Hogwarts Legacy

Hogwarts Legacy

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Sovereign Feb 9, 2023 @ 11:55am
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An Explanation on Why "They/Them" is used in most S-I RPGs Generally
(Updated to show Dialogue Trees in Recap. Lot of people complaining that it's "Lazy" to do this, so I figured I'd add a visual example as to why this is a problem to do with a game like this.)

I've been seeing a lot of people complain about the pronouns in the game defaulting to "They/Them" and why it doesn't define them. I just wanted to make it more well known and clear in regards to why it's like this. I'll explain to the best of my abilities, and to my knowledge of the industry.

No, it's not because the studio / game is misidentifying you, far from it actually. It mainly has to due with dialogue trees, line recording, and audio file size. This has been a well-known staple in most self-insert RPGs that have VA (Voice Acting) dialogue, due to its ability to appeal to most audiences.

"They/Them" as a Concept:
The words "They/Them", although pronouns, are also used in generalization to someone. Let's give an example:

You are a person, and you have already been brought up in the conversation. Since you have already been brought up in a conversation, the pronouns can now be used, as they describe you. But, let's say the person does not know know you. Although they may know who you are, they may not know the finer details. Whether in-character, or in the game industry, this resides mainly on the company not knowing the kind of people that will play the game. It's a bit 4th-wall-breaking when you understand this, but it's the better way to do things at the end of the day.

IE: "Did you hear about Person? They seem to have potential written all over them."

The words "They/Them", although pronouns, also describe the concept of someone who is known, but is not known enough.

Dialogue Trees, and Recording Lines:
Now that you understand the concept of "They/Them" as a whole, it should be known as to why the industry does this. It's a bit more complicated than you think. As an example, I shall show some examples of a dialogue tree with most well-known pronouns in present-tense:

"He is here."
"She is here."
"They are here."
"Fae are here."
"Xe are here"

Notice how there's 5 different dialogue trees this could go down, due to the players chosen pronouns. If the dialogue was just text based, this could be fixed easily with just a few lines of code. However, when it comes to auditory dialogue, this is an entirely different story.

When recording dialogue for a game, VAs (better known as Voice Actors), like most actors, will usually do multiple takes. This is to guarantee the best possible quality. However, when multiple lines require slight changes, this causes more time necessary to meet the requirements. This also comes with the cost of burning out a VA in terms of overtaking lines. It's easy to say the same line twice, but it's hard to get them perfect in order to match all other lines seamlessly.

In Hogwarts Legacy, there's already Dialogue Trees involving which House you're in. Add that on top of pronouns, and it's a recipe for disaster in terms of time and VA work. Thus, this is the reason of why "They are here." is the line usually most suited for the job, due to it fitting all categories previously in the general sense. It's more efficient, and it works for everyone.

Audio File Size:
Believe it or not, audio file size is one of the bigger, if not biggest parts of most games. Around 40%-60% of the space for most VA'd games is solely audio file size.

It's a bit of a meme in the industry, as most people who work in the audio department insist that it needs to be at the highest quality. Most people who work in audio, unsurprisingly, are audiophiles who strive for the best. This has the downside of meaning that most audio is uncompressed to maintain high quality.

Uncompressed audio is the second-highest space-taker in terms of storage, the only thing beating it being high-quality video. Models, effects, and animations take up barely anything compared to these two.

Recap:
The reason why I bring this up is simple: Going off of what was said before, with dialogue trees, and VA lines: This would no doubt create a massive increase in storage space for the game. New lines means more audio, which would mean more time, which would also mean more audio file size to download. The game's already big enough, adding on all of that due to more personalized pronouns, with the dialogue trees already set in place, would cause file size to skyrocket.

This is why the words "They/Them" are used in the industry. Not to hurt your feelings, but to make it easier on themselves, and to generalize the wider audience outside of you. The pronouns, although used in certain identities, were always meant for everyone as a whole in origin.

