site banner
PaperclipPerfector  17hr ago (text post)   2392 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 22, 2025

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Is wokeness really retreating from nerd culture? The political winds may be shifting in the west, but our cultural institutions are still run by woke activists.

Tomb Raider Catalyst looks "safe horny", the new Star Wars game is apparently another female lead.

Witcher 4 is going all in on feminism vs patriarchy, which was already a central theme in the previous titles and books (conveniently ignored by nostalgic "chuds").

Expedition 33 is touted as an industry rebel and yet, suspiciously, it sold 2 million copies in 2 weeks, was hyped up across games journalism, astroturfed online AND locked in a Hollywood film deal before it even launched.... all the makings of an industry plant, funded by an "indie publisher" with a paltry $120M investment from Netease, by a studio of teams and partners from diverse backgrounds, cultures and perspectives, that "suddenly" went woke with the sequel like the bait and switch Sony catalogues.

Where Winds Meet's character creation gives you "body types" in English, but the Chinese version says male and female.

Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 was going to be the chud GOTY made by a pro-GG studio lead, yet it pinkwashes its two male leads and crowbarred an ahistorical Malian man into the main campaign.

GTA 6 is already putting the female lead front and centre, while the male lead looks like the sub. His writing and appearance is oriented to the female gaze, he looks like a billboard model unlike the "average looking" male leads of previous titles.

There's been a concerted effort to create a female fandom for all the male oriented IPs to expand their TAM, especially in gaming where the average budgets keep ballooning every year. The rationale is that male gamers (existing fandom) will remain loyal to the IP and get incalculated into feminism. But females need to be interested. So do away with the fratboy culture! Let HR screen the environment, kick out the milquetoast Gen X techbros and onboard woke millennial women. Accommodate all of their favourite social justice causes (BLM, LGBTQ). Fight the male gaze!

But men consistently remain gaming's biggest consumers. Despite the marketing push for the female leads in RPGs like AC Odyssey, Mass Effect and Cyberpunk heavily pushing the female leads into the marketing, the actual buyer demographic heavily prefer the male lead in all the games. Yet, people's tolerance levels keep going up as games get increasingly woke. In other words, some "tepidly woke" themes are ok because even "beloved classics" like Cyberpunk featured LGBT themes. Anti woke influencers and "trusted friends" promise up and down that condescending Malian and ahistorical synagogue in 15th century Bohemia was totally a creative decision, not ideological corruption. In 20 years, they'll be telling us that black Samurai lead in Japan is also perfectly acceptable.

The structural nature of the industry and investors expectations necessitates an indefinitely expanding fanbase. And the so called anti-wokes silently gaslight themselves so studios realised they can just make them happy by grifting away like Daniel Vavra.

In fact, I believe wokeness had its antecedents decades ago. I'm watching Star Trek DS9 right now. And when it's good, which is far from always, it's not good because it's racially diverse. If Sisko was white, it would not make the show any worse. In fact it would probably save you from bad preachy episodes like "Far Beyond The Stars". Set aside the nostalgia and compare it to the "woke" standards of the time, the "woke" creators of yesteryear fully back the "woke" creators of today.

We might be at least 40 years too late to expect a return to form (whatever that is). Maybe we'll simply just live with it like an amputated limb, occasionally recalling the good old times.

PS: Apologies if my post reads like a brain dump, I'm returning to TheMotte after a long hiatus.

There's been a concerted effort to create a female fandom for all the male oriented IPs to expand their TAM, especially in gaming where the average budgets keep ballooning every year. The rationale is that male gamers (existing fandom) will remain loyal to the IP and get incalculated into feminism. But females need to be interested. So do away with the fratboy culture! Let HR screen the environment, kick out the milquetoast Gen X techbros and onboard woke millennial women. Accommodate all of their favourite social justice causes (BLM, LGBTQ). Fight the male gaze!

This is not a rationale; this is a rationalization for what they wanted to do anyway. The idea of "let's alienate our existing customers because they'll buy anyway, so we can just cater to the new customers we want at no cost" is pants-on-head stupid to begin with. It'd be like cigarette companies trying to cater to the health-nut demographic... by removing the nicotine. When they do it and it DOESN'T WORK and they keep doing it, the already transparent rationalization just falls apart.

