🎉 Celebrating 25 Years of GameDev.net! 🎉

Not many can claim 25 years on the Internet! Join us in celebrating this milestone. Learn more about our history, and thank you for being a part of our community!

The Battlefield V "Historical Accuracy" Controversy

Started by
161 comments, last by benjamin1441 6 years ago
17 minutes ago, Michael Aganier said:

It's nothing to do with that. It's the fact that I am being moralised that displeases me.

And portraying more than just white males as combatants is moralizing... how, exactly? I don't get it. If they were there (and I think it's been firmly established that they were), and it doesn't affect the gameplay experience to include them, then I think it would be odd not to show them there.

Advertisement
43 minutes ago, Michael Aganier said:

If the game hasn't pushed anything, do we agree that something did change? If something did change, do we agree there's a reason for that?

No, we don't agree. The trailer contains a female soldier in an action cutscene. You see this as some monumentous change that is "moralizing at you" (seriously, wtf dude???). Most of us didn't think anything of it until you guys started your political uproar about it. Keep your sick politics and conspiracy theories away from my games, please.

43 minutes ago, Michael Aganier said:

It's the fact that I am being moralised that displeases me

Again, the fact that you think that a war story containing a female character counts as you "being moralised" says a hell of a lot about your own mind. You're seriously better off keeping those demons to yourself.

1 hour ago, Michael Aganier said:

I used a correction as an example. You could replace correct with improve and my point stand stills. How does this change improves the game play in any way? It doesn't. I start from the affirmation that every action is motivated. If the reason for this change is not game design related, ask yourself what is that reason.

 

1 hour ago, Michael Aganier said:

If the game hasn't pushed anything, do we agree that something did change? If something did change, do we agree there's a reason for that?

 

1 hour ago, Michael Aganier said:

You say that the reason I bring up is from my imagination. If we agree that something did change and that everything happens for a reason, then what is the reason for that change?

You tell us? What is the reason for the "change", the "change" being that non white male characters are in this game? Also, show us the source that definitively states that the devs are doing this for whatever reason you believe them to be doing this for. Battlefield 1 did, by the way, have non white male combatants as well, at least in the main story and also in online. Again, you've already firmly established that it's not the historical context that's the issue. In any case, we've established pretty firmly that the game does not attempt to be historically accurate in any number of ways. This hardly breaks gameplay experience in any way when so many other things make the game historically inaccurate from a gameplay perspective We have also established that plenty of non-white males did indeed fight in WW2, from African-American regiments, to British colonial regiments, but even if we say that there are historical inaccuracies with this depiction, we already know that the game doesn't attempt to be historically accurate. In any event, as @Hodgman very simply pointed out, it's a game, not a history textbook/document. What's it matter anyways?

The historical inaccuracy issue has been debunked in 3 ways. The first being that the whole game is historically inaccurate in ways that are pretty tangible in gameplay. The second being that there are indeed many cases where non white male combatants existed, and the third being that it's not really aspiring to be a historically accurate source anyways.

You say the issue is not the historical accuracy but that you're being moralized to and that the game devs are pushing an agenda. What agenda? How are they moralizing to you? Again, simply putting non white male characters into a game does not seem to push an agenda. I still do not quite understand what the issue is. Let me ask this question instead: why must this game have only white male characters in it? Can you answer that question?

1 hour ago, Hodgman said:

Battlefield has always been a comedic parody of a realistic shooter, that never takes the genre seriously.

If they're going serious now, that's the real controversy :D

Absolutely and what's more is that the game has been a blast to play anyways. How many games out there are truly "realistic" about anything? I still don't understand what the big deal is with a game.

No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!

3 hours ago, AtomicWinter said:

Seems like a redundant statement since it's essentially analogous to what I was trying to portray.

I don't equate someone opting not to play a game to them "reexamining their priorities".  In the second case you are essentially telling someone how they should think.  I really don't care what games are made. If I don't don't like one due to whatever reason, I won't play.  At some point annoyance at the level  of historical accuracy is going to apply to most people.  For example if a D-Day game came out and you had to storm the beaches as a woman in a bikini, most people are going to say it's stupid, and many will vocally complain about it.  At some level between that and a game that is perfectly historically accurate, various people will find the game acceptable. None of them are inherently right or wrong.

In any case the only thing that matters is if the game makes money. It's a business.  The perfect analogy to this is "Star Wars".  There is defiantly some level of backlash over perceived SJW themes in the new series of movies. It seems now that some of that backlash is hitting Lucas Films' bottom line in a significant way.  Nobody is wrong for disliking a movie or game, and if they want to speak about it, that's their option. To me annoyance at a game, and annoyance at someone else's annoyance at a game, fall into the same category. Both aren't worth stressing out about.

I don't mind realistic "diversity", it is unrealistic "diversity" that is actually propaganda that bothers/annoys me and I think that is what many other people are trying to say.  Just turn the situation around and the ridiculousness of it should become clear to everyone.

What if someone made a game, or movie, or book, etc, about Shaka Zulu and the war against England.  And what if half of Shaka's warriors were white women?  The "diversity" crowd would be in an uproar over white people being put into that story.  It's really just reverse racism.  The "diversity" crowd supports putting people of color into situations where they don't belong, and then become outraged if white people are put into situations where they don't belong.

