So apparently there's an ongoing controversy about Battlefield V allowing you to play as a female character
Any perspectives on that, fellow Tildoes? Tildarians, Tilderinos, Tildonkeys, etc.?
From what I can tell, the main argument against it is that it's not historically accurate. I guess that makes sense, but A) that doesn't seem to warrant the utter seething rage that I see from opponents, and B) I rather doubt the Battlefield franchise has made it a habit to be 1-to-1 regarding history anyway. I've played none of them, but I saw someone mention that in-game events are definitely not historically accurate anyway. So I guess the "keep women out" side is conflating the game's setting with a declaration of dedication to historical accuracy? Seems silly to me to take umbrage at a game failing to meet an expectation that you invented.
Then again, maybe I'm wrong. My initial gut reaction was to write it off as casual sexism and an unwillingness to break tradition, and while I'm sure that explains a minority of the outrage, I highly doubt the controversy can be explained so simply.
Anyone here want to way in?
No, it can. It's sexism, plain and simple. It's a bunch of entitled white dudes who are upset that a franchise they love is trying to appeal to a wider audience.
Even if we ignore, for a moment, the blatant sexism and address this idea of "historical inaccuracy", even that doesn't make since considering women played a massive role in World War II. About one million women fought in the Soviet army. The US Air Force trained female pilots during the war. Wanda Gertz was the commander of an all-female battalion in the Polish resistance against the Nazis.
Can we try not to attribute motive please? I find the second half of your argument much more compelling but it's difficult to listen to what you have to say when you label everyone with that particular view a sexist. I think thats extremely disingenuous considering a lot of gamers who may have issues with bf5 very likely love other games with strong female leads such as Metroid, The Last of Us, Alien Isolation , or Mirrors Edge.
Personally, I don't necessarily see an issue with the story focusing around a women but let's try not to give a blanket label to those we disagree with.
Edit: alien Covenant to alien isolation
I'm not saying that everyone who dislikes Battlefield 5 is sexist. I'm saying that the ones causing all this uproar are. People simply disliking a game don't behave this way. These behaviors are driven by something far nastier. Grab a strong drink and look through the YouTube comments on the initial trailer to see what I mean.
Also, you bring up a good point: I bet there's a ton of people with perfectly valid criticisms that are being lumped in with the nastier ones. It sucks, but it's also kind of unavoidable when those nasty view points are so loud. It's sort of like gamergate: sure, some people might have genuinely cared about "ethics in game journalism", but they were certainly being drowned out by the trolls and assholes.
Aren't you kind of perpetuating the lumping of the two by claiming that the controversy can be explained "plainly and simply" by sexist white people? Why did you even include race in there, anyway?
No, because the controversy is being caused by people upset about a woman in WWII. People dislike games all the time and don't cause this much of an uproar.
And my use of race was a reference to the last Battlefield controversy, where in gamers accused DICE of "black washing" WWI.
Just to give another perspective I would be quite annoyed by the companies everywhere (from games, to movies to .. I don't know, fruite juices even) trying to fit in "women's emancipation" or "LGBT representatives" or "insert other hot trend on social media" just for the sake of making noise and getting attention.
They're not "helping" but just making noise and then divert the attention from those topics into themselves. All the while often messing with something that really didn't need that to work.
Think about "The Hobbit" with that female character forcefully introduced because... nothing, if not saying "we're a strong female character as well".
Now, I don't think this is the case but it's another view on the discussion. I don't think it's the case because as I said, I would be annoyed but not enough to justify the huge uproar that is coming out of this case.
Just wanted to give an example of why we shouldn't "attribute motives".
You seem to have missed your own point there. Regardless, representation for the sake of representation isn't a bad thing. Consciously saying "Hey, there's a huge lack of black women in leading roles. Why don't we cast one in our movie?" isn't a bad thing. Making a decision to include groups typically excluded is a good and beneficial thing, even if it's just for attention. If a movie studio wants to drop nine figures on an action movie where the lead actor is gay, I'm totally game.
