As a former video game developer, I empathize with you. I remember the long hours and time spent away from my family at the game studio where I worked. I remember designing and scripting formulaic games that I didn’t really like just to please the publisher. Often I questioned what I was doing and wondered if my contributions would really matter in the grand scheme of things.
I also respect that fact that you as an artist, designer or producer are passionate about what you believe. You want to make a difference with your life. I respect that, I truly do. But this crusade you are on that compels you to indoctrinate gamers with your political beliefs and ideology is plain wrong, unethical and dishonest.
Video games are not the place for propaganda. You were hired to be a game developer, not an activist for a cause. Your job as a game developer is not to indoctrinate your customers with your own personal beliefs or political ideology to “change the world”. Your job is to make great games for gamers!
If you really want to change the world, how about instead of demanding that everyone else change, how about you start with changing yourself? Once you have changed yourself, maybe then you’ll have the moral authority to lecture gamers. Until then, I beg you, please, just stop.
If you are really against real injustice and genuinely want to change the world, I encourage you to channel your passion and support any number of worthwhile international aid organizations that are helping to alleviate the suffering of persecuted and enslaved people around the world. Those are real human lives not imaginary characters in a video game. A few years of being exposed to the plight of victims of real injustice far away from the sheltered, air-conditioned confines of the video game industry might just open your eyes and give you a much needed reality check.
You claim to be in support of diversity but from what I see, you do not tolerate diversity of thought and opinion from others. It’s either your way or the highway. Sadly, your zealotry has you transformed you into everything that you purport to hate.
If video game developers were inserting right-wing, conservative or religious propaganda into video games it would be equally wrong and inappropriate. And I would be calling them out as well. The fact is that this is not happening. Propaganda in video games is a serious and growing problem emanating from one particular ideological group of people: the progressives and the extreme left.
Somewhere along the way, someone forgot to teach you that bringing your ideological and existential baggage to the workplace is highly unprofessional and unethical. Not only that, your efforts to indoctrinate gamers are damaging the credibility and reputation of the entire video game industry and your fellow developers who show up each day, do their jobs and play by the rules.
You see, what is exceptional about our pluralistic society is that even though we have our own beliefs, convictions and causes, we leave them at home when we show up for work. Please save the world on your own time and on your own dime.
This is not all about you and what you believe. This is about the gamers that spend their hard earned money playing your games in their precious free time. You need to respect that they too have their own beliefs, convictions and causes. You need to also realize that they might not agree with you. Step back for a moment, take a deep breath and think about it. They don’t need you to lecture them or indoctrinate them.
Your cause, no matter how righteous or just, does not give you the right to indulge in proselytization that might violate the conscience and beliefs of those that play your games.
How would you like it if someone tried to indoctrinate you during your daily entertainment and leisure activities with opposing views? I think you’d be pretty upset and rightly so.
Gamers unashamedly play video games to briefly escape the reality of the world they live. Your job is to facilitate this and create a fantasy world free from the cares and drudgery of this life. When you inject ideology into the player’s game world you have violated the sanctity of their chosen sanctuary.
So is it any wonder that these days gamers are feeling persecuted, disenfranchised and marginalized by the very people who should be defending them and looking out for them: corrupt video game journalists and sanctimonious video game developers like yourself who believe that agitating for “social justice” is far more important than creating exceptional video games.
Your dismissive attitude toward gamers reeks of arrogance, condescension and contempt. You have violated their trust. You have crossed the Rubicon of propriety and are venturing into dangerous territory by foolishly biting the hand that feeds you.
Not only that, you and your fellow agitators from within and without have created a culture of fear and coercion where fellow game developers are afraid to speak out. Those that dare to speak truth to your power are falsely labeled as oppressors, misogynists, sexists, homophobes, and bigots and then summarily drummed out of the industry.
Your desire for power and control has gone unchecked and unopposed for far too long.
If you continue to venture deeper into this ideological rabbit hole and persist in disrespecting your customers, it will not end well for you and the video game industry. Nothing lasts forever. Industries rise and fall due to their ability to satisfy the needs of their customers. The invisible hand of the marketplace and the voting feet of the consumer are about to teach you a very hard lesson.
