Starfield is the latest game to be boycotted by conservatives. This time because of pronouns
Starfield is the latest game to be boycotted by conservatives. This time because of pronouns
Starfields is one of the biggest games of 2023 – but it’s joined other recent games like Baldurs Gate 3 in being boycotted by conservatives because of the way it interacts with gender.
Between this, BG3 having non-binary options and same sex romances, bud light, etc doing things to let others feel noticed - Conservatives are gonna have nothing left to enjoy from boycotting.
I’m ok with this.
I am too, but it turns out they're trying to build a parallel economy and support only oppressive vendors and producers. They'll start clawing their own eyes out when they've watched their thirty-seventh movie featuring only non-Woke performers like Gina Carano and Kevin Sorbo and they get tired of crying into their MyPillows.
The whole "parallel economy" thing is so bizarre, and reminds me that these are extraordinarily gullible and broken people.
I mean, they will gladly empty their pockets for grifters selling them shitty knockoffs at twice the price so they can feel like they've owned the libs. It's absolutely bonkers.
And the things that appeal to them are so weird! "Try our 100% anti-vaccine protein bars! Crack open a cool can of gender-conforming piss beer! Nazis will feel at home on our completely unmoderated social media platform! Buy toilet paper with zero recycled content! These dick pills are abortion-free!"
Like, what the actual fuck is wrong with people that crap appeals to?
The parallel economy scam will die out soon enough. Companies run by foot-stomping toddlers and brazen grifters are doomed to fail.
Must be exhausting being a conservative and being terrified of everything.
Its refreshing, actually.
Cause everything is someone elses fault, So you never have to have an ounce of self-reflection, so you never have to blame anything on your own deeds and behavior.
Even better, many of them die alone because they "disown" their family.
Funny how a game about fearing the unknown is being hated on by a group that fears the (relatively) unknown.
I don't know, my parents managed for years. Nice being an adult and getting Halloween. Maybe you are right that it is exhausting they just get used to being in a continuous state of it. Like a pack a day smoker vs someone who has never smoked. One can handle nicotine levels that could kill another.
Great metaphor! In both cases personal decisions lead to a shorter life span.
Not fair to lump all conservatives into one group. That's like saying liberals and leftist are all the same when they're clearly not.
PS: I'm center-right and I fucking love Starfield!!!
Self-reflection is indeed a problem for conservatives.
You might be right it isn't fair to lump all conservatives together.
Considering the amount of blatant misinformation acceptance required to be a Republican these days I think it's pretty fair to lump all Republicans together.
The issue is that Republicans have historically represented conservative viewpoints, so they are spoken of synonymously. The Republican party is so distorted that it is arguably no longer conservative in any recognizable way, but because it used to be the conservative party (and because they still claim to be conservative) you get a lot of people considering them the same.
Do you vote for Republicans? Yes? Then at this point you support conservatism 100%. There's no room for gradients because of how our political parties are structured. So if you're "center" right, you're just a conservative trying to hide behind another name.
Oh I really doubt many are boycotting it, just poking the anthills that are their fanbases and communities to keep them engaged
They either own and play the game and tell people that they boycott it or never had any intention of playing the game and that's their boycott
Reminder that every decade, conservatives whined about something fucking stupid.
2020s. Pronouns. Trans. Blue hair?
2010s. Gay marriage.
2000s. Gay representation on TV.
90s. Video games. Rap music.
80s. D&D. Gay people existing.
70s. Rock music. And interracial marriage?
60s. Hippy culture. Being antiwar.
50s. Fucking hips shaking on TV?
You forgot "children being taught evolution", that was a pretty big one. Also birth control pills, which many of them are still fuming over.
You can also keep going back to when they were insisting radio would rot children's brains or even further back to when they opposed electrification.
But at least electricity can kill you. Modern reactionaries take entitled whining to a whole new level, growing physically violent because there's people out there who are unhappy with the genitals they were born with.
I guess we'll never understand the horror of having an extra checkbox in a character creator that they have to look at (but not click, since it's already what they want by default).
Anyway, fuck em. They can either accept that society is going to treat minorities with basic human decency or they can stare at the wall for 8 hours a day waiting for new far-right approved content. It's their live to piss away.
Scopes has entered the chat
every decade conservatives whined about something
And by the following decade they had been proven to be not just wrong, but actively impeding basic human decency
Religion thrives the most when people are ashamed of what they like.
