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Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and the Unfortunate Implications

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Re: Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and the Unfortunate Implications

#41

Post by himinlomax »

dagw wrote: post #35
himinlomax wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do they need to be inclusive? Do samurai games need to include red-haired Celts and curly-haired Bantus, you know, for diversity? What's the point of this? Lying about history to make some people feel better?

That is a fine argument as long as your game actually is historically accurate. The 'problem' (if you believe it is a problem) is once game companies are happy to "lie" about one aspect of history without any concern while at the same time refusing to "lie" about another part of history because it would 'ruin the historical accuracy'. If your samurai game includes werewolves and machine guns you don't get to turn aro…

> That is a fine argument as long as your game actually is historically accurate

See, that makes some sense if you're doing high fantasy and shit that's set in a wholly fictional world.

But just because some parts of a game are not realistic does not mean you should just forget about even trying. It makes no sense.

> If your samurai game includes werewolves and machine guns you don't get to turn around say you didn't add something because it wouldn't be historically accurate

You're treating this as if it was an excuse for some sin. If I want to make a werewolf story in Belle Époque Paris, there could be some historically accurate black African representation, but if the setting is the middle Ages it would be just stupid and lazy -- UNLESS there is some effort to bring some lore into it.

And that's the main problem I have here. Suspension of disbelief and all that. Just adding $tokenblack012 and $eastasian499 to a setting where they don't implicitly belong is just lazy pandering.

Re: Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and the Unfortunate Implications

#42

Post by hackerbabz »

himinlomax wrote: post #33
hackerbabz wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No because I’m white and I can play a million games with white protagonists. I don’t need to be included in every game. If I were nonwhite I think I’d want to be included in some games, yes.

I must point out two problematic assumptions in your reply: First, you're assuming "minorities" (and just that word is a problem, as it's utterly US-centric) are insecure and hypersensitive, which is quite patronizing. Second, this is the line of thinking that has led privileged American influencers to accuse slavic developers of neo-colonialism when they just wanted to represent their own otherwise underrepresented…

I didn’t use the word “minorities”, so please read my post again.

I said include in “some games”. There can be games that justify being all white, sure.

The rest can have nonwhite characters without ruining any white person’s day.

Furthermore, this is not the main problem with AC and I now regret taking up this bait.

The game is either a willing or unwilling nazi racial theory apology. Let’s focus on the implications of that please.

Re: Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and the Unfortunate Implications

#43

Post by Shmebulock »

himinlomax wrote: post #20

> But given the relative size of video-game markets, it isn’t hard to see why that decision might have been made [to include anachronistic ethnicities] Is anyone seriously believing that the lack of Africans limiting the market of, say, Samurai games? Why would it limit the market of Viking games?

I think most people that waste their lives with video games and "make you feel good" fantasies of this kind don't care about historical accuracy; it's not about understanding reality but about feeling good and "engaged". That's what sells.

And yeah, the makers of samurai games definitely consider the marketability of their games with regards to races portrayed. Consider the samurai game "Nioh" which takes place in feudal Japan, has a white protagonists and includes a black character.

Re: Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and the Unfortunate Implications

#44

Post by mam2 »

xalava wrote: post #38

The most relevant point of this article is not about historical accuracy, but on the contradiction of claiming cultural sensitivity by including gender and origin diversity while totally missing the point on deeper issues. I've grown up in a period when pop culture didn't care much about cultural sensitivity. With proper education anyone can compensate and treat them as pure simplistic fiction, but I do think that th…

> I've grown up in a period when pop culture didn't care much about cultural sensitivity.

Same, and as unpopular it may be, i firmly believe it's kind of better to not care. Because the opposite is precisely what happens here, which is caring only about a specific set of 'aspects' that are currently fashionable in the society, while failing to cover for the large majority of inequalities that are not "visible".

It's the exact same than positive discrimination, you end up only caring about women or color people in the name of "equal opportunity" and no one care anymore about economic inequalities that are largely the main factor of inequality at birth. In the end it's still the same rich people from the same parents but they just look more diverse, and no one care of young people from trailer parks & getthos.

I don't blame prejudiced people fighting agaisnt their prejudices tho, imo it's more a consequence lazy politics and politician trying to get votes instead of taking on more complex and deeper problems.

Re: Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and the Unfortunate Implications

#45

Post by notahacker »

throwanem wrote: post #31
notahacker wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also one in which the side Ubisoft picked is pretty clear. We're talking about a game series whose central conceit is that an obscure Islamist sect noted mainly for murdering religious figures they disagreed with is actually a secret society acting to preserve an Enlightenment-style libertarian ethos for centuries before the Enlightenment (yet staying curiously neutral during the French Revolution!) Every design…

No one takes the Simpsons Movie as representative of real history, though. You absolutely do find people doing that with games in the Assassin's Creed series. Whether the developer intends that or not - and I'm sure they don't; whatever the intentions of anyone working there, Ubisoft collectively cares only for money - that it happens still makes it worthwhile for someone to criticize the work from a perspective know…

> No one takes the Simpsons Movie as representative of real history, though

True, Assassin's Creed is certainly marketed as having more attention to realism than the Simpsons Movie. It's more like a Dan Brown book though: people might find the stock goodies and baddies narrative, historic/mythologic references and attention to detail with symbols and places all too believable but it's certainly possible to overanalyse design decisions which amount to stereotypical heroes in stereotyped historical settings sell better.