As we have seen in the past year with the GamerGate scandal, gamers are highly intelligent and fiercely independent people who refuse to be bullied and intimidated. They are finally wise to your agenda. In a world where groupthink seems to dominate, they are steadfast individuals that can think for themselves and do not need you to think for them. Gamers will not tolerate their beloved hobby being hijacked by the dictates of your ideology. They will not roll over for you or anyone. Ever.
Instead of spending valuable time and energy pushing your political agenda within your video game, why don’t you focus your considerable talents on making a video game that gamers will actually purchase and play? After all, that’s what you are being paid for.
Your sole duty as a video game developer is to create art, stories, content and gameplay that provide the player with a user experience that is enjoyable, entertaining and immersive. That’s it and nothing more. If you can’t man or woman up and at least try to do your actual job then you are a sorry excuse for a game developer.
If you cannot carry out this most fundamental and basic job requirement of your craft then you need to leave the industry and seek employment as a consultant with a politician or special interest group. I’m sure they would greatly appreciate your abilities as a budding propagandist. At least have the intellectual honesty and personal integrity to withdraw yourself from video game industry and exchange it a career for that is more compatible with your talents and aspirations.
Never forget that you are here to please the gamers, they are not here to please you, validate your beliefs or prop up your ego.
Gamers have every right expect that the games they purchase and play will be free from indoctrination. So it’s time to stop the dissemination of propaganda and start behaving like a professional. By doing so, you will be extending the appropriate courtesy and respect to those gamers that buy your games and pay your wages. If you cannot do that then please leave gamers alone. They were doing fine before you arrived and they’ll do just fine without you.
-Wolfshead
Special thanks to Chineseposters.net for granting us permission to use a reproduction of a piece of Chinese communist propaganda created by Yu Zhenli from the Landsberger collection for this article.
This stance is very weird. How can any game have a story without pushing some sort of world view? If anything, no matter how just and logical, can be “wrong” in a game, because it’s “propaganda”, then how the heck is that still art?
Provocation and the perspective of the artist have always been a part of art. This is capitalism; nobody is forced to buy a game. The right way to deal with propaganda is to give it some thought, not to shun it.
That’s the thing with pluralism. Not everyone sees things the same way. For some, games are pure, light entertainment. For others, they’re art. For some, they’re a political platform. There is no obvious reason to call one view wrong or the other right. Why should anyone be able to define what the sole duty of a game developer is?
There was a time in the video game industry where designers just wanted to make games that were fun. Players wanted to play games that were fun. It seems those days are over. Video games are now about spreading ideology.
This is the same in many areas of life. You can’t just buy a cup of coffee anymore. The Starbucks barista will lecture you about “racial injustice” now and the coffee itself has to be “fair trade” coffee produced sustainably and it has to be organic. Every aspect of our lives has to be politically correct.
It is one thing having your own personal beliefs and opinions. However, using video games as a way to promote a particular political ideology or cause is just wrong.
Let me ask you this? Do you think propaganda is something that is good? Do you believe it has a place in video games?
Here’s the truth: most video game designers and artists are leftists. I know this because I worked in the industry. I know how they think.
I wonder how they would like it if the the video games they love were suddenly full of right-wing propaganda or religious doctrine injected into every quest or scenario? Would you still feel the same way?
No. They would be outraged and so would you. At least have the intellectual honesty to admit it.
Why does every video game have to have some kind of underlying message? Why can’t video games just be entertaining and fun?
Of course we can leave it to the marketplace and let the consumer decide if they want to purchase video games that are full of propaganda. But the fact is that there is no warning label on video games to alert them of propaganda within. The very nature of propaganda is that it is used in a dishonest and stealthily way to influence people.
The problem is that the marketplace is not producing what the consumer wants. Take the case of Hollywood. Conservative and Christian movies routinely become massive blockbusters yet Hollywood continues to ignore these consumers and makes more films to appease leftist sensibilities. Most of those Hollywood films flop. The law of the marketplace only works if creators follow the law.
