Time to get myself cancelled!

Let's talk about how developers are forcing politics into video games! (1/F)

Now, we all know this is a dumb complaint: all art is political, and the people who complain about politics in video games the most seem to think that "politics" means acknowledging that women and LGBT people exists. Therefore, there's no game without "politics" in it. (2/F)

However we informally acknowledge that games can have more or less politics in them. We talk about games being highly political to distinguish them from other games that implicitly are not. We acknowledge a spectrum from Snake and Pacman to Disco Elysium and Deus Ex. (3/F)

A lot of this comes down to acknowledging that a game has a political consciousness and that it has a political message. We can make a political reading of Snake, sure, but we also know Snake isn't really trying to make any points about unsustainable capitalist growth. (4/F)

Whereas a game like Deus Ex was written with reference to Foucault and socialist politics and wants to be a (tongue-in-cheek) warning against encroaching fascism. DX is aware of politics and trying to tell you something, Snake isn't. DX is a political game, Snake isn't. (5/F)

But Snake is something of a banal example: Can we say that a modern game doesn't have politics in it? Can we say that a modern AAA game doesn't have politics in it? Can we say that a modern AAA military FPS doesn't have politics in it? OK so bear with me here... (6/F)

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is an apolitical game.

That's absurd, you say. How can a game set in a thinly veiled stand-in for Iraq featuring Russian ultranationalists as bad guys not have politics in it? And, well, you're right. Of course those are political aspects. (7/F)

But COD4:MW doesn't have a political consciousness. It barely has a political message. Mostly it's a game that wants to have the uncomplicated fun of WWII Nazi-fighting (hardly apolitical but bear with me) in the modern era. (8/F)

Modern Warfare is set in the imagery of (camcorder footage on CNN playing in the background of) the Iraq War, but it doesn't have anything to say about the Iraq War. It has no political consciousness, only its lizard-brain telling it that if it tries to say something about (9/F)

...the Iraq War it'll be cancelled harder than the Dixie Chicks. You are in the Middle East, fighting a war, because that's what's happening on TV, but is the war good? Is it bad? MW doesn't want to say, because that would be doing a politics. Now, you're either with us or (A/F)

or against us so saying the situation is complicated and you don't want to make a stand is a political position, and perhaps the closest to a political message MW has is "man this is such a mess compared to just killing Nazis" but it's still a game so afraid of politics (B/F)

of the Iraq War that it retreats to the comfort of larger-than-life villains and a threat of nuclear armageddon nearly two decades out of date instead of trying to tell you whether it was right or wrong to invade and depose Saddam. It deliberate dissociates from politics. (C/F)

And I think we can acknowledge that while Modern Warfare cannot escape the haunting spectre of politics, it's more Pacman than Disco Elysium. And so I think that when people (that is, people who are OK with purple-haired translesbians) say they don't want politics in games (D/F)

that is something we can understand as wanting something like Modern Warfare: a game that doesn't show much political consciousness, doesn't have much of a political message, and doesn't force you to engage with political questions. (E/F)

re: that last point: while all art is political and it's good for people to have their own political consciousness and engage with politics, consciously engaging with politics is mentally taxing and it's not wrong to want to just not do that while relaxing with a video game (F/F)