet baby inc is not the right company to handle this endeavor.

What's hilarious about this thing going on is that they tried to defend this company and go, "no they're not directly influencing games the way gamers think they are." Then there was an old interview that came out where the CEO admitted that it was their entire goal

anyone else think it's so funny that Tommy Tallarico is in the ad on that right there the whole time, who got called out a big hypocrite a while ago as well?

Personally, I also feel that the "diversity" tag that is thrown here and there is an afterthought. Similar to a pre-emptive defense for when the product is bad and badly reviewed "Oh, you dont like our product because you are - xyz". I have also seen this in construction projects where a bad concept with frankly stupid ideas and out of control budget, got a last minute tag of "Carbon footprint" which was utter @@. Then when the project "architects" were faced with backlash from the client and the community, they kept throwing around buzz was words like Carbon footprint, green energy etc to justify a bad idea and an expensive, completely non-environmentally friendly project. And I also feel that most people dont like the "diversity" factor in games because it is so so so poorly implemented. Generic characters, boring script and overall bad and bland writing. As if....all of it was last minute implemented as an afterthought. And if consumers dont like it, the defense presented to the shareholders (because the consumer will just not buy it) is "oh they dont like our product because people dont understand diversity. But YOU as a the big boss knows better right? So please dont fire me and also give me more money for the next project". Possibly a stretch but I can definitely imagine it.

Me who remembers gamer gate years ago: ah shit here we go again

Actually SBI openly said they need to terrify PR people at the companies who hired them into doing what they want. So there is some truth to them coming in and ruining games.

“We don’t want politics in our video games” My existence shouldn’t be political.

Sometimes, just hearing Kira's honest, pretty level-headed opinion on a current controversial and polarizing issue, then seeing the likes below, makes me hold on to hope for mankind. Thank you!

Hating your customers or fanbase is a great business model...

I'm a gamer and i hate gamers? have you not met the internet gaming community? If you dont understand why im saying that, it could be because you are a straight passing white male and your experience with Gamers(TM) might be different than some of us. most if not all of "videogame journalism" is rubbish, but the gaming community gives them tons of low hanging fruit by being incredibly toxic, especially towards marginalized communities. I always find it incredibly weird when a community gets mad that their actions are being talked about. More mad at the people doing the revealing then the toxic actions that they dont want revealed.

This all started with a steam curator list not recommending games involved with sweet baby and they responded by immediatly taking up arms to ban the brazilian user, who made the list, from steam. Also calling for a boycott or not recommending something are different things. This should be enough for anyone to see that the people involved with sweet baby etc. and game journalists reporting it like this are insane.

I'd just like to say you don't need to know what the original scripts were because its about how things were done and presented and whether or not they add to the entertainment. Like, I don't need to know what the original script was to know I wasn't entertained by having to listen to Mary Jane try to villainize Peter and have him apologize the entire time for nothing he did wrong (choosing to be a hero and save lives), all just so Sweet Baby Inc can make a straight white male look like an awful person compared to the female character. I'm not even a straight white male and I can see how Sweet Baby Inc has influenced the game to be a worse experience. Reading some of their tweets makes it extremely clear how they hate white men, which, yes, you can be racist to, and they have been many times on social media and that way of thinking is shown via the writing in games they are involved in.

"If you throw normal people in the same pot with extremists, guess what - at some point, they will be" thx for that. I've been trying to tell people that for quite a while.

Luke Stephen’s made a good point. Even if the studio heads accepted and implemented every last one of SBIs suggestions and ideas to the letter, the decision still rests on the heads of the studio. You can dislike SBIs influence but they ultimately didn’t have the final say.

Modern diversity in games is pure tokenism. Included just enough that they can be taken out of the Chinese version without impacting it too much. I want more diverse stories and perspectives in games, but it's currently done in a way that's insulting to both world building and established IPs. There is so much untapped potential in the folklore of different countries that would be great video games. Why not do that instead?

Games being made by “diverse” people, or including trans flags or people is not being political. You thinking that makes it political, is what makes it political.