Maybe swap "gay people existing" for "gay people dying in droves while the government ignored it"
90s. Video games. Rap music.
80s. D&D. Gay people existing.
70s. Rock music. And interracial marriage?
60s. Hippy culture. Being antiwar.
50s. Fucking hips shaking on TV?
Both sides were against all of that in those times, you're clearly young.
"you can’t help shovel your dogshit fucking crap ideology into everything." he froths, while shovelling his dogshit fucking crap ideology into everything. What a weapons-grade bellend.
Baldur's Gate over here wiping its tears with hundred dollar bills
I've put in a hundred hours and counting, and I have yet to figure out what pronouns they're screeching about. It may have been such an inconsequential thing at character creation that most people have completely forgot about it lmao
The diversity is done quite well too. It's never grabbed my attention for more than a second of going "neat, they're black/wearing dreads/gay" and then right back into it. I found it more jarring when I had an unexpected dialogue with Shadowheart giving her a flower.
It's the fact that gay characters exist and the fact that you can roll a transgender character if you want.
I wish conservatives would just say the quiet part out loud and stop insulting everyone's intelligence. Own your bigotry. Don't be a wuss. Oh wait. It generally has to do with pre-emptively distracting from obvious predelictions towards pedophilia. Nevermind then.
They won't go mask off again.
Rebranding neo-nazis as "alt right" allowed them to ride a wave of plausible deniability onto platforms they'd never dreamed of.
When they triumphantly revealed themselves at Unite the Right, they lost a huge amount of that ground.
So now they never admit it, no matter how obvious they're being. They will remain unnameable.
Call them bigots and they'll tell you you can't or else you're a bigot yourself. 100% projection and deflection, every time.
Lol go ahead, others will enjoy the games while conservatives throw their hissy fits.
Super weird, because after 20 some odd hours in, I can't remember pronouns even coming up outside the creation screen.
It comes up any time an NPC refers to your player to another NPC, and there are quite a bit of multi-NPC dialogues in the bigger quest lines. But I mean, how likely are you gonna remember or think about every instance they say "he" or "she" or "them?" For most people, this is so insignificant that it's almost like you didn't even have the choice; but for those that hearing their preferred pronouns is uncommon IRL, it would be very apparent and likely very uplifting to be validated.
Its especially innocuous if you choose the pronoun on the character screen that you're are used to using. Or just leave it at default, which is cis gendered. You have to really go out of your way to make this weird.
Most of the time they are talking to me, not about me. So it's a lot of "you"s.
While true, it is not like those NPCs are suddenly going to call you "them" after you chose "she" during character creation.
It comes up every so often in battle. You will hear the enemies, both on a planet and in space yell something to the effect of "someone stop him/her/them". It is so quick you can easily miss it.
Really the outrage is probably nothing more than click bait. Like a video made the rounds shortly after it came out of some guy yelling for 2-3 minutes about pronouns.
"Did those pirates just assume my gender? And were right?!"
Lol I cannot express how little I care about which random thing our reactionary hyperconservatives have decided they need to boycott this week
Good, no one wants them around anyway.
Their loss. Who cares?
Makes the game sound even better to me!!
I don't know if anyone knows this, but the Steam forum moderators are pretty far right as well. I'm currently banned for mentioning Nexus mods, in a 100 page thread about the site itself. The conservative attacking pronouns and free speech, are not banned. You can find plenty of threads with conservative alt-right talking points about pronouns and anti-transgenderism, including insulting and degrading behavior. These threads stay up. Meanwhile, myself and others who defend trans activism, are banned. I appealed the ban, and get no replies from any moderator over multiple days. It's fucking disgusting how the site is being moderated. I'll post the ban reason and what I said, below:
"Nexus only bans mods made for bigots They don't want to support any content that promotes bigotry and allows people to pretend certain marginalized groups don't exist. Trans people are part of the game, and anyone trying to erase them is acting on bigotry. You are perfectly free to mod the game yourself or get the mod elsewhere. You just can't get it from nexus mods."
Ban Reason: This post contains material that promotes software piracy. cheats, or exploits. This type of content is not allowed on the Steam Community.
Fortunately you've got this left wing echo chamber to vent in for solidarity.
I'm with you comrade 🫡
Thanks, mate. I'm still pissed. Can't do anything but, like, fuck them and fuck the system. Stupid conservatives arguing their free speech is so absolute they should be able to take over Nexus mods and FORCE them to publish the bigot mods. They hit me with the "I may disagree with what you say, but at least I'd defend to the death, your right to say it," then cheered when I was banned. They're so fucking thickheaded.
