Cultural Conservatism and the Collapse of Media Critique

Last week, the next installment in the Dragon Age franchise released, Dragon Age: The Veilguard. I’m a huge fan of the series and the studio that makes the franchise. Now the video game community, as a whole, has a really high capacity for what really comes down to just…idiocy, honestly. It’s been a problem pretty much forever, I’m sure, and just got worse with the advent of Web 2.0.
Any given sub-community, however, is a reflection of a larger cultural zeitgeist, though. And one of the current cultural boogeyman are LGBTQ+ people, like myself. Cultural conservatism is circling back around from the significant progress made through the 2000s to demonize literally any kind of attempt at mirroring real life diversity in media. Sexuality and gender and race and religion are suddenly political and no one wants “politics” in their military shooter.
I’ve literally seen the comment “I play games to have fun, not be educated” happen on TikTok discussions of Veilguard, and this is not the first time. It’s a phrase or construction I’ve seen before in a reference to scene or sections of game that dare to vaguely touch on real life social issues around marginalized groups. We have a group of people who refuse to be socially or intellectually challenged. This is made more ridiculous by the fact that so much of what they find “challenging” is milquetoast, at best. Anti-corporate or anti-establishment revolutionary messaging is met with acclaim because it makes them feel rebellious and edgy. But the mere presence of characters using ASL to talk to their deaf friend is a bridge too far.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard hasn’t escaped this. In this case, though, it’s sort of grimly funny because Dragon Age, as a series, has always been more progressive in terms of how it handles relationships and personal identity. Is it always nice and smooth? No, of course not, but the ethos has always been there. So there’s now a contingent of self-professed gamers who are suddenly upset that a game series that has always had gay people…continues to have gay people in the new game. A game series that had a trans character in its previous installment a decade ago now gives the player the option of adding more gender qualifiers to their player avatar. A whole group of people baffled why a series that’s always had a very queer audience would choose to include queer themes.
Like they’ve totally forgotten the influence of capitalism and that queer people have money.
It’s a very obvious case of “culture war” ideologies overtaking good sense. And while this isn’t the first time this has ever happened by a long shot, and it won’t be the last, this particular game has been one of the starker lightning rods for this vitriol.
This is already annoying and frustrating on the surface level. If we tell commercial art that it’s simply not allowed to ever explore anything even slightly outside the white cis-het norm ever, we’re stagnating art as a whole. How dare we ask the general public to empathize or think about experiences outside their own for even a moment.
More than that, though, it makes it impossible to actually discuss the game.
When consuming a review or discussion video, it’s always wise to have an understanding of where that reviewer is coming from. Do they normally even play RPGs, for example. Now, you also have to determine if they’re a homophobe or use the words “woke” or “DEI” unironically.
From a gaming cultural perspective, there’s become this stark divide. Where instead of everyone being able to respectfully (as much as gamers can) disagree or critique from a place of good faith, there’s a strong undercurrent of “us vs them.” That you have to show a certain loyalty to this game just so the assholes don’t “win” this sort of fake argument. It’s not logical, by any means, but that doesn’t mean it’s not an experienced reality.
And the lovers of the game aren’t the ones who created that feeling, but rather people who wouldn’t have enjoyed or played it to begin with. People who literally buy the game then return it within the window on Steam JUST to have the ability to bomb it with poor reviews.
Looking down from the top, it’s patently absurd. And it’s destroying the ability to communicate about commercial art in an intelligent way.