I’ve been sitting on this for a few days, trying to consider very carefully how I want to say the following. I don’t really expect people to listen, but if I can convince even one person to stop and think, this will have been worth the effort.

Let’s get one thing straight from the beginning:

I am a gamer. I play video games as a hobby. I’ve been playing them for over 35 years now.

Some would say that makes me a terrible person, in light of some recent events within the gaming community. I say that the rush to judge people without really thinking things through is the real crime here. The sad truth of things is that there’s a definite “Us VS Them” attitude out there right now making it absolutely impossible to really have an honest discussion or debate.

Has the statute of limitations run out on this yet?

Is there a serious problem in the gaming community right now? Certainly; there are a lot of people out there who immediately lash out with hateful spite… on both sides of the fence.

Are there misogynistic threats against women? Certainly. I’ve seen plenty of it. Is it the majority of the gaming fanbase? Heavens, no! They’re a minority– a very very vocal one, but a minority nevertheless. A large chunk of us just want to enjoy our hobby in peace and not grief anyone else, but it’s always the ones who enjoy raising havoc that make the headlines.

So, let’s talk about this “social justice warrior” phenomenon. The big problem with the method that the SJWs are using is that setting a hardline “Us VS Them” attitude and declaring war doesn’t solve anything. Sitting down and actually having an honest discussion is where solutions to problems start to form, and this leads us right back to the “Nobody wants to talk about any of this” lamentation.

Recently I saw an attempt to shame a company over a line of dialogue provided by a game character– one with a particularly unpleasant personality inspired by the types of people who frequent places like 2ch and 4chan. Had this game actually been a movie, there would have been no moral outrage over any of this: people are aware movie characters are fictional and that sometimes a story requires a less pleasant character to fit a scenario. Yet, in video games, people argue that this is not acceptable and that any character written simply ‘MUST’ be the attitude of the game designer.

This is simply not true. If we can accept that the Empire could blow up an entire planet and murder millions of people with a space laser in Star Wars, why can we not accept that a video game character based on the archetype of something perhaps less evil (but still unsavory!) should act as their character demands?

This seems to apply in general to anything that (some) women consider offensive, I might add. Video games are art and contain speech that I may not agree with, but I would not choose to censor that speech. Instead, I would counter speech with more speech. TALK about what offends you, DISCUSS it. If the game is that offensive to you, choose not to purchase it. If you want to design a game with a completely different viewpoint, then DO so.

Warner Bros is beginning to show some of the (now) offensive old cartoons of the past with a note that “These cartoons are being presented as they were originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these predjudices never existed.”

Censoring characters of that nature is simply DENYING that there are racists, murderers, misogynists, and so forth out there. It doesn’t change anything to tell people “You can’t talk about this!”– ask the Germans how denying their past has helped them. It hasn’t. The lack of discussion has allowed the horrible decisions of the past to be reborn in new generations because kids are never taught to analyze that horrible past.

Let art be art. Let art make you think. Let art make you DISCUSS thoughts, even evil and horrible thoughts.