Is this a surprise? Many gamers unironically use the PCMR term. We all know where master race idea came from. Even those that use it ironically often reveal themselves when talking about BLM etc.
I'm honestly really pleasantly surprised that Nexus Mods are willing to take this fight head on. That they are willing to tell these potential customers to sod off, and that they have the tact and understanding to tell the difference between a superficially benign mod with a malicious purpose like this, and the many vulgar mods that they do allow on the site. (Shout out to Schlongs of Skyrim, you magnificent beast)
Gamers, in the general, being the worst people I don't have high expectations from gaming companies but it all seems to be moving slowly in the right direction, even as gamers gnash their teeth and waddle their fingers.
Unfortunately, the far right has deeply inflated and influenced make gaming culture, particularly since Steve Bannon weapon's then for Trump's original election campaign.
Steam administration as well.
When Twatter finally dies the media is going to have to work that much harder to find the one guy somewhere who is outraged by something. I wonder if we are going to see a return of the Midwest Safaris, complete with interviews with retired folks in small town diners.
Imagine being such a snow flake that what words people use to describe themselves makes you so mad
Starfield and BG3 aren't being boycotted. Those are just empty threats. Remember all the other times people said they were going to boycott their favorite games, and actually did it? Neither do I.
I remember back in 2016 conservatives screaming they were going to boycott Hamilton because of the cast making an appeal to Pence at final curtain, and people laughing hysterically at them because back then, there was no way any of them claiming they were going to boycott would have been able to get tickets in the first place.
They also proclaimed that they were boycotting the Star Wars sequels and claimed that they would tank at the box office thanks to the boycott. Instead the films did really well.
(I have my problems with those movies due to the plot, but having a woman main character and a black main character wasn't an issue for me.)
No, they try to boycott, but since they only represent a small fraction of the world, it doesn't pan out as such.
Where is that Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 boycott-failure screenshot when you need it?
And that is the result every time.
Conservatives when basic linguistic morphology groups are present in the language of any given media.
I'm boycotting it because I'm not a fan of 16-28 FPS and I don't have a $5000 PC to actually run it.
Weirdly, the worst frame drops are in the cut scenes.
When you're in New Atlantis, taking mass transit anywhere, the train pulls out of the station at a good 5-10 fps.
It's because the cut scenes are also loading screens so they actually have a lot going on. I've been playing on xbox series x and it runs as well as you'd expect on a console, so not really complaining there. I'm having fun at least, j7st need to keep away from all the negativity surrounding the game.
I'm easily running it on a 2 year old 1200€ laptop.
A desktop that can run it would be closer to 800€
Mine is about 5 years old with a ryzen 5/ GTX 2080 and a hard drive that spins. I'll upgrade it at some point, but not to play one game. No Man's Sky works quite well on my rig.
I wasn't really interested in Starfield...until now. Let's play Starfield.
I love all Bethesda games since I've been a fan since the buggy Daggerfall. But I wouldnt recommend playing this just for this.
It's like playing Cyberpunk because you can pick your genitalia. The game will barely acknowledge your choices. Literally zero impact. I'm annoyed there's no button to wave my massive dong around.
You can go as cis-conservative as you want with your pronouns in the game. No-one is forcing those conservatives to give in to their innermost desires.
The temptation is sinful to them in the same way that their murders and violence are righteous.
They don't realize the God they worship is Mammon.
You can be whoever you want in Balders gate 3 (genitals included) yet Starfield crosses the line?
Tbf most conservatives probably haven't played BG3 or know much of anything about it/forgotten realms. They aren't exactly the target audience
It's based on DnD which according to them is devil worshipping satanism.
BG3 was so well received, they couldn't use the term "Go woke, go broke".
Starfield has a lot more flaws in that regard.
The BG3 steam forums were full of alt-right shills screaming about pronouns when the game launched. It's just that starfield is newer so that's where they all moved.
I swear, the more I read about the Steam forums, the happier I am that I never go on them.
I don't know any conservatives irl who have complained about this, has anybody actually met someone who said that to you in person?
This just feels like people are trying to make something out of nothing to stay relevant
Media coverage has gotten real lazy and sloppy, so they're pretty much pulling their stories from Twitter now. "Conservatives" could be like 100 people, max. Obviously it's whatever gets clicks, and hey, here's somebody from Lemmy, driving traffic to the site for free.
