🦧 The warriors of "woke" and the flattening of gaming

The video game, possibly the most powerful means of entertainment available to us today, with a relatively short but extremely full history, thanks to which a part of the soul of many people has been genuinely formed over the years, including my soul.. . is certainly experiencing a particular period.

In some ways, its evolution as an instrument, and its expansion as a market, have made it reach increasingly higher points, managing to become on the one hand great pieces of popular culture, through which millions of people manage to find each other and connect to make facing daily life; on the other, true artistic masterpieces, rightly praised by critics, which will be remembered for this reason. The video game shows no signs of becoming a thing of the past, as its detractors suggested thirty or twenty years ago.

But, on the other hand, games are experiencing a certain essentialist crisis, and obviously the players too. Consumer rights increasingly violated, prices skyrocketing despite the death of physical media, microtransactions and negative dynamics developed all in the name of profit, all within games that are never finished and always broken at launch. And, as if that wasn’t enough, even video games have been hit by the endless stray bullets of the horrifying “culture wars”, if not directly used as rifles and cannons by individuals in bad faith.

All these matters can be discussed endlessly, but this time, inspired by the thoughts arising from the skirmishes of some YouTubers (or, to be honest, gratuitous attacks from one direction), and not only that, I wanted to focus on the last point of the question, to recognize how this hate-driven politicization of video games, if it were to take hold even further, will only lead to the erosion of the artistic value of this medium, more than the economic mechanics common to all aspects of the our world.

Before we start naming names, it’s time to frame the situation even better. In a sociopolitical climate like ours, increasingly divisive throughout the Western world, there are those who arbitrarily decide - almost always due to the persuasion of people both consciously and even more often unconsciously, malevolent - that everything that is different from self (perceived either as right, perfect and normal, or otherwise subjugated, an innocent victim of something) is rotten. As such, it must be fought, always bluntly, putting aside empathy, tolerance and humility.

It is precisely given these premises that, from both extremes of a political spectrum that extends from left to right, the most stinky rottenness can emerge. But, particularly in recent years, video games are under attack, from… who, wait a minute? The right says it’s all the fault of the “woke” left, which would force its agenda into games, promoting an extremely feel-good and in some ways unreal vision of the world, to the detriment of the average gamer who just wants to have fun. The left, in contrast, does not seem to be massively or consistently interested in this issue in particular; it should be remembered that sensational issues that cause the evil of video games started there too, but the scenario seems less sad to me.

I, however, will turn everything around: for me, games, recently, have instead been under attack from that fringe of the extreme right that complains so much and that, if it really cared about the state of gaming as much as it proclaims, would be able to make healthy criticism, without vitriol and without always strangely leaning towards one side. It’s true that we find newsagents both on the right, and perhaps above all on the left, in this field, but… it may be a coincidence that all those videogame critics with a minimum of seriousness never mix their own politics within the their job or hobby, regardless of whether their opinion on the work in question is positive or negative?

This whole situation is particularly close to my heart, because it particularly affects me. On the one hand there is the general extremization of society, of people who completely replace reasoning with their own ego, who find a threat to their existence simply within that of various minorities, of which I am also part; something that, thinking about the future, can only give me negative sensations. On the other hand, although I define myself as more of a casual gamer than anything else - which according to certain elitists would take away my credibility, but for me it’s the opposite, otherwise I wouldn’t even be here writing - I still grew up with video games, and over time I have developed and continue to develop a culture of it, even though I am still in a niche in terms of tastes and inspirations. The fact that even games, which I have always experienced in a relatively carefree way, have to be tainted with the sad issues of our world — I repeat, from all sides of politics — can only give me negative feelings, here in the present.

At this point, wanting to avoid suddenly descending into heavy questions, I think it is necessary to better explain my current position towards video games. On the one hand, to tell the truth, I no longer have time to play. Often, in the moments that remain free, not sucked into the darkness of life, I prefer to commit to creating, rather than consuming… therefore writing code, articles like this, engaging in other active hobbies; maybe even create my own video games, if only I had less superficial or more reasonable ideas. And, when I am in perfect condition to start playing, I am perhaps away from home, therefore without a machine suitable for playing the releases of the current decade; or, I want something I can use quickly, without worrying about the flaws of modern software, between uploads, or Internet connection and updates, or strange DRM.

