Speaker 1: We're rounding up our week delving into a controversial topic
Speaker 1: in the gaming world. A group of Steam users has
Speaker 1: launched an anti woke list, categorizing games based on their
Speaker 1: perceived woke content. With about sixteen hundred members, this group
Speaker 1: aims to steer gamers away from titles they believe push
Speaker 1: political agendas, often focusing on tags like LGBTQ plus representation
Speaker 1: or strong female characters. While some celebrate this initiative as
Speaker 1: a consumer's right to know, others criticize it as overly
Speaker 1: broad and reductive, potentially stifling creativity in game design. What
Speaker 1: does the divide say about the intersection of gaming culture
Speaker 1: and identity. Join us as we unpack the complexities on
Speaker 1: this issue from a skeptical humanist perspective. The story is
Speaker 1: from Dual Shockers by Abdullah to care to Cretty, I'm
Speaker 1: so sorry, I'm going to do that again, Thanks Glenn.
Speaker 1: This story. This story is from Dual Shockers by Abdullah
Speaker 1: out to Kreti on September ninth, twenty twenty four, and
Speaker 1: my first question, I'm coming to you Aja, as the
Speaker 1: other resident strong female character on this particular broadcast. How
Speaker 1: can gamers balance the desire for a transparency with the
Speaker 1: need for inclusive storytelling.
Speaker 2: You know, some of the group's critics were stating that
Speaker 2: it is a consumer's right to know exactly what they're by,
Speaker 2: and as you said earlier, right, everybody deserves to know.
Speaker 2: And as this turf as I am by some of
Speaker 2: the wording in these reviews, I have to play devil's
Speaker 2: advocate here and admit that I kind of agree. I
Speaker 2: think the article states that ultimately games are media with
Speaker 2: messages to convey, and no company should be shy about
Speaker 2: its messages, right, but users should also be free to
Speaker 2: analyze and interact critically with narratives and mechanics. But that
Speaker 2: was the quote that they said about that, And I
Speaker 2: am a firm believer in freedom of speech, even when
Speaker 2: I disagree with someone's statements or ideas that might be
Speaker 2: hateful or harmful. Although we can clearly draw a line
Speaker 2: on what is simply hateful and what can lead to,
Speaker 2: you know, physical or real tangible harm. I don't think
Speaker 2: that censorship is dissolution to preventing people from having hateful beliefs,
Speaker 2: but rather using our own communication skills to engage people
Speaker 2: in discussions and encourage them to use critical thinking in
Speaker 2: order to learn to grow and to adjust the world
Speaker 2: years to the society that we live in today. We
Speaker 2: can remove hate by helping people understand why it's wrong,
Speaker 2: not by forcing them to hide it through censorship. That
Speaker 2: would just be sweeping it under the world, and it
Speaker 2: is not helpful in destroying hate from its root.
Speaker 1: You know, I was just thinking about why you were talking,
Speaker 1: especially when we are talking about free speech, right, and
Speaker 1: one of the things that we've also talked about a
Speaker 1: lot on nonprofits is pervasive book banning, especially if the
Speaker 1: content happens to be like these gamers are talking about
Speaker 1: two woke and all right, and actually they find it
Speaker 1: like questionable content that should be in school libraries, right,
Speaker 1: And it seems like that we're almost getting to the
Speaker 1: point where we're pushing this same idea on other media
Speaker 1: like games, right. And and even if like games happen
Speaker 1: to seem to be too woke, strong female characters that
Speaker 1: they were saying previously, or even if they could be
Speaker 1: kind of hateful, I don't necessarily believe they should be
Speaker 1: banned or censored. I think that, you know, people should
Speaker 1: be able to make the decisions themselves. I think that
Speaker 1: they should actually have like a familiarity with the content itself,
Speaker 1: but that's only so that you can be informed on
Speaker 1: if you want to buy it or not. But as
Speaker 1: far as like trying to slap some type of label
Speaker 1: that this is something that you shouldn't be able to
Speaker 1: get because it's dis orces that I don't really agree
Speaker 1: with that. But you know, Scott, I want to know,
Speaker 1: you know, going back to this whole thing about woke,
Speaker 1: like how do you define woke in context of media?
Speaker 1: And should that? You know?