What I'm not game for, however, is companies like Marvel hinting at a character's queerness, but never totally acknowledging it. That's not representation, that's queerbaiting.
I used that example for a precise reason:
There is a source and they purposefully went off-script just for that, to appeal the "feminist 2.0" to go watch the movie / don't bash it.
The role was shallow and contributed zero to the main plot.
That's annoying and honestly offend my intelligence as it's quite a basic try to fool the audience with some high motives when it's just marketing.
So by the most generous estimates, ~1% of soldiers involved in WW2 were women, the vast majority of whom wouldn't be anywhere near the sort of combat depicted in BF games. Therefore, complaints of 'historical inaccuracy' don't make sense when the poster plastered behind every presentation features a woman, and the star of the trailer is a woman (who is as an American soldier, one of the forces wherein the presence of a woman in the depicted situation would be whatever the lowest number after 0 is)?
I personally like the inclusion of women since there have been more than enough 'realistic' ww2 shooters made and some slight aesthetic change is cool. And from what I can gather, outside of some minority of extremely dumb and probably trolly tweets out of the millions on the subject that get endlessly spammed around the webs, few care beyond commenting about the whole thing being funny and stupid.
But maybe more people start to seriously get annoyed when on top of one of the shittiest game companies out there making their next attempt at exploiting the trendy market, the millionth article on some pseudonews blog sites inventing and endlessly reposting some drama around the day's identity conflicts, the devs making incredibly stupid responses, and just the overall incessant injection of repugnant politics into just about everything... it's now apparently reasonable to say not liking it means you're likely an entitled white sexist, and also ignorant of history.
What sort of stupid response did they make? I read about a couple, and they seemed pretty reasonable to me.
The "skeptic" community (or whatever the new name is for those against diversity in video games) has been in an uproar about this. Is this many people compared to the amount of sales EA would get, even if there were only men? No, but their reach is nothing to scoff at. I have seen several videos with over 500k views talking about how women in BF5 is a bad thing. And all had extremely high like:dislike ratios. It's more than just a few people who care about this.
Can't that just be explained away as a vocal minority?
I imagine a lot of people, such as myself, saw that they were introducing a woman character and went "hmm neat"
Anger is going to drive more commenting than indifference.
It looks like you're not shy to resort to sexism (and racism) either.
The controversy isn't only about the women though. In fact most I've spoken to don't really care about that. What they do care about is the ridiculous face paint, katanas, prosthetic hand solider, etc...All of those have no business being in a game they claimed as being "historical accurate". It's pretty obvious all that junk is for the multiplayer that will bring them the big bucks.
Did they ever actually claim this?
I recall seeing one of the devs claiming that yeah. Thanks to all the websites essentially reposting the same title over and over again it's probably been buried.
So that sentence becomes:
All of those have no business being in a game I remember one of the devs claimed as being "historical accurate".I don't think the remembered comments of one developer should be treated like a marketing focus for the sake of argument. That just seems like a recipe for inaccuracy.
I recall from one of Max Hastings' books on WW2 (don't recall which one) of a German soldier being treated after surrendering at Stalingrad by a female Soviet medic who had a prosthetic hand.
Of course this game might well have zero historical accuracy and just wants to sell loot boxes and customizations, but it was a very big war with millions of combatants, some very out of the ordinary.
Gonna agree with you. The majority of people that are vocal about this are either sexist or really just want to troll. Though some people that are not included in these groups are also hating
Soviets, Polish and French Resistance, and US Air Force, none of those are British like the woman in the trailer.
If you are going to have women in a WWII game, make them from one of the groups you mentioned, the groups that actually had women.
CoD: WWII had you play as a female in the story, but no one complained because she was a French Resistance fighter.
I've only played the first Battlefield so I can't speak for the rest of the releases. I agree with you, it's just a game. I don't expect much historical accuracy from it, I only expect it to entertain me after a work day or to be fun to play against friends.