Below is a dialogue tree example, to show how this looks currently. There is 32 possible ways this tree could go. I will only bold one line each showing off a possible tree, as all of them would take far too much time. Times this by 3 (96) or 5 (160), depending on your preference, and that's how much a dialogue tree would have added to it if other pronouns were included:

__________________________
House 1
House 2
House 3
House 4

Previous Event 1
Previous Event 2

Option 1
Option 2
Option 3
Option 4

End Result Based on Sequence #
__________________________

Hopefully you know understand why this is the way they do it, and maybe now you can spot out more games that do this. Trust me, there's a lot more than you think. Have fun out there!
Last edited by Sovereign; Feb 9, 2023 @ 12:44pm
Originally posted by kaylessa88:
Originally posted by Kurt:
Originally posted by BareNakedSlayer:
Everything is voice acted in this game. Many games that allow you to choose your sex/gender that are fully voice acted do this. I love this though. If people who choose to identify as other genders or non-binary get to complain and be listened to when something/someone misgenders them, then when you make everything non-binary, binary people have the right to complain. Idiots, this is what you have wrought.

The thing is, I do not feel I am being misgenderd. I am bothered by the jarring grammatically incorrect language.

It would be like a game with Dumbledore going around making ridiculous faux pas like, "I could care less" or "It's a mute point".

The fact of the matter is that 'they' implies more than one person. The exception is when you are referring to an unknown person. The exception never applies to our character because if we are close enough to hear someone refer to us as 'they' then that person is close enough to see if we are male or female.

It should be noted that Shakespeare himself used they to refer to a singular person, and so did Jane Austin "But to expose the former faults of any person without knowing what their present feelings were, seemed unjustifiable." "There's not a man I meet but doth salute me As if I were their well-acquainted friend"

So why is this? I suspect it's because English has continuously evolved. Back in ye olde days, ye olde OLDE days, english was a gendered language and everything had a gender similar to some European languages and as english has evolved to be far more gender neutral so has the need for a singular gender neutral pronoun to go with it. Writers like Shakespeare identified this very early on, grammar purists rebelled against these people though and we're in the mess we are today.

Grammar helps language make sense, that's all it does. When grammar serves some other purpose, like oh I don't know trying to make English more posh by following the rules of Latin (split infinitives) it, in my opinion, is useless.

The idea that the evolution of a word to fit a glaring need in the english language makes it jarringly grammatically incorrect is in my opinion very backward thinking. Even one of the journalistic manuals (I can't remember if it was AP or another one) has sanctioned the use of they in the singular in specific circumstances. The world keeps turning and the language keeps evolving, trying to halt its progress is a useless cause.
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Showing 196-210 of 239 comments
Sovereign Feb 9, 2023 @ 8:13pm 
Originally posted by Caly:
Originally posted by Sovereign:

Well there's your problem. You used Wikipedia. Try a library.

Nice try, bring the quotes or shut up, you know you are wrong.
Funnily enough, re-reading the quote you have, it actually fits the definition of singular-term properly.

From an LA TImes post (Ignore the trans stuff, this is about the word in generalization.)
For decades, transgender rights advocates have noted that literary giants Emily Dickinson, William Shakespeare, William Wordsworth, and Geoffrey Chaucer all used singular they in their writing. In a letter dated Sept. 24, 1881, Dickinson wrote: “Almost anyone under the circumstances would have doubted if [the letter] were theirs (Possessive Past-Tense Pronoun) , or indeed if they were themself (Past / Present-Tense Personal Pronoun) — but to us it was clear.” In “Hamlet,” Shakespeare used “them” in reference to the word mother: “‘Tis meet that some more audience than a mother — Since nature makes them (Present / Future-Tense Pronoun) partial — should o’erhear the speech.”
Last edited by Sovereign; Feb 9, 2023 @ 8:13pm
Graysonn Feb 9, 2023 @ 8:14pm 
Pretty sure OP is on the spectrum. I love talking about linguistics, especially English, but there's a number of spergs who feel like they need to define everything, the "WELL ACTKTUALLY" type kids. Their social skills are so poor they have no idea how written English and spoken differ in dialect, tone etc.

There is nothing grammatically incorrect about "This is a pen." Now name me one time in your life you have ever said this sentence in a normal conversation. It's unnatural and not something people say. But because Shakespeare (who was famous for fluffy plays and outrageous characters) wrote 'they' singular, that apparently was common parlance now despite nobody in hundreds of years since ever using the term like that in spoken language.

