#At least for the gatcha characters aren't locked behind gatcha like in genshin

[mystxmomo]

Luckily for us both, I LOVE long CC rambles AND hearing myself speak.

I'll start with the second paragraph, because I have a bigger talking point for the first that I think requires leading into it with discussion of the second. While I fully agree that idv has flaws and issues even above and beyond cultural differences from western sensibilities, I don’t think western media escapes that either. We may notice it less, or notice it differently, because it’s not being filtered through the magnifier of cultural differences, but it’s still there; sometimes it’s even more insidious. Think about how many times Wizards of the Coast has had to change something because of how wildly offensive it is to native cultures - really, think about how often it's pointed out that some fantasy game has species with REALLY BAD racial coding in western media in general. (But all that said, this is not one vs the other, its shitty that both have these problems and pointing one out doesn’t excuse the other.)

The thing I always try to point out and ask when these conversations arise is - how much do you as a (presumably, American, though that in itself is a very American thing to assume, lmao) know about /China's/ current socio-political environment? How much Do YOU know about what they consider to be offensive, about their political movements, the public reaction to their political movements, or anything about the modern issues outside of "CSS bad" (which, a lot of China agrees with). Do you even know the Chinese presidents name? How much do you expect a chinese company to know about western culture, in return. And you can make a lot of arguments ie: the extent about their resources. But then you have to think back to the first point I made. Bad implementation of their research isn't an issue unique to this company.

Sometimes, the criticisms of the game are VERY real and very serious. Stuff like the the white washing of their POC characters and the costuming of other cultures shouldn't escape criticism, and they have responded to backlash of these things by changing it. But sometimes, it is Very American Sensibilities clashing with foreign cultural standards. As an example. People criticizing Dance in the Snow for "sexualizing chinese culture." You know. People criticizing the chinese company. For sexualizing chinese cultural clothing. (they're allowed to do that. I cannot stress enough how much a chinese company is allowed to market it's own clothing as sexually as it wants) Or, a more subtle and less ridiculous one. Did you know that China has a HUGE issue with physiognomy? It's not my place to talk about at length, because again. I'm white, and the extent to which I CAN talk about it is through second hand research (which I recommend doing your own of) and machine translated weibo discussions. The impression I get with what I HAVE seen is that Phillipe is a criticism of a very real current cultural issue that we as Westerners wouldn't be privy to, and so when his character came out people REALLY focused in on his racism from the perspective of how it historically effected black people in america, and now how it's VERY CURRENTLY effecting the larger Chinese working class.

And. Thats the thing, right? This trend with a lot of younger political types, where they think that to be allowed to like something with these flaws, they have to be hyper critical about EVERYTHING about it. There's this desire for easy snap judgements, and an unwillingness to dissect and engage outside of that snap judgement. And thats really not how engaging with media critically /works./ And this isn't JUST something strictly found in idv, nor just how in people consume media. There's something a lot of modern activists talk about, where they feel guilt and burnout engaging with a world they know is built on moral wrongness. How do you justify buying a new pair of shoes when you know they were likely made by underpaid factory workers? How do you come to terms with putting gas in your car knowing it's another cog in a larger, harder machine working to further pollute the earth. And maybe it feels a little ridiculous to compare your FUN VIDEO GAME to these moral questions, but at the end of the day, it's not just about IDV. How do you engage with any video-game, knowing that the people behind it are burnt out and underpaid? How do you watch movies, knowing that the companies behind them screw their workers out of their residuals and healthcare. And the thing is. I don't actually have an answer for this, either! These are questions people much smarter and much more involved in activism spaces have been asking since long before I've been alive. Sometimes, the most you can do is sit back and acknowledge the flaws of the thing you love, and sometimes those flaws will be a deal breaker for people and sometimes they won't. The most I can personally do is encourage people to not burn themselves sitting on that guilt by talking more about the aspects of the media they love, and try and encourage them to focus more on what makes it worth staying in the game and with the community despite it's flaws.

All of this is to say. Lmao. Man. I've thought about this just as much as you have, and I do get it. I think with all of that established, what I wish for more then anything was that people DID focus more on what they like about the game and stopped putting it through this lens of "The game and characters as in canon is inferior to what I can do with them"

Like I've joked about that before - But I don't actually think I'm a better writer than IDV. The image of IDV in my head isn't inherently superior to what IDV has going on. I think they have something incredibly interesting and unique going on with their setting and characters. I think the way they play into their victorian setting is FASCINATING, I think the way they handle their veteran characters is some of the best I've seen in any media. And like - I'll admit that I'm prone to being overly critical about Certain Writing choices, but at the end of the say I'm able to acknowledge that the reason for that is that I do love the aspects of the game I do. And I wish we didn't have to hide it behind this performance of "Ugh, FUCK this game" to appreciate what about the characters and story we do like, yknow?

The gacha element… yeah thats more insidious, and something even I personally still have trouble getting around when recommending it to people. I find loot box systems to be an overall nasty aspect of the modern gaming industry - Unlike a lot of the stuff regarding it's writing and presentation, I think the gambling aspect of the game can be very PROACTIVELY dangerous to people, and I feel bad knowing that people could have a very real issue with it. But thats the other unfortunate thing. It IS an unavoidable aspect of the modern gaming industry. If a game has online elements, it PROBABLY has some kind of lootbox system. And there's no like. I don't think that one is something that needs dissected like everything else - I think we need stronger laws for videogames including gaming in its core game. But thats neither here note there, and I don't think IDV is uniquely evil for including it. It's just something to warn people about when introducing them to the game.