This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
4X games audience is roughly split in two parts - people that have no fucking idea who Harriet Tubman is (every person outside of the US) and people that don't want to play as her. I don't know why the AAA games studios want to go the way of Hollywood to the rock bottom before reversing course. Disney removes trans storylines from upcoming projects. It is best if you learn from other's mistakes.
More suitable people for US leaders than Tubman - Barrack Obama, Colin Powel, Dennis Rodman ...
Yes, if an additional data point is needed, I had never heard of Tubman before there was some culture war nonsense about putting her face on money.
My opinion is that she seems like a silly, politics-driven addition to VII. I don't necessarily insist that leaders in Civ games always have formally occupied the office of head of state or what have you, but I do think that leaders in Civ should be people who can be meaningfully said to have been the leader of their civilisation. Gandhi was never prime minister of India, but he can be reasonably said to have been the leader of the Indian people in his time.
There's clearly no sense in which you could say that Harriet Tubman was ever the leader of the United States. She'd be fine as a Great Person in Civ, but... leader? No. That's silly.
More options
Context Copy link
I think like most AAA games, they want something easy enough that you don’t have to know anything about the mechanics or the strategy to win. The reason for the Hollywood stuff is exactly that, it’s designed to be an idle game where people pretend to be world leaders while also not having to learn to actually build or run an empire. Why not aim for the casual crowd with the appropriate heroes that they can girl boss with? They’re playing Barbie’s magic empire adventure, and putting out a cute hero for the casuals? Besides which there really aren’t enough hardcore players who want strategy games and would consider “Civilization” a good sim to bother catering to. Gaming has become TV.
Most people who would want to play a game like this would better power game by playing with, or against Washington than Tubman.
You don't have to be hardcore gamer to prefer more suitable historical figures. Part of the appeal of a game like civilization and it was more so with civ 4, was to see civilizations represented by those larger than life leaders that actually are identified with the civilization.
I don't agree that they succeed in appealing to more people by having Tubman as a leader. They are promoting based on their own politics, or pandering to video journalists or others with influence who want to push this. Rather than reasonably expecting to make more money, they probably think they can get away with some amount of woke pandering that they want to do because of their ideology, even if it does result in backlash. To be fair maybe there are people involved with such projects who do claim either as true believers, or pretextually, that this will bring more sales and others are unwilling to counter them.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link