Activision-Blizzard Sued By California

[Elegiac]

Or we have people with the capability to separate concepts and ideas.

I know you like to be excessively black/white, us/them about everything so you can pick fights and look down on The Bad People™, but you really can separate "harassment is bad" from "most of these removals were pretty silly" without being a full-blown fascist or something.

Certainly: those people aren't the same folks whinging about SJWs or tying their self esteem to being toxic in video games, however.

Some scholars or even prominent psychologists refer to the past few decades of 'western liberalism' as similar to the last few decades that caused the decline of the Roman Empire or similar decadent cultures and societies that quickly declined or self-destroyed...

Yeah, and those "scholars" tend to be fascists or traffic in their viewpoints in addition to being, you know, wrong. And should be ignored as a result.

[Elegiac]

It's funny how some people have actually worked hard to stigmatize this idea.

To them you're either one side or the other, no matter how varied and trivial the topic may become in some areas. You can't say "harassment is bad" and "some of these removals are silly" without being some kind of crazy "evil centrist" to them, I guess.

Or, hear me out; the criticism is ignoring the connection between the culture of harassment and the worldviews being shaped by problematic media content.

And no, this is not a "violent video games cause mass shootings"-esque argument; this is a "media molds people's perception of the world" argument.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

I think you should be very careful with that claim. The past few decades or even century are but a neglectable speck in the long existence of mankind. Some scholars or even prominent psychologists refer to the past few decades of 'western liberalism' as similar to the last few decades that caused the decline of the Roman Empire or similar decadent cultures and societies that quickly declined or self-destroyed... but that is a subject for another thread.

You must know that being progressive IE woke isn’t something that only came about on the last few decades right or even back to the Roman Empire right?

[unfilteredJW]

It's funny how some people have actually worked hard to stigmatize this idea.

To them you're either one side or the other, no matter how varied and trivial the topic may become in some areas. You can't say "harassment is bad" and "some of these removals are silly" without being some kind of crazy "evil centrist" to them, I guess.

Congratulations, you stigmatized thinking.

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And I'm not disagreeing with that, so I guess we're on something resembling common ground.

Negative. Thinking is not stigmatized.

Faux centrist reactionaries should be.

[Edge-]

they are now creating an environment where instead the people are burdened with sin.

Please explain this. How are players "burdened"? What about the players that aren't online and may not even notice any of these changes, or may notice a few and think nothing of them?

Not to mention that these puritan cleanses do ruin the immersion of fantasy worlds and diminish a certain visceral experience.

Nothing keeps me immersed in a fantasy world like jokes and references to Ace Ventura, Pauly Shore, Paris Hilton, and all kinds of other real world things that have no place in the world of Azeroth.

Every single universe or entertainment that ever underwent these puritan cleanses does feel less rich because of it.

Don't worry, this is just the minor details. Things like conflicts around racial superiority, slavery, genocide, and all kinds of other non-puritanical things are still in the game.

Just look at New World, they had lots of great storylines written, but a bunch of them got cleansed because some SJW-advisors declared that it could've been perceived as offensive: eg. having storylines about colonialism was considered unacceptable so now you've got an entire virtual world designed around the theme of colonialism, except nobody in the world is even allowed to mention or refer to anything regarding colonialism making it feel fake and empty.

Holy shit did you make this up in your head? Where did you even get this? Because it's about as off-base with what actually happened.

you go woke you go broke

Literally the entirety of modern business disagrees with this. Woke companies are mostly doing pretty good.

[PrimiOne]

I think you should be very careful with that claim. The past few decades or even century are but a neglectable speck in the long existence of mankind. Some scholars or even prominent psychologists refer to the past few decades of 'western liberalism' as similar to the last few decades that caused the decline of the Roman Empire or similar decadent cultures and societies that quickly declined or self-destroyed... but that is a subject for another thread.

The intelectual dishonesty in this statement can not be measured by any numerical system designed by men or alien as in you pretend ( and fail) to create a narrative about a consensus in scholars but this perfectly explains your perspective about the issue: you choose to listen to the 1 bigot and ignore the other 99.

This is not the subject for another thread...this is subject for another planet. A planet that only exist in your dreams where in the 22th century homosexuality is banned and there's racial seggregation and woman's emancipation is rolled back and ( I don't know the extent of your delusions) there's slavery.

Please don't stop posting: you are funny. I like you.

[Edge-]

That's exactly why it feels so weird to be all, "Ok, but this /joke is where we draw the line!"

