The Boy Who Cried White Wolf Part 2
This is going to be about the reactions to my comment on the infamous Polygon review of The Witcher 3. Meaning this here is a review of certain reviews of my review of the review.
It’s was also going to be about Ciri’s bra, which is way more important, and no, I’m not kidding — but this piece has gotten so big that anything else has to wait till later.
My post on the Polygon review has been read by over 160K people so far, which is an insane number. I’m glad that people cared, and I appreciate the feedback. Although in all honesty I’d rather just not had to write the thing at all. Alas, since I considered The Witcher 3 review “poisonous to the industry” — a phrase I will explain later — I felt the post needed to happen.
After publishing it, the vast majority of reactions were highly positive. Some people disagreed, though, but obviously that’s expected and not an issue in itself, on the contrary: let’s talk. But here I have to reach for “alas” again, because both disagreements (that I was made aware of) are one big disappointing misrepresentation of my argument.
Which to anyone involved in these discussions is not a surprise, sadly.
I won’t discuss the first disagreement in detail, as it’s written by someone with whom I already tried to have a discussion in the past and that did not go well. I am rarely eager to spend my time with people who think it is okay to call me “scum”, “fuckwank” and “bigoted asshole”. And then block me and yet somehow know everything I say or do.
If you want to read his post, though — it’s here.
To avoid accusations of the “uh-huh, he had nothing” variety, just one example, so it’s clear with what I refuse to deal with here.
Note how the opening part — whole nine paragraphs — is spent on explaining that, despite what one “Adrien” claims, people of color could actually appear in The Witcher 3. It’s a very inspiring struggle against an argument that does not exist. I clearly state in my post that people of color could, in fact, appear in The Witcher 3. I mean, there’s literally a fragment — conveniently omitted by the brave social justice warrior — when I say:
Let me start by saying that, contrary to what some of my colleagues say, The Witcher 3 could, indeed, feature other races than white.
So the “writer” is heroically fighting not something I said but something he made up.
On top of that, these paragraphs are full of false statements and carefully selected half-truths. Take the very first paragraph of the actual critique for example:
Non-white races absolutely do fit into Slavic mythology and history, given that the etymology of the words “Slav” and “slave” are finely intertwined due to the massive slave trade in the region throughout history […]
This etymology is just one of the hypotheses, and not even one of the major ones. And when it’s considered, it’s also considered as something that happened by mistake.
Slavic lands are close to Constantinople, aka Byzantium, which was the major trading route from Asia and Africa into Europe.
Two and a half thousand kilometers is not “close” even today, let alone in pre-medieval and medieval times when merchants traveled about 30–40 kilometers a day.
I find it absolutely hilarious that some people desperately want to turn Poland into this non-white merchant- and slave traders-ridden land, when a thousand years later and even more migrations and easier and faster travel Poland is still an extremely homogenous country from the racial point of view. It’s basically nearly 100% white people. But hey, if a hypothesis does not fit the facts, then screw the facts, right?
Moving on.
The other disagreement is more important to me, as the link to it appeared on Gamasutra in their “This Week in Video Game Criticism”. They described it this way:
In other words, Eric Swain, author of these words, claims I contribute to the lack of this industry’s growth by protesting “ideas for consideration”.
This is neither the first nor the last time when someone calls for “more critique” and “more diversity” in the name of unblocking the industry’s “arrested development” …as long as it’s all exactly what they agree with.
The link Gamasutra provided leads to the article by Catherine Ashley:
Apart from simply protesting a lie, the other reason why I engage with this article is because I do think that Catherine Ashley’s heart is in the right place. Basically, she wants different points of view. Hard to argue with that, isn’t it? Especially when I called for the very same thing in my own post.
However, I wish we could discuss these things without extremely puzzling statements like these:
Now, whether the Witcher 3 is misogynistic and racist is entirely subjective.
Entirely. Subjective.
No. No. It’s not.
Dear Catherine, if I kept spreading it on social media that you are a racist and a homophobe, would you just shrug it off and say “It’s his subjective opinion and that’s fine, it’s his right to say so”? Assuming your sanity, I guess no, you would not.
Why is it okay to do the same to a video game, then? Is it just because talking about it does not feel personal? As if that game was made by robots, and not hundreds of hard working actual human beings?
Also, note how you are totally fine with the Polygon’s review being “entirely subjective” but when I offer my “entirely subjective” take on it (it’s not, but let’s play this game for a second), then I am bad and I should feel bad. So sometimes “entirely subjective” is totally fine, and sometimes it’s not.
