=AtG=
Content Notice: Racism, white fragility, waaahhh censorship.
Paradox Interactive released a speculative fiction strategy game called Stellaris. PI is one of my favourite game developers because their games play like live action puzzles. It tickles a problem solving part of my brain that I haven’t been able to exercise in years. PI’s shtick is usually historical fiction, but when they tried Stellaris, a Sci Fi game, they did a lot to implement in-game content creation tools to allow players to invent their own galactic societies. They also released modding tools if players wanted to attempt something more technical than the in-game editors allowed.
Cue a user by the name of Progeny of Europe (I’m sure you can see where this is going), who made a mod to remove the in-game human portraits that weren’t white.
This, by itself, was apparently not what made Paradox Interactive pull the plug on Progeny of Europe’s mod. Rather it was the–prepare to be shocked–racist description and remarks accompanying it.
“We saw the mod, thought it wasn’t in very good taste, but let it remain. Then the creator of the mod decided to update the description of the mod to promote an “agenda” not related to computer games at all, and this was being clearly displayed on our product page. We decided it was a step too far and removed it. Eurogamer did not do a good job describing what exactly it was we removed.”
…
Paradox’s rules of conduct state, “You shall not send any messages or posts that are considered foul, vulgar, sexually harassing, racially offensive or in any way discriminatory. This includes, but is not limited to, sexist language, ethnic slurs, hate speech and religious epithets. Paradox reserves the right to, in its sole discretion, remove any such posts or messages.”
Following her statement, Graham’s Twitter replies have been somewhat predictably flooded with negative comments, both from those critical of Paradox “stifling creativity” and those simply supportive of the mod’s racial ideals. “This is a statement of utter contempt for the thousands of nationalists who play your games,” one tweeter wrote. “Paradox is dead to me.”
Ahh, gotta love that Conservative Correctness. Not racist. Nationalist. It’s about the purity of nations. Totally no racism to see here, folks. That’s why Graham’s twitter is totally not filled with sexist cuss words from white people, right? That’s totally why Progeny of Europe isn’t also coincidentally a White Supremacist (and homophobic, transphobic, sexist, freeze peach) hate channel on Youtube, right??
No prejudice here, folks.
What does Progeny of Europe have to say about all this?
Progeny of Europe pledges that “in case my mod gets removed here due to Paradox’s ideological pushing… I will provide alternative ways to download if Paradox keeps on with their inquisition.”
I guess he wasn’t expecting the…
*sunglasses*
Swedish Inquisition.
/snark
What kind of fucking universe do you live in where breaking the laws of physics with faster-than-light travel is easier on your suspension of disbelief than the mere existence of black people?!
-Shiv
I thought this was going to be an add-on for “Rust” to allow players to choose white characters instead of race being randomly generated by the game (which was an intentional act by the designers). The lack of choice caused massive amounts of whining among
white supremacists“nationalists”, which was highly amusing.All of my “new” gaming is old stuff from GOG, so I’m sometimes out of touch with what’s out there.
Uh, yes. Utter contempt is the proper reaction to “nationalists”.
I would rephrase one element of your article: it is not that the presence of black people strains the suspension of disbelief for these ‘nationalists,’ say rather that they have an escapist fantasy in which black people don’t exist.