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BioWare Was Asked to Remove LGBTQ Flag from Canceled Mass Effect Game, Report Says (www.polygon.com)
submitted 2 days ago by to c/games@lemmy.world
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A former BioWare employee says that EA's new management wasn't on board with the developer's inclusiveness.

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[+] -5 points 2 days ago (12 children)
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  • [–] 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (11 children)

    Political action doesn't exist only when viewed. Political actions taken against the LGBTQIA+ community are still political actions taken against the LGBTQIA+ community, regardless of whether the game is on the market.

    Edit:

    The context was @thingsiplay@lemmy.ml saying that the censorship was meaningless because it happened without the game being sold yet.

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  • [+] -4 points 2 days ago (10 children)
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  • [–] 4 points 2 days ago (9 children)

    In scenario A, let us say a journalist writes a report about corruption, and it is censored before being released to the public. In scenario B, the report is released, then immediately censored. In both cases, it is censored.

    It is like this.

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  • [+] -4 points 2 days ago (8 children)
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  • [–] 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (7 children)

    It is not bad-faith argumentation. And it absolutely has something to do with our discussion. The point is that your logic doesn't hold up when cast onto another work before and after release. Likewise, it does not hold up where you have used it.

    Whether the game was or wasn't released doesn't change the fact that censorship took place. Censorship did take place—that is fact—and this censorship was political. Therefore the removal of the flag is political censorship, and has political significance.

    Edit:

    The context was @thingsiplay@lemmy.ml saying that the journalist comparison was bad-faith argumentation because it was "unrelated", despite it being a rebuttal of his claim that the censorship was meaningless because it occurred prior to release.

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  • [+] -4 points 2 days ago (6 children)
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  • [–] 4 points 2 days ago (5 children)

    Because the game was still developed. You don’t know what the replacement for the flag would be.

    The removal of a symbol carries meaning, irrespective of what they would have replaced it with. Also, their motive in removing it had to do with anti-LGBTQIA+ policy in Saudi Arabia, so it most definitely wasn't to replace it with another open-minded option. This was censorship of the developers and, symbolically, of queer folk.

    It’s just a flag in a videogame. I personally don’t care about that.

    What you care about doesn't change the fact that censorship took place.

    people put too much weight into this in my opinion

    You can hold that view.

    the censorship is meaningless

    Symbols have meaning. Censorship of symbols, therefore, is symbolic censorship of the meaning of those symbols. The censorship is provably not without meaning.

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  • [+] -4 points 2 days ago (4 children)
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  • [–] 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

    Again, we have gone over the political meaning. The lack of change to gameplay is irrelevant. The political meaning of the action is the significance, not the evidence of that action to the end-user.

    Edit:

    The context was @thingsiplay@lemmy.ml once again stating that the flag has no meaning, its removal has no meaning, and that it has no meaning because there is no impact on gameplay.

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  • [+] -4 points 2 days ago (2 children)
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  • [–] 2 points 2 days ago (1 child)

    If we speak about real world rights, then it would be significant. But in a game lacking a flag, I think is not important.

    Again, the censorship of the flag, which is a symbol, is symbolically meaningful. The degree of significance is not the subject of debate.

    The flag doesn’t matter, what matters are the actions and story.

    To the gameplay, perhaps. But I am not discussing the gameplay. I am discussing how the removal of the flag is symbolic of opposition to LGBTQIA+ rights.

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