HomeNews
Epic Games CEO says devs and stores should be apolitical - as if that was possibleHe has not thought this through
He has not thought this through
Tim Sweeney, the CEO of Fortnite and Unreal Engine makers Epic Games, has said a load of daftness about what he imagines are the problems of politics in games. During his keynote speech at the Design Innovate Communicate Entertain summit (DICE) yesterday, Sweeney suggested there’s a serious problem of some games becoming political because marketing departments force politics upon the developers. What a daftie. As if this artistic medium is or could be apolitical, and as if marketing departments don’t often insist that their games contain no political messages. Normally I’d shrug and ignore such foolishness but this is the CEO of a huge and influential company so it should be noted.
IGN’s account says that Sweeny “called for a ‘separation of church and state’ model between politics and gaming companies” and “argued that game companies ‘should get the marketing departments out of politics.'” It’s not that he thinks there’s no place in games for politics, just that politics is some sort of special substance games should only choose to contain when they really mean it.
“If you think back to To Kill A Mockingbird and the impact that had on people’s views in the time, I think that’s a genuine outlet for games,” Sweeney said. “It really makes people think about things.”
As if To Kill A Mockingbird is a rare example of a novel with political content.
To fend off all the people dunking on him after seeing IGN’s account, Sweeneytook to Twitterto add some baffling extra explanation: “If a game tackles politics, as To Kill a Mockingbird did as a novel, it should come from the heart of creatives and not from marketing departments seeking to capitalise on division.”
His weird concerns only make sense if you believe the status quo is apolitical. I mean, his concerns still don’t make sense because marketing departments forcing ‘politics’ into games is really not a widespread problem. But at least you can kinda figure out what sort of nonsense he’s thinking.
His speech also warned against companies going anywhere near anything political, pointing toBlizzard harshly punishing pro-Hong Kong protestsand to the founders of American fast food chain Chick-Fil-A donating money to homophobic causes. I think both of those are bad, yeah, but apoliticality is impossible and would also mean an end to the genuine good I believe some companies are doing in the world.
Sweeney expanded on neutralityon Twitter, saying “And when a company operates an ecosystem where users and creators can express themselves, they should should be a neutral moderator. Else the potential for undue influence from within or without is far too high.”
Moderation is literally a process of deciding the values you wish to uphold and foster, codifying them as rules, and enforcing those rules. Whose beliefs and values would a neutral moderator uphold?
Ah look, I don’t see why I should spend more time thinking about this than Tim evidently did.
Sticking your fingers in your ears and feigning apoliticality is itself a political stance and, frankly, I don’t know if it’s right for a company CEO to be evangelising his political beliefs like this. He’s here blabbing about his politics on stage at a prestigious event, and he even claims that not only should his own company follow his political beliefs, the entire medium should share his politics. That’s really not on. I have to wonder… did marketing put him up to this?
