A former BioWare employee says that EA’s new management wasn’t on board with the developer’s inclusiveness.
“You can fuck the aliens but only if they’re straight.”
Fucking Saudi Arabian govt.
I’m not entirely sure the house of Saud really cares about western video games enough to intervene like this. I always imagined they only cared about the money and diversification from oil, “deeply held beliefs” often can be overlooked for the right price. This could just as easily be because of the corporate weathervein pointing towards conservatism, lots of companies have made decisions like this recently without meddling from the middle east.
Saudi Arabia currently owns EA.
Yes. That doesn’t inherently mean they’re endeavoring to implement Sharia in the games EA puts out.
You’re not too familiar with religious fanatics, are you?
But that is literally what they’re demonstrably doing.
No, that is what EA is demonstrably doing because they have a marketing department and are aware of the massive backlash currently happening.
Trump, I will remind you, was a rare case of a republican winning the popular vote.
The western world is actively moving right, last year barely any company publicly celebrated pride, and politicians are actively attempting to distance themselves from being seen as hyperprogressive partisan actors (“woke 1.0 was crazy”).
EA has no values beyond money, their owners have no real interest in the social sphere beyond what makes them money, why would they stick their neck out to please a demographic that is consistently becoming less and less popular in the eyes of the general public?
“Okay I know ICE has been executing people publicly and it’s been on video, but that doesn’t mean immigration control in the US is getting more extreme.”
“okay I know Russian military assets are building up along the Ukranian border and they’re getting tons of aircraft ready and moving troops and armor across the country, but that doesn’t inherently mean they’re going to start something.”
“okay I know that bridge is actively in the process of crumbling and a chunk the size of a bus just crushed my car, but that doesn’t inherently mean it’s not safe to drive on”
Are you aware of anything happening? Like, at all? Other than what you’re spoonfed by conservative talking heads, of course
Why did they buy EA then? So they could NOT make games? So they could close everything down and go out of business?
EA makes a lot of money, consistently.
They are also trying to make Riyadh a tourism centre, sportswashing a bunch, getting celebrities to endorse them, they also own a stake in MasterCard.
Just because you can buy a media empire to use it to push an agenda, doesn’t mean that anyone who does it necessarily cares to.
Survival. They know the death of the petrostate is inevitable and that they need to diversify their investments while they still have the cash to do so. EA is just one of many, many assets their sovereign wealth fund picked up across a number of industries but leaning towards “tech” in general. From this perspective, I don’t see why they would be motivated to involve themselves more than knowing what they pull in.
Do you seriously think they did this in an effort to win some sort of Islamic cultural victory over the degenerate west? If anything they’re looking to dump it all for AI investment now, like everyone else.
Do you seriously think buying EA with Jared Kushner is a backup plan to oil? Do you really think EA has enough growth potential to offset oil?
Missing the point.
Straight answer: no.
However, as one of many diversification options it’ll likely make more money than it cost(s), ergo…
Do you seriously think they did this in an effort to win some sort of Islamic cultural victory over the degenerate west?
Not even remotely. Nobody brought this up except you in your first comment. I guess my question is why do YOU think that WE think that the UAE bought EA to implement sharia law?? Where did you hear that from?
And yes, I get the “diversification” angle. That makes sense. But wouldn’t that mean they would have to… keep making games? And based on the past censorship needed to sell games in the UAE wouldn’t it stand to reason they would want that same level of censorship in games they make themselves? They aren’t doing it to “secretly prime people to accept sharia law” but simply because not censoring the games would be against their beliefs?
That’s more the vibe I was getting from people commenting about it.
All this tells me is that you didn’t even make it through the headline
Nowhere did they mention factually that SA requested this, as much as they tried to imply it by front loading the article with their acquisition of EA and the Sims cover business.
Without some sort of public statement or leak, it’s hearsay. Them meddling is plausible, but so is management feeling pressured of their own volition, or just one manager being an ass.
This only speaks to how little you know about Saudi Arabia if you think it’s going to be well documented.
Doesn’t seem like any of you know much if all you care to bring up is “vicious Muslim dictatorship” without going into the economics of why they picked up EA in the first place. As if their brutality takes some sort of special study to know about that you think I lack.
I’m tired of seeing notifications on this, give it up you losers.
In case the comment to which I am replying gets deleted, it said:
Yes. That doesn’t inherently mean they’re endeavoring to implement Sharia in the games EA puts out.
It’s less of them directly interfering and more like EAs management trying to appease their new masters.
