The game has just been nominated for two Gayming Magazine Awards due to its (optional) gay romance.
“TRIGGER WARNING,” the post begins. “Among all the various awards and nominations we’ve received, we’ve also just been nominated for the @gaymingmag GAYMING AWARDS! I’m really proud of that, because I absolutely stand by the fact that the way we did it is exactly how something like this should be done. Non-coercively, naturally, and educationally (because we show how things really were in the Middle Ages without idealizing them)–and without shoving it down anyone’s throat or trying to re-educate them like so many titles that are rightfully called ‘woke’ these days. We made the gay community happy and gave them the CHOICE to be themselves, just like we did for others in other choices and quests, and anyone who isn’t interested probably didn’t even notice. Except, of course, for [a] very small and very loud minority.”
Bro… You literally had to say nothing and you failed at that. And to use the word “woke” is stupid. The amount of flak they are gonna get for this just for saying that word will be immense. This would blow over by Tuesday if you said that entire thing but left out the work “woke”
Using the word “woke” disqualified him of any notion this was a rational thought. He wanted to accept the award to promote his game and make money, but slyly wink at those who are a part of his in-group.
I can confirm. I played the gay romance in KCD2 and the penises never touched for the entirety of the playthrough. Thanks to this, I was finally able to play a gay character that felt authentic to real life and, more importantly, I didn’t turn gay myself.
To make sure of that, I replayed the game three more times, always choosing the gay option. Lo and behold, I’m still very, very straight. In fact, it worked like a vaccine: now I can watch gay porn without it having an effect on my sexuality (I’m super duper straight! I only watched gay porn to MAKE SURE that I was still straight).
Bravo Daniel.
I can confirm, too. I’m a straight man, and for some odd reason I always play as a woman and bang another woman. But not once have I become a lesbian.
Well, that sours me enough to the game that its no longer on the wishlist.
The guy has always been a piece of shit so I’m glad more people are learning this.
In a lot of places, not just far-right assholes, the word “woke” has taken on the role of terms like “social justice warrior” and “political correctness” - i.e. in describing a self-righteous, superficial, performative and preachy kind of style.
Yes, that is not what the word “originally” meant, yes it is partially the result of right wing propaganda, yes “political correctness” and “sjw” have similar issues, but it is still a real thing.
What the man seems to me to be trying to say is that their goal was to do a medieval gay romance in a way that was not preachy or superficial – is that not good? Isn’t there a bit too much token representation and pinkwashing going on?
Now now, don’t be getting all reasonable. This is the internet after all!
sry
Its not good, because you are now playing into the toxic norms that already exist. So its ok if straight stuff is upfront, but gay stuff has to be optional? This is completely pathetic and I will never support this, this team or game.
Dude is doing so much mental gymnastics to make himself sound superior. Again, it is really pathetic.
because you are now playing into the toxic norms that already exist’
how? I don’t get it.
In a lot of places, not just far-right assholes, the word “woke” has taken on the role of terms like “social justice warrior” and “political correctness” - i.e. in describing a self-righteous, superficial, performative and preachy kind of style.
LOL no, “woke” is anything that acknowledges LGBT+ individuals exist and have a right to live their lives as they want is woke. These fucking snowflakes cry about being asked to pick fucking pronouns, even when there is 0 impact on the game.
Crying ‘woke’ instantly tells me all I need to know about someone. The same goes for people who try to pretend it’s about preaching a message instead of acknowledging these people can and do exist.
What the man seems to me to be trying to say is that their goal was to do a medieval gay romance in a way that was not preachy or superficial – is that not good? Isn’t there a bit too much token representation and pinkwashing going on?
And you’re parroting the message loud and clear. Acknowledging their existence is always tOkEn RePrEsEnTaTiOn
LOL no, “woke” is anything that acknowledges LGBT+ individuals exist
…so the guy who directed a game where you can have a medieval gay romance, does not acknowledge that LGBT+ individuals exist?
…why do you think he has to say he’s not “doing that woke shit” while doing nothing particularly different from “that woke shit”? He had to get on front of people who agree with him who were going to cry about a gay romance existing, but now they have a narrative to follow when it comes up.
In other words, “it’s different when we do it”
Alternatively, as I wrote: in some places, the word “woke” has taken on the role of terms like “social justice warrior” and “political correctness” - i.e. in describing a self-righteous, superficial, performative and preachy kind of style - and he wants to distance himself from that style.
the word “woke” has taken on the role of terms like “social justice warrior” and “political correctness”
LOL, this is exactly what I’m talking about, because we agree to a point that woke replaced those words. But those words as well were just nice ways of complaining that minorities existed.
