There is an old man in my building, who got into video games about 10 years ago, when his wife died. When I first moved in I played games with him fairly often. After I knew him about a year, he exposed himself as racist. So I just faded away from interacting with him, too old to bother lecturing, so I just stopped socializing with him. I do see him around, and we make small talk, in the halls, elevator, etc.
Anyway, now that you have context, I ran into him in the elevator when Shadows first came out. He said he had been playing it, and asked if I had. I said I didn’t then told him I was a little surprised he bothered with it. He said “Cause you play a colored samurai?” I said that I figured it wouldn’t be his thing, a lot of people didn’t like the idea. He replied “He was a real person, though” I told him a lot of people were mad about it, he said “it’s just a game”. So, if a racist, 83 year old, man didn’t see the issue here, these people have to be seeking things to be mad about. He doesn’t do much online though. Only social media he does is look at FB when his kids tell him they posted new pics of the grand kids, or whatever. This is purely a symptom of being terminally online.
Your other 2-paragraph comment bitching about the black guy in Japan being somehow disrespectful despite being a real person proved that you are, in fact, racist, bud
How does this relate to the article, or the situation with the streamer? Sure, dunk on Ubisoft, but maybe not about a black historical figure being black.
This complaint feels manufactured. No one complained about the romance-able historical figures in previous Japanese games, and a quick look at social media and Japanese news shows no outrage. Also, every other game features historically unknown natives? What? We have multiple characters that are children of royalty, at least two that are military warlords, and a Viking raider for fuck’s sake. The only game I can think of that has a native of the region not connected to the powers that be is 3, where you play a Native American. You’re often just playing essentially a secret police for the state of the country you’re in. Why not have a black samurai, a notable historical figure, be the main character. That’s super interesting. It’s not like Japanese culture is being erased. Your outrage feels misplaced and racially motivated, and I doubt we’d be seeing so much manufactured discontent if it was a white samurai (and there were several).
Eivor was a foreigner (and an invader) for everything outside the beginning of the game, so was Kassandra/Alexios (also invaders), they just had the same skin tone as the place they’re foreign in. There’s a big difference between “native characters with understated culture” and just “not foreign.” Those are totally different arguments, and it seems like you’re trying to make both. Again, why not have an interesting character from history be explored like this. Acting as if past characters are these nebulous “local” individuals when they’re often the direct children or relatives of prominent, real, historical figures, if fictional ones, seems silly. This is totally in line with past stories they’ve told. I really don’t see a valid reason a non-local character is “problematic” in an AC game. We’ve done it a bunch of times. We’ve played a Welsh guy in the Caribbean, a Viking in Britain, and a Spartan in Greece, just to name a few. I’m sure I’m forgetting other valid examples.
It does sound more racist, because it is. Why not Yasuke? Just because he’s black? Why any of the other AC protagonists? Why choose a Spartan, a highly unethical culture filled with slavery and abuse? Why choose a Welsh pirate instead of a Caribbean native? These are all pointless questions, because the answer is all the same. That’s the story they wanted to tell. Maybe they wanted to highlight the historical outlier at an important time in history. We could speculate on any number of different reasons, but “DEI” doesn’t make any damn sense, considering they knew how gamers would react beforehand and even went out of their way to make a statement about it.
They wanted to tell this story. If you want a different one, play a different game. There is absolutely nothing wrong with choosing Yasuke as a protagonist. The series has consistently demonstrated that they don’t really mind telling the stories of historical outliers, repeatedly. They shouldn’t have to specifically avoid (because that is what your argument has shifted to) Yasuke for fears of “DEI.” The “anti-woke” are ridiculous.
I may be misremembering but I’m pretty sure the same character appears in Nioh or Nioh 2. A Japanese game made by Japanese developers. A cameo, but a representation of an historic figure and not some random person plucked out of historical obscurity.
I probably won’t play the game because I’ve never really been a fan of the Assasin’s Creed style but imagine getting your knickers in a twist over something that no one is forcing you to play. There are a bajillion other games. So weird.
Dude I loved Nioh and I love the story of Yasuke, so when I encountered him in the game I was psyched. It’s like, as a white American, if I’m writing a story about cowboys, and I find out that there was a Japanese guy that was a famous cowboy right at the time my story is set, and also clearly not talked about enough… hell yeah I’m putting that guy in there! Why should I be upset that he doesn’t look like me when that makes it so much more fascinating? That’s fucking awesome! People breaking the mold and shattering our expectations is cool, and always has been. If I’m a writer with a big fanbase and I have the opportunity to shine a light on something clearly awesome that most people don’t know about then hell yeah I want to make people know about it. These fucking people… not only are they racist and they’ve also lost their sense of wonder, their imagination, their sense of joy for a strange and unexpected world that we live in. What a miserable fucking way to live.
FC has some valid points. If I was a streamer of his level, it would get old as well. Imagine streaming a game. Having a good time, doing your thing. And then a bunch of people come into the stream. Voluntarily come into the stream. No one made them join his stream. And then stay there to complain about the game. Or the stream. Or one persons opinions. Like this random person, decided that they are going to go out of their way to complain about something they don’t like. And just bitch and complain about something they voluntarily decided to partake in. People need to find new hobbies and better ways to spend their time.
The streamer wasn’t “using a megaphone” - these losers weren’t yelling back at a guy on the street , they were *going out of their way" looking for people playing the game so they could join and bitch about the existence of black people.
If you’re doing a little solo guitar performance in some back alley, does that mean the racist masses are entitled to come thundering down that back alley and harass you?