The side of the coin that I have in common with those others, however, is also quite strong. I feel as if many games have lost their spirit a bit and - I don’t know how else to say it - were less and less made for art, and more and more for purely economic purposes, thus transforming the video game from an artistic medium to a means of profit; a vision that inevitably corrupts its essence, as really happens in any other field. There is the uncontrolled proliferation of open worlds, experiences with immense potential, which however too often become a means to inflate works that have very little substance, and still manage to sell them. Perpendicular to those, there is then the growth of live service games, continuously updated, designed to profit with microtransactions, and pushing players to stay active through a whole series of psychological mechanics that overshadow mental health and genuine fun, introducing factors such as FOMO¹. Along the same lines as the latter, there are the so-called gachas, mainly mobile and even less structured, even more aggressive in monetary terms: practically always free-to-play, and with microtransactions for things that are definitely not just aesthetic. But, let’s say that these are labels, and not watertight containers: a single game can easily assimilate all the worst aspects!

Coming to this point, especially without having made any specific title, I believe that my opinions are not at all controversial and that we can recognize that they are the same ones that have been pushed out by serious criticism when appropriate and necessary. Playing involves a waste of various resources, and together with many quality games there are others that really have nothing to offer, so it is right to make considerations and choices based on your personal needs, your individual tastes, but also according to objective characteristics that make up a video game.

What is less … clever, so to speak, is considering factors which, it must be said, either have no impact on one’s person as a player, or do not concern the game in an intrinsic and objectively truthful way. In other words, even if this would technically be only one of the possible cases: it is not intelligent to accept or reject a game a priori, or to criticize it (positively or negatively) only on the basis of a certain ideological vision that the game respects or violates , ignoring or overshadowing all those positive and negative facts already mentioned. This is how the video game is no longer a successful piece of art, or an appreciable pastime, but not even a product of good or bad technical workmanship; it becomes a political knife, sometimes on the blade side and sometimes on the handle side.

Now, I fear it’s time to spill the beans on what, after months and months in which I have all in all got by, now leads me to write this treatise, so as not to die inside. Well, in the last and very last days there have perhaps been two new things that made me say “meh”: the matter between the YouTuber AndyPants Gaming, with his video accusing “Woke Youtubers”, and the surreal diffusion of the Steam group “Woke Content Detector”. You will understand that, at a certain point, I too want to say enough…

“Woke!”

I swear I didn’t do this on purpose, but there’s a pretty obvious pattern here, so to get everyone on the same page I need to define what the word “woke” means, and more importantly how it’s used, because in this case it’s important. Originating in African-American English, being “woke” originally meant being awake, on guard against social injustices, in that case related to racism. With the birth of the Black Lives Matter protests, the term has changed slightly, coming to also indicate awareness of similar, but more extensive, problems, therefore relating to other minority categories, as well as less familiar ones, and of a systemic scale. And then, once the word began to spread outside those groups, reaching the opposite social and political poles of the mostly American population, from a self-descriptive word of pride it has now become a tool for stigmatizing political opponents.²

In the new negative meaning, which has also spread in Europe, as well as being a mockery, it is a code word that identifies, citing Wikipedia^{3</ a>}: a hypothetical “ideology”, unspecified but all-encompassing, which would include a range of typically progressive political positions (from feminism to opposition to racism to various left-wing economic and social positions) and whose aim would range from affinity with the “boycott culture” to the “destruction of nations.”. Obviously, if the Wokipedia definition doesn’t suit someone, I demand a rigorous alternative, I don’t want a sterile complaint… but the point is that having a really hard definition is half a mirage; now that this word is used to criticize practically everything, it means nothing, it’s just a dog whistle4.

