The Exploitation Of Apolitical Politics (The Jimquisition)

Heard this video was getting a lot of negative feedback on YouTube. I don't like to hang out there so I'll just say here that I thought it was a well said piece. I also thought it was very big of you to lay the focus on the idea that this game strikes political chords while not getting into the weeds of the different stances or even the different topics at length.

Faith and Valor have a good month creators. Love all that you do.

Something being political is more or less by definition being something that some people disagree with. (Which makes "We want to put questions and information in front of people and make them think about it" being political stomach-churning, but I digress.) With game producers desperate to prove that they're growing their audiences, I understand why they would want to retreat. Even if your politics are vague and mealy-mouthed, there are plenty of people who want to put you into a "for" or "against" camp, to make buying or boycotting you into throwing a stone at "them" or a statement in itself, even if that statement is "how dare you try to address this serious subject in a video game, what makes you think you have the right". There really aren't any "gimmes", just lost sales. Even seemingly "obvious" causes have ripples: "Why is *this* the boundary of free speech? Are you saying it's okay to murder people who disagree with you politically? Why are you condoning what seems like an obvious double standard?" And then people are shouting each other on YouTube, not playing your game. Still, I think Jim's correct that you can't set a game in more-or-less modern day America, based on the work of political fiction writer, referencing symbolism with obvious modern-day significance, and then claim to have no politics at all. Or, rather, you can, but you invite incredulous guffaws. If you want to work in worlds of obvious real-world resonance, you have to accept that that resonance comes with a certain amount of inseparable controversy. But if you think Donkey Kong is your opening to launch into a diatribe on animal cruelty, expect not to get invited over to your friends' next Switch gaming session.

Kraken

Did you hear anything he said? It's not an argument for pushing politics into entertainment, or pushing an agenda, but that politics is inherent in anything humans create because politics is in our nature. I do, however, share your frustration with forced, hamfisted commentary in any entertainment.

Twit In A Hat

I am more for games being games, pushing in politics or making them into politics is just annoying and stops games from being what they should be and was from the start "Entertainment".

Wighar Stamfaste

Everything. Is. Political.

I think Jim is giving too much credit to Ubisoft. I do not think the creators actually had specific intentions or beliefs to send out. What I think is Ubisoft made this game just to get a slice of recent trend in gaming genre and they needed some sort of theme to back it up. So they just put in whatever concept they came up with and didn't really think about how public reception would turn out to be. But, back to the point, yes, I do agree that developers shouldn't shy away from their own game if it contains and intended to put in specific beliefs or politics. Theme-setting and Story-telling can be easily affected by creator's ideology and it is difficult to detach them from it. After all, it is the representation of ideology that gives them great characteristics and artistic feeling. Whether general public will like it or not and how people will see it as, is another thing to worry about.

A+ video as always, Jim.

There's an audience for that kind of rhetoric. Take Captain Marvel: the Bad Guys are big on emotionless, military conquest and a belief in their own innate superiority. They're so convinced of the superiority of their empire that they use weapons of mass destruction against refugee camps and worlds who have no chance to fight back. Anyone who reads 20th century history will say: 'obviously inspired by real world Fascism and National Socialism.' But I bet there are a lot of young comic book fans who haven't read much history, or at least not thought about it much; so the obvious will go right over their heads. Those kids and the adults they grow up to be don't want to be told the obvious: the entertainment they enjoy had political messages all along.

Iochannon

Thank you so much for saying this. This needs to be said more. Being apolitical is a logical contradiction, for all the reasons you said.

Twit In A Hat

Just as well I avoid Ubisoft anyways for that uPlay bullshit they force onto PC gamers like myself. I think I'll give this one a miss.

SekhitheFops

Your Jimquistition videos are always well done, but today's in particular was top notch and very well spoken. Nice work.

I assume a lot of this comes down to guidance from publishers or other superiors to avoid directly courting any kind of controversy, rather than game-makers being cowardly. Most video games contain obvious political or social messages, they just aren't allowed to take a stand on those themes publicly.

BJams

Even the developers of games like Bioshock are guilty of this. Like Ken Levine has always said that Bioshock was never against objectivism but simply about how things go bad when “people take ideas to their extremes” or something. And that’s not even getting into how Infinite bent over backwards to show “both sides are bad, m’kay?”

Daniel M

I get it. I understand why these publishers don't want to take a stance: Nazis are scary. They are terrorists who rally and kill people with no remorse. They believe they are the heroes. They are the ones hoarding the guns. And when they have one of the most powerful people on the planet supporting them, why wouldn't a company, who's sole goal is to make money (because this is the AAA gaming space), be afraid to say anything that the Nazis won't like? Because if they do, their employees will be harassed, threatened, and quite possibly even physically hurt. And who would buy their game? This got a bit rambling but I get what you're saying Jim and yeah, AAA publishers are being cowards, cow towing to the terrorists, and in so doing, making the statement that they are okay with appeasing Nazis (that's always gone well). In closing: Nazis are terrorists and they suck. Thank god for Jim calling out this shit.

Perpetual Noob

I’ll make a whack a mole game with politicians as moles. But be sure that is not a political statement, I just like to whack moles…. with real people faces.

Pedro Garcia-Huidobro

Do they do that? GTA at least always struck me less like that and more like a complete parody of American culture. Now, getting out of games for a second, South Park does what you said in absolute truckfulls. Though their games are actually pretty good.

McBeard

>"What if androids was people?" Play NieR: Automata instead.

Joseph A.

Rockstar's brand of just painting everyone who beliefs in anything in a horrible light at least end up less boring but ultimately isn't any better.

Far cry 5 felt very weird because of that. Most characters were just very surface level caricatures. And the cult was just as much of an empty shell of cult-like gibberish.