[…] to berate someone’s opinion because they have the courage to bring up issues that, for them, had an effect on their enjoyment of the game? Now that’s toxic. To shutdown a much needed dialogue? That’s poisonous to the industry.
If it is okay for any critic to say whatever they feel like saying, it is okay for me to do exactly the same thing.
We already saw you as the defender of Polygon’s subjectivity. But why are you not defending mine? I too had “courage” to “bring up issues” that, for me, “had an effect” on my “enjoyment” of the review. And you “berate” my opinion?
“Now that’s toxic.”
Okay, look, this could go on for a while, because quite frankly I could just close my eyes and point at the monitor and find something in the article that lacks logic or the support of facts. So let’s skip to the core of the problem.
Chmielarz also accuses Gies of allowing his biases to affect the review. The point is odd and in my opinion, moot. On the one hand, a video game review is not objective. It’s impossible to be objective in a review.
Maybe, although that is debatable. It is, however, possible not to lie. It is actually quite desirable, I think. Especially in a review of a product.
Before we get to that, one final time: even if there was not a single lie in the Polygon’s review of The Witcher 3, even if it all was just “subjective”, I could still oppose and criticize the review. I do think that radical feminism is wrong. I do think that moral alarmists are wrong. I do think that the outrage culture is wrong. I have the right to fight these things, and will keep exercising that right, as a creator and a human being supporting the freedom of speech and expression.
However, the hypothesis in Catherine Ashley’s article, one that says somehow I want to shut down the discussion just because of the difference of opinion… That hypothesis is simply wrong.
Note this juicy fragment. After calling my post “abhorrent” for “shutting down the dialogue”, Ashley adds…
Admittedly, nowhere in this article does [Chmielarz] specifically state that issues of race and gender should not be part of the dialogue.
Sigh.
Can someone please knock at the door of His house at R’lyeh and wake Him up? It’s time.
It gets better. The thought is finished with:
However, it wouldn’t be overreaching if it’s interpreted in that way either.
It wouldn’t be overreaching. To say the above. About my article that literally sums up the whole issues with, and I quote:
Let’s show that we are interested in a talk about racial issues, violence or sex — all of which are present in The Witcher 3 — without the blinding clickbait fire of ideological fanaticism.
So no, I am not against a discussion. But look, ideological fanaticism or not, if I disagree with you, I will express that, usually in writing. You do the same thing. It’s called a discussion. Or at least offering a different point of view.
But the problem we’re dealing here is not that Polygon’s review was “subjective” take I disagreed with. It is that it featured a flat out lie, and a very harmful one at that.
I’m not talking about the thinly veiled accusations of benevolent racism or direct accusations of sexism. We can argue about these — and we did — but I can accept these as misguided reflections and move on. I mean, a couple of interesting things came out of the whole discussion, for example how we tend to filter everything through our own culture, even if we think of ourselves as part of the global village.
Lack of people of color is one such example. I won’t repeat what’s already been said, but for example this review from Jim Sterling made me realize that even though we’re all connected through the Internet, we’re all still slaves to local culture. I already mentioned that Poland is an extremely homogenous country from the racial angle, and people of color are actually very rare, even in the country’s capital, let alone in any other town. So no Pole playing The Witcher 3 would ever stop and think about the lack of people of color, because this is absolutely normal to them.
However, the same thing is surprising to people from some other countries — like US — where there are districts, town or entire cities in which whites are a minority.
So, to which audience should an AAA blockbuster like The Witcher 3 cater to? Why? Or maybe it’s not about catering to anybody and it’s all just about representing your own culture to the world? Is that okay? Is that always okay?
These are all interesting questions, and I am wide open to discussing them.
However, what’s not up for discussion is that “the world that CD Project has created is oppressively misogynist”. This is objectively not true. Not even when you choose to believe this was not a jab at the developer, but a mere statement of the fact that this fictional game world itself is awful.
Some characters in The Witcher 3 are, without a shadow of a doubt, misogynists. And they are all clearly depicted as either criminals or uneducated boneheads.
All the positive or neutral characters in The Witcher 3 are the opposite of misogynists. The hero himself always has an option, without exception, to punish the misogynists, be it a punch in the face or a good old murder.
On top of that, there’s nothing a woman in the world of The Witcher cannot achieve. Well, except becoming a 100% witcher, but it has nothing to do with society but a lot to do with biology. Worth noting that six out of ten boys die during the final phase of the witcher training. But well, men are often cannon fodder in our arts.
But other than this, women in the The Witcher 3 can be anything they want. Some are more powerful than any other man. Some are political leaders. Some are captains of the merchant vessels. Some are fierce warriors. Some of them own an inn or a theater.
