The visual makes it
I’m not what you’d call a Brad/Stardock hater, but Brad’s worn his politics on his sleeve for years. I don’t have a hard time following how it becomes more of a storyline with his games than with those others, at least around places like this where he’s known.
I’d be shocked if any of that makes much of an impact with the endless river of Steam consumers who are the lifeblood of any modern PC game.
Fair, but Dave referred to “birds of a feather”. I don’t recall any misogynist screeds on Brad’s part or anything that would place him on the level of a guy like Baldwin. Am I just ignorant, as Dave suggested, or was that an unfair characterization on his part?
No, I don’t have any knowledge of or dirt on Brad being that kind of a shithead. I don’t have any judgement on Dave’s statement as I have literally given it zero thought. I was just trying to point out that if Brad wants to be an outspoken {person of political views} it’s reasonable to expect people to react in both positive and negative ways to that sentiment.
https://twitter.com/draginol/status/1029467604627480577
https://twitter.com/draginol/status/1029468869713387523
https://twitter.com/draginol/status/1029502618933096448
For his part, Brad wrote this in the other thread:
He’s a great VO actor. He was in Mass Effect and more recently, Injustice.
We probably don’t share the same politics but the opportunity to have one of the actors from Firefly in the new Star Control is pretty exciting. There’s a lot of great VO in the game.
If you’d like to play Brad’s games, just leave it where it is in your head and your ignorance will be bliss.
Not aiming this at you specifically (and it should probably go in P&R regardless), but when did it become normal to think that someone should not be hired because you disagree with their politics? I don’t remember it being very common until a couple of years ago. I have a hard time seeing it as a healthy development.
I was curious if anyone else was going to comment on the Adam Baldwin announce. I do have thoughts, as much as I would kinda rather not.
I’m sure he’s a good VO actor, in the right role. As far as politics in general, I think those of us who are aware of Brad’s politics can’t help but see an interesting intersection. I expect to see some individuals walk away from the game because this casting brings that stuff to the surface. I don’t think that affects my opinion of the game much; I’ve gotten used to ignoring the politics of most celebrities unless their personal behavior is truly noxious (and maybe Baldwin’s is–I haven’t encountered a lot directly).
The strong connection with GamerGate is a bigger issue, in my mind, because it relates to the medium itself, and to my industry, my livelihood, and my colleagues’. We have a GamerGate thread, so maybe this is better discussed there–heaven knows there’s enough heat here without it. So suffice it to say, I’m not super-thrilled to go out and buy a game from a studio that happily hires a man who antagonizes my fellow game developers.
As far as the latest diary, something stood out to me–I wonder if it stood out to anyone else: They called Origins a “reboot.” Is that the first time they’ve used that term for the game? I think they’ve called it a “prequel” elsewhere, maybe even in one the complaints. Maybe it’s inconsequential, but it feels like another example of trying to reconfigure the relationship between Origin and the original series for legal purposes. Am I being over-sensitive to terminology at this point?
Oh shit, Brad’s tweeting about it.
This sums my feelings up as well. It’s a lot easier to be cavalier about this shit if your friends weren’t the ones being shit on.
I certainly don’t think Brad did himself any favors when he asked someone lambasting him on Twitter what views Baldwin held that were problematic.
He knew exactly what he was doing when he did that on Twitter.
Has the so called Bay Area gaming media actually attacked this in any way, or is just more of the preemptive victim complex that was made so apparent earlier in the thread? The googles aren’t finding much other that just reporting on the announcement.
Maybe. Everything you’ve said might be true. But from here it looks like he could help an old lady across the street and rescue a cat from a tree and you’d find a reason to criticize it. But I tend to try to see the best in people. It’s something of a fault of mine.
He’s probably referring to stuff like this:
Well, I think years ago, it was much rarer to know someone’s politics unless they went out of their way to make it thing. Celebrities (and other people dependent on self-promotion) value social media because it puts them into closer contact with their fans, and opens up new opportunities for revenue. It’s a marketing multiplier. Unfortunately, social media also exposes those same people to risk. It encourages rapid-fire reflexive posting because it’s very purpose is engagement. You post something, someone responds, you fire back, etc. It doesn’t take much for social media to draw out your politics. But it’s also permanent, so even though you may have written something off-the-cuff, it’s out there and you’re forever “that guy” to people. After that, it’s human nature to dig in on something even if you started from a place of casual conversation. If you’re dependent on social media for jobs, you’ll probably double down for clicks and go with whatever brings the most re-tweets and posts.
One minute you’re talking about your next 'con appearance, and then you’re waxing on about ethics in game journalism and how the liberal media is biased against male gamers.
Those are good points. I guess my impression is that even when someone’s politics were known, it mattered less. There are certainly exceptions, so maybe I’m just looking back with rose colored glasses.
Either way, this is the wrong thread to be having the discussion both because it’s off-topic and Brad seems to be jumping right into the politics. I can’t very well complain that other people are viewing the news through a political lens when he’s making it explicitly political.
Well, I think it is fair to say that, in some ways at least, the range of political views people publicly hold these days that are deemed by a significant part of the population as socially acceptable has broadened significantly.
I’m sorry I missed this. I honestly tried to keep clear of the whole Gamergate mess when it happened.
Ah. I’m not on the twitter. Is that some owner or editor of a gaming site or something? Can’t say I recognize the name.