It seems perfectly pertinent to show the wide gap between the game's message and the developer's message.
So weird that you want journalists to "shut up and play ball" while the developer doesn't have to. If anything, it is Blow and Trump who are finding and attacking political enemies everywhere, all the time. You are fine with culture wars, but only when they come from one side - the other side is dirty and terrible to have the galls to do the same.
No, Blow "plays ball" in the things he produces: his games aren't political as far as I know. But the journalist does not play ball: He includes political jabs when reviewing games without political jabs.
(For both parties it is legitimate to throw political punches in other contexts, like on social media.)
I don't know that we can entirely avoid discussing politics in the context of a game where even his publisher felt the need to publicly disavow his political views.
It's also a game that incorporates work from a wide variety of other creators, several of whom made well-publicised statements that they would not have agreed to be a part of this had Blow's current political views been common knowledge at the time.
> I don't know that we can entirely avoid discussing politics in the context of a game where even his publisher felt the need to publicly disavow his political views.
Of course we can! If some far-left activist makes a puzzle game without activism in it, we should do the same and judge the game on its own terms, without need for political discussion or publisher statements.
> It's also a game that incorporates work from a wide variety of other creators, several of whom made well-publicised statements that they would not have agreed to be a part of this had Blow's current political views been common knowledge at the time.
This is like the collaborators of our hypothetical far-left puzzle creator disavowing him for being woke. That's obviously just as bad. If the work (the game in this case) has no political content, the political convictions of the collaborators don't matter.
> If some far-left activist makes a puzzle game without activism in it
If a far-left activist made an overly non-political game incorporating the work of other leftists, they would catch flak from their own compatriots over betraying their principals for money.
Look, "separating the art from the artist" is all very well, but we can't do that without acknowledging the political views of the artist(s) (especially when the artists are publicly beefing over said views)
> If a far-left activist made an overly non-political game incorporating the work of other leftists, they would catch flak from their own compatriots over betraying their principals for money.
I don't think that's true. It doesn't make any sense. Leftists would obviously be perfectly okay with collaborating with other leftists on whatever.
The point was that people on both the left and right should be okay with collaborating with people of the opposite end of the political spectrum when it comes to apolitical projects.
Imagine you were only allowed (or willing) to contribute to the Linux kernel if your personal unrelated political views align with those of Linus Torvalds. That would obviously be crazy.
> Look, "separating the art from the artist" is all very well, but we can't do that without acknowledging the political views of the artist(s)
Absolutely we can! We don't go around referencing the political opinions of our car mechanic or hair dresser, because these don't matter for the quality of their jobs. Exactly the same holds for game designers who make unpolitical games.
> The point was that people on both the left and right should be okay with collaborating with people of the opposite end of the political spectrum when it comes to apolitical projects
> We don't go around referencing the political opinions of our car mechanic or hair dresser, because these don't matter for the quality of their jobs
The hair dresser example is the worst example you could have thought of, given the importance of hairdressing for the African-American population. Or just see how parents and very serious people freaked out when teenagers started keeping long hair during the 60s-70s.
Hairdressing is extremely political.
As for the car mechanic example, I wouldn't be black and have my car "repaired" by a racist who would overcharge me out of spite and could sabotage my brake lines. Or just talk with women about their experience with car mechanics and see how much their political opinions on women don't matter.
Again, you can afford not to engage with politics at the hair salon or the garage only because you belong to the dominant group.
Start talking to people who aren't like you and you will discover a lot of things you never see in your life. That's what it means to be "woke": it is to awaken to the experience of people who are looked down upon.
It's not. You don't have to evaluate their political opinion to evaluate the quality of the hairstyles. You can just look at their work. Whether the hairdresser is on the left or right, he/she can't and won't force a hairstyle on you which you don't want.
> As for the car mechanic example, I wouldn't be black and have my car "repaired" by a racist who would overcharge me out of spite and could sabotage my brake lines.
This is ridiculous. You could equally have chosen an example of you as an old white man, with a woke car mechanic who overcharges you and sabotages your brake lines out of spite. But you didn't. Because that would be just as absurd. But you only see your political enemy, right-wing people, as evil, not left-wing people, your political allies. That this is extreme political bias I need not point out.
>You could equally have chosen an example of you as an old white man, with a woke car mechanic who overcharges you and sabotages your brake lines out of spite. But you didn't.
Because it is ridiculous. It is a completely absurd premise born in a mind that tries to "both sides" things that are not the same. "Woke" is not reverse racism.
"He [Donald Trump, who lied for years Barack HUSSEIN Obama isn't American, never said he was wrong and is still insisting loudly on the HUSSEIN, lied about Haitians eating cats and dogs, and many, many, many other racist lies and wipping up hatred] is the best President we have had in my entire life, by far. It's a miracle. I just hope it doesn't abruptly go bad."
You invented the stuff in brackets. He didn't write any of it. He can like Trump for other reasons, e.g. for getting rid of DEI laws or for reducing illegal low-skilled immigration.
