The Escapist Bulletin: Is there too much political correctness in gaming?

Usually when people criticise a game, it’s for something like awkward controls or a ropey story. But occasionally the complaints will go beyond gameplay or graphics, addressing for instance the negative depiction of a minority group or some other act of cultural insensitivity.

These kinds of issues are going to become increasingly common as the devices we play games on become more capable of depicting complex stories, as competition for gamers’ spare cash becomes ever more fierce, and as blogs and social networking sites allow people to make a lot of noise very, very quickly.

Case in point: The Nigerian Government is demanding an apology from Sony over a throwaway line in one of its PS3 Slim ads.

No, that’s not a joke. But the fact that it could be a joke shows that there is a line, beyond which a complaint simply becomes ridiculous.

Team Ninja recently announced that it would be supporting the PS3’s Sixaxis system in Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 and by shaking the controller you can make a female character’s breasts bounce.

Now, it’s easy to attack Team Ninja for being sexist and it’s no secret that there’s a lot of bare flesh in its games, but it's hard to get angry about something as tongue-in-cheek a this.

Bayonetta could likewise be condemned as sexist: after all, its lead character is frequently naked as she uses her magic hair - which she is wearing - to attack enemies, and at least one trailer for the game shows off the titular character’s curves from an extremely close vantage point.

But Bayonetta is so over the top and so very ridiculous that it’s difficult to see what message it contains other than ‘non-sequiturs can make good games.’

A previous Bulletin talked about Houston Chronicle blogger, Willie Jefferson, and his complaints about Valve’s use of New Orleans in Left 4 Dead 2 so soon after Hurricane Katrina, as well as the appearance of African-American zombies.

This kind of feedback is unlikely to stop and people will complain about things that 99 per cent of gamers are unlikely to even notice, let alone be bothered by. Developers and publishers will need to become very adept at separating the wheat from the chaff.

The absolute worst way to handle a situation like the now infamous Resident Evil 5 controversy would be to play a simple numbers game and only address a complaint when a certain number of people are making it.

Of course, another terrible way to handle it would be to play it entirely safe so you don’t offend anyone, ever. This may be hyperbolic, but nothing amazing ever came from playing it safe, and that’s especially true of gaming.

Developers will have to acknowledge that their work might offend or anger some people and then quickly figure out which of these people to listen to and which to ignore.

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