Although some distrust has always existed between gaming sites and their readers, games media continues to be heavily scrutinized since GamerGate. It’s often accused of pushing an agenda as well as for voicing an “incorrect” opinion about a video game in reviews. Readers are correct to be skeptical of everything they read, even without the bizarre timing of the many Gamers Are Dead articles and the discovery of the Games Journo Pro mailing list.
I understand a lot of readers are not interested in reading another site’s political views; instead, they’d rather find out if a game is good, or perhaps they might be interested in learning of a company’s shady business practices like the microtransactions in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain . “Leave the politics out of games,” insist some commenters.
But sometimes I think readers can be too quick to shut down an opinion, and such is the case with Laura Dale’s recent article on Polygon , a site that undoubtedly skews towards progressive politics. In her opinion piece, Laura criticizes Destiny: The Taken King for improperly handling the franchise’s lore. In particular, she’s not pleased with Bungie hiding the chief antagonist Oryx’s trans identity on the official website. She ends the article stating that regardless of how Bungie handled the character, she’s happy to see more representation of trans characters in games.
I’m not writing this editorial to argue for or against Laura’s opinion. Some of Polygon’s commenters even argue that perhaps he’s not transgender (Oryk’s transition was from female to male), although I’m admittedly not familiar enough with Destiny to argue either case. Instead, I’m here to address a common complaint found in forums like Kotaku in Action , however, that’s usually phrased like this: “Stop putting politics into my video games!” But let’s not automatically assume Laura’s trying to brainwash readers into progressive politics; I would argue that her article is simply criticism.
Laura is a freelancer, and as a freelancer myself, I know that she is her own boss, and to keep the lights on she must tailor her pitches according to her clients’ needs. Her article about the representation of trans characters in video games is admittedly perfect for Polygon’s progressive voice, so Laura made a smart business decision in selling her words to Polygon. As a trans woman and gamer, she’s clearly passionate about both, and she can use her life experience as leverage to distinguish herself from her competition. She can land writing gigs that I cannot.
This makes her a great candidate for writing criticism about the game that other writers might not be able to discuss from as personal a viewpoint. And that’s what this article is: criticism. She’s not trying to enforce changes upon Bungie. She’s not trying to rally the “SJW”s to force Bungie to make Oryx’s trans identity more explicit. She’s formed an argument based on her research and her time spent with the game, and offers a type of criticism that doesn’t counter Polygon’s positive view towards The Taken King .
And this type of criticism is not new. In an English class, I was introduced to a variety of criticism styles, such as deconstruction and, in this case, gender/queer studies, and I’m certain I’ve been tasked for writing essays in one of these styles. I don’t tend to write literary-styled criticism, but I don’t think games should be excluded from such articles. As the medium continues to evolve, and with companies like BioWare attempting to create diverse casts of characters, I would personally be interested in reading more such articles, if only to understand more perspectives.
Yes, I think it would be foolish for a site partnered with Metacritic to assign a score solely based on the representations of certain characters, but I also think such criticism is valid. Pursue the type of reviews you want to read, anything that will help you make an informed purchase. The author writing pieces informed by his or her politics is a gamer too, you know.