AndyPants Gaming

Knowing this, in reality, you can immediately understand a lot about someone who uses this word by attributing it to other people or things… and so, closing the tangent, I am now a little stunned to see what kind of person AndyPants turned out to be . Well yes, I knew him for a few months… sometimes his videos with decidedly inflammatory titles and covers will have been recommended to me; once, however, I watched a video (I don’t remember which one) whose premise did not instill in me the desire to kill myself, and in the end, except for a few points where I had to yawn or giggle to avoid picking up a blade, I found myself in essential points of the speech.

However, by browsing the channel, even without opening the other videos, the atmosphere was decidedly suspicious, but by not immersing myself I didn’t even have the opportunity to decree that it was in bad faith, so with the benefit of the doubt my day continued. I almost felt sorry, because it seemed like every now and then he tried to make sincere videos, but they always received far fewer views than the ones with a toxic shell… I didn’t start following him, and I mostly forgot about him, only having him come to mind when I heard his name from other videos… and just like that, the other night I saw the mess he made with his own hands. he unleashed, finding a reaction video to his “Woke Youtubers.”

Let’s leave the task of dismantling the entire original video piece by piece to this one, while I want to focus on some points in particular. Then, AndyPants begins the video by saying that he has noticed “a disturbing pattern” in other YouTubers of whom, according to him, he was previously a fan, and this is expressed by saying that (I quote from the text on the screen):

1. They refuse to call anything “woke”
2. They never talk about the ugliness of women in video games
3. They never talk about how fucking gay games are now
4. They never talk about the obvious racism against white people
5. They never talk about DEI, ESG and BlackRock
6. [They never talk about]The dismantling of masculinity from video games

Why do they intentionally avoid talking about woke[ness] in video games? [I am] Cuck⁵ of the companies bowing to the LGBTQ mafia.

Obviously, all these points invalidate themselves, either because they are obviously absurd, or because they are presented as facts when they do not have any objective data behind them, but only subjective and never verifiable feelings… except number 5, which needs to be reviewed. One thing I want to focus on, however, is the bad faith, aggression and arrogance with which these ideas are carried forward, this time to the extreme, inconveniencing other YouTubers who evidently talk about games without making it a continuous political issue… and only for this reason they are therefore accused of being secretly paid, controlled by the large videogame companies to spread this elusive yet omnipresent and harmful woke agenda, and consequently insulted to priors.

The subtext that also emerges from the video is that in reality no one can genuinely not base their video game criticism on these trivial points, and instead say things as they are in true good and evil. According to Andy Pants, it can’t be that, perhaps, when someone thinks about games they don’t also want to think about social wars, or more simply their head isn’t burned by the extremist propaganda of the moment. For some reason, moreover, according to this logic, there is no problem for companies to make all the harshest negative criticism on the facts of the game, but the collaborations would fail if political issues were raised. He doesn’t even particularly hide what he really means when, in complaining, he also puts a lot of emphasis on the fact that these others never use the word “woke”: due to the nature of dog whistles in general, whereby using it means winking at the political party in question, not using it logically means keeping a certain distance from that same party; something that radicals of all stripes clearly do not agree with.

But, no, the climbing tournament isn’t today, so now no one should come out and say that the video is actually satirical, or it’s all just to make liberals drool with anger. Meanwhile, it contains points already present in some way in many past videos by AntyPants Gaming (based on the facade, on clips that I’ve seen around a bit, and on hearsay)… to the point that this one held up in the end, precisely the other day, a live debate with Act Man, one of the YouTubers he had set his sights on. Well, the debate started off badly for him as host, and it ended up even worse. Of course, in my opinion it was generally quite poor, on both fronts, but there were still differences in the approaches of the two, so they should be highlighted.

Act Man seemed calm to me, capable of answering questions and also holding up to gratuitous provocations, bringing new information and being there without lowering himself to the other’s level; probably because, in his heart, he knows perfectly well that he is on the right side of the story, and of history. On the other hand, however… AndyPants does not spare himself barbs based on the assumption of the political nature of his interlocutor, always with that not very calm tone, masked behind a forced pride, which I cannot well describe, carried to the end, in which he tries in vain to conclude without appearing defeated. Also in this case, I leave the video of the reloaded live broadcast here, to watch from the Act Man TV channel.