The act of streaming means you’re using a megaphone. You’re deliberately and intentionally inviting the public.
“Using a megaphone” implies he was trying to push an agenda. Being a public figure/entertainer is not well described by the phrase “using a megaphone.”
He’s deliberately and intentionally inviting the public, yes… to be fucking entertained while he streams a video game. He’s not trying to teach them anything, or convince them of anything, or push an agenda.
He had people come into his stream and start talking racist shit and he shut it down. In no way does he have to put up with it just because he is a public figure.
I mean at the end of the day if you don’t want people to come at you with their shit takes you shouldn’t put your stuff out for the public to see. That is also a choice.
Do you even fucking hear yourself? Saying that being a public figure means you’re deliberately asking for harassment and abuse is fucking insane! What the fuck is wrong with you or anyone else who thinks it’s okay to hurl abuse at someone just because they’re a fucking public figure. And don’t fucking tell me you’re not saying it’s okay, but public figures should “expect it”. No. Full stop. Fuck that. By saying they should expect it you’re fucking normalizing it and saying it’s okay. That’s a choice you’re making, and it’s frankly disgusting.
I want you to explain how you came the conclusion that I said this harassment was ok when I unequivocally and clearly said it wasn’t.
I already told you. You said the act of being a public figure means you are inviting harassment. If you don’t understand how this normalizes harassment, I don’t think there’s much else to say.
Do you read comments before you respond?
Allow me to quote myself where I a) showed that I read your comment, and b) anticipated your response:
And don’t fucking tell me you’re not saying it’s okay, but public figures should “expect it”. No. Full stop. Fuck that. By saying they should expect it you’re fucking normalizing it and saying it’s okay.
You can’t say public figures should expect harassment and are inviting it and then say people who harass them are not absolved. You are absolving them by saying it’s expected and invited.
i dont get why you go out of your way not to mention the complaints were racist in nature. its not about some people complaining they dont like ac because its a mediocre franchise when it comes to gameplay or smth like that.
“Normal” people mindlessly buy AC whenever they release a new one, despite most of them being the same mediocrity each time. One or two get mentioned as people’s favorite and the only games they can even recommend in the series, again, despite there being numerous games. People also shouldn’t be upset when an objective mediocrity is noted. A small release window between games is one such factor. But this is what people want. So, enjoy!
I mean, yeah, apparently it is what people want. It isn’t what I want, and so I just go and do something else. What I don’t do is go off and get mad at Assassin’s Creed, or at the very concept of Assassin’s Creed. Just let people like what they like, I dunno, sounds good to me
If those Internet duds that get mad about black people in video games spent like half that energy being mad about, like, wage theft, we’d be so much better off.
Therein lies the point of MAGA efforts. If you keep your base punching the left then they won’t remember they’re working class, not really being crushed by the left, and may start to punch up.
They’re already too scared to do in person town halls. Even so, this steered rage is intentional.
You’re not displaced by corporate, but by immigrants, DEI, and non-traditional women.
Depends. That’s the issue though. DEMs is a giant bag of angry cats fighting amongst themselves, gatekeeping one another, and more or less telling one another how they should be while saying it’s all inclusive.
The infighting is real. I’ll give the repubs credit for unity, they’re strangely good at it, just look at Tesla. Ten years of hating Tesla and hazing Tesla drivers. Now, the same people are driving cars into protesters for daring to smear the company. That’s unity. Blind unity. But unity.
We can’t do anything even remotely close to that in party.
Part of the problem there is that it’s transparently obvious that the establishment is complicit, regardless of whether they put D or R beside their name. One of the advantages of MAGA (from their perspective) is that you pretty much can’t call yourself a republican unless you’re on board. They’ve taken enough action and done enough bold and divisive things that they’ve forced everyone to make their allegiances crystal clear.
Dems, on the other hand, are (rn) a pretty loose coalition of “people who oppose Trump.” Dems aren’t really allies, they’re just people with a common enemy. And as we all know, “the enemy of my enemy is my enemy’s enemy, no more and no less.” Those fragile alliances will break the moment anyone tries to challenge the status quo.
There’s a few different ways forward. Some would have been more effective before Trump and his cronies lit the constitution on fire, and some are better suited to the present moment. But we can’t seem to agree on what to do, or to work together to get anything done. Part of the problem is the uncertainty, not knowing where people’s loyalties lie. It’s easy to say in a vacuum that unwillingness to compromise is dumb, but it makes more sense when you realize we’re effectively playing Secret Hitler, and compromise makes you look like the enemy. That doesn’t make it the right call, necessarily, but I understand the impulse.
As for strategies, first and foremost we need to organize. Nothing happens without organization. We should also be reading up on political theory, especially from people we disagree with. (I don’t mean right wing stuff, I mean people with similar goals.) Anarchists should read Lenin. MLs should read Chomsky. Leftists should read liberal stuff and liberals should read leftist stuff. (I know that you think you understand the positions you disagree with. Read it anyways.)
As for strategies, there are several. Some want to reform the Democratic Party. Some want to start a new party. Some believe that insurrection is the only way forward, and that anything less will leave a corrupt system in place, as effective as removing only half of a tumor. All these approaches have drawbacks. All have some merit. Frankly, do whichever you can live with.
The important thing is: support the others whenever you can. Even if you think democracy is dead and there’s no point in voting, do it anyways. Until such time as we think the government will use our voting record against us, it’s only one or two days out of your year. It won’t hurt anything, and there’s a chance it could help.