I mean, I get it, you pick your battles and change what you can. But at some point it makes you wonder if they're aware of the product they're working on.

I don't love all the changes, but I also don't think any of them (or them combined) is really hurting anything in the overall game experience. All these changes are being done with the intention of making WoW more inclusive and to be positive changes, and the developers currently working on their game are in effect trying to reclaim what they're working on to pull it away from the mentality of many of the abusive former employees and shit.

I support them fully in this, even if I will never understand why my paladin can't joke about farting in the tub anymore. Not that I even play, so it's not like I'm actually "missing" it, just the idea of it.

[Mayhem]

There is absolutely nothing silly about it.

The ideology that is having it's little field day in the game right now ruins a certain innocence in the game. Instead of just being able to have a kind place where you could make or experience the occasional harmless joke about one subject or another, they are now creating an environment where instead the people are burdened with sin. Not to mention that these puritan cleanses do ruin the immersion of fantasy worlds and diminish a certain visceral experience. Every single universe or entertainment that ever underwent these puritan cleanses does feel less rich because of it. Just look at New World, they had lots of great storylines written, but a bunch of them got cleansed because some SJW-advisors declared that it could've been perceived as offensive: eg. having storylines about colonialism was considered unacceptable so now you've got an entire virtual world designed around the theme of colonialism, except nobody in the world is even allowed to mention or refer to anything regarding colonialism making it feel fake and empty.

Most people prefer an innocent environment which was created with the freedom to joke around about even controversial subjects. Most people enjoy to experience worlds that are less burdened with sin, guilt and accusations as they exist in the real world.

Simply put, you go woke you go broke, and that is all Blizzard deserves right now (and why I stopped giving them money).

Puritan changes

you're outdoing yourself

[Specialka]

I don't love all the changes, but I also don't think any of them (or them combined) is really hurting anything in the overall game experience. All these changes are being done with the intention of making WoW more inclusive and to be positive changes, and the developers currently working on their game are in effect trying to reclaim what they're working on to pull it away from the mentality of many of the abusive former employees and shit.

I support them fully in this, even if I will never understand why my paladin can't joke about farting in the tub anymore. Not that I even play, so it's not like I'm actually "missing" it, just the idea of it.

But what are they removing ? I mean, we are still in a medieval fantasy settings. You can't go 'full inclusive' in a setting like that. Removing jokes about farting ? Really ? Changing pictures because we see too much boobs ? Really ?

[Mayhem]

I think you should be very careful with that claim. The past few decades or even century are but a neglectable speck in the long existence of mankind. Some scholars or even prominent psychologists refer to the past few decades of 'western liberalism' as similar to the last few decades that caused the decline of the Roman Empire or similar decadent cultures and societies that quickly declined or self-destroyed... but that is a subject for another thread.

mhm aha, we're living the last few decades of a decadent society that promotes puritan changes

dude wha?

[Elegiac]

Fair enough, but are we saying that crude jokes in media twist peoples perception enough to cause them to be harassers?

There's nothing necessarily wrong with that statement in and of itself - it's probably even trivially provable - but is the solution to police humor?

(Granted, this is Blizzard's product, so in this line of thinking they'd just be self-policing, which is fine. Just thinking out loud.)

I'd argue that humour is already policed; for example, there are certain subjects even people like George Carlin or Mel Brooks wouldn't touch.

The difference between then and now is that traditionally the arbiters of acceptability were mostly members of the privileged class, whereas these days minorities have a much greater ability to input their viewpoints into said arbitration. Similar sort of deal to the difference between political correctness and "wokism".

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It makes me wonder, are the jokes too "real" but since the racism and slavery and genocide mostly happens to "green people" and "blue people" if that's far enough removed from their view of reality that it's ok?

This is actually a very good point. Really, I'd argue that it's not okay.

It's absolutely fine to write/draw/program dark subject matter: provided it is framed as such, and with a purpose. A good example would be how rape is framed and to what end in, say, Promising Young Woman (i.e. as a vile and highly damaging act which is also a comment on society's complicity in letting people get away with bad shit) versus literally any HBO period piece you care to name (i.e. primarily to titillate the audience through erotic shock value). In Blizzard's case, the racism/imperialism/etc. is presented more in the latter vein than a serious and thoughtful exploration of how such dynamics would impact the involved parties.

And no, I don't truck with the "it's just a video game" viewpoint. Video games are art, and as such carry a similar need for social contextualization.