The skeletons in the closet, however, don’t end there. Apparently, AndyPants has this habit of throwing the rock and then hiding his hand. Here I have to partly trust the word of Act Man, who brought up this thing in the debate that I didn’t know about and, between missing pages on the Wayback Machine and the current impossibility of getting too much information for this article, it is impossible for me to verify every action and statement he makes. … but some other source can be found, even just on YouTube, which refutes his ideas or makes dishonest behavior known.^{6< /sup>}

Certainly, however, although I cannot verify all his old posts and videos, many deleted because they were too free from the toxic politics towards which he has recently decided to focus, one can see that, in his reloading of the live broadcast of the debate, there is something strange. Before starting to write this article, the live chat and comments had been deactivated, according to him because Act Man fans went down there to criticize and attack… while now, a day later, the comments are active, and the video has been voluntarily restricted by age. Sure, there may have been violent attacks, but, judging by the comments under the Act Man TV video, I doubt they could have been such a large number compared to the total number to justify blocking the discussion. Honestly, in any case, those who start shooting hot opinions on the Internet cannot then refuse the criticisms that naturally arrive; you can punish individuals who exceed the limit, and it is indeed right, but you still need to maintain the right humility at that point.

Ah, as if that wasn’t enough… still as I was writing, the Act Man TV video was removed (and then rehabilitated, at least) for copyright infringement, following a report from AndyPants Gaming, despite the fact that the two were practically mutually agree that we can use the debate for content in general. The Act Man video has always had comments enabled, just for the record.⁷ (Caught by me with the embed on the private page of the post, and then in the comments on AndyPants’ video.)

One last thing that strikes me negatively is perhaps childish, but I feel bad every time I see individuals like that, because it means that they believe in things that they don’t understand; sometimes based on an entire life (but this is not the case), and other times simply being a lateral fact perhaps ignoreable but, again, not for me. AndyPants says he is a believing Christian, but, I apologize for the judgment, this is not how a Christian should behave. Among all the things Jesus did and said to his disciples were love of neighbor, desire for peace, understanding of differences, and intellectual honesty and integrity; certainly not resentment, hatred, gratuitous hatred or judgment based on random factors.

Living it myself, I can understand the feeling of anger that comes out when something you appreciate, in this case video games, is taken in a subjectively negative direction by external issues, in this case, in part, the culture wars. However, by addressing the problem in this way, that is, by throwing epithets and promoting visions of the world which - and this is not a judgment of intent, but only an observation of the effects caused, involuntarily or otherwise - are discriminatory in the negative sense of the term, one does not other than fueling the flames of hatred between peoples, which end up burning only ordinary people, without even burning those who are really the cause of the problems that affect us.

“Woke Content Detector”

With a rhythm that, deep down, definitely makes me think that we are all living inside a very sad video game… yet another video from a creator that I follow brings to mind yet another thing that I had deleted, immediately after having discovered just weeks ago, which is truly incredible. If you like yapping, I’d say this is a good one to watch too.

A Steam curation group called “Woke Content Detector” or “WCDetector” (which, when put that way, sounds like the name of a toilet locator service) has been around for several months, but has only now begun to spread beyond its original milieu. This is administered by a few people who, with the help of the community, apply recommendation ratings to games on Steam according to their internal criteria. In all honesty, they made an attempt to define rigorous criteria, and I have to give them credit for this, even if… my goodness. At the beginning of the “Methodology” post, they have this to say:

“Woke” Content = any image, message, character, narrative, dialogue, music, or game mechanic that includes themes associated with the left side of the political aisle in contemporary Western politics.