I see the point you are trying to make (and agree with it), but I think mentioning zombies in COD is not a good argument. Zombies in COD was a different mode, not supposed to be part of the main story so that gave people no reason for being outraged. Battlefield seems (from the little I've read) to be including women in the main campaign.
The most reasonable solution would be what people did for that Star Wars game, if you (not you literally, just a general you) don't like the decisions the company made then don't buy it. And if you did, ask for a reimbursement.
Here is the official Story Trailer from E3. As far as I've found, everything else has been multiplayer trailers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Civxl7Cm3rE&has_verified=1
Who is the main character here? The girl in the water? Is she even a soldier? She could just be a rogue villager that goes all Tomb Raider on the Nazi invaders. I think that would actually make a great and different (for BF) story to tell.
And lets not forget this trailer is called the "War Stories" trailer. Which sounds like they're going to do what they did with BF1. Instead of 1 long campaign, they had like 6 or 7 shorter "story" campaigns; each with different characters, in different theaters of war, showcasing different combat techniques.
To me, this trailer seems to be for the "stealth" short story. If this girl turns out to be a Russian sniper...well, hell...that would be totally historically accurate after all. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snipers_of_the_Soviet_Union#List_of_famous_Soviet_Union_snipers
The trailer tells little about the game, but it sure looks interesting. The graphics and animations have improved so much in comparison to the first game (which is the only one I played). I didn't know the new BF1 had short stories, you are probably right about this new Battlefield, but we won't know until they release more trailers and info about the game.
I feel like we're moving to a place where we try to politicize everything. If we can politicize it, you can bet that at least a few people will. I have never seen this happen before and it has become absolutely ridiculous.
...maybe everything is political...especially when we depict war? As much as I think this backlash is outrageous, the want for representation is also political. I’m not trying to be both sidesy, I’m saying that calling something political is just shutting down this conversation without addressing anything like, oh idk, sexism.
Can you explain what you mean by that?
I’m not trying to draw a false equivalency between complaining about representation and wanting representation. I’m saying they are both political but that doesn’t make them equal at all.
“Both sidesism” is a saying for those fallacies.
Let's please not invent new terms for arguments that are usually never valid anyway. Before you know it we'll be using it like "whataboutism," also known as Reddit's favorite invalid deflection tactic.
Sorry, but I’ve seen it used for awhile now and by people that write for sizable outlets. Definitely before whataboutism. And it’s not really deflecting anything, it’s kinda saying this is wrong for the reasons denoted by the term x. It avoids having fun to rehash why the Nazis are bad or Natives aren’t comparable to settlers and why white nationalism is bad, etc.
Are you referring here to "both sidesism" (ugh) or "whataboutism" (uuuggh)? Because I believe both are rather insipid arguments in their own unique cringe-inducing ways.
I had a hunch that you were referring to that incident.
Contrary to your assertions, I think there are two very important things to keep in mind about that:
First off, both sides usually are far, far more similar than they'd prefer to admit.
More importantly, this...
...is a blatant falsity. Even the quote you yourself provided contains no assertion by Trump that both sides of that conflict were the same, or carried the same degree of guilt, or were guilty of the same evils. All the quote says, and all I recall Trump ever saying, is that neither side was guiltless. There was violence on both sides, and that's undeniable. The fact that someone from the alt-right perpetrated a far greater evil in this instance in no way exonerates the Left, as you (and countless others) have seemed to suggest.
Regarding that last quote, it's painfully naive to assert that the parties are characterized by inherent good and evil. Both sides have merit, both sides have flaws, and demonizing the opposition only results in what we saw in Charlottesville.
For someone who wants to pose as a progressive you seem to spend a lot of comments here defending racists and sexists.
