aluminiumtrioxid

Wait what. I can't be any clearer, i used plain English. Some examples of those much-vaunted "unique and exotic Slavic cultural mores" would help clearing up my confusion. Because I haven't really ran into anything of the sort.

Absolutely. It's totally a fair thing to say "we don't think minority representation is a priority in our game". It's a valid artistic choice. But a (minority) consumer's choice to not buy the game based on this artistic choice is just as valid, which is the entire point of the article.

Your absolute tone-deafness and inability to look at things in a wider cultural context would be a lot less jarring if you at least managed to avoid insulting everybody who doesn't happen to agree with you. The wider cultural contex argument might hold water if the game in question wasnt developed by a polish dev based in a polish story, for a polish publisher, in Poland... ...aimed at the global market, making it just as fair a target for cultural criticism as any other game. Or do you think Eastern Europeans are somehow inherently incapable of grasping the terribly difficult concept of minority representation because we don't have black people over here?

Wait what.

Your absolute tone-deafness and inability to look at things in a wider cultural context would be a lot less jarring if you at least managed to avoid insulting everybody who doesn't happen to agree with you.

And none of this is the point of the article, making attempts at communication an exercise in frustration.

I dunno, I'm your generic eastern european mix of slavic, germanic and god knows what else, and didn't really feel the article was trying to erase me or my culture. Well, this is more about what the text says and not what you feel, is it not? When the argument is that it's exactly like racist grandparents yelling about "pollacks stealing our jobs", I think it might matter whether I feel that comparison holds water or not. Also, I feel we leave out vital context when we interpret the text as the author arguing for "slavic culture [being] less than chinese". The article was responding to the very specific argument that the Witcher's world not featuring people of color is exactly like a story based on Indian mythology not featuring white people. It's saying that the two things are not even remotely alike when you view it from a wider cultural perspective, which is... actually kind of reasonable? I mean, if you read the entire article, I'd argue it's not even about the Witcher, much less about condemning CD Projekt for the lack of diversity.

I dunno, I'm your generic eastern european mix of slavic, germanic and god knows what else, and didn't really feel the article was trying to erase me or my culture.

Is it, though? To be told that their unique culture and background is just white stuff and nobody would care if it got replaced with cooler black stuff because there's already so much white stuff? But that's not what's told in the article.

Okay guys, now I need a name for this island we created.

Is it, though?

...Doesn't sound like cause for any concern to me. I mean, I can only imagine two kinds of people returning games after getting to the end: those who regret their purchase (who, I'd argue, should be able to return the product, that's the system working as intended), and those who are quite happy with the game, but think "hey, free money", and return it anyways (who, I'd argue, would be pirating the game instead of buying it in the first place, and therefore not a cause for concern either).

Lots of words, little substance.

More "dice poker", less "D&D".

Heh, play a part. Now I'm thinking every self-respecting pirate ship should have a gambling champion. Also, gambling duels of honor and gambling duels to the death. Grizzled men staring at each other for an overly long time while Ennio Morricone plays in the background, followed by a lightning-swift blur of motion as they throw dice on the table. That kind of stuff.

Keep the ideas coming, guys.

Now there's a false equivalence if I ever saw one.

Sounds great! Now I have this idea of the entire legal system revolving around gambling... Also, a pirate democracy electing their king. Who is hopefully not 14 years old.

No, the false dichotomy thing.

Well that's not a very constructive attitude.

...It's a game where, upon arriving in the first settlement on your journey, you are greeted by a giant tree full of the corpses of those who were hanged for displeasing the local ruler. How is this less dark than anything in the games you mentioned?

In all fairness though, said study doesn't exactly offer us a very nuanced measurement of sexism (limitation of the format, obviously, but we shouldn't ignore it). It's absolutely correct in positing that personal experience, peers and family would have a stronger effect on sexist attitude than video game content, but I don't think that was ever called into question. The question we should ask isn't "are unconscious attitudes affecting behaviors?" (they sure are), it's "are unconscious attitudes affecting behaviors in a significant manner?" (which would, one assumes, be heavily dependent on context and kinda hard to measure in any case). Basically, I think Sarkeesian is absolutely right, sexism in video games does have an effect on consumers; however, I don't believe it's a significant effect. If you swung your magic wand and removed all sexism from video games, the impact would still be negligible, partially because there's still a lot of media reinforcing the attitudes she finds objectionable, and partially because there's a limit on how much unconscious bias affects our actions.

...Not bad. Not bad at all. Keep 'em coming. (In other news, I figured out what's the deal with Walrus Skull Island.)

I don't know about any studies disproving Sarkeesian's claims (namely, that sexist portrayal in media - including, but not limited to, video games - affects unconscious attitudes, not behaviors). I know about many studies regarding the effects video games have on players' mood, or behavior, but not this particular thing.

Time for some collaborative worldbuilding, which is to say I'm out of ideas. I want to let you have a small corner of the world as "pirate-controlled waters". It would also be kinda nice to have an (actual) Pirate King. Since these islands are supposedly something resembling a "home base" to you, I'll let you pitch in stuff you want to see when you visit these places. So shoot. P.S. I'm not opposed to a bit of silliness (we did have a Church of Metal, after all), but do keep my signature in mind.