Sacred Symbols+, Episode 375 | Gaming's New Culture War: A Dissection
Added 2024-04-06 16:00:10 +0000 UTCSince the Fall of '23, we've gotten tons of inquiries about a Canadian consultancy firm called Sweet Baby Inc., and as you may know from your own travels through our industry, they've become the lightning rod (and some might even say scapegoat) of a wider amorphous movement against progressive politics in games and gaming. While the topic has come up in passing on Sacred Symbols itself, we honestly collectively felt like the conversation was too grand in scale and required far too much nuance, thus necessitating an episode of Sacred+ about this new, brewing culture war that centers on diversity, equity, and inclusion, gender and sexuality, and so much more. To bring balance, perspective, and knowledge to the conversation, I (Colin) sought three distinct voices from three unique perches. Representing a publisher's and developer's perspective is Atari producer Jason Polansky, making his third Sacred+ appearance. For legal, business, and economic analysis is long-time LSM collaborator Rick Hoeg. And finally, representing a journalist's angle is another long-time LSM ally, Punching Up's and The Washington Post's Gene Park. What you make of our conversation, of course, we'll leave to you, but bear in mind: It's long, it's political, and you probably won't agree with some of it. Armor on; minds open!
Comments
Gene “hi-pocrisy” Park
Kevin Garcia
2024-05-04 23:12:30 +0000 UTCI’d like to hear from him
fork
2024-04-22 02:31:34 +0000 UTCGene has fully bought in with the Marxist ideologues that pushed for these dictionary changes in the first place. If you think you can’t be racist against white people, you’re racist against white people. By definition.
fork
2024-04-22 02:22:47 +0000 UTCWell said.
fork
2024-04-22 02:14:12 +0000 UTCVERY satisfying to hear someone come on and tell Colin that IGN writers aren’t journalists
fork
2024-04-21 17:22:43 +0000 UTCNah, he did a good job. Unfortunately, this is how the other side thinks. Gene predictably defended the media, largely. He's of that cabal.
Mr. Scott If You're Nasty
2024-04-19 09:12:06 +0000 UTCColin got just about the worst people to comment on this. “I’m confused. It’s all a misunderstanding.” Gene Park is a partisan hack .
fork
2024-04-14 22:36:07 +0000 UTCI've never seen such unity in a podcast than when everyone agreed how f^$ked Colin is by FF7 Rebirth side quests.
NinjaDC
2024-04-12 19:56:23 +0000 UTCI'll take the opinion of a 20+ year games veteran over someone that just graduated college 2 years ago any day. i think that is his point.
Guybrush Threepwood
2024-04-12 03:10:29 +0000 UTCI don't have a problem with Sweet Baby because 1) they are HIRED BY the devs and publishers themselves, so if anyone is to "blamed", it is the devs and publishers. 2) I do not have enough info to be able to determine, what, if any, content in any particular game was actually created by anyone on Sweet Baby. For all we know, they come in and REMOVE stuff that the devs had put there. I don't have enough info to be able to judge specifically what they have done right or wrong. All of you with strong opinions on this, please point me to the evidence or documentation of what exactly Sweet Baby did or did not contribute to game title X and then I'll evaluate.
Guybrush Threepwood
2024-04-12 03:07:41 +0000 UTCYeah, I don't think we missed much.
Guybrush Threepwood
2024-04-12 03:04:33 +0000 UTCDude... who here is "desperate for views" and "making drama"? They are simply having a discussion about something that is already happening in the world. Fool.
Jason
2024-04-11 19:18:20 +0000 UTCI would love this groups for Stelly
Glen Yelenovic
2024-04-11 14:58:30 +0000 UTCwhat pearl clutching? all i said is that is what’s happening. why would i give a shit what schools in texas are doing
Gene Park
2024-04-11 01:29:53 +0000 UTCTrue. It's a disgusting and racist definition. It should be shunned and ignored. Tho I know Gene doesn't agree at all, just pointing out the travesty.
Bailey Callis
2024-04-10 23:53:44 +0000 UTCI hope the sweet baby discussion continues haha I feel like we are at the beginning of this particular shit storm, and its fascinating in a sick way 😆
Bailey Callis
2024-04-10 23:52:16 +0000 UTCGuys, I just turn on my ps5 and play my games. You all are making drama about all of this like you are desperate for views. The ego on you people is disgusting.
Frederico Garbino
2024-04-10 19:56:21 +0000 UTCEnjoyed the conversation for the most part, however, the only conversation point that irked me completely was when Gene described the definition of Racism. 100% total bullshit. It is a common tactic of the progressive left to change definitions of widely understood concepts or words in order to fit their regressive narrative, one example: woman is now birthing person. The "new" definition of racism focusing on power is absolute horseshit. Pardon me.
