>>992148 First, soyjack. Second, there is no "difference" because these games ARE injecting political themes just because the media told them they're supposed to be worked up about them. In the OP vid, Harlan Ellison talks about how we need to address topics like "Fascism" and the "Far Right" in 1995, in addition to how he intentionally injects the Holohoax into everything he writes. <Here's Dave Theurer talking about making a game who's goal was to "teach" the public about the effects of nuclear war, which was a hot topic in 1980.

>>992135 >Wolfenstein >Far right Does he even know what the series is about or is he just the doing the Roger Ebert grumpy boomer "Gad dang kids, here's how you make those devil machine games art!"

>>992135 notto diso shittu again >you just didn't care until it became overt and secretive Those are polar opposite terms aren't they? >not those stunted Far Right individuals that play "Wolfensteen" Oh the implications are hilarious from a modern lens. I'm sick of my political alignment being "the retard alignment". >only ever progress is we focus on narratives and puzzles rather than action Sounds like an easy way to kill the games market and make them no better than books or films in terms of linearity and lack of replayability. >made their activities more secretive after 2010 If anything they're more overt now than ever what their biases are in game but refuse to acknowledge them in passing conversation on social media. And what pisses people off is the blatant one sided, hamfisted, soapbox sadie preaching of absurd liberal ideals, masquerading as mature debate for intelligent adults, being over prioritized in a media focused on ENTERTAINMENT. Combined with the cattle being tired of this divisive "everything is political" shitfest which was pushed by liberals, and it's easy to see where the backlash stems from when it comes at the expense of quality entertainment. And I've brought this up before but there's a difference between smart political themes like Kojima's, Deus Ex's, or Fallout's versus modern political grandstanding slop like TLOU2, nu Saints Row, or nu AssCreed. Integrated logically(it makes sense to have this political theme given overall story themes), subtly(where it has to be dug for rather than blatantly rubbed in your face), and respectfully(without insulting the player's iq), nobody gives a shit about politics in games. >gaming media like Future, GameTrailers, and G4 Are journos who weren't even respected then, especially with regards to their biases, and thus don't count for shit other than muddying discussions of video games with noise. >>992150 >there is no "difference" >the media told them they're supposed to be worked up about them The media tells you to accept the liberal cock in your mouth with a smile and makes all advocates against this modern style of politicking out to be nazi worshiping mass murderers. I advise you piss off because this debate about video games and politics has made me aggressively hate cunts like you who weasel in and start shit like this, you'll make me mad just looking at this OP. >>992168 I shouldn't be surprised that such a popular author would go <far right REEEE but it sucks to see considering the other rants of Ellison's I've watched where he recognized a lot of problems plaguing modern media in the 80s/90s and was calling it out then. And yes, people who call Wolfenstein, the game where you KILL HITLER, a far right game are actual fucking retards who think a title screen is indoctrinating kids into shouting "Sieg Heil"! >Roger Ebert Didn't he just say games weren't for him and that he'd never consider them an art form anyways? He never seemed to give two shits unlike the activists that you're describing who are actively subverting the medium from the inside.

>>992168 Did you watch the video? Harlan Ellison says in the interview that he does not get nor like the video games as medium. He generally thought that media other than literature made people dumb. He trashed TV far more than he did games. And he's not wrong coming from that angle, as reading decent literature, especially the classics, offers far more than playing a classic game like Wolfestein might, despite how fun the game itself might be. Still, Ellison is ultimately a grandpa who does not really get video games. He is right about a lot of things but also laughably wrong or contrived about quite a few too. This video has one example where he praises how typewriters as a tool that makes writers energy apparent on the page unlike computers. Never-mind that a typewriter page is practically no different than a typed page printed out. >>992169 That's a good post. >I shouldn't be surprised that such a popular author would go ><far right REEEE >but it sucks to see considering the other rants of Ellison's I've watched where he recognized a lot of problems plaguing modern media in the 80s/90s and was calling it out then. It's to be expected. Ellison is a silent-gen Jew who was in military and got trained by the greatest gen there. It would be a miracle if he did not screech about facists and holocaust whenever he thought it was relevant. He also openly admits to not getting games. His knowledge of Wolfestein is limited to what he learned second hand from news media and acquaintances.