In case this comment by @[email protected] gets deleted, this is what it said:
I’m not entirely sure the house of Saud really cares about western video games enough to intervene like this. I always imagined they only cared about the money and diversification from oil, “deeply held beliefs” often can be overlooked for the right price. This could just as easily be because of the corporate weathervein pointing towards conservatism, lots of companies have made decisions like this recently without meddling from the middle east.
I’m not deleting comments because they’re poorly received. If the mods take it then I don’t see why they wouldn’t also take yours.
Good. I am just posting these because @[email protected] removed his. I am glad you are open like this.
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Bigots’ response to the flag is really interesting. It’s like conceding that it happens but that you shouldn’t be proud of it, or celebrate it or normalise it like straight romance.
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It might be a big deal for removing a flag, but for me it doesn’t matter.
Removing the flag is a symbolic victory for bigots. Even if the game still has queer representation, bigots still get to say, “We made you take down your flag to appease us” and that’s a big win in their eyes. Like earlier this year when Philz Coffee planned to remove all employee decor LGBT flags from their locations, but then reversed course after backlash citing, “We had no idea that symbols of support and solidarity mattered so much to an oppressed community!” They knew. They just hoped they could withdraw their support symbolically before then withdrawing their support entirely.
Agreed. They want people to see the flag and diversity in general to be seen as strange and intruding on their “normal” lives.
Of course it doesn’t matter to you.
Congratulations for not being part of a marginalized group and for being completely ignorant to the privileges you have been arbitrarily bestowed.
Maybe you should care that other groups are being erased from society by hateful people.
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It is an action with considerable symbolic weight. It means EA is taking a hostile stance toward LGBTQIA+ inclusivity.
If I weren’t already boycotting them, I would start now.
Perhaps this doesn’t matter to you for a lack of empathy and care for the representation of LGBTQIA+ folks. Try being an oppressed minority group. Or, you know, having empathy for others.
Edit:
The context was @[email protected] saying that it does not matter to them and implying that the removal was meaningless.
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Removing a pride flag is most definitely anti―LGBTQIA+ freedom. Whether the gameplay loop changes doesn’t modify that truth.
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First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
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“What the fuck are gay and straight, we just enjoy ourselves.”
– Aliens probably
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EDIT: This reply was a record of what was said in the deleted comments by @[email protected]. It has been moved to a comment on the post, from this comment reply.
Fuck EA.
They allow insane amounts of racism. Like, thousands of n word mentions a week at least. I report this shit weekly and they reject me.
They don’t fucking care, and the game I play is a Star Wars game. So, Disney doesn’t care about the racism, either.
Is it like in the game chat people say it or is the n word in the game?
In the chat, bro. But it is against the rules, they just don’t enforce moderation.
I’ve watched a guy get muted by the game within idk about 2 minutes in gta5 online for saying it. I distinctly remember getting a notification immediately after I submitted a report that he had been muted from the lobby chat for everyome for inappropriate language.
On gta!?! But it’s okay on like the sims and soccer games? That’s nuts.
Yeah that’s ironic to say the least.
The anonymous employee mentioned a specific case where the developers were asked to remove a specific flag from a presentation video for “looking too much like the LGBTQIA+ flag,” in order “not to offend.”
God what a bunch of snowflakes.
For example, The Sims 2 physical edition cover shows different Sims in several poses, including a couple kissing and an alien. In Saudi Arabia, the cover art was completely modified to feature a handful of dull-looking male Sims standing emotionless.
The covers in question:
I’m laughing hard but that’s so sad. Can’t even bring themselves to put a female on the cover.
Yeah, it doesn’t feel good seeing that shit. They hate women, I can’t believe my countrys advisor lives there.
lol like why would you even want to be in the entertainment business. Like making entertaining fun stuff? Just to make it all dull as fuck? Do you really need to buy a brand to do that? Couldn’t you just hire some devs and make your own shitty brand? Unless you were actively trying to destroy culture you don’t like…
ding ding ding! Correct.
Eh i was close
Spookily close!
Like this?
Is that the game where you can have sex with an insect alien and a rock monster? Sure glad they removed a flag or people would think sex between humans was normal 🤡
When one of the new spider man games came out, one of the most popular mods were one that removed a bunch of rainbow flags from the streets. People are fucking weird
It’s so fucking embarrassing to be a gamer these days
The mod changed your region to one where the flag was illegal.
People just like censorship I suppose.
The issue isn’t just about a texture or a flag—it’s the corporate censorship and what it signals. If management is already stepping in to scrub a presentation video to avoid “offending” corporate masters, it makes you wonder what kind of creative compromises are happening behind closed doors during actual game development.
it’s more than corporate censorship, it’s theocratic censorship.