This is not a rationale; this is a rationalization for what they wanted to do anyway. The idea of "let's alienate our existing customers because they'll buy anyway, so we can just cater to the new customers we want at no cost" is pants-on-head stupid to begin with. It'd be like cigarette companies trying to cater to the health-nut demographic... by removing the nicotine. When they do it and it DOESN'T WORK and they keep doing it, the already transparent rationalization just falls apart.

Agreed. Also, they generally don't take female oriented IPs and change them to make them more attractive to a male audience.

Also, they generally don't take female oriented IPs and change them to make them more attractive to a male audience.

I know you said "generally", but I seem to remember reading (probably here) that the My Little Pony phenomenon was due to them doing exactly that. I vaguely recall reading something that basically said that the way they'd designed it to appeal to young boys was by including a lot more adventure/hero's journey elements than are usually present in girl's media, and I explicitly remember them mentioning something along the lines of "we know boys won't go out of their way to watch it, but if it's on because their sister is watching it, we want them to watch it too."

Which plays a lot more into @The_Nybbler's point - it is definitely possible to make media that is intended for men, and extend the appeal to women as well without compromising what men like about it. Which implies that they are making it woke because that's what they want to do, not to expand their audience.

I know you said "generally", but I seem to remember reading (probably here) that the My Little Pony phenomenon was due to them doing exactly that. I vaguely recall reading something that basically said that the way they'd designed it to appeal to young boys was by including a lot more adventure/hero's journey elements than are usually present in girl's media, and I explicitly remember them mentioning something along the lines of "we know boys won't go out of their way to watch it, but if it's on because there sister is watching it, we want them to watch it too."

Thanks for posting this. If true, that's fascinating.

Which plays a lot more into @The_Nybbler's point - it is definitely possible to make media that is intended for men, and extend the appeal to women as well without compromising what men like about it. Which implies that they are making it woke because that's what they want to do, not to expand their audience.

I guess the most charitable interpretation is that they have a poor mental model of the typical male viewer.

Found the link, if you're curious:

https://www.themotte.org/post/2732/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/358520?context=8#context

The quote I was thinking of:

Boys (believe it or not): They won't admit it, but they'll watch. When their sister’s watching it, they'll balk and act like it’s dumb, then they'll sit down and watch it. For the same reason Moms will find My Little Pony interesting enough to happily share with their daughters, the compelling conflicts, the strong characterizations, the silly humor and (most importantly for boys) the ADVENTURE, the boys will watch, too. Really

Right. "We can add female-friendly elements without scaring the dudes" isn't a pants-on-head stupid plan. It might be hard and it might not work, but the idea isn't categorically dumb. "We can completely aim for a female audience and the dudes will have no choice but to stay and we'll get the women too" IS pants-on-head stupid.

Not at all a gamer, but I am an avid reader. And contemporary literature has many of the same issues (with different inflections) as video games.

My solution: exit. For the past year, I've only read books written in the 20th century, and it's been such a breath of fresh air. Instead of endless variations of progressive morality tales adapted to different settings, you get genuine variety of perspectives. Mentioning this elsewhere, the usual response is "oh, so you're just reading dead white men instead," but it's not at all that. You get writers of both sexes and all races bringing new perspectives to the table. Currently I'm reading an excellent memoir by a bisexual, Jewish, female software engineer, and you get none of the drivel that would be put to the page today.

This may have limited applicability to gamers: games are more social, require a much greater investment to produce, and the average game in 2025 is better (I assume) than the average game in 1995, despite wokeness. Which points to the problem for people wanting better video games today. So long as people are buying the ones produced, that's what you're stuck with, and there's not much you can do besides quit altogether.

Currently I'm reading an excellent memoir by a bisexual, Jewish, female software engineer, and you get none of the drivel that would be put to the page today.

Can you name it? This sounds interesting.

Close to the Machine, by Ellen Ullman.

My solution: exit. For the past year, I've only read books written in the 20th century, and it's been such a breath of fresh air.

Exit has been my solution as well. Hollywood/Netflix/tv wants to serve nothing but slop? The NFL has all the aesthetics of a rap video? Guess I'll pass on all of it.

