Dragon Age: The Veilguard foolishly inserts modern politics into a game that could have addressed these issues within the framework of the game's lore.
I know this might start war in the comments so please chill people, I don’t want to get 20 reports from this single post.
I’m not saying I know anything about this Dragon Age, I haven’t played it.
I think it’s a fair point though, to imagine an a-political narrative game, because I think most if not all RPG games I can think of have some kind of political content.
Shifting the goalposts on behalf of OP, but whatever. Where are you guys coming from?
Narrative games of any scope are almost inevitably going to bump into themes like hierarchy, power dynamics and moral dilemmas. That doesn’t make them “political” in the sense that they’re directly discussing real events around you. I won’t presume anything about your personal position here, but OP gives the impression that if a fantasy game depicted a fictional race subjugated by another he would start complaining that it was woke.
If you want a story without those things you largely need to pick a different genre.
That’s what I’m trying to say. I don’t think such a game is feasible.
Also, in the context of this threat, saying “ooo Tetris isn’t political!” is being pedantic, that’s not what the person meant when they asked for an example of a non political game.
OP is not exactly coming up with good examples, but I think the point is you can analyse anything and claim that there is some hidden political message, even if it was not intended by the developers. Even Gilgamesh, one of the oldest text ever found, has scholars discussing gender and sexuality. I don’t think Gilgamesh and Enkidus relationship was considered political at the time the story was written down, but in a new context and a new political landscape it can suddenly be political.
The article is not about how the game shouldn’t be political (because this notion is absurd). It’s about how idiotic the treatment of the writer’s views is, to the point it feels like a parody of the statement they wanted to make.
Joke aside, pure competitive games are indeed just pure competitive games with no context at all. But competition in itself is ideological and political (the need to make the opponent lose) so Pong is too.
It’s a point of view on multiplayer gaming. In Pong there is always a loser and a winner, never two winners, never two losers (can we even make a draw in original Pong? I don’t know).
Pong is also a game that opposed human versus computer, it can be view as pure skill exercise to be a ‘better’ human or it can be literally a fight against the machine like playing chess against a computer. Both makes me want to ask what is the point to do this ? I think answers at this questions are political indeed.
Super Mario make a twist on the trope of the knight saving the princess. The knight is just a plumber and it is said to him that the ‘princess is an another castle’.
But at the end the right order of the world is restaured when Mario finally frees the princess from the evil Bowser.
So from a political standpoint Super Mario is a product believing strongly in individualism and in the self made man ideology. The twist shows only that even a plumber can save the princess if he works enough = liberal capitalism making us believed that we’ll be all rock stars and billionaires when we’re definitively not (and yes I’m quoting fight club here). All this is the consequence of the game focussing more on gameplay than it’s narration, therefore it leans towards what was the common thinking of the time.
Polygamy (relationship between Peach, Mario and Luigi, if that’s what you are referring to) is much to me a side effect of the 2 players gameplay possibility, but it is still indeed pretty interesting in itself yeah.
You probably meant it as a joke, but too bad you get a real answer :)
I would like to find a game free of political message, can someone please show me one?
I’m really curious about what this mythical beast might look like…
Doom? Tetris? Need for Speed? Wii Tennis? WTF are you talking about?
Need for Speed promotes scofflaw activities.
And I’m all for it.
I’m not saying I know anything about this Dragon Age, I haven’t played it.
I think it’s a fair point though, to imagine an a-political narrative game, because I think most if not all RPG games I can think of have some kind of political content.
Shifting the goalposts on behalf of OP, but whatever. Where are you guys coming from?
Narrative games of any scope are almost inevitably going to bump into themes like hierarchy, power dynamics and moral dilemmas. That doesn’t make them “political” in the sense that they’re directly discussing real events around you. I won’t presume anything about your personal position here, but OP gives the impression that if a fantasy game depicted a fictional race subjugated by another he would start complaining that it was woke.
If you want a story without those things you largely need to pick a different genre.
That’s what I’m trying to say. I don’t think such a game is feasible.
Also, in the context of this threat, saying “ooo Tetris isn’t political!” is being pedantic, that’s not what the person meant when they asked for an example of a non political game.
They asked for a game free of political messages, and got several. Are you sure that’s not what they meant?
My point is everything is political, you don’t have to see political standpoint in things, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
If that’s what you meant with your original comment then I deeply regret engaging with this at all 🤣
Have a nice day.
OP is not exactly coming up with good examples, but I think the point is you can analyse anything and claim that there is some hidden political message, even if it was not intended by the developers. Even Gilgamesh, one of the oldest text ever found, has scholars discussing gender and sexuality. I don’t think Gilgamesh and Enkidus relationship was considered political at the time the story was written down, but in a new context and a new political landscape it can suddenly be political.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/25766947
Oh you didn’t perceive the irony, didn’t you?
The article is not about how the game shouldn’t be political (because this notion is absurd). It’s about how idiotic the treatment of the writer’s views is, to the point it feels like a parody of the statement they wanted to make.
Indeed, I still get someone giving me names of nonpolitical games.
What about pong?
Tennis again?
Joke aside, pure competitive games are indeed just pure competitive games with no context at all. But competition in itself is ideological and political (the need to make the opponent lose) so Pong is too.
It’s a point of view on multiplayer gaming. In Pong there is always a loser and a winner, never two winners, never two losers (can we even make a draw in original Pong? I don’t know).
Pong is also a game that opposed human versus computer, it can be view as pure skill exercise to be a ‘better’ human or it can be literally a fight against the machine like playing chess against a computer. Both makes me want to ask what is the point to do this ? I think answers at this questions are political indeed.
Super mario bros was clearly about promoting poligamy.
Super Mario make a twist on the trope of the knight saving the princess. The knight is just a plumber and it is said to him that the ‘princess is an another castle’. But at the end the right order of the world is restaured when Mario finally frees the princess from the evil Bowser.
So from a political standpoint Super Mario is a product believing strongly in individualism and in the self made man ideology. The twist shows only that even a plumber can save the princess if he works enough = liberal capitalism making us believed that we’ll be all rock stars and billionaires when we’re definitively not (and yes I’m quoting fight club here). All this is the consequence of the game focussing more on gameplay than it’s narration, therefore it leans towards what was the common thinking of the time.
Polygamy (relationship between Peach, Mario and Luigi, if that’s what you are referring to) is much to me a side effect of the 2 players gameplay possibility, but it is still indeed pretty interesting in itself yeah.
You probably meant it as a joke, but too bad you get a real answer :)