“it’s not x {em dash} it’s y” hmm
Real people use em dashes. That is a common place in human writing to use an em dash, or it would not have become a trend in the averaging that is LLM-generated text.
We cannot assume this comment was written by a bot. It was short and only used one em dash in a normal place.
Maybe people should stop using “it isn’t x it’s y” and em dashes in the same way that people stopped using fasces and swastikas. Shits tainted now
It’s common English sentence structure, not a symbol of a group that killed six million Jews and many others.
Do not compare this to the holocaust. That is just remarkably immature.
I compared it to modern day american fascism actually. You brought up the holocaust in the same comment you’re saying not to compare it with 😭
And I mean I think it is pretty comparable to the holocaust, considering what data centers are doing to the environment
I compared it to modern day american fascism actually
You said that people should stop using em dashes the way people stopped using swastikas. You do realize swastikas stopped being used because of Nazi Germany, not because of American fascism? Nazi Germany put a far greater stain on the symbol than American fascism ever has. Also, if you mention swastikas, you cannot in good faith claim that you aren’t carrying the baggage of Holocaust in with it. The Holocaust is the event most closely associated with the swastika.
You brought up the holocaust in the same comment you’re saying not to compare it with
To bring up ≠ to compare. Also, aren’t emojis (you used 😭) also a sign of AI writing? (ㆆ_ㆆ)
Is generative AI a serious problem? Yes. Is the use of em dashes by human people comparable to the use of swastikas? Or is the use of em dashes as tainted or more tainted by AI than swastikas are by the horrors of fascism and Nazism? Absolutely not. The swastika is a uniquely shameful symbol; the use of a common English punctuation mark is not comparable. The fact that you seem to think they are comparable indicates that you either have a very warped view of the importance of punctuation style, or you have a very low view of the severity of fascism and the grave symbolism of the swastika. The former is disturbing, but the latter is damning.
Holy fuck that’s a lot of writing. Sure man, or no I disagree. Whichever served my point
- They did it right now which is well after the fact was established, on Lemmy out of all places where demographics obviously lean towards people that know this.
- It’s mostly transcriptions of physical books and academic papers rather than people who digitally use the right alt key.
The em dash is incredibly easy to access and use on mobile, so there’s no need to memorize an alt code or copy-paste it from the internet or whatever.
No alt code, you hold… Actually, I’m not going to say that for the good of the world.
You really are obsessed, aren’t you? You’re in for a wild ride when bots can pass for people, physically, in-person 😯
I use the em dash a lot. The codepoint is 2014 for the em dash and 2015 for the en dash. It’s quite easy to remember.
This, scrubbing a flag itself, if actually confined to that (it wouldn’t be) isn’t world ending.
But it’s just short edge of the wedge. Remove flags now, later remove some trans representation, then remove gay and lesbian representation and lastly might as well go full Imperial cult and remove any friendly relations with Xenos.
Suadi’s would probably LOVE Terra Firma…
For context for any viewers who are wondering why @[email protected] deleted his posts, he was saying this:
- that the Pride flag has no symbolic meaning, but is “just a flag”
- that because the Pride Flag is not significant to @[email protected], it therefore has no meaning (which they repeated numerous times)
- that the removal of a symbol does not symbolize the removal of the thing that symbol symbolizes
- that gay people are given equal welcome in bars instead of being discriminated against
- that any change without impact on the gameplay has no meaning
- that censorship before the release of the game is not censorship and has no meaning
If you were wondering why he has so many downvotes, that is why. :)
rofl
Hehe…
I tend to reply to all my messages. It went on a while.
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There is wrong characterization here. I’m just fed up with the bad faith argumentation. Its just a waste of time. And its clear that people don’t accept any other opinion. Have fun with your witch hunt.
Too bad you deleted your own words, otherwise you’d have an easier time convincing people.
There is wrong characterization here.
I am merely providing the context of what you said because you are trying to skirt outside of public criticism by deleting your comments.
You made a fallacious claim that the removal of the Pride Flag had no meaning. You literally said it was “just a flag”. You literally said the removal was meaningless because it had no significance to you. You literally said that the removal of that symbol does not symbolize the removal of LGBTQIA+ rights. You literally said that gay people are equally welcome in bars. You literally said that changes that don’t impact gameplay or story have no meaning. You literally said that censorship before the release of the game was “not censorship” and that it has no meaning.
I have not misquoted you. If you feel like your own words paint you in a negative light, perhaps you shouldn’t have said them.
I’m just fed up with the bad faith argumentation.
Then why make a fallacious argument and protect it by restating it for several hours?
And its clear that people don’t accept any other opinion.
