KatsBits Community

General Category => Blog => Topic started by: kat on March 24, 2016, 08:50:41 AM

Title: "Muslim blood is cheap" or "why can't we play as terrorists, part II"
Post by: kat on March 24, 2016, 08:50:41 AM
As a follow up to the above post it appears the progenitor of this 'discussion' was a recent GDC talk entitled The Current State of Muslim Representation in Video Games (http://schedule.gdconf.com/session/the-current-state-of-muslim-representation-in-video-games) (transcript not currently publicly available). The way the panelists presented the problem it appears they consider the Industry to be suffering a severe bout of "institutional Islamophobia", "internalised Islamophobia", "systemic Islamophobia" or some other form of invisible, unacknowledged, implied manifestation of Islamophobia people may not know they have, or exercise control over, anything in fact that roots the accusation in a Kafkatrap (http://www.katsbits.com/smforum/index.php?topic=829.0), an argument or statement that cannot be refuted.

From what information (http://europe.newsweek.com/how-muslim-stereotypes-video-games-perpetuate-terrorist-stereotype-438593) is available about the panel (http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2016-03-21-gdc-panel-says-that-in-video-games-muslim-blood-is-cheap), the participants appear well aware of the broader political environment and peculiar sensitivities presented by wanting 'fairer representation', but only where it bolster their indirect accusatory 'phobic' argument (http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2016-03-21-gdc-panel-says-that-in-video-games-muslim-blood-is-cheap) (see above). It's also all very well lauding the potential that Indies take up the challenge, even extol the participation in this of Countries tied to the current conflict. Doing so however ignores two important caveats to this; 1) current trade embargoes with Regions involved in the conflict (USA (https://www.pmddtc.state.gov/embargoed_countries/), UK (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/sanctions-embargoes-and-restrictions), EU (http://eeas.europa.eu/cfsp/sanctions/index_en.htm), CA (http://www.international.gc.ca/sanctions/index.aspx?lang=eng), AU  (http://dfat.gov.au/international-relations/security/sanctions/pages/sanctions.aspx)embargo information for example), and (again as discussed previously (http://www.katsbits.com/smforum/index.php?topic=53.msg4349#msg4349)) 2) anti-terrorism laws dealing explicitly with the facilitation of propaganda in support of terrorism - Independent developers are subject to the same rules, regulations and restrictions as large Triple-AAA studios that prevent the creation of the sorts of games the GDC panelists want absent a lot of Government interference and aggravation at the very least.

This begs a question about the panelists, as industry insiders, or those affiliated in some way, they should know all this and be presenting their arguments around the facts as they stand. So once again one is left wondering whether panels like the one held at GDC are really about furthering the "discussion" (any discussion in fact), or framing their argument in a way that it can be used to coerce or leverage a particular antithetical and ideologically driven point of view. In other words, finding problems to rail against instead of providing solutions. Grievance Mongers United members perhaps.