Some of them can become goddamn kings ruling an entire nation.
How is such a world “oppressively misogynist”?
How?!
In what dictionary “oppressively misogynist” means that women are often in the position of power and everyone who is not an asshole always stands up against misogynists?
Thanks to previous games, books, and all the promo The Witcher 3 materials I knew that Gies was wrong before I even played a second of the game. After seventy hours in, it’s clear that what he wrote was not a subjective opinion one might disagree with. What he wrote was a pure lie.
To sum it up for Catherine Ashley et consortes: I am with you on critique and different angles, although I reserve the right to vocally disagree with what I hear or read. But what I was against in my original piece was a very specific lie in a particular video game review. That’s it.
Speaking of “seventy hours in”… In my previous post I only talked about the obvious and did not touch some other things of what Gies wrote about exactly because at that point I had not played the game yet. Now that I am past 50% of the game, I could easily point out he was dead wrong about many more things than I ever suspected. For example:
[…] a character who admitted to beating his wife so badly she miscarried is given an opportunity to explain why she had it coming, complete with a sympathetic conversation response option to go with it.
Now, I would not mind if that were true. This is role-playing. If a developer enables you to behave like an asshole in an RPG game, well, RPG means “role-playing game”. It’s on you, not on them, just like killing civilians in GTA is on you, not on the developer properly simulating what happens when a speeding car hits a person. But even if you behave like an asshole, that still does not mean you’re an asshole in real life. We still have much to learn about wearing a fictional skin in escapist experiences.
However, what Gies described is simply not true, although I would not call it a lie. It’s a misrepresentation from an ugly angle. I don’t want to spoil the whole thing here, but it should be clear, to whoever played the game themselves, things are not exactly as Gies described them. If you’re still curious, I wrote a short spoiler-ridden explanation here.
If you want more examples of Gies’ “subjectivity”, this is a good list from Connor Dillon.
And we’re finally getting to this:
I consider Polygon’s review of The Witcher 3 poisonous to the industry: to gamers, to game developers, to game journalists.
It’s not clear to some people why I said that, so here goes.
Why is it poisonous to gamers?
Because lies and misrepresentation from the influential press may result in creators’ self-censorship. Not every developer has Rockstar’s or CD Project’s balls of steel. Some are not going to want the risk of adult story-telling touching controversial subjects when it’s going to be met with loud and unjustified accusations of sexism and misogyny, racism and homophobia, ableism, classism, ageism and all other -isms that the “progressive press” loves to use or megaphone.
And it’s that fear that can stop the video games art form from progression. Not opposing the moral panic crusaders.
Self-censorship is already happening in the industry, and some of the future games will suffer as well. For what it’s worth, there’s also some push-back coming from a few developers, so not all is lost. But that’s why I say the review was merely poisonous, not lethal.
Why is it poisonous to game developers?
Well, apart from the above, lowering the score for made up reasons affects the Metacritic score, and the Metacritic score affects bonus payments to developers for crunching. You slip below a certain number, e.g. 90%, and the bonus is gone.
I know the public is aware of the Obsidian story, but this happens more often than you think. Most AAA developers have such a clause in place. I think it’s atrocious but that’s a different story, it is what it is, and many developers feel its wrath every day.
Obviously, I don’t mind lowering the score for actual reasons. Money does not grow on trees and gamers are not a charity. So for example it’s possible I’d give The Witcher 3 10/10, but I also get why Sterling gave it 8.5/10. It’s okay, he weighted actual issues against his total experience and came up with the number. But at least he was not manufacturing these issues, they actually exist.
Does CDPR use the Metacritic clause? I don’t know, and even if I did, I could not tell you. But even if they don’t have it, I know of many AAA developers who do. It’s a real, wide-spread, standard thing in the industry.
Also, even without the clause, lowering the score of the game for made up reasons is never okay. Even if it did not affect the sales at all. And that is a big if, somehow assuming that customers do not care about reviews at all.
Why is it poisonous to game journalists?
I don’t know, ask Rolling Stone why making stuff up is not healthy? Also, as I said it the last time, if you don’t know the answer to this question …I envy you. What are you doing here?
After finishing The Witcher 3, I hope to prove we can actually have a serious discussion about some of the most controversial issues of the game. That we can talk about sex and violence like adults.
As a teaser, when you think about it for half a second, you might realize that the fact you can see Ciri’s bra is actually a proof that sexy outfits do not exist in The Witcher 3 exclusively to titillate the player.