Mentioning this elsewhere, the usual response is "oh, so you're just reading dead white men instead,"

And the correct answer is yeschad. They were the good writers.

Conversely, people are taking note of this.

If you go by Steam, people just find the newest stuff rather lackluster. How the market adapts to this - if ever - will be interesting to play out. It's not as if it would be the first Video Game market crash we've seen...

... because even "beloved classics" like Cyberpunk featured LGBT themes.

Okay, this is a nitpick.

There was the MtF bartender at the Afterlife with the street racing line of sidequests, and that did feel preachy. And there were the gay romance options. Did I miss anything else?

On the other hand, you have Fingers, the ripperdoc who has made himself androgynous and is unambiguously a villain, in a way clearly tied to his sexuality, in a major quest. I was pretty surprised they'd go there. I felt like they did a good job of preserving the setting's themes even when they were in tension with the mores of the current year.

Arguably the racial updates, making the setting less white, were more progressive. They were in line with the tech updates, though, splitting the difference between retro-future and future-future. So I have mixed feelings.

The way they handled religion was pretty bad in general, but I can only speculate as to motives there.

Just to add to that list, I was fairly excited for IT: Welcome to Derry because the IT TV special is one of my favorite horror movies, but Welcome to Derry is the most abysmal woke slop you could imagine. The theme of the show is that racism is scarier than Pennywise. We know this is the theme because the Rabbi told his son in the first episode- reality is scarier than fantasy and Jews know better than anyone the horror of reality, with the reality anecdote used by the father to demonstrate "reality as scarier than fantasy" to his son ironically being the lie that Jews were turned into lampshades at Buchenwald- pretty ironic the writers chose a fantasy and huge lie to drive home the theme of reality being scarier than fantasy. Then that night his son gets attacked by Pennywise in the form of a human-skin lampshade.

That just set the stage though- at least half the cast is black, and of course they are all the noble, intelligent, upstanding characters while all the white characters are evil, bumbling, and dysfunctional. The most unforgiveable part is that most of the drama is dedicated to rehashing "Black experience in American South" but just Copy + Pasting it to Derry Maine with all the memes, featuring a black woman with a heavy southern accent as the hero fighting Racism in Derry with absolutely no new angle or artistic interpretation.

What to make of it? Woke isn't dead because Hollywood changed its mind, it's dead because the spell was broken among a critical mass of the laity. So either Hollywood and gaming will change, or they won't change and there will just be this persistent conflict that ruins everything. I read the Reddit reviews of different episodes to get a feeling for how far off my take on the show is from the average Redditor, and it's miles away. Obviously there's a selection bias but the median redditor still eats this slop up- "omg I loved the scene where the Cuban kid played drums in the happy Black jazz club, it really set the stage for next episode when the white people come and kill them all."

Edit: Expedition 33 was not woke at all though. The cast featured a diverse crew, and then 99% of the diversity was killed off at the very beginning of the first act, and virtually the entire cast is white and the story centers on familial relations within an unambiguously ethnically French family, with sympathetic interpretations of each character and there is just no wokeness at all. And people loved it.

Yeah "Welcome to Derry" was awful. The military subplot was a narrative stop sign, the Indians were a time-consuming macguffin factory, we don't need another story based around horcruxes I mean infinity stones I mean magic shards or whatever dumb crap that was, completely unneccessary to the plot, there was like thirty characters too many, the monster was weirdly focused on horrific simulated childbirth scenes (somebody's fetish, obv). Just a disaster on every level.

I was curious about Expedition 33, and watched a few Vtubers playing it, and I have no problems admitting that my interest in purchasing said game was killed when I saw the random black guy pop up out of nowhere.

Hearing that he gets killed off... Well, I dunno. Maybe I'll pick it up on a 90% off sale or something down the road in a few years.

It's a funny bait and switch. They check off the "diversity" box in the Prologue and pay it no mind whatsoever in the entire story itself. The story is about a white family and it's actually interesting.

Despite the marketing push for the female leads in RPGs like AC Odyssey, Mass Effect and Cyberpunk heavily pushing the female leads into the marketing, the actual buyer demographic heavily prefer the male lead in all the games.

