A former BioWare employee says that EA's new management wasn't on board with the developer's inclusiveness.

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[–] 286 points 1 week ago* (38 children)

“You can fuck the aliens but only if they’re straight.”

Fucking Saudi Arabian govt.

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  • [+] -28 points 1 week ago* (13 children)
  • [–] 48 points 1 week ago (10 children)

    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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  • [+] -34 points 1 week ago (10 children)
  • [–] 64 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 29 points 1 week ago

    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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  • [–] 16 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (5 children)

    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 @thingsiplay@lemmmy.ml saying that it does not matter to them and implying that the removal was meaningless.

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  • [+] -8 points 1 week ago (5 children)
  • [–] 15 points 1 week ago (4 children)

    Removing a pride flag is most definitely anti―LGBTQIA+ freedom. Whether the gameplay loop changes doesn't modify that truth.

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  • [+] -6 points 1 week ago (4 children)
  • [–] 14 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

    Removing the flag from Stonewall was still an anti-LGBTQIA+ action, despite gay marriage not being re-illegalized because of it. You are standing on fallacy in saying that the removal of the flag wasn't political because the gameplay didn't change.

    Edit:

    The context was @thingsiplay@lemmy.ml saying that the removal of the Pride flag from the game was not an anti-LGBTQIA+ action, because it doesn't hinder the rights of queer folk.

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  • [+] -6 points 1 week ago (3 children)
  • [–] 10 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

    I did not argue that the flag changes rights. I said that the censorship of the flag (which is a symbol of LGBTQIA+ rights), before or after development, is therefore symbolically a censorship of LGBTQIA+ rights. It carries political weight because it is a symbolic opposition to LGBTQIA+ rights. This is irrespective of time of removal and gameplay. Those are irrelevant to my argument, and you cannot rebut an argument in a case that does not really involve the gameplay or time of removal with the gameplay or time of removal.

    Edit:

    The context was @thingsiplay@lemmy.ml saying that the censorship does not matter because it was before release and did not limit actual queer rights.

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  • [+] -3 points 1 week ago (2 children)
  • [–] 8 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    when I say something is irrelevant then you don’t accept it

    This is because so far, you have relied on fallacy to make those points.

    a non issue to me

    Whether it matters to you does not change its meaning.

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  • [+] -2 points 1 week ago (1 child)
  • [–] 7 points 1 week ago

    I did not.

    You argued that because it was not important to you, it was meaningless. That is a non sequitur. You did.

    Because it matters to you, does not change its meaning either.

    True. I am not changing its meaning. The meaning of the Pride Flag has always been a simple symbol of LGBTQIA+ rights. Its removal is symbolic of a removal thereof. That has nothing to do with my personal view; I am simply stating the existing meaning, not trying to modify the purpose of the flag as you are simply discarding its symbolic meaning.

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  • [+] -39 points 1 week ago (24 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 49 points 1 week ago (19 children)

    Saudi Arabia currently owns EA.

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  • [+] -39 points 1 week ago (18 children)

    Yes. That doesn't inherently mean they're endeavoring to implement Sharia in the games EA puts out.

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  • [–] 43 points 1 week ago (2 children)

    But that is literally what they're demonstrably doing.

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  • [–] 30 points 1 week ago

    "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"

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  • [–] 2 points 6 days ago

    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?

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  • [–] 11 points 1 week ago (6 children)

    Why did they buy EA then? So they could NOT make games? So they could close everything down and go out of business?

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  • [–] 1 point 6 days ago

    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.

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  • [+] -8 points 1 week ago (4 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

    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?

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  • [–] 3 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    Missing the point.

    Straight answer: no.

    However, as one of many diversification options it'll likely make more money than it cost(s), ergo...

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  • [–] 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

    If it were that simple, we wouldn't be here in the comments section of news about how EA forced the removal of the LGBTQ Pride Flag. The world isn't run my logical people. It's run by pedophiles, economic fanatics, religious fanatics, and narcissists. Everything's getting worse because people in power are deciding to make things worse.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 week ago

    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.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 week ago (4 children)

    All this tells me is that you didn't even make it through the headline

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  • [+] -7 points 1 week ago (3 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

    This only speaks to how little you know about Saudi Arabia if you think it's going to be well documented.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

    In case this comment by @Carmakazi@piefed.social 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.

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    [–] 187 points 1 week ago (9 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 87 points 1 week ago (8 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 79 points 1 week ago (6 children)
  • [–] 21 points 1 week ago (1 child)

    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…

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  • [–] 80 points 1 week ago* (2 children)

    But the worries that lgbtq sims players expressed about this takeover are still totally unfounded right?

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  • [–] 55 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 42 points 1 week ago* (14 children)

    i mean they were bought by Saudi Arabia(96%) and that country is not too fond of LGBTQ

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  • [–] 21 points 1 week ago (13 children)

    they arent too fond of heterosexuality either, considering the recent execution of a husband and wife for the sin of a forehead kiss.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 week ago (12 children)

    they think forehead kisses are bad???

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  • [–] 20 points 1 week ago (6 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 week ago* (5 children)

    a whole ass execution, wtf?
    also i think its stupid that is forbidden.

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  • [–] 18 points 1 week ago

    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.)

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  • [–] 39 points 1 week ago (4 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 week ago (3 children)

    Is it like in the game chat people say it or is the n word in the game?

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  • [–] 8 points 1 week ago (2 children)

    In the chat, bro. But it is against the rules, they just don't enforce moderation.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 week ago* (1 child)

    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 simple and soccer games? That's nuts.

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  • [–] 69 points 1 week ago (14 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 week ago* (11 children)

    "it's not x {em dash} it's y" hmm

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  • [–] 12 points 1 week ago (10 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago (4 children)
    1. 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.
    2. It's mostly transcriptions of physical books and academic papers rather than people who digitally use the right alt key.
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  • [–] 8 points 1 week ago (2 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 week ago (4 children)

    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

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  • [–] 2 points 1 week ago (3 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 week ago (2 children)

    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

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  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 child)

    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 as 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.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 week ago

    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...

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  • [–] 31 points 1 week ago
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