And you apparently never sexually attacked a woman by looking at her, because that was in Barnes & Noble employment contract too.

Now there's a joke that's funny.

So I have never posted here before - but I feel like buying over 250 games from GOG gives me the right to weigh in on this subject.

Linko90 did nothing wrong.

I really respect GOG for trying to avoid this topic and stay apolitical. The problem is, no one on the other side is campaigning to insert content into games to service their political agenda, just the one side. So by "avoiding" the topic, all you are really doing is giving tactic approval to their attempts and their agenda to centrally infulence the decentralized art of computer game design.

I read this message from what I assume is Linko90's replacement when she tried to explain why the Linko threads were locked and it really got me thinking:

"Negative comments and heated discussions are welcome, but without resorting to offensive language or going off-topic, for example towards political discussions of any kind that are not related to video games.
Until we are able to follow these rules and stay civil, that kind of moderation is, sadly, necessary."

And I wanted to concentrate on this particular part of the above message:

"...going off-topic...towards political discussions of any kind that are not related to video games."

This reads to mean the following conditions must be satisfied in order for a post to be "OK":
1) not off-topic
2) not political
3) related to video games

If we assume the topic is video games, 1 and 3 are pretty much two ways of saying the same things, so we can sum up the requirements as:
1) not political
2) related to video games

Here's where a bit of an issue arises: While video games were largely not political before 2011, they have become increasingly political with each passing year. I want to be clear what I mean when I say political: it is not that politics have uniformly become a part of video gaming reflective of a real-life diversity of thought, it is that artistic changes and politically charged content has been added to video games to serve a particular political agenda. It seems that most of this additional content is not coming organically from inside the existing industry from game developers and artists, but is the result of outside pressure from external sources that are themselves more concerned with primarily social issues than with games; perhaps most importantly, it is almost always the same specific set of agenda points pushing in the same direction.

Video games are becoming increasingly politicized, so can can one reasonably be expected to comment on games like Mass Effect: Andromeda, Battlefield 5, and black soldiers fighting on the side of Nazis in WW2 without noting the aspects of the game itself that were clearly inserted for political reasons.

Indeed, this certain set of political agenda points has become so intertwined into tech culture that simply by tweeting a trending hashtag you can lose your job.

That is wrong. That is what GOG should take a stand for in it's forums, not to be apolitical in games, but to de-politicize games. I don't want any politics in my game, left, right or otherwise, just make a game! The games the thing! stop reading a politcal agenda into every tweet!

"messages that seek to de-politicize games and ensure artistic freedom are welcome", now that would be an excellent guideline for posting in this forum.

No, buying games doesn't confer you with any rights beyond owning the games. It certainly doesn't confer a right of free speech.

Also, strange how there's so many very recently created accounts who really feel a need to weigh in on this one subject. Nothing else has caught your eye in the last four months since you created your account? Why is this one dumb topic the hill so many trolls choose to die on? What is it about this one thing has so many panties in a bunch?

It does, or rather should, confer a basic level of respect for a customer. Ultimately they're not saying anything controversial, the majority of gamers want to keep games as entertainment instead of platforms for political ideologies of any sort.

I believe this particular issue has become so popular because, intentionally or not, they're rewarding the people utilizing unethical tactics for using those tactics. ie. trying to use mob rule to bully someone out of their job, trying to force people to only say what they want them to say, or to dox someone because they decided to hate that person for whatever reason. I think it should be pretty clear why a lot of people would have a problem with such unethical people having power, however limited it is, over what happens in the gaming industry or anything in general.

Someone revived this topic and i stumbled upon this. Therefore, i want to show you something.

The reason why people wore tinfoil hats.

Click here if you want to read the dry versions from the CIA themselves.

So, yes, actually it is tinfoil hat issue. The reason I feel this is important is, because, well... It totally happened.
Targets are people who don't fight back. If they don't like you, you'll target you indirectly if you fight back. Why do you think Jews have always been hated and treated terribly throughout history? Notoriously Jews haven't fought back since Rome took over Israel. Christianity is evil warmongering and hatemongering, but Islam is peaceful and loving. White people are racists, but no one else is. Men are evil rapists and sexual exploiters, but women are sacred and must always be believed. The bully only ever picks on the kid who either won't fight back because he's weak, or the kid who won't fight back because he believes that violence doesn't solve problems.

I think you misunderstand what I mean. The term tinfoil hat is usally applied to people when people believe something is happening that probably isn't happening. So it's not really tinfoil hat in this circumstance when we know for a fact, tech companies do this.

I know, but i think it's high time that the term has evolved to represent people that initially seem nuts, but end up being right in the end. In this case, people not in the know say that it's a false issue, that it's not happening, but in reality it's happening, and not a crazy conspiracy after all.

Good point, Kohlrak. The common usage of the term is indicative of a pronounced deficiency with respect to critical thinking.

So let's see, you are going to attack him now because his account is fairly new? C'mon man, he has ~250 games. Who the heck made you the arbiter of these forums? Oh right, he said something you disagree with, so you feel you need to "put him in his place".

Let me ask you this...
Why haven't YOU bought more games? You only have 650 or so after being here for 5 years. You better start buying if you want to keep your forum privileges...

Oh cool. The guy that doesn’t understand anything he reads again. You purposely, at least I hope it’s purposeful cause if it isn’t you’re very thick, misinterpret everything you read so you can try to attack people yourself.

You miss the point so often that it’s like you’re deliberately doing it. As I’ve said before, I have no interest in interacting with you. You’re a useless person to try to talk to.

