Recently published Baldur’s Gate Mod, Siege of Dragonspear has been a controversial subject and it has been #Gamergate all over again. One side of the story claims that the game is being “bashed” because of a transgendered character. The other side of the story, however, claims that the rushed nature of the game and bad writing is the main problem. What I see is a bit of both.

Surely, there will always be people who legitimately are against such narrative in video games. But they, as always, are a minority and will stay like that. The majority -if not the entire- complaints regarding the game, mainly hosted on Steam and GOG reviews do evolve around one narrative; Bad Writing. — and then, all of a sudden, you get bad writing history lessons. Because the writer of the product has a history with not so well reviewed writing sessions. The main argument we have here, regarding her writing, is that she has been writing with a certain taste of railroading.

Railroading is a term we use to describe the Illusion of Choice. However, this is not our problem here. The problem is forced characterization and leaving no open paths to follow, as players please. Meaning, the subject writer was endorcing an agenda -not necessarily specific- that is her own. The writer was forcing her mindset, rather than giving people the choice. Which is not an ideal setup for tabletop gaming. Any gaming, to be honest. Feeling of exploration is not about running endless dungeons, it’s progression of characters.

If a character, that you just met, straightout talks about gender politics, that’s bad writing. Because your intention is not to introduce a character, or the act of a character, but to introduce the mentality of creation behind the character. If a character’s background is to be told by different circumstanes, that’s decent -if not good- writing. It’s simple as that.

A character can be a transgendered character, if the setting allows such narrative. If the setting does not allow such narrative, then it’s not sexism or transphobic behaviour. That’s a fucking setting, not the real world. Circumstances, thus the reality is different. Regardless, there’s nothing wrong with a transgendered character; but there’s a huge problem with forced diversity that cripples the main game mechanic, in this very context; Theatre of Mind.

And this is pretty much my rant on Bad Writing in this case. However the problem does not end here. Beamdog was blaming this incident on Hate Speech towards transgendered people, with zero evidence. As we all know, evidence is oppression of patriarchy. Indeed, because it is. If you have a transgendered character within your story, your broken Multiplayer or Badly Written storyline can not be criticized and should be labeled as transphobia or misogyny. — That is a fact, because we live in a world where the buttocks of Batman are covered by his cloak, thus male sexualization does not exist. Huge men with abnormal muscles and tight butts does not count, because that’s not a part of our narrative.

Beamdog, from now on, will blame everything on Hate Speech and try to recover their reputation with Progressive narrative. — It won’t work. Simply because some of their developers/managers are quite the amateur bunch. and they most certainly know that if they swallow their pride and accept the legitimate criticism about their product, thus blame the writing and rushed development without considerable testing, they will be squeezed out of the industry by the same circlejerk they tend to ask help from. I will get to that later. However, that’s not the case. Consumer hates rushed projects with next to no editorial supervision and proper testing, quality assurance. Which is why they get criticized, not because a portion of their consumer base are raging transphobes who doesn’t want a woman writer worked on the game they play.

That’s moronic. Sorry. That’s the sad reality. You want your name remembered? You got succeed on that, surely. But do you want your name remembered with pride? Then you should do your job, with responsibility. You could call “bad writing” a matter of taste and people would say, not alright, because who am I kidding; we’re talking about Baldur’s Gate, for fuck’s sake. There’s no damn chance that you could get away with that. What you “had” to do was getting legitimate supervision over your script and just go with it. — You would have a transgendered character, you wouldn’t have a character that is blatantly forcing how transgendered she is down the throat of your players and you wouldn’t have #Gamergate memes.

That last part is because you’re making a Baldur’s Gate mod, not a fucking Borderlands DLC.

Let’s talk about the amateurs in Game Industry. Take a look at this picture;

This is not a Trolling example. That’s a legitimate discussion with legitimate opinions, that’s not an attempt to derail the topic.

This is not a Hate Speech example. There’s no line within that post that promotes hatred against a certain group of people.

This is not Harassment. There is no harassing line targeting a certain individual or a group of people.

However; this, in fact, is Censorship. This, legitimately is a censorship towards criticism and negative feedback. Censoring negative feedback is moronic and not a reputable practice, as you are -the reader- not an idiot and know about this. There’s nothing to be “accepted and moved on” about this situation, and fact that the same press who will move mountains if there’s a legitimate concern regarding their “Free Press” does push the narrative of the Developers, because they in fact use the same circlejerk that the press lives in, makes this situation worse.

This is the developer/manager who supervises the Steam Forums and has been banning people over their opinions regarding the badly written game. — https://archive.is/tlJCs

This person calls out of a witch hunt. Witch hunt against an entire consumer base.

Here’s the topic — https://steamcommunity.com/app/228280/discussions/0/371918937275136476

Here’s a review of a banned user — https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198007424676/recommended/385970/

You will find many more examples within Steam Forums, locked away and in KotakuInAction subreddit. Go ahead and look, they aren’t going to bite you. They don’t spew women hating narrative or organize harassment against women in tech. Never happened. They have facts, fact-checking mechanics and legitimate arguments. — Unlike the people you read who has only claims, not arguments.

But, again, arguments are an oppression mechanic of patriarchy. Right.

Always, make up your own damn mind.

Note: No, I don’t give a damn about Alison Rapp and Nintendo. There are statistical debunks regarding the claims of “Progressive” writers, developers on Twitter, spewing their biased, one-sided claims which blames a hashtag once more to whitewash their point of view. — Moonlighting a second job is not a policy in Nintendo, apparently. Maybe in your office. Not in Nintendo. I don’t even like Nintendo. Who likes Nintendo? C’mon! That’s like so 2010's!