If one actually wanted to produce a nuanced representation of that historical timeline, it would be difficult to do so as a game based on killing large numbers of NPCs

Re: Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and the Unfortunate Implications

#46

Post by raxxorrax »

boudewijnrempt wrote: post #18
raxxorrax wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with this conclusion because it disregards agency of players. I see more similarities to warnings about the dangers of books in contrast to how it might display historic events too critically or too uncritically. One mistake might be that we try to patronize people too much and that enlightenment might favor a relaxed approach. I am sure if historic depictions nurture interest in an era, people would searc…

As a player you cannot do _anything whatsoever_ to change the setting and rules of the game: you cannot be nicer or less nice to the indigenous people, you have to loot and destroy their religious centers, you have endure having their religion mocked by your compatriots, you cannot convert to the local religion... You have to play a Aryan colonial invader who disdains the local culture and religion because your own c…

I meant agency in regard to the conclusions you draw from playing, not that the degrees of freedom within a game are unlimited. You played it perhaps (I did not) and thought that the game forces you to identify with characters mocking something or someone. I haven't played many games that didn't depict such mockery in a negative light if the player has no influence on it anyway.

Some games allow you to have a choice in it, but doing so is not synonymous with holding that view.

> trappings that have been appropriated by neo-nazis.

Don't make the mistake in handing such symbols to neo-nazis. They will turn it around on you. For them Vikings might depict an ideal but they probably aren't interested in a deeper cultural analysis anyway.

Re: Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and the Unfortunate Implications

#47

Post by fareesh »

himinlomax wrote: post #20

> But given the relative size of video-game markets, it isn’t hard to see why that decision might have been made [to include anachronistic ethnicities] Is anyone seriously believing that the lack of Africans limiting the market of, say, Samurai games? Why would it limit the market of Viking games?

To be fair the title of this website is a collection of unmitigated pedantry, so in this particular case I can sort of understand why such things are explored and discussed.

On this topic in general though, as a "POC" (as I am told this is the category to which I belong), I find the obsession with race and representation in video games, movies, TV, etc. to be quite disturbing and reminiscent of the worldview put forward by identitarian organizations of the past. It comes across as tokenism primarily.

As far as marketability is concerned, I can't relate to someone who will use this as a criteria for buying/not buying a game. I have never met a person like this in my life who wasn't otherwise mentally troubled.

Re: Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and the Unfortunate Implications

#48

Post by polytely »

bsanr2 wrote: post #17
stupidcar wrote: post #5

> Now, do I think that the developers set out to create a sanitized defense of colonialism (much less an apologia for Nazi race ideology)? Of course not. But they ended up doing it anyway. I agree with the article's main points, but I think the author gives the game's creators too much credit here. You could tell from the first trailer that this game was going to engage in historical revisionism of the "the Vikings w…

This is a disturbing trend that I hope to see called out more frequently in the future. Several of the latest Call of Duties "play" similarly. Even fantasy isn't immune: imagine my dismay, as a fan of Werewolf: The Apocalypse, when I found that the protagonist of the long-awaited game adaptation unambiguously resembled a paramilitary skinhead type (both in look and language). It's frustrating, with everything going o…

Call of Duty is even more egregious because they took something which has been called a US war crime (Highway of Death) and used a fictionalized version of it in the game but made the Russians do it instead of the Americans.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-10-28-call-of-duty-m...

Re: Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and the Unfortunate Implications

#49

Post by gambiting »

Ialdaboth wrote: post #12
stupidcar wrote: post #5

> Now, do I think that the developers set out to create a sanitized defense of colonialism (much less an apologia for Nazi race ideology)? Of course not. But they ended up doing it anyway. I agree with the article's main points, but I think the author gives the game's creators too much credit here. You could tell from the first trailer that this game was going to engage in historical revisionism of the "the Vikings w…

I don't think it's Ubisoft's fault, really - in 2020, you just can't produce a game where migrating people are presented as the bad guys who kill, rape and loot the locals indiscriminately. I'm more frustrated by the lack of diverse body types... there is no way malnutrition, lack of modern-day medicine and violence can produce as many healthy bodies as what we see in Ubisoft titles.

Unfortunately in 2020 it looks like even acknowladging the existance of things like slavery is somehow equated with approval of those things. There was a case where someone got upset(on twitter, of course) that there is a character in Valhalla who is described as "disfigured" - apparently that's ableism. So Ubisoft apologized, don't know if that description got changed or not in the end, but even if such small things end up getting the company to apologize, how could you even contemplate adding a topic like slavery in?

Re: Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and the Unfortunate Implications

#50

Post by ekianjo »

hackerbabz wrote: post #26
himinlomax wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you feel excluded by samurai games?

No because I’m white and I can play a million games with white protagonists. I don’t need to be included in every game. If I were nonwhite I think I’d want to be included in some games, yes.

You are not nonwhite so please dont speak for nonwhite people.
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