By By Johnny Django Share



Recently Gaming News outlets and others have yet again cracked down on Ubisoft for not making a political statement. They are being called out again for not choosing a side.

The question is, why would you want current day politics to ruin a game, or better yet a whole gaming community? There are plenty of reasons why game developers try to stay out of politics, money being one of the main reasons.

What does money have to do with politics in video games? For example, let’s say Ghost Recon: Breakpoint heavily supported the Democratic side. Do you think Republicans are gonna feel welcome when they purchase that video game?

Of course not. Instead, Ubisoft would lose a decent portion of their revenue because they chose to chime in on a topic that is dividing a lot of countries (mainly the United States of America). That is just one of the issues politics would bring to the Video Game industry.

Gaming was made to be fun

Another main reason politics shouldn’t be brought into video games is that gaming is meant to be fun. When I hop into a normal match on League of Legends, for example, I’m not there to watch people argue in chat about politics. I’m on League of Legends playing to play the f***ing game or get into a little competition here and there.

Political views are notorious for dividing people over their beliefs. Throughout history, it’s always been like that. Bringing it into video games to attempt to divide one another is a terrible concept. I’ve met some of my best friends through gaming, and most gamers will say the same thing.

Did I mention anything about my political views when I met them? No; we had conversations about how fun a game was or perhaps we discussed a few complaints here and there. At some point later I found out that some of my best friends did, in fact, have the opposite political views from me. Are we still friends? Yes, because I didn’t verbally smite my friends for their beliefs like many players do.

Politics were always in Gaming but in a Low-Key manner.

Politics have been in gaming ever since Multiplayer was invented. Games like Call of Duty, Minecraft, Left 4 Dead, and many other games have had players with righteous political views.

Gaming with awesome people who have amazing personalities and skills, but different political views, taught me something. Casting someone out for their political beliefs without proper reasoning is absolutely preposterous, but unfortunately, it’s found very often in today’s society.

Would you put Politics in your game?

Back to Ghost Recon: Breakpoint’s media situation. If you were a game developer, do you think adding current day political views into your game is the right choice? The answer often is “But politics are already in the game.” Fictional politics are just made up plots (most of the time) to lead up to saving the country from Great Evil.

As of right now, Ubisoft remains at a neutral state regarding politics and many are trying to expose them on that topic. Ubisoft is extremely smart for not picking sides because at the end of the day it’s all about money. Everything revolves around a rectangular shaped piece of paper with a Government print on it. Some would disagree, but sadly it’s the truth.

Art by Junosunderland

With the Gaming/E-Sports scene rising to mainstream popularity, I plainly see politicians plotting to take control of the votes through video games. Corporate America is already taking advantage of gaming as I speak, so what makes you think they won’t take it further in the future?

If the current trends continue, the gaming industry is going to be brought to the brink of chaos in the coming years. E-Sports gambling has already attracted attention from organized crime; these shady individuals bet on the gamers and then threaten the gamers which have already ended careers of gamers like Cheon “Promise” Min-Ki.

The E-Sports betting topic will be addressed in a future article, trust me. Right now I’m just commenting on what can be expected for the future of video games if the gaming community refuses to remain non-partisan. The moral of this story is basically that implementing real-life politics (Republicans and Democrats) into a video game is a very bad idea and will lead to disaster considering today’s political climate.

For the record, I’m not saying that politics and voting are not important and that we shouldn’t cover them at all. Just leave it out of the Video Games themselves and save it for the blogs and Reddit forums.

Let me know what you think down in the comment section below!

Share

