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It might have an appropriate pessimism but it absolutely endorses fully fledged communism in an uninformed college-bro way (as the other commenter noted, akin t

It might have an appropriate pessimism but it absolutely endorses fully fledged communism in an uninformed college-bro way (as the other commenter noted, akin to chapo trap house). >It'd be like checking out the new Mel Gibson film and being annoyed that it comes across as having a conservative Catholic ideology Yes, but I know Mel is a catholic, I knew nothing of ZA/UM beforehand, I wonder if all of its spiritual successors will be tainted in the same way, if so I'll know for the future that their games aren't for me.

yoyohello13 2y ago
You can't engage with media that doesn't fit your political ideology?
- randomcarbloke 2y ago
  I'm replying to this, and risking becoming part of the "HN is turning into Reddit" problem but you raise a fair point, I enjoy the works of China Mieville despite not sharing his beliefs. I wonder if it's perhaps the requirement that I actively engage in activities that I would ideologically object to in reality, for the sake of someone else's narrative, but that also seems spurious as I have no real issue with participating in the mass-murders of titles like Grand Theft Auto...DE just rubbed me the wrong way, even if some of the mechanisms were intriguing, maybe it's the smugness oozing from it which again brings us back to Mieville. I guess I just didn't like DE and I have trouble reconciling that with the expectation that I would like it...because it very much seems like something I would like.
JansjoFromIkea 2y ago
Yeah that makes sense, I thought after posting that it isn't a fair comparison when going in blind. Not sure what it says about me or media in general these days, but I seem to never encounter anything now without knowing something about the politics of its creators so I didn't encounter it at all blind. Wouldn't say it endorses it so much as dreams of it (or maybe longs for something like the hope it provided in the past when the ideas were new), I get that that's a very muddy perspective though.
npteljes 2y ago
>it absolutely endorses fully fledged communism I might miss something, but my recollection is that the setting itself is a post-communist revolutionary ruin. Ruin in many ways, we see literal ruins as a visual setting, I don't think there is any piece of building that's intact, and the people are chewed out as well, and often full of some kind of negativity. Many of the game's political discussions flew over my head, but never once have I felt that whatever I'm shown is endorsed in any way, or that any system, like communism, is a good idea. My gathering was that systems usually just grind down the individual, and so, participation is questionable, and value is coming from caring for one another, in a personal way.

yoyohello13 2y ago

You can't engage with media that doesn't fit your political ideology?

randomcarbloke 2y ago
I'm replying to this, and risking becoming part of the "HN is turning into Reddit" problem but you raise a fair point, I enjoy the works of China Mieville despite not sharing his beliefs. I wonder if it's perhaps the requirement that I actively engage in activities that I would ideologically object to in reality, for the sake of someone else's narrative, but that also seems spurious as I have no real issue with participating in the mass-murders of titles like Grand Theft Auto...DE just rubbed me the wrong way, even if some of the mechanisms were intriguing, maybe it's the smugness oozing from it which again brings us back to Mieville. I guess I just didn't like DE and I have trouble reconciling that with the expectation that I would like it...because it very much seems like something I would like.

JansjoFromIkea 2y ago

Yeah that makes sense, I thought after posting that it isn't a fair comparison when going in blind. Not sure what it says about me or media in general these days, but I seem to never encounter anything now without knowing something about the politics of its creators so I didn't encounter it at all blind. Wouldn't say it endorses it so much as dreams of it (or maybe longs for something like the hope it provided in the past when the ideas were new), I get that that's a very muddy perspective though.

npteljes 2y ago

>it absolutely endorses fully fledged communism I might miss something, but my recollection is that the setting itself is a post-communist revolutionary ruin. Ruin in many ways, we see literal ruins as a visual setting, I don't think there is any piece of building that's intact, and the people are chewed out as well, and often full of some kind of negativity. Many of the game's political discussions flew over my head, but never once have I felt that whatever I'm shown is endorsed in any way, or that any system, like communism, is a good idea. My gathering was that systems usually just grind down the individual, and so, participation is questionable, and value is coming from caring for one another, in a personal way.