If you can stomach it, vote tactically. Voting the lesser of two evils might only be slightly reducing harms done, but stalling for time can be really useful sometimes.
Take as much direct action as you can. Remember that while some people can be reasoned with, the people who are actually in power are operating on realpolitik. They will only listen to you if you give them tangible reasons to listen. Might doesn’t make right, but it does shut you up. Or if you’re being suppressed, fighting back will give you the leverage you need to be heard. Don’t let them silence you.
Above all, remember that everyone opposing the establishment (from the left) is your ally. Even if their chosen method is running for office and pushing more progressive legislation. Even if their method is armed resistance. You may not agree, you don’t have to help them, and you might even have to publicly disavow them. But don’t get in their way (as much as you can manage) and don’t rat them out.
Finally, remember what game we are playing. Remember there are traitors. Not everyone who claims to be a Democrat supports democracy. Not everyone who claims to be a Marxist or an Anarchist really is one. Don’t judge people by the labels they wear, watch what they do. If they’re acting in a way that helps you, they’re probably your ally. And if they’re sowing dissent or getting in the way, regardless of how loudly they claim to be on your side, they probably aren’t to be trusted. And definitely don’t draw conclusions about a whole political ideology based on a few people who claim to belong to that ideology, because bad faith actors have every reason to sow dissent in our ranks. Words are easy, don’t trust them.
If we could all coalesce around that basic gameplan, I think we’d have a lot more unity than we do now. You just have to remember we’re playing a social deduction game, and everything becomes an awful lot clearer. At least I think it does.
I wish more streamers had the guts to do this. Too many ride the line and just ignore this stuff. It gives the idiots permission to keep yapping about it. God at least have your mods ban people in chat for it v
Just about everyone wants to see themselves in the main player character of an RPG. It’s one reason character creators exist. Why we can choose between male and female Shepard and then toggle their appearances. But why is it white men yell the loudest when they don’t see themselves in a fixed main character?
It’s a valid question. Sure there was an ask for female assassin play, but it wasn’t anything like this crude, angry, and off the rails epidemic we see far too often. Why is this population so loud and rage filled?
I happily play Witcher, and enjoy Geralt for who he is, including those tired sighs and the long hair that blows in a wind that’s not there. Geralt looks like he’s been torn off the cover of an old bodice ripper novel, which is a bit of an eye roll but adds to the humor. Even so. As a woman I had no problems with it or the game. I’ve played W3 through twice.
Enter Ciri as the main for the next game. Suddenly there’s a huge problem even though she’s the logical next Witcher. I’d like to know how she plays as a character outside the premade with gimped UI. The preview to 4 was nicely nuanced as well, a lot of detail packed into that clip apart from just simple spooky monster fighting. She clearly has a chip on her shoulder about life choices, and fair enough given her history.
Again, no raging outcry regarding Geralt or the way he looked for 3 installments. Now there’s outcry.
I’m not Japanese or Black and yet I’ll happily play this latest AC (but only after its old and goes on sale).
Same, non-cis white guy but I usually pick the not-me main character when given a choice. In Pokemon I’m a chick, in Stardew valley I’m a black chick, in Orcs Must Die 2 I’m the sorceress.
What kind of egotistical fuck chooses the “me” character every time
I typically play female characters in games too. Always have. They’re something outside my world experience, I can experience the story through a lense I may not have seen otherwise.
It’s nice to see yourself represented but like… Shiiiiiiit dude. I’m reading a book or playing a game to be immersed in the story. Why people put so much stock into who or what a character is; it’s beyond me.
I just want some good stories with good characters. I can’t fucking wait to kick ass as Cirilla in the Witcher. I loved being Girlboss V in Cyberpunk, Senua was stellar.
Open world RPG? Bet your ass I wanna be goth mommy in plate armour ripping out a dragon’s throat.
Also sometimes games had smaller hitboxes for women and little me fucked with that more than anything.
I play men characters a lot of the time because the boobs armor trend annoys me. I always try to make them look very distinct from me irl though. I really like this new trend of making all armors gender neutral (e.g BG3 and especially MH wilds, since the series had a long standing tradition of making some of the female armors really… Let’s say “not realistically functional as an armor”. In the new one they still have these versions but you are free to choose any of the 2 looks regardless of your character’s gender).
See I’m able to find comedy in the boob armor, but I’d much prefer to see feminine armor be designed to look equally as epic as the masculine armor designs
Some archetypes of boobs armor can work e.g the half naked barbarian, which is fairly gender neutral too thanks to Conan and shit, but sometimes it’s ridiculous.
I’ve talked before about how hilarious Verac’s Brassard, a pretty dang good piece of Armor from RuneScape is. Visually it’s a giant shoulder plate with a couple of leather straps to hold it in place, but it’s somehow a very competent armor stat-wise especially when considering the cost to purchase it or work to acquire it as a drop. (The wiki page indicates it’s basically useless, but back in the day it was a common budget selection for armor because anything better costs at least quadruple, if not orders of magnitude more than what the brassard would cost)
It hilariously has more coverage on the feminine model than on the masculine model
I made my character in XCX a woman for the same reason. I’m a boring ass white straight cis dude. Games are a fantasy and escape from real life, maybe I wanna play as a chick or black guy or trans person or alien or something, fucking who gives a shit. I played Persona 5, and I wasn’t mad that I’m not actually a 16-year-old Japanese boy.
