When games represent a visual presentation of how it offends ethnicity, culture, religion, and whatever harm it can do to a person or a group of individuals, stupidity clouds their judgement and create a big fuss out of things like a making a petition of cancelling it — Ubisoft’s Far Cry 5 is the exact target now.
Freedom of expression is something all of us have, especially when it actually hurt us emotionally. People tend to do drastic ways of garnering attention to make a point, gathering and convincing people to follow their cause. But this one is just undeniably unwise to compose a petition that wouldn’t even persuade developers to cancel a game. Talk about making a fool out of that person’s self.
Let’s rewind back to the past few days. After Far Cry 5‘s official trailer was revealed on May 26, it showed a fictional ugly version of Montana where white people are actually the main baddies. It showed that games like this, even similar to Mafia III where racial discrimination was the backdrop, can certainly make sensitive gamers or consumers do illogical things for attention.
But what’s amusing about this act is that, why now? Why didn’t Gamers United, the user behind the creation of the petition, do this when Mafia III came out? Was it because it was set in the years when the United States were in that state? Or is it because Far Cry 5 is set in the present day? The latter is probably the reason why.
The content of this absurd petition is highly amusing and somewhat ironic in a sense that even other games have these representation. Why attack Far Cry and Ubisoft directly? I may understand the point: maybe the person hates Ubisoft that much especially the company’s reputation, just want attention, or that person is just inane.
Let me go through some of its description on the petition:
“Far Cry 5 is an insult to your fanbase, the Americans who make up the majority of your customers, and it’s time you woke up to that fact. Change this, or cancel it.”
When an insult is targeted at the majority of their consumers, one company will definitely take a look back at the drawing board to see if it will definitely hurt their brand as a whole. The fact that Far Cry 5 is releasing worldwide, and logical and open-minded people who knows that this is merely a “fictional” setting is anticipating this new take of narrative.
“It’s time to draw a line in the sand. We, the American gamers that make up the majority of your userbase, demand to you cancel this game, or alter it to be less offensive to your main player base. In these times, you must understand that there might be some violent repurcussions if you intend to follow through with your pointless criticism.”
It’s never good to represent a whole country (hence the user said “We, the American gamers…”) falsely when it’s not even widely accepted by your fellow countrymen — especially different races but still American by law. When games like Grand Theft Auto V represents a whole bigger picture of racism, especially last year’s release of Mafia III, it was accepted by the community despite its racial themes and slurs were present. Because when a person say “American”, you’re technically saying that “American” involves other ethnicities as long as you’re officially an “American” by paper.
I would also like to point out that when big companies like Ubisoft make these kind of games, it’s not “criticism”, but more of what you say a “fictional” world. If you don’t watch a lot of movies, then you wouldn’t really understand how it’s not criticizing a group of people, and you probably won’t be able to identify what “fiction” and “reality” means.
“Alter the villains. Even if you insist on making the villains American Christians, consider mixing the races a bit to not target white people exclusively. There are plenty of nationalists of every stripe and every race and creed. So throw in some blacks and Mexicans. There’s no reason a protectonist nationalist movement would all be one race? Why stop being Politicaly correct here?”
Far Cry 5 is not even out yet, United States is a country full of other people from other countries, it’s going be a fact that there’s going to be other races involved. It’s never great to assume ahead when only one trailer was revealed.
But putting these comments aside as I don’t want to get more annoyed of this silly move by Gamers United, games are just games. The setting and its narrative are entirely fictional, and it’s also tagged as M for Mature. If you, I’m talking to you readers, are worried about how it can impact your culture and the perspective of the youth, you don’t have to be. As mature adults, we are here to give guidance to our young ones and to make them differentiate reality from fiction. Don’t make video-games a bad image like this dumbass, Gamers United, is trying to do.
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