As a straight, cis-by-default guy, I have a mild preference for female characters. Not sure if that makes me crypto-trans or something. Here is my reasoning:

  • For 3rd person view games: if I have to stare at the ass of my PC for 80 hours, I prefer staring at a female backside.
  • Romance-option wise, I am fine with lesbian content, but don't care for gay content. For straight content, I mildly prefer my character being the guy, but for example in BG3 'PC vs NPC party member' is pretty much a distinction without a difference. (Of course, I played a female Lolthsworn Dark Urge necromancer, which is fairly far from my real world persona. The class turned out to be a mistake, I was under the impression that I would get Finger of Death (& WotB) eventually. In 2nd and 3rd ed these were actually useful.)
  • I guess my PC gender preference inverts if there is a lot promiscuity going on, for example in Witcher 1, I would prefer playing a slutty Gerald who gets a lot of pussy to a hypothetical slutty Geraldine who gets a ton of cock, possibly with a collection of risque cards of all the guys my PC has fucked. Outside of Witcher 1 and straightforward porn games, this is rarely a dominating concern.

I think that for mainstream games like ME or Cyberpunk, there is enough demand for female main characters that it makes sense to provide both options, even if you have to cast some lines with two sets of pronouns.

I agree with your points on story-writing, though. A thinly veiled allegory for whatever the cause of the day is (no matter the political leaning) rarely makes for an engaging story.

Just sounds like you're a straight man tbh. And I've yet to be persuaded that "cis-by-default" means anything.

"Cis-by-default" is trying to motion toward the difference between the sort of straight guy who'd react to a Ranma'ing by poking his own breasts and giggling for three hours straight, and the sort who'd immediately douse their head in boiling water. (To turn back into a man, right?)

Ozy originally had a poll from somewhere saying some sizable number of men in that situation claimed that they'd go full suicidal, but I can't find it or any real references to it, so I can't look back at how well-designed it was, and even the summary had a lot of questions unanswered about how performative that claim was. But from a revealed preferences sense, you do get a lot of similar outputs: most obvious in smut where some fraction of guys get really uncomfortable with (especially but not only VR) female protagonist games even in F/F-only contexts, but also more subtly the difference between guys that are bored by and those that are outraged by having to learn about woman-specific things like traditional makeup use.

That said, yeah, I agree quiet_NaN doesn't seem crypto-trans. I've clocked people wrong before, but at minimum I'd expect a crypto-trans person to either really like the gay romance option or at least mention the lesbian option for an alternate universe Witcher 1, even crypto-trans people that don't fit Blanchard's typology.

There’s a conspiracy theory going around that Jason from GTA VI was going to be killed off in the first hour or so of the game, and the only playable character was the Latina gangbanger. Then the woke stuff started to recede, and Rockstar had to delay the game for two years in order to actually add him in as a playable character.

I think wokeness is the current name for a phenomenon which has infested Western culture for thousands of years.

So for example, consider biblical accounts of Jesus, who supposedly stood up for prostitutes and adulteresses. And proclaimed the poor are blessed, for theirs is the holy kingdom. While at the same time, stating that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.

In other words, the idea of revering and exalting low status, marginalized groups while dunking on the (perceived) elites -- as a way of virtue signalling -- is an old idea. it's difficult to see it going away any time soon.

If you're looking for the wokes in the Bible, I think you must examine the Pharisees, most of all. They're the moralistic, hypocritical wokescolds of the time and place, afaik.

If you're looking for the wokes in the Bible, I think you must examine the Pharisees, most of all.

I'm not familiar with the Pharisees so I can't really comment on this.

They're the moralistic, hypocritical wokescolds of the time and place, afaik.

Generally speaking, what did they do or say?