I do recall some people being upset that they basically “yassified” Geralt from the witcher 2 and onwards. According to the books he’s supposed to look “weird” or something like that. Like, not repulsive but definitely not sexy, with slightly “unnatural” proportions and beast-like traits, etc. Which I think they nailed in the first game, through the low definition textures and models probably help a lot with the uncanniness.
I find that people crying about non-white male and/or non-bimbo female MCs are outrage tourists pushing their stupid gamergate agenda 99% of the time. At this point I don’t know why we are even acknowledging them anymore.
White, cis, and male has been the default for hundreds of years. When a piece of media presents an alternative, some white cis males consider it an attack on their very being. They see faces that are not their own and think that this ‘correction’ of centuries of oppression means that the media is saying that being white or male is inherently wrong.
It’s narrow-minded and selfish, but in a way that’s akin to a toddler who has never had to share their toys before. Hopefully they will eventually grow up and understand that the world does not revolve around them. They’ve just never had to experience that fact before.
I’m not a samurai or a ninja and it would be fairly weird to see a white man in Japan at that time especially in those roles. I don’t need to see myself.
Also have these people never read a book where they aren’t represented by the main character? ( pre-edit: true, they probably don’t/can’t read)
I’ve been listening to the audiobooks of the Witcher series and honestly it’s a series far more about Ciri than it is about Geralt. Garalt is only important because of his connection via destiny to Ciri (and of course he was the main character of the short stories that preceded the longform books) but as Ciri grew up and became capable of protecting herself he became less important until even destiny stopped caring about Geralt.
Also Ciri never received the full Witcher mutations because the process for performing the mutations was lost not long after Geralt became a Witcher. She received a partial mutation via a witcher’s diet at Ker Moren (i imagine that’s like HRT for trans people in that the hormones are what does most of the heavy lifting, and the surgeries just round out the transition) but that’s it. The rest is all her being a bad-ass on her own. I’m excited to play as her and see the kinds of bad-assery and moral quagmires she finds herself the center of
Thankfully this isn’t ubiquitous, at least in my experience. The Hades franchise has its second game in beta (is it still in beta? I haven’t checked in in a few months) with a female lead and I haven’t noticed a peep about that. Hopefully that’s not just the communities I’m part of and it’s actually been received as well as I’ve perceived
Basically “not all gamers” but not in an asshole way haha
People get all in their feelings over a game. A story. Would they get this worked up over a book? These people have to bitch about something to feel alive.
I feel alive taking in a game how it was written and designed to be played. I don’t worry about cultural norms or other petty bullshit. Enjoy the gameplay, the world design and a new experience.
Now, give me a Black Flag sequel with a female lead, a revamped ship combat and more pirate comedy. Top it off with some lesbien romance and outfits. Just to piss off the Republican snowflakes.
Also, the only thing that comes from including more people of color, LGBTQ+ people, etc., in media is more variety in characters and possible story lines. How is that ever a bad thing?
I remember feeling this in church as a kid. Know what I did? I asked myself, “why would I react that way? If this is true, then it should be able to withstand challenges, and if it’s not then it is not worth believing.”
I still quite liked Black Flag and Unity (although far from perfect, especially at launch) and even Origins was pretty good. But Ubisoft Quebec just managed to poop on AC lore multiple times, most egregiously with odyssey.
AC was mechanically enjoyable, if overly long and repetitive. But the story was lacking to the point that I don’t even remember what the fuck the game was about in the first place. that’s what you get for making games bigger and longer. it just becomes a
so much so that at first I thought “shame about the story because it had a really strong start with that twist” but I realized was misremembering AC3’s plot twist. so there’s literally nothing that I remember about AC4’s story except for the abysmal modern day parts which proved to me that they stopped giving a shit about the story and caused me to never check out an AC game again.
A lot of the hate was also from trailers showing off completely fucked bugs. Floating and/or frozen characters, unloaded assets, etc technical disasters
Yeah its an ubisoft copy-paste game. It is a bad game cause they don’t make any good games.
But american conservatives are mad that some shitty ass sci fi slop game from a terrible developer is not 100% historically accurate since they want an samurai to be white texan instead of black.
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There is an old man in my building, who got into video games about 10 years ago, when his wife died. When I first moved in I played games with him fairly often. After I knew him about a year, he exposed himself as racist. So I just faded away from interacting with him, too old to bother lecturing, so I just stopped socializing with him. I do see him around, and we make small talk, in the halls, elevator, etc.
Anyway, now that you have context, I ran into him in the elevator when Shadows first came out. He said he had been playing it, and asked if I had. I said I didn’t then told him I was a little surprised he bothered with it. He said “Cause you play a colored samurai?” I said that I figured it wouldn’t be his thing, a lot of people didn’t like the idea. He replied “He was a real person, though” I told him a lot of people were mad about it, he said “it’s just a game”. So, if a racist, 83 year old, man didn’t see the issue here, these people have to be seeking things to be mad about. He doesn’t do much online though. Only social media he does is look at FB when his kids tell him they posted new pics of the grand kids, or whatever. This is purely a symptom of being terminally online.
Everything that isnt about a straight white male plowing his sister is woke
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I’m guessing by “normal people” you exclusively mean white cis dudes.
If you think ’normal’ doesn’t include your gay ass too that’s a you problem you straight hating idiot not mine.
So not only are you racist but you’re homophobic.
Cool.
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Your other 2-paragraph comment bitching about the black guy in Japan being somehow disrespectful despite being a real person proved that you are, in fact, racist, bud
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How does this relate to the article, or the situation with the streamer? Sure, dunk on Ubisoft, but maybe not about a black historical figure being black.
