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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 8, 2024

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Could you link some concrete examples of banned mods and the attendant backlash?

From memory:

Rimworld mod that made all pawns generate with white skin tones.

Spiderman mod that replaced Pride Flags with US flags (all it did was use the official Middle Eastern localization files)

Baldur's Gate 3 mod that made characters straight

These were all deplatformed due to public outcry. None of them used AI generation as far as I'm aware, but it certainly has gotten much easier to modify games without as much in the way of technical knowledge.

So the Ser Aylin mod used AI to replace over 700 voiced lines, changing the character from female to male. As well as replacing lines by other characters interacting with Aylin. The mod was widely attacked in the media. The author of the mod was targeted, and accused on spurious and false evidence of being some mastermind because numerous "anti-diversity" mods for BG3, despite their claims that this is the only mod.

Side note, it doesn't strike me as impossible the person who made this mod is going to great lengths to obscure their identity. For all I know they are using AI to hide behind a completely fake persona. This could not actually be their first mod, like they claim it is. I don't blame them for this, seeing the vitriolic reaction to them.

Spiderman mod that replaced Pride Flags with US flags (all it did was use the official Middle Eastern localization files)

Be still my beating heart, this is just too perfect. Free Palestine!

Reality has no restrictions on being realistic or believable, and sometimes satire can't match.