Broken Toys

No no, it’s not just the gaming industry. It’s tech as a whole! I read it here! http://mashable.com/2007/11/03/tech-reality-has-a-well-known-liberal-bias/

I’m not applying for Bioware Austin because … well, for other reasons.

Best line of that post? “we amorously tolerate the other’s position.”

I do not think that means what the author thinks it means.

I’m one of the writers of Mass Effect. I’m also an atheist going back nearly two decades.

I lobbied to write “my” (human) henchmen as someone to whom their religion is important. We normally try to avoid discussion of real-life religions. Not because we’re “social liberals,” but because nothing gets people steamed quite like something they perceive as a slur against their faith – or the interpretation that we’re endorsing a particular faith. Business-wise, it’s a high-risk bad decision.

I felt that since something like 85% of the human race believes in SOMETHING, ignoring religion altogether was not believable. So I pitched it, and got support. The character is not “in your face” about their beliefs, and I couldn’t be specific about their creed – but it’s explictly brought up in their conversation. And as Shepard, you can respond with anything ranging from “me too” to outright scorn.

Me, I usually choose, “Everyone has the right to believe what they want. Says so in the Alliance charter. Only with fancier words.”

Maybe I’m just mellowing in my old age.

As a faithful Catholic, I’d have to refuse if someone asked me to write a story condoning homosexual behavior (which is different than homosexual impulses)

As a Catholic and a Republican and a writer, I would have no choice but to pronounce this man an idiot.

First of all, of course he would have to decline a request to write a story about homosexual romance, for the simple reason that he wouldn’t be very good at it. Outside of college and the legal profession, what kind of director would force a writer to create an artistic work with which he vehemently disagrees, especially when the director has a vested interest in the quality of the work? Sure, you could make an argument (and I would agree) that a hallmark of a great writer would be the ability to craft a convincing tale with a point he disagrees with. But the hallmark of a great football quarterback might be the ability to drive 95 yards in the rain (to pick an adversity metaphor at random). That doesn’t mean your favorite NFL team instructs their kick returner to take the ball back to their own 5 and kneel down when he catches the kickoff.

Second, you’re talking about writing for videogames. Video. Games. In 2007. If you plan on maintaining high moral standards about the anecdotal morals and thematic suggestion in all the work you do with the medium of videogames, then I hope you’re writing for Nintendo.

I’d die to work at Bioware, but alas, a writer I am not. Maybe they’ll hire some testing managers in the near future. I miss Austin.

http://www.bioware.com/bioware_info/jobs/positions/austin_qa_design_lead.html

While silly, he does make one valid point. The majority of the game industry *is *liberal. But that’s been the nature of the creative process throughout history. You have one group of people slapping paint on canvas, immortalizing motion in celluloid or tweaking the frag limit in a deathmatch, and the other group standing by looking consternated and muttering “Yes, but is it art?”. It is the nature of conservatism to conserve, preserve and protect the status quo. Creativity is a force of change most often left in the realm of the liberal, unorthodox free-thinker, and rightly so!

It should be no more surprising to find a preponderance of liberal thinking in the games industry than it would be to find a conservative majority in the clergy.

Interesting that he misses the whole issue of EA owning Bioware. It must be unchristian to be employed by the devil himself…

lol, “delicate little snowflake”, am I? It would be cynical (or snarky) to assume I thought I was some sort of victim.

That article wasn’t saying, “Woe is me!” And it certainly wasn’t suggesting that culturally-mixed development teams are problematic by nature.

On the one hand, it was pointing out the simple reality that petty politics and unreasonable behavior are just as common in business as in any other area of life. While it’s admirable to place faith in the better side of humanity, to assume everyone will tolerate opposing views and all employers are accepting of belief-related complications, it’s also generally prudent to avoid knowingly placing one’s self into troublesome situations. People do get fired, and their employment histories smeared, for reasonable and harmless differences in views. The documentary I linked to at the beginning of that article is primarily concerned with examples of just that situation. The simple reality is that human beings are commonly unreasonable, and the melodrama does not stop at the office door.