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This complaint feels manufactured. No one complained about the romance-able historical figures in previous Japanese games, and a quick look at social media and Japanese news shows no outrage. Also, every other game features historically unknown natives? What? We have multiple characters that are children of royalty, at least two that are military warlords, and a Viking raider for fuck’s sake. The only game I can think of that has a native of the region not connected to the powers that be is 3, where you play a Native American. You’re often just playing essentially a secret police for the state of the country you’re in. Why not have a black samurai, a notable historical figure, be the main character. That’s super interesting. It’s not like Japanese culture is being erased. Your outrage feels misplaced and racially motivated, and I doubt we’d be seeing so much manufactured discontent if it was a white samurai (and there were several).
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Eivor was a foreigner (and an invader) for everything outside the beginning of the game, so was Kassandra/Alexios (also invaders), they just had the same skin tone as the place they’re foreign in. There’s a big difference between “native characters with understated culture” and just “not foreign.” Those are totally different arguments, and it seems like you’re trying to make both. Again, why not have an interesting character from history be explored like this. Acting as if past characters are these nebulous “local” individuals when they’re often the direct children or relatives of prominent, real, historical figures, if fictional ones, seems silly. This is totally in line with past stories they’ve told. I really don’t see a valid reason a non-local character is “problematic” in an AC game. We’ve done it a bunch of times. We’ve played a Welsh guy in the Caribbean, a Viking in Britain, and a Spartan in Greece, just to name a few. I’m sure I’m forgetting other valid examples.
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It does sound more racist, because it is. Why not Yasuke? Just because he’s black? Why any of the other AC protagonists? Why choose a Spartan, a highly unethical culture filled with slavery and abuse? Why choose a Welsh pirate instead of a Caribbean native? These are all pointless questions, because the answer is all the same. That’s the story they wanted to tell. Maybe they wanted to highlight the historical outlier at an important time in history. We could speculate on any number of different reasons, but “DEI” doesn’t make any damn sense, considering they knew how gamers would react beforehand and even went out of their way to make a statement about it.
They wanted to tell this story. If you want a different one, play a different game. There is absolutely nothing wrong with choosing Yasuke as a protagonist. The series has consistently demonstrated that they don’t really mind telling the stories of historical outliers, repeatedly. They shouldn’t have to specifically avoid (because that is what your argument has shifted to) Yasuke for fears of “DEI.” The “anti-woke” are ridiculous.
You’rea a genocide apologist piece of shit. Kill yourself
Dedicated to the person complaining about racism against Japanese people under a post about how nice trees and hills look in AC: Shadows.
Thanks, that wasn’t the place at all for that <3
My first guess: racist losers are mad that POC exist and are represented in video games.
…Yep. I was right, sadly.
What makes it even more dumb is the guy they’re mad about existed in real life. Weird as fuck to care about something like that
I may be misremembering but I’m pretty sure the same character appears in Nioh or Nioh 2. A Japanese game made by Japanese developers. A cameo, but a representation of an historic figure and not some random person plucked out of historical obscurity.
I probably won’t play the game because I’ve never really been a fan of the Assasin’s Creed style but imagine getting your knickers in a twist over something that no one is forcing you to play. There are a bajillion other games. So weird.
Dude I loved Nioh and I love the story of Yasuke, so when I encountered him in the game I was psyched. It’s like, as a white American, if I’m writing a story about cowboys, and I find out that there was a Japanese guy that was a famous cowboy right at the time my story is set, and also clearly not talked about enough… hell yeah I’m putting that guy in there! Why should I be upset that he doesn’t look like me when that makes it so much more fascinating? That’s fucking awesome! People breaking the mold and shattering our expectations is cool, and always has been. If I’m a writer with a big fanbase and I have the opportunity to shine a light on something clearly awesome that most people don’t know about then hell yeah I want to make people know about it. These fucking people… not only are they racist and they’ve also lost their sense of wonder, their imagination, their sense of joy for a strange and unexpected world that we live in. What a miserable fucking way to live.
FC has some valid points. If I was a streamer of his level, it would get old as well. Imagine streaming a game. Having a good time, doing your thing. And then a bunch of people come into the stream. Voluntarily come into the stream. No one made them join his stream. And then stay there to complain about the game. Or the stream. Or one persons opinions. Like this random person, decided that they are going to go out of their way to complain about something they don’t like. And just bitch and complain about something they voluntarily decided to partake in. People need to find new hobbies and better ways to spend their time.
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Maybe let’s not tolerate bigots.
So the people being racist, it’s not them, it’s the guy playing a game that has races people don’t like.
The streamer wasn’t “using a megaphone” - these losers weren’t yelling back at a guy on the street , they were *going out of their way" looking for people playing the game so they could join and bitch about the existence of black people.
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If you’re doing a little solo guitar performance in some back alley, does that mean the racist masses are entitled to come thundering down that back alley and harass you?
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“Using a megaphone” implies he was trying to push an agenda. Being a public figure/entertainer is not well described by the phrase “using a megaphone.”
He’s deliberately and intentionally inviting the public, yes… to be fucking entertained while he streams a video game. He’s not trying to teach them anything, or convince them of anything, or push an agenda.
He had people come into his stream and start talking racist shit and he shut it down. In no way does he have to put up with it just because he is a public figure.
