Multiple game creators describe ineffective moderation on the platform, resulting in unchecked hatred in forums and targeted campaigns of negative ‘anti-woke’ reviews
bigoted reviews posted on games’ Steam pages, which can hugely affect sales for their developers; and Steam curators (self-appointed taste-makers on the platform) directing campaigns against games they perceive to lean left or pursue inclusion.
This fucking shit again. Reviews affect sales? Well, good. You don’t get to carefully select a few most-read outlets who’ll give you the thumb up. Also, chud curators are “directing” only those who follow them. This argument is about a failing industry that’d like to control what can be said about their products. Make no mistake, Steam’s openness in this regard is, for me as a customer at least, added value.
I agree with that, but negative reviews also affect the algorithm. If enough of those reviews drown out positive ones it will reduce the chance you see the game at all.
Not as much as you’d think. I get recommended games that are negative way to often. What matters most is people who play the same games you do playing it. People who play city builders will get recommended a new city builder even if its review is overwhelmingly negative.
That is literally how I discovered Signalis. It was included in one of those anti-woke curators’ “not recommended” list, then I saw that it was an indie title, and overwhelmingly positive… I was sold immediately.
Depends on where the curator draws the line, and you can’t apply sane criteria to what they consider “too woke”. Sometimes a game is put on a woke list because it has a female lead, or a physically strong female character, or non-heteronormative character dynamics, or people of color are present in it… I’ve seen one that was marked as woke because it referenced climate change and climate action. I think it was some popular shooter or something.
Some are more consistent than others.
Once you start making lists of games to avoid based on thematics, though, you’ve already taken a step to cuckoo land.
I disagree. Avoiding media because of certain themes is perfectly fine. I for example will not play games like Hatred or Nazi Games, no matter how good they could be.
It’s the kind of themes they try to avoid which show how scared they are of everybody around them.
I occasionally go through the lists posted by chud curators for small indie titles that would have escaped my notice. I don’t have time to scrutinize every title on Steam, but these guys seemingly have infinite time to ensure every unheard of title with a case of LGBTQ+ representation gets criticism from them. Ironically, they’re fantastic for finding small, progressive passion projects I would have otherwise missed.
If you know that you explicitly disagree with somebody on certain aspects, their opinion will be just as useful to you as if you liked exactly what they like.
There’s a big list of “woke games” that would be a great source for finding new games to play, if it didn’t include almost every game ever made making it meaningless.
They’re not just trying to remove negative reviews for being negative though, this is about bad actors weaponizing the review system to push bigotry. That should not be platformed.
That’s cutesy newspeak for they should be censored. And wanting to censor them is bigotry, as in “the fact of having and expressing strong, unreasonable beliefs and disliking other people who have different beliefs or a different way of life”. The chuds should have been more loved by their mothers, they should have been exposed to culture so they don’t become racist assholes, sure. But really, I feel using mealymouthed therapyspeak to remove bigots from sight and pretend they don’t exist has been thoroughly attempted and the result is grifters ascend on a ladder of their frustrations to rearrange the society into a chaotic dystopia. Sorry, video games?
I dislike people normalizing hate speech through this kind of space, but I largely agree. If people want to follow a curator that will make sure they aren’t emotionally blindsided by a female protagonist showing affection towards another woman, for example, that’s a choice they can make. We wouldn’t want the chuds to get their feelings hurt, afterall.
But in all seriousness, that’s kind of their choice. Obviously, any comments that suggest violence against people who make/play/are represented in that kind of game needs to get shut down immediately, but you’re allowed to not like LGBTQ+ representation. It’s not illegal to clutch your pearls at the sight of non-heteronormative sexuality. It’s just reprehensible.
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This fucking shit again. Reviews affect sales? Well, good. You don’t get to carefully select a few most-read outlets who’ll give you the thumb up. Also, chud curators are “directing” only those who follow them. This argument is about a failing industry that’d like to control what can be said about their products. Make no mistake, Steam’s openness in this regard is, for me as a customer at least, added value.