Alex
2024-04-09 19:30:04 +0000 UTCThis is done as an attempt to handwave actual issues and criticism. Much easier to ignore real issues when you just lump everyone together to represent the worst bunch of any side. This was also done during 2014’s Gamergate where lots of legitimate gripes were brought up but in an attempt to not own up to any of it media just labelled it as a harassment campaign against women. It’s lazy and should be called out at every turn.
The Rose Experience
2024-04-09 13:19:04 +0000 UTCI still don’t know what gamer gate is and it appears nobody else knows
Bad Hair Day Caveman
2024-04-08 22:23:36 +0000 UTCI can't play games from Californian or Quebecois companies anymore. I enjoy genuinely good writing and ideas. Those companies that impose quotas and mandates on their creative output removes all authenticity and their products are worse for it.
Yalingo
2024-04-08 22:11:31 +0000 UTCSometimes in the suggested you get Mark Kerns on and people had breakdowns how Colin should not give this guy a voice. wow Colin what’s to hear from everyone and not be in a echo chamber
Hose A Contra Razz
2024-04-08 20:54:48 +0000 UTCI enjoyed the majority of this conversation but Colins ego is getting out of control Not only does he appear to only want people he deems worthy to be allowed to comment on games, he also appears to think he could everybodys job better than they can I enjoy a lot of his content but Jesus christ
Stephen Dow
2024-04-08 20:27:55 +0000 UTCI'm frankly confused how 'rebranding' "racism" to "racial prejudice" via a shaky new definition that nobody in everyday life uses somehow makes it magically ok to give generalized "white people are so x" statements? It's apparently the go-to defense to talk semantics when someone calls these vile statements out and I'm baffled that these people apparently think that as long as the definition of what they're doing doesn't contain an "-ist" or "-ism", it's somehow less morally reprehensible.
ToiletDrummer
2024-04-08 16:47:25 +0000 UTCGreat conversation , enjoyed everyone’s perspectives even if not all agree . I knew opening the comments section would be wild but damn some of you make me want to stare at the sun until my cornea melt away 😂 keep up the good work 🙇🏻♂️
Sir Poops McGuffin
2024-04-08 15:33:00 +0000 UTC''There is tendency that everyone you're fighting against is only compromised of these bad actors'' this is such a true quote. We want to see everyone as the worst version of their group. If they are our ''enemy'', nuance is not allowed. I recently saw the ''Plagiarism and You(Tube)'' video by Hbomberguy. In which he uses a clip off Colin's Filip Mucin interview. Below it says "Interview with Colin Moriarty (the guy who left kinda funny over being a misogynist). It annoyed me so much even though Its 0.001% of the video. But it's ironic because in the same video he complains about a guy that plagiarized a video of him, and used the fact the Hbomberguy has different political views as a defense why he was allowed to do it. The video makes the point that we more easily plagiarize from people we see as lesser than us. But exact same logic can be used the way Colin is treated. Because he leans conservative he is not allowed nuance. He is branded a misogynist because of a simple joke, while showing 0 actual misogynist behavior. And he is made to be caricature of the worst conservative views, instead what he actually is ''A normal guy with nuanced opinions''.
Dennis
2024-04-08 14:58:43 +0000 UTCI particularly enjoyed his “I can’t confirm this but I’m going to plant the idea anyways” tactic in regards to “kiwi farms harassment campaign” and “stonetoss is a nazi”. Guy is a fuckin joke. And then he sits on here like Jaffe responding to everything because the smart one in the room runs circles around him.
CUMSoftware
2024-04-08 14:21:17 +0000 UTCDifferent perspectives? There were 2 leftists and lawyer.
Sena
2024-04-08 13:02:23 +0000 UTCHow can you have a conversation about race and racism when half the panel doesn't believe you can be racist towards white people? As a Korean American who grew up in Hawaii, Gene is the worst person at LSM. His view points are predictably radical left and you already know the trash that is going to come out of his mouth. No longer going to watch videos with Gene in them.
Sena
2024-04-08 12:56:48 +0000 UTCMy one piece of feedback when having panel-style conversations like these would be for Colin to have someone besides him moderate them. I love his insight, but he’s prone to sort of just go off on a random aside sometimes that, while valuable, makes the conversation hard to follow at times. And he also says “I didn’t mean to interrupt you” so many times that I think if he could focus on the conversation and not “hosting,” he wouldn’t do it so often.