Do you even fucking hear yourself? Saying that being a public figure means you’re deliberately asking for harassment and abuse is fucking insane! What the fuck is wrong with you or anyone else who thinks it’s okay to hurl abuse at someone just because they’re a fucking public figure. And don’t fucking tell me you’re not saying it’s okay, but public figures should “expect it”. No. Full stop. Fuck that. By saying they should expect it you’re fucking normalizing it and saying it’s okay. That’s a choice you’re making, and it’s frankly disgusting.
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I already told you. You said the act of being a public figure means you are inviting harassment. If you don’t understand how this normalizes harassment, I don’t think there’s much else to say.
Allow me to quote myself where I a) showed that I read your comment, and b) anticipated your response:
You can’t say public figures should expect harassment and are inviting it and then say people who harass them are not absolved. You are absolving them by saying it’s expected and invited.
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They can be, but they’re not.
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More like the show he was playing had free entry and these guys came to the bar specifically to complain that they don’t like his music.
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i dont get why you go out of your way not to mention the complaints were racist in nature. its not about some people complaining they dont like ac because its a mediocre franchise when it comes to gameplay or smth like that.
Thought it was implied in the article. But my bad. The comments he lost his shit over where people being being super racist cunts.
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I wonder if PCgamer knows what “going viral” actually means…
It’s the magic word that makes any story seem more significant than it really is.
Its PCGamer. What do you expect?
“Normal” people mindlessly buy AC whenever they release a new one, despite most of them being the same mediocrity each time. One or two get mentioned as people’s favorite and the only games they can even recommend in the series, again, despite there being numerous games. People also shouldn’t be upset when an objective mediocrity is noted. A small release window between games is one such factor. But this is what people want. So, enjoy!
I mean, yeah, apparently it is what people want. It isn’t what I want, and so I just go and do something else. What I don’t do is go off and get mad at Assassin’s Creed, or at the very concept of Assassin’s Creed. Just let people like what they like, I dunno, sounds good to me
read the article before you type out a comment under it maybe. hint: you missed the point entirely.
I figured I might have. I just wanted to note the past of the AC series.
So Ubisoft good now? After years of Ubisoft sucks. New game comes out, their good again. I don’t get you people.
Will have fun level grinding. No, I’m sorry. You can go to the in-game store and pay $5 to skip the grind. Man, I love Ubislop. /s
Not liking racist ≠ " I love [insert corporation here]". More than one bad thing can exist in the world simultaneously.
If those Internet duds that get mad about black people in video games spent like half that energy being mad about, like, wage theft, we’d be so much better off.
Therein lies the point of MAGA efforts. If you keep your base punching the left then they won’t remember they’re working class, not really being crushed by the left, and may start to punch up.
They’re already too scared to do in person town halls. Even so, this steered rage is intentional.
You’re not displaced by corporate, but by immigrants, DEI, and non-traditional women.
Don’t forget the church in your metaphor. That way, the punches that keep those MAGATs spitting leftwise are reich crosses.
Maga efforts assisted by Democratic leaders that also focus on everything else but class issues as well.
Depends. That’s the issue though. DEMs is a giant bag of angry cats fighting amongst themselves, gatekeeping one another, and more or less telling one another how they should be while saying it’s all inclusive.
The infighting is real. I’ll give the repubs credit for unity, they’re strangely good at it, just look at Tesla. Ten years of hating Tesla and hazing Tesla drivers. Now, the same people are driving cars into protesters for daring to smear the company. That’s unity. Blind unity. But unity.
We can’t do anything even remotely close to that in party.
Part of the problem there is that it’s transparently obvious that the establishment is complicit, regardless of whether they put D or R beside their name. One of the advantages of MAGA (from their perspective) is that you pretty much can’t call yourself a republican unless you’re on board. They’ve taken enough action and done enough bold and divisive things that they’ve forced everyone to make their allegiances crystal clear.
Dems, on the other hand, are (rn) a pretty loose coalition of “people who oppose Trump.” Dems aren’t really allies, they’re just people with a common enemy. And as we all know, “the enemy of my enemy is my enemy’s enemy, no more and no less.” Those fragile alliances will break the moment anyone tries to challenge the status quo.
There’s a few different ways forward. Some would have been more effective before Trump and his cronies lit the constitution on fire, and some are better suited to the present moment. But we can’t seem to agree on what to do, or to work together to get anything done. Part of the problem is the uncertainty, not knowing where people’s loyalties lie. It’s easy to say in a vacuum that unwillingness to compromise is dumb, but it makes more sense when you realize we’re effectively playing Secret Hitler, and compromise makes you look like the enemy. That doesn’t make it the right call, necessarily, but I understand the impulse.
As for strategies, first and foremost we need to organize. Nothing happens without organization. We should also be reading up on political theory, especially from people we disagree with. (I don’t mean right wing stuff, I mean people with similar goals.) Anarchists should read Lenin. MLs should read Chomsky. Leftists should read liberal stuff and liberals should read leftist stuff. (I know that you think you understand the positions you disagree with. Read it anyways.)
As for strategies, there are several. Some want to reform the Democratic Party. Some want to start a new party. Some believe that insurrection is the only way forward, and that anything less will leave a corrupt system in place, as effective as removing only half of a tumor. All these approaches have drawbacks. All have some merit. Frankly, do whichever you can live with.
The important thing is: support the others whenever you can. Even if you think democracy is dead and there’s no point in voting, do it anyways. Until such time as we think the government will use our voting record against us, it’s only one or two days out of your year. It won’t hurt anything, and there’s a chance it could help.
If you can stomach it, vote tactically. Voting the lesser of two evils might only be slightly reducing harms done, but stalling for time can be really useful sometimes.