The New Testament isn't really woke. It endorses man-woman marriage, especially monogamy, as the correct sexual paradigm, and condemns promiscuity and homosexuality. Even in the passage in John with the woman taken in adultery, it's true Jesus doesn't advocate for stoning her, but he also says, "Go and sin no more." The most dubious sexual thing I can think of in the New Testament is that it, with the Old Testament, explicitly upholds Lot as a righteous man, despite the fact that he's documented as getting drunk and having sex with his daughter (after he was rescued from Sodom!). And if once wasn't enough, he does it again with the other daughter. In any case, whatever difficulty (I love this term by theologians lol) one has with the Lot passages, this isn't the sort of sexual activity wokesters are advocating anyway. Woke advocates for the sexual activities that are explicitly condemned, not the behaviors righteous Lot was engaged in. Further, the New Testament is very patriarchal: it forbids female ministers, and in fact, says women shouldn't talk in church at all (which Christians women don't seem to take very seriously), and says women should not have authority over men. That's really, really not woke!

Now, on the financial side of things, I think the woke people have a lot more textual evidence to work with. But the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, is all over the place on this. On the one hand, many if not a majority of the good guys are wealthy. On the other hand, there are repeated condemnations of the wealthy, even in the Old Testament. Progressives' favorite passage from Ezekiel says: "Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy." Christians get very upset about this, but frankly, the progressives are correct: Ezekiel highlights the prideful disregard of the poor, and doesn't even bother mentioning what Christians today often call Sodomy.

So, to the extent that the Bible is financially woke, it's not really a New Testament thing: i.e., it's not part of a mind virus concocted by the apostles to infect Rome and drive its fall, as seems to be the thesis on the Nazi right.

The New Testament isn't really woke.

That may very well but I wasn't claiming that the Christian Bible is woke. Rather, my position is that (1) modern wokeness is a manifestation of a more general phenomenon; and (2) that phenomenon has been around for a long time as evidenced by ideas contained in early Christianity.

As far as the question of whether the Christian Bible is woke or not goes, the answer turns on (1) how to define wokeness; and (2) how many woke elements must be included in a work before it should be considered woke overall.

If you define "be kind to those less fortunate" as woke, sure, Christianity is woke. But I think that's a very dubious definition of woke. I'm not aware of any successful real-world culture that has the smoothbrained barbaric machismo that the dissident right seems to think is the essence of real civilization.

The same culture that brought you the Nanjing Massacre has this guy as a legendary ninja hero.

Christianity goes a lot further than "be kind to the less fortunate," though. The last shall be first, the meek will inherit the Earth, God chose the weak things to shame the strong, etc. That does seem like a radical change from, well, the history of the universe, and it doesn't seem crazy to see a connection between that and Wokeness.

the meek will inherit the Earth

I mean, this is basically "them darn thespians and homo sapiens." The word "meek" is is πραΰς, which as you can see on the Wiki, is more like gentle, related to the root for likeable/well-disposed. Heck, the example usage there is from the Victory Odes: "the king who rules Syracuse, gentle to his citizens"

As for the first being last and the last being first, well... I present to you the word gentleman.

Christianity goes a lot further than "be kind to the less fortunate," though.

FWIW "be kind to the less fortunate" seems like a motte to me. In the same way that a modern day wokie would claim that they are just trying to help disadvantaged people a bit, but they would never ever hire an unqualified person and they are absolutely not trying to replace white people.

Are you familiar with Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals? He criticizes Christianity for being a morality for slaves, of sour grapes insisting that being poor, meek, weak and passive was actually good, and that being strong, rich, mighty and proud was bad. The notion certainly rhymes with how woke oppressed/oppressor dynamics and the oppression Olympics plays out.

I'm familiar with his thesis. I'm just saying Christianity only fits his narrative when you pick and choose certain aspects of it. Which, to be fair, is what Christians typically do lol

But to be even more fair: the parts they selectively choose to ignore are often the parts most aligned with Nietzsche's thesis. Paul says don't rebel against the government (and he's under the Roman government! Not a fairly reasonable government like Britain's!)? Can't hear you over my #1776, baby! Christians, if anything, are the most celebratory of the colonial rebellion of all America's demographics.

If you define "be kind to those less fortunate" as woke, sure,

I imagine that wokies themselves would define wokeness along these lines.

But I think that's a very dubious definition of woke.

Well, I think that "being kind to the unfortunate" is often present, but it's a kind of camouflage for attacks on the perceived elite / outgroup. Implying that it's essentially impossible for wealthy people to be good people -- that's something I would say is pretty woke by any reasonable definition.