These themes include things like: pro-LGBTQ+ messages, pro-DEI messages, pro-climate action messages, pro-communism/socialism messages, pro-abortion messages, pro-pedophilia messages, pro-immigration messages, pro-transhumanism messages, anti-Western society messages, anti-human messages, anti-colonialism messages, anti-capitalism messages, anti-heterosexual messages, anti-patriarchy messages, anti-white messages, anti-family messages, messages anti-free speech, anti-gun messages, etc.

“Recommended” = No Woke theme present “Informative” = Woke themes present with subtle or non-specific messaging “Not recommended” = Woke themes present with overt messaging

They go on to say: Whether a game is “good” or “bad” is an assessment that people can make for themselves. Our only concern is whether or not a game has Woke content, and if so, to what extent. I admit, there may be; It would be dishonest of me to try someone’s intentions in this way, just because I feel inside that I don’t like what they’re doing, or it bothers me in some way. However, at the same time, we must ask ourselves why someone gets to the point of working on a database of this type, or feels the need to consult it to consider possible video games, a priori or a posteriori; complete with a colorful and tidy table, levels that greatly surpass even my autism.

Given that this is not only not the only group with such objectives, but not even the only one with such a name, we must also ask ourselves why the word “woke” is used to encapsulate everything, considering its nature extremely imprecise, as well as divisive, poisonous and far too politicised. With a definition of the themes like the one they gave, in my opinion a more appropriate name would have been “Anti-status-quo Content Detector”, where all those games whose contents go in some way against the established status quo are marked as not recommended. by those who, in Western society as stability in the heart of the last century, had representation and control… because, not just taking the definition in a sterile way, but actually going to see how it is applied, in the end it is more or less exactly that.

But again, at this point I have a question: the people who are not only indifferent, but actually in favor of this type of content, and therefore against their respective opposites… why don’t they make their own versions of these lists? Oh, I’ve never seen anything like it. Try to imagine this exact project, but reversed, and see what comes out. Any team shooter not recommended, because it promotes the classic model of war, and completely rejects pacifism? Minecraft not recommended, because it encourages the indiscriminate exploitation of natural resources and animals? Tetris recommended simply because it contains Soviet music, and therefore is communist? Or, on the contrary, not recommended because the gameplay consists of tidying up falling blocks, which could carry forward harmful chauvinist stereotypes according to which women should stay at home to tidy up the mess caused by men who, having the privilege of being higher up, do they knock things down? …I’m joking with the very last example, but otherwise I think the trend is clear.

Scrolling through the inadvisable or informative lines of the gigantic table, it is not difficult at all to turn up your nose. There would be quite a few examples to give here too, even if I limited myself only to the games I know, so I would rather finish this section by remaining generic. However, before we can close the huge open point at the beginning of this article, it’s time to shed light on something that these guys here are against… but I think exactly as much as I am, or the other gamers, and members of various demographic minorities. What’s this with scary acronyms?

Economics lesson

Assuming that I study serious stuff, not these office subjects, and therefore I’m sorry for any errors of form in what follows… I am referring to DEI and ESG, which are respectively: “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion”, i.e. a typology of corporate organizational model, and “Environmental, Social, and Governance” (Environmental, Social and of Governance), i.e. a principle of financial investment (which, for the last factor, would include the concept of DEI). BlackRock, on the other hand, an entity often called into question together with these acronyms, is a gigantic investment company, which has to all intents and purposes normalized the ESG principle, and its quantification based on a standardized score (“ESG score”).⁸

Just looking for some information, you immediately discover that, first of all, in this whole cauldron there is not only BlackRock, but also other financial entities of a very similar scale… but BlackRock is practically the largest of all, for one difference of perhaps around $1 trillion in financial assets held, compared to those just below. (…It’s just a “1” followed by 12 zeros, no nonsense!) Furthermore, another great misunderstanding, they are not the ones who invented the concept of ESG out of nothing… various sources report that the term itself has existed for at least twenty years, after being coined by UN bodies, while in reality the practical concept it would have existed long before.⁹

However, since finance hurts me almost as much as the politicization of video games, I’ll get to the point: what do all these things have to do with it? The point would be that today all large companies, in any sector, obviously including gaming, would today be guided by this type of policy, and carried out with methods that would favor obtaining higher scores according to these criteria, all at cost of players. Without beating around the bush, the fact is that… it’s all true, unfortunately! The problem lies in how the issue is considered and addressed: instead of recognizing that it is a complex problem of an extremely economic nature, which I now want to clarify in my own small way, all of this is trivialized, by means of bogeymen and generalizations, projecting hatred on groups and people who have nothing to do with the matter.