The “social justice warrior” moniker was only ever BRIEFLY your definition, because it was quickly picked up by rightoid chuds as a thought terminating epithet they could say without getting booted for saying slurs. Saying that’s what it means now is just carrying water for the people who use it as an epithet, because your definition does not match common usage. I watched the change happen from that side of the fence, and it was part of what woke me up to the reality of the situation, and see through the lies people pushed (that unsurprisingly sounded a lot like what I’m hearing in this conversation).
could you give me some examples of that common usage?
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So what should be the word we use for “media that depicts positive social ideologies?” Apparently “woke” includes the definition “while being super preachy about it.”
Of course, in that split, it’s also common people will call something “preachy” when a gay guy is there, and doesn’t even waste the viewer’s time. It happened to that horrible conservative animated show, as well.
So what should be the word we use for “media that depicts positive social ideologies?” Apparently “woke” includes the definition “while being super preachy about it.”
For a lot of people it does, yeah. I don’t know if the best solution is to run away from the word, though – like you say, it’s good to have a word for this stuff, and a different word is just as susceptible to being tainted by conservative strategists.
If he was trying to say that, he would’ve said that. “I think the reason why our game succeeded in portraying a gay relationship in medieval times, when it was definitely not as widely accepted as it is today, was because we took that fact into account and developed the story around it, so it made sense while still representing a group that existed throughout all history.” != “We still pander to the gays for free sales but not like those woke guys.”
it does involve some judgement against said preachiness, I guess I see that
Thank you. I’m a lefty myself, but leftists have such a hard time seeing that criticism of their own side actually has validity. I totally understand what this developer is saying about depicting a progressive topic without being “woke” (preachy) about it. I see the same thing in movies/shows that depict female heroes—there are some that just make the hero a woman, and then there are others that pump the “girl power” angle, overplay the female lead, make it explicitly clear she’s better than all the male characters, bloat the script with feminist jargon, blah, blah, blah. It’s stupid. You want to do the progressive thing? Fine. Just do that. Don’t brow-beat your audience with a political message about it.
yep, it’s great to have a progressive message, but a progressive message is not an easy-button - you still have to do the hard work of making good art
Yes, that is not what the word “originally” meant, yes it is
partiallycompletely the result of right wing propaganda, yes “political correctness” and “sjw” have similar issuesFixed it for you.
It is a common conservative tactic, taking the language of something meant to improve the lives of minorities in some way and turning it into a negative thing. As you said, they did it with “politically correct” in the 90s, “social justice warrior” in the late 2000s, “woke” in the 2010s, and are currently working on “DEI.” It’s how they control the narrative and normalize their hatred. And it’s why Tim Walz calling them “weird” was so effective and why they got so upset by it - and why I’ll never forgive the Democrats for muzzling him when we finally had a weapon to fight back against this insidious colonialism of language.
The fact that you believe that there’s a middle ground where the definition isn’t an attack on minorities means that they’ve succeeded in shifting the Overton Window and you’ve become used to the hatred yourself. Every single one of those terms that you mentioned was redefined for the sole purpose of being used to attack anybody who dared to openly talk about being a minority or exist as a minority.
The “woke” are as real as the “blue haired girls with pronouns SJW getting off the ‘Down With CIS’ bus and assaulting people” of 15 years ago, and the token representation that you’re talking about is what’s known as “rainbow capitalism,” not “woke.”
“Self-righteous, superficial, performative, and preachy” are the exact words used to describe a gay man daring to exist in public or talk about being gay in any way and not hide away like Section 28 and Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell are still in effect. That’s what “woke” means when used under the new definition: a minority dared to openly behave like a minority in public and not be ashamed of it.
Given the state of the world, and the anti-elitist sentiment going around, the fact that there aren’t genuinely leftist parties getting 70+ percent of the vote in a lot of countries, is quite amazing.
Part of the reason for that, is the academization of the left. One of the problems that has brought with it, is a nitpicky focus on the correct use of language.
If we are to succeed, the vast majority of leftist will necessarily have to be people without the right university degrees, or who do not hang out in the kinds of circles where they get socialized into acceptable language.
Going all fire and brimstone because someone uses a bad word, often quite innocently, is an effective way to come off as self-righteous and preachy. Acting like that is the most important part of politics, is a good way to come off as superficial.
There’s a reason why conservative strategists grab on to this and amplify it – because they know that this kills the left. The left does not work if it is not broad and populist.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t all try to be considerate or strategic with how we use language - but save the fire and brimstone for the elites and the material issues.
The fact that you believe that there’s a middle ground where the definition isn’t an attack on minorities
What I believe is that this is what the word means to a lot of people. We might want to change that, but not like this - and quite frankly, we have much bigger issues to deal with
This is total bullshit.
“We did it right by not forcing it on players” just plays to a bullshit fallacy that acknowledging same-sex relationships == forcing people into same-sex relationships. This narrative is right wing outrage bullshit. It exists to allow the people who absolutely do not want same-sex marriage to exist in any form insist they are actually just very worried that heterosexual people are being forced into homo- bi- trans- sexually etc (which is actually not a thing).