Furthermore, what one person considers to be a reasonable objection, another considers to be an offensive or otherwise unreasonable act which should not be tolerated. How many pharmacists have been laid off in the past year because they refused to sell contraceptives — an act which would have violated their beliefs? In a time when most businesses obsess over anti-discrimination clauses (for fear of lawsuits, if for no other reason), and homosexuality is included in many of those clauses (certainly, within the entertainment industry), the Bioware example I proposed is certainly relevant.

The other issue the article proposed was the ethical question of, “How big a portion of something must be wrong (in one’s perception of right and wrong) before the whole should be discarded/avoided?” A work’s bad qualities can be redeemed by its good qualities, but the particular nature of the work and the particular circumstances in which it is offered affect its value. I would have no problem working on a project which “included” opposing viewpoints. But I would refrain from a project that advocated many lessons which I believed to be misguided, if there was not enough good in the work to redeem it.

In regards to the example I used (homosexual romance in Mass Effect), I obviously don’t know if other plotlines in the game advocate similar social views (by the way, thank you, Stormwaltz, for sharing your story) . But the works of companies usually follow their leadership, and it was Bioware’s leaders who thought to mention the issue and release footage of a lesbian sex scene in the game. Isn’t it reasonable of me to believe that Bioware, a company which admirably and skillfully focuses on thought-provoking storytelling, will likely advocate more beliefs of a similar social perspective in future games?

I’d have no problem writing evil characters, or gay characters, or any other sort of characters. Did Tolkien, who prized his Catholic faith as much as I do, fail in creating compelling villains? A didactic writer needs only to present evil for what it is: wrong and, ultimately, weak. A Catholic writer can present a homosexual character with respect, but cannot faithfully advocate particular actions in a very small part of that character’s life. Of course, a good writer can invent characters with whom he or she is opposed. Being isn’t the limit of familiarity.

Anyway, I don’t think I suggested anything unreasonable in that article. I’m sorry this reply became so long. =)

Game Dame: Just wanted to point out that Jeff Freeman posted on his blog about Aaron’s blog…those comments werent’ Jeff’s.

I was making the first statement without any (intentional) value judgment.

I don’t think the “best” artists make anything for the mass market, though. Certainly not fiction writers for games, where at best the writing is akin to cake frosting. Sure it’s important, but it’s considered superficial by the market and rarely considered as the most important thing, mainly because no one knows how to effectively praise it when it’s good or deride it when it’s bad. And by the way, the cake is great, it’s so delicious and moist.

But to put it in terms more in line with what I meant to say, if some ideology suddenly was found to be present in a plurality of people already working in any mainstream entertainment medium, and that ideology was somehow in conflict with what was desired by the monied special interests that control the industry supporting that medium, I don’t think the creative people with jobs suddenly deciding that they aren’t going to put up with it is going to make any difference. If you doubt me on that, look at the current writers’ guild strike.

Someone else pointed out to me that the author of the original post is probably just intimidated by the whole idea of working for Bioware in the first place, and is using this one little bit of objectionable material in a game he hasn’t even fucking played yet because it’s not been released, and by the way it was possible to get lesbo action in Knights of the Old Republic between your character and the dark-side catgirl chick, but never mind that, as a reason not to participate.

And on that note I can fully sympathize.

Aaron, I do appreciate your coming here to respond, being as this is not exactly a Safe Place on the internet. And your reply is certainly eloquent, and rational.

The trouble is you grabbed the analogy that I did, inside my head, and that analogy is the one that pissed me off in the first place: “How many pharmacists have been laid off in the past year because they refused to sell contraceptives — an act which would have violated their beliefs?” And then you went on to imply that gay-bashing was somehow illegal.

The number of pharmacists who have been laid off is VASTLY exceeded by the number of women who have been denied care, forced into terrible situations, or placed under extreme emotional duress, all due to some judgmental asshat who refuses to DO HIS JOB, which is to dole out legal, doctor-prescribed medicine. The pharmacist does not know why the woman is asking for birth control or morning-after pills, and it’s not his place anyway. If he doesn’t like an entire branch of health care, he should have become a video game writer where standing up for his morals has no repercussions for anyone but himself. Or herself – it’s my experience that women pharmas are even more of a pack of sanctimonious bitches when it comes to this topic.

