Wolfbytes

When I was younger I didn’t much care who produced my entertainment. The work was the work, I didn’t care what the guy behind the book or movie or game thought, I was more interested in the thoughts and feelings the work sparked for me. And that’s why I was genuinely shocked, the first time I came across a political essay by Orson Scott Card.

Here’s this guy, whose Ender’s Game was one of the books I most remember from my teens. He’s a multiple Hugo and Nebula and whatever else -winning author whose work I’d genuinely enjoyed and admired – and there he was, spouting off on a Mormon website about how marriage has only one definition, the heterosexual one, and any government that attempts to change that is an enemy that must be fought and overthrown. Since 2007, he’s also joined the board of NOM (National Organisation for Marriage), which lobbies against gay marriage across the US with tactics that are dubious at best.

I remember being angry. Not because Card has an opinion – of course people are entitled to those, whether I approve of them or not. The line is drawn where those opinions move out of a person’s private life and become a demand they try to impose on society at large – which is exactly what Card was doing. I was furious because I suddenly realised I’d never again be able to read anything with his name on it without being reminded of the flaming discriminatory politics the author’s fame and royalties all contribute to. Something I’d enjoyed had been ruined, because I couldn’t in good conscience enjoy fiction that supplied fame and monetary support to a propagandist of the American religious right.

Card still writes, both fictionally and politically. I’ve read the second – the first just doesn’t feel honest anymore.

To scifi geeks this is old hat. We’re used to our fiction being political, we’re used to contending with flammables like Card’s religion or Heinlein’s flirtations with the far right. Gaming is younger, which is probably why Shadow Complex caused such a stir on chat boards, industry columns and in assorted blogs a few weeks back (Kotaku’s summary here, if you missed it). Shadow Complex is by all accounts an excellent shooter loosely based on the first events of Card’s action thriller novel Empire (where basically, liberal extremists assassinate the president and seize power in New York State via military coup). Card hasn’t been involved in the development process, the game was actually scripted by comic author Peter David and makes no mention whatsoever of Card’s religious/gender politics, but his name was used in publicising it. That was enough. As soon as it came out, gamers at the liberal end of the political spectrum were boycotting it – because profits from the game will filter back to Card as royalties, and thereby end up supporting his anti-gay politics.

I can’t believe this is a surprise to anyone after gay gamers reamed Blizzard for trying to ban gay-friendly World of Warcraft guilds as sexually discriminatory, and more recently chewed out Microsoft for removing all gay references from Live gamertags, even when it was part of a person’s actual name. Critics of the boycott have argued that if you dig around enough there’s probably a homophobe somewhere in every game project ever, isn’t it overreacting to single out Shadow Complex? There is a point to the sentiment, and it’s a shame to see a quality indie game get flak over unfortunate promotional choices. But gamers haven’t been those teenage boys of yore for a long time now, and until game promotion learns to respect that, someone will always end up in the line of fire. When you use celebrities to drum up publicity for your game, you can’t ignore the parts of their image that you don’t like or want to be associated with it. Public image is always a package deal. You can’t use the name of the beloved author-Card without also invoking the much less lovable outspoken homophobe-Card. As the industry and audience mature, things like who and what you choose to associate your product with will have an impact on how gamers choose their entertainment.

It’s not that uncommon to see games boycotted for content, though this is rarely by gamers themselves. Boycott based on the political views of someone involved in the game’s production is less common, because development teams are large, and tend to remain fairly anonymous. Gamers taking an ethical approach to their entertainment purchases is still new. Still, gamers are getting better at looking up connections that matter to them, and Shadow Complex isn’t the first game to catch heat over political views advocated by its creators. The Japanese hit RPG Dragon Quest has also received ugly publicity due to the main composer Koichi Sugiyama vocally supporting the right wing nationalists, who among other things deny the Nanjing Massacre in 1937.

Neither game has suffered financially from liberal criticism. Dragon Quest is a hallmark franchise, and Shadow Complex broke the Xbox Live Arcade debut download record by selling an impressive 200,000 downloads on it’s opening week. But financial ruin isn’t the point of the boycott. It’s making a statement: we know this game is great, but we will not buy it because royalties will fund politics we consider repugnant. That, I think, is way cool. It shows that gamers no longer think of their media as “just” games, “just” entertainment. The same people who have been buying organic produce and fair trade coffee are now also buying ethically kosher games.

And that’s why I feel all fuzzy when I hear people not just complaining on the internet, but actually writing to Microsoft and Chair to explain why they won’t buy Shadow Complex in spite of it’s quality – or explaining how they buy the game, but balance Card’s involvement it with a donation to Card’s political arch nemeses, ACLU or other gay-friendly charities. Anyone can rant on the internet. Gamers actually taking the point to the developers signals something in the evolution of gaming toward a mature media.

(Note: Yeah this is last month’s news – the column was written then in Finnish. So sue me for being lazy about translating my stuff. Better late, and all that.)