Speaker 3: I mean, like it's how much you got right?
Speaker 1: Right? What do you mean by that?
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying?
Speaker 1: Like, you know, I mean like because like I have,
Speaker 1: I like my own idea, like you know, what is woke,
Speaker 1: especially since like that's a term that I've used, like
Speaker 1: for a very long time. But you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's turned and morphed into this whole different thing that
Speaker 1: has been completely politicized and I think is stupid. But
Speaker 1: how do we define it in context of media? And
Speaker 1: should that definition be open to interpretation?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean I don't see how it could not
Speaker 3: be open to interpretation. I mean all languages like that,
Speaker 3: I mean, people use words different ways and so but yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean, it's it's it can be it can be
Speaker 3: tricky navigating this woke, you know, movement, or the anti
Speaker 3: woke movement. I mean, I would just describe it as
Speaker 3: just what it says, if you're woke, you're aware of things.
Speaker 3: You're aware of the impact of your actions and your
Speaker 3: beliefs and and what you say on other people and
Speaker 3: that kind of thing. And perhaps it's going the extra
Speaker 3: step in assuming that maybe you care about how other
Speaker 3: people you know, the results of things that you do
Speaker 3: or say or be or that kind of thing. And so,
Speaker 3: I mean, to me, it seems obvious that's what woke mean.
Speaker 3: That's why it seems odd to me when people, uh
Speaker 3: proudly proclaim that they're anti woke. I mean, are you're
Speaker 3: so you're asleep? Is it? What is that is that?
Speaker 3: Are you bragging about that to me that you're that
Speaker 3: you're Yes, I am ignorant, and I don't give a
Speaker 3: ship how anybody feels, and and it's it's it seems odd.
Speaker 3: But just when we were reading through the story, you know,
Speaker 3: they were talking about thinking you know, you already mentioned
Speaker 3: strong female protagonists. That was one of the tags that
Speaker 3: they use to label games. That was I mean, really,
Speaker 3: that's something you should be warning about. They also had
Speaker 3: things like includes pronouns, oh really okay, and to these
Speaker 3: pronouns or character with modern features. I mean, it's it's
Speaker 3: I don't it almost seem and I don't think this
Speaker 3: is what's happening, but it almost seems like it's a
Speaker 3: bunch of people, like like if they were aliens or
Speaker 3: something and they saw human beings acting this way and
Speaker 3: they're like, oh, this is the way that we act
Speaker 3: to be human. Hello, humans, we are anti woke, and
Speaker 3: watch out for those pronouns, and hey, watch out for
Speaker 3: those modern features. They're gonna come and get you. So
Speaker 3: it's uh, but it's tough to it's tough to keep
Speaker 3: up with. And so I was saying that it almost
Speaker 3: seems funny that like they're just trying to pretend like
Speaker 3: like they maybe they see their parents or somebody acting,
Speaker 3: you know, protesting against you know, gay marriage or something
Speaker 3: like that, and they're like, oh, what should we protest about? Oh,
Speaker 3: strong female protagonists. Okay, there there's something that we need
Speaker 3: to worry about. But I think what this shows is
Speaker 3: that people are going to people right. People are going
Speaker 3: to be are gonna have things to disagree about. And
Speaker 3: I agree with AJ. I'm kind of two minds of this.
Speaker 3: I think that, you know, shutting them down and saying no, no, no,
Speaker 3: you can't say that is I don't. I don't think
Speaker 3: that's the way to do it. I think that, you know,
Speaker 3: in this particular case, and I don't want to cast
Speaker 3: gamers as being immature. And I'm a gamer myself, and
Speaker 3: and I'm well into my fifties and so well that
Speaker 3: I suppose that doesn't mean I'm not immature, but that
Speaker 3: doesn't mean I'm not young, and so so it's not
Speaker 3: like we're just talking about kids here, and so it's
Speaker 3: we don't want to cast them as being immature, although
Speaker 3: it does it does have some aspects to that. It's
Speaker 3: hard not to because it's it's immature behavior. It's immature behavior.
Speaker 3: It's it's lumping people together, it's lumping these games together.
