Poll: Social Theorists and Their Potential Role in Game Development

[Samasson]

My recent immersion in this site's community has demonstrated that there is a lot of debate over problematic representations of social groups in gaming that is just recently starting to be talked about in depth. From my research it seems like a lot of these issues would be easily remedied during development if someone on the team spoke up about it or even had the time to analyze such problematic issues. My thought is that development teams should consider keeping people who have degrees in or are well informed on social theory and gender and race theory on the payroll during development. These individuals could act as advisers whose job it is too analyze the product as a whole and bring potentially problematic politics of the games to light of the developers so that they team can better address them and hopefully make a product that more accurately represents reality. Companies may already do this but I'm not well informed enough about the academic make-up of development teams to be aware of this. So I was just kinda wondering what the rest of you guys think about development teams employing these sorts of social theorists and cultural critics to better facilitate less problematic representations of social groups.

To be clear these individuals would not serve as agents of 'politically correct' censorship but would rather work to help developers deal with this issues of representation in meaningful, and respectful ways that would hopefully improve the art as a whole.

 

[Doom972]

No. I prefer to see the game designers' point of view unfiltered, even if it's imperfect. A game designer brings a certain vision into a game, and modifying that vision is censorship, not a correction. Setting a standard where what you described would become a part of game development would only cause game designers to abandon deep plots and characters, due to fear of their ideas being modified to the point of being unrecognizable.

 

[Auron]

If every artist ever starts to require social scientist input the community's fucked.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Not really no, people spazzing the fuck out over everything should never affect the creation in mind, otherwise you just end up with a washed out meaningless pot of bland.

People completely ignore all other mediums tackling heavy subjects without dogs on their tail, but the moment games even come close everybody goes mental, well fuck that noise, if you can't grasp some games aren't made for kids then you best crawl into your blanket of offense and stick with Nintendo.

 

[dumbseizure]

Do it! A job I can do with my social science degree!

But in all honesty I don't like the idea, I'd prefer to see the full game how the developer wanted it to be released.

 

[WoW Killer]

People with backgrounds like that wouldn't be a bad idea, but not for those reasons. Games often have specialised individuals overseeing the general lore, and that sort of expertise could help in creating more unique backgrounds rather than rehashed fantasy/sci-fi tropes.

But we really don't need a designated politician telling us what is and isn't offensive. That would be a) a meaningless waste of money, and b) promote bland and homogenized settings for games.

 

[Yopaz]

Personally I'm the kind of guy who doesn't really care about these things as long as it's within reasonable limits.
Making a character might be tricky and some characters are poorly written. Well, that's a plot detail that should be fixed by the story division. Avoiding these things completely would be artificial.

I have no interest in games becoming a social study showing a perfect world. The world is full of sexism and racism. Removing it from the media wont make the world a better place. It will just make us unable to see that it exists unless we observe it first hand. We don't solve problems by ignoring them.

 

[Aaron Sylvester]

"This may hurt certain people's feelings so change it" = censorship, and censorship can go fuck itself.

If every artist ever starts to require social scientist input the community's fucked.

^ Thank heavens someone said this early.

Last time I checked movies didn't need such a thing, music doesn't need such a thing, sketching/painting doesn't need such a thing.

The only reason games are going through this stage is because gaming is "growing up", it is not viewed in the same light it was 10 years ago (just for children) and people in influential positions have realized that now it is one of the biggest industries on the planet. A lot of those people are either old, or too politically-correct, or just plain retarded, or part of the media, or part of annoying attention-seeking groups (e.g. internet feminists).

Worry not, eventually these groups will calm down and move onto the next big thing, in other forms of media. And then public/political attention will be better balanced among the forms of media, it won't focus on games as often as it is now.

Social theorists become a mandatory part of game development? Absurd, I want to see what the developers wanted me to see, unfiltered and unchanged.

 

[T_ConX]

Well, it's not like Communication and Social 'Science' Majors are qualified to do anything besides ***** and moan. Apologies to the Hurt Feelings Police, but I play games for fun, challenges, and occasionally a story. I do not play games so I can be lectured for two hours on how some people become sad when I use the wrong pronoun.

If the Gender/Race/Religion/Sexual-Orientation of a Playable Character has a greater affect on your game purchases than the font used for the main title, then you're playing video games for the WRONG REASONS. Go ruin some other hobby, like stamp collecting...

 

[Whispering Cynic]

No, it would be like assigning a "decency consultant" to Michelangelo Buonarroti to oversee whether his work is getting too "provocative" or not. I want the developers to have a free reign over their product, so they can deliver whatever message they desire. I would not see any developer's freedom of expression restricted this way, unless they themselves choose to submit to it.

 

[BreakfastMan]

I guess. If a dev wants to employ a consultant to help them ensure that their product will convey the themes they intend to, I don't see why we should limit them.

 

[Darken12]

It depends. This could EASILY be a tool to preserve the oppressive status quo. Get a bunch of people who use mangled science or biased studies to perpetuate oppression and suddenly the game industry continues producing the same sexist, racist, homophobic, etc. crap as before (or worse) but now it has a bunch of "experts" to lend it legitimacy and make criticism twice as hard to get through.

If the experts were people who were fighting for social progress and were in tune with the criticisms of the different movements that seek to improve the lot of marginalised groups, I would be completely in favour. After all, game developers already employ all sorts of consultants that most definitely have a say in the final product.

I do not believe for a second that the industry has any shred of "artistic integrity" whatsoever. They very rarely tell stories for any lofty, artistic goals, but to satisfy brainless gratification and generate sales revenue. There are exceptions, sure, but they are a very small minority. The way I see it, most of the stories are formulaic, changed on a whim, devoid of artistic merit and shamelessly pandering one desire or another.

 

[Samasson]

People with backgrounds like that wouldn't be a bad idea, but not for those reasons. Games often have specialised individuals overseeing the general lore, and that sort of expertise could help in creating more unique backgrounds rather than rehashed fantasy/sci-fi tropes.

But we really don't need a designated politician telling us what is and isn't offensive. That would be a) a meaningless waste of money, and b) promote bland and homogenized settings for games.

more suggesting the first rather than the second one.