Should politics in videogame discussions be avoided or separated?

I will be entirely and uncompromisingly honest in an entirely unhelpful and undiplomatic way, and say that I very, very much relish the opportunity to foist my aggressively liberal politics on people who think they can avoid being shamed for their wrongthink by just reading the games section of this forum :)

Or, to be less unnecessarily meanspirited, I think your reasoning is extremely sound, Mr. Chick.

Works for me.

There was no way you’re going to talk about someone being killed by police and avoid going into politics. This just happens to be a topic that is heavily related to gaming. I am not aware of other communities with this problem, but there might be.

No, they shouldn’t be avoided or separated.

That said, this particular topic of swatting, it could well be moved to P&R. The fact the swatting can be done in the context of a game stream has little to do with the swatting itself, or the police itself. Gaming in this case is just ‘activity x’, it isn’t particularly relevant what activity was.

Yes, most streams are gaming streams, but that’s more just how that medium has started, it ins’t inherently tied to it. If a person is swatted, and it was streaming… I don’t know, an tech unboxing, would you put int in the Games forum? What if instead was a guy discussing a film?

That specific topic is covering a specific incident which involved gaming. That’s why it’s in gaming. it’s the same reason we put companies that went through bankruptcy and are in the gaming industry in gaming even though the topic of bankruptcy is just activity x and isn’t unique to gaming. We also put people who quit their jobs if they’re in gaming even though it’s possible for anyone in any industry to quit their jobs. And just like every other topic just because we start with one guy burning out in gaming doesn’t mean we can’t talk about workers as a whole, or unions, the economy or the market as a whole when we talk about bankruptcy or employees which are relevant to the topic. In this case, the police were involved so conversations about the police, the state of the police and guns in general will be covered.

I don’t know why anyone would even read a topic about someone being murdered due to a gamer swatting them if they don’t want to talk about death, police, and guns which are all relevant to that topic.

It makes far more sense than most voices these days, or games with profanity filters.

I like to stay away from (current) political issues when discussing games (or everything else) because these debates tend to choke out tolerance. Political issues tend to polarize these days and often divide us, not enlighten.

On the other hand, some issues in gaming are very much political in nature. Be it the issues of race and enmity in The Division, Grecian gender politics in A:C Odyssey or the way freedom leads to perpetual war in Eve Online.

On the gripping hand, it should be possible to discuss politics in gaming without immediately falling into the trap of taking sides and putting the Other in an artificial other side. If anywhere, here.

note: @ArmandoPenblade funny how “liberal” means different things to different people. In America it means left of the political middle, but here in .nl; it means right of the political middle, while on the left you have old fashioned socialists hanging on for dear life.

I think it’s fine to not separate discussions in threads that are going to be obviously political (or: swatting, crunch or game journalism).

But when a sub-argument does get political and off-topic, I would welcome separation into its own topic in P&R (i.e: recent shenanigans in the wargame thread).

I think it’s fine to have a thread like swatting in games. It can easily be avoided or even muted.

Or just another thread in Games, like one on how politics and wargames interact. That would be more game-centric but very clear as to its purpose. In general, though, I agree you cannot and should not separate these things. Like every other creative medium, games have intrinsic political content.

I think the current system works fine as it is.

Now I’m curious as to what’s going on the swatting thread, which I haven’t visited in a long time.

EDIT: Ok, having read that, it appears all that happened is that an actual interesting discussion broke out in that thread about policing, which made people feel self-conscious.

If a thread is primarily about politics, it should be in P&R. If the thread degraded/derailed into politics talk but still has gaming relevance, those posts should be split off into P&R.

Wholeheartedly agree with Tom in the OP.

I get that lots of folks come to Qt3 to complain about Internet dragons and count digital rivets and not deal with politics and other difficult real-life issues, but if you’re such a delicate flower that a side discussion of the ethics of mercenary usage in modern warfare sends you to your fainting couch in the middle of a thread about whatever the latest jingoistic shootymans game is, I’m not massively sympathetic to your inability to skim/scroll/avoid/mute the discussion.

You complete me, Adam

We’re like younger, hotter versions of this weird indie film I watched as a kid.

“Ghostrider, the pattern is full.”

Oh, we gon’ fill some patterns.

I’m in agreement with Tom and Stusser. Politics are going to be part and parcel with the occasional game thread, from the current swatting thread to threads about particular games that catch heat from the mainstream media or get politicized for various reasons, to threads about inclusiveness (or lack thereof) in a particular game or games.

If a thread starts out talking about a game’s impact on or relation to a political issue, or if the discussion eventually evolves into that, then it belongs in Games.

Tom and I disagree on this, sounds like you agree with Tom and not me.

Guess I misunderstood your post. I thought you were stating that if it’s primarily politics it should be in P&R, which I would agree with. If it’s a post about a specific game though, or a specific incident involving gaming, and happens to involve political crossover, then I think it should stay in Games. You’re saying such a post should move to P&R as well?