Speaker 3: It's saying that if a game uses pronouns, then something
Speaker 3: there's something bad about that. They're trying to get us
Speaker 3: to believe a certain way. They're trying to get us
Speaker 3: to think a certain way, which I don't know. There
Speaker 3: might be some truth to that. I generally don't think
Speaker 3: that that's that's really we're going to change the world
Speaker 3: by using pronouns in this video game. It's it seems
Speaker 3: kind of silly to me, but you know, but at
Speaker 3: the same time, it's it's these gaming communities are a
Speaker 3: way that a significant portion of the population lived their lives,
Speaker 3: and there are people that that's really their whole life
Speaker 3: is their gaming community. And so as somebody who's basically
Speaker 3: a casual gamer like myself, it's easy to see this as, oh,
Speaker 3: it's just the gamers acting up again, But you know,
Speaker 3: we have to take it seriously because it's a reflection
Speaker 3: of the people that are playing those games, many of
Speaker 3: whom are just like you know, just like us, And
Speaker 3: so I don't see this as really being something surprising
Speaker 3: or different from the rest of society. But you know,
Speaker 3: there it is. It makes the headlines. Game games make money,
Speaker 3: and so money makes headlines, and so it's on the headline.
Speaker 3: So we're talking about it today.
Speaker 2: I guess, Yeah, I think it would be interesting to
Speaker 2: see the demographic behind the people in the group.
Speaker 1: It would be yeah, it would I would loved I
Speaker 1: wish that the you know, the article probably would have had, like,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe some demographic information about like, you know,
Speaker 1: who are the ones who are you know, forming these
Speaker 1: communities who want to label games? Where are their political leanings?
Speaker 1: You know what? What are you know some other aspects
Speaker 1: that could be a you know, could also be involved
Speaker 1: with them wanting to even lend their voice to something
Speaker 1: like this in the first place. But you know, I'm
Speaker 1: wondering what ways can the gaming community because like we
Speaker 1: have these people, right, that's like coming up with ways
Speaker 1: for you to basically censor or telling other people, you know,
Speaker 1: not to buy certain games because they're too woken. This
Speaker 1: is what you can use to have your WOCO meter on,
Speaker 1: so it would determine what you will and want not buy, right,
Speaker 1: you know, But I wanted to, like, what's the opposite
Speaker 1: side of it, in ag I kind of want you
Speaker 1: to start on this when it comes to like fostering
Speaker 1: a more nuanced conversation about representation without resorting to divisive labels,
Speaker 1: What would you think that would actually look like?
Speaker 2: I think everyone, all of us, has a responsibility to
Speaker 2: shape this type of conversation. Unfortunately, as usual, it seems
Speaker 2: that women or people of color and LGBTQ people are
Speaker 2: the target here, and I apologize to Scott, the only
Speaker 2: man in the panel of today, but I'm going to
Speaker 2: go out on a limb here and guess that these reviews,
Speaker 2: as we were mentioning earlier, the demograph, the demographic is
Speaker 2: more than likely not made up of women, or not
Speaker 2: many women, at least from what I will be guessing.
Speaker 2: And the reason that I'm saying this is because there
Speaker 2: were just so many reviews talking about, you know, these
Speaker 2: strong female characters. There was one one specific review of
Speaker 2: the Indiana Jones and the Great Circle game that said
Speaker 2: they forced a girl boss character into the game in
Speaker 2: order to push agendas, and several other games were labeled
Speaker 2: as informational or meaning that they weren't neither recommended, but
Speaker 2: they were also you know, not recommended. They were simply
Speaker 2: review to inform people of what had been updated or
Speaker 2: other to the game, but included in this category where
Speaker 2: several games were having forced diversity or an extremely ugly
Speaker 2: strong female protagonist, and complains about games adding pronouns as
Speaker 2: a Scott mentioned earlier and replacing gender female and male
Speaker 2: with body types which they will being labeled sort of
Speaker 2: like body type A or body type B rather than
Speaker 2: you know, as we said, the typical male and female.