>>992150 >doesn't know the difference between a wojak and a soyjak Newfag spotted, the real problem with that was that it was a cuckchan screencap.

Bait thread

>>992135 No. The public rejects leftardism and jews. And now the public is open about it. You sound like one of them, on the losers' side, desperate to stop people from destroying your political schemes.

>Video games were ALWAYS political To a degree this is true, yes. As far back as 1988 you had games like Snatcher. I'm not sure the "games shouldn't be political" crowd genuinely believes that or not, but when people actually say that they don't usually mean they want less games like Metal Gear Solid, New Vegas or Papers, Please, they mean they don't want shit like this. What really drives me up the wall is when people either say that "always political" line, or even worse "all art is political" (what's the politics of Tetris lmao) in defence of this junk. It's not even leftist politics that get me, I have no issue with overtly leftist games like Disco Elysium because they're honest about what they are and are actually well written. It's that specific brand of smug neoliberal "umm the future is #Female, sweetie :^)" slop that people always drag this out rhetoric for. Nobody said this about IS Defence (which is terrible by the way) or respected the politics of Kingdom Come when Dan Vavra was being smeared by the media. The "always political" crowd will often say "you just don't like it when it's not YOUR politics" when that exact thing is true of them.

>>992220 Basically my post is rambling rehash of pic related.

>>992220 like pic related, the problem isn't that games are political it's how the modern devs have a very hamfisted way of "teaching" you things. Modern vidya like this horrible remake are more about telling a message than giving you a fun game, using the former as a flimsy shield against the later's failure to deliver. Doesn't help modern marketing is about creating a reaction in your brain no matter if it's positive or negative, and of course your brain is much more prone to react to negative things. Also occupy wall street got the 1% scared

I have nothing against politics in games and anybody who unironically thinks they should be kept out of vidya is an idiot or a fed. What I don't want is propaganda for the establishment masquerading as progressivism - you know what I mean, that "more female CEOs!!" strain of corporate politics pretending to be radical while reasserting the dominance of big business and the 1% - or trying to turn having queer characters into a fucking political statement. Phantasmagoria 2 had of plenty political aspects but Curtis being bisexual wasn't treated as one of them.

>>992229 I think what makes me laugh the most in modern games are how racists these progressives are : >black character >HAS TO BE RAP MUSIC

>>992135 Shut up fag

>>992218 Kys

>>992221 Why're you gae, anon.

>>992179 >He generally thought that media other than literature made people dumb. He trashed TV far more than he did games. And he's not wrong coming from that angle Fair, understandable, not that wrong, but not too far from the truth either. >as reading decent literature, especially the classics, offers far more than playing a classic game No. The premise already starts out wrong by comparing different mediums, but good games should be and are very engaging and developmental for the brain as a whole, they just strengthen different areas in the brain in the same way that different books also strengthen different areas in the brain. It's all about the mental effort, if a game takes at least some mental effort to understand, it's never detrimental. Efforts in reflexes and precision strengthen your eye-hand coordination and speed, which in turn speed up your visual cortex's processing speed as well, which goes hand in hand in other things. The same can be said from understanding more complex game mechanics, which can enhance intuitive mathematical understanding from how several numbers influence each other, not to mention puzzle games. Of course, if your comparison is someone reading Newton's Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica developing more the brain that someone playing Biocuck Infinishit on the easiest difficulty, it's no surprise that books are better to develop the brain, but it really isn't an accident in general that games have a positive correlation to IQ (even if slight).

There is a big difference between "political" and being paid foreign agents of both Russia and Hamas

>>992256 https://archive.is/Pk5Q1

>>992230 There's no one more racist than liberal white women

>>992135 Nobody cared about politics in video games until they started intruding on other facets of the game. Even overt political leanings were basically a nothingburger that you might roll your eyes at if you disagreed with (protip: retarded lefties were bitching about Deus Ex being "right-wing conspiracy shit" 20+ years ago) but stuff like not being able to kill black characters or attractive women being replaced with fatties/nigs/troons/dykes/etc. because "you don't get to play our game the way you want to, chuddie :^)" is where the consumers decide that the discussion has degraded from abrasive polemic to targeted insults and respond in kind.