Their arguments are not honest.  In reality, they just hate white people.  I am not a racist person, and my own story had "realistic diversity" and a female hero character 20 years before that became a thing.  There is a difference between "realistic diversity" and reverse racism disguised as diversity.

As an example of what I mean by "realistic diversity", in my own sci-fi universe my version of the Federation Star Fleet, the human "space navy", is dominated by people from nations such as the United States, Russia, England, China, Brazil, India... nations with both large populations and a history of voluntary military service.  This makes sense.  It would not make sense for the human "space navy" to be dominated by people from Angola, Indonesia, and Micronesia.  There aren't enough of them and their nations have no history of voluntary military service or leading the world in cutting edge technologies.  It has nothing to do with racism, it has to do with the reality of the world.

It's not racism that annoys many people when "diversity" is forced upon us, it is the unrealistic nature of it that makes it feel (and often is) as though you the creators of that material are trying to literally brainwash you with obviously incorrect propaganda.

"I wish that I could live it all again."

1 hour ago, Michael Aganier said:

If we agree that something did change and that everything happens for a reason, then what is the reason for that change

Money. Games like battlefield cost a metric shit tonne to make. 

And hey, it turns out that not just white dudes play games! And they like to play as themselves (i.e. non white, non Male)

Did you really think that Electronic frickin Arts (of all companies) was doing this for MORAL reasons?

 

 

if you think programming is like sex, you probably haven't done much of either.-------------- - capn_midnight
4 hours ago, Michael Aganier said:
5 hours ago, Hodgman said:

Rabid reactionaries are projecting their own politics onto a damn game, and then claiming they're the ones being attacked, that there's a mysterious evil "them" pushing horrible politics at them via products that they love, poisoning their "own" culture... when in fact no such thing is happening

You say that the reason I bring up is from my imagination. If we agree that something did change and that everything happens for a reason, then what is the reason for that change?

To me the reason is clear: More and more people play games. This includes woman. Giving them the option to play as a women probably increases sales, and outweights the (hopefully) few who dislike this and don't buy for this reason.

I understand your argument to some degree - adding unnecessary things to a design usually makes bad design, but reaching woman interested in shooters IS necessary to survive / grow for a company. It's an economical decision, not a political one. How would you suggest to reach this market otherwise?

5 hours ago, Hodgman said:

Battlefield has always been a comedic parody of a realistic shooter, that never takes the genre seriously.

Haha, nice how you put a little 'industry self defending propaganda' in your otherwise true comment :)

I've played BF3 and a little of BF One. None of those were comedic parodies. More kind of war stories like seen in a Hollywood movie. The latter even with a very clear connection to authentic history, and for a lot of people this has more influence than what they hear in school history lessons. That's all ok - i'm also happy with violence representation in games as long as it appears terrible, but if it starts to look like fun it goes too far for me. If that's all people learn about the past, it is partially the game industries responsibility when history repeats itself. What i see in this trailer should happen in a fictional setting like Wolfenstein, Overwatch or Fortnite. (although - maybe it's just the trailer that's wrong, not the game itself...)

5 hours ago, Kavik Kang said:

What if someone made a game, or movie, or book, etc, about Shaka Zulu and the war against England.  And what if half of Shaka's warriors were white women?  The "diversity" crowd would be in an uproar over white people being put into that story.  It's really just reverse racism.  The "diversity" crowd supports putting people of color into situations where they don't belong, and then become outraged if white people are put into situations where they don't belong.

 

2 hours ago, Michael Aganier said:

The series started with realistic diversity because the game was designed like that. And suddenly, excessive diversity is forced into it. It is forced because it doesn't make sense to be there. Now, making sense refers to historical accuracy, but historical accuracy is not the problem.

The problem is not that history is not respected, the problem is that you force wrong history on me to serve something that is extremely moralising. This is where the political agenda comes from. Forced diversity is the war ship of political correctness. The moralising part comes from political correctness.

Ok - makes sense... i get your points, and i remember reading similar argumentation in posts on gaming sites. But there are other comments as well - up to something like 'jewish propaganda has rewritten our history books'. It's difficult to distinguish between various motivations for me.

If people perceive diversity as forced, then maybe there is something wrong with the games, but i've never experienced this my self. If you have any examples please let me know - i still don't know what you talk about exactly.

Of course we can't make every game a Star Trek game but giving people the option to be whatever they want is a central idea of gaming. Why all this crititicism on devs if all they do is giving us options?

3 hours ago, Michael Aganier said:

Well, I am not found of censoring neither myself nor other people. I'm of french origin and we may not have won many wars, but we have the greatest quote: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." -Voltaire

I wasn't saying you should censor yourself. I was saying you sound crazy and for the sake of your own embarrassment you should keep such insanity within your own privacy. 

3 hours ago, Michael Aganier said:

is forced because it doesn't make sense to be there.

What? Why? 

There's plenty of real stories about badass women in WW2... 

You want these stories to be censored because.... You're so caught up in some conspiracy theory about the political correctness bogeyman that you're offended by these stories? That's messed up...

1 hour ago, JoeJ said:

I've played BF3 and a little of BF One. None of those were comedic parodies

I seem to remember lots of subtle jokes at call of duty's expense / general fps tropes in the BF3 campaign... I didn't play BF1 but yeah the campaign did look pretty serious :(

The multi-player in BF1 looked just as silly-fun as ever though. 

This topic is closed to new replies.

Advertisement