Take as much direct action as you can. Remember that while some people can be reasoned with, the people who are actually in power are operating on realpolitik. They will only listen to you if you give them tangible reasons to listen. Might doesn’t make right, but it does shut you up. Or if you’re being suppressed, fighting back will give you the leverage you need to be heard. Don’t let them silence you.
Above all, remember that everyone opposing the establishment (from the left) is your ally. Even if their chosen method is running for office and pushing more progressive legislation. Even if their method is armed resistance. You may not agree, you don’t have to help them, and you might even have to publicly disavow them. But don’t get in their way (as much as you can manage) and don’t rat them out.
Finally, remember what game we are playing. Remember there are traitors. Not everyone who claims to be a Democrat supports democracy. Not everyone who claims to be a Marxist or an Anarchist really is one. Don’t judge people by the labels they wear, watch what they do. If they’re acting in a way that helps you, they’re probably your ally. And if they’re sowing dissent or getting in the way, regardless of how loudly they claim to be on your side, they probably aren’t to be trusted. And definitely don’t draw conclusions about a whole political ideology based on a few people who claim to belong to that ideology, because bad faith actors have every reason to sow dissent in our ranks. Words are easy, don’t trust them.
If we could all coalesce around that basic gameplan, I think we’d have a lot more unity than we do now. You just have to remember we’re playing a social deduction game, and everything becomes an awful lot clearer. At least I think it does.
The culture war is made up to distract from the class war
Only war is a class war. Ever and always.
Don’t hate new assassin creed games for being woke
Hate them for being bad games, like the rest of us
I wish more streamers had the guts to do this. Too many ride the line and just ignore this stuff. It gives the idiots permission to keep yapping about it. God at least have your mods ban people in chat for it v
Just about everyone wants to see themselves in the main player character of an RPG. It’s one reason character creators exist. Why we can choose between male and female Shepard and then toggle their appearances. But why is it white men yell the loudest when they don’t see themselves in a fixed main character?
It’s a valid question. Sure there was an ask for female assassin play, but it wasn’t anything like this crude, angry, and off the rails epidemic we see far too often. Why is this population so loud and rage filled?
I happily play Witcher, and enjoy Geralt for who he is, including those tired sighs and the long hair that blows in a wind that’s not there. Geralt looks like he’s been torn off the cover of an old bodice ripper novel, which is a bit of an eye roll but adds to the humor. Even so. As a woman I had no problems with it or the game. I’ve played W3 through twice.
Enter Ciri as the main for the next game. Suddenly there’s a huge problem even though she’s the logical next Witcher. I’d like to know how she plays as a character outside the premade with gimped UI. The preview to 4 was nicely nuanced as well, a lot of detail packed into that clip apart from just simple spooky monster fighting. She clearly has a chip on her shoulder about life choices, and fair enough given her history.
Again, no raging outcry regarding Geralt or the way he looked for 3 installments. Now there’s outcry.
I’m not Japanese or Black and yet I’ll happily play this latest AC (but only after its old and goes on sale).
I always wanted to see anything else. I’m a human male every day. Give me a female and/or an alien or some other strange thing. Let’s be different!
I never understand this need for people to mimic themselves.
That’s how I see it too. It’s fun experiencing different things.
Same, non-cis white guy but I usually pick the not-me main character when given a choice. In Pokemon I’m a chick, in Stardew valley I’m a black chick, in Orcs Must Die 2 I’m the sorceress.
What kind of egotistical fuck chooses the “me” character every time
I typically play female characters in games too. Always have. They’re something outside my world experience, I can experience the story through a lense I may not have seen otherwise.
It’s nice to see yourself represented but like… Shiiiiiiit dude. I’m reading a book or playing a game to be immersed in the story. Why people put so much stock into who or what a character is; it’s beyond me.
I just want some good stories with good characters. I can’t fucking wait to kick ass as Cirilla in the Witcher. I loved being Girlboss V in Cyberpunk, Senua was stellar.
Open world RPG? Bet your ass I wanna be goth mommy in plate armour ripping out a dragon’s throat.
Also sometimes games had smaller hitboxes for women and little me fucked with that more than anything.
I play men characters a lot of the time because the boobs armor trend annoys me. I always try to make them look very distinct from me irl though. I really like this new trend of making all armors gender neutral (e.g BG3 and especially MH wilds, since the series had a long standing tradition of making some of the female armors really… Let’s say “not realistically functional as an armor”. In the new one they still have these versions but you are free to choose any of the 2 looks regardless of your character’s gender).
See I’m able to find comedy in the boob armor, but I’d much prefer to see feminine armor be designed to look equally as epic as the masculine armor designs
Some archetypes of boobs armor can work e.g the half naked barbarian, which is fairly gender neutral too thanks to Conan and shit, but sometimes it’s ridiculous.
I’ve talked before about how hilarious Verac’s Brassard, a pretty dang good piece of Armor from RuneScape is. Visually it’s a giant shoulder plate with a couple of leather straps to hold it in place, but it’s somehow a very competent armor stat-wise especially when considering the cost to purchase it or work to acquire it as a drop. (The wiki page indicates it’s basically useless, but back in the day it was a common budget selection for armor because anything better costs at least quadruple, if not orders of magnitude more than what the brassard would cost)
It hilariously has more coverage on the feminine model than on the masculine model
I made my character in XCX a woman for the same reason. I’m a boring ass white straight cis dude. Games are a fantasy and escape from real life, maybe I wanna play as a chick or black guy or trans person or alien or something, fucking who gives a shit. I played Persona 5, and I wasn’t mad that I’m not actually a 16-year-old Japanese boy.