What has @TrialAndFailure said that is not true? You could try to elaborate instead of calling him a defender of racism and sexism. Now you're just fueling hatred towards eachother, when I don't see any hatred towards others from @TrialAndFailure's comment (though the comment they're referring to has been deleted, so I can't see what exactly they're commenting on).
I just want to say too, I'm not saying hatred. I don't hate anyone here. In fact, I'm explicitly trying to support Tildes norms that make in unacceptable to promote or defend views predicated on hatred. By lending support and a veneer of respectability to these views and those who hold them, that's how someone spreads hatred here.
Responding to your latter comment only, but I also comment on your former comment.
Are you talking about the deleted comment, or @TrialAndFailure? Your comment doesn't make clear who you are talking about, but I guess the first sentence is on the deleted comment, as @TrialAndFailure isn't defending Nazis. However, as far as I'm aware, the Charlottesville rally was non-violent, until the bigger fascists known as Antifa showed up. So there actually are more sides to the story, and there were multiple sides in the wrong.
This sentence suddenly looks like you're talking about @TrialAndFailure, but I can't be sure, so I can't really comment on it. I'll only suggest not to stalk people online and use their other responses elsewhere as a reason to just start bullying them on their new comments. This creates a very hostile environment which isn't conductive to a reasoned discussion, like your exact comment I replied to.
You're not being respectful either with the comment I replied to. You're name calling and harassing people after you've stalked them for a short while to deduce these are not "right" kind of people.
If you can make your (first) response a bit more clear I'd be interested in discussing this further, but your comment is really confusing as it is now, with no indication of who exactly you're talking about.
Ok I'm done, great conversation.
If you're not going to bother with discussion, why are you posting? It seems rather bothersome to come in here, call me a racist, and then leave prematurely.
I'm all for discussion, but I prefer to pick my battles. If someone thinks that Antifa are "the real fascists" and doesn't think that the militant cosplayers who showed up with rifles, shields, bats and helmets came to Charlottesville specifically to commit violence, I have nothing to discuss with them.
Same thing if we were discussing vaccination and someone revealed they don't believe in vaccination because everything goes according to God's plan. We are not in the same ballpark, we're not even playing the same game. Maybe on a slow Sunday I can share with them some facts about germ theory, but 99% of the time I have better things to do.
Do you want to converse with me, then? I am, after all, the one you're accusing of being a "snake in the grass."
Sure, we converse. Why do you think it's productive to defend racists and other miscellaneous bigots? Given that Tildes is a community that is "for everyone "but the assholes"." It seems like an appropriate response would be to discourage other users from following racist and bigoted lines of argument. From what I have seen from you, you encourage them.
That depends on what you mean by "defend." I certainly defend their right to say and express bigoted things, because I believe free speech is of paramount importance, even on private websites and forums. Many don't realize that "free speech" is a valuable concept entirely separate from how it's used legally. As such, even though I don't believe you should be bigoted, and I don't agree with their views, I believe they should have a right to express them freely, assuming they follow the rules of conduct like the rest of us.
Being racist or otherwise bigoted doesn't imply that the person is generally an asshole. People are complex and multifaceted. If someone is racist, that's obviously problematic, but in no way does it mean they're incapable of civil discussion, even about race. A respectful discussion with a racist about race could be very interesting and fulfilling, and both sides could come out more deeply understanding each other. I'd much rather have a site full of respectful and civil racists than a site full of rude and hateful "progressives." (Not to imply that you are like that.)
Your problem is assuming that holding a bigoted viewpoint automatically means someone is going to be an asshole in general. People are more complicated than that.
That commitment to free speech with no limits is also what let communities like coontown, jailbait, fatpeoplehate, and so on to fester on Reddit. Tolerating intolerance is itself a paradox, as the intolerant will not extend those good graces to whoever they seek to oppress. As for me, I say it is fine to attack or confront people for what they do but not who they are. Being a racist is a choice, being a person of color is not. One is fine to discriminate against, the other is not.