"journalists"

my problem is that the Sweet Baby CEO has been very Open about Wanting to Force Change on the Gaming Industry by Strong arming and fear inducing the development studios that hire them. For me its not about the Diversity and Inclusivity, its how they are going about doing so. The things Sweet Baby Employess have Said and Done are Outrageous and totally uncalled for.

They're calling it the "the latest harassment campaign by gamers" as if it's something that happens all the time because it literally happens all the time. Can probably name 5 times it's happened this year alone. Palworld devs harassed over AI claims, people freaking out about Stellar Blade, fanboys shitting all over the Xbox team when they thought Starfield might come to PS5... this sort of commentary doesn't come out of nowhere.

I don't think diversity ruins anything, but I don't think that adding LGBTQ in every games add anything too, and actually I don't even think it's a good idea, sexuality should NOT define us, if you see me in the street you couldn't guess if i'm straight, bi, gay, pan, etc ( and I can tell you, i'm not straight ), so why do we spend so much time adding it everywhere ? why do we need to explain it everywhere and adding it in every games when it adds nothing to it ? do people really care about the sexuality of others ? I mean outside of my very close friends, no one knows my orientation, and that's perfectly fine with me, nobody needs to know. As for diversity for people of color, I don't care, but if someone wrote a story where nearly every character are white, black, asian or whatever, that should be fine. I don't think that having the twitter mob demanding PoC is a good thing, and if you want to change things because you disagree with the story, the setting etc, then write your own story.

There are racist people in charities, in sport and in gaming. But don't tar all gamers as being racist. When I first played last of us 2 there was backlash about Ellie being gay, abbey being manly, that kid being potentially trans. Did people not play the last of us when Ellie is with Riley, are people so dense not to see it. Outstanding game with an amazing narrative about revenge ultimately not being worth it and takes a chunk out of you(Ellies fingers literally)

“Gamergate 2.0” are the worst words I’ve heard in the last 10 years of my time alive as an adult on the Internet.

Baldur's Gate III did it right. There are tons of "diverse" characters, but it doesn't bog down the game or warp the plot.

The thing is sweet baby inc may do nothing in reality just a way to get DEI investment. But the point that 99% of people have just like the steam curator is that sweet baby inc is the canary that says game will be bad. It's like when the marketing talks about "modern audiences" or how diverse/many women made the product. You know it's bad because the marketing team couldn't find something actually good in what they are selling to talk about. Or in the case of sweet baby you know the story has been butchered by so many committees that there was no real artistic vision.

I appreciate the angle of "you don't need to be angry about some things". It's kind of exotic these days. Also, if you need to be angry, be angry about better, more meaningful things.

Man, only 20 minutes in and already this is exactly the kind of calm, nuanced breakdown of this situation I was looking for. The fact that a _consultancy company_ , problematic or not, is whipping up such a media circus is patently fucking absurd in my eyes. Really sums up everything that's wrong with modern discourse.

As a NB person I don't like seeing token LGBTQ characters that there only personality is being queer just to get check marks. If there is a character that is a well written/developed character that also happens to be LGBTQ is always nice and proper representation. Isobel in BG3 and Alchemy in ESO are great examples of this. But if you want LGBTQ to be completely unnoticeable in media, to the point they are nonexistent, then I hope at some point you open up your heart and be more accepting to those who are different than you, even if you don't understand it.

I agree with you, most people are live and let live. It is the fringe freaks that drive this crap.

Never forget PBS Gameshow, which said Witcher 3 had no diversity and only white people. A game with diverse characters about slavic culture

My favourite take thus far. I suppose I have always felt like Kira's mind works in much the same as mine does. The controversy has only blown up into Gamergate 2 because they poured gasoline on the fire. People are always going to clip what you said online to get insight or make a point about your views, often out of context. But even if its within a certain context, if you believe what you say, then what do you care? SBI put a target on their back when chris kindred advocated a harrassment campaign against the curation list creator, and the racist Steam post on the group against white male gamers. If as a company CEO you can't see why that would be a problem and deal with it, or worse yet, are seen to endorse that position, then of course that's where the problem is. That's when you don't just have the internet crazies coming after you, but instead offend every single person you consider within that group of people, many of which are in fact diverse. Add on top of that, acting as though you are blameless, media outlets pushing a one-sided and provably false narrative, using straw-man arguments and unproven conspiratorial connections to further that narrative without a lick of sited proof. It's all a farce anyways since the media sites WANT this to be another Gamergate, as that kind of controversy means more subject matter to farm to generate more traffic to their sites. That in turn gives them the opportunity to amplify the issue further, and allows them to tie in political hot button topics that are there for no other reason than to fuel the fire further. If its just one issue, then its spoken on, floats in public consciousness for a time, and fades off. If you can tie it to some ongoing political controversy, well then you can just keep farming the issue, well past the point it should have just died away.

