Im saying that people deserve a safe place to work. That most people should be able to depend on a workspace where they will be free of objectification and discrimination.
Im also saying that there has always been a fine line between genius and insanity, and if you want revolutionary, creative products, you need to separate the crazies from the average folks who are not crazies. You also need to separate certain crazies from one another. The office environment isnt the place to try to do this.
I dont think anyone will successfully create an office environment that produces cutting edge, creative products in any industry, but especially one as imaginative as gaming. The industry should do what valve does, which is poach small teams (bands) that are making imaginative indy games. They should isolate those bands from anyone who might be offended by those bands, and when those bands upset one another, or someone in production, they should cite creative differences and break up.
I was just asking because your other post was worded in such a way that it could come off as defending the actions of the devs at Blizzard because That’s how it’s always been.
I wasn’t trying to put words in your mouth, I was asking for clarification. Hope your not mad
Now that gaming has become a mainstream activity instead of the exclusive province of basement nerds, gaming culture would wound up being in a position where it would have to be made to behave itself in polite company.
Heck, Paizo and WOTC had to go through the same evolution themselves.
It may have come across that way because I have certain beliefs that might seem at odds with one another, and some of that probably comes through.
I dont think (without knowing Metzen) that Metzen is a racist or a sexist—any more than other authors, artists and creators who’s sexist, racially insensitive works I enjoy. I also dont think he could possibly have been unaware of what was going on under his watch while developing his brainchild. I also dont want to dismiss the claimants in the lawsuit, or disregard their concerns or those of the state of California, so Im in a tough place.
I also had a rough childhood, so I know that sometimes lawyers want to throw a lot at a defendant to see what will stick. When my mom and dad went through a custody battle, my mom’s lawyer had me accuse my dad of a bunch of stuff worded in the worst possible light. Made my dad sound like a child abuser. I just wanted to live with my mom. I didnt get paid (yet) for the summer work I did for my dad’s company, so he was a violator of child labor laws. Again… I just wanted to live with my mom. I didnt really want to avcuse my Dad of running a sweat shop.
I filter some of this through my own experiences and that probably distorts things a bit… so maybe its coming through that I dont wholesale buy into everything.
??? I guarantee you the likes of Borges and Tolkien were very much not doing such
This is a psychology meme, tied to the notion those of us who struggle with mental illness have almost magical genius powers
? No
Metzen is not materially racist. I am very confident he doesn’t say racial slurs in private as he very openly removed a misogynistic slur in-game for the sake of his daughters
HOWEVER we now have confirmation some devs are materially racist.
It’s the difference between Tolkien and Lovecraft.
Tolkien was nominally anti racist but still wrote racist soteriology into his book he later came to deeply regret due to internalized racism of the cultural milieu of the British Empire
Lovecraft was an active self aware racist who saw deep sea monsters in people of color who later came to regret his racism too and was horrified with his past self
This idea all or even a majority of creatives are mentally ill self destructive racists and misogynists is ridiculous.
Considering that much of gamer culture originated in the MidWest, racism and sexism were endemic in both players and creators. It was such a systemic norm that those who weren’t racists and chauvinists had to abide those that were. I saw a heck of a lot of it in the RPGA culture as well as home gamers of the early '80’s. There literally were no women in Rutgers RPGA at the time. I knew a lot of female gamers but they were of the liberal arts culture as opposed to the engineering, history, hard science geeks that filled Ballantine Hall’s gaming rooms when RPGA took over. They also weren’t generally part of the gaming con culture either, almost existing in a completely separate gaming universe.
Heck those of us who played this game from Beta remember how armor would appear on female characters back in the day.
No. It’s a fact that people who think differently dont think like the rest of us. People who think like the rest of us dont think differently.
There is a reason that real revolutionaries are often scoffed at by their contemporaries and then later on, someone less revolutionary comes along and rediscovers their work and interprets it for the rest of us.
Sometimes we are lucky, and someone with a revolutionary mind is also trained in art or music. That doesnt stop them from slashing their ear off, or drinking themselves to death, it just helps them leave their mark.
And I would be a liar if I said I didnt like that. I would be a Liar if I said I wasnt a fan of Red Sonja, or Frazzetta girls. If I claimed I wasnt attracted to hyper-sexualized characters, and dom/sub imagery.
And I am sorry… like genuinely sorry for the way that makes some women feel. It doesnt stop me from likeing it.
And I would also be a liar if I said I wasnt a fan of racially insensitive fantasy and literary tropes. I like that pulpy 1930s adventure stuff. I like the cannibal savages on the forgotten island, kidnapping the helpless damsel and attempting to sacrifice her nearly nude to their primitive dinosaur god.
Again… I am genuinely sorry for the offensiveness of it all, but I like that stuff. People who like fantasy games tend to be people who like that stuff, and I feel weird that suddenly everyone acts like they don’t.
I think Mawthorne is trying to say that creatives aren’t the type of people who work well within hard boundaries. We tend to work better whenever we have fewer restrictions and can make things the way we want. Offices are usually the opposite of that, they have rules and procedures that its workers have to follow, and tend not to allow its workers to do things their own way. The Lost Generation is something I’m fascinated with because it had many writers who made great works of art, yet were drinking a lot and engaged in rambunctious behavior often. Ernest Hemingway’s and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s books would’ve been different if those authors were forced to sit in an office when writing them.
Very true.
So whats the solution? Eliminate it or leave it there and let people who enjoy it have it and people who don’t enjoy it have an alternative. IE turn it off for themselves.
In this case the skimpy armor in the game or the inappropriate jokes.
Well with the pandemic it has been shown that working from the office has negatively impacted movies and games. So its not exactly the office setting but maybe the creative direction being limited by legal, accounting and marketing is where creativity goes to die.
I cannot believe I have to state in 2022 that Creative Geniuses are not mentally ill self destructive racists, misogynists, and abusers as some universal trans-historical pan-humanity truth
I cannot believe I have affirm that the logic of Normal vs Genius is a product of 19th/20th century misapplication of Darwinism that led to other ideologies like the idea that the upper class are literally genetically better.
Christ y’all
Edit:
And let’s not even think about how this ideology was undoubtedly used internally in Blizzard to justify the sociopathic abuse!!!
I swear by San Carlos Acutis’s graphics card y’all out ya damn minds
Dunno about geniuses needing/desiring weird stuff compared to ‘normal’ people, but I do like old pulp sci-fi/fantasy/horror. Several of the thickest books on my shelf are ‘my collected works of’ HP Lovecraft, Robert E Howard, Jules Verne and HG Wells. Looking to get one each of Edgar Rice Burroughs Mars, Tarzan and Pellucidar books.