I would disagree here too. There's a saying that I like: if you're nice to the people you're dining with and rude to the waiter, you're not a nice person. Racists and bigots are always assholes, they're just capable of acting like decent people sometimes.
If some hypothetical person were to spend half their time posting about their favorite Linux distro and half their time posting about how black lives matter is a hate group, frankly I think this community and any other is better without them.
Interesting to who? To those of us who have seen the same tired racist myths and talking points advanced ad nauseum? To the racists who, if they actually cared about facts and logic wouldn't be racist? No, I just don't buy it.
Let me quote your other comment here too:
I don't believe you. You were arguing against intentional inclusion, which is not very far off from arguing for exclusion. Maybe you don't think of yourself as someone who is a racist, but you can't be neutral on a moving train. You are either for diversity and inclusion or you aren't. I've seen your words saying you are for it, and your actions which tell another story entirely.
That's why I called you a snake in the grass. You're completely capable of having a civil conversation, you say you believe in equality, and you lend your words to those who actively stand against diversity and inclusion.
To make a purely semantic point: That isn't what "paradox" means. More importantly I don't see how that's relevant to this.
That's a fair point.
So because you think my opinion is close to racism, you're going to attack the imaginary racism instead of the point I actually made?
This is nothing but a classic you're either with me or against me fallacy. You're refusing to recognize that there are more than two options to choose from.
Secondly, you're right. I'm not for diversity, because I don't think it matters. But I'm also not for exclusion. Everyone should be free to join us, but I don't care if they're a minority or not.
And that isn't a racist opinion. It would be racist if I were saying certain people should be excluded. But I'm obviously not saying that.
By now you're beginning to retread the thread that was closed. So I think you should take your rude accusations elsewhere.
The paradox of tolerance: https://g.co/kgs/N8hyCB
It is relevant because if your goal is to create a platform that is accepting of a diverse spectrum of humanity, you can not do that by tolerating intolerance.
I would remind you of the MLK quote, from his letter from Birmingham jail:
I'll let it rest and just say that thread wasn't closed because of me, it was closed because the 'diversity is the real racism' arguments started to get trotted out. Which you supported.
I don't believe @Deimos ever said that. Can you provide a link to support that?
EDIT: On second thought, never mind. There's nothing to be gained from it anyway.
https://tildes.net/~tildes.official/2c4/daily_tildes_discussion_starting_some_moderation
Those 'same old tired arguments' are the ones I was referencing. I know this explicitly from a private conversation, more details of which I'd rather not share since it was private.
He was defending the Nazis who came to Charlottesville to be violent, saying that because people from the city defended their home, they were equally culpable. In other comments I've noticed he has stuck up for racists and sexists, but never shown the same magnanimity for the progressive views he claims to hold.
You might not see n-bombs for the guy but he is doing everything he can to make this an environment where people can hold racist and sexist views without being challenged. He's a snake in the grass if I've ever seen one.
I did not say that at all. Did you forget this?
You're putting a lot of words in my mouth, and being very insulting.
I don't identify as "progressive." I identify as myself. Both parties can do what they will, and I'll continue to not bother with either of them.
No? Hmm, could have sworn I saw a post in ~lgbt where you claimed to hold progressive values. Maybe I'm imaging things, or it was out of context.
I do certainly hold many progressive values. It's the group identification I have a problem with.
Which progressive values are those?
Well, I think all people should have equal rights, I don't think people should be discriminated against based on race, gender, or sexuality, I don't have any problems with homosexuality or polygamy or anything like that...
Is that enough to sway you, or do you have any specifics in mind?
Ugh, tell me about it. It feels like they're just assuming bad faith from everyone who doesn't agree with their political view. Personally, I don't really care for Battlefield since it's not my type of game, but the argument makes sense. It is a game that portrays itself as being historically accurate (hell, the whole singleplayer part of it is based on "true stories"), so I think that saying something isn't historically accurate is very much a valid complaint here.
