Gamergate 2023: the Starfield Shenanigan Explained For Non-Gamers

The ride never stops for Gamergaters. Some people think the young are hopeless; I hear stories like this and think they’re rather precocious. I’ve grown a bit too technophobic in my old age to enjoy A-list games anymore, not to mention that the very real (and very First-World) problem of dopamine addiction means I can’t do the spastic FPS shooters like I used to. (I hit bottom during Borderlands 2 and have been mostly clean since then, but I sometimes load up Prey for a quick, shotgun-based soap opera.)

Headlines of sociopathic bankster CEOs debating how best to LITERALLY addict people to their games, for optimal wealth extraction, doesn’t help. Maybe I’m just waiting for Doom the LARP to hit the streets. Ahem.

But I keep it real with my roots, even if I don’t play the games anymore. Here is the Starfield Shenanigan for my readers who are even less gamer-y than me. We start with early access, because nobody releases finished games in Current Year. Finished games cannot be sold a second time… when they’re, you know, finished.

Streamer meltdowns and mass refunds: Players boycott Starfield over pronouns controversy

h ttps://www.sportskeeda.com/esports/news-streamer-meltdowns-mass-refunds-players-boycott-starfield-pronouns-controversy

By Richik “anarkiddie” Bhattacharya, modified 4 September 2023

Starfield’s Early Access launch a couple of days ago has already seen a number of controversies, with the latest prompting players to mass refund the game and streamers having meltdowns, all because it allows them to choose their preferred pronouns during character selection. A clip of YouTuber HeelVsBabyface ranting about the customization option has gone viral, with Dr DisRespect also revealing that he was rejected by Bethesda for his past comments.

Ahh, I’m home among my people once again! With proper English names such as anarkiddie and Dr Disrespect, not Bhattacharya.

Many players seem to be refunding Starfield because it allows pronoun choice.

Or as HVB put it,

“You take everything we love and shovel your dogsh*t ideology.”

What triggered that? (GunnerQ ducks)

For those wondering, Starfield allows players to select their preferred pronoun when starting a new character, which has ruffled many feathers.

That is the entire complaint, that has seen half the Legionnes Gamergateur demanding refunds and boycotts against publisher Bethesda for nearly a month solid now.

When you make a new character in Starlight, an open-ended exploration game comparable to Bethesda’s older and beloved works such as the Elder Scrolls Oblivion and Skyrim… there is one point at which you can choose gender pronouns independently of your choice of gender.

That’s it. Blink and you miss it. Gender, Wokeness or other Social Justice dogsh*t plays no further point in the entire game.

Many [Twixter] accounts have been calling out Bethesda for including it in the game. Meanwhile, people on the other side are making fun of those demanding refunds and boycotts.

[HVB:] “I love nothing more than to be dragged out at every f*cking conceivable opportunity so that you can f*cking current-day us. Sorry, you wanted to get immersed in our world? Guess what, f*cking pronouns! F*cking gender ambiguity! F*cking current-day Californian sh*t, because that’s what we f*cking know because we are boring. We’re so, f*cking, boring! We can’t see past our own f*cking reflections, that’s the level of our narcissim at the Bethesda Western Gaming Company.”

[ReviewTechUSA on Twixter, 2 September 2023:] I’m jealous tbh. I want to live in @heelvsbabyface’s world where life is so easy that pronouns in a character creation screen cause me to rage like this.

So, what do you think? Is this an overreaction to a mere microaggression (GunnerQ ducks again), or did HVB and friends correctly, and instantly, diagnose an SJW infiltration?

One video-streamer that I have great esteem for, Upper Echelon Games (UEG), believed it an overreaction.

h ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkERye8Labw

“You can call the game dogsh*t and you’d have valid reasons to do it. [Some bugs, some balance issues, quantity over quality of explorable areas.] Likewise, you could call the game a masterpiece after exploring it for 100 hours, and you’d have valid reasons too. [UEG liked the game overall but is reserving final judgment.] But it’s not a game that deserves to be the focal point of a console war, a political powder keg and a social media gamer civil war of sorts, all at once, at the same time.”

Today, I disagree with him. This is the Mockingbird Mechanic I coined in my preceding post. Here’s a game that UEG wants to like, but oops, there’s just a little Narrative in it “for no reason at all”.  In truth, that’s exactly why it was included, in such an inoffensive way… so he would accept an evil that he would normally be opposed to.

Therefore, the correct response is total war for the first offense, no matter how trivial that offense.

Which of us is right?

Fortunately, there’s a simple litmus test to determine whether the inclusion of gender pronouns was malicious. Remove the option with a post-release, voluntary mod. Easily and quickly done.

Behold, the long knives immediately came out.

Starfield mod that removes pronoun options has been banned by NexusMods

h ttps://www.techradar.com/gaming/pc-gaming/starfield-mod-that-removes-pronoun-options-has-been-banned-by-nexusmods

By Vikki Blake, 17 September 2023

One of the biggest PC mod repositories in the world, NexusMods, has banned a mod that lets Starfield players remove all mentions of pronouns.

The mod was presumably crafted after a tiny number of perpetually angry snowflakes kicked off because Bethesda had adopted the inclusive practice of enabling players to select their pronouns for their sci-fi adventure.

[Quote from NexusMods:] “It’s not a ‘political statement’ or an ‘alignment to one side or the other in the culture war’. We stand for diversity and inclusion in our community and the removal of diversity, while appealing to many, does not promote a positive modding community.”

“Frankly, we are not sad to see them go,” NexusMods said.

That settles the question. The inclusion of gender pronouns was malicious.

The ironic part is that the mod in question removed all gender; your character became they/them.

UEG has a tough choice to make. He just wants to play games, as do all us Gamers. The only way that we’ll be allowed to play the games we enjoy, however, is an absolute-zero-tolerance, first-strike-you’re-out policy with respect to Social Justice.

EXACTLY AS THEY ALREADY DO TO US.

We cannot coexist. They are agreement-incapable. They will demand endless concessions while making none of their own, until they allow us no game to play but The Last Of Us Part Twat.

I grant that NexusMods is not Bethesda, but I’m not going to wait and see if Bethesda voluntarily removes the gender option. It’s too late for apologies. They knew what they were doing. Heck, I can see their thought balloon: “Normal people have some tolerance, but SJWs have none. Therefore, since we can’t please both sides, let’s offend the Normies then walk it back if we have to.” Every single time. Until Normie becomes equally easily offended, and equally unforgiving.

God bless these Gamergaters who have already figured out the game! They didn’t write the rules; they’re just playing to win.