I do recall some people being upset that they basically “yassified” Geralt from the witcher 2 and onwards. According to the books he’s supposed to look “weird” or something like that. Like, not repulsive but definitely not sexy, with slightly “unnatural” proportions and beast-like traits, etc. Which I think they nailed in the first game, through the low definition textures and models probably help a lot with the uncanniness.
I find that people crying about non-white male and/or non-bimbo female MCs are outrage tourists pushing their stupid gamergate agenda 99% of the time. At this point I don’t know why we are even acknowledging them anymore.
White, cis, and male has been the default for hundreds of years. When a piece of media presents an alternative, some white cis males consider it an attack on their very being. They see faces that are not their own and think that this ‘correction’ of centuries of oppression means that the media is saying that being white or male is inherently wrong.
It’s narrow-minded and selfish, but in a way that’s akin to a toddler who has never had to share their toys before. Hopefully they will eventually grow up and understand that the world does not revolve around them. They’ve just never had to experience that fact before.
I’m not a samurai or a ninja and it would be fairly weird to see a white man in Japan at that time especially in those roles. I don’t need to see myself.
Also have these people never read a book where they aren’t represented by the main character? ( pre-edit: true, they probably don’t/can’t read)
this is beside your point but nioh 1 had a white samurai based on a historical figure. i bet the chuds werent upset about that when it came out.
I’ve been listening to the audiobooks of the Witcher series and honestly it’s a series far more about Ciri than it is about Geralt. Garalt is only important because of his connection via destiny to Ciri (and of course he was the main character of the short stories that preceded the longform books) but as Ciri grew up and became capable of protecting herself he became less important until even destiny stopped caring about Geralt.
Also Ciri never received the full Witcher mutations because the process for performing the mutations was lost not long after Geralt became a Witcher. She received a partial mutation via a witcher’s diet at Ker Moren (i imagine that’s like HRT for trans people in that the hormones are what does most of the heavy lifting, and the surgeries just round out the transition) but that’s it. The rest is all her being a bad-ass on her own. I’m excited to play as her and see the kinds of bad-assery and moral quagmires she finds herself the center of
Thankfully this isn’t ubiquitous, at least in my experience. The Hades franchise has its second game in beta (is it still in beta? I haven’t checked in in a few months) with a female lead and I haven’t noticed a peep about that. Hopefully that’s not just the communities I’m part of and it’s actually been received as well as I’ve perceived
Basically “not all gamers” but not in an asshole way haha
There’s no such thing as always or never when it comes to people, except death.
How many people raging about this probably played the shit outta San Andreas. Oohhhhhh but that’s okay cause it fits their stereotype?
Game is fine so far.
People get all in their feelings over a game. A story. Would they get this worked up over a book? These people have to bitch about something to feel alive.
I feel alive taking in a game how it was written and designed to be played. I don’t worry about cultural norms or other petty bullshit. Enjoy the gameplay, the world design and a new experience.
Now, give me a Black Flag sequel with a female lead, a revamped ship combat and more pirate comedy. Top it off with some lesbien romance and outfits. Just to piss off the Republican snowflakes.
Ship Blackbeard and Captain Morgan. That would truly piss them off. A lesbian romance only brings performative anger because they’re hoping for porn.
Also, the only thing that comes from including more people of color, LGBTQ+ people, etc., in media is more variety in characters and possible story lines. How is that ever a bad thing?
it’s bad if you’re a bigot and have been raised to hate and feel disgust when your beliefs are challenged
I remember feeling this in church as a kid. Know what I did? I asked myself, “why would I react that way? If this is true, then it should be able to withstand challenges, and if it’s not then it is not worth believing.”
Sounds like you’re talking about AC: Odyssey 😄
God, I hated that game. I miss my classic Assassin’s Creed.
AC died with Desmond
I still quite liked Black Flag and Unity (although far from perfect, especially at launch) and even Origins was pretty good. But Ubisoft Quebec just managed to poop on AC lore multiple times, most egregiously with odyssey.
AC was mechanically enjoyable, if overly long and repetitive. But the story was lacking to the point that I don’t even remember what the fuck the game was about in the first place. that’s what you get for making games bigger and longer. it just becomes a
so much so that at first I thought “shame about the story because it had a really strong start with that twist” but I realized was misremembering AC3’s plot twist. so there’s literally nothing that I remember about AC4’s story except for the abysmal modern day parts which proved to me that they stopped giving a shit about the story and caused me to never check out an AC game again.
I did live that fantasy through Kassandra and Odyssey, but it wasn’t the Caribbean baby!
What’s wrong with the Aegean?
A lot of the hate was also from trailers showing off completely fucked bugs. Floating and/or frozen characters, unloaded assets, etc technical disasters
Why hate a ubisoft game for having a historically accurate black dude when ubisoft games do plenty of other legitimate things to earn hate?
Yeah its an ubisoft copy-paste game. It is a bad game cause they don’t make any good games.
But american conservatives are mad that some shitty ass sci fi slop game from a terrible developer is not 100% historically accurate since they want an samurai to be white texan instead of black.
Also I’m pretty sure that the black samurai in the game is an actual real, historical figure. Or at least based on one.
Which makes it all so much stupider. It’s not even about race swapping, it’s literally people upset that the main character of a video game is black.
Sure, but that’s not the hate being addressed here. Those were comments specifically about there being a black guy as a main character.
The fact that it’s a buggy barely playable mess is par for the course for Ubisoft.