I hate how there's this made up checklist of "things a game has to have to avoid receiving sexism/racism/political criticism" that developers have to go through when making a game. It's just seriously limiting to have to ensure equal representation in a damn game. What if the developers have this great story to tell, but most characters are men. Do they just scrap that and never release a potentially great game just because of potential "sexism" accusations?
Games shouldn't be held back by those pointless discussions. Obviously, it's not okay to make a game called "Black people should die" where you play a KKK member and all you do is run around killing black people with no other goal or story. Games are where I go to get away form all this mess, please don't drag them into it.
I'd like to address a few points you brought up because I feel like they're problematic, and you seem like you'd be receptive to having your views changed.
Would you mind sharing where EA/Dice has portrayed Battlefield 5 as historically accurate? Several people have brought this up, but nothing I've been able to find backs this up.
There's no checklist, and tons of games are released that don't receive this level of vitriol. Most game critics aren't looking for diversity and inclusion (although some are, and that's great!). Plenty of games come out that only have male playable characters. Where some games get blowback is when there's blatant sexism/racism/homophobia etc. In these cases, critics are expecting a game to have a baseline level of decency, which the game fails to pass. I can't think of an example off the top of my head, but there have been several games criticized for their toxic portrayals of women. Feminist Frequency is a really great resource if you want to hear those perspectives, but there aren't many gaming outlets looking at games in the same level of depth.
In short, there's no list preventing developers from making great games besides the basic "don't be a asshole".
If you're referencing the "omg a woman in WWII" discussion, I totally agree. If you're referencing discussions on diversity and inclusion (and thus arguing that games shouldn't be held back by trying to appeal to a wider audience) I cannot disagree more. There's a reason gamers are typically seen as male. For the longest time, men were the central focus of video games. It's a very recent phenomenon where game developers are asking themselves "How can I make sure more women enjoy this game?". Diveristy and inclusion in video games brings an amazing story telling medium to a wider audience. No game is made worse by being inclusive. Having representation matters for people who hardly ever see themselves represented in media. If someone is a straight, white male, it's so difficult to understand this because virtually all media features straight, white men. Straight white men don't have a lack of portrayals that they can see themselves in. But if you're a black woman? There's hardly anything besides typecast roles. I tried for several minutes to find a recent film starting a black actress that wasn't a film about being black or about specific topics not relevant to a white woman. The only example I came up with is A Wrinkle in Time. Which isn't surprising since A Wrinkle in Time received a lot of kudos for representation. I especially loved the small detail of the main characters relationship with her hair. This is something that many audience members will miss, but is a big deal since "there’s the European standard of beauty that we’re all exposed to and bombarded with that says, My hair needs to look like a Caucasian woman’s hair: straight."
So, in closing, I encourage you to see diversity in video games not as a checklist developers go through to avoid criticism. See it as a deliberate choice to provide representation to people traditionally left out of video games.
It's just latent sexism working its way to the surface, whether or not they're aware of it. Typically people don't sit there and think "I'm sexist and I'm fine with that", they just hold certain beliefs or expectations that happen to be sexist and don't believe them to be as such.
I guarantee that if there were some other historically inaccurate piece of the game it would irk some people who are sticklers for historical accuracy, but there wouldn't be nearly the level of backlash as this one particular point. It's nothing new, either. Similar issues have arisen in the past and it always boils down to that latent sexism.
Personally, I do prefer some amount of historical accuracy. That being said, video games are supposed to be creative mediums in which certain liberties are taken to create an interesting story. What if she has a particular reason for being accepted into the armed forces in a combatant role? What if she has a well-developed backstory that provides a convincing reason for an otherwise largely gender-segregated military to allow a woman into their ranks? What about that idea is so absolutely terrible that it warrants so much rage? And let's face it, a game designed to follow the history books down to the letter would fucking suck. That's why we find ourselves playing soldiers who survive conflict after conflict, gunning down dozens or even hundreds of enemy soldiers while absorbing bullets like a sponge.