Jared R
2024-04-08 11:42:44 +0000 UTCAmazing comment and it really highlights the problem with online echo chambers. Everybody thinks the world is falling apart yet if you go outside and interact with everyday people life is pretty damn good a lot of the time. Sure there's problems, but nothing we can't try to overcome at the very least.
DoubleDave
2024-04-08 09:42:28 +0000 UTC“It’s just both sides sucking each other off.”
NeO JD
2024-04-08 07:24:11 +0000 UTCThanks for chiming in
Adam Barnes
2024-04-08 03:24:06 +0000 UTCI’m here for the mindful conversation with differing viewpoints. Great conversation and there are some listeners that will never be satisfied with the outcomes of these discussions (I have been one of those in the past 😉). Can’t please everyone, but I for one thought this was a quality episode. Keep it up LSM.
MrFreundly
2024-04-07 18:48:49 +0000 UTCGreat great conversation. Nice having different perspectives and respectful discourse.
ProjectA2O
2024-04-07 17:13:11 +0000 UTCGaming Twitter is so small, its the same 20000 people arguing about this dumb shit. Half of them are screaming about how woke and communist everything is. The other half are calling everyone everyone a racist and Facist. When you get off line and don't look for this stuff it doesn't exist in real life. I couldn't imagine wasting my life worrying about any of this bullshit, lol. Those people online lives are just absolutely miserable.
Jacob Lesperance
2024-04-07 17:03:37 +0000 UTCI’m sure this is a great conversation but I really can’t stomach listening to it. This whole debate makes me want to blow my brains out. Thanks for all your great content :)
Rich Price
2024-04-07 14:40:08 +0000 UTCThis conversation wasn’t as bad as I thought It’d be. No notes.
Have you considered considering considerations considerately considerate
2024-04-07 03:24:16 +0000 UTCIs Israel fascist and genocidal now? No I don’t think so, Hamas has been those things since their foundation. Israel is conducting self defense, the treaties on justifiable targets dictate that civilian locations used for military purposes are justifiable targets. “Proportional response” is a myth. Every other nation should get out of there and let Israel and Hamas fight to the death, Hamas are not civilians, civilians are not Hamas. Give them ‘Survival of the Fittest’ or you can continue supporting a government that turns water pipes into missile fuselages and sends grenades flying on birthday balloons.
TreelineMars
2024-04-07 02:11:26 +0000 UTCFurther to this - please don’t think I hate politics in games or whatever that means - I could watch an episode for hours about the politics of any Kojima, Druckman or Levine game - I just aren’t sure the critical skills are on this channel besides from Chris and Gene to provide that content sadly. On SS (again my only sub and I have been here years) it lacks critical analysis severely. Most critical work is spent on twitter arguments rather than actual game design? Can Chris get a podcast about game design to fix this? Perhaps with gene?
Sam
2024-04-07 01:17:17 +0000 UTCI hate all of this, I love this Patreon and I love everyone on it. Games were never meant to be this, they were meant to make you feel, believe enjoy and think. Think about what the creator believed of course. But this stuff about baby inc is complete nonsense, it only exists online, it affects our games yes, as do 100’s of other studios. Feels like a lazy attempt from Colin to get politics into a honestly dwindling SS+ - can we just enjoy games soon? I don’t want this to come across as a slight but who is this interesting to? Is anyone going to enjoy a game more because of this? I just finished rift apart and loved it - I load up my only Patreon to see an episode about a consultancy firm in games? What is going on? Many studios use many firms for many reasons, can we stop being critically online and just enjoy games - please.
Sam
2024-04-07 01:12:19 +0000 UTCSurprised Colin would even remotely align himself with Zionism especially considering how it looks today. Fascistic and genocidal. I gotta assume he just hasn’t kept up with the conflict or is willfully ignorant because of friends/people he grew up with. I agree with him on just about everything else.
Jeece
2024-04-07 01:04:55 +0000 UTCI agree that they’re not “winning” especially since companies like MIcrosoft are just voluntarily doing this, no SBI needed. It’s the same point i made on the podcast: having a diverse audience is a financial business incentive too. It just depends on how you go about cultivating that.
Gene Park
2024-04-07 00:21:07 +0000 UTCSpider-Man 2 absolutely had issues. The annoying thing about this particular topic is that there is no way we can actually figure out what part of the story was actually suggested by SBI and eventually used. The entire storyline about jazz and hip hop was so cringe because of how condescending it felt. I think Hoeg does bring up a reasonable line of thought: 1 and Miles weren’t this bad, so why is 2 like this? The one way I’m actually sympathetic to the anti-SBI crowd is that maybe SBI’s input is just bad and they’re bad writers.