[Elegiac]

I'm not sure that's an entirely new thing, it has been largely acceptable to only "punch up" - not down - with regards to humor for a long time. The window does slide a bit from time to time regarding what is up and what is down.

Although honestly, perhaps I'm just coming at this from the wrong end of the issue. Maybe it's less that I'm defending crude humor or the display of cleavage and more that I continue to be boggled by the ever-present dissonance with regards to those being considered too much, but violence and gore and displays of questionable social issues being acceptable.

It feels like we fought the fight on the latter issue back in the 90s against the "Moral Majority" with regards to video games and music. So it feels weird to have fought on the side of, "Blood and gore and profanity are fine!" and now be expected to be on the side of, "Fart jokes are too much!"

Again, none of this really matters. Blizzard devs are doing this on their own, no one is being hurt, it's a non-issue. The contrast of the issues just bemuses me, I suppose.

As I said previously I'm not entirely convinced that the developers have as much free reign regarding these changes as people assume. It really does stink of "you can have X, but you need to take a side of malicious compliance in exchange".

[Edge-]

As I said previously I'm not entirely convinced that the developers have as much free reign regarding these changes as people assume. It really does stink of "you can have X, but you need to take a side of malicious compliance in exchange".

They do, if these types of changes were sent to execs they'd probably be spending more time asking what the hell they meant than approving them.

[Elegiac]

They do, if these types of changes were sent to execs they'd probably be spending more time asking what the hell they meant than approving them.

Which in itself is a major issue; the fact that Blizzard (among other developers/publishers) has its final word being determined by people that have absolutely no experience with or interest in the products and services being provided, to say nothing of the layers of opacity regarding who is making a given decision and why.

This is why I'm an extremely big proponent of game companies transitioning to a cooperative model rather than a corporate one. No more AAA publishers, the world has moved beyond the need for AAA publishers.

[uuuhname]

Yeah, and those "scholars" tend to be fascists or traffic in their viewpoints in addition to being, you know, wrong. And should be ignored as a result.

the one connecting thing between modern society and the late roman empire is the massive gaps in equity in their societies between the uber rich and the dirt poor reaching a breaking point. this has little to do with... "liberalism".

[Edge-]

Which in itself is a major issue; the fact that Blizzard (among other developers/publishers) has its final word being determined by people that have absolutely no experience with or interest in the products and services being provided, to say nothing of the layers of opacity regarding who is making a given decision and why.

It's not though. Executives at companies rarely have the kind of granular/specific knowledge of their products that the folks working on the products do, because that's not their job. They don't need to sign off on every bugfix, nor should they, since that would take a huge amount of their time away from the business of running the company. There's a reason there are different roles and all that, and while we can agree that many executives are grossly overpaid I think there's little doubt that folks handling the business and development sides of things are generally in two pretty different buckets. There are some executives that rose through the development ranks and still act as producers/directors/etc. for a game or two, but they're fairly rare.

They're overseeing the grander scheme of the game, leaving the day to day to the developers and those in charge of the game/service so they can filter up the meaningful information that they'd need to actually get approval on.

This is why I'm an extremely big proponent of game companies transitioning to a cooperative model rather than a corporate one. No more AAA publishers, the world has moved beyond the need for AAA publishers.

I mean, you'd need people doing the same jobs in terms of running the company and overseeing the business vs. the art team cranking out assets or something.

[Elegiac]

the one connecting thing between modern society and the late roman empire is the massive gaps in equity in their societies between the uber rich and the dirt poor reaching a breaking point. this has little to do with... "liberalism".

To say nothing of mishandling a refugee crisis.

There are parallels, yes, just not ones supporting "Western culture is being destroyed by cucks, alcoholism, gender-bending, and sodomy." You know, things that have never happened in Europe. /s

[uuuhname]

To say nothing of mishandling a refugee crisis.

There are parallels, yes, just not ones supporting "Western culture is being destroyed by cucks, alcoholism, gender-bending, and sodomy." You know, things that have never happened in Europe. /s

exactly, the Nazbol just needs to Nazbol all over themselves.

[Milchshake]

I'm just trying to imagine serious finance guy ... that's unable to to basic research or due diligence.

/Row Howard Voice; "Buster thought that everyone was playing pretend online...."

[unfilteredJW]

I'm just trying to imagine serious finance guy ... that's unable to to basic research or due diligence.

/Row Howard Voice; "Buster thought that everyone was playing pretend online...."

It makes a lot of sense once you realize it’s all unmitigated bullshit.