And as a side note, gay bashing may be illegal in a few enlightened places, but it’s a far cry from “illegal” to “acceptance” and even farther from “promotion.” I propose that your suggesting you’re a good writer because you could write a gay character is silly, because that’s like saying you could write about a blue sky. Plenty of science shows that homosexuality is not actually good or evil, it just is. It exists. Like being left handed or tall.

Further side note, elves are gay. Hobbits are not. They are Victorian.

Sanya, you’ve obviously never been

Scott, you need an edit button, that is, *I* need one, badly I’d like to add, the above wasn’t a flame. I really, genuinely don’t get it.

“I eagerly await the Democratic surge of 2008, so conservatives will be forced to regroup in the wilderness out of power and, among many other things, stop being so goddamned whiny.”

Good luck with that, it didnt help the Dems after 6 years in the cold. Even if Republicans seem to do better as the party of opposition (I cant bring myself to say “out of power”), I believe the legacy of the last 6 years will be that the whining is here to stay.

Only safe place is in the middle. Lots of room though, so thats not so bad.

Actually I’ve worked in improv theater in Chicago, and I eventually quit. Not because I sucked (I was ok and made it on some teams, but was obviously not going to make a career out of it) but because of the level of hatred, venom, and viscousness that pervaded everything many of those so-called friends did and said.

After every show we did, one guy on my team, as soon as you got one beer in him, started spouting how stupid and evil and selfish half the country was. And I think, wait a minute, you claim to stand for compassion, for caring, and yet you rant and rave and spew the vilest crap i’ve ever heard?

There used to be a saying that reasonable men of good conscience could disagree. That is no longer the case. Nowdays the average person thinks if you disagree with their political views then you are morally bankrupt. They think they are so obviously correct that no one can just have a different idea of what’s best, they MUST be an immoral person who holds their views for selfish reasons.

No one wants to be around people that hate you and spew crap about you every single day. Who wants to be around poisonous people? no one. that is why I no longer work in entertainment.

Sanya, being a natural asshole isn’t illegal, but people get fired for that all the time. Wearing facial jewelry isn’t illegal, yet it’s not allowed in most work environments. Something doesn’t have to be illegal to be forbidden or potentially troublesome in a workplace.

I never claimed being gay is immoral, and I don’t believe it is. That’s a mistaken assumption most people seem to be making. The Catholic moral stance, also my own, is that homosexuality is disordered; which means homosexual impulses are not immoral, but acting on those sexual impulses is.

I won’t go into it further than that, because my article and the discussion I was hoping to raise were never about homosexuality. I was trying to talk about the ethical concerns raised by cultural differences in general. The GAX community understood that, and I’m grateful. Many other comments have convinced me that Godwin’s law applies to homosexuality as well. If anyone is genuinely interested in understanding how the Catholic perspective on homosexuality is based in strong reasoning and love, I believe our past two popes have written treatises on the subject.

Thanks, Damion. I’m sure there are plenty of development companies that I would not run into any ethical concerns with, and not only developers with whom I agree. What only my long-time readers realize is that I’ve never been dead-set on entering the game industry, because I’m interested in many other fields of work. Music is actually my main interest. And I have conditions, like Asperger Syndrome and lifelong depression, which also must play into my decisions of what jobs to apply for. But, as I said before, Bioware is an admirable company, and I may still apply. And, regardless of what industry I’m working in, I’ll always have a keen interest in this one.

“What only my long-time readers realize is that I’ve never been dead-set on entering the game industry, because I’m interested in many other fields of work. Music is actually my main interest.”

Sounds like my Nephew, who when mommy and daddy finally pulled the purse strings on him, he came to the realization that he and his self righteous, politically head strong, opinions weren’t all that important compared to a roof and eating.

William Newman – your argument is an example of false choice. There are other options between “tolerance of me” and “tolerance of every fool thing under the sun.”

