Comment on BioWare Was Asked to Remove LGBTQ Flag from Canceled Mass Effect Game, Report Says
bold_omi@lemmy.today 2 days agoBecause the game was still developed. You don’t know what the replacement for the flag would be.
The removal of a symbol carries meaning, irrespective of what they would have replaced it with. Also, their motive in removing it had to do with anti-LGBTQIA+ policy in Saudi Arabia, so it most definitely wasn’t to replace it with another open-minded option. This was censorship of the developers and, symbolically, of queer folk.
It’s just a flag in a videogame. I personally don’t care about that.
What you care about doesn’t change the fact that censorship took place.
people put too much weight into this in my opinion
You can hold that view.
the censorship is meaningless
Symbols have meaning. Censorship of symbols, therefore, is symbolic censorship of the meaning of those symbols. The censorship is provably not without meaning.
thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 2 days ago
bold_omi@lemmy.today 2 days ago
Again, we have gone over the political meaning. The lack of change to gameplay is irrelevant. The political meaning of the action is the significance, not the evidence of that action to the end-user.
thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 2 days ago
bold_omi@lemmy.today 2 days ago
Again, the censorship of the flag, which is a symbol, is symbolically meaningful. The degree of significance is not the subject of debate.
To the gameplay, perhaps. But I am not discussing the gameplay. I am discussing how the removal of the flag is symbolic of opposition to LGBTQIA+ rights.