Speaker 2: And it seems like the pushback against equal representation is
Speaker 2: just a reminder of how misogyny and homophobia are so
Speaker 2: deeply embedded in all aspects of a modern society, including
Speaker 2: video games, and sadly, children grow up playing and all
Speaker 2: of these video games, and they see all these reviews
Speaker 2: and they see this type of vocabulary being used, and
Speaker 2: ultimately they are exposed to all these hateful ideologies and
Speaker 2: they take that into adulthood. So we all have to
Speaker 2: be responsible for shaping this type of conversation and bringing
Speaker 2: awareness to it and bringing it up and continue talking
Speaker 2: about it and making sure that people realize how harmful
Speaker 2: they are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, misogyny, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and alcil racist all of those,
Speaker 1: unfortunately have leaked into different aspects of our society, even
Speaker 1: something that should be fun, like gaming. What's the harm?
Speaker 1: I want to let me bring bring the camera closer,
Speaker 1: let me talk to you anti world gamers. What is
Speaker 1: the harm of representing other people who are not cis
Speaker 1: head white men? Do you know that there are other
Speaker 1: people in the world that are not sis head, turbo
Speaker 1: sexual quite men, Are you familiar with other people were
Speaker 1: right here?
Speaker 3: That's a good question, question of color.
Speaker 2: Woman, we exist, we're here.
Speaker 3: We do this as the cis head white man on
Speaker 3: the Yes.
Speaker 1: Yes, you're right, right, Scott, you speak for all of
Speaker 1: these people.
Speaker 3: What's what's wrong?
Speaker 1: What's going on?
Speaker 3: As I said, I'm also a gamer, and I'm careful
Speaker 3: not to cast this as a them issue. I'm I'm
Speaker 3: embracing my uh my acknowledging my not embracing I'm acknowledging my,
Speaker 3: my privilege and my position here. And I would like
Speaker 3: to talk about this problem as a wee problem. Okay,
Speaker 3: And it's you know the question that you just asked Asa.
Speaker 3: You said you used the phrase nuanced and online community
Speaker 3: in the same sentence. I thought that it was hilarious.
Speaker 3: I mean, online communities are not known for their nuance,
Speaker 3: and this is an online community, but it's our online community,
Speaker 3: and so I think we do have responsibility not only
Speaker 3: to acknowledge what we see here, but also to tow
Speaker 3: we can we can you can promote positive thoughts, positive
Speaker 3: approaches to to these issues. Like you said, what does
Speaker 3: it matter if you have an option?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: Because that's what they're complaining about they're not complaining about
Speaker 3: being forced to play a particular character, although in some
Speaker 3: games they might. You know, it forces you down a
Speaker 3: particular path. As gamers, we love having different choices available
Speaker 3: to us and so but but but I think as
Speaker 3: as an adult gamer, it's my responsibility to make sure
Speaker 3: that my gaming community is not promoting hateful thoughts. And
Speaker 3: I don't. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
Speaker 3: I think I support somebody else's right to promote whatever
Speaker 3: whatever they want to. I mean, I don't think that
Speaker 3: this is something that should be shut down, as we
Speaker 3: said before, but I think there are ways that that
Speaker 3: the community can kind of take it by the reins
Speaker 3: and kind of promote the kind of morph this into
Speaker 3: something good. I think discussion, at the very least can
Speaker 3: be helpful as long as long as ideas can be
Speaker 3: brought in, and that's in this fight against these options.
Speaker 3: Can take those away, can take those those types of
Speaker 3: discussions off the table, and that that I think is
Speaker 3: the real damage that's being done here. It's not necessarily
Speaker 3: specifically particular ideas, but it's that it's it's taking those
Speaker 3: it's taking the option of discussion off the table. Which
Speaker 3: can be frustrating and makes it difficult to to deal with.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think Scott, this is the perfect example of
Speaker 2: what we can do. Like you be in here and
Speaker 2: taking everything networking at you, and you're still here standing
Speaker 2: up for it and speaking up against it. And I
Speaker 2: think that that is what a lot more people could do,
Speaker 2: you know, like realize your privilege and use that for good.
Speaker 1: Yeah. What do you all think that developers play in
Speaker 1: navigating you know, consumer feedback on perceived political messaging in
Speaker 1: their games.
Speaker 3: Well, they're the targets here. They're the targets. I mean this.
Speaker 3: This group is not intent on affecting what players do.
Speaker 3: Their intent on affecting developers because they know that it's
Speaker 3: going to boil down to money. Okay, if people stop
Speaker 3: buying their games, then they're going to need to adjust.