The type of individual who shouts and shouts “woke” generally professes to be fiercely capitalist, and absolutely anti-communist; curiously, regardless of one’s social class. For goodness sake, it would be OK, if only they all knew what capitalism and communism (and socialism) are in practice. I see many of them use the adjective “communist” with the same exaggerated and inaccurate inflection that they instead criticize so much for the word “fascist”, when this is used instead by certain exponents of the left… situation, once again, opposite but the same.

In this case it is therefore simply a buzzword¹⁰, used to refer to a huge spectrum of things, and often mixed with others concepts also expressed through words of the same kind: the acronyms above, to which LGBTQA+ is also added just to be safe. The reasoning behind these associations is… flawed, at least, considering that it is based on a series of assumptions, which those who assimilate do so at least largely as a result of the propaganda of extremist groups and movements, which physiologically aim to incorporate new people as loyal members.

However, the widespread idea is that these large companies would be driven by a given political agenda, extremely progressive on social issues, and ready not only to accept, but to promote a subversion of all the status quo mentioned above. This idea is generally defined with a huge series of buzzwords, but - also to go back to before - let’s take for granted what AndyPants Gaming always repeats, that is, the “gay communist agenda”.

In reality, at first glance, this line of thought is not so absurd; and for this reason it is extremely sneaky and dangerous. A person sees this fact of ESG, looks at what people the companies are made up of, notices both the products that come out and the way in which the company relates to the public (especially when they put the colored flags in June) and. .. there is no doubt: “they have become woke”.

Looking a little closer, however, we don’t know why this progressivism hits not a wall, but a cliff, as soon as we stop talking about motivational messages, inspiring images, or personal pronoun customization options in video games… and instead we start talking about things like workers’ rights, or consumers’ rights. It is as if this phantom communism suddenly ceases to exist as soon as it can directly touch the managers’ wallets. But then…

The quantifiable truth is much more anticlimactic: it’s purely about money. At the beginning I said that ESG is an investment principle, that is, something that investors pay attention to before putting money into the shares of a given company. The only reason why corporations aim to maximize the scores assigned according to these criteria, which range from social inclusion to environmental sustainability, through various things, is to be more attractive to investors, therefore obtaining greater profits; I repeat, because this is very true, all to the detriment of the real impact that the company aims to have (that thing that is generally summarized in the mission statement), or in any case what it should have towards customers.

At this point, one could perhaps discuss why investors take these criteria into consideration, but… I’m not an economist, and this is actually getting complicated; suffice it to say that, no, big investors (including BlackRock) are not interested in promoting homosexuality, racism towards white people, the destruction of the family, and certainly not communism or the destruction of nations. (…Maybe, perhaps, the last thing is perhaps of interest to companies? But simply because national states have this bad habit of regulating the economy too much and taxing profits, not for ideological reasons.) If the saying “get woke, go broke” were true, these companies would change gear in a heartbeat on their way of doing things; even lapsing into extremes of hatred, if it were really convenient.

It’s all a round of money that never ends, and which exists only because of the very sad state of our turbocapitalist economic system, and the functioning of its metastatic beating heart: the stock exchange. And, precisely regarding this, it is absurd to see how there are people with pro-capitalist dogmas so strong as to define “communist agenda” as something that is nothing more than the product of a corrupt but perfectly evolved capitalist economic system; heavily degenerated from its original and romantic idea of pure competition bringing consumers the best possible product, but not surprisingly. But if we continue like this, that is, if we ignore the complex objective facts in favor of dazzling but very inviting dogmas, the real problems will never be solved.