Starfield has been a real experience from the outside. My stepfather started playing it religiously (Xbox) as soon as it came out. I get the very strong impression that he's not alone. Much sleep has been lost over the newest Bethesda game. It looks like a hit for ol Todd.
So the actual players are too busy playing the game to be part of this conversation. That leaves people with no real involvement to be responsible for all this jabberjawing.
Complaints about the game not being good enough are pretty much not real, and are coming from people who aren't playing it.
This "conservative backlash" is legit fake news, and is probably a handful of nobodies on X pissing and whining about it performatively while some useless journo fills up his quota acting like it's a story.
It's a Bethesda game, and they really aren't known for pushing a lot of political boundaries, even things like the Fallout series ultimately boil down to "nuclear war bad" as a political statement. Edgy. I don't think there's much to talk about with Starfield other than the game having the very broad character creator with lots of options that people have come to expect from a modern RPG. There's nothing here.
Blue hair and pronouns? Sir, you could be a lizard in Skyrim.
Ultimately it just kinda shines a light on how bad things have gotten, lately, and how much journalism is pure filler, probably written by ChatGPT now. None of this is happening. There's no story here. That's the "real experience" I'm on about. This game isn't terribly controversial in any meaningful way, so it's very glaring how much babble is going out there trying to MAKE a controversy where the subject just refuses to support any of that.
Except for the poor optimization turning everyone's 3080 into a lump and making even the newest GPU struggle, even though the game is not throwing anything at the screen to justify all that. That controversy has some real heat to it, I'll admit. Anything else is trash noise to be ignored.
Complaints being from people not playing it is not true. I'm playing it religiously but I have a lot of complaints. None significant enough to stop me playing, obvs
My impetus for posting it was seeing someone on lemmy posting links to where to get the mod to remove the pronouns from Starfield because Nexus Mods won’t host it. They posted to two gaming communities, and both had about a 2:3 like to dislike ratio as of last night - meaning a lot more people were quietly liking getting those links but weren’t saying anything in the dumpster fire comments sections. It was still on my mind when I saw this article right after I went over to Mastodon to check my feed there. So yeah, not in person, but these folks really are out there.
IRL? No. Every conservative I know IRL doesn't even play video games (every conservative I know is also old as fuck). And it's not like I know a lot or hang out around a lot; generally every one I've met IRL has been someone I don't like. Those I know are by necessity (employers, friends of family, etc).
But I've seen plenty of them online. Particularly in threads like this one.
It's a popular conservative idea that the word "pronoun" is bad in itself, so I don't doubt this is a thing at all
That concept is popular but no conservative that i have met (and i know some who are pretty far on the right) has really reacted with such strong hate towards pronouns.
At most they just say well that's idiotic or removed or fucking bullshit (which is rare since the ones i know rarely curse), however its not really a big deal to them. Not as much as the rest of the culture war at least
It is mainly spread by conservative grifters who made a following being outraged on stupid issues like these.
The 13-year-old brother of one of my son's friends, the other day... sigh
thats has the same energy as the people who think pretty much anything can turn someone gay
I'm convinced anyone that thinks (insert item here) can turn people gay are just closeted gay people who are afraid to come out cause their politics are more important than their happiness.
I feel like this whole pronouns in starfield thing is actually astroturf to draw attention away from Bethesda being evil and abusive to trans people who worked for them. Plus it drowns out any news about the game's actual qualities or merits, which like all Bethesda games at launch, seems to be lacking.
There's so many reasons to be actually mad at so many things, and all this culture war bullshit is deliberate smoke to keep people running in circles.
I wish it would be astroturfing but I'm pretty sure conservatives are just that fucking stupid
I like to have hope for humanity
hope being that it's astroturfing
at this point, I have to question if real articles are satire lmao
No they aren't
But wouldn't it be great it they did? I could start playing games online again.
This will pair eell with their botcott of reality.
I just wish it was a better game they were cutting off their nose to spite their face with.
Oh no!
Anyway...
It's a single prompt during character creation. The default option is always cisgendered. Literally 30 seconds or less and you never have to think about it ever again. In fact, you can ignore it entirely and it'll have been as if it was never there. Woooow such controversy.
I refuse to believe anybody is actually dumb enough to boycott the game over this. There are plenty of fucking legitimate reasons to not buy it, but having the option to select alternative pronouns during character creation is not one of them.