Miss the point? You miss the point every single time and resort to insults as your only argument. You just called out someone who owns over 200 games here for not having an "old enough" account. How stupid is THAT? Since you seemingly couldn't argue against what he had to say, you had to find some other reason to delegitimize his opinion. Just like all the other times you dismiss other people's views by calling them "alt-Right", "Nazis" or God-forbid "Trump supporters". You wouldn't know a legitimate discussion if it hit you in the head.

Or even this response. Since you can't legitimately defend what you did, you accuse me of "misinterpreting" what you said. I didn't "misinterpret" anything. What I see, and I think most will agree, is that you do virtually nothing except find inadequacy in others in order to dismiss their opinions, since you seem incapable of discussing the situation itself. Basically making you resemble the so-called "trolls" you call out. Everything you do is an ad hominem attack.

GoG really screwed up when they caved with regards to their association with "PC Master Race" . This was a legitimate group and GoG was dumb enough to apologize over them. After that point, all the "try hards" could point to anything more offensive than a group's name falsely smeared to be a grievous offense.

It's truly ironic that when we have certain people on the forums actively calling out people for their pronoun use and assuming genders, that a Tweet essentially asking someone not to assume all GoG employees are guys was deemed offensive. Or video straight from an intentionally controversial video game is deemed GoG being offensive. Or that Cyberpuck 2077 previewed with "only" two selectable sexes.

It's no wonder that GoG felt they had to cave and fire a good employee over the last tweet, given that co-opting a hashtag at least can be reasonably argued to be in actual poor taste even though the tweet itself wasn't homophobic in any way at all. Since they already caved on so many previous non-troversies.

Upon further reflection, I think my use of the word "right" was incorrect. You are all are of course correct that we all have a free speech right to post here. The point that I was clumsily trying to make in the first post was that I actually buy games here, I'm a customer and I would assume GOG had some interest in keeping me as a customer. Whereas if I posted my points and said I hadn't bought any games, GOG would have no reason to take my opinion seriously. But anyways, to tell you guys the truth, I'm 38 and I was an avid gamer from childhood to my early teens and then, well, real life happened - so here I am, 20+ years later, dipping back into old games over the past year... as I remember, I stopped gaming about mid-way through a copy of Quake - as you can imagine, it's been pretty amazing playing these old classics (Sierra, Lucasarts, Microprose) and seeing the great steps forward in game design since that time (Mass Effect, Witcher, Bioshock have all completely blown my mind). But it also made me a bit sad to see political agendas and corporate types destroying the artistic freedom of game developers. I mean, imagine taking in everything from Half-Life to Gamer Gate, Mass Effect to Tropes vs. Women in Video Games all in the course of a few months. I mean, seriously, Guardian journalists are now writing what are essentially op-eds in PC Gamer. Dude, I LOVED PC Gamer reviews and that demo CD that came with it, it was great. Now everytime I read it I get lectured in at least one article about how my personal identity, ideas and/or beliefs are essential "wrong." Anyways, a helluva lot has happened and I never saw this coming.

In any event, I would really like other people's feedback on the two main points that I made earlier:

1) Game content has become increasingly political and it is ever more difficult to discuss some games without discussing their politicized nature.

2) Rather than pretending that the neutral position is to be "apolitical" and avoid discussing the politicization of games, it seems to me that the true neutral position is a stance that recognizes that this politicization has only come from one side and therefore a de-politicization of games is the true north to which we should be aiming. And most importantly, THIS thinking is what should guide GOG's forum moderation.

As I understand it, this platform, this online forum is akin to a utility and just like no one has the right to cut off your phone call mid-sentence, no should have the right to cut off your thoughts and ideas here. If an online platform starts doing that, they go from being a utility to a publisher and collect all the legal responsibilities that go along with that. For example, a publisher is responsible for all instances of liable and slander on their platform, whereas a utility is not.

This argument is gaining ground in the fight against Internet censorship and will hopefully lead to a relaxation of censorship online and/or trust-busting to better decentralize and secure the free flow of information.

After further consideration, meh...

Largely correct, except both numbered points:

First, games were always political. Did you not fight the commies in some games? I mean, sure, Sonic the Hedgehog wasn't all that political, but did you know the original Final Fantasy (and similar games) were censored in the 80s for political reasons? What about Duke Nukem 3d? I could go on for a good long while.

Secondly, it's not coming from one side. The jumping down everyone's throats is, for the time being, but it was he other way before. Remember when some idiot thought that "evolution" and "evolve" would be more appropriate than "shinka" (when we were already keeping japanese names of many pokemon anyway) or "metamorphosis" (i understand the name is long, but so is evolution) and the churches went into a panic? Don't mind me, i'm on the right, but we can't pretend we're innocent if we want to make a moral argument: that's what our opponents do. It is the same type of crowd (people who think they know better than individuals what's best for those individuals), but it's not the same crowd per se. Admission of this helps us see the real problem: the arrogance of social planners to tell society what they are to believe, at risk of ostricization.

Lastly, "aiming for apolitical" in and of itself is political, and not really too different from the censorship crowd. These media were always for politics, just like everything else. We need to understand that, as an art form, video games are indeed for that purpose. That's why we put arts on a pedestal legally: they represent ideas and concepts, nothing more. Art does not hurt people, unless it falls on them, and the ideas can be supported, criticized, and otherwise discussed properly. Even a piece that represents a bad idea is important: it reminds us of the dangers of those bad ideas.