Back to the games

In ending up having to talk about all this, perhaps I accidentally demonstrated one of the initial points, namely that by dealing with these things, instead of playing, we completely lose sight of video games, and therefore… If from the beginning these were all an excuse to raise questions, a mere point of discussion, then the plan actually worked. But, if you end up like this starting from a pure interest in gaming, through disappointment with the current state of things, then you’ve done it all wrong.

Taking the WCDetector list as a starting point, it is important to ask ourselves once again: why would anyone want to know if a video game - but, for that matter, also a film or a book - contains the type of themes mentioned above… to avoid it deliberately, or to approach it “carefully”? (Because, ultimately, recommendation labels imply this, if used as intended.) And I already know, some might say that this is like a list of advice based on interests, or even trigger warnings… but no, this vision does not hold up, precisely because of the way in which the classifications are structured in theory and used in practice! The simple lack of disliked topics is an irrelevant point for one’s practical tastes, because it does not imply the presence of welcome contents.

The problem with these classifications is that, regardless of one’s personal inclinations, one misses the point of art. On this database a game could end up not recommended, and I kid you not, simply because a main character is a man who is not masculine enough, a woman who attends university, or perhaps a black guy in a position of too much power… to maybe don’t talk about whether the character in question is simply a transgender person, or the game talks about communism (even if it hasn’t been verified whether in a good or bad light!); and, at this point I think, even if it had a solarpunk (environmentalist utopia) setting.¹¹

Any artistic expression, if faced in this way, is decidedly flattened. If art, when it touches on aspects of the real world to some extent, were always completely “normal”, and never presented aspects that were in any way strange, it would lose a large part of its value. Maybe not everything, but certainly more than necessary, in exchange for… no benefit. Also because, when one arbitrarily decides what is normal and what is not, then potentially nothing is good anymore. You couldn’t dare anymore.

For goodness sake: as already mentioned, it often happens that the producers of triple and double A games lose the point of art, when they create a product without passion just to achieve those terrible ESG scores; or, even worse, when they end up diverting an already existing series onto unpleasant routes. There is room for harsh criticism that must be made in these cases. But we must remember that the culprit is always money - for these entities, precisely, the God of Money. For indie games alone it doesn’t work this way, and what happens in those is generally a pure artistic expression of the creators; which can be appreciated or not, but not blamed.

As even these people here in the Steam group fortunately admit, whether a game is good or bad depends purely on whether the gameplay, aesthetics, story, characters, setting, design, music, technical aspects, or general atmosphere are good. A game that fails in all these aspects, while doing everything to appear appealing to any part of the population on those minute details, will please absolutely no one. On the contrary, works that have an objective artistic value will always please the parts of the public who know how to observe and appreciate them, often despite enormous defects (otherwise, money-spinning or bug-filled games would have no players!), and therefore regardless of the dogmatic box to which they can be assigned; sometimes, even causing those who play them not to want to admit that they found them intriguing.

Power to the players

Just to end on a momentarily positive note, the only one I can find in all this is that fortunately, although in practice my tastes on what and how to play are strange, I am not alone in my thoughts regarding the state and the spirit of gaming. All of us “real” players more or less find ourselves in the fact that what we ultimately want is to admire, feel curiosity, have fun, smile, but also reflect, cry, or get angry in a sporting way; play.

And, in this case, still being outside of a video game, I can’t help but laugh when I see how today’s two examples fare among public opinion: statistically very badly. Looking at the comments that are not removed, it is clear that many of AndyPants Gaming’s fans in general criticize him, saying that he still exaggerates in some way, even if they continue to follow him for the right things that he actually has to say from time to time. Obviously, those who are fans of those other YouTubers brought up will not have a positive opinion of him, after seeing the behavior he has had and is having. As for Woke Content Detector, however… in addition to the standard criticisms, memes have emerged everywhere about the absurdity of the project, with many also saying that they have started playing titles indicated as not recommended with gusto; and then, the trolls arrived in the group, and I think they are now lurking… (obviously, the real members assume a priori that the trolls are all left-wing, despite the fact that this program is also the laughing stock of players with different orientations politicians).¹¹