>>992135 >Video games were ALWAYS political This was NEVER the argument. The argument came from early Gamergate when the response to all the "More wahmens in teh gayming" was "Keep your identity politics out of gaming". Since the left don't like directly addressing the issue (i.e. deflecting) and always have to control the narrative, they omitted the 'identity' part and started saying "Hurr durr, Tom Clancy games PROVE that gaming has ALWAYS had politics in it". Thus, a retarded 'Politics in gaming' debate started despite the fact that nobody has ever doubted that people have put messages in games from the start.

>>992163 please get a cleaner version of that gif, that white outline kills me spiritually.

Harlan Ellison was always a seething retard leftist jew and his body of work proves that He admits himself that a large part of IHNMAIMS was written as fantasy revenge porn after a shiksa rejected him and his tiny circumcised penis The science fiction genre in general was communist subversion from the start and the iron grip maintained by politically aligned publishing houses across the western world ensured that hardly any kino ever saw itself before the eyes of the masses the forever war is marxist predictive programming shit too tbqh, far beyond "muh vietnam", strong themes of "being an AIDs ridden faggot is good, actually" and posits that the final, perfect culmination of humanity is a hivemind of clones of an smug liberal inbred paki who keeps backward whiteys as pets >>>/lit/

>>992324 >The science fiction genre in general was communist subversion from the start Science fiction stories have been around since the 1600s, nearly two centuries before Marx was even born.

Speaking of politics Biden just fucking dropped out lmao >President Biden Hosts 'Worst Debate Ever'; Asked To Leave Election

>>992333 >Science fiction stories have been around since the 1600s Yes however in the 1930's, Socialists kicked out writers and prevented the publication of almost any work that did not push the interests of a Communist revolution. So for the past century, the genre of science fiction has almost entirely exist for the sole purpose of pushing Socialism.

>>992324 It also has the sequel where the protagonist is angry noone understood this was a dystopia and proceeds to show these faggots how a soldier shows his resentment. Spoiler, it's mass murder. Also read the fucking book before talking about it. Christ.

>>992344 Lolberts were able to have their own sci-fi novels published just fine.

>>992355 Rand actually struggled to publish Atlas Shrugged but it doesn't matter because nobody at the publishing house probably read it. Nobody reads Atlas Shrugged, they talk about it. Getting through the book is like trying to build a skyscraper by hand.

>>992220 What irks me the most about the "art was always political" people is that they make no distinctions between the different ways a game or a book or a piece of art may be political. It's impossible for something an artist makes not to reflect their view of the world in some sense and their worldview is bound to include their political beliefs. Even if they consciously tried not to include any politics in their art, they would still wind up including doing so subconsciously (remember, Plato figured out millennia ago that artists are guided more by the subconscious than the conscious). But what some people will do is point to this reality and act like it gives them carte blanche to shove their hamfisted propaganda into everything when it should really make them take the opposite approach. If you're already going to be inserting politics subconsciously, then you should be extra careful not to consciously insert it into your work because you will likely be overdoing it then. There's also the risk that your conscious political message may conflict with your subconscious political beliefs. Examples of this happening are almost too numerous to name. That's not to say an artist making a conscious political statement is always bad. Many will include offhand remarks about politics in their work without doing too much harm to the final product, since those remarks aren't that important to the overall work. An artist may also choose to use their art as a means of exploring different ideas from different perspectives. They may even put an obvious message in their art, in a persuasive manner that isn't insulting to the audience's intelligence. But none of that is the same as what the "always political" people do when they make art. Those people only care about shouting their beliefs at you in a way that's cathartic for them. They will gladly insult their audience's intelligence because they hold their audience in contempt and think they're all retarded. They couldn't care less about actually persuading anybody (it often seems like they don't want you to be persuaded by them because then they would have no "enemy" to fight), they couldn't care less about whether what they make is actually good, and they will act smug and laugh at you if you do care about the quality something (because, according to them, nothing is actually objectively good or bad). They will often say, regarding a story for example, that the actual plot doesn't matter, the only important thing is the ideas it explores. But they're not interested in actually exploring ideas. Their beliefs are already set in stone, so, from their perspective, there is nothing left to explore. To them, art is nothing but another means of political discourse and their only idea of political discourse is screaming as loud as they can until all of their pent up frustration is gone.

