Accept it, or don’t celebrate Christmas.

Santa V

How EA Ruined Christmas

The players want authentic games,
they want them to be credible.
What EA did with BF V
is honestly incredible.

You thought games were meant to be fun,
but no! Agendas pushed! Quick, run!
The game is here to “educate”
you, since you gave them a mandate
by paying them. You must object!
Their purpose here is to inject
social justice to your vein
You bought the game? Dude, don’t complain.

What EA did with BF V
they might just do with Santa Claus –
Santa V – a Jewish-Asian-Black-
Transgender. Why? BECAUSE!

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(As this cartoon is kinda niche, here’s a short explanation:)

This Christmas cartoon is about EA’s Battlefield V, and the backlash it got from large parts of the gamer community due to its historical inaccuracies. It all started with the game’s trailer featuring a female soldier with a prosthetic arm (and a pilot running around with a Katana, but that’s a whole different story). True, women served in the US military during World War 2, but their numbers paled in comparison to those of men. To give an example, hundreds of thousands of US soldiers died from enemy fire, but only 16 of them were female. In western armies women served mostly at support roles. In the Soviet Union, they served on the frontlines. But again, their numbers were significantly lower than those of men – 800,000 women served in the Soviet Armed Forces during the war, out of a total force of 29.5 million soldiers. That’s roughly 3 percent.

EA doesn’t seem to care about these facts, nor did does it seem care about the historical accuracy of the game : “This is a game. And today gaming is gender-diverse” said EA’s chief creative officer, Patrick Soderlund, in response to the backlash EA got from fans. He then continued with a very direct message to the people who expressed their discontent from the unrealistic inclusion of women combatants in the game: “You have two choices: either accept it, or don’t buy the game. I’m fine with either/or.”

As of November 2018, it seems the gaming community took heed to his advice. Battlefield 5’s physical sales were down significantly from its predecessor, Battlefield 1. Overall, Battlefield 5 sold less than half the retail copies in its launch week that Battlefield 1 did in its own launch week. The gaming community decided to vote with their feet. Or better to say, with their wallets.

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2 Comments

  1. Klaus

    Weird, the comment field is only visible on mobile?

    Honestly, I feel the thing is overblown on both sides. Female soldiers as normal, despite historical inaccuracy? Sure fine with me, anyone should play the character they want to. Hell, I’m a white man, and I’ll much rather play a realistic female character than those testosterone character designs widely used for male characters. Especially in multiplayer, it’s not like I expect a historical simulation. If everything were accurate, shooters would be pretty boring and depressing anyway.

    Featuring these inaccuracies front and center? They should know by now, that for most of their audience inclusiveness doesn’t matter (as does historical accuracy for that matter), but that prominently marketing it gets negative feedback. The best thing for inclusiveness really would be to include it as a feature, but not as prime marketing material. Though somehow I feel like both extremes of the discussion will make a huge deal out of it either way…

    Also, you don’t achieve change, by alienating anyone who doesn’t already agree with you. Something the proponents of change tend to forget…

    1. Hey Klaus, I don’t think anyone is bothered by diversity in games. The point is it shouldn’t come at the expense of authenticity. Sure, it’s a game, but like any good story, you need to make it believable. Other than that, I agree with most of what you’ve written, thanks for commenting!

      P.s. comment are available in both mobile and desktop versions of the site. Comments are disabled on the home page ( https://www.csectioncomics.com ) , maybe you accessed it when browsing on your desktop?

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