People have been telling stories and modifying stories since the beginning of time. Things change and so do stories. Deal with it. No one forces anyone to consume any media.

The whole "minority characters shouldn't have to justify themselves" line is a bit disingenuous. Nobody would question a "black Nathan Drake" or other Indiana-jones like adventurer as the lead character in a contemporary setting because they wouldn't have any reason to. But if you take a historical setting or a fantasy setting based closely on a historical setting and try to insert characters of races or ethnicities that would not typically be there people are naturally going to wonder how they got there. There is nothing racist or offensive about that. The Witcher III is a good example of this. You meet some black characters (a merchants, sailors, diplomats etc...) in the clearly Northern Medieval European setting and it's briefly explained they originally come from Orfir in the South - all it takes is that one little line and *bam* nobody has an issue with their presence. Everything makes logical sense. White guy in a 16th century Medieval Japanese setting a la Shogun? He is a shipwrecked sailor. An Arab scholar and poet in Viking lands a la the 13th Warrior? Well, he's a diplomat and the Vikings picked him up while they were sailing around because Vikings went everywhere. The problem is that people aggressively pushing diversity in media don't want to do this simple step for reasons I don't fully understand. They don't want you to ask where these characters are from or why they are here because they resent having to give an explanation and are offended that you would ask in the first place. You're just supposed to accept them and if you ask you're a bigot. Its baffling, really, when the problem could be solved by in many cases by a single line of dialogue. Diversity and inclusion done in a natural way that only hardcore racists would object to is incredibly easy - pick a setting where racial diversity is common, like the cities of a cosmopolitan society, or simply explain the characters presence with a tiny amount of backstory - but they won't put in the effort. This is how you get people calling the developers of Kingdom Come: Deliverance neo-nazis for not putting black characters in its rendition of 15th century Bohemia.

cause game journalists are just paid game advertisers. But also, capital G gamers are also a cancer, so I could ultimately do without both of them

I agree with the sentiment of this video, but I think it's important to point out that this isn't an equivocal issue as far as extreme left or right go. It's like if you were to look at both sides on the flat vs round earth debate. Sometimes one side is just very aggressively wrong. Seems to be human nature. Gamergate was only a phenomena because of it being carried by the extreme right, and the narrative of victimization you hear about it "being bad to be a white man" are seriously overblown. The asshole grifters who took advantage of gamergate turned my friend into an alt right weirdo. Most of the US is still white evangelicals living outside of major cities. That's what actually matters. Sure it's lame to see people being mad at whites (especially when you're not the racist type) but it has never once affected me in real life. Having black friends has hurt me with other white people in real life, though. Corporations will pander, yes. They see the writing on the wall so they pretend to have socially progressive values. Letting that fact get in the way of the reality that the left is backed by science on things like climate change and trans rights, while the other side has to cherry pick biased, non peer reviewed "studies" and pretend like they aren't denying reality and a scientific consensus! People are still shitty, but one side has at least one foot in reality.

It's the 0.0000001% of "gamers" that make the rest look bad. (I put that in "" because they aren't gamers.) As a transfemme casual gamer, I have yet to find a gamer that makes gaming terrible for me BECAUSE they're a white cis-male. That's just a "put blinkers on" concept that doesn't exist. Yes, I want diversity, I'd like to see more transfemme people in video games, but putting transfemme characters in games as a "lOoK wE pUt A tRaNs ChArAcTeR iN oUr GaMe!!" is just a kick in the teeth.

I am a gamer and I hate gamers myself! Terrible people.

