Gamers and politics – The complex issue of Orson Scott Card’s shadow

As you’re probably aware, we’ve been following a few stories about the controversy surrounding Shadow Complex. The game, based on a book by Orson Scott Card has certainly brought a plethora of interesting questions to the fore. We thought we’d look at the positives of this situation, rather than harping on at the negatives.

Gamers are talking about the issue
One of the most positive things to come out of the Shadow Complex / Orson Scott Card issue is that gamers – gay and straight – are talking about it. We chose a particular site today to peruse comments on the issue and have been surprised at the level of conversation capable at a site we have previously had issue with. The reason we chose this site is because generally it seemed users had extremely strong opinions and we wanted to see the other side of the coin. We have previously been at the receiving end of a lot of homophobic comments from this site and so it seemed like a logical place to check out, to see what their take was on this issue.

Expecting a forum filled with homophobic rantings on how the “gays” should get over themselves and stop whining and bitching since Shadow Complex is such a good game, we were pleasantly surprised at what we found there. The first comment was what you might expect – “Being Gay is a Sin. All gays are going to hell from what I’ve read in the bible. Don’t erase my comment like last time. It’s not me who’s saying that, it’s the bible”. What follows however are a number of open-minded, educated posts, condemning the original poster and supporting not only gay rights, but also the outcry from the gay gaming community over Orson Scott Card’s involvement in the game.

Most of the comments state that using religious passages from the bible to justify hate simply isn’t cool. Likewise, many go on to say that although they don’t agree with Card’s views, he, like anyone is entitled to his opinion – “Card is entitled to his views as nutty as they may be, and likewise people are entitled to their criticisms of him.” The beauty of seeing this kind of discussion is that it seems people firstly are aware of how difficult it is as a homosexual to support the game and also how absurd Card’s views are. It’s refreshing, especially because it’s not expected.

Perhaps one of the most obvious issues that has arisen through this debate is that generally speaking, we don’t know that much about most game developers political views. The positive in this is that it probably allows us to enjoy a lot of games completely unaware of any bigots, homophobes, racists or anything else that work on them. However, on the flip side, it doesn’t give us a choice about whether we’re buying a game that ultimately lines the pockets of someone who has completely opposing political views from ourselves. Another commenter posted that “Personally I guess that if people didn’t know of Card’s bigotry you’d never know it from playing the game”. Does this then mean that in some way it is okay to separate the man and his political views from the game?

For most gay and lesbian gamers, supporting this title is going to cause some kind of moral questioning of themselves and bigger issues in society. The game developers political leanings are mostly unknown, though Gamasutra suggested Shadow Complex creative director Donald Mustard to be very gay friendly and Shadow Complex game script writer Peter David is also known for this fact. So, although the game is based on the novel by Orson Scott Card, perhaps then we should simply be boycotting the novels, stories and author himself rather than the game? As one commenter stated – “Why not take it out on the books and the author, not a videogame which he didn’t create. he had a very small part in the game but wrote the books”. Perhaps this is a more sensible approach, but then as we’re all gamers and our love and passion is in videogames, obviously it’s going to have more of an effect if we all boycott the video game. Certainly the positive in it all is that a lot of people who are sympathetic to gay rights are now going to know more about Card and hopefully avoid any of his work – game, novel or other.

We contacted Microsoft to ask for free codes for this game, our reasoning was hopefully to give those that feel very strongly about not lining Card’s pockets in any way, the chance to play the game. We’re still waiting to hear back and if we do of course we’ll share it here. If anything positive has come out of this, it is that rhetoric is continuing all over the web about gay rights and gaming in its many forms. If we need to find one thing to be thankful to Card for, it is surely this. Perhaps the man who believes in no rights for homosexuals, has actually had an adverse affect and is now getting people to speak out about gay rights and equality in gaming. This is definitely a good thing.

Sources:

• Opinion: The Complex Question [Gamasutra].
• The Boycott of Shadow Complex [N4G].

Lesbian Gamers Shadow Complex guff:

• Shadow Complex Review [Full Review].
• The Homophobic Dilemma of Shadow Complex [Post Here].

2 Responses to “Gamers and politics – The complex issue of Orson Scott Card’s shadow”

1. Ava Avane Dawn says:

   August 31, 2009 at 3:11 am

   “We contacted Microsoft to ask for free codes for this game, our reasoning was hopefully to give those that feel very strongly about not lining Card’s pockets in any way, the chance to play the game.”
   This is a very good thing, dialogue with microsoft, since I’m still very sceptic about them banning people who mention sexuality anywhere in profile/avatar name i xbox live arcade.
2. Phil says:

   October 2, 2009 at 10:47 am

   Dialogue with Microsoft is pointless. They don’t get back to people cus CSR folks are terrible…well, their gaming CSR folks are terrible, anyway. I don’t know about the rest.