By the way, I'm not claiming that Christianity is woke, just that it has woke elements, if "woke" is broadly defined.

Jesus, who supposedly stood up for prostitutes and adulteresses

"Go now, and sin no more." Does everyone forget that part?

They do. And they turn "her sins are forgiven because she loved much" into "see guys, she wasn't really a sex worker (though there's nothing wrong with that!), she just had a lot of boyfriends whom she really loved, so Jesus says sleeping around is fine so long as you love the guy".

"Go now, and sin no more."

Sin no more, but if we do catch you sinning again probably nothing will happen. Not unless you push a random person off a subway platform.

Sounds like "amnesty for current immigrants, but then we will totally enforce the border, this time for real" to me, so forgetting it seems appropriate.

Slave morality.

I mean, everything you mentioned would have been in development in 2024, when it was not known that Trump would be President and wokeness would be on the back foot.

My suspicion is that a ton of stuff being released this year was literally produced with the assumption that a Democrat would still be President.

The one that doesn't really have that excuse is South Park, since their episodes are, notoriously, very quick to produce and thus can reflect current events pretty readily.

I'd expect 2026 to show the first batch of media products that was created after it became clear that audiences were actually rejecting the excessive messaging and that there was a real demand for red-tribe (not necessarily right-wing) content.

One big sign of this is Taylor Sheridan's singlehanded dominance of TV right now, where he produces red-coded, masculine-heavy content that is wildly popular.

Another sign is the apparent collapse in the popularity of Hip-Hop and the return of Country music with a vengeance.

Another sign is the apparent collapse in the popularity of Hip-Hop and the return of Country music with a vengeance.

Thing is that hip hop is an incredibly "unwoke" genre in content if not allegiance. If these battles are no longer being fought it's cause the wokes accepted only a partial victory: rampant misogyny, actual toxic masculinity in gangster rap and barely-even-coded homophobia but the top talent are expected to toe the line if they want to go really mainstream. But the low end, especially the regional drill scenes? Can be functionally amoral.

I would think it's female pop stars like Beyonce that would be benefitting from consumption as a sign of loyalty and who you'd expect to drop off if we're past peak woke.

I do think most mainstream media is still very woke. The battle for the media apparatus has just begun.

Also welcome back!

All the occupations required to work on game dev, or media, are overwhelmingly liberal or progressive. Even software engineers are only 16-27% conservative. They might not be on board with some of the woke extremes - same way not every conservative is an ethno-nationalist - but they’ll still support LGBT rights, and diversity initiatives. I would think that conservative software engineers are less likely to work in game development as well - why not work at Anduril where you get paid more and you don’t have to hide your political views?

Richard Hanania’s article on Why is Everything Liberal still applies. There’s no talent pool to make “non-woke” games. Plus, I never got the feeling that the market actually penalised wokeness at any point - my impression was that wokeness was used to shield mediocre work of criticism, or to excuse its underperformance.

I'm baffled by the concept of a game studio where the coding-level devs make decisions on the overall direction and themes of the game. Surely there are producers and executives analogous to movie productions with hire/fire power who set the parameters of the artistic output, no?

There is very much a talent pool for making non-woke media: it's called the country of Japan. Just because the West is incapable of making anything other than woke agitprop doesn't mean nobody else is.

That's a good argument about game media erring on the liberal side, but it's still weird how "woke" AAA games are, rather than borrowing from the broader liberal ethos. Not just in extremes, or some post-hoc sharpshooter's definition, but in what's being done specifically.

"Safe horny", as much as it gets smudged with tumblr associations, isn't actually a good representation of the (even post-Yahoo) tumblr ethos. Hell, I'm not even sure the Type I/Type II body thing is more compatible with trans thought than "masculine"/"feminine": you'd know better than I, but both the clean and smut-focused indie works I follow with trans readerships (and a few cases authorships) don't take that tack. Or for a non-video game example, compare Dungeons and Dragons to Super Lesbian Animal Adventure. The latter is much more left-wing and probably more offensive to soccons, but the former's got a lot more wokisms.

What matters to the woke execs is that the game is fun to play so it sells. If it's so woke it's bad then that's going to be an issue now that the economy is tough, but as long as it doesn't affect the core gameplay and the aesthetic toooo much, then it's gonna be woke all the way.

