Personalities in the Gaming Industry and Politics

Darrin Drader · Jun 7, 2005

Steel_Wind said:
I do care about politics and I hope that Erik continues with his blog in all its apparently offensive glory.

From some of the posts here , it seems plain to me that you either object to any politics mixed in with gaming info or don't like the links Erik happened to post.

OK, the above came from the Erik Mona blog thread.

Now, I'm going to attempt to talk about politics without talking about politics. Actually what I'm interested in is whether or not people who write games, or are in the eyes of a given community, should associate themselves with politics.

Now, I'm going to come right out and say this because it is pertinent to the conversation. I am pretty left leaning. I suspect Erik's a little more to the left than I am, but that's irrelevant. I've been known to get my hands dirty at *cough* another forum *cough*, and wade into the political discussions. Like me and Erik, Sean K. Reynolds has been known to post political material on his website and his remarks can be pretty inflamatory.

I know that airing your political views here in these forums is not acceptable, and after seeing how things go on that other forum from time to time, I now see clearly why Morrus and Eric before him kept it off the boards. I support that decision on these boards. Frankly, there are people who are the coolest people to talk to until you start discussing those topics, and then things get all hostile.

On the other hand, shouldn't artists feel free to express their political views in the appropriate venues without doing so completely anonymously? If Erik has a blog where he discusses games, politics, and anything else that happens to be on his mind, wouldn't censoring that be untrue to himself?

I'm not really posting this because I have an agenda. I'm curious what people really think about this.

Napftor · Jun 7, 2005

Unless it's part of the game material written, I don't want it anywhere on my gaming site (like this one). I'm sure there's plenty of politically-oriented forums where people can go to express their opinions. If you, as a writer, want to asociate yourself with politics, fine; but don't do it here as it has no relevance to what you're writing. A writer's background and interests are of minor concern when judging what it is he/she has penned.

Is this the type of answer you're after, Darrin?

Psionicist · Jun 7, 2005

If you want this thread to live I think you should remove parapgraph 3 ("Now, I'm going to come...") and 4 ("I know that airing...") because, well, reasons.

Anyhow, I dont give a dice about the authors political or whatever preferences as long as the books are good and don't contain propaganda.

Crothian · Jun 7, 2005

Writers and artist should feel free to post their political views if they want. Its when the political views starting messing with my gaming books that I have problems; it doesn't matter if I agree with it or not. So, Political blog entries are just fine.

Breakdaddy · Jun 7, 2005

I think that if he is well within his rights to express his views (political or otherwise). I choose not to read his political views, but they do not offend me nor do they diminish my estimation of him. I disagree with his politics, but that doesnt make a bit of difference to my enjoyment of the hobby. On the flip side of the coin, it would be nice to have forewarning of political content when posting the link here. I know EM didnt omit this purposefully and later even apologized (uneccesarily, IMO) for not having mentioned it. Bottom line: as long as they are doing it on their own bandwidth (or bandwidth legally allocated them) and time, they are welcome to express their opinions on whatever they like, as far as I am concerned. I don't have to read it if I dont want to and neither does anyone else. Sometimes I think people are a little too easily provoked. Hell, some of the lefties were provoked into actually defending it staunchly and agressively in a similar vein to those on the right who seemed offended. Both reactions are knee-jerk in my opinion and ultimately, silly. I came to game, now where is my D20?

Planesdragon · Jun 7, 2005

Whisperfoot said:
Actually what I'm interested in is whether or not people who write games, or are in the eyes of a given community, should associate themselves with politics.

Yes, definitly. Reasonable, bright, and intelligent people more than likely have something meaningful to contribute to politics, and in certain viewpoints these smart folks have a duty to their country to get involved in running it.

Politics aren't important on an apolictical business site, or an international site, but an author or an artist should be under no restriction whatsoever in expressing their political views on their own personal webspace or in their own personal communications. (That likely goes for anyone, but creative folk were what the thread was started with).

Whizbang Dustyboots · Jun 7, 2005

Post whatever you feel like at your own site. If people are offended that you're expressing your personal views on your personal site, well, it's a big wide Internet out there, and they can just pick another URL.

Patryn of Elvenshae · Jun 7, 2005

I think the issue is not necessarily the political views themselves.

The issue the manner in which they were presented.

Let's take a hypothetical.

I'm a rather important name in the Scrapbooking Industry. Basically, anyone who's "in the know" about scrapbooking will recognize my name and be able to name one or two things I've done for the industry lately.

There's this family-friendly (and strictly enforced, at that!) Scrapbooking website that I frequent. It's one of the better known repositories of Scrapbooking knowledge, and is frequented not only by myself, but numerous other Scrapbooking luminaries. I've also got a bit of a reputation as being someone the family friendly mods don't really need to worry about.

So, one day, I decide to advertise my own webpage on the strictly family-friendly site, mentioning that I like to post somewhat random thoughts on my page - with the intimation that a lot of them will be scrapbooking related.

One of the first bits I've posted on my page is a conspiracy theory about how the government is secretly run by [non-family friendly types].

Shouldn't I have had the decency to let the family friendly website which I'm polling for traffic know that I might not actually be family friendly on my own?

Is it required by law that I make such a notice? Absolutely not. However, one would assume that I would have the common courtesy to make that notice.

Darrin Drader · Jun 7, 2005

OK, that is a valid point about how you should let people know that there might be political material on the site. My forums, (which I'm going to keep plugging until I start getting some traffic), do contain political material (fair warning in case you were thinking about visiting).

But that's not quite what I'm asking. I'm simply asking whether you think that writers in this industry should be talking politics. It sounds to me like the answer is yes, as long as it is in the appropriate place.

I would very much like to hear if there are any dissenting opinions.

Shemeska · Jun 7, 2005

My worry is that when game designers talk about their work and represent them and their work on the same place as they vent on politics, it makes me worry about speaking out on my own political beliefs if I would ever want a chance to get something published in that industry if I held opinions counter to those folks.

Now to use names of defunct political organizations and nameless people as examples:

It would be like a writer who was a known member of the Whig party trying to apply for a writing job with a company where everyone else was a card carrying Wobbly who attended rallies for that group and wrote stuff for them on the side. While it wouldn't necessarily carry over to their actual work, I'd be honestly worried of a dim reception of my application if I voiced opinions contrary to theirs and wanted to work for that same company. I'd worry that among the more influencial people of that industry it might be something of a Wobbly good old boys club and God forbid you have an opinion otherwise... that is a worry to some people.

And for a different angle completely:

For the designers/authors who are putting up their own political opinions on their own pages, it might be worthy to consider that some people might not agree with you and might not give your apolitical work a decent chance. For instance, some folks have refused to read anything by China Mieville because he's somewhere to the left of Trotsky and to an extent it carries over to some of his fiction. As a libertarian I disagree with many of his political opinions but it doesn't stop me from enjoying his fiction which I picked up on a recommendation from a friend. But not all people with different political opinions than you will be able to divorce a writers poltical differences with them from that author's apolitical work, and sales might suffer.