Homosexuality is not something you leave up to the individual to tolerate or not as they please. Bigotry against people with different skin color is not a personal choice. Etc and so on. Forcing me to “tolerate” a bigot is not even remotely the moral equivalent of saying the bigot has to “tolerate” a gay person. It really is that simple, and if you were trying to say otherwise, you’re… not a good person. If I misunderstood your point, and certainly I may have, mea culpa.

And Aaron: Just as a funny note, I’m a natural asshole and my husband has facial jewelry, and we both have new jobs. So your phrasing was far more spot-on than you knew

Then I’d do a quick google of “pharmacist refusing to sell contraceptives” and you won’t have to *imagine* it, Brask. To an European like me the whole concept seems bizarre too, but that doesn’t stop it from happening.

Just as a funny note, I’m a natural asshole

There’s nothing natural about you, sister… =P

And “hot man on man” is strictly a gay thing and in no way a straight woman’s fantasy? Say, have you ever heard about slash fanfic at all? Not my cuppa, but the phenomenon’s huge.

*boggles* I’ll never understand the whole notion of… oh my religion prevents me from writing about boys kissing boys or girls/girls – but sure I’ll write/read/code/draw murder, theft, torture, violence and all the rest of that shit (oops swears too!).

I guess being Catholic let’s you >selectively< choose which of their rules you like, so you can throw away the ones that personally make you shiver.

Don’t hide behind the shield of an established set of religious “rules” and then toss aside a bunch of them. Have the balls to say you’re personally are repulsed by it but have no moral issue with the suffering of people. Even though… they’re virtual and stuff – virtual flamers – NO virtual flaming death hell (er heck) yeah!

Bughunter: It isn’t that sanyaweathers is a bigot, but that it was inappropriate for her to sarcastically refer to someone as a “delicate little snowflake” for not being willing to tolerate a company which differs with him on this issue, given that sanyaweathers doesn’t think people should tolerate companies that disagree with her on the answer to the same policy question. If she wanted to be sarcastic about their disagreement she could have validly said something like “throwback to theocracy”; “delicate little snowflake” just misses the point. The valid point is not that it’s unreasonable to react strongly on differences on this issue, the valid point is that taking the hard Catholic position on this issue pisses her off (rather justifiably, IMHO). Everyone agrees that the policy question is large enough to be worth fighting over, so that most people on this side agree that they wouldn’t shut up if the answer were the other way. Given that, it is pretty obviously invalid to write as though independent of the answer to the policy question, it is the duty of people who disagree on the policy answer to shut up.

If it is clear to you that you have the right answer to a policy question, cut to the chase and just argue that you have the right answer. Don’t screw around first pretending that (independent of any need to state or justify your certainty about the answer) when their policy answer is implemented it is praiseworthy for you to protest and interfere, but when your policy answer is implemented they must quietly cooperate instead of protesting and interfering. If you truly have the right answer the screwing around is irrelevant; if somehow you didn’t have the right answer the screwing around would be fairly evil; either way the screwing around is basically dishonest, so inside a political echo chamber it’ll rot your brain and outside of a political echo chamber it’ll likely get you nailed. Long ago Thomas Macaulay nailed something very similar with “When you are the stronger, you ought to tolerate me; for it is your duty to tolerate truth. But when I am the stronger I shall persecute you; for it is my duty to persecute error.” Not everyone has his way with words, but your opponents can probably come up with something…

Sanya said, “Plenty of science shows that homosexuality is not actually good or evil, it just is.”

I’d have to respectfully disagree, there are plenty of discussions on the topic, but nothing proven. Also, I don’t believe that science has much play in the morality sphere.

Incidentally, science possibly also shows that psychopathic tendencies just ‘are’ as well. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/25078.php. But that condition, we should fix, “The discovery that psychopathic tendencies are strongly heritable suggests that we need to get help for these youngsters early on”.

Regarding the larger group of participants in the conversation, the most amusing thing about the blogs and comments on this topic are just how intolerant the outspoken and supposedly ‘tolerant’ folks are when they disagree.