>>992344 Dune and Starship troopers exist.

There is a difference between creating a work that is political, and using a work as a tool of political subversion. To be honest, leftists aren't the only ones doing that, every single ideology does that, it's just that leftists are the ones currently in power over entertainment. You get some right-wing retards in power and they will be banning good video games because it doesn't line up with their shit or claiming that something shouldn't be done in vidya because it's leftist. Generally the battle should be focusing on not using vidya as tools of politics, rather than not having vidya be political. Vidya can explore political topics, but it shouldn't not be used as a medium for the sake of pushing propaganda. In a normal environment you would have games which push right-wing, leftist, centist, lolbert, nazi, fascist or any other type of politics and compete against each other. And games that don't give a shit. As it stands currently games are being used as a tool of propaganda for one political option.

>>992256 I mean... not even trying to hide that you're literally a paid shill.

>>992394 Neocon shit and Demorat shit has been argued since forever, it's just suited raits from similar families sucking off jewish cock for money, there is jack shit to discuss.

>>992369 The problem is that these activist writers assume that certain details are subconscious political decisions. For example, if a story is set in a kingdom, they will assume that the writer is a monarchist (yes I've seen people make these arguments), when in reality that is just the standard setting for most fantasy stories (or even sci-fi stories if the setting is alien).

>play Deus Ex >game provides me with meaningful knowledge about politics >i learn that there are always hidden power struggles happening behind the scenes >i learn that ethical people are often pushed out of power structures in favor of less ethical people >i learn how technology is rapidly consolidating power in the hands of a few people <play modern political game <worship obese african transexuals, or else <white people aren't allowed to exist

>>992221 Bioshock's political critique was about on par with Family Guy's and Rick & Morty's, actually

>>992169 >And yes, people who call Wolfenstein, the game where you KILL HITLER, a far right game are actual fucking retards But anon, game is masculine white male power fantasy, therefore game is far right! These are the same people who called American WW2 vets nazis

>>992169 I mean, there is a pretty nationalist element to the newer games. >ARE YOU A BAD ENOUGH DUDE TO SAVE OUR BEAUTIFUL ANGLO HERITAGE AND AMERICAN CULTURE FROM THOSE FILTHY INVADING KRAUTS?!?!?! You could unironically switch all the flags with USSR ones and people would think it's a Red Scare propaganda game.

>>992785 Kek, you mean infinite right?

>>992812 Maybe New Order New Colossus is literally communist propaganda.

>>992812 The trailers too >we can't let those filthy german subhumans take *gasp* our glorious language and TV!

>>992864 But MachineGames is Swedish.

>>992356 That bad huh? I'm not sure I could force myself to read it then, especially if the themes boil down to wealth makes right.

So after a cursory glance I think this thread can be boiled down to there's a difference between political themes in a work and political propaganda in a work and the distinction is if it's an exploration of the ideas or just a straight dictation about the ideas.

>>992135 The first 30 seconds of this shook me up, but not for reasons you might think. >"I sat down and I banged out the entire story in one night as a fit of creative insanity overtook me." My perpetual writer's block will never allow that to happen to me. Ever. Fuck. Me.

>>992931 Harlan is probably one of the very few kikes i like.

The script for the IHNMaIMS game was literally written on a typewriter, and is likely the only case of that outside of some pretentious indie game that sold 2 copies and did it only to claim it as a marketing point. Game development as a whole can't be judged on such an anomaly.