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The problem is of course that the moment you put those two sentences together it becomes a statement that would only be made by a small group of people in a small group of countries post 2016. In short, it is an explicitly political statement about the way you see the world that will realistically affect the opinions of at least a few people on a contentious subject and therefore your game becomes prime culture war fodder. Personally I am sick to death of hearing about trans issues and if I notice a game bringing it up in literally any manner I will react negatively.
I would say:
If you want to make a political statement, decide what it is.
The presence of something unusual is, even today, usually more of a statement than its absence.
If you aren’t going for mass appeal your job becomes a lot easier. Both because your niche audience ultimately cares more about getting good niche content than about the political statements in it, and because you can target more effectively.
Isn't this unfair to the game's creator? I can understand being tired of hamfisted political insertions, but there are surely scenarios where a trans character's identity can serve the story.
Imagine a space game where the terrifying Xenos, believing themselves to be benevolent uplifters and not understanding the concept of human individuality, begin abducting and converting humans en-masse into biological-machine hybrids.
Maybe you capture a group of these mecha-humans and interrogate them, one of whom used to be trans. I could see that providing interesting narrative insight.
I want to play that same game without the trans bit. I don’t remember encountering any trans characters prior to 2015 and nothing was lost thereby.
As per my above post, you cannot ignore the context here. The trans movement is real, it is insane (in my opinion), it is incredibly damaging to society and to the poor individuals who get caught up in it (in my opinion). I would like the trans movement to be starved of attention while the core of people with serious gender dysphoria are given the psychiatric help they need. In the meantime, it doesn’t matter how hamfisted or subtle your propaganda is, it’s propaganda and I refuse to give it my eyeballs or my money.
It’s worth noting that artistic merit used to be considered an aggravating factor in obscenity trials because interesting, engaging propaganda for a bad cause is much more dangerous than hamfisted, irritating propaganda.
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