Just to finish with completeness: I know I haven’t talked about everything, but there’s just no way! An in-depth study on how this change of direction of large companies is also partly caused by generational change, and by the arrival in managerial positions of people who have a purely economic career, and who for gaming, or even art, would have been ideal. more purely, they often don’t even have passion. I haven’t even mentioned the various boycotts, born for more or less shared reasons, in the hands of both the right and the left, but all equally unsuccessful, for the simple reason that gamers want to play… and not even the many stories that, at the contrary to this one, they have been decidedly less calm, and have unfortunately seen various victims outside the digital world. Oh well… it could have been worse.

🏷️ Notes and References_

The decorative cover image is obtained through [generative artificial intelligence by Microsoft](https://www.bing.com/images/create/army-of-lazy-screaming-gamers-driving-real-tanks2c- /1-66f1e628d86a4c0c8bc19934fe8795e3?id=QYP%2bAP7da0Fgy7RnV48RVA%3d%3d&view=detailv2&idpp=genimg).

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1. fear of missing out, “fear of being cut off”; in live service video games this can be induced in players through various mechanics, with the aim of keeping them as attached as possible to the product, possibly resulting in extra purchases and therefore further profits for the producers. ↩

2. [https://www.ilpost.it/2021/11/12/woke-significa/](https://www.ilpost.it/2021/11 /12/woke-meaning/) ↩

3. [https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woke_(ideology)](https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woke_( ideology)) ↩

4. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_whistle_(politics)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_whistle_ (politics)): In politics, a dog whistle is the use of coded language to rally support for a particular group without provoking opposition. […] Dog whistles use language that appears normal to the majority, but which communicates specific things to the recipients. They are typically used to convey messages about issues that may spark controversy without attracting negative attention. ↩

5. From BeardedVillain on Urban Dictionary (June 3, 2017): Cuck is a man who’s a little bitch. Contrary to the beliefs of the liberal leaning crowd trying to explain something popularized by the conservatives, cuck is used by many races for someone who is spineless and IS derived from cuckold. ↩

6. TheGamerTronShow, “AndyPants Gaming is now DELETING EVIDENCE !!! 💀”: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daIxAIouSiw](https:/ /www.youtube.com/watch?v=daIxAIouSiw) ↩

7. Tweet by Act Man regarding copyright strike: [https://x.com/TheActMan_YT/status/1838251130159341962](https://x.com/TheActMan_YT /status/1838251130159341962). ↩

8. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diversity,_equity,_and_inclusion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Diversity,_equity,_and_inclusion); https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental,_social,_and_governance; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlackRock. ↩

9. Different sources report somewhat different details on the origin of the term ESG, but the point is quite clear. Here are some that I found about: [https://www.esganalytics.io/insights/where-did-the-term-esg-come-from-anyway](https://www.esganalytics.io/insights/ where-did-the-term-esg-come-from-anyway); https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/environmental-social-and-governance-history . ↩

10. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buzzword: A buzzword is a word or a phrase […] that becomes popular for a certain period of time. They often derive from technical terms, but often the original technical meaning is removed from the use made of them […] Buzzwords also have a leading role in politics, where they can give rise to a process that “privileges rhetoric compared to reality, producing policies that are first ‘made operational’ and only later ‘conceptualised’”. The resulting political discourse is known to “eschew reasoned debate (characterized by the use of evidence and structured argument), instead employing language solely for the purposes of control and manipulation.” ↩

11. Know Your Meme talks about Woke Content Detector with several examples of the absurd, as well as the usual memes: [https://knowyourmeme.com/editorials/guides/what-is-the-woke-content-detector-steams-curated-list-of-woke-video-games-explained](https://knowyourmeme.com/ editorials/guides/what-is-the-woke-content-detector-steams-curated-list-of-woke-video-games-explained); https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/sites/woke-content-detector. ↩