Gene Park
2024-04-07 00:16:49 +0000 UTCI generally don't care about this topic, but, playing spiderman 2 really opened my eyes to certain writing trends I've been noticing in the last few years, that I think are a subproduct of this particular leftist ideology. And it's not about the quality of the writing in general diminishing, it's more like taking the already unremarkable story the average game had in the past and then removing any sort of edge, interpersonal conflict or unsafe humor that would make the dialogue and the story entertaining. Leaving a void of blandness to be filled with wholesome internet comedy and checklist appearances from the minority of the day, with nothing to say except showing the fact that they exist ( Seriously, Miles' deaf girlfriend could be switched with a cardboard cutout and nothing would change, making her playable in a mission isn't a substitute for making her interesting). I thought Kraven was pretty good, though.
Umberto
2024-04-06 23:44:03 +0000 UTCGene Park, my beloved
Fella
2024-04-06 23:17:10 +0000 UTCIt's going to take a couple more generations before we start treating each other fairly. We really all want the same thing; good food, good sex, good money and watch Dragon Ball
BigDumbStupidIdiot
2024-04-06 22:14:21 +0000 UTCYeah, it's his neuroticism. Cut him a little slack. It's a personality trait
Jake Z
2024-04-06 22:12:33 +0000 UTCholy shit the level of ignorance in this comment. if you don’t know anything about Japanese racism against koreans, go learn some history.
Gene Park
2024-04-06 21:59:50 +0000 UTCFantastic Episode. Gatekeeping Mode Activated! haha but seriously all the DEI stuff is contradictory to being able to tell a good story. if your story is based on a checklist, it won’t be interesting, (which is why i’m looking forward to Judas so much) but all these DEI consultant firms need to go out of business, people need to not buy games made by studios that hired them, and then they need to get rid of the people who actually promote these types of checklist stories from Game developers, such as Insomniac.
Trevor Myers
2024-04-06 21:19:32 +0000 UTCOn the literacy topic, Colin I don’t think people have to read really anymore. They just create monologue shorts or use TikTok to text to speech.
Gray Gordon
2024-04-06 20:26:54 +0000 UTCI’ve noticed Colin is VERY sensitive to people being jokingly offended and busting balls back. Like when Hoeg was joking and said he was offended that Colin implied he didn’t have a real job, it really seemed like Colin legit thought Hoeg was offended Happens a lot with Dustin too, like most of the time Dustin is just following along and busting balls back and Colin’s all like “omg I didn’t think you’d take it so seriously” My dude just follow along with the banter. It makes it so uncomfortable sometimes.
Bogey
2024-04-06 20:24:29 +0000 UTCI really appreciate this episode. It was very refreshing hearing different perspectives and how everyone was professional. Social Media tends to make things a bigger deal than they really are, and you guys dealt with this subject well. Thank you!
Bloated Backlog
2024-04-06 20:18:30 +0000 UTCGene and Jaffe continually bringing up these academese definitions of racism is so cringe. The absurdity and inherent racism of the definition is evident when Gene tries to claim the Japanese can be racist against Koreans in the Yakuza games. No they can't, because according to the definition they're the same race, Asians.
Jake Z
2024-04-06 19:10:24 +0000 UTCI’m sorry, but saying the gamergaters are “winning” is just objectively untrue. Mark Kern—this movement’s supposed leader—is less than a joke, it’s beyond laughable that anyone still takes him seriously after he repeatedly makes a dumbass of himself in public and online. The only thing he’s proficient at is having takes so fully devoid of logic that he’s a constant source of laughter. I know the algorithm shows us the dunks on both sides of this, but maybe Colin is being fed more content of Kern’s side than the other, I know I constantly see it in my timeline on Twitter. Good conversation overall and insightful as always, I just have to disagree with Colin on this one point.
Braeden Burge
2024-04-06 18:48:34 +0000 UTCRichard Hoeg, the most reasonable man in gaming.
CUMSoftware
2024-04-06 17:51:18 +0000 UTCGreat job getting the right people to discuss this topic
Tristan Kimball
2024-04-06 16:40:46 +0000 UTCooooie all-star guests today
Meatball
2024-04-06 16:27:59 +0000 UTCGene came off pretty bad here. The pearl clutching at Texas eliminating DEI positions was really telling, and he functionally agreed with academics that racism against whites isn't a thing.
ByWatterson
2024-04-06 16:05:15 +0000 UTC