The underlying problem as I see it is that as our society has become a post-Christian society there is a huge spiritual vacuum as a result. The same fervor that once was held for the Christian faith is now being expended in other ways. People who used to believe in God now believe in various leftist causes. They evangelize their politically correct beliefs in their personal life and where they work. Corporations now have become completely politically correct too. All we have done is substituted one form of morality and belief for another.
At the end of the day, I play video games to escape the banal reality of the world where everything is seemingly political. I don’t play them to be lectured by the left or the right. Is that just too much to ask?
Dang dude this is your second article for me to go through today and I’m ecstatic. I just got done with your article about RP and followed a link to this one. I think we might be long lost twins or something 🙂 . I cannot believe how spot on your thoughts and feelings about the gaming industry are with mine on both accounts. I have also noticed this leftist propaganda in games lately and it has pushed me away from video games. Please keep writing, I absolutely love your insight and it gives me a little hope for the future of video games if just maybe more of us come out of the dark and start to voice our opinion.
Hi Billy,
Thanks for your kind comments! Many of us — MMO veterans and video gamers alike — feel that our hobby has been hijacked in recent years by a group of social justice warriors. Better term is social justice jihadist. These people are in fact cultural terrorists. They are both “journalists” and developers alike and some are even gamers but most are not. All of them are cultural nihilists and anarchists or at best misguided lost souls.
They have infiltrated the video game industry and are using it to promote their own ideology. That is their goal. There is nothing noble about what they are doing. Since their ideas don’t stand up to scrutiny, instead they will bully and cajole anyone that stands in their way.
They want to destroy and remake popular culture in their own image and the video game industry is their latest target. They want to impose their Marxist utopia upon all of us in the name of “tolerance” and “diversity. According to them everything must be sanitized through their filter of political correctness. These people are on a holy war and they will stop at nothing and use every deceitful trick at their disposal to marginalize those that disagree with them.
The recent attack on the Academy Awards is just another example of this. Many other cultural areas are also currently under siege by these cultural jihadists.
I rarely if ever used my website to talk about politics but now since both have intersected I have no choice. I will not be silent any longer.
As we seen in recent months that most social media like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Reddit are completely controlled and censored by leftist corporations blogs like mine are one of the few places where free speech, freedom of thought and freedom to debate are allowed.
All of us need to stand up to these intellectually and morally bankrupt bullies. Don’t be afraid to speak out. You will be called every name in the book because they have no argument — all they have is name calling and appeals to emotion. Don’t let them win. Don’t be afraid.
-Wolfshead
Here’s an excellent video by Ben Shapiro on how to defend yourself against the tactics of the left:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sL3SQyK7H5E
Awesome article, I agree with everything you said. Keep fighting the good fight brother, hopefully people like you can save the gaming industry by speaking truth.
The fact people can freely write a comments here is also fantastic, it avoids echo chambers. While I like some philosophy and politics in my games, it feels shameful for a dev if he takes a clear stance without dialectic discussion within the medium like in assassins creed odyssey with their inclusive revisionism or like in battlefield 5. It´s not only breaking lore logic, but also dishonoring the actual historic facts and people whom the missions were based on. Pro communistic ideals have been pushed by many, by HG wells “time machine” as in books, but in a romanticizing way or with the vox populi in bioshock infinite as a clear red black female leader going ham on out of control capitalism and seggreation. there´s a better sense of self ironic, yet clear and neutral issue discussion in Deus Ex, but then conspiracy fictionalism kicks in. the original bioshock I liked a lot, it did show that a too liberal libertarian stance ends in what has been argued several times, chaos, but even then it´s clearly by irrational games taking an IRRATIONAL stance on ayn rand´s work . The games I enjoyed most were always neutral, always platonic, always dialectic. But then again, as long as it doesn´t get as weird as red dead 2, wolfenstein II, it´s fine for me personally, just the SJW pink haired borderlands rage crap meets thing characters and racial bullshit (apex legends) isn´t really my cup of tea, and seeing how ubisoft literally twisted far cry´s setting for trump bashing hurk side missions with subtility after some disgusting character stances from a literal yoga crackw*ore… you get it, we see, we think, we only get one view and notice how the devs try to tell us something. It´s ok if it´s facts, but not if its ideology without any ground to hold it on, sadly, like with politics, devs don´t see, dev´s don´t care.