What the woke in charge (brilliantly parodied with - put a chick in it and make it gay) don't understand is that execution matter. Problem is not that we have female leads, but that we don't have another Kate Archer or Bayonetta. Not that we have gay characters, but that we don't have Zevran or Leliana. Hades both 1 and 2 are woke as fuck and nobody cares. The problem is not that we have black lead assasins creed in japan. Problem is that the game is shit. And so on. No one wants ugly women - except the ugly women in charge of the projects.

These aren't disconnected phenomena, though: the reason people who suck at making games are in charge of making games is because they are there on woke credentials, making content you're supposed to be morally obligated to say you like.

You see a similar phenomena with Christian media. It's typically poor quality and watched by few because the people in charge of making it aren't there because they're good at their jobs; they're there because of their ideological commitment.

In both cases, the root of the problem is it's socially unacceptable to boot someone who is simply bad at their job for being bad at their job. You have to respect their moral commitment over their competence.

It's the same in politics, too. Bring your country to its knees with wasteful spending and idiotic policy? Not an issue worthy of dismissal. But touch someone's butt once in a bar in the '80s? Now that's the sort of person we cannot tolerate being in charge of anything important!

But touch someone's butt once in a bar in the '80s?

Obviously, that's why Trudeau was kicked out of office for wearing blackface and for groping a reporter.

It's all who/whom.

Trudeau wasn't kicked out for the same reason Trump wasn't for so many things: he was ultimately answerable to the public.

Most cancellations would probably be short circuited if there was a public vote on them.

It's not really kto/kogo, it's more that when those who really run the show decide you need to go, these sorts of accusations magically become headshots instead of ricochets.

When the people actually running the show want you in power, you can be all over the Epstein files and nobody cares (or, rather, their caring is meaningless).

My point is just that nobody's ever removed for doing a terrible job. There's always a moral justification. The moral justification isn't the actual reason, of course: it's the pretense.

Fair enough, I'd agree with that.

There's a small faction that just dislikes the mere possibility, even in good games, often to completely inconsistent ends. It's funny that they end up the dark mirror to Saarkesian complaining about Bayonetta's lollypops without recognizing how much that parodied a Devil May Cry protagonist, but they still real. But they're also a small, if vocal, minority-of-a-minority.

A decent game buys a lot of patience. Hell, even games that are bad, but at least have some signs of passion going into them, get a lot of forbearance (example gratia: rayon spelled out that Palworld does Type 1 / Type 2 bodies, and no one cared).

I think the issue is that making games- especially big, prizewinning, AAA games- is inherently an artistic endeavor. And that attracts artist-types who are the most likely to be woke. Sure, the coders, testers, QA folks, etc might be chuds, but the ones making the creative decisions are highly susceptible to wokeness. It's not even about making money, they're just doing what they think is right. It's the same reason that Hollywood movies are so woke.

On the other hand, it kind of doesn't matter. There's so many games already made that no human can play them all in a lifetime. The technology has plateued so that new ones aren't any better than old ones- in fact with the RAM and GPU shortage, newer computers might actually be worse than old ones. We can easily immerse ourselves in old chud-made entertainment forever.

On the other hand, it kind of doesn't matter. There's so many games already made that no human can play them all in a lifetime.

And it kind of does, because the big budget games with the best graphics etc are the ones who don't dare to break with wokeism. If you have an absurdly expensive GPU, you want the most demanding games to be satisfying, to justify your purchase. Sure, there are more games than you could ever finish, but most of them aren't AAA.

I think that this sort of person- "I spent the maximum money for the latest and greatest GPU, and therefore I will buy the latest AAA games, regardless of how stupid they are-" is going to becoming a vanishingly rare part of the market. See also: "Guy who buys a new car every year" and "Guy who goes to Vegas every year."

It certainly used to be true that a better gaming system improved the quality of the rendered image, or improved frame rates to give a marginal competitive advantage (tried playing PowerPoint Quake? It's hard to hit enemies playing a slide show).