This dickwad is trying to pat himself on the back for successfully navigating a moral outrage that he and his right wing pals invented. This is part of the ongoing narrative to normalise intolerance and to insist that being intolerant is actually the right moral choice.
Fuck him, fuck his game, fuck them all.
included optional gay content
Claims to not be woke
Seriously tho, what in the actual fuck is this guy trying to say, other than trying to appeal to rightoids while doing the same thing the games he is bitching about do. They constantly cry about ThE wOkE aGeNdA when you can select pronouns that LITERALLY have 0 impact on gaming, but apparently including WoKe content in the actual game is ok if you’re on their side.
Completely not transparent or shameless, as is tradition.
Sounds like he wants to have his cake and eat it too.
It’s the exact same thing as right-wing weirdos associating the term “feminist” strictly with with the most extreme, fundamentalist, fringe elements of the movement, “feminazis” if you will, that went way over the equality hill and ended up in “all men are bad, m’kay” forest.
The fact that public media often reinforces that view does not help.
In short: the game is woke, because it showcases a gay romance with historical accuracy. Vavra thinks it’s not woke, because it doesn’t allow the player character to be a black lesbian with “them” pronouns.
They constantly cry about ThE wOkE aGeNdA when you can select pronouns that LITERALLY have 0 impact on gaming, but apparently including WoKe content in the actual game is ok if you’re on their side.
I don’t like that those ‘woke’ settings don’t have any impact in historic games. Because that ‘woke-washes’ history.
That was one of my gripes with Hogwarts Legacy. The wizarding world in Victorian times where certainly not egalitarian when it came to race or sexual identity. And if they where, it should be explained why they are so different from the muggle world at that time.
How can you ever depict a gay relationship in a game without “being woke”? By having the characters say “no homo” loudly and high five while they fuck? I swear right-wing asswipes find new mental gymnastics routines every day to redefine what they mean with this word.
What games in the same vein as KCD2 have shoved hat relationships down players throats?? What would they even be referencing as the “woke” games?
Imagine finding a way to piss off everyone simply by opening your stupid mouth…lol
Something something dragon age something something concord.
Sprinkle in some pointless complaints about The Last Jedi and you have a full chud comment.
Seriously, Concord? Have some of these people been traumatized by its whole two weeks of existence?
But… the women weren’t super models :(((
Concord didn’t last long enough for anyone to notice anything lol
With the amount anti-woke folks talk about it you would think otherwise.
Yeah, we’re not starting off on a solid foundation, for sure
Baldur’s Gate 3? But you have to try pretty hard to have gay sex… I’ve heard.
Eh not really, Gale is pretty quick to offer it up
Lol, true enough.
I mean, we’re all rational here, I assume, so that would be a pretty big stretch to say it was shoved down your throat. If you wouldn’t feel threatened by a dude at the store saying you looked cute, then I don’t think BG3 is any worse. The women throw themselves at you equally as quickly as the men, if not more so. Lazel seems like she hates you, and then by like Day 2 is like “well, we may as well smash, you do well with a sword and that’s what counts”.
Well, all interest I had in this game is suddenly gone after the stupid “woke” comment. I was waiting for a sale but now I’ll just remove it from the list.
How hard is it to just not say stuff? Is this prat trying to calm pushed outraged right wingers? I hadn’t heard any outrage. And if there is outrage, so fuckin what. Just shut up, idiot, and let the game speak for itself.
Dan Vavra is simply a king of dickheads, and cannot pass a single oportunity to show everyone.
Anyone that uses woke as a pejorative is a fucking fascist bigot. I will never support anything by this company or Vavra ever again.
without shoving it down anyone’s throat or trying to re-educate them like so many titles that are rightfully called ‘woke’ these days. We made the gay community happy
Not anymore you didn’t.
Idk, I Kind of get him (prolly gonna get downvoted for this).
For me personally I Must say when I learned more about homosexuality, I learned that it is Not This cliche Image that Most guys have in mind with some gay twink trying to Hit on any guys they can. Most gay people are just normal regular everyday people with just a different preference in people that Theyd Date but Most cis people totally envision either some annoying gay twink or a drag queen. I have a feeling though that nowadays regarding representation, people that are pro gay & lgbtq do not really help at educating unaware cis people with the fact that gay people are just that. Normal people with a different preference just like anyone who can like different things from others.
It’s worth mentioning that this sort of thinking gets really close to “there are good ones and bad ones” in some people’s minds. IMO there’s a lot of representation for the “non-normal” queers because they are the most vulnerable and because it needs to be clear that it’s a package deal. People don’t get to draw the line in places like “gays are okay but trans people are icky”, and unofficially supporting mindsets like that would legitimize disgust-based morality.
