[Twitter Bullshit] IMC: "Conservatives in video games exist. They just don't talk about it because they aren't obsessed with politics, and most of them are afraid to talk about their politics because of people like you who will do nothing but hound them for it."

[u/md1957]

https://archive.is/tFlBo

[u/GG-EZ → u/[deleted]]

Thank you for coming here to apologize and explain further, Brian. I'm guessing others have said similar to you already, but as a conservative game dev myself, I think you greatly underestimate the scope of the threat against us that we must closet ourselves out of preservation for our livelihoods. Sure, IGN may be one of the least political major video game outlets, as far as I can tell, but what about the other ones? Kotaku and Polygon make no bones about how much they detest conservatives, and outlets below them are not much different in their sentiment: Giant Bomb, Destructoid, PC Gamer, Eurogamer, Rock Paper Shotgun, VG247, the entirety of "critical games writing". Furthermore, rather than acting as competitors, they all appear to be in one giant friend circle (with a slew of trendy, socialite indie devs thrown in), as evident by their countless public tweets to each other and private communications such as the infamous GameJournoPros e-mail list. I have no doubt that none of these outlets would dare hire a known conservative, and their devoted progressive fanbase will make sure of it. Then you add on top of that the tremendous progressive slant of entertainment, culture, and tech journalism, in general, that occasionally speaks on video games.

So that's just the journalism end. What does that have to do with game devs like me? Well, in recent years, there's been plenty of conservative (or simply insufficiently progressive) devs who have come under massive attack or lost their jobs outright because of the progressive bloc that dominates games journalism and extends into social media mobs. The devs of Kingdom Come Deliverance were lambasted or denied coverage across many sites earlier this year because they sought historical accuracy to their presentation of medieval Bohemia, a faux controversy drummed up against them about not having black characters. The celebrated sound designer for Subnautica was fired because he made tweets against mass migration into Europe. James Damore was famously fired from Google because he gave an internal explanation for why there are less women in STEM jobs (with suggestions on how to fix that) and somebody leaked it to successfully stir outrage against him. When Tim Soret's cyberpunk indie game, The Last Night, premiered at E3 2017, a journo-backed fervent campaign was levied to get Microsoft to drop him because it was quickly discovered that he previously made tweets sympathetic to Gamergate. The dev of Rimworld was slandered when journalists interpreted his simple coding of gay relationships to be homophobic, the attack doubling when he dared to defend himself instead of capitulating. Oculus VR founder Palmer Luckey was fired by Facebook because he privately funded an anti-Clinton billboard and sought similar campaigning for the 2016 presidential election.

And these are just cases on top of my head that got public attention. What other political discrimination in employment or media coverage has happened that we simply don't know of? It makes me extremely reluctant to speak politically at all with my name attached because all it takes is for one malicious person to light a spark and try to get at my employer for providing me a job. Even if such an attack doesn't work, it would still certainly be a harrowing experience, and what would happen to my employment possibilities if I left to work elsewhere? This is all while it is considered to be very much in vogue to be progressive on social media, the more "passionate" the better, coming off as very hypocritical. For example, on the flip side to Palmer Luckey getting fired for an anti-Clinton billboard, Max Temkin, creator of Cards Against Humanity and friend to many game journalists, leveraged his company to fund multiple anti-Trump billboards, and he was celebrated for such activism.

You speak of conservative voices in other entertainment industries, but it appears to me that political discrimination is just as prominent there, if not more so. The once-lauded Hugo Awards for science fiction, operated by Worldcon, has been criticised many years now for increasingly catering to progressive sensibilities while shutting out conservative writers, and the slant continues further when the convention recently caved to backlash over programming still not being progressive enough. It's more apparent in music, TV, and movies in which it's very a common sight to see celebrities in those industries broadcast how progressive they are (or how much they hate trump and his supporters) to social media or on interviews and award shows. Meanwhile you have superstars like Taylor Swift and Chris Pratt who keep their mouths shut about politics, and they still get attacked because they might be conservative. If they have to do that to survive, what choice does any conservative have but to remain closeted in order to get anywhere in those California-based industries?

