Thereâs room to split hairs over the first cartridge based console, or the first console with interchangeable games. But no matter what, the Channel F was designed by Mr. Lawson from first principles.
Mrs. Williamsâ pet project series remains one of my favorite duologies in gaming - Laura Bow. If you say that she was the cofounder, you also have to point out that Ken & Roberta were a married couple, so no matter what sheâd have been involved. Itâs more about what she contributed to gaming and her skill with crafting coherent stories both AGI and SCI - and you can see that in KQ4, since it was released in both AGI and SCI!
I have to admit that I never got into the BioWare D&D games - my preference remained with Black Isleâs development (Planescape: Torment); but I respect others like them more than me.
The first person to put together principles on programming was a woman (Ada Lovelace). One of the most influential programming languages in the world, and the origin of the term âcomputer bugâ, come from a woman (Captain Grace âAmazing Graceâ Hopper). Women programmed the computers that put men on the moon and got them home safely. Dr. Ellis, a black man, was the first black person to get a Computer Science PhD, and (arguably) created the first known GUI.
These are all good people who made our lives better.
B-b-but I donât want to actually see those people in my games! I just want them to make them! /s
I thought I had read somewhere that Zoid Kirsch is also gay. He had quite an impressive career in gaming.
He created Threewave CTF, which was an incredibly inspirational mod for the original Quake. Practically defined team deathmatch arena games to this day. Got hired by the legend John Carmack to work at id Software shortly after and helped develop QuakeWorld and subsequent Quakes.
Wokeness isnât diversity lol
The actual definition of wokeness isnât diversity, but the term âwokeâ has just become synonymous with any left-leaning ideas (including diversity) because of how commonly people on the right continue to use it as a word to define âanything I donât like.â
Diversity isnât a left leaning idea. People do use âwokenessâ to describe forced/pandering diversity, but Iâve never seen that to describe just people who happen to be black or a woman in games. Sadly can agree though that it happens with gay/trans characters- but I think part of that is people reacting to forced romance that I think a lot of people donât like but fail to articulate when its straight characters.
People do use âwokenessâ to describe forced/pandering diversity, but Iâve never seen that to describe just people who happen to be black or a woman in games. Sadly can agree though that it happens with gay/trans characters-
The problem is, any new diverse characters/media is immediately treated as âforced.â It happens less with race than it does sexuality/gender, since sexuality and gender are generally newer in terms of broad acceptance compared to existing acceptance for racial diversity, but it does indeed happen.
Diversity is absolutely a more left leaning idea, especially nowadays, when diversity is actively feared by the right, which is why they are almost always on the side of the racists/sexists/homophobes/transphobes/etc today and throughout history. Iâm not saying those on the right canât accept diversity, but that they often donât.
There are two kinds of wokeness I complain about:
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Hernia level virtue signaling - this is when a production company is straining super hard to make sure we know theyâre the good guys, but the writers donât have the brains to come up with interesting allegories, or even super-transparent ones like the half-black/half-white dudes in the TOS episode. All they can muster up is character dialog like, âWow, look how backward this time period is! So much misogyny and discrimination!â Yeah duh, I live in this time period and Iâm not stupid. (talking to you, Picard season 2)
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Misrepresenting the past - this is when they portray letâs say Victorian England or 1950s America as a fully integrated society where characters of all races mix freely, with equality at all levels. Thatâs not how it was, kids. The black housewife in 1953 Ohio would not have a white maid, although she might work part time as one in a white household. You donât raise social consciousness by painting a fake picture of history to avoid upsetting your audience. That does no service to the people who still feel the effects of those times.
But oh right, I forgot, the point is profit not genuine social consciousness - sorry, my bad.
/edited for grammar
While I agree with your first point - corporate pseudo-progressivism is a stain - I donât really think itâs fair to call it âwokeâ. In fact, itâs almost the opposite of what woke is supposed to mean. To be âwokeâ originally meant having âwoken upâ to the reality of systemic racism⌠Corpos thoughtlessly stuffing games/films with âdiverseâ casts are not really respecting that reality. Itâs performative. There is an argument that it improved things for actors regardless, but I still donât think itâs âwokeâ.
On your second point I have to slightly disagree. Taking Bridgerton as an example - set in something like Victorian England, but a racially diverse one. The Queen is black, thereâs a black Duke. I think these things immediately set the story apart from real Victorian England. Ok, perhaps if you know nothing about history it might be confusing, but to me I see those things and immediately one of two things is true:
- We are suspending our disbelief. Just like the pantomime dame, within the world of the play, is a woman and not a man in costume, we can assume that weâre seeing black actors playing characters who would have really been white⌠Like Queen victoria.
- The world we see is not an accurate representation of history. In this world we might assume that slavery was abolished sooner, or never started, and black people moved not just into the lower but the higher echelons of British society.
Given that itâs fiction, I donât mind either of these things. I think itâs nice for people who arenât white to be able to imagine themselves in those stories, even if in the real history things would have been much different. Bridgerton isnât trying to present a vision of real historical events, itâs primarily a romance. Just like mediaeval fantasy isnât really medieval, Victorian romance doesnât need to really be Victorian. We donât need to see the systemic racism any more than we need to see the cholera or dropsy or whatever.
I will also just briefly shill for Taboo which I just finished - thatâs a historical show which incorporates a ârealisticâ amount of diversity into itâs cast while maintaining (at least what appears to me) a level of historical accuracy. The story is fictional, although it appears around real events⌠But the world it presents feels genuine. Crucially by contrast to Bridgerton, slavery plays quite an important role in the story - so here it would feel absurd to have a black Queen or Duke.
Havenât seen Taboo but Bridgerton is a fantasy alt world - it can have steam-powered computers for all I care. My objection is specifically about falsely portraying real eras for the sake of casting diversity, which I think is a disservice to people who were held down in those real eras.
Fair enough, I have seen the same arguments applied to it is why I used it as an example. I donât know what shows you are thinking of, but are they misrepresenting things, or are they just using blind casting and asking you to suspend your disbelief? This is something we do without thinking when watching theatre, but itâs a bit more subtle when watching television or films because they go to lengths to make the environment feel more real.
You took the words out of my mouth, both of those are such libshit that I cringe my asshole out.
Thatâs another aspect of it - those practices arenât âlibshitâ theyâre corporate shit. Same as sticking a big GREEN label on random products.
Ya know, thereâs a scene in The Boys where Maeve is outed as a bisexual, so they decide to promote her queerness as part of a âBrave Maeveâ campaign to encourage those in the closet to come out.
But then they tell her she has to be a lesbian, not bisexual, because bisexuality is âtoo confusingâ, and even then they police what behaviors she is and is not allowed to do; she can be a lesbian but not âtoo gayâ, and sheâs only allowed to date feminine individuals while presenting as masculine or vice versa because to do otherwise is to âsend the wrong messageâ
This basically ruins her life, forces her girlfriend to break up with her because she canât take having to be a âModel Minorityâ at all times, and Maeve is left so broken she almost reveals the fact that she and Homelander donât actually save people to the whole world.
When I saw that, I was like âHoly shit, finally, someone else who understands why I, a transgender woman, actively avoid media that caters to the LGBT community. Finally, SOMEONE gets it and theyâre making sure other people get it too.â