To be perfectly honest, the odds of me buying a game are significantly higher if I see reviews about “toxic femininity” or “woke politics”
I agree with that, but negative reviews also affect the algorithm. If enough of those reviews drown out positive ones it will reduce the chance you see the game at all.
Not as much as you’d think. I get recommended games that are negative way to often. What matters most is people who play the same games you do playing it. People who play city builders will get recommended a new city builder even if its review is overwhelmingly negative.
I use those “wokism tiers” that you usually see from bigoted idiots to check out new games that I’ll probably like
That is literally how I discovered Signalis. It was included in one of those anti-woke curators’ “not recommended” list, then I saw that it was an indie title, and overwhelmingly positive… I was sold immediately.
You have to be way down the rabbit hole to think Signalis is too woke. Nothing it does would have been out of place in '02 or so.
Depends on where the curator draws the line, and you can’t apply sane criteria to what they consider “too woke”. Sometimes a game is put on a woke list because it has a female lead, or a physically strong female character, or non-heteronormative character dynamics, or people of color are present in it… I’ve seen one that was marked as woke because it referenced climate change and climate action. I think it was some popular shooter or something.
Some are more consistent than others.
Once you start making lists of games to avoid based on thematics, though, you’ve already taken a step to cuckoo land.
I disagree. Avoiding media because of certain themes is perfectly fine. I for example will not play games like Hatred or Nazi Games, no matter how good they could be. It’s the kind of themes they try to avoid which show how scared they are of everybody around them.
No wolfenstien?
Yet by not playing it, you’re relying on somebody else’s description of what’s in it, which can be very misleading.
For example, the discourse around Horses.
Its fine not to like certain themes but obsessing over not seeing them to the point that you’re making lists is not really healthy.
I can rely on plenty of people’s description of Ayn Rand to know what I don’t have to read any for myself.
I occasionally go through the lists posted by chud curators for small indie titles that would have escaped my notice. I don’t have time to scrutinize every title on Steam, but these guys seemingly have infinite time to ensure every unheard of title with a case of LGBTQ+ representation gets criticism from them. Ironically, they’re fantastic for finding small, progressive passion projects I would have otherwise missed.
They probably have infinite time because seemingly everything is too woke for these fucks, certainly seems like they don’t actually play games
If you know that you explicitly disagree with somebody on certain aspects, their opinion will be just as useful to you as if you liked exactly what they like.
There’s a big list of “woke games” that would be a great source for finding new games to play, if it didn’t include almost every game ever made making it meaningless.
They’re not just trying to remove negative reviews for being negative though, this is about bad actors weaponizing the review system to push bigotry. That should not be platformed.
That’s cutesy newspeak for they should be censored. And wanting to censor them is bigotry, as in “the fact of having and expressing strong, unreasonable beliefs and disliking other people who have different beliefs or a different way of life”. The chuds should have been more loved by their mothers, they should have been exposed to culture so they don’t become racist assholes, sure. But really, I feel using mealymouthed therapyspeak to remove bigots from sight and pretend they don’t exist has been thoroughly attempted and the result is grifters ascend on a ladder of their frustrations to rearrange the society into a chaotic dystopia. Sorry, video games?
I dislike people normalizing hate speech through this kind of space, but I largely agree. If people want to follow a curator that will make sure they aren’t emotionally blindsided by a female protagonist showing affection towards another woman, for example, that’s a choice they can make. We wouldn’t want the chuds to get their feelings hurt, afterall.
But in all seriousness, that’s kind of their choice. Obviously, any comments that suggest violence against people who make/play/are represented in that kind of game needs to get shut down immediately, but you’re allowed to not like LGBTQ+ representation. It’s not illegal to clutch your pearls at the sight of non-heteronormative sexuality. It’s just reprehensible.