I woke up thinking about #Frostpunk2 and the trend of developers wanting to mirror the world in their games versus creating newer or more hopeful ones.
From #FFXIV to #IXION and many others ... I'm seeing this focus on depressive, disheartening, destructive, and unhinged politics and agendas being pushed. I don't mean things like #ThisWarOfMine or #PapersPlease created to teach people about the real ramifications of war ...
I mean games that are fantasy.
1/
While I know there are people who do game for the same reasons I do ... to learn, to challenge themselves, to have #MediaTherapy experiences ... I would say those are maybe a handful and most everyone else engages with media as "displacement, transference, and rehabilitation". (https://psykhe.media/aboutmediatherapy/)
In this regard, people are looking for escapism ... a way out of the things that are running them into the ground every single day.
They are looking for a freedom of sorts.
2/
In the way that the anti-Black, anti-woke, anti-women, anti-everything not cis-het male, and white people say about games that celebrate diversity ... I guess it comes down to something simple:
If you don't like the game, don't play it. If the subject matter isn't for you, then don't play it. If the developers messaging doesn't align with your world view, don't play it.
I believe this also which is why I will simply refund games that drag me down instead of evolving me in some way.
3/
I'm not big on plots in games, movies, books that don't make sense or characters that do completely irrational things that endanger the lives of others.
I'm not interested in watching content about despicable, evil, negative, unwell, broken people where that behavior is glorified ... especially when we're living in a world where non-fictional people are unhinged, dangerous bullies who delight in harming, killing, and making laws against people not like them.
4/
I think the only people who like such content are people who live very privileged lives and who can sit back and engage with content that pretends to be fictional or pretends to be fantasy when in fact the goal is to mirror the current state of the world (or perceived state of the world), push specific agendas, and "wake people up" to whatever the creator wants to sell especially in an artistic sense ... it's about what that person wants to project in the art that they make.
5/
There is a huge departure in tone of #Frostpunk ... in the sense that the first game was about "hope" ... It was about making decisions to save a group of people from the end of the world ... to help them survive and thrive. Every decision you made, every way you built your city, every moment to moment decision was the difference between people dying and your city surviving the great storm. It was possible to achieve a 100% success ending with no deaths if you put the work into it ...
6/
Later DLC for Frostpunk showed that the idea of hope and survival was not very popular. I could tell from the DLC that the point was to push for a more ... negative and more hopeLESS state where it was about "saving as many as you could by making brutal sacrifices along the way" and that was apparently more popular in some way. The first game was about how good of a leader, planner, manager, and thinker you could be, now everything is about politics dooming everyone and "necessary deaths".
7/
#Frostpunk2 exists in at a state of "We survived the end of the world ... we want more ..." and it comes down to the fact that people have become really complacent and want to ultimately have power over survival ... and here is where I tune out.
This makes no sense logically, emotionally, or psychologically ... especially when so many people have already died.
"We will stop feeding the generator that keeps us all alive unless you agree to our religious demands" is nonsense.
8/
#Frostpunk2 is not about your ability to be a good leader, planner, manager, and thinker ... it's now about how best you can manage the insane demands of selfish, broken, power hungry, people hating lunatics who would destroy others for the sake of their own agendas. It's about buying votes, making promises so you can stay in power, it's about making NEEDLESS sacrifices because some group is threatening to destroy everything if you don't give in to their demands. It's madness.
9/
11Bit studios is primarily white men from Poland and this is the same studio responsible for #ThisWarOfMine which was a very specific kind of game ...
It's interesting to me to see the change of the world ... and how the change of the world has effected how gaming collectives create games and how those games reflect the world ...
It's VERY OBVIOUS to me that the state of the world having moved into HOPELESSNESS is now being reflected in worldbuilding.
Winning is a fantasy.
10/
Winning isn't realistic.
There is no winning in the real world. There are only various degrees of losing. How badly do you lose. How much do you lose. Was it worth what you lost.