Yes it requires the game company to bring them in, but SBI specifically championed the idea of members of these companies blackmailing their marketing teams into hiring SBI specifically, and these consulting companies generally. It’s really not fair to say SBI isn’t the problem when they are. Yes there is a bigger problem but SBI itself is a huge part of the problem.

I'm trans and I am really appreciative of the games that let me feel like I am represented and wish they'd do more with making the characters multidimensional instead of feeling token or flat just to market it. Wish I could use the steam discussion forums to look to see quickly if people are having a similar issue without seeing the unmoderated troll pits screaming about woke and how people like me should basically die but I just go elsewhere and ignore it. Hell this whole "culture war" thing seems to be mostly a twitter thing where the obscene number of bots stoke the flames on both ends and bleeds elsewhere when the media posts clickbaity bullshit like this article.

It wasn't gamergate 2.0. no one except a handful of angry gamers talk about this anymore.

Gamers don't agree with journalists so journalists hate them. Typical braindead internet behaviour.

SBI is the initial thread that got pulled, ya know? Now, the list keeps growing, and it's like the whole fabric of things is starting to unravel. It's shining a light on other companies that just outright hate gamers. We're the ones who make the biggest entertainment industry thrive. Fun fact, the 2008 crash affected every sector of finance, business, and real estate. Gaming was one of the few industries that flourished during a fiscal crisis. BioWare did it best with Mass Effect. The game had a diverse cast, but "the message" wasn't shoved down our throats. We weren't schooled on how to be Woke. We didn't feel like we should live in guilt for one transgression or another. We enjoyed a great trilogy because it was an impressive set of games! BioWare was woke before woke was trending. And they did it right! Hopefully, they stick with their proven formula.

The main problem with shallow inclusivity will never be immersion breaking, because (like it has been pointed out before) immersion isn't that important. Bad writing for "diverse" characters is far worse, but even worse than that is the shallow disgusting "representation" they put out and how they try to sell such bullshit to us like it's chocolate as if we have no sense of smell. It insults the player's intelligence, and even further, they then insult the player's "morals" by saying "if you don't like this you're a bigot".

Lost all credibility with this one. Gamergate got us the rise of fascism around the world. It's not a centrist take to support harassment and doxxing.

I agree with bad writing ruining things with diversity or lack of diversity being irrelevant in games where customization isn't an option. Pretty much all shit games would be equally shit if you removed all diversity or increased it by 1000%.

I mean just look at YMS' reaction to the gay character(s) in Spiderman2. It's cringe even/especially for the people who are represented. If this is how you do it, please just leave me out of it. You don't change people's mind by putting an annoying, flat stereotype of a minority in your game.

I think so many people are obsessed with picking a side when the reality is that most people just don’t care enough to have an opinion either way.

Bi female gamer here. Games do not need to change when it comes to diversity. I do not need a game with a miserable, sarcastic 40 year old Bi woman to feel connected to a game. How about concentrating on the state modern games are released in. Push back against the micro transactions. Get angry about the broken buggy messes that companies have the audacity to call AAAA games. If you really care about games that's what needs to change, that's where the energy needs to be directed at. Sweet Baby Inc does not speak for the majority of people like me and I find it insulting and patronising to pretend that they do.

If I have to choose being in a bubble of like minded people or a bubble of terminally twitter people that can't see how intolerant they are in the name of tolerance. I'd choose the former, easier to ignore the crazies.

Edit Kira goes over pretty much my whole comment I didn't watch far enough but still thank you Kira. Dear god man you are the only youtuber that has got this right from what I've seen granted I've not seen everyone's opinion about this subject gamer gate or otherwise. I remember seeing all the gamers are dead headlines back then and hearing people try and gaslight to say that didn't happen was maddening. Just like this time where folk keep on saying that one guy that made the steam group to start harassing sweet baby inc when an employee from sweet baby inc tried to get his account banned because he made that group.

What is the goal of this video, or a summarized message?

Gaming is this magical thing that everyone talks about and everyone has an opinion on but not everyone understand. That's okay they don't have to, my enjoyment for gaming is not depending on what other people think, that is not how you should live your life, stop caring what other people think - most of them are idiots anyway. Gamers are humans that like to do a thing sometimes because they enjoy doing it. It's not more complicated than that.