It's a common alt-right tactic to latch onto something that's "technically" correct but make the reaction totally disproportionate since the latter is way harder to prove or argue with than the former. If you don't think this is political, you're kidding yourself (Bannon said gamergate was a huge influx of young people for the alt-right/Breitbart scene, for example).
The reasonable response would be, "lol, this is ridiculous", probably followed by a shrug. You could argue that turning the bloodiest war in history into an videogame spectacle that "first and foremost should be fun" is distasteful in general because it will never be accurate in depicting the full range of misery. But that ship kinda has sailed, many years ago. We have "pop culture WWII" now, with Captain America, mecha-Hitlers and, yes, gendered battlefields. It's telling how any historical inaccuracy is usually brought up and then shrugged away if the game is fun, yet a woman on the battlefield is a huge deal that gets real momentum. Yes, it's historically inaccurate (the US didn't have women in the frontlines), don't focus on that, focus on the proportionality of the outcry.
@Deimos, if you don't do anything, tildoes is going to be what everyone will be using. :p
The whole gamergate stuff had never been resolved, those people continue to nurture their views and support similar movements.
What could have been a valid conversation starter is the fact that a significant portion of the guys choose a female char, and eventually start asking for more visual extensions to their waifus.
Luckily none were clever enough to hide their underlying issues.
First time I see it, I'll use it whenever I get the chance. Thanks for the suggestion :P
Cry "Havoc" and let slip the tildoes of war!
GOOD
Yeah I mean I don't buy into the ridiculous overreactions from some people. It's just a game and it doesn't really bother me, and I personally don't think 'historical accuracy' is a super convincing argument given how (like you said) innacurate the rest of the game is going to be anyway.
That said, the thing for me is changing people's perception of WWII, and what actually happened socially at least. Knowing what shitty things happened, and still happen (sexism, racism etc) is important in understanding where we are now and how we got here as a civilisation. If you start erasing that sort of stuff out of history because it's unpleasant or doesn't fit modern values, then we start to lose perspective I think, after all, we learn from our mistakes as a society...
Now that said, it is just a video game and I think people might be reading too much into it. It just doesn't matter to me that much and I'll probably buy it anyway.
I also felt that..discomfort..at seeing the revisionism in AC Odyssey, but I think giving people the chance to be a strong woman will do more good than the harm of one piece of media rewriting history (while also not claiming accuracy).
It's historically inaccurate, just like the previous battlefield game. The characters are included because it's politically expedient to do so; and maybe because gamers who are girls can have some representation. So any claim that the games are as "historical as possible", as the devs have made, are bunk.
That said I don't know why anyone cares. It's a fucking videogame. Who cares whether it has a female character as its poster-child? I certainly don't. It certainly doesn't make the game worse in my view. Then again I haven't played Battlefield since Battlefield 2 and 1942 and have no interest in any future installments.
At the end of the day: maybe some people want their game to be accurate, maybe some people see it as agenda pushing, maybe it's casual sexism. Likely, it's all three rather than one or another. Either way, wow it is such not a big deal.
I think the sexism angle is what EA has focused on honestly. There are a LOT of problems with this game (see katanas on the western front, prosthetic hook hands, over customization so you can't tell class anymore, etc etc) but it's easy to manage pr and criticism when it's an obviously wrong sided issue such as this one.
Honestly, I don't have a problem with an unrealistic WWII shooter. Doesn't have to be true to history, and feel free to include as many women, katanas, prosthetic arms, whatever.
What does annoy me is the fact that they're not marketing it as an alt-history game, but as a more authentic experience.
That's from the press release announcing the game. I don't think there's any marketing claiming the game is an authentic experience. Have you seen something that gave you that impression? If so I'd love to see it!
Devil's advocate here. I don't give a shit about it, but I understand where these guys are coming from and I'm going to briefly explain it for you.