Miserable, angry, terrified, damaged, traumatized people make miserable, angry, terrified, damaged, traumatized art. They make art that reflects how they feel OR how they WANT to feel ...
Art inspires or conspires ... it depends on if the artist wants people to suffer because they do.
11/
I don't want to delve too deeply into this but I will say that I have noticed that primarily minority filled development studios (more marginalized people, more women etc) make games that are more ... hopeful ... and more inspiring and more celebratory of life.
White male led development teams tend to lean more towards negativity, less diversity, more death, more competition, more negative behaviors like addictive aspects, gambling aspects, and more hopelessness.
Make of that what you will.
11Bit made the game they truly wanted to make ... one that was more #ThisWarOfMine and less Frostpunk. One more about realism, hopelessness, power, greed, and negativity in the world ... and less about hope, survival, and seeing forward into a sane future. No fantasy, more realism.
It's their world ... they can do what they want and for people who don't like it or are triggered by it ... don't buy it, don't play it, stay far away from it.
If you prefer realism and loss, it's the game for you.
I fought tooth and nail for over a year trying to achieve the perfect ending ... and I managed all those achievements not because I knew they existed but because that's just how I play games like Frostpunk.
No one has to die especially if I know what I'm doing. I want no deaths. I want to succeed and if they game is setup to ALLOW THAT then I will because that's why I am. No death is necessary or acceptable. In IXION there were "required deaths" even if you did everything correctly.
13/
I'm not mad that #Frostpunk2 is a more realistic, more hopeless, less "winnable" game because that's not the game that 11Bit wanted to make. They wanted to make something that they clearly had more passion for and preferred as far as reflecting their collective worldview. It's art ... and they are artists ... and in the end art is the will of the creator and nothing else. It doesn't matter what the outside world wants or thinks ... this is their passion project. Either accept it or don't.
Frostpunk sold over 5 million copies in six years ...
The fact that on Steam only 11% of all players of #Frostpunk achieved the Savior achievement is very telling though ... isn't it?
And I don't think I'd be off in suggesting that the only reason it's 11% is because they are games who play SOLELY to get all the achievements so they can brag on their profiles ... NOT because they genuinely care about being a good leader that doesn't let their citizens freeze to death.
The Evolvers faction in #Frostpunk2 cites REASON as how they view the world with "clear minds and cold hearts" ... they also believe in harvesting the dead for parts and turning everyone into machines that don't need to fear the cold ...
And no faction believes in giving anyone any kind of healthcare ...
It's truly a hopeless and mad world no matter what kind of leader you want to be. What can one do against absolute madness? If you live in the current world you know the answer is nothing.
11Bit doesn't want you to "win" ... and if you do win they want you to sacrifice parts of your morality to make deals with the devil in order to achieve your ends ... they want to give you a dose of their version of morality and difficulty and politics. In the real world people don't survive the end of the world. Frostpunk was just a fantasy. In the real world people die constantly due to greed, prejudice, and power hungry politicians who don't care for their people.
No more fun and games.
If you missed any part of this thread or just wanna read it later in essay form, you can find it on my blog:
I agree, that's not something I'm interested in playing.
If I'm playing this kind of game, I want it to reflect how people coming together can make a real difference. Which, while rarely true at a large scale, is absolutely realistic for small groups and local communities.
I'm also not into grimdark fiction.
There is an audience for that--but it's not going to be as big. People get frustrated if they can't ever do good in a game. If the game is rigged so they can't win.
@tyghebright If you read the Steam forums you might reconsider that stance. People like negativity. They thrive on it. They prefer their games to be opportunities for them to harm others without real consequence.
Grimdark is more popular than ever.
We're the minority I believe.
That is my character. I'm nice to NPCs in games. I don't choose the evil path in roleplaying. I'm not content to "win" a game if that means 2000 people in my city froze to death. That's not who I am in life and that's not who I am in gaming. I'm always me. I don't roleplay being some lunatic or killing NPCs or doing things I would never do in real life.
When games PUNISH YOU for wanting to be a good person ... for being a good person ... for walking the good path ... they don't get my money.