On "you can't be racist against white people", I was born in ussr and upon its collapse I ended up in one of Central Asian countries. At a time there were roughly 40% "ethnically russian" people living there. We then got nationalisation laws that denied anyone of Russian/soviet descent to be able to get public sector jobs, we literally had "ethnic background" field in passports that would say things like "Russian", "armenian" and so on. Is that not racist? Is me being physically assaulted on streets for being of a wrong ethnic background not racist? (BTW by the time I left there were around 3% ethnically russian people left due to the laws etc). I'm one of those lgbt people that Alyssa and Sh!tbaby should pander to but this is ridiculous. I don't want to play a relatable gay spider man (as an example), I want to play spider man that inspires me, or at least is fun. If I want a relatable spider man, I make one in fucкing sims. Why is it so difficult to understand? They are so overwriting this bs its ridiculous.

Give a great story, game play TLC/mechanics and character arcs.. That's all I want, And now I'm right wing fascist?? WTF..

I'M a 'cis white male gamer' and no, I dont think inclusion takes anything away from the gaming experience.

I think you slightly misremembered the LGBT flag issue in Spiderman or weren't aware of the context the complaints were made in. Certainly there were just bigots whining about LGBT flags but along with that was people just wanted to mod out the flags for American flags on PC. Naturally, the biggest modding platform, Nexus mods would be the place to go for mods of PC games. Except Nexus refused to allow the mod to exist. More recently, a similar thing happened where people wanted to remove the trigger warning from the Tomb Raider trilogy release and Nexus refused to host it. Of course, you can argue Nexus is entitled to disallow whatever it likes but when they do it for moral reasons it opens a whole can of worms as they allow all manner of other debauchery as mods. At the heart of it, it was an argument about whether you had the right to mod your games or whether Nexus had to right to tell you what you had to keep in your game. Personally as a bi-sexual person I don't care if people want to remove flags- it's their game and they can mod whatever they like in as far as I am concerned. Likewise, I actually agree that the Trigger warning on Tomb Raider is unnecessary and an insult in it's own right.More to the point, again, it's their game they are free to modify it as they wish. Naturally , Nexus can choose to take the route it's taking but eventually it will annoy enough people a competitor will arise who doesn't ban such mods. The situation does leave a poor taste in the mouth though when a platform who doesn't own the game or didn't sell it to you is lecturing you as to why they won't allow you to change your game when they do allow other immoral things.

The problem in gaming is C suites miliking the business model of live service games and trying to sell minimum viable products without having to pay devs for longer. So gamers see boogeymen like Sweet Baby Inc and think they can finally make a difference by taking them out of the picture. The problem is gaming will continue to get worse and groups of people will get harassed who arent even part of the problem. Wish gamergate could fight agajnst EA or Warner bros but instead itll be death threats to journalists who write agenda pieces cause there's no money in gaming journalism anyway.

trying to act like there is an equivocal issue when it comes to the extreme left or right is such a L take lol holy shit Thought you was actually better then the both sides nonsense

The only problem with the "Don't buy the game if you don't agree with what they did to your favourite IP" argument is that if your favourite IP of all time made a game like this, and nobody bought it, the stupid executives, which you frequently referenced, would just look at it and say "Oh, I guess the IP is dead, let's not waste any more money on making more of then". Then your favourite IP is no more (for 10 years until they remaster it for quick £££. Just my take on the way people may validate purchasing a game they hate.

man, i just want them to do a good job and dont do some half assed writing just for the sake of being inclusive. i just want a good game...

I'm about 30% through the video, and I have no idea as to what controversy you're addressing, altho I get that it's the usual issues about ethnicity & people feeling ignored or persecuted as a group. I listen and watch at least a couple of RU-vid gaming summary channels each week and know about controversies like scammy games & exploited workers & sexual harassment etc.. Usually you give brief summaries, even if it's the 10th video about Earth 2, and I appreciate those. As you point out, you scan social media every day, and it may seem like everybody is talking about a particular thing, but honest not all of us do that much scanning, and a brief summary really helps.

just a little easter egg, tommy tallarico - the first man ever - was in the featured video on the right side at @3:45, im sure his mum is proud of him

The amount of more extreme left-leaning people who refuse to look at nuance piss me off just as much if not more than right-leaning bigots. It’s really annoying to have people who care more about being right rather than actually looking for solutions

we live in a time when far-right and far-left are defined by culture not economic class. what a brave new world.

