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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 11, 2024

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Tangentially related.

I recently received a gift copy of Pacific Drive (https://store.steampowered.com/app/1458140/Pacific_Drive/). Ostensibly a game about driving, scavenging, tinkering with the car, and uncovering the mysteries of its setting.

Well, at some point fairly early on, you unlock the ability to decorate your car...and the available decorations are a large assortment of "pride" flags, plus "black lives matter".

I searched and discovered a mod that removed all those, installed it, it worked, and so as to facilitate the same procedure for others I posted a guide on steam on how to remove those flags. Hardly a day later, the guide was banned. I asked Steam Support why this was, and they told me that it had violated the community guidelines. I asked which one exactly and how, and received a non-reply that simply gestured at the guidelines again, but also told me that I should not have included an obscured link the guide. I offered to remove the link and asked whether that would make the guide pass muster, and if not, what other rule remained broken. They finished up by telling me that the issue was resolved, and closed my ticket.

I wonder a little how people can stomach doing customer support in such a way.

Ah.

Cross that game off my list of things to look into, then.

I found it on the nose that Pacific Drive was set in 1998 before the black lives matter movement and development of some of the more obscure sexuality flags.

Imagine playing Battlefield Vietnam with the ability to unlock MAGA skins for your M16.