It's not about historical accuracy and it's not about realism. It's about the fact that someone thinks they need representation in this game in the first place. You're playing as a guy who can sprint a hundred meters and then shoulder fire a 20 something lb machine gun. This doesn't represent me and it almost certainly doesn't represent you. Nobody's trying to get fat guys or short guys represented in the character list, so some people question the need to represent women.
I think those guys are underestimating the appeal that female character options would have for some people.
The way you describe the game makes it sound like a power fantasy; for some folks who want to engage with the power fantasy more, I imagine they might make a character that looks like them, only more powerful, cool, etc. I know there are some characteristics I might change for a power fantasy (like looking stronger and having wildly colored hair), but I wouldn't change my gender. It's not a power fantasy for me to be a dude.
I don't think the developers need to represent women to potentially appeal to more people or allow people to identify more with their avatar. But they clearly want to. While I'm all for increased character creation options in games that include things like weight and height as well, those don't represent the same proportion of people... without a female character option, basically half the population has no way to make a character like them, even a version that's highly idealized.
I think everybody agrees that character creation screens ought to be able to create all types of characters to represent any given person.
The argument here is that battlefield's protagonists shouldn't be intended to represent anyone but the hardest most cock diesel infantry soldiers who could have ever possibly existed.
I don't see why they wouldn't just include an option that replaces female models with male ones in multiplayer matches. It's just cosmetic after all. That seems like a win on both sides.
Does anyone have any examples of the seething rage I hear so much about? Each time something like this surfaces, I hear a lot of discussion about the outrage but never some to come across it myself. I'd warrant that any small/insignificant outrage from a small fringe is pushed/reported on because it generates views and clicks.
That, combined with the general EA hate from buying out small studios and destroying them (Maxis, Mythic, Bullfrog, Westwood, Dreamworks and so on) mean that there is a core of people who will slate them whatever they do.
I'd describe this as a storm in a teacup fuelled by outrage merchants peddling each of the "viewpoints".
YouTube comments on the trailers and the Battlefield subreddit are where I've seen most of it. (Although it got so bad on Reddit the mods had to institute a blanket ban on "historically inaccurate" arguments, so there might not be any recently.) There's also the #NotMyBattlefield hashtag on Twitter.
I'm not exactly sure I disagree this might be a storm in a teacup, but I feel like if it was just a small contingent of people it wouldn't have warranted responses from the developers. If it was just a few people here and there it wouldn't have resulted in the mods having to institute a new rule forbidding all discussion of "historical inaccuracy".
We can talk about battlefield realism once we talk about this...
https://youtu.be/dlUUmPShoMM
I played bf games from 1942 to 4 and met my wife that way. Realism is not their USP.
The issue seems to be about whether or not Battlefield V is actually trying to represent historical accuracy. If so, they should do their research and stand behind it (like Ubisoft does with the Assassin's Creed games).
If not, then it shouldn't matter whatsoever. Be a woman in World War I, be an alien, be a talking dog. It really doesn't matter.
For the most part, it's died off thanks to moderation stepping up, but most of the people who were screaming about this were the usual suspects: incels, redpillers, The_Donald posters, and 4channers who already hate it when women do so much as "infest their movies" at all, let alone actually do anything. They justified it by saying that women didn't fight in World War II, which is false even if it wasn't common. Of course, a lot of the time they stopped hiding behind buzzwords and flat out used the usual nonsense like 'women are weaker, therefore they can't fight and shouldn't be in video games' or 'this is disrespecting white male heritage'.
I think the main thrust of your argument is false and you have yet to prove to me there is a controversy.
I have yet to see any real controversy except the manufactured kind that gets someone to discuss an AAA game. All the arguments I have read have been ones that have been quickly show to be inaccurate and false. So why are journalist magnifying the opinions of small ill informed minority?
Because it gets them mad clicks, I'd imagine.
and here we are discussing it as well. Ironic
They do their job a little too well, it would seem. At least we've gotten some discussion out of it.