10:32 Tommy Talarico sighting in the video ad.

Some internet drama? Again? Guess I'll go back to the Playstation...

Whilst I hear the 'charge' of "don't blame the consultants, blame the people who hired them", you have to remember what happened to the Brazillian guy. No company wants, or can afford in the current galing business, to piss off the people that will trash your already awful reputation, as the SWI brigading squad did. And they would arguable also do it if these studios didn't employ them. Same argument for the individual writers - if they disagree vocally with SBI's 'writing advice', what's to stop them getting doxxed by these extremists? And I have to respectfully disagree on another facet - there were SBI linked accounts pedalling this 'you can't be racist to white people' crap. So no, I'm still gonna have an issue with them, as I would with anyone exhibiting that level of blatant hypocracy. However, keep up the great work Kira!!

Honestly... I just don't get it all... I'm so fucking tired of culture wars.

Kira, I appreciate that you don't take the easy route and bandwagon for either side. It feels like people today are much less likely to take a nuanced and considered approach to sensitive topics.

"ready for the Second Great War" im dieng 😂🤣

I feel like the majority of your take was more or less correct, but it also feels pretty clear that you are approaching the issue with the perspective bias of someone that hasn't dealt with the direct and indirect consequences of racism, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, etc. While the majority of people are probably indifferent, since a tiny minority of people will act radically and possibly violently, imo many people on the left, which includes more diverse people and allies of them, have been conditioned to react with more vehemence to try and counteract the minority of extremists who work towards normalizing discrimination and violence towards the scapegoat group of the week, especially when they see people repeatedly get away with doing and saying absolutely atrocious shit without consequences, or worse, with profit (such as chaya raichik's stochastic terrorism). But yeah, the journalists are fucking shit. And even the DEI stuff going on is often dystopic capitalism exploiting minority groups for a pr win.

19:42 americans really think the world revolves around them holy shit, that line is the one that irked me the most, the dude that made the curator page for sweet baby inc detected is from Brazil even, who gives a shit about the USA.

"harassing a former SBI developer for making a safe space for people of color" Is a weird way of saying "Said she never hired white people because she thinks they're incapable of not doing microagressions"

Spawn: a comic book that came out in 1992, the main character is black. Its story is god tier. No body complained. War machine: first appeared in 1979. Instead of making tony stark black they made a new character who was black and opposite stark. No body complained. Diversity has never been a problem, make new characters that offset and enhance the story of existing ones. Or tell completely new stories we haven't heard before.

how can you accuse gamers of being far right? we have been shooting nazis for decades, except in germany they don't allow it there

nuanced opinions ?? on MY platform ?!!

Gaming sites gaslighting the playerbase for their own corporate ESG rating. Throw Wired in the pile with Kotaku, PC Gamer and Mary Sue.

Yes - don't put pride flags in to 'show you support the cause' and thern remove them from the versions you sell in other regions. Stand by your principles.

Completely agree, it's not about Sweet baby, I don't really care about them or that racist dev, they're small and mostly insignificant. The issue is how the industry and especially journalists are reacting to it, the fact that they're completely okay with blatant harassment and racism and either ignoring it or celebrating it.

Finally a balanced take from someone who thinks. Thank you.

To be fair. The problem people have with forced inclusivity is when they gender and skin also race swap a established white male character and race, don't think gamers have issue playing as an Asian character, as Asian mmorpg games exist and white men play them a lot. Let us be serious, gamers just want to game and adding real life politics to their games is not helping them relax and their brief escape from reality. Sweet Baby Inc. Is the biggest issue, cause they force and encourage gender politics and that's not how games should be. Diversity is good if it's done naturally not artificially where it becomes too obvious their added there to tick a box in a list.

Diversity definitely isn't the problem. No one (or, at least, so few no one cared) complained about Baldur's Gate 3. That's because the characters are written very well and the story is good. The game is good. People only complain when the game is bad.