The best part about it is that you have to go out of your way to change the pronoun. If you choose the male presenting body, its shows he/him by default and the same with female presenting and she/her,
Great. Now I have to go buy this game.
Yeah the outrage is really hurting Baldur's Gate. 😆
It's the school and library and medical care stuff that's really dangerous, this is a distraction.
I mean, liberals boycotted Hogwarts Legacy because of J.K. Rowling (which was not even involved in the development). It seems to me that people just like boycotting stuff in general
To be fair, money would still be going to Rowling. She is probably the most vocal advocate against trans rights and she has been cited in policies that endanger the lives of trans people. I think that is a much more reasonable boycott than being upset about pronouns
She definitely gets money from the game in licensing. Thus the boycott.
Conservatives lost their shit over one beer can being sent to a trans streamer and en mass posted memes of them blowing up and shooting their beer.
Honestly at this point I think we can just leave the bunch of the bigoted whiners behind and stop giving a shit that they are unhappy. Giving someone the option to play a trans character in a videogame is just giving all players more options on how to experience the game. If you decide to not take the option meant to be someone else's yum then it's not gunna impact your gameplay aside from checking a box at the beginning of the game around the same time you are deciding the exact slope of your nose.
It's like when people find themselves unreasonably annoyed that a vegan option is available on a menu. Why the hell should anyone give a damn that you're unhappy with food you ain't gunna eat when you can order whatever you like?
It's true. I'd love to have this place but with a larger more representative user base.
The site the guy used to host the mod (Nexus) has the rule that no mods pertaining the removal of diversity are allowed. Simply put, Nexus made use of their right to host what they want, and told the guy to host his mod somewhere else.
Also, fun fact: the mod was so badly made that it removed the she/her and he/him choices, only leaving they/them as a choice in character creation
the mod was so badly made that it removed the she/her and he/him choices, only leaving they/them as a choice in character creation
That is amazing.
Also, fun fact: the mod was so badly made that it removed the she/her and he/him choices, only leaving they/them as a choice in character creation
That's really funny and tbh I wonder if it was an intentional move. "Removing pronouns? Sure thing! Now your only choice is they/them!" Tbh if I was a modder and was getting annoyed by the MuH pRoNoUnS anti-woke squad, that's probably how I'd do it. Can anyone confirm whether or not it was supposed to be ironic?
I think one of the first mods on Nexus for Skyrim was "killable kids" or something to that effect lol
This entire topic is going to be the most cringe thing ever in 20 years when clearer heads look back and think "They came up with new pronouns?! Why? That's retarded!"
It's going to make Jnco jeans, mullets and tribal tattoos looks normal.
I believe it will be more in the vein of "Those people complained about having more options in a game? What a dumb hill to die on"
It's amazing how you people just fall for rage bait all day. One sheet the other. Just looking for mostly non stories to be pissed off about.
Wow, you seem incredibly unpleasant. I'm sorry your life is such that this is how you choose to spend your time.
I hope things get better for you!
I've read their insipid thoughts on here before, I'm glad they're still around. Partly because their hot takes are hilariously-stupid, but also I think it's good to have our opinions challenged from time to time.
I mean, they haven't succeeded in making me change my opinions but it's still good to be challenged. I don't want to exist in an echo chamber!
Um we all agreed it was a shitty non-story. Doesn't mean we can't discuss this while on the shitter.
It's just hilarious to me that these snowflakes are so triggered (remember when they made fun of liberals for that?) by the mere option to change your pronouns that has absolutely zero impact on the game. You can entirely ignore the feature if you want.
Let them be angry and make fun of them when they do, they deserve the ridicule.
They still call liberals fragile snowflakes. Cognitive dissonance has never been an obstacle.
It’s practically a cliche at this point because it’s so true, but it's always projection.
Projection. Always.
I don't mind being called a snowflake, snowflakes are fucking cool geometric nature crystals and each one is unique. It never fails to make me smirk though being essentially called thin-skinned by someone who is quite clearly exceptionally thin-skinned.
Everyone has to think like them. Everyone has to act like them. Any deviation from what they consider the norm is bad and evil and must be avoided.
You know that's what they think about you and your pronouns being "forced" on them right? It's hard to reconcile.
Then they get angry when you marry in-game and it doesn't specifically say "Man and Woman". They literally cannot ignore it. They need to be called a man, and they need their SO to be called a woman by a video game.
It's all marketing.