People need to learn the lesson that others inherently deserve rights and respect regardless of their own personal feelings, otherwise we’re just going to be fighting this battle over and over again for each minority group.
Yeah, the moment you start thinking that it’s only acceptable for people to be gay as long as they express themselves in ways you approve of is the moment you start thinking like a fascist.
At that point you’re no different than the racist with the black friend who is “one of the good ones.”
The solution to the problem the previous poster is describing is that we need simply need more representation. There need to be enough queer people in media that no one character or couple has to serve the role of being a proxy for all queer people and relationships. Give me fruity gays and bitchy queens, and give me boring normal gay people who live in their white picket fence houses and drive trucks. Give me Loid from Warframe and give me Bill from The Last of Us. Celebrate the wonderful spectrum of humanity. Let it all exist instead of fighting over which parts are worthy.
I’ll respond because it seems like you’re trying
Most guys have in mind with some gay twink trying to Hit on any guys they can.
I’m not sure how common this mental image is, but try to get it out of your head. The fact is there are some people who just want to have lots of sex with lots of people, some of these people happen to be straight, some happen to be gay, some happen to be guys, and some happen to be gals and some happen to be anywhere in-between any of the above. And that’s okay, because different people are different and who cares what happens between consenting adults? And you know what else is okay? Some people don’t want to have sex with anyone, some people only want to have sex with certain people, and some people are anywhere in between.
Most gay people are just normal regular everyday people with just a different preference in people that Theyd Date
All. All gay people are just people. Sexual interest is a spectrum, some people are only interested in other people of the same gender, some people are only interested in people of the opposite gender, and some people are somewhere in between, maybe mostly-straight or mostly-gay. And that’s okay no matter where on that spectrum you fall.
On top of that both romantic interest and ones own gender are spectrums as well. These spectrums can have very different settings from each other and that’s okay too. On the subject of gender, people have a physical and a mental gender, and sometimes those don’t match. That’s okay too (y’know as in it’s okay to have that problem and be working to align the two in whatever way that makes them happy)
Most cis people totally envision either some annoying gay twink or a drag queen
First of all, don’t use that slur. Full stop.
Secondly, drag is not a gender nor a sexuality nor a sexual or romantic interest. People who do drag are just people who do drag. They can be anywhere on the various spectrums I already outlined.
I have a feeling though that nowadays regarding representation, people that are pro gay & lgbtq do not really help at educating unaware cis people
They are trying to educate unaware cis/straight people, its just between algorithms, echo chambers and those who wish to eliminate everyone who isn’t white straight cis, there’s plenty of corners its not reaching.
This is not a failure of gay people, and this isn’t any one gay person’s job to educate the world. This is the world trying to pretend that gay people don’t exist, when in fact they do exist and have existed for as long as gender and sexuality have existed
The reason we have pride is because we are in the first time in human history when anyone who isn’t cis, straight, etc. isn’t forced to ignore or suppress those feelings but can actually go be exactly who they want to be and be with whoever they want to be. Even now, as kids start to realize there’s something different about them, they’re first led to believe it’s because there’s something wrong with them. This might last a short time, this might last a lifetime, but pride is about squashing those self-doubt demons and shouting out to the world “I AM WHO I AM AND YOU WILL DEAL WITH IT!”
The importance of representation is in helping put the image in people’s heads that it’s okay to be different and that you don’t have to be a white cis straight male to do certain things. Whether it’s Mr Rogers sharing a pool with a black actor on a hot day, or Lt Uhura being played by a black woman in Star Trek, or Kora kissing Asami in Legend of Kora, or anything else, it’s about showing and helping people know that they can be who they want to be and they can be happy about it. Media drives a sense of normalcy, so what’s normal in media becomes normal in society. If it’s normal for gay people to exist in media, people will see it as normal for gay people to exist in society.
Now, more on topic, Kingdom Come Deliverence is in a weird spot because it sets out to be the most realistic representation of a specific period and place in medieval history as possible. In the medieval period (and for most of history for that matter) people didn’t really have an individual identity, so the idea of gay or straight people didn’t really exist. They were however extremely sexist and mostly considered whoever did the penetrating to be powerful and whoever is being penetrated to be weak (and there’s some hilarious historical texts where people are just generally confused about what to think of lesbians because there’s no penetrating going on so did anything actually happen?) so CK:D in being an accurate period piece happens to place itself right in the crossroads of this culture war, as it presumably depicts gayness as many conservatives would prefer, something to be hidden away and ignored and maybe prosecuted if it gets too inconvenient for them, but CK:D depicts it this way not as a handout to conservatives but as an accurate depiction of history without commentary.
So TL;DR: gay people are people and different people are different and that’s okay