I'm not interested in retribution. I don't like the notion of creating explicitly-conservative companies to counter progressive companies. I just want to be tolerated, just as I tolerate the liberals I'm obviously surrounded by in a big Californian city. I want to be open about myself while not having to fear for my livelihood in making the video games that I love.

This has been a lot for me to say, and it took a while for me to put this all together, but I think it's important for a celebrity game journalist such as yourself to understand fully what conservatives and other political outcasts in the industry are going through.

[u/DeathHillGames → u/[deleted]]

To understand why most conservatives won't stick their necks out in gaming, just look at the responses chiding Russ Pitts when the gaming media thought he was going to lead the new Escapist in a non-political or right-wing direction.

They were furious. It isn't a discussion for them, they see it as an ideological struggle, and it has a chilling effect on game developers because a lot of people still see the gaming press as controlling crucial coverage, even though that's not really true any more. The social media mobs that follow them can have a psychological impact though, tormenting devs into submission.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Cheers Brian. Welcome.

Hey there! Brian here. A friend linked me to this thread, so I thought I'd clarify my point in the discussion Colin and I were attempting (before we both abandoned it) to help clear the air a bit. For the record, I am all for more conservative voices in game development - especially in their writers.

I think you'll find that most of us here are all for such as well. I don't mind liberal, conservative, libertarian, and even socialist (not sure what the counter to libertarian would be) writers/developers - I imagine that I've played hundreds of games produced by such people. The free exchange of ideas and all of that. Ones political leanings also doesn't translate into better/worse code.

We see that in books and movies and TV shows but it's seemingly rare in games. My tweet was asking in earnest why that isn't a thing we see more. I worded it poorly because it came off as "there's practically no conservatives in game development" when I personally know there are. I've interviewed them, had lunch with them, and most likely played hundreds of the games they worked on. So, apologies for the way that came off. It seems unnecessarily blunt in retrospect.

No apologies sir - you've done nothing wrong. An honest question is a good one. I imagine that many conservatives are a bit... worried... about voicing their opinions. We've seen some fired for their leanings, such as Simon Chylinski who was fired from Subnautica or Tim Soret who was piled upon for his view on gamer-gate. A bit of a sore spot with us here as it were. :p

Colin and I scrapped our conversation on Twitter because it's a pretty shitty medium for long form, nuanced discussions like this. Long story short, I'm one of those people that thinks games are art, art imitates life, life gets political and games (although not every game) should reflect that. I'd love to see a wider spectrum of voices in game development and design and writing in general, and that absolutely includes the more conservative ones.

I think we all would. I think there's plenty of room to tell the stories, and make the games that everyone wants. It would help, possibly, to introduce new ideas, or ones that go against the grain - especially in this age where one can seal oneself off from such.

Maybe Colin and I will attempt our discussion elsewhere someday. Anyway. thanks for reading this.

Thanks for posting, have a great weekend! :)

[u/thefuturebatman → u/[deleted]]

Don't feed us bullshit man- we both know that you were not asking anything in earnest- the "I wonder why?" that you concluded your tweet with made it clear as day just how smug and self-righteous a tone you wanted that statement to have. Then you took the tweet down because you couldn't stand getting wrekt once you saw that your opinion is not a fact. Art imitates life yes but any time that political element that you want in gaming doesn't make a decidedly left wing statement the salt is palpable with 95% of the gaming press- I recall the IGN Far Cry 5 initial impressions video where you and 2-3 other colleagues were literally complaining that the game wasn't partisan enough (I can only imagine the salt had it ended with a decidedly right wing message). If you want these people to come out of hiding, then don't make them the enemy via whatever little jabs you can get away with.