On July 23, in response to the ongoing reactions to a black main character in the upcoming Assassin’s Creed Shadowdeveloper Ubisoft released a detailed statement. The responses on X (formerly Twitter) were exactly what you’d expect: racist imagery, insults, and demands for historical accuracy in a video game series that has always been steeped in science fiction. An unpublished community note (a feature often used by users to “add context” to posts) reads “Assassin’s Creed N***** Squire.”
A young but incredibly loud group of players will tell you Assassin’s Creed Shadow The backlash is about respecting Japanese culture or rejecting “woke ideologies” that are “forced into their games” by advisory groups that have no real power. But just like in 2014, during the first, loud iteration of GamerGate, it was never about anything other than hate.
The Internet is a powerful place, an in-between world where images and rhetoric can be used as weapons so powerfully that they penetrate into real life (“from the wires to the weeds”, as the Book 2022 Meme Wars says). In 2014, a misogynistic movement demanding “ethics in games journalism” broke the gaming curb with such force that politicians took notice. Steve Bannon, President Donald Trump’s former chief political strategist, said author Joshua Green that he “recognized [former Breitbart technology consultant Milo Yiannopoulus] could immediately contact these kids…You can activate this army. They come in through GamerGate or whatever and then they’re made aware of politics and Trump.”
The use of this power has forever changed the landscape of mainstream politics. Many believe it directly led to Trump winning the 2016 election and the Capitol riots on January 6, 2021. Part of what keeps this “army” active is that you constantly feed them things to be outraged about—for Trump and his ilk, it was a veritable laundry list of problems that only he could solve: immigrants (“rapists”), taxes (a relief for billionaires), transgender (a rollback of Title IX), abortion (a ban), and more. There is always something to be upset about, always something to keep you afraid, angry, worried, and willing to do whatever it takes to get him reelected.
The reactionary right-wing movement in gaming, which has once again reared its ugly head, is no different, and it’s happening right now for good reason. Sociocultural issues reach a boiling point in an election year, and just like it did ten years ago, pol itical anger is seeping into pop culture, where it’s being seized upon by those looking to take advantage of naive, impressionable young men who are shunned in public but praised (and even loved) online. There are countless
It’s a particular kind of hatred, a sort of backwards boomerang that hurtles through the air in the path of progress. Since its inception, gaming as a cultural space has been largely dominated by white boys and men – you had to have a certain level of wealth and free time to even participate, and that wasn’t readily available to marginalized groups in the ’80s and ’90s. Marketing and design of games aimed at boys increasingly fueled the widespread perception that this hobby was exclusively for them, to the point where many girls who were interested in it faced parental resistance and cultural ostracism. I myself only got into gaming after my parents refused to further encourage a “boys’ hobby” because I could afford an Xbox 360 with the money from my summer job, and my story is not an isolated one.
Eventually, a significant number of women, queer people, and minorities landed jobs in the video game industry as developers, social media managers, community organizers, journalists, and more. The rise of indie games allowed for more unique approaches to game development, more diverse schools of thought, and more genre-bending titles that defied definition. Thanks largely to the MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements, bad actors were held accountable for perpetuating outdated ideologies or antisocial behavior toward marginalized people in the gaming industry. It was a struggle to at least somewhat level the playing field, but it felt like we were almost there.
But then the reactionaries come in. A rumor that was first spun in the darker corners of the Internet gains traction and jumps into the mainstream and all Try to expose it are confronted with conspiracy allegations. It is gaining traction. Elon Musk posts about it. The men who first rang the reactionary bell are seeing dollar signs thanks to the monetization of virality perpetuated by Musk, YouTube, and Facebook, and they want more. More attention means more money, and you can’t get attention if you don’t stoke the flames of hate — people need to stay angry, scared, uncertain about their future, so they can keep expecting answers from you — only you won’t give them any. Your goal is to make sure the anger continues, and solving those problems means stealing the gasoline from the fire.
So this week it was Assassin’s Creed Shadow. Before that, it was a content warning added to a Capcom game. Before that, it was the perceived failure of Flintlock. Before that, she was a female lead in a war of stars the game was not hot enough. Before that it was a black lead in a war of stars merely show the presence. Before that, it was the way characters in Unity looked. Before that, it was a transsexual voice actor in the Final Fantasy XIV expansion. Before that, it was Tiana’s Bayou Adventure in Disneyworld. Before that, it was Lara Croft’s jawline. Before that, it was Dungeons‘ Orcs are waking up. Before that, it was gameplay strategies in Fire ring. Before that, there were romance options in Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Before that, it was Jean Grey in the upcoming wolverine game. Before that it was Transgender Flag Cosmetics in call of Duty. Before that, it was the “DEI” wording in a job advertisement at Nintendo. Before that, it was a journalist Reporting on the working environment in the studio behind Black Myth: Wukong. Before that, it was the “removal of the butt” of The young‘ Fireworks in War zone. Before that, it was politics in Helldivers 2. Before that, it was cartoon characters who changed their race. Before that, it was (another) jaw in the Perfect darkness Remake. Before that, there were female guardians in Warhammer. All this manufactured anger has been shoved down the throats of impressionable young people in the last 45 days alone.
There will never be a shortage of hate to spread. The only way forward is a loud condemnation of the bad actors in video games by the biggest names in the industry, the biggest companies in the industry – not a bizarre, clumsy statement that lends credence to their baseless nonsense and implies that their arguments are based on logic, when hate itself is illogical. aftermathGita Jackson wrote: “Racism is not a logical position, so you can’t defeat it with logic. Facts simply don’t matter to a racist, especially the boring racist who is at home in video game culture. There are always new hairs to split.”
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