That said, I think the days of marginal GPU improvements improving the experience ended at least a decade ago. Yes, real-time ray tracing looks amazing, but honestly modern games aren't limited by graphics, but by mechanics and storytelling. Nintendo has known this for a while. My favorite games are ones that maximize novel, fun gameplay, not push triangles (Factorio, for example). But maybe there's a factor of me getting older and having nostalgia for older sorts of games. Heck, Roller Coaster Tycoon still manages to be a classic, despite being written in x86 assembly for a machine that probably underperforms some toasters today.

Honestly I think Hollywood has a version of the same pox: modern VFX makes it possible to realistically show pretty much anything. Effects alone no longer sell movies, and that puts more focus on the writing and directing.

You need a very good GPU to run new, graphically intensive games at the display's native 4K resolution (and higher). My next monitor will be a 5k2k one (11 million pixels whereas 4k is 8.3 million pixels).

Maybe it's that I still have older hardware, but the step change from 1080p to 4k seems a lot smaller than the previous generation jump from TV or DVD resolutions to 1080p. Do you find that playing at 4k native resolution dramatically improves the gaming experience? Again, it might be a selection bias that I've been playing fewer cutting-edge games.

Do you mind if I ask what titles you're playing?

2025 has actually proved to be the year I stopped playing video games entirely, and it's basically directly because of this. I haven't logged into Steam since last spring. It's "exit vs. voice" again: if you can't change it, you have to leave it. If other people create things and I don't like them, my recourse is to avoid them. We can only control things we create ourselves.

It's not that I don't object to this situation - of course it's depressing and I wish it weren't this way; but on the other hand, nerd culture basically kicking me out has freed me up to do so many other things with my time. If video games had remained everything I wanted them to be, I don't know that that would actually be a good thing for my life. I honestly don't miss it anymore. For every hour I spent marveling at an incredible story, there were probably 100 hours of hacking my brain with the simulated feeling of achievement.

It's generally a good decision to stop playing video games, especially if you're pursuing more productive or healthy hobbies, like carpentry or backpacking. That said, I pretty much only play a handful of simulations which hardly have any ideological elements in them, let alone characters or a story, e.g. Factorio, Stationeers, Captain of Industry, etc.

If Sisko was white, it would not make the show any worse.

Ummmm, ackshually, this is demonstrably untrue for at least the episode Q-Less. Q was accustomed to pasty ass Starfleet officers like Picard. He was not prepared for fisticuffs with a real one.

Edit:

In 20 years, they'll be telling us that black Samurai lead in Japan is also perfectly acceptable.

Games, like movies, are a combination of creative / cultural and economic objects. Whether something is acceptable is entirely down to individual preference.

I'm a huge fan of intentionally inserting minorities incongruously in historical adjacent works if there's even a fig leaf. Overlord (2018) is not historically accurate - the Nazis did not have a zombie program to the best of my childhood History Channel viewing knowledge. And there weren't black paratroopers at D-Day either. Cultural works, unless specifically designated, are not historical fact. Provided that the actual facts are widely available to anyone who has any interest, is there some deep wound you're inflicting on the now dead white paratroopers by pretending that black people weren't legally discriminated against through WW2?

The only way to determine whether something a game/movie has done is "acceptable" is tracking sales.

If Sisko was white, it would not make the show any worse.

Ummmm, ackshually, this is demonstrably untrue for at least the episode Q-Less. Q was accustomed to pasty ass Starfleet officers like Picard. He was not prepared for fisticuffs with a real one.

Kirk would have totally punched Q, too. It's not a race thing, it's a Picard thing; he is insufficiently aggressive for a military officer (in the show, anyway; movie!Picard is almost a completely different character).

Q: You hit me! Picard never hit me.

SISKO: I'm not Picard.

Q: Indeed not. You're much easier to provoke. How fortunate for me.

People always gloss over that follow up.

Eh, Picard was just older. We saw in "Tapestry" that young Picard was the kind of guy who would have totally decked Q.

Wasn't that the first episode (or at least one of the first)? Also... the first time Q met humanity, he put it on trial for being a violent and savage race. When he met Sisko he got clocked in the face... do you really want to say "only a black man could have done this"?

Q was trolling them; calling them violent and savage would get under their skin the most. He's plainly not against violence, he's against boredom.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats