Please help me understand "wokeness" question.

[dustin1280]

Let me start by saying I don't care if games are "woke" as long as they aren't clearly hamfisting stupid ♥♥♥♥ into the game just to make the DEI checkboxes.

Things like character "uglification," andromeda's trans character who couldn't wait to tell you how trans she was as soon as you met her (till they patched it), things that feel out of place with the ongoing story, etc...

Now i realize the entire premise of this game might be "woke" as it appears to be about bringing to fruition the perfect "communist" society. However I don't really care what story it is pushing as long as everything feels natural to the story. I am aware I have over simplified it, please don't get hung on this.

So my question is, yes this game might be "woke" but does it feels like it's just trying to check off DEI checkboxes and push an agenda over everything else ala, Concord and Dustborn or does it actually seek quality and storytelling over agenda pushing?

Does everything actually feel natural to the story and not out of place?

[dustin1280]

Thanks to DrkCntry, M. Terion, Brawndo, and archonsod.

They gave me the information I needed to know on whether to make my purchase...
As such I have picked it up.

[Cyberweasel89]

Here, this explains the whole "anti-wokeness" grift to you pretty well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZtRabDCLyY

[ngwoo]

The game is woke in the way that Disco Elysium is woke - progressive politics are core to the game's narrative because it's a political drama about a progressive movement fighting an established power structure. ie, the traditional meaning of the word instead of the culture war grifter meaning of the word.

[Cyberweasel89]

Originally posted by Brawndo:

Originally posted by dustin1280:

Thanks to DrkCntry, M. Terion, Brawndo, and archonsod.

They gave me the information I needed to know on whether to make my purchase...
As such I have picked it up.

No prob bud. Hope you enjoy your time with the game.

NGL, seeing all these right-wing Youtube grifter marks, anti-gamer culture warriors, and third-rate trolls trying to stoke artificial chud outrage about this innocuous-looking Atlus game is making me seriously consider buying it despite the lack of boobs.

[DM Leon]

Originally posted by zeeps:

the main character literally learns a spell called "DEI" almost immediately, and yeah, its a healing spell

Thanks! I thought I misread DIA ingame but I can't check now because I automatically stopped playing and requested a refund. I was second guessing myself and thinking about buying it again until I saw this confirmation!

Screw healing the world with DEI, my brown minority ars

[FhqwhTODD]

Originally posted by dustin1280:

Let me start by saying I don't care if games are "woke" as long as they aren't clearly hamfisting stupid ♥♥♥♥ into the game just to make the DEI checkboxes.

That is what woke means though.

[Cyberweasel89]

Originally posted by Gottkaiser Fhqwhgod:

Originally posted by dustin1280:

Let me start by saying I don't care if games are "woke" as long as they aren't clearly hamfisting stupid ♥♥♥♥ into the game just to make the DEI checkboxes.

That is what woke means though.

"Anti-woke" is literally just the newest right-wing codephrase for being racist, homophobic, and transphobic. Wokespotting is a total grift, too. Two of the big wokespotting Youtubers even freely admit to being grifters.

[allknowingeel]

Originally posted by Cyberweasel89:

Originally posted by Gottkaiser Fhqwhgod:

That is what woke means though.

"Anti-woke" is literally just the newest right-wing codephrase for being racist, homophobic, and transphobic. Wokespotting is a total grift, too. Two of the big wokespotting Youtubers even freely admit to being grifters.

The term woke and anti-woke aren't well defined anymore. While woke may have meant 'being aware of systemic injustices', it now for many people means, taking words from OP, 'hamfisting stupid ♥♥♥♥ into the game just to make the DEI checkboxes'. That is what woke means for many people now. I am anti-woke for that. No I don't hate gay people or transpeople or people that aren't my race, in fact I am actually rather accepting of these things being that members of my family are gay and trans. And I live in New Zealand which has a high amount of immigrants and people from all over the world that come here to study or work. Like OP, I don't want to see game devs cramming this stuff into games to fill a DEI checkbox. Because it's ultimately shallow and comes off as disingenuous and is generally very stereotypical and actually harms said community more than helps, and it generally feels out of place and derails the story or product. Metaphor: ReFantazio is not woke. It's dealing with races of people and some races being oppressed. It's not hamfisted and actually fits the game and the themes of the game.

Take that however you will.

[Pencillus Sedatus]

this is not the end of it, as long as attention economy is still in place, with ads and google and youtube, and social media, this will continue, those same people will find other stuff to fuzz about.

[REBirthTheEdge]

Political ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

[dustin1280]

Originally posted by allknowingeel:

Originally posted by Cyberweasel89:

"Anti-woke" is literally just the newest right-wing codephrase for being racist, homophobic, and transphobic. Wokespotting is a total grift, too. Two of the big wokespotting Youtubers even freely admit to being grifters.

The term woke and anti-woke aren't well defined anymore. While woke may have meant 'being aware of systemic injustices', it now for many people means, taking words from OP, 'hamfisting stupid ♥♥♥♥ into the game just to make the DEI checkboxes'. That is what woke means for many people now. I am anti-woke for that. No I don't hate gay people or transpeople or people that aren't my race, in fact I am actually rather accepting of these things being that members of my family are gay and trans. And I live in New Zealand which has a high amount of immigrants and people from all over the world that come here to study or work. Like OP, I don't want to see game devs cramming this stuff into games to fill a DEI checkbox. Because it's ultimately shallow and comes off as disingenuous and is generally very stereotypical and actually harms said community more than helps, and it generally feels out of place and derails the story or product. Metaphor: ReFantazio is not woke. It's dealing with races of people and some races being oppressed. It's not hamfisted and actually fits the game and the themes of the game.

Take that however you will.

I have played the game for about 20 hours now...
Yeah, nothing feels forced or there just to make a checkbox...

Sure the story is very political and about racism, prejudice, and other factors...

But the ♥♥♥♥ I hate does not appear to be in this game, everything feels natural to the story that is happening. Nothing feels force or out of place.

So while this game may be "woke" in the classic sense, given the political themes and messaging, it is CERTAINLY not "woke" in the way I absolutely despise and would skip the game over (agenda pushing, things feeling forced or ham-fisted just to check a DEI box, etc...).

[Arndell]

Originally posted by Brawndo:

Originally posted by Raven Ranks:

Equality means we cook and eat cats. It makes us strong.

That's not happening... Okay, it happened but its not the norm... Okay, it is happening but it's a good thing! :^)

To answer OP, it is indeed woke, but its honest with that fact right out of the gate. From there, you can make an educated decision as a consumer whether you purchase it. Disco Elysium was woke too, but was quite the title.

Comes down to your tolerance level for political messaging.

There is a difference between political messaging and woke.

The world of Star Trek has earth living in what is basically a communist utopia, it's never called that as far as i know, but I seem to recall Picard talking to someone about humanities past and wars for resources, but now they have replicators and abundance of all things, they don't even use currency anymore and everyone shares the functionally surplus pool of resources.

They have communism that works but they acknowledge it only works because of sci fi tech that impossibly produces infinite resources, then there is the ferengi race who's whole reason to exist is to tell stories about the downfalls of capitalism, but they aren't shown as villains.

Not including the modern stuff there is no denying the old Star Trek had plenty of political messaging, but no normal thinking person could call it woke.

Despite the cries of some people pretending they don't know what it means, woke is very clear political cultism, Woke can't just tell a story it needs to signal what side it's on and demonise those not on that side.

Woke writers start with "we have some gay, we have heroic women and evil men, that's all we need on screen, now we need a story to have an excuse to show people the politics"

Real writers have a story idea first and their personal ideas can and will often leak into the story as they write it, but it's not the same as the way woke people do it at all.

[Doctor Zalgo]

Originally posted by Arndell:

Originally posted by Brawndo:

That's not happening... Okay, it happened but its not the norm... Okay, it is happening but it's a good thing! :^)

To answer OP, it is indeed woke, but its honest with that fact right out of the gate. From there, you can make an educated decision as a consumer whether you purchase it. Disco Elysium was woke too, but was quite the title.

Comes down to your tolerance level for political messaging.

There is a difference between political messaging and woke.

The world of Star Trek has earth living in what is basically a communist utopia, it's never called that as far as i know, but I seem to recall Picard talking to someone about humanities past and wars for resources, but now they have replicators and abundance of all things, they don't even use currency anymore and everyone shares the functionally surplus pool of resources.

They have communism that works but they acknowledge it only works because of sci fi tech that impossibly produces infinite resources, then there is the ferengi race who's whole reason to exist is to tell stories about the downfalls of capitalism, but they aren't shown as villains.

Not including the modern stuff there is no denying the old Star Trek had plenty of political messaging, but no normal thinking person could call it woke.

Despite the cries of some people pretending they don't know what it means, woke is very clear political cultism, Woke can't just tell a story it needs to signal what side it's on and demonise those not on that side.

Woke writers start with "we have some gay, we have heroic women and evil men, that's all we need on screen, now we need a story to have an excuse to show people the politics"

Real writers have a story idea first and their personal ideas can and will often leak into the story as they write it, but it's not the same as the way woke people do it at all.

You can just say 'things I like can't be woke'.

[Cyberweasel89]

Every time I ask you culture warriors to define what "woke ideology" even is, you give me a different explanation and just point to something that either has always been there or makes you look like someone making a mountain out of a molehill so you can have a moral crusade for moral crusade's sake or have a card you can play when you want to roleplay as some oppressed little victim of an imaginary foe that exists only in your head.

Hate to say it my guy, but you're basically the stereotypical SJW of "I want all media to pander exclusively to me and only me." If it's not made for you, it's not made for you, bro.

I'm 35 and been gaming since the 90s and I never looked at the "girl games" on the Wal-Mart shelves and rang the invasion alarm, so why do you have the mentality of a boomer-aged PTA mom from a conservative suburb?

I have to wonder how you go outside if you get THIS triggered by anything other than a straight white male in your cone of perception. Like, you'd never survive a 2010s Call of Duty lobby if you're this thin-skinned.

The irony is that it is and was always conservative media who hated and spread propaganda against video games. Fox News doing hit pieces on video games all throughout the 90s and 2010s, right-wing Australian government banning video games with even a little bit of violence or sexy stuff to the point Yahztee of Zero Punctuation/Second Wind left his home country. Even as recently as Trump's presidency the GOP was blaming video games as a scapegoat for mass shootings to the point they were wasting our tax money and their own job time on doing congressional hearings on video games causing violence. Yet you pander to the politicians that hate your hobby becuase you're either too young or too short-term memory inflicted to remember that Republican politicians are arrogant boomers who hate us and our hobby, my guy.

[Cyiel]

So many buzzwords in OP thread.