Speaker 3: And so this is a marketplace of ideas, it's a
Speaker 3: literal marketplace of video games, and so developers are kind
Speaker 3: of caught right. They want to sell their games, but
Speaker 3: you know, maybe some of them don't care about the
Speaker 3: messages that they put up. Certainly there's video games with
Speaker 3: bad messages and mixed messages and good messages, and so
Speaker 3: they are kind of caught between a rock and a
Speaker 3: hard place. They need to react to the marketplace, but
Speaker 3: they also need to react to their consciences. And so
Speaker 3: you know, I actually we have there's a former nonprofit
Speaker 3: that now works at a huge video game company. I'm
Speaker 3: not going to say who, but those of you long
Speaker 3: time viewers of the nonprofits know exactly who I'm talking about.
Speaker 3: But anyway, in any case, but yeah, I think that
Speaker 3: if we can promote discussion, promote conversation, I think that
Speaker 3: the good ideas have the opportunity to bubble to the top.
Speaker 1: What's the u ager?
Speaker 2: I mean, I think that you know, Steam has sixty
Speaker 2: nine million early users, is huge, and the group in
Speaker 2: question is only made up of about sixteen hundred users
Speaker 2: that are actively wide reviews. But they do have nine
Speaker 2: thousand followers, so people that support that, And well, I
Speaker 2: am happy to see that the amount of people doing
Speaker 2: this is just a tiny infraction of the overall newser base.
Speaker 2: Is in that they have had the power to shut
Speaker 2: down certain games, and although the reason why these games
Speaker 2: were truly shut down seems to be in question and
Speaker 2: not necessarily directly related to the reviews, I think that
Speaker 2: we can all agree that consumer reviews often do s
Speaker 2: way people's decisions on whether they're going to buy a
Speaker 2: product or not. And you can see that an Amazon
Speaker 2: or any other type of product when you buy and
Speaker 2: sell something, right, So the action of these few people
Speaker 2: can certainly have a negative effect on the game sales,
Speaker 2: and it contained the game developers' reputations for themselves as well.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm about to put both of you on the spot,
Speaker 1: and I know that you are not prepared for this,
Speaker 1: but I'm so curious to see what your brains come
Speaker 1: up with. You are both developers of a new anti
Speaker 1: woke game. What is the name? Yes, an anti woke game, you.
Speaker 3: Know, anti anti woke game.
Speaker 1: Yes, so, Scott, what is the name of your game?
Speaker 3: Is the purpose of the game to be anti woke?
Speaker 3: Is that the goal of the game.
Speaker 1: Yes, it is. The goal of the game is to
Speaker 1: be as anti woke as possible. No, and and all
Speaker 1: the things that these these consumer you know, feedback people
Speaker 1: are saying, Hey, these are the aspects of woke games
Speaker 1: right now, and your game has none of it. So
Speaker 1: what's the name of your game?
Speaker 3: The name of my game is fuck you. That's the name.
Speaker 1: That's video.
Speaker 3: You might notice that when I said that, When I
Speaker 3: said that word, I pronounced it as f asterisk c k.
Speaker 3: So you know, so the sensors can't buzz me on that, right,
Speaker 3: I didn't. I didn't say I said it with you. Sorry,
Speaker 3: But the first time I said it had a star
Speaker 3: on it, so that was okay. That makes it, That
Speaker 3: makes it okay.
Speaker 1: That makes it okay.
Speaker 2: Just like you say that in a good place and
Speaker 2: they say fork for.
Speaker 1: You. What's the name of your anti woke game.
Speaker 2: I'm thinking I'm gonna call it Sick Masculinity.
Speaker 1: Ride, Toxic Masculinity Ride.
Speaker 2: Okay, now that it open for a lot of imagination. Yeah, imagination.
Speaker 1: Now you put toxic masculine and they're going to be like, no,
Speaker 1: that's that's the that's the woke game.
Speaker 3: Our director director chimed in here, our director chimed in
Speaker 3: he he would name his game Christian Love. It's a
Speaker 3: dating sim for only Christians and actively proselytizes Christian love.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna change my answer to that.
Speaker 2: That's doing it.
Speaker 1: Right, yes, yes, And I will add to Christian Love
Speaker 1: and with a subtitle Christian Love. Your pronouns, I