The woke mob do not define modern English and never will, that is up to the people and English natives overwhelmingly do not use 'they' in this way. But as I said in the beginning, the guy is probably autistic with little understanding of how people actually communicate and it's a complete waste of time trying to convince him when he's spent the better half of his day responding to every post in this thread.
Dingo Inbound Feb 9, 2023 @ 8:15pm 
this whole argument is a joke
Sovereign Feb 9, 2023 @ 8:18pm 
Literally, from the SAME ARTICLE:

Even the most strident grammarians give pause when faced with evidence that singular they has long been a tool of the trade. Activists have also emphasized that singular they is used all the time in speaking and writing when we don’t know or don’t want to specify the gender of the subject.
Tr0w Feb 9, 2023 @ 8:24pm 
Originally posted by Sovereign:
Literally, from the SAME ARTICLE:

Even the most strident grammarians give pause when faced with evidence that singular they has long been a tool of the trade. Activists have also emphasized that singular they is used all the time in speaking and writing when we don’t know or don’t want to specify the gender of the subject.
None of that matters, in the 1800s women were addressed as miss, mrs, and madam. Men as Sir or Mr. People weren't waiting for you to tell them you identified as steamed broccoli.
Last edited by Tr0w; Feb 9, 2023 @ 8:25pm
50ShadesOfPlay Feb 9, 2023 @ 8:24pm 
I still don't like it regardless of the reason behind it. I don't care if it adds another 50gb to the game. It wouldn't be the first game over 100gigs.

The 100% gender neutral is my only real criticism of the game beyond the performance issues.

It's not inclusive if it's still excluding people who prefer traditional gender choices and prefer he/she. This shouldn't be a hot take. Be inclusive, it's fine, but inclusive should include traditional gender pronouns or it's literally not inclusive. The devs literally are catering to the smallest segment of the gamer base while leaving out the majority. That's the opposite of inclusion. The irony.

Also, gender is relevant to the Harry Potter story. Males are wizards, females are witches, and the boys and girls are separated into their own dorms by gender.

Aside from that, game is still great and it's not like it's impacting the game-play.

I can't help but wonder who's at the helm of these companies that they are so quick to bend to a very small segment of the population when a majority of people are not really concerned whether or not a game is gender neutral. It's very strange.
Last edited by 50ShadesOfPlay; Feb 9, 2023 @ 8:29pm
Rotor Feb 9, 2023 @ 8:27pm 
Originally posted by Sovereign:
Literally, from the SAME ARTICLE:

Even the most strident grammarians give pause when faced with evidence that singular they has long been a tool of the trade. Activists have also emphasized that singular they is used all the time in speaking and writing when we don’t know or don’t want to specify the gender of the subject.
OMG, this whole argument keeps going in circles, we don't mind character being referred as they, when speakers don't know the gender of person in question.

But in Hogwarts Legacy, professors and classmates (friends), who are standing next to you and clearly know you gender, keep referring you as they.
Sovereign Feb 9, 2023 @ 8:31pm 
Originally posted by Rotor:
Originally posted by Sovereign:
Literally, from the SAME ARTICLE:

Even the most strident grammarians give pause when faced with evidence that singular they has long been a tool of the trade. Activists have also emphasized that singular they is used all the time in speaking and writing when we don’t know or don’t want to specify the gender of the subject.
OMG, this whole argument keeps going in circles, we don't mind character being referred as they, when speakers don't know the gender of person in question.

But in Hogwarts Legacy, professors and classmates (friends), who are standing next to you and clearly know you gender, keep referring you as they.
Alright. Let's put this into perspective then, because people keep missing this point, and somehow I forgot to bring it up.

You have 2 options: Witch and Wizard. Female and Male.
BUT, you also have 2 voice options: One is male, one is female.
What do you think would happen if you chose yourself as Wizard, but your voice is female?
Now what.
Rotor Feb 9, 2023 @ 8:38pm 
Originally posted by Sovereign:
Originally posted by Rotor:
OMG, this whole argument keeps going in circles, we don't mind character being referred as they, when speakers don't know the gender of person in question.

But in Hogwarts Legacy, professors and classmates (friends), who are standing next to you and clearly know you gender, keep referring you as they.
Alright. Let's put this into perspective then, because people keep missing this point, and somehow I forgot to bring it up.

You have 2 options: Witch and Wizard. Female and Male.
BUT, you also have 2 voice options: One is male, one is female.
What do you think would happen if you chose yourself as Wizard, but your voice is female?
Now what.
Right now, 13 other languages have both male and female pronouns, English version have only "they/them".

English should also have male and female like all other other languages.

And if they wanted to cater to 1% of population, which use mixed voice and body type they could also add they/them.

In current state they cater to 1% of population while 99% gets shafted.
Last edited by Rotor; Feb 9, 2023 @ 8:45pm
Sovereign Feb 9, 2023 @ 8:40pm 
Listen, I'm going in circles with you at this point. Nothing I can say, do, prove, or retort with will make you understand or happy in any manner. At this point I've come to terms with it. You completely just missed the point entirely with that one, and just went back to what you said prior.
MrBretten Feb 9, 2023 @ 8:45pm 
Uncompressed audio is the second-highest space-taker in terms of storage, the only thing beating it being high-quality video. Models, effects, and animations take up barely anything compared to these two.

Not trying to hijack the convo, but I think textures are a close second - if not first - when it comes to memory consumption. Especially if textures aren't reused and every NPC is unique.

but yes, I 100% agree with you in the context of certain games like HL. VA'ing is hard (coming from a hobbyist background), and I would gladly record one universal pronoun over 2-3+ different ones in the studio. I'm confident the studio would agree too; since they want to make a game with them most profit as cheaply as possible
lnomsim Feb 9, 2023 @ 8:46pm 
5
Originally posted by Sovereign:
But what if they don't go by he, despite looking male, and vice versa?

What if you hear a name, but it's too neutral to tell a pronoun? IE: Sam, Taylor, etc.

Then, you ask.

If you don't know, you ask. That's what normal people do.

And if you don't want to ask and you make a mistake, you apologize if deemed necessary, or if you are polite, then you correct yourself.

Originally posted by Sovereign:
That's not knowing, that's an assumption. Like you're assuming that the game saying "they" is mispronouncing who you are.

You are no better than what you're complaining about.

Let me try to explain the core of the issue.
There are 10 people in a room with you. You decide to bake a cake.
"What kind of cake?" they ask.
"Lemon Cake" you answer.

7 people are happy, they like lemon cake.
2 are unhappy, they hate lemon cake with a passion.
And 1 doesn't care, they just want to eat cake.

You didn't ask, but the 2 people say they want a strawberry cake.
Out of the 7 people, 2 hate strawberries, 2 still want lemon cake, and 3 don't care, they just want cake.

So, you decide that you want to appeal to the minority because that's how inclusive you are to put some strawberries in your cake. The thing is, you probably have heard about strawberries and have some knowledge about them, but you have never seen or eaten a strawberry in your life.

So you take the first sweet and red fruit you find and put it in your cake.

So, what happens?

4 people don't care, they wanted cake, and they got it. 2 are disappointed, they wanted lemon cake, but at least they got a cake with whatever you put inside.

2 people are really unhappy, they wanted STRAWBERRY CAKE!!!! What a pathetic attempt at trying to please them, at least do things correctly!

And the 2 last are pissed, they wanted lemon cake, and they blame the 2 strawberry people because they couldn't get it because of them. And they blame you because it's not even strawberries you put in the cake. So they couldn't get what they wanted because you wanted to please the minority, and you didn't even do it correctly, but the ones being punished for your mistake are them.

I seriously hope you understand the analogy.

A lot of progressive games use gender-neutral pronouns to look like they are being inclusive and progressive. Most people don't really care.

But you have generally 2 kinds of games, games that are purely gender neutral, you can shape your character however you want, if some parts look more feminine or masculine, there is nothing really defining the character, and there is absolutely 0 mention of sex or gender. So obviously, in that case, you will use gender-neutral pronouns.

(two that come to my mind right now are Hoko Life and Grow Song of the Evertree)

Then, some games try to be more open.
The archetype of the character's look is more oriented toward male or female, but contrary to usual games, they give more freedom in the character creation (male assets available for female archetype and vice versa), and finally, they let you choose how you want your character to be called/referred to.

(Right now, TTW is the first title that comes to my mind, I usually don't play those games for the reasons I will give below)

The thing is, as I said previously, this is usually done as either a marketing move or to fill an agenda (or both), so instead of making the game appealing, they just put some glitter to say "hey, we thought about you, see? Give us your money".

But not only it is not appealing to their targeted audience (the vocal part of the LGBT community), but it's not to a chunk of their main market either.

Here, in that game, they put male and female bodies, then the ability to use either a male or female voice, and finally, the choice to either use a male or a female pronoun.

Good start.

All that to use a "we don't want to take risks so let's be gender neutral". AKA "we don't give a f* let's take the safe road."

I mean, come on, they have a trans character and she has a pronoun... why not the player character?

And no, it wasn't to save costs or to make programming/branching dialogue or voice acting easier because otherwise, they would have done it in all languages. In French, we don't have a gender-neutral, but we use masculine if we have to use a default gender, or there are other ways to not use the gender at all, like using nouns (and once again by default the masculine is used), but stupid example, masculine of a student is "un élève", féminine is "une élève".

Want to make it gender-neutral? "This is the student" is "this is l'élève", it's the same for both masculine and féminine. But that's not what they did.

So, all in all. They tried to do something to appeal to a minority. The minority is not satisfied because glitters to better sell a product are not what they want. They want a strawberry cake.

The result is that some people who wanted Lemon cake also are unhappy because even if they could eat strawberries, there are none in that cake, it looks like it, but usually, strawberries don't take a dump on your face. They don't ask you to make choices to ignore them right after. And worst, they are forced to eat the cake, all of it, the good parts are ok, but nobody wants to be forced -ed the burnt pieces.

Two last things. So yes, most people are satisfied and are not complaining. Honestly, good for them, I'm not even complaining that much, it annoys me, but I'll survive, I've seen way worse. (my issue was more with the way you tried to rationalize everything with false claims).

I have been playing games, reading books/comics, and watching tv shows and movies for close to 30 years now. And since the beginning of the 2010s, I have seen the quality of all of these dropping for the benefits of inclusivity and progressivism.

Most people around 20 nowadays have grown up with this, so for them, having this kind of content is 'normal'.

And honestly, I don't care if people in games, movies, shows, etc... are gay trans or whatever. What I care about is the quality of the content, putting LGBTQ+ content just to appeal to an audience and make quotas is not quality content.

Once upon a time, games had interesting stories and characters. Some lores kept the players and the audience hooked to the franchise.

Nowadays we have "that character is African, this one is Indian, this one is gay, this one is in a homosexual marriage, this one is trans", their story? Their background? Anything to make us feel any kind of empathy for them? None, nada, nyet. If authors and producers don't want to put any effort into their writing, I don't want to put any effort into reading/watching/playing/whatever.

And the fact that some people are ok with all of this is pissing me off because that's the reason things keep getting worse instead of getting better.

And there is nothing transphobic or homophobic in what I said, there are progressive/inclusive games with good stories and good characters. I have plenty of them in my library. One that comes to my mind is "I was a teenager exocolonist".

I have plenty of lesbian/queer games. But the same applies, some are centred around the characters and the story, and some are just some agenda to "bring awareness" or denounce something, that's called propaganda. I play games to have fun, not to eat propaganda.
Sovereign Feb 9, 2023 @ 9:03pm 
Originally posted by lnomsim:
Originally posted by Sovereign:
But what if they don't go by he, despite looking male, and vice versa?

What if you hear a name, but it's too neutral to tell a pronoun? IE: Sam, Taylor, etc.

Then, you ask.

If you don't know, you ask. That's what normal people do.

And if you don't want to ask and you make a mistake, you apologize if deemed necessary, or if you are polite, then you correct yourself.

Originally posted by Sovereign:
That's not knowing, that's an assumption. Like you're assuming that the game saying "they" is mispronouncing who you are.

You are no better than what you're complaining about.

Let me try to explain the core of the issue.
There are 10 people in a room with you. You decide to bake a cake.
"What kind of cake?" they ask.
"Lemon Cake" you answer.

7 people are happy, they like lemon cake.
2 are unhappy, they hate lemon cake with a passion.
And 1 doesn't care, they just want to eat cake.

You didn't ask, but the 2 people say they want a strawberry cake.
Out of the 7 people, 2 hate strawberries, 2 still want lemon cake, and 3 don't care, they just want cake.

So, you decide that you want to appeal to the minority because that's how inclusive you are to put some strawberries in your cake. The thing is, you probably have heard about strawberries and have some knowledge about them, but you have never seen or eaten a strawberry in your life.

So you take the first sweet and red fruit you find and put it in your cake.

So, what happens?

4 people don't care, they wanted cake, and they got it. 2 are disappointed, they wanted lemon cake, but at least they got a cake with whatever you put inside.

2 people are really unhappy, they wanted STRAWBERRY CAKE!!!! What a pathetic attempt at trying to please them, at least do things correctly!

And the 2 last are pissed, they wanted lemon cake, and they blame the 2 strawberry people because they couldn't get it because of them. And they blame you because it's not even strawberries you put in the cake. So they couldn't get what they wanted because you wanted to please the minority, and you didn't even do it correctly, but the ones being punished for your mistake are them.

I seriously hope you understand the analogy.

A lot of progressive games use gender-neutral pronouns to look like they are being inclusive and progressive. Most people don't really care.

But you have generally 2 kinds of games, games that are purely gender neutral, you can shape your character however you want, if some parts look more feminine or masculine, there is nothing really defining the character, and there is absolutely 0 mention of sex or gender. So obviously, in that case, you will use gender-neutral pronouns.

(two that come to my mind right now are Hoko Life and Grow Song of the Evertree)

Then, some games try to be more open.
The archetype of the character's look is more oriented toward male or female, but contrary to usual games, they give more freedom in the character creation (male assets available for female archetype and vice versa), and finally, they let you choose how you want your character to be called/referred to.

(Right now, TTW is the first title that comes to my mind, I usually don't play those games for the reasons I will give below)

The thing is, as I said previously, this is usually done as either a marketing move or to fill an agenda (or both), so instead of making the game appealing, they just put some glitter to say "hey, we thought about you, see? Give us your money".

But not only it is not appealing to their targeted audience (the vocal part of the LGBT community), but it's not to a chunk of their main market either.

Here, in that game, they put male and female bodies, then the ability to use either a male or female voice, and finally, the choice to either use a male or a female pronoun.

Good start.

All that to use a "we don't want to take risks so let's be gender neutral". AKA "we don't give a f* let's take the safe road."

I mean, come on, they have a trans character and she has a pronoun... why not the player character?

And no, it wasn't to save costs or to make programming/branching dialogue or voice acting easier because otherwise, they would have done it in all languages. In French, we don't have a gender-neutral, but we use masculine if we have to use a default gender, or there are other ways to not use the gender at all, like using nouns (and once again by default the masculine is used), but stupid example, masculine of a student is "un élève", féminine is "une élève".

Want to make it gender-neutral? "This is the student" is "this is l'élève", it's the same for both masculine and féminine. But that's not what they did.

So, all in all. They tried to do something to appeal to a minority. The minority is not satisfied because glitters to better sell a product are not what they want. They want a strawberry cake.

The result is that some people who wanted Lemon cake also are unhappy because even if they could eat strawberries, there are none in that cake, it looks like it, but usually, strawberries don't take a dump on your face. They don't ask you to make choices to ignore them right after. And worst, they are forced to eat the cake, all of it, the good parts are ok, but nobody wants to be forced -ed the burnt pieces.

Two last things. So yes, most people are satisfied and are not complaining. Honestly, good for them, I'm not even complaining that much, it annoys me, but I'll survive, I've seen way worse. (my issue was more with the way you tried to rationalize everything with false claims).

I have been playing games, reading books/comics, and watching tv shows and movies for close to 30 years now. And since the beginning of the 2010s, I have seen the quality of all of these dropping for the benefits of inclusivity and progressivism.

Most people around 20 nowadays have grown up with this, so for them, having this kind of content is 'normal'.

And honestly, I don't care if people in games, movies, shows, etc... are gay trans or whatever. What I care about is the quality of the content, putting LGBTQ+ content just to appeal to an audience and make quotas is not quality content.

Once upon a time, games had interesting stories and characters. Some lores kept the players and the audience hooked to the franchise.

Nowadays we have "that character is African, this one is Indian, this one is gay, this one is in a homosexual marriage, this one is trans", their story? Their background? Anything to make us feel any kind of empathy for them? None, nada, nyet. If authors and producers don't want to put any effort into their writing, I don't want to put any effort into reading/watching/playing/whatever.

And the fact that some people are ok with all of this is pissing me off because that's the reason things keep getting worse instead of getting better.

And there is nothing transphobic or homophobic in what I said, there are progressive/inclusive games with good stories and good characters. I have plenty of them in my library. One that comes to my mind is "I was a teenager exocolonist".

I have plenty of lesbian/queer games. But the same applies, some are centred around the characters and the story, and some are just some agenda to "bring awareness" or denounce something, that's called propaganda. I play games to have fun, not to eat propaganda.
Although the analogy makes sense in most aspects, it does not apply to this game. A good story should not have to rely on inclusiveness, nor progressiveness. I'll give you that.

However, Hogwarts Legacy is a good story. It's just not what you're used to. JK Rowling had very little involvement with the game, and most for good reason. This was made by the company in question as a love letter to the series.

The problem resides on, now that it's here, you can't help but focus on it. Even though that stuff resides in the game in terms of ethnicity and orientation, the game never outright says it. And that's how it should be. It feels far more natural than making it obvious with every character.

Now, let's take it from the opposite spectrum: Imagine playing as someone African-American in the current version of Hogwarts everyone knows from the series. Feels a little...isolative, don't you think? Not a lot of diversity to go around in terms of people who are like you. You feel alone, a bit ashamed even.

This game was made by fans, for fans. It's why it includes EVERYTHING. Even the stuff you don't believe should be in here. Yes, while it doesn't follow what was set in the previous series, it's a lot more inclusive about everyone. Because, well, there's a lot of Harry Potter fans from around the world. Even though it's here, it never makes it obvious. It's only the people who play that call it out, which makes it obvious.

So what if there's a transgender bartender? So what if there's different races all around? The point is, it feels far more natural for a world where you intend to be yourself. What says the game can't feel more like itself as well?

In terms of you being classified as "They", it goes back to the original post: They did this probably as a way to feel like everyone is included, without prioritization of pronouns. It's a thing people do in the industry with a lot of games. This isn't a new thing. It's been around for years. It's not just you playing the game, it's everyone.

I'll be real with you, I don't know why the other languages have it like that, but in the US, UK, and Canada; primarily English-speaking countries, it makes perfect sense. We have far more people that can't be distinguished by simple He / She pronouns. Hell, the US is literally known for being "The Melding Pot of the World." There's so many classifications of who you can be now, that it'd be nigh impossible to distinguish everyone.

Outside of what was said in the original post, this is probably another reason they did it the way they did.

And no, for the last time, it's not 1%, or .5%. It's a far larger percent than that, and it's getting bigger by the year.
Toplay Feb 9, 2023 @ 9:05pm 
Holy ♥♥♥♥ the fact so many people are actually taking this serouis ... like do you people actually have a life or something in your life thats important because ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ the amout of freetime and luck you must have in your life to have the time to even start to think about that ♥♥♥♥ blows my mind. Wanna make the world a better place ? then ♥♥♥♥♥ do something. Want to be a smart ass ? Then use your knowledge for more then being a useless videogame app poster.
Sovereign Feb 9, 2023 @ 9:07pm 
Originally posted by Toplay:
Holy ♥♥♥♥ the fact so many people are actually taking this serouis ... like do you people actually have a life or something in your life thats important because ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ the amout of freetime and luck you must have in your life to have the time to even start to think about that ♥♥♥♥ blows my mind. Wanna make the world a better place ? then ♥♥♥♥♥ do something. Want to be a smart ass ? Then use your knowledge for more then being a useless videogame app poster.
My useless video game knowledge and such is the reason I just got a high-paying job in electronic sales. Think before you speak.
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Date Posted: Feb 9, 2023 @ 11:55am
Posts: 239