Sometimes there is a wisdom of the masses. Flags do have meaning, and their removal has meaning. You tried to argue against that point, which was misguided at best.
Have fun with your witch hunt.
This was not a witch hunt. No one accused you of saying anything you did not say. No one accused you of actions, or hunted you in any way. You just said something incorrect and refused to accept you were incorrect. Allow me to remind you that I didn’t fight you on your belief that it was an overblown issue, even though I disagree. I simply argued against your statement that it was without a qualitative meaning. The quantity was not a matter of discourse, but something you were entitled to have your own views on.
tl;dr: You weren’t mischaracterized. If you want your comments to speak for yourself, restore them from the deletion. This post will stay, though, since I do not trust you to keep them restored.
Wrong characterization? I saw your bullshit before you deleted it and these things are literally what you said. God, you suck at your propaganda job
X
But the worries that lgbtq sims players expressed about this takeover are still totally unfounded right?
Sims players despite being thought of as casuals (and most definitely are) have been the canary in the coal mine for so much bullshit from EA.
They even brought back the widely hated and transparently cynical micro transactions from Sims 3 into Sims 4, get this, over 10 years after the launch of the game. These games are so indicative of so many aspects of the industry and trends and how audiences deal with changes in a way that I think a lot of people don’t realize.
Sims 1 was oozing with personality and is a pretty straightforward satire of capitalism 4 KiDz!! while 4 is not only beyond sterile but has pretty much gotten worse over 12 years especially when they reworked it into a free game. Yes I’m complaining about the themes and writing of a simulation dollhouse game mainly played by children. Children deserve good writing too
Edit: they used to call their Monopoly money “SimPoints” and now it’s called “Moolah”. Yeah. Yeah.
The base game has less content than most demos. The full game will cost you around $1400 these days.
developers were asked to remove a specific flag from a presentation video for “looking too much like the LGBTQIA+ flag,” in order “not to offend.”
Well, they failed. Because that offends me.
But why buy a studio known for inclusive storytelling, presumably to profit from it, and then kill the thing they’re known for? Or was this an investment in culture war?
EA bought BioWare well before this new managment (Saudis) jumped in. EA used to not care because inclusivity was just another way to sell a game, thus BioWare could be gay as fuck. Now there’s a conservative slant to it and BioWare is (even when they’re making bad games) an incredibly gay studio so this was just bound to happen.
Ugh fking saudis…
And trump/cushner
Truly the desert’s nicest trailer park
More like the nicest Houthi target practice range these days lmao
i mean they were bought by Saudi Arabia(96%) and that country is not too fond of LGBTQ
they arent too fond of heterosexuality either, considering the recent execution of a husband and wife for the sin of a forehead kiss.
they think forehead kisses are bad???
Married Couple from Bangladesh, He gave her a kiss on the forehead at mecca in appreciation to god for bringing them together.
Saudi Arabia declared it public indecency and executed them for it.
a whole ass execution, wtf?
also i think its stupid that is forbidden.It’s kinda weird that the US complains so much about theocracy in Iran, but is eager to do business with Saudi Arabia, which is even worse.
(Of course it has nothing to do with theocracy. It’s about oil.)
two whole ass executions.
thats even worse
Yes, Exactly.
It is crazy, kind of like, say, doing 9/11
Public displays of affection, yes. The Saudi Arabian government is very oppressive.
Can’t spell “Saudi Arabia” without “SA!”
true
Forehead kisses can’t get a woman pregnant and are therefore gay.
lol
fuck ea
I fucking knew it, hijabs for everyone! The game is better dead than mangled, I say.
Yeah, it’s Saudi Arabia, they are Islamic and not quite as permissive as USA.
There’s no pride parade in Saudi Arabia or any Islamic state. You keep your head down and keep it to yourself or you get thrown off a roof.
At the current pace, the US will catch up soon though!
Yup, white christians here in the south used to be the same until the secular and non-whites changed the law. You think the racist homophobes here at home are gone? You know sundown towns still exist? Lots of secular people in Saudi Arabia you aren’t aware of, though. Su
Did white christians from the south buy EA?
Turns out conservatism isn’t tied to one religion. But to paint all Arabs as religious and closed minded is like saying all white people are religious and closed minded. Lots of crazy people in all countries of all ethnicities it turns out.
Did ‘any Islamic state’? Or just one?
Of course it wasn’t. They’re owned by SA now. Used to jokingly refer to them as Evil Assholes, but they seem to want to really earn that moniker.
Yet another reason why we need to move the